by Charly Mann

Dr. Isaac "Ike" Taylor was one of the most driven men ever to live in Chapel Hill. He came here at 18 in 1938 as a freshman at UNC and left in 1971 after serving as Dean of the UNC School of Medicine. Ike was born and brought up in the small town of Morganton at the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains. His grandfather, Dr. Isaac Montrose Taylor, moved to Morganton in the 1870s to take a job at the Western Insane Asylum (now called Broughton Hospital). He quickly became one of the most respected men in the town. In 1901 he set up a small private hospital called Broadoaks to treat the mentally ill.

Dean Isaac M Taylor of the University of North Carolina Medical School in his office from 1966.

Ike's father, Alexander Taylor, married Theodosia Haynes in 1920. She was from a well-to-do Massachusetts family, a state that has been connected to Ike and his family ever since. Theodosia gave birth to Ike in June of 1921. She had her then 64 year old father-in-law deliver the baby. Somehow she got a uterine infection during childbirth and died two weeks later. Dr. Taylor blamed himself for Theodosia's death and died in grief two months later. The double tragedy of his wife and father's deaths turned Ike's father into an alcoholic. He was incapable of caring for and raising Ike. Sarah Taylor Vernon, Alexander's sister, who had been Theodosia's roommate in College, raised him.

This is a picture of Ike Taylor at UNC in 1941.

Ike was a smart and driven youth who was determined to become a physician like his namesake, yet the tragic nature of his birth and upbringing, an only child without a father or mother, gave him a morose personality. As a student at UNC from 1938 to 1942, Ike displayed an intensity rarely seen in Chapel Hill. He not only focused at excelling in his academic pursuits, but also found the time to be an officer in an array of student organizations and as well as compete on the track team.

After Taylor received his undergraduate degree from the University of North Carolina he went to Harvard Medical School and received his M.D. in 1945. In 1946 he came back to Morganton for a short stint as a resident physician. During that time Gertrude "Trudy" Woodward, a Massachusetts native who Ike had met while at Harvard, came down from Boston by train to visit him. They were engaged to be married and planned to have a formal wedding in Boston, but after meeting her at the train station in Salisbury Ike convinced her they could not wait and should instead get married then and there. They were married by a judge at the Salisbury City Hall, and then drove to Morganton to enjoy their first night as newlyweds.

Isaac M. Taylor's UNC senior picture

As you can see Ike Taylor had his time very full with memberships in three fraternities and many other UNC organizations. He was also taking a challenging course load and received "A" s in all of his classes.

Ike returned to Boston in the fall of 1946 for a one year internship at Massachusetts General Hospital. He followed that with a year as an assistant resident in medicine for the hospital, and in 1948 became the senior resident in medicine. Also in 1948 he was hired by Harvard University as an assistant medical advisor. By the end of 1948 Harvard named him a research fellow in medical science. For the next two years he held this position at Harvard while serving as a clinical fellow in medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital. In 1951 Dr. Taylor became the chief medical resident at Massachusetts General Hospital.

Taylor had a bright future ahead of him at Harvard and Massachusetts General, yet he gave it all up to return to his native state. He began his career at the University of North Carolina on January 1, 1952 as an assistant professor in the Department of Medicine. He was a standout from the start as a professor of medicine at UNC, and In 1954 he was named a Markle Scholar, the highest honor awarded to promising new teachers in academic medicine.

Isaac "Ike" Taylor in his UNC track team outfit 1942

Starting in 1955 Dr. Taylor took a two year leave of absence from UNC to fulfill his Military Service from which he had been exempted during college and medical school. He served as a Lieutenant Commander in the Navy, setting up a medical dispensary in McMurdo Sound in the Antarctic. He had been offered an assignment at Bethesda Naval Hospital outside of Washington, D.C., but instead volunteered for service at the South Pole even though it would keep him isolated from the world and his young family. (He then had five children ranging in age from three to eight.) Those who knew him well say that after his return from military service he remained distant from his family for the rest of his life. The only real time he spent with his family was on summer vacations at Martha's Vineyard.

