Betsy Fisher Caldwell wrote from Birmingham, Ala., about the civil rights protests. A year later, Joan Martin Lamont announced her engagement. Janice Vaughan Crump wrote back with news of her first child. A few years later, Beverly Baker Verrengia shared that she was going back to school. Recently, Edna “Eddi” Miller Mordecai wrote to her friends about her grandson’s acceptance into Colby’s Class of 2017.
After graduation in 1952, many of Lamont’s classmates moved away from Colby to places such as Wisconsin or the Bahamas. Lamont and 11 of her girlfriends decided to set up a round-robin letter to keep in touch. Sixty-one years later, the letters are still coming.
For these nearly lifelong friends, the round robin is the circulation of one big envelope that contains everyone’s letters. When one member oe entire package along to the next person. The result is an ongoing reporting of life’s milestones. For this group of women, the letters have functioned as a reassuring familiarity in their ever-changing lives.
After throwing their graduation caps to the wind, Lamont and Mary Sargent Swift set off for Europe. The excited graduates took pictures and sent letters to their friends back home. Two months ago, Swift died.
Lamont said the news was hard on her, but she is thankful for the letters that helped maintain their friendship throughout the years. “I don’t think anyone else [as a group] has kept in contact since 1952,” she said.
After her trip to Europe, Lamont worked at a bank on Wall Street for two years before moving with her husband to Massachusetts, where he opened an optometrist’s practice. Two sons and three grandchildren later, Lamont is now living in New London, N.H., the same town as her former college roommate, Mordecai.
After all these years, Mordecai said she still thinks about time spent with her girlfriends in their Colby dorm downtown and later in Mary Low on Mayflower Hill.
“Things were different back then,” Mordecai recalled. “We only had women dorms. The men couldn’t even come upstairs.”
Mordecai has kept a number of her round-robin letters over the years. “It’s more personal to get a letter than an e-mail. It will be a big loss to historians if there is no more letter trail to follow.”
Verrengia confessed that she had no sense of direction after graduation. Her first job was at the now-defunct Filene’s department store in Boston. After raising her children, she started working with kids with special needs. Eventually she received her master’s degree and worked with underprepared students at North Shore Community College.
With her busy life, Verrengia said she lives for the moment and believes “what’s past is past.” Her only exception is the round-robin letters. “It’s been very meaningful,” she said. “When the envelope with ten letters would arrive, it was fat and exciting.”
By sharing her story, Verrengia hopes to entice other people to do the same thing.
“It’s one thing to share with the world on Facebook, but people should spare some time to write a letter.”
—MacKenzie Riley
