Fresno, California
June 1, 1921.Dearly loved members of '71 :-
Certain it is if I can be with you even by letter something must be done soon as it takes time to come a distance of 3000 miles. I have hoped all along that I should be one of you at our great Reunion but now I think it best not to take the long trip.
This morning I have been thinking of you all going down the list from Mercy Anderson, Helen Angell, Gertie Baldwin and on to Iantha Willis. Ten names are starred, Fannie Peet - first of the list, beautiful ones who have preceded us into the great Beyond. A few others will not be there June 10, detained at home by illness or necessity, but we shall all be there in spirit.
Fifty years ago we were graduated. Do you remember how we looked, a much becurled set of young women, very dignified and very important, into a feeling of a great mission in the world. Not frivalous; [sic] far from it! Cornelia would not have the red lace on her parasol but tore it off as not becoming in a graduate of Mt. Holyoke. The lace on her dress flounces would have shared the same fate but that would have spoiled the dress. We were mature and were we not dignified?
But look at the Class of '21! Hair low and puffed over the ears; skirt very short with pretty feet and much leg; dress low in the neck and very short and shoes with cuban heels! O, tempora, o mores! But in heart and mind much like us, n'est-ce-pas?
I am thinking of the long procession of Mt. Holyoke's daughters who have come out of her gates diplomas in hand. Of that class of the year 1838, the first one, four in number with Mary Lyon to bless and bid them Godspeed. They did not go out to be Club women, teachers or stenographers, they all married ministers thus setting a noble example which the class of '71 has tended to follow.
Fifty years ago and thirty three after the graduation of those first four the class of '71 came upon the stage, certainly a very interesting and important class itself and justifiably so, dont [sic] you think as you have known it all these years? Wonderful potentialities and a great mission to perform! Blessed be youth and increased be that courage! We had done great things and why not continue to do them? What class since has done English Literature in three weeks or Chemistry in six and without an experiment? We had Butler's Analogy too, and all sorts of profitable studies which these "moderns" know nothing about. Oh, the pity of it! But all joking aside we did have such women as teachers as make a real college, Miss French, Miss Ellis, Miss Ward, Miss Edwards, Miss Cowles and others - Our teachers did not always know what to think of us but were rather proud of us all the while. I know we learned our lessons fairly well. Hettie Dodd, Minnie Fiske, Mary Williams and any number of you, must have delighted the heart of the pedagogue. Some of our teachers, Miss Ward for one, may have feared that we did not have the ideas of he school deep enough at heart. How have we kept that faith and how lived up to our own ideals?
We always look for the highest and best to be the typical one do we not? Now as then and all through our fifty years Hettie has been our president and our representative. If some of us have in a measure failed she has kept true to the highest and best in womanhood and we can point to her. And what has been told me from time to time of you all has kept me very proud of '71. Dr. David Starr Jordan told me once that Cornelia Clapp was the best woman teacher of science in the U. States, great praise from a man like him. But who shall for us sum up the products of our united endeavors? No one. We wish it were more and better but what has been done must remain and there may be time yet for much more.You may think you are the "oldest thing" that comes up to this Reunion, but you are not. One at least of the class of '61 will be there, beautiful and strong and splendid as any one of you.
Representatives of all the years will be there. Oh, the wonder, the glory and the joy [of] it all, the dream of Mary Lyon fulfilled.
I am glad we have had a share in getting the $3,000,000 endowment which I hope will be raised and you have a
sharepart in the triumph.You will see Miss Woolley at the close of her twenty years of the presidency[,] Miss Woolley who has done great things for Mt. Holyoke, and you will see the large body of graduates of '21 go out with their high hopes and brave spirits.
I wish I, too, could be there to rejoice with you in it all, but more to greet you and talk with you face to face. I hope you will miss me and wish I were with you, for be assured the tie is still a blessed one that binds me to you one and all.
Hoping you will have a glorious time together, better even than the anticipation, I am
With love to every one of you
Ever proudly yours of 71.
Frances A. Dean1507 L St.
Fresno, Calif-