Isaac and Trudy Taylor's young family circa 1954. Left to right, Alex, James, Kate, Livingston, and Hugh Taylor

Upon his return to the UNC medical school his rise through its ranks was meteoric. In 1958 he was promoted to associate professor and then became a full professor in 1964. Also in that year at the age of only 43 he succeeded Dr. W. Reece Berryhill on Septenber 1st as Dean of the UNC School of Medicine. Ike Taylor simply excelled as a medical administrator, doctor, and researcher. During his years as dean he spent countless hours in his third floor office at UNC Memorial Hospital. People I have spoken to who knew him in those years describe him as tall and lean with rugged features and always having an intimidatingly serious countenance. He was also usually well tanned and in great physical condition, which was probably attributable to his primary means of relaxing: sailing and fishing.

Taylor enjoyed the challenge of being the Dean primarily because he wanted to implement ideas he had formulated since graduating from Harvard. He initiated a series of programs designed to make the UNC Medical School one of the best in the nation. He first wanted established doctors in the state to be made aware of all the new medical procedures and technologies being taught at the medical school. To that end, he made sure that a major function of the school became offering continuing education for practicing physicians. He also introduced the Second Chance program that allowed medical students who had flunked a course to repeat it. He believed this would ensure that almost every student who entered UNC's medical school would get an MD degree.

This is a picture of Dr, Isaac Taylor from 1964, the year he became Dean of the UNC Medical School.

Dean Taylor ensured only the best students got into his medical school. He believed that an applicant's personality was the key ingredient for success as a medical student. The trait he thought most important was being "motivated to do hard work." During Taylor's tenure the medical program averaged 350 applicants a year. Of those only 70 were admitted. Only 5% of the medical students enrolled at UNC flunked or dropped out while he was dean.

Politically Dr. Taylor was very liberal, to the left of almost every major politician of his era. He was an early advocate of socialized medicine and said in 1964 that "medical care must be made available to all". He served on many boards and became an outspoken advocate for improving the nation's health care system. He was a fellow of the NC Coastal Plains Heart Association, and a member of N.C. State Board of Mental Health. In 1965 U.S. Surgeon General Luther L. Terry appointed him to serve as a member of the National Advisory Research Resources Committee of the National Institutes of Health.

Dr. Isaac Taylor stepped down as Dean of the Medical School in September of 1971 and was replaced by Dr. Christopher C. Fordham III. He died in November of 1996 at the age of 75 at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston where he had worked for several years before coming to Chapel Hill.

On February 9th, 2009 Trudy Taylor, ex-wife of former UNC Medical School Dean Isaac Taylor will be interviewed by the current Dean of the UNC School of Medicine William L. Roper. Later that day at 5:00 PM Dr. Taylor's only daughter, Kate, will appear at the UNC Student Union for a screening of Kate Taylor: Tunes from the Tipi and Other Songs from Home. After the screening, Kate, who is also the sister of musicians James and Livingston Taylor, will perform some songs and answer questions about the film. The film includes a history of the Taylor family in Chapel Hill. The event is free.

On February 12th Kate Taylor will be performing at Marsh Woodwinds in Raleigh at 8:00 PM.
 

by Charly Mann

Please note it was not until the 1940s that commercially viable color film was made for use in cameras (Kodak had developed color Kodachrome film in1935, but it was rarely used by consumers). Most of the color photographs in this article are very rare.

This is original well where the Old Well is now located in 1892.

First color photograph on UNC campus. Old Well 1908.

The most photographed spot in Chapel Hill and the iconic symbol for the University of the North Carolina is the Old Well. While there has been a well on this spot for over 215 years, the Old Well that we recognize was not built until 1897. It was conceived by the then president of the university, Edwin Anderson Alderman. He wanted the university to have a structure that would enhance the beauty and view of the campus. He believed that a Greco-Roman style temple was ideally suited for this purpose.
For the first hundred years of UNC there was a real well that stood where the Old Well is now. It was where all UNC students got their water. There were several other wells on campus and in the small village of Chapel Hill, but this one was the closest to the student dormitories. The well was then covered by wooden roof that protected students from the rain when collecting water in their buckets.

This is a rare color photograph of the Old Well in 1916

The design of the Old Well is based on Marie Antoinette's Temple of Love that sits in Trianon Park outside of Versailles. The Temple of Love was built in 1778 and is one of the most visited sites in France. The Old Well was built on a much smaller scale than this temple.

This is the Temple of Love near Versailles which the Old Well is modeled on

The Old Well that was built in 1897 was primarily a wooden structure designed to look like marble. The roof was originally painted black. In 1925 the structure was refurbished and a concrete circle was placed below it. Less than twenty five years later, in 1949, the Old Well was showing signs of decay.

