Campus Drive became Campus Walk in 1986, so this snowy photo was probably shot between 1986 and 1990. We’d like to learn the name of this student. If you can help us identify him, please leave a comment below.
Give It Your Best Shot!
Betty Bartz Bradford ’54 of Downingtown, Pa., “almost fell off the chair” when she spotted herself in the last issue of University of Mary Washington Magazine.
“When I saw that picture, I just got so excited,” said Bradford (shown standing), who grew up on Long Island and came to Mary Washington from a two-year school in Pennsylvania.
She and the friend and fellow transfer student pictured with her, Patricia Shipley Hook ’54, who passed away in 2010, looked busy enough inside the school’s broadcasting studio. But Bradford couldn’t remember why they had been there. They were speech and dramatic arts majors, so maybe it had been required for one of their classes, she reasoned.
Hook transferred again after junior year, Bradford said, so the photo must have been taken in 1952 or ’53, while the studio still was housed in George Washington Hall.
While Bradford recalled little of the broadcasting studio, she did remember performing in plays, being in the Alpha Psi Omega society for outstanding theater students, and studying with drama professors Mark Sumner and Albert R. Klein. But her theatrical side took a detour when suitemate Vivian James ’53, who later was in Bradford’s wedding, piqued her curiosity about a special education graduate program at Columbia University. Bradford applied, earned a master’s degree on a full scholarship, and taught the deaf and hard of hearing for most of her career.
Last issue’s photo brought back memories of her brief interest in pursuing radio work, she said, and of strict Mary Washington rules and the measures she and her friends took to break them.
“Even though it was an all-girls school, we had a lot of fun,” she said.
Now 81 years old, with three children, four grandchildren, and three great-grandchildren, Bradford keeps up with her evolving alma mater.
“When we went back to Mary Washington the first time, I almost had a heart attack” because of all the changes, she joked. “I love it. I’m so proud of the school.”