Before Athena, there was ... the goat

Circa 1950, the mountain goat served as MSMU's mascot. We have one
in the Archives thanks to Sister Rose Adrian Peukert, CSJ '54.

WELCOME ATHENIANS! A large sign on the proscenium in front of Mary Chapel today welcomes our incoming students to Chalon for Orientation and the start of Fall 2018 two months from now. (Yikes!)

In another era, the sign might have said, "Welcome Mountain Goats." All we can say is, thank goodness that mascot didn't stick!
 

1956: The collective name for Mount
teams and students alike was Mountie.

Colleges and universities with big sports programs usually have well-known mascots, like the Bruin or Tommy Trojan. For a very long time at the Mount, decades, there was no actual mascot.  The university (then a college) fielded plenty of competitive tennis teams, runners and swimmers, even equestrians, but Mount students collectively were known simply as "the Mounties," a name that stuck until the late 1960s.

For a few years in the early 1950s, there was a genuine cute and fuzzy mascot. One arrived in the archives in person the other day, a little stuffed animal of faded purple wool felt, with floppy ears and horns and MSMC appliquéd in orangey-gold on both sides.

The mascot was donated to us by Sister Rose Adrian Peukert, CSJ, '54.  She was a Mountie herself for three years until entering the Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet in 1951. With that time frame, we consulted our yearbooks and newspapers to see if there were any mentions of stuffed goats.

Our friendly Mountie Goat inspects an art
book in the Porch at Chalon library.

According to the 1950 and 1951 yearbooks, the Women's Recreation Assn., a campus athletic club, was responsible for selling athletic gear in the bookstore. The yearbooks mention the "W.R.A. store -- goats, sweatshirts, tennis balls..."  That must be our mascot.

When you think about it, the Mountie Goat was an obvious choice of mascot for the intrepid women who had to make the climb from the bus stop on Sunset Boulevard to the college, back in the days when regular shuttles didn't exist and few students had their own cars.

Beyond the 1950s, the little Mountie Goat didn’t catch on. Once the Doheny Campus became part of the MSMU in 1962, the mountain-oriented mascot didn't work for everyone. In the 1980s, when the Mount started promoting competitive sports, Athena was finally adopted as mascot. The Greek embodiment of bold, intelligent woman truly captured the spirit of the school.

On the other hand, mountain goats are known to have that special grit we call {Unstoppable}, and this little critter is pretty cute. Think about mountain goats and our Mountie Goat next time you have to hike from Chalon Road up to the Circle.

Thanksgivings at the Mount

MOUNT STUDENTS HAVE long been a grateful bunch, and the Thanksgiving holiday has always been a major milestone in the academic calendar. Browsing the Mount's literary journals and newspapers of the past 90 years reveals some endearing stories, prayers, poetry and opinions devoted to the annual feast and counting of blessings.

Ann Hall '48.

An echo from almost 70 years ago, barely two years after the end of World War II, still resonates today:

This Thanksgiving the word "vacation" on the college calendar and the sight of the pumpkin and turkey orders on the grocery list tell us that Thanksgiving time is here... We think of the many gifts for which we must remember to give thanks ... for the comforts so many are in need of today... for the one-day cessation of wind that came on the day of the Sepulveda fire... for all the times we prayed and [God] said "Yes" ... for the times we asked "if it's for the best" and [God] said "No" ... and thanks that all the people who said last Thanksgiving, "Another year and we'll be at war again" were wrong.  (Ann Hall '48 in the November, 1947, View)

Shirley Burke '54.

A possibly homesick alumna studying in Lausanne, Switzerland, in 1956 writes back to her modern languages professor Sr. Aline Marie Gerber, CSJ:

 On Thanksgiving Day the Swiss-American Society gave a party for all the American students at one of the local hotels. Each of us was invited to dinner at the home of one of our professors. I received an invitation from my major professor. I hadn't known him too well before, and I was usually terrified by him in class. However, I found him meek as a lamb at home. Now we're good friends. (Shirley Joan Burke '54 in the June, 1956, Inter-Nos.) 

Closer to home, a student in 1975 advises her peers not to gripe so much about cafeteria food in a paragraph titled "A Thanksgiving":

It seems as if it has always been a tradition among student living in college dorms to gripe about the food. But I don't really feel that anyone is justified in complaining about food here at the Mount. Granted, there may be times when the London Broil is under- or overdone, but some college food services would never consider serving steak.... With Thanksgiving here, I think that it is important for everyone to realize just how fortunate we are. Some people are not so lucky. (J.C., November, 1975, View)

In the fitness-minded 1990s, students were thankful for the opportunity to lose a few pounds after the holiday. Camille Maldonado '96 (?) , writing in the December, 1995, Oracle, mentions the Monday-After-Thanksgiving "Turkey Trot," which draws 25 students and staff who opt to exercise off some of the mashed potatoes and pumpkin pie.

