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Date
October 01, 1893
Abstract
VC 1897
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Identifier
vassar:48718,,Box 70,VCL_Letters_Kirkland_Winifred_1897_001
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1 item
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: VCL_Letters_Kirkland_Winifred_1897_001_001
Vassar College, P'keepsie, N.Y.
October 1, 1893.
My dearest Jane:
I have meant to write to you every day since I arrived, but you can imagine that I've been busy. Your letter was so sweet,-thank-you for it. How I wish you were up here. I haven't any one to talk to. I don't know where to begin to tell you of my doings here. In the first place, I have passed all my exams and expect to be formally admitted to the Sophomore class to-morrow. Vassar is perfectly lovely. How I wish you might have a chance of enjoying it, too! You will be surprised to know that I do not room with Louise and Bessie, but with Mollie Leverett. There are two main
October 1, 1893.
My dearest Jane:
I have meant to write to you every day since I arrived, but you can imagine that I've been busy. Your letter was so sweet,-thank-you for it. How I wish you were up here. I haven't any one to talk to. I don't know where to begin to tell you of my doings here. In the first place, I have passed all my exams and expect to be formally admitted to the Sophomore class to-morrow. Vassar is perfectly lovely. How I wish you might have a chance of enjoying it, too! You will be surprised to know that I do not room with Louise and Bessie, but with Mollie Leverett. There are two main
: VCL_Letters_Kirkland_Winifred_1897_001_002
buildings here, you know. One of them is the old building, where all the recitation rooms are, and the other the Strong Hall, which has no recitation rooms. Bessie and Louise are over in the Strong on the 4th floor, while Mollie and I are up under the eaves in the 5th floor of the old building. I am awfully sorry that they are so far away, because we'd have such fun with them. Jennie Estes is on the same floor with us. The Hulst girls and Lulu O'Brien are just below us. Frances Smith and Bessie Beard are on the 4th, and Julia Turner on the 1st. Mary Higgins is in the Strong. Edith did not come back this year, because of trouble with her eyes. Edith Ryan of '92 is entering here as a Freshman this year.
: VCL_Letters_Kirkland_Winifred_1897_001_003
Oh Jennie, Miss Franklin, Miss Smith's friend, is the sweetest thing up here. She's too dear for anything. She's a little mite of a creature, a shade bigger than you are, I should think, and she has the sweetest, sweetest little ways I can hardly keep my hands off her. And I am very well acquainted with her already. She came up to me the first time she saw me, and asked if I was Miss Kirkland. I felt right away as if I had always known her, and she said she felt as if she had known me, too, because Miss Smith had so often spoken to her of "her little Miss Kirkland." You can imagine that this made me feel very happy, for I didn't suppose Miss Smith was conscious of my existence outside of class. You ought to hear Miss Franklin tell about their college days to-gether. She said that the way she first got acquainted with Miss Smith was because
: VCL_Letters_Kirkland_Winifred_1897_001_004
she (Miss F) knew her Greek verbs so much better than Miss Smith did! She said Miss Smith would tell her what things meant, and Miss F. would tell her what the constructions were. Imagine Miss Smith eight years ago not knowing her Greek constructions! Miss Franklin has the sweetest picture of Miss Smith, taken in eighty-nine. It has her happiest expression and almost speaks.
I wish I could get acquainted faster up here. The girls are so charming, but I'm afraid I feel a little shy, not being used to not having any body know me. And the teachers are so lovely. One comes into so much closer contact with them in living all under the same roof. We have been receiving a great many calls since we’ve been here. The girls come very formally with their card-cases and leave their cards with the number of their rooms upon them. All the new girts have to go to call on all
I wish I could get acquainted faster up here. The girls are so charming, but I'm afraid I feel a little shy, not being used to not having any body know me. And the teachers are so lovely. One comes into so much closer contact with them in living all under the same roof. We have been receiving a great many calls since we’ve been here. The girls come very formally with their card-cases and leave their cards with the number of their rooms upon them. All the new girts have to go to call on all
: VCL_Letters_Kirkland_Winifred_1897_001_005
their teachers. Lessons here are very much easier than I expected, especially Greek. I really don’t think that girls here are any brighter than they were at P.C.L., but of course it’s rather too soon to judge. Certainly the teachers are no better. The English teachers don’t compare to Miss Wylie. I don’t have Miss Leach in Greek, but have a Miss McCurdy, a graduate of Harvard Annex. How I miss Miss Smith! I study Freshman Rhetoric & Sophomore English, too, so that I write the essays for both classes. That will keep me busy, but you know how much I like it. I am reading Demosthenes in Greek. I’m studying Solid Geometry, and the teacher of that is magnificent. Then, lastly, I study mediaeval history.
