Apparently there is a new biography coming out or just out about Nancy Reagan so I thought I would share an anecdote. Nancy Reagan went to Smith College. My late sister went to Smith College decades later but she and her roommate lived in the same room in the same house as Mrs. Reagan did back when she was Nancy Davis. Mrs. Reagan came back to Smith at some point during my sister's time at Smith which coincided with Ronald Reagan being governor of California.
I was certainly not there so I have to trust my sister and her roommate when they described what happened. Everyone knew that she was coming because there was a heightened security presence but according to my sister and her roommate no one told them that their room had been Nancy's room while she was there. The security protocol meant that once they arrived on campus, everyone was to stay where they were rather than moving on to their classes or leaving campus or whatever, so my sister and her roommate Mimi (that is her real nickname but I won't say what her true name was) were sitting on their beds waiting for whatever.
Then the door opened and there was Nancy Reagan. She walked in, looked around, and then turned to the campus guide and asked, "Isn't there maid service any more?"
Too precious for words.
Well, if they'd have known they would be having a visitor I'm sure they would have tidied up.
ReplyDeleteBut coincidentally, last week I was thinking about my time living in the dorms at the U of AZ in the late 1960's... Fresh sheets were available every week but if you were in class during the distribution you had to have someone take your used sheets for exchange. I wonder if that service still exists?
At Bryn Mawr we were given one fresh sheet a week and a fresh pillowcase. We were supposed to take the bottom sheet and the pillowcase off, put the previous top sheet on the bottom and the new pillowcase on the pillow and call it good. I don't know if my sister's room was particularly messy or if Miz Nancy was just offended by the posters and such. At Smith at that time, also in the late 60's, they still gave everyone a cloth napkin and a napkin ring to keep it in for meals--gracious living. I am not sure if that is still true. When my husband and I visited my old dorm a couple of years ago I was astonished at the transformation--where there had been a grand piano and Oriental rugs, there were linoleum and bare walls. I did not look at the bedrooms but the common rooms were the opposite of welcoming or inviting, even for reading or studying.
DeleteModern efficiencies, I suppose. And, low bid wins the contract.
ReplyDeleteYeah, but I do want to know what they did with the piano and the rugs and all the other stately mansion type stuff. Bryn Mawr's campus and dorms are among the most beautiful in the nation from the outside, and their education is still supposed to be rigorous and challenging so I shouldn't complain about the decor, but....
ReplyDelete