Another rare color photograph of the Old Well from 1926

In 1953 UNC controller and vice-president of finance Billy Carmichael launched a fund raising campaign to buid a new Old Well that would be more durable. Carmichael decided to try raise the funds from his 1921 graduating class from UNC. He enlisted his friend and fellow classmate from that year J.C. Cowan to be in charge up collecting the $15,000 needed for the project.

The Old Well on the University of North Carolina Campus 1933

The original Old Well was torn down on August 4th 1954 and its remains were placed in a storage building behind Phillips Hall. The new Old Well is a replica of the building it replaced, but with a steel frame and a cooper roof for durability. The columns were given a marble base and the concrete floor was replaced with granite.
The next time you admire or take a photograph of the Old Well you may want to thank Edwin Alderman for his idea.

A beauty in front of the Old Well in 2009

The past is about to become the present. Come see the heartthrobs of 1960s Chapel Hill reunited for a one time event at the American Legion. Flashback to the voice of Carter Minor and other legendary Chapel Hill musicians including Don Sparrow, Skip Via, Mel Jones, Bif Bream, Jay Cole, Andy Preston, and JP Mitchell. We hope the surprise guests include several members of the Taylor family who were also part of this musical fraternity.  We understand at least one set will contain music of The Sands of Time band. 

Chapel Hill Memories plans to have a full article on the event in the coming months.

For more details on the history of these artists and bands see:
http://www.chapelhillmemories.com/cat/4/54

By Sarah (Sally) Geer

Glenwood Elementary School is the oldest school in the Chapel Hill school system, but it was almost new when we arrived. The building is hard to see now, but it was highly visible when it was built in 1953. A new road had been cut to the crest of a small hill at the intersection of the bypass and the Raleigh Road, across from the new Glen Lennox apartment complex. The hillside was an open meadow, which we used for kite flying. That meadow is now the site of the Harris-Teeter shopping area.

Glenwood Elementary School students including Charly Mann (white t-shirt next to left most pole) at front entrance in 1956

Until Glenwood was built, all white children went to the old brick elementary school downtown. Black children attended Northside Elementary School. The post-war baby boom made new schools essential.

Sally Geer (the author of this piece) in back playground of Glenwood Elementary School Chapel Hill in 1960

Buses and carpools served Glenwood, but neighborhood children walked or biked to school from Glen Lennox, Oakwood/Rogerson Drive and Greenwood. Highland Woods kids walked on a path through the woods and across a creek. Mrs. Webb was the crossing guard who shepherded us across the highway. Walkers would sometimes stop at the filling station at the corner or at the Dairy Bar in Glen Lennox for ice cream or potato chips, and to browse the comics at George Harris’ pharmacy. Walking home usually felt very safe, although I clearly recall tension while walking home in October, 1962 during the Cuban Missile Crisis. We feared annihilation at any moment, and I felt especially vulnerable when outdoors, between the safe havens of school and home.

Mr Kiddoo, the principal of Glenwood Elementary School in the 1956-1957 school year

The school was originally just one long corridor, with the principal’s office and library in the middle and a cafeteria on one end. Younger students were in classrooms at the back of the school, with individual bathrooms and doors that opened directly on the playground. Older classes got the front classrooms. It wasn’t fancy. The floors were green and beige linoleum squares. The custodian would clean them by sprinkling green pellets on the floor, then sweeping the pellets down the halls.

The playground was a large, raw space at the back of the school, with two broad terraces. Although a new primary wing cut into the playground area by 1959, we still had plenty of room for several simultaneous games of kickball. Kickball ruled the playground at recess, and the boys sometimes intimated any girls who tried to join the pickup games. Before school and during recess, we swarmed over the playground relatively unsupervised. We played jump rope, Chinese jump rope, hopscotch and dodge ball. There were usually several circles of kids playing marbles or jacks. We played marbles for “keepsies,” so you had to choose your opponents carefully or your marbles pouch would be empty quickly. During the hula hoop craze, a few of the girls were lucky to own one, which they brought to school to share at recess. Small groups gathered around each hula hoop bearer, all of us eagerly waiting for a shot at gyrating our hips and keeping the hoop going as long as possible. The best spinners could move the hoop from waist to knees, or waist to chest, then back again.

In February of 1952 the site is selected for new elementary school in Chapel Hill which would become Glenwood.