I don’t see as much of Louise and Bessie as I'd like to. They are so far away, and we are all busy flying around all the time tho’ I don't nearly so hard as I did my last year at Packer. Each of my five studies I recite
I don’t see as much of Louise and Bessie as I'd like to. They are so far away, and we are all busy flying around all the time tho’ I don't nearly so hard as I did my last year at Packer. Each of my five studies I recite
: VCL_Letters_Kirkland_Winifred_1897_001_006
in three times a week, and each recitation is fifty minutes long.
Mollie makes a lovely roommate. She is very popular up here. Gets acquainted so easily. She has only one fault, and that is that she has such poor taste in room decoration. That fault rather grates on me sometimes, but in everything else she is a darling. I wish I had her charm of manner. But I guess I’ll get along better after I get over the first strangeness. This is strictly private. As it is, we haven't much furniture, and I think some things might be better arranged, and I wish I weren't weak-minded enough to want a pretty room.
I haven't time to tell you any more. Only will you do me one favor. Will you go to Miss Thurston and make her hunt up the missing link of my gym suit. I'm sure she could find it if she looked. Don't on any account send me yours, for I really never would have asked
Mollie makes a lovely roommate. She is very popular up here. Gets acquainted so easily. She has only one fault, and that is that she has such poor taste in room decoration. That fault rather grates on me sometimes, but in everything else she is a darling. I wish I had her charm of manner. But I guess I’ll get along better after I get over the first strangeness. This is strictly private. As it is, we haven't much furniture, and I think some things might be better arranged, and I wish I weren't weak-minded enough to want a pretty room.
I haven't time to tell you any more. Only will you do me one favor. Will you go to Miss Thurston and make her hunt up the missing link of my gym suit. I'm sure she could find it if she looked. Don't on any account send me yours, for I really never would have asked
: VCL_Letters_Kirkland_Winifred_1897_001_007
you to let me take it if I hadn't tho't you had another suit, and I can easily have another set of [diagram] made if necessary, but I'm sure that mine are somewhere at Packer. I am going to send Miss T. a note with this letter, but I’ll be infinitely obliged to you if you'll go down and poke her up, and send the clothes in question to me just as soon as possible. They haven't my name on them unfortunately, but send anything that looks like them that Miss Thurston will give you.
Your writing from the Dakota gave me a little bit of the blues, too, to think that you and I would never have the old good times there again. How many things are over that we used to enjoy, so much,- and chiefly, the Dakota and our Greek class, I can't imagine Aunt Hennie anywhere else. She may be very sure that I often think of her. Have you seen Maud, and were you at Packer on the opening day?
Your writing from the Dakota gave me a little bit of the blues, too, to think that you and I would never have the old good times there again. How many things are over that we used to enjoy, so much,- and chiefly, the Dakota and our Greek class, I can't imagine Aunt Hennie anywhere else. She may be very sure that I often think of her. Have you seen Maud, and were you at Packer on the opening day?
: VCL_Letters_Kirkland_Winifred_1897_001_008
Always write me about everything,- such letters make me feel good.
Give much love to all your dear ones,
With a bushel of hugs for my chum
from Winifred.
Winifred Kirkland '97 to Jennie S. Liebmann, Brooklyn, N.Y.
Give much love to all your dear ones,
With a bushel of hugs for my chum
from Winifred.
Winifred Kirkland '97 to Jennie S. Liebmann, Brooklyn, N.Y.
