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...Most of the students have left for the summer, but Martha Berry’s living legacy will be covering the grounds of Berry College campus this week.
Many loyal alumni reunited on the historic Berry campus for the annual Alumni Work Week to improve the place they once called home. Click here to see a video report.
Dorothy Sundy, a 1959 graduate, is in her 16th year as a work week volunteer. “We all like giving back to Berry,” she said.
This year, most of Sundy’s family will be giving back along with her. Her son, David Sundy (’91) and his wife, Kathleen Sundy (’94), will spend the week helping around campus with their two daughters.
Grady Sundy never took classes at Berry, but he began dating Dorothy Sundy two years before her graduation. “I’ve been coming to Berry all these years,” he said, “but they won
Berry alumna Mary Ellen Evans, class of 1963, weaves a table runner Tuesday as part of Alumni Work Week. (Ryan Smith / Rome News-Tribune) |
6;t ever give me a diploma.”
Bill Bethea Jr. remembers when students could not have automobiles, and passes were required just to leave campus. Bethea graduated from the Berry Boys School in 1945, back when the girls’ school was five miles away.
More than 60 years later, the group often continues this trend, with the women caning on the front porch of Emily Cottage and the men working in the gazebo in the yard.
Elmer Pugh also went to the boys school but was drafted into the army before he could finish college. Though his years at Berry were cut short, Pugh has a wealth of stories about his days on campus.
Pugh reminisced about a time at Berry when handholding was outlawed and romancing was confined to the concealment of the shrubbery. There are far too few bushes around the Ford Buildings nowadays, he noted.
Patsy McLeod (’56) was repairing the seat of a wooden stool with schoolmate Bernice Holcomb as she told the story of how she reunited with an old flame at her 50th class reunion. Having both lost their spouses, Patsy and Ed McLeod were married in 2006, in Barnwell Chapel on campus.
“Caning is a lost art,” Holcomb said, carefully weaving the cane into an intricate wickerwork.
The alumni will be reclaiming many lost arts this week as they quilt, carve and weave.
Mary Evans (’63) worked in the handicraft department as a Berry student. “I first learned to weave here, and I enjoy getting back to it,” she said.
This is Evans’ third year at work week, and she reacquainted herself with the loom by working on a tablerunner she started at last year’s event.
“(Berry) feels like it did when I was here,” Evans said, though she remembers more cornfields around the campus. “I wouldn’t be here at work week if I hadn’t had lots of fond memories.”