We wore “school clothes” and changed into play clothes when we got home. Girls wore skirts or dresses, often with a sash tied in the back. The skirts hung down over our heads when we hung from the jungle gym or did cartwheels. In cold weather, we were allowed to wear pants under our skirts, but girls were never allowed to wear pants alone. Boys usually wore shirts with collars and buttons rather than t-shirts. There were few t-shirts with any designs or lettering in those days, other than Carolina sweatshirts. Our shoes were usually leather lace-up saddle shoes, mary-janes or Weejun loafers (sometimes with a penny in the little cut-out on the strap). We carried our books in our arms or in satchels. Since we didn’t have backpacks, teachers would pin notes about PTA meetings or field trips to the coats or shirts of the younger children.

Glenwood Elementary School 2nd grade pictures,1957. Charles (Charly) Mann at 7 years old is on the top, and Joe Phillips is on the bottom.

Glenwood had six grades, 1-6. There was no kindergarten. The sixth grade was moved to Lincoln (the former black high school) in 1966 when the school system became fully integrated. Primary students were treated a little differently from the rest of the school. First graders got out of school earlier, and younger students took a brief afternoon nap, heads down on desks, room darkened – although I doubt if anyone ever slept. We would also bring in “milk money” for a morning snack of milk and crackers.

The cafeteria line at Glenwood Elementary School in 1956. Milk was the last thing everyone put on their plate.  After lunch you could go back into the cafeteria and get a piece cake.

No one went home for lunch. The cafeteria on the south side of the building served good hot lunches cooked in the kitchen. The cafeteria served some mystery meats, but there were also staples of old-style southern cooking, such as cornbread with honey and butter, collard greens, hot rolls, and white navy beans, into which we swirled excessive amounts of ketchup from squeeze bottles arranged up and down the long tables.

Mrs. West’s third grade class, December, 1959. Class members include: sitting: Prue Arndt, Robert Varley, Julia McCutcheon, Peter Kirkpatrick, Pad Wales, Bob Cherry, Dick Geary, Steve Piantadosi. Standing: Lane Crawford, Sally Geer, Louise Pettis, Stephanie Sugioka, Liv Taylor. Leslie Decker, Kathy Shinahan. Sarah Craige, Ditty Thibaut, Chris Hill, Brenda Marks, Jewel Hayman, Sarah Kreps, Biff Bream. Mollie Clark, Jack Spitznagel, Mrs. Sarah West, Ricky Barnett, Frieda Ellis.

We had excellent teachers at Glenwood and were held to high standards. Our strongest memories are of Mrs. Fitzgerald and Mrs. Glasser (first grade), Mrs. Mary Frances Green and Mrs. Coleman (2nd grade), Mrs. Sarah West and Mrs. Brown (3rd grade), Mrs. Pepper (4th grade), Mrs. Blaine (whose snowy white hair was often compared to George Washington’s wig) and Mrs. Dixie Weir (5th grade). Mr. Jerome Stern caused some excitement when he arrived to teach sixth grade, the only male teacher at Glenwood. Mrs. Barbara McCallister took some students for advanced math and reading in a make-shift classroom in the basement under the cafeteria. Many teachers stayed only a year or two while their husbands were in school, and any teacher who got pregnant resigned well before the pregnancy was visible.

 
1957 second grade classmates Glenwood Elementary School Chapel Hill, NC

Mr. Battle was the principal when I started school, and I remember him wandering around the building whittling on a piece of wood. It’s hard to imagine a principal carrying a knife around a school today! He was succeeded by Mrs. West.

There was no gym, music room or art room. Our classroom teachers taught PE, art and music. PE took the form of organized games, often played on the paved parking lot in front of the school. I remember a lot of dodge ball, red rover, and relay races. The teachers would name team captains, who would then call out their first choice, second choice, etc. while we all waited impatiently and probably heckled or cheered those who were chosen. We did have a special music teacher, the legendary Mrs. Adeline McCall, who would push her piano from room to room, always accompanied by a sock monkey puppet. Mrs. Weir started a popular chorus for boys and girls in the 5th grade.

The classrooms were plain, but teachers put up new decorative bulletin boards every month. The light fixtures were large light bulbs, surrounded by concentric metal rings. Teachers wrote on chalkboards, and it was a great privilege to be chosen to clean the erasers by clapping them together outside at the end of the day, creating a cloud of chalk dust. Teachers drew parallel lines for neat handwriting by sticking three pieces of chalk in a wooden holder. When that chalk squeaked, our teeth were set on edge. There was no air conditioning, of course, and the louvered windows were inadequate for ventilation, so the classrooms had large rotating fans. The windows also had long, long shades, and teachers used a pole with a nail in the end to pull them down.