Sister Ignatia Cordis, CSJ.

The astonishing historical tidbit that the Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet raised turkeys comes to us from Helen McCarter, writing when the Mount was lodged at St. Mary's Academy.  Her short article "Gobblers Start for College Girls" in the November, 1929, Inter-Nos describes a drawing class during which the professor, Sister Ignatia Cordis, CSJ (1887-1986), threw a fit because none of her students knew what the head of a turkey looked like. Apparently they were familiar only with the headless, roasted kind and produced drawings of "buffalo heads, mustaches, drooping eyelashes, etc." Not deterred, Sister took the class over to research the community's turkey pen, after which students completed their assignment.

Finally, we are personally thankful for "E.E." writing in the View in November, 1962. "This year," she opines, "it seems especially fitting that we include the library in our thanksgiving."  Yes, indeed, there is much to give thanks for at MSMU.

Classic musing on an all-American holiday tradition, View, November 1946..

Would you like to browse the journals, newspapers, and yearbooks? Just click here and start reading.

Students and patriotism, 1930

Agnes Donnelly, Rosemarie Arena, Miss Weiling (faculty), Elizabeth Francis, 
Miss Gaines (faculty), Nance Graves, Catherine Kelly, Marion Kennedy.

THE 1930 EDITION OF LIGHTNING, the yearbook of St. Mary's Academy, includes a stirring essay addressed to the "Youth of America" to embrace the ideals of the Founding Fathers of the United States of America as enshrined in the Constitution.

St. Mary's Academy, founded by the Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet in 1888, is the "mother school" of Mount Saint Mary's University. From its start in 1925 until Brady Hall was built in 1930, the new Mount St. Mary's College "lived" at St. Mary's Academy, and most or all of the inaugural MSMC class of 1929 had attended SMA for high school and even elementary school.

Here's an extract of the essay, written by senior Marion Kennedy. It could have been written today.

The United States today is confronted with many serious and complicated problems. Revolutionary doctrines are destroying established order. Injustice exists, political reforms are needed.

On the eve of the Great Depression, it's remarkable that 17- or 18-year-old Marion was very much aware of the economic threat to the country. Even more, she recognized the importance of thinking like a leader. (Note: the gendered language is original):

Let it be our endeavor, O Youth of America, to emulate the selfless men who devoted their lives to the betterment of mankind. If unselfish devotion to the principles of the American Constitution wholly grips the youth of today we shall develop the spirit with which our Leaders of tomorrow will be fired, bringing genius and power to solve the great industrial and economic problems of the future.

To read the whole essay, please visit the page on our Internet Archive repository at http://bit.ly/1IvQyMi.

On this Fourth of July weekend, we're impressed and a bit awed by the careful argument wrought by young Marion in her essay. Equally impressive is her vision of leadership and call to personal involvement in the issues of the day.

In other words, {MSMUnstoppable}!

Toga! Toga!

The Mount's serious Latin club, circa 1942. For a toga party,
it doesn't look like anyone is having much fun.

IN THIS LAST WEEK of the 2014-2015 academic year, Mount students are too busy studying and worrying about finals next week to throw toga parties (we think so, anyway).

The photo above is a group shot taken in the early 1940s (?) in Brady Hall, but this isn't your mom and dad's Animal House toga party. Instead of dorm sheets, these Mounties are wearing formal senatorial togas, probably trimmed in purple, and four are in gowns that wealthy Roman matrons would wear.

The solemn faces may be due to the fact that this is Taedifer, the Mount's Classical Language Club. If you have trouble imagining a social club for girls studying Latin and Greek, think again. Two full years of Latin were required of every Mount student doing lower-division work (freshmen and sophomores), and if you were studying what was called Classics, you'd be reading Greek, too. In fact, Latin was offered as a major through the 1960s. After that, interest dwindled.

Here's an excerpt from Inter-Nos in 1934 when the group was formed that gives us an idea of what their meetings were like (emphasis ours):

Its interest will center about the cultural elements, such as the discussion of Roman life, history, and customs, familiarity with which should be a part of the mental store of all students of Latin. Papers will be read and discussed at each meeting, and nothing will be left undone to create an atmosphere of ancient Rome as a background for the study of its language.

If this is what they did for fun, we wonder what they did when they were being really serious.

The information on the back of the picture says it is a "dramatic group," so they were probably putting on a play. It might well have been performed in Latin, because all of the faculty and most of the students would know at least a smattering.

