Queen Solomon Speaks

From the pages of the Spring 1951 Injun

 

Looking Back

By Gladys W. Solomon Jerome

What was it like during Omaha University’s first years? Here, from the oldest living Gala Day Queen, is an eyewitness account.

 

We were the first output of Redick Hall, where we did our physics problems in the kitchen, our chemistry in the garage. In the study, we read Plato on Tuesdays and Goethe on Fridays. We had our history in the dining room and our chapel in the parlor. Food laboratory was held in a flower-papered bedroom.

 

Sometimes at chapel, distinguished visitors referred to the austere beginnings of Yale and Harvard, but we were usually indifferent to their encouragement; we just enjoyed our lot.

 

That stove in the kitchen was a comfortable old thing for simmering chocolate, and it did not interfere in the least with the behavior of the amber rod and cat skin which the physics instructor kept on the pantry shelf.

 

Redick Hall was always ripe for a party, and we had them at Christmas, on Halloween — anytime. There were fireplaces, rambling rooms, an impressive staircase (and the steep backstairs), dark passageways, a cupola, and porches everywhere.

 

We were a close-knit group of students, although often with strong differences of opinion. We faced a good many unprecedented situations, but someone soon got an idea, and we started working on it. We felt that the university was our director responsibility: there wasn’t much of it then, but we constituted what there was.

 

Although we never took a canvass, I’m sure we were solidly agreed that the University of Omaha was the biggest thing we would ever be connected with.