This is from the Dick and Jane book every girl and boy in Chapel Hill learned to read from. In those days many thought little sister Sally was based on Sally Geer.

Wooden classroom desks were arranged in rows (not the clusters of desks kids use today). The desks had lids that raised to reveal a storage area, with a hole cut in the top for an inkwell. I don’t think anyone brought in bottles of ink! We used “fountain pens” with plastic ink cartridges, which were small cylinders that fit into the pen and were pierced when the nib was screwed back on. There was no public address system, and the only audio-visual tools were movie projectors and film strip projectors. Threading the film through the projectors and onto large metal spools was the height of technology. However, on the afternoon of November 22, 1963, Mrs. West set a small black and white TV set on a chair at one end of the lunchroom. 6th graders and their teachers sat together and watched the unfolding coverage of the assassination of President Kennedy.

Mrs. Peacock and students in Glenwood School Library 1957

I loved our library time in the Peter Garvin Library. Girls would race for the Nancy Drew mysteries when the class filed in the door, hoping to find one they hadn’t read yet. Other favorite series for girls were the Cherry Ames nursing books, the Bobbsey Twins, the Happy Hollisters, and for me, anything about dogs by Albert Payson Terhune. Many of us loved the set of orange biographies with silhouettes on the covers called Childhoods of Famous Americans (Amelia Earhart: Young Aviator; Davy Crockett: Young Rifleman). We also read Beverly Cleary (especially the Henry Huggins and Beezus and Ramona stories), and the stories about the inventions of Homer Price. Chapel Hill had no public library until 1958. My recollection is that the elementary school libraries were opened one day a week in the summer, so we could check out children’s books.

This is a 1956 Dick and Jane book which was read at Glenwood Elementary School in Chapel Hill

We learned to read with the Dick and Jane readers (Dick and Jack, Baby Sally, Spot and Puff). We also had a formal phonics program of mimeographed work sheets. Book reports and other “reports” started in the 3rd or 4th grade on topics such as Great Inventors. We used the World Book and other children’s encyclopedias for these reports, and we had to copy any illustrations and maps by hand since there were no copier machines. “My Weekly Reader” covered current events, such as the space race and news about the addition of two new states, Alaska and Hawaii (which required the country to adopt new flags in one year, first with 49 stars, then with 50). We also did a lot of memorization. We had to learn the Gettysburg Address for Mrs. Weir, and some of us memorized a poem a week in the sixth grade. We would recite a poem orally on one week. On alternate weeks, the poem had to be written out, including correct punctuation and spelling. We picked especially short poems on those weeks!

1958 Weekly Reader featuring article on exploring the moon before the United States had even sent a rocket into space.

Because of the school connection with the UNC Education Department, we also got some interesting student teachers and some unusual and progressive programs. For example, my class went to the library in 5th or 6th grade for “speed reading” lessons, probably based on the work of Evelyn Wood. A machine projected text on the wall in chunks of words, which would gradually be speeded up until it looked like a blur.

Although we had traditional arithmetic, we also got “New Math.” No New Math textbooks were published yet, so we used draft books that had been typed and printed on cheap paper. As part of New Math, we learned to handle numbers in systems other than Base 10, which was a puzzle to our parents.

Mrs. Green’s second grade class, 1958 , Glenwood Elementary School. Class members shown include Julia McCutcheon, Prue Arndt, Bobby Andrews, Sally Geer, Ditty Thibaut, Bob Cherry. Second row  Mollie Clark, Sarah Craige, Stephanie Sugioka, Chris Hill, Sally Morgan, , Ricky Barnett. Billy Palladino,  Carol Mann, Claudia Harris, Robert Varley, Beth Crawford, Christy Prange, Peter Kirkpatrick.


We had some excellent hands-on experiential education as well. When Mrs. West’s third grade studied the pioneers, we made soap outside the classroom by dripping lye through ashes. Mrs. Pepper organized mock debates and voting for the 1960 Kennedy-Nixon election. A 6th grade science experiment about water pressure ed in some flooding in Mr. Stern’s classroom.

