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The
Last Mountain Day One
important tradition for Seniors was their
Senior Mountain Day. It's origins are lost,
but it
probably dates back to the Seminary period.
Usually during Commencement week, Seniors
would travel to
a mountain
to spend
the
night. There are recorded excursions to
Sunderland and Buckland, but most went to Mount
Holyoke's
Summit
House. Helen Mower,
class of 1903, describes the activities that
took
place at her Senior Mountain Day. Seniors
would spend the night dressed in nightgowns
made for them by underclasswomen, reminiscing
about their years at Mount Holyoke and discussing
their hopes for the future. After the night
was over, the young women kept the nighties
as treasured mementos, not to be used until
their wedding night. In
1952,
alumna Florence Clement '14 mourned the the
changes
in Senior
Mountain
Day:
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Senior Mountain program has
been greatly abbreviated. My campus scout
- Helen Voorhees...
says nightgowns -for seniors or any other
class - are practically extinct. The popular
night garb is a man's shirt. The seniors
have a picnic with their honoraries on the
top of Mount Holyoke late Thurs. afternoon.
They take along home made lunches, toast
their honoraries and give them little homemade
bouquets. Then they rapidly bid them farewell
- sweetly tho promptly - and rush to hold
their last class meeting with that still
all important guilty - not guilty roll call.
Many answer guilty, some are already married,
and some even pregnant. Gone also - with
the nighties - are the Mountain Day notes
and kimonos. Not since 1929 have the seniors
spent the night on the mountain top. |
Senior Mountain Day was gradually scaled back
over the next decade until it was finally lost,
remaining only in the memories of alumna and
the files of the Mount Holyoke College Archives.
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