I am so grateful you have asked me to honor my mother, Helen Schaefer Gibson, on the occasion of the 75th anniversary of her beloved Women’s League. Unfortunately, I was diagnosed with cancer in late February, and I am in the middle of chemo and radiation when your event is happening. Otherwise, I would definitely be with you.

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I’m sure Mother never dreamed when she first envisioned an organization to help the students at Washington College that 75 years later it would be thriving as it is.  

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Mother was a woman filled with ideas. She had a curiosity about the world around her. When she and my father arrived here in October 1950, she looked around to see what she could do to support my father’s work. There were two areas of importance to her – classical music and the students of Washington College.  

 

First a little anecdote. My parents came to Chestertown from Lancaster, Pennsylvania, where Dad was Dean at Franklin & Marshall. Felix Morley, former President of Haverford College and former editor of the Washington Post, was on the Board of both institutions. At a board meeting at F&M, he met both my parents. Several weeks later, as the story goes, he was at a meeting of the Board of Visitors & Governors at Washington College. A major item on the agenda was the selection of a new President to succeed Gilbert Mead who had died in office in 1949. While there were certainly candidates who were a little closer to home, the story goes that Felix Morley stated at the meeting, “I have met your new President and, not only that, I have met your new President’s wife.”  Now, this could be Gibson family lore but I like to believe it’s true. Mother was such a force of nature!

 

Who was Helen Gibson? She was the daughter of a newspaper publisher, and grew up in Pomeroy, Ohio and Tampa, Florida. She was a gifted pianist from her early years. She graduated from Ohio University (which she was always quick to distinguish from Ohio State) and was a member of Phi Beta Kappa. She then went to the Cincinnati Conservatory of Music to study for a Masters in Piano. It was there she met my father, who was studying for a PhD in English at University of Cincinnati. They were married in 1936 during the depression and, like many couples during that time, spent their first several married years living in different cities – Dad was continuing his doctoral studies in Cincinnati and Mother was teaching music at Fairfax Hall School in Virginia.  

 

                                                     Once my father received his doctorate in 1939, they were reunited, their lives took them to                                                      several different cities. In 1940 my father became an assistant professor of English at the                                                         Citadel in Charleston SC, a position he held until 1943. By now, my mother had left her                                                           own teaching ambitions behind and devoted herself to my father and, as of 1942, my brother, in 1944 my sister and me in 1948. I’ve always wondered if Mother might have had a career as a classical pianist – yes, she was that good. My father served as a 2nd Lt in the US Naval Reserve during World War II and, like any good academician, couldn’t escape teaching as he was named Executive Officer of the V-12 Navy College Training Program. Following the end of the war, they settled in Lancaster at Franklin & Marshall and then, in 1950, at Washington College.

 

Back to Mother and her ambitions. She would never have been “just” the wife of the college president. She was never the kind of woman to walk 3 paces behind her husband.  So she looked around what may have seemed like a backwater college (and at that time it was considered little more than a state teachers college) to see what she could do. While my father focused on expanding the academics, Mother looked to see what she could do. I’m not sure which came first, the Classical Concert series, which she founded in 1951 and continues to this day, or the Women’s League.

 

I believe Mother’s wish was to provide support for students, many of whom had never lived away from home and, in addition, to foster a deeper connection between the Washington College community and the town of Chestertown. I would venture to say both have succeeded beyond her wildest dreams. 

 

She was a pistol, to be sure. In her 50s, she decided to study Spanish and so she started taking classes at the college. She hosted the faculty members and spouses at a sit-down holiday dinner every year in December. One year, the power went out. Fortunately, one of our two stoves was gas. Undaunted she went ahead with a beautiful candlelit dinner for 80 people.

 

I think it’s important to note that my Mother struggled all her life with depression and feelings of inadequacy.  As much as she did for the college, the college did so much more for her.