In 1894, when it came time to apply for college, my father applied only to that new school out West. His father was furious. “I will send you to any school in the East, but I will not give you a penny to go to that cow college.” My father borrowed $100 from his grandmother, and left Baldwinsville, N.Y., behind.
Stanford did not charge tuition then, but there was still room and board. My father got a job as the cook in the DKE house. He had never made a meal before, but with the aid of a quickly purchased cookbook he held onto the job. The next fall he moved to the Fire House, which provided room, board and a small stipend for being on call to any campus fires. By 1896, his father reversed his opposition to Stanford. Despite his improved finances, my father remained at the Fire House: it garnered much prestige among the ladies. (One girl whom he greatly admired was Lou Henry, Class of 1898, but to his disappointment she fell for Herbert Hoover, Class of 1895.)
When it came time for me to enter Stanford in 1940, my father put all I required into a checking account in my name, but I supplemented that allowance in several ways. At winter break, classmates Beenie Naffziger and Martha Reed and I were hired as “Christmas help” at the Rincon Annex of the San Francisco Post Office: eight hours a day, minimum wage, for the 10 days before the holiday. The first day we found that we were expected to work between 11 and 12 hours with a half hour off for lunch and dinner. We fell into bed each night and then sorted letters in our dreams. To break the monotony, all the sorters read the postcards and passed the funny ones around.
I had been going to the most expensive beauty salon in Palo Alto and decided that spring that I was spending too much on my hair. I asked the manager if I could be the salon’s campus representative—and was amazed when she agreed. They took my picture and, with my endorsement, displayed it around campus. They did my hair each week for the next three years for free.
My next effort arose from a summer trip to Bennington, Vt., to visit my aunt and uncle. The town’s large paper mill had come up with a new product: paper drapes. Bells went off in my head. We changed rooms every quarter in the Gamma Phi house, and with inexpensive, disposable curtains we could change our color scheme with every move.
That fall I went to all the sorority houses and Lagunita, showing my samples and taking orders that were quickly filled. Only later—when the radiators came on for chilly fall nights—did the overpowering, what-died-in-here stench of lightly steamed wood pulp fill the rooms.
My best friends resumed speaking to me after a few weeks.
- EMILY HOWARD HAFFNER, ’44
