Out Into the World

 June 18th 1912 (1. pg1)

I nearly forgot about this blog I started back in English 12 with Miss Perry. With how busy I've been between college and trips home to visit my mother, it doesn't feel like it's been nearly 4 years since my last update. I imagine I'll find the time to continue my personal writing when the inspiration strikes me.

I graduated from Wellesley today. You can find my name listed 3 times in the Legenda, my mark on the history of this wonderful school. 

One of the clubs that didn't make the cut for the Legenda is the Suffrage Club, which I helped Myra Morgan start in my junior year. There were only 6 of us total, hardly a club in the eyes of the yearbook. Suffrage was scorned by many people, but I was always for it. My grandmother was for it as well. Miss Hamer, the wonderful high school Latin teacher, had said it was intolerable that some stupid little boy in her class who couldn't learn the first conjunction would soon grow up and have the vote while she did not. She was so right. (3. pg78)

One of the strangest classes during my studies was our sex education classes during my Junior and Senior year. I wouldn't call it sex education. It was really just education on pregnancy and nothing about what comes before hand. In zoology they did go into detail about copulation for earthworms and frogs. They say it's a secret process, and a secret it remains except that I know it requires a male and female. I think it may have something to do with the navel. (3. pg72)

Most of my friends know exactly what they're going to do with their life now that we've graduated. Carolyn, my best friend since high school, is going to become a school teacher. Sally is planning to continue her education and get an MA in chemistry, then settle down for a good married life. Grandma always wanted me to be a teacher or musician (she tried her hardest to get me to learn piano, but I had no interest.)  Teaching is the last thing I want to do, I hate the idea. But I also don't want to go to a private school, that would require moving further away from my mother, and she's already in poor health. I just received news today that her breast cancer has metastasized to her spine. I'm quite worried about what I'll do after commencement. For now, I'm making my way back home to be with my mother.(3. pg81)

1. “Wellesley College Commencement Program 1912.” Wellesley College Digital Repository, 1912, repository.wellesley.edu/object/wellesley31431.

2. Photo “The Wellesley Legenda 1912.” Wellesley.edu, 2023, repository.wellesley.edu/object/wellesley624. Accessed 2 Dec. 2023.

3. Douglas, Marjory Stoneman, and John Rothchild. Marjory Stoneman Douglas: Voice of the River: An Autobiography. Pineapple Press, 1990.