We took field trips to the new Planetarium and to Raleigh. I seem to recall that we would take buses to the train station in Durham, then a short ride on a train to Pullen Park in Raleigh, where we would have a picnic. There was probably a visit to the Capitol or the NC Art Museum in there, too, but all I recall is the train and the park!

We also took an annual trip to hear the North Carolina Symphony Orchestra (led by Benjamin Swalin), either at Memorial Hall on the UNC campus, or the auditorium of the high school downtown. The program was called “Symphony Stories.” Mrs. Swalin would introduce the instruments and their sounds. A highlight of the concert was a song we would sing with the orchestra. I remember singing Woody Guthrie’s “This Land is Your Land” at least a thousand times with Mrs. McCall, in preparation for the concert. Sometimes we learned pieces on plastic “tonettes” in preparation for playing along with the symphony.

 
Mrs. Dann, Glenwood School second grade Elementary School teacher 1956-1957

The Supreme Court decided Brown v. Board of Education in 1954, one year after Glenwood opened, but Chapel Hill schools remained segregated until a progressive group was elected to the school board in 1961. Glenwood was integrated in the early 1960’s, belatedly but peacefully, beginning with first graders and a few older students whose parents requested assignment to Glenwood.

Mrs Dann's Second Grade Class 1956-1957, Students include Elaine Blyth, Mike Fields, David Kohn, Charles (Charly) Mann, Kate Taylor, Nancy Nottinghan, Mike Earey, and Elizabeth Alden.

Every spring the school had a potluck picnic on the grass under the pine trees at the front of the school. All the families would gather and sit on blankets, and the younger siblings would get a look at the great school they would be attending. It was a terrific place to begin school, and a wonderful group of kids. We were proud of being at Glenwood, and felt like a real community.

Several people helped me in collecting these memories of Glenwood School: my sister Anne Geer, her husband David Scott, Frieda Ellis Harden, Laura Gaskin, and Nora Gaskin Esthimer. We all entered Glenwood between 1957 and 1960.

Pictures for this article supplied by Charly Mann and Sarah Geer

by Charly Mann

In 1958 UNC students who lived on or near campus had 3000 cars in Chapel Hill. Unfortunately there were nowhere near that many parking spaces on campus. Starting in 1958 all these students were required to park their cars in the Bell Tower Parking lot between 7 AM and 3 PM on weekdays and 7 AM to 1 PM on Saturday. Freshmen were not allowed to have cars, and sophomores could only if they had a "C" average. All student cars had to have a parking sticker on the front driver's side window. Any student who violated these rules could have their car privileges revoked. The problem was that the Bell Tower lot only had 500 spaces. It was built in 1957 for a cost of $75,000. Obviously there were 2,500 cars that students had to park off campus and that often meant in downtown. Parking on campus during these hours was reserved for faculty and staff, as well as any student who had to commute to campus. Students who were veterans or physically handicapped were exempt from these rules.

Downtown Chapel Hill in 1959 when almost everyone jaywalked across Franklin Street

Chapel Hill and the University both accurately projected town and university growth in the late 1950s for 1970 determining there would have to add an additional 6000 extra parking places to satisfy the town and campus needs by then. Less than half that many spaces were added.

Crowell Little Ford was located just before Eastgate in a large new building. They had recently moved from downtown where they were located at the NW corner of Columbia and Franklin Street. In these days east Franklin Street beyond the downtown historic district was called the Durham Road.

Chapel Hill police officer Eugene Cozart giving out one of the first parking tickets in Chapel Hill . In the background you can see Eubank's Drug Store then Chapel Hill's oldest business. Also visible is the NC Cafeteria where the food was truly mediocre. Next door is Lacock's Shoe Repair and Max Snipes' Barber Shop.

In October of 1958 metered parking came to Chapel Hill. There were then 405 parking spaces in town, almost all diagonal. The majority of the spaces had dual meters. Chapel Hill then had a police force of twenty officers, and one, patrolman Eugene Cozart, was assigned to issue meter violation tickets and collect money from the machines. The maximum parking time on the meters was two hours.

Until Belk-Leggett-Horton Department Store opened in Chapel Hill just west of the corner of West Franklin and Church Street in the late 1950s most Chapel Hillians  traveled to downtown Durham to do much of their shopping. The best department store in Durham was Ellis Stone which was founded in 1885, and would be akin to a Macy's today. Dollar Days was a huge three day sales event in February throughout downtown Chapel Hill during this time. Chapel Hill's biggest sale event was Hot Diggity Days which occurred for a week each July, and many of the deals rivaled today's early morning Black Friday specials.

This is the inside of the Bank of Chapel Hill on Franklin Street in 1958. The Bank of Chapel Hill was then the only bank in town. They also had a branch in Glen Lennox and Carrboro.

For the first time in its history residents of Chapel Hill were allowed to buy bottles of  liquor in 1959. In January voters of Orange County voted to go from "dry" to "wet". This meant hard liquor could be sold to those over the age of 21 at state owned ABC (Alcoholic Beverage Commission) Stores.  The last time Orange County had put this issue on the ballot was in September of 1938 and the vote was 1938 to 1496 against the sale of liquor. In 1959 5713 Orange County residents voted, and by a margin of 825 approved liquor sales. The margin of victory came from Chapel Hill voters who went 1834 for to 617 against approving ABC store sales.

Chapel Hill was truly a slow paced sleepy little town for much of its history. Until October of 1958 many businesses including all Barber Shops were closed on Wednesday afternoon. This is the announcement that forever ended that Wednesday tradition.

by Charly Mann

The highest starting salary for UNC graduates in 1959 went to those with an MBA degree. Their average salary was $437 a month. Today (2010) they average $7850 a month. The next best degree to have was in Math, Physics, or Chemistry. Graduates with these degrees had a medium starting salary of $424. Accounting and Finance majors averaged $340 a month, those in Journalism $321, and Radio and Television $306. Graduates in any major who got a job in the insurance industry had starting salaries around $356 a month, while those who found jobs as a sales representative averaged $307 a month.

UNC students in front of Memorial Hall in the fall of 1958

The total enrollment at UNC for the 1958-1959 school year was just under 7300 students. Of those 1100 were freshman. There were seventeen Negros, as blacks were then then called, attending the university and only one was an undergraduate. Two black women and fourteen black men were enrolled in UNC graduate schools.

The UNC German Club sponsored two large dances for UNC students during the Fall 1958 and Spring 1959 semesters. They were held in Woollen Gym where the UNC basketball games were also played. (It is hard to imagine huge dances being held on the floor of the Dean Smith Center today.) Even though the new rock n' roll  music was already very popular among young people, the music at these dances was from an era almost two decades earlier called Big Band music. The band shown above the photo of dancers is the Woody Herman Orchestra, and they played at the first German dance of the year.

There was a discrimination problem at UNC in 1959, but it was not a black and white problem, since most blacks were not even allowed to enroll in UNC at that time. The issue was against Jews. Beginning in the early 1950s all applicants to UNC had to state their religious preference in their admission form. The office of Student Affairs then made a list of UNC freshman and placed a letter J by the name of each Jewish student. In 1959 21 of the 24 UNC fraternities did not allow Jewish members. This list  was given to all the fraternities so that they would not make the mistake of asking a Jewish student to pledge. Many of the campus fraternities had rules in their bylaws against accepting non-Christian or non-white members.

UNC Seniors Class of 1959 
Top row from left to right:
Emily Louise Stafford, Ronald Stalling, Susan Stanford
Margaret Rose Starnes, Larry Adams Stephenson, Harold Edward Stessel
James Timothy Stevens, Catherine Jean Stewart, Julia Ann Stokes
Richard Gabriel Stone Jr., Robert T. Story, Isabella Blanton Strait

Student housing was a problem that year. In the beginning of the fall semester thirty students had to sleep in the basement of Cobb Dorm, and even students on the UNC football team, who usually received preferential housing, did not get permanent rooms until October. The University asked residents of Chapel Hill to rent rooms in their houses to relieve the shortage of space. The most severe problem was for married students who were then housed in Victory Village south of  UNC Memorial Hospital. Victory Village only had about 125 units available, and there were at least four times that number of married students. While there were other apartmenst avialable to rent in Chapel Hill , most notably in Glen Lennox, the rent on Victory Village apartments was much less and the units were furnished.

On the left is, the then unknown by most Chapel Hillian’s, 1959 UNC assistant basketball coach Dean Smith. On the right is Danny Lotz who was captain of the 1959 basketball team which was ranked #1 during the season, but lost in the early round of the NCAA championship tournament to an unheralded and much shorter Navy team.

There was a major breakthrough for the sexes at UNC in early 1959. For the first time coeds were allowed to visit the social rooms in most men's dormitories on the weekends.

1959 UNC coed Dede Devere dressed in the fashion for women on campus