We know from other evidence in the University Archives that Latin was pretty much ubiquitous at the Mount. Students wrote essays for publication in Latin and held an annual Latin festival for local high school students, conducted entirely in Latin, including the Pledge of Allegiance.

Sacramentum dicoilli vexillocivitatum foederatarum americaeet illi reipublicaequam significat,uni nationi,sub Deo,indivisibili,libertatem et justitiam praestanti omnibus.

In 1963, the Mount's first-ever basketball team made it to the statewide tournament, finishing fourth, largely on the ability to confuse opponents by calling signals in Latin.

As their sign indicates, the club was founded in 1934 and was in existence at least until the 1950s. Taedifer is Latin for torch-bearer, and the club's motto, "Latina Vivat," means Latin lives, long live Latin, or something like that.

Toga! Toga! Latina Vivat -- at least in the MSMU Libraries. The Coe and McCarthy libraries still have scores of books in the stacks printed completely in the classical tongue, remnants of the days when everybody studied it.

For lawyers, doctors, and members of choirs, Latin definitely vivat. And who knows? A little Latin might come in handy on the basketball court or soccer field.

Almost 90 Years of Going Green

Seniors host MSMU's President at a St. Patrick's Day luncheon in 2013.

ST. PATRICK'S DAY has been celebrated at the Mount for as long as there has been a Mount, the day when everybody gets to be Irish and Going Green isn't about the environment.

A clipping from March 8,
1955, announces the upcoming
St. Patrick's Day fun.

The Mount community in its early decades was still only a generation or two from the Old Country. Many of the Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet and members of the faculty were the children and grandchildren of immigrants, and more than a few were actually born in Ireland, part of the great wave of immigration of the early 20th Century.

In the 1940s and 1950s the freshman and sophomore classes hosted an annual college-wide St. Patrick's Day party, a fundraiser for various good causes. (Where Catholics and party are involved, there is always a fundraiser.)

The day typically started at 7 a.m. with Mass in Mary Chapel (mandatory) sponsored by the Sodality of Mary, followed by a bacon-and-egg breakfast for 75 cents (about $6.50 today). Sometimes the food was dyed green, of course, and entertainment was always provided by students in the form of Irish songs and dances. Sometimes a program was put on in Hannon Theater – music, a lecture, a movie or a play.

In more recent years, students of all backgrounds celebrate "Kiss Me, I'm Irish" with buttons, banners, and more green food and beverages.

In 2013, the Senior Class kept up the tradition with a St. Patrick's Day luncheon to mark the kickoff of the Senior Gift program. The students hosted guest of honor President Ann McElaney-Johnson.

So enjoy the wearing' o' the green today, knowing we are carrying on a grand old tradition at MSMU.

Mary Chapel is full of students in academic garb for the celebration of
Mass for St. Patrick's Day on March 17, 1947. Breakfast followed.

Measles and the Mount: Some history

The Red Cross thanks the Mount for contributing to the nation's supply
of gamma globulin, a key weapon against various epidemics in the 1950s.
(From The View, Feb. 16, 1954.)

BEING OF A CERTAIN AGE, we remember the measles epidemics of our childhood in the years before the vaccination was developed. Make no mistake – it was an awful illness, resulting (at least) in missing days or weeks of school, lying in a darkened room (to avoid eye damage), fevers, aches, misery.

Not much rash yet, but those watery
eyes are characteristic of rubeola.

With the current – and completely avoidable – epidemic raging around Southern California, we thought we'd look through the archives for outbreaks past. Not surprisingly, the Mount was not spared, even up at remote, inaccessible Chalon in the 1950s. Most students had little brothers and sisters, so measles in those days was considered almost unavoidable.

Thanks to the long, honorable tradition of excellence in the health sciences, Mount students turned out in droves to donate to Red Cross blood drives. So when an epidemic of rubeola (sometimes known as the "hard measles") hit the United States in 1954, Mounties stepped up to help. A cartoon from The View on February 16, 1954, from the Red Cross commends the contributions of blood that went into the making of "G.G.," gamma globulin, the standard response at the time. As we recall, the G.G. shots could be quite painful, but they were thought to prevent or slow the rate of infection and acted as a shield against secondary illnesses like meningitis.

Mount victims of the
1957 epidemic.

Still, childhood diseases like measles were a fact of life in the 1950s and 1960s. A humorous notice of an outbreak appears in The View of March 20, 1957, wondering who was responsible for spreading the disease on campus. Three students are mentioned as having been infected. Presumably they packed hastily and were sent right home to wait out the two- or three-week cycle, and undoubtedly more than one classmate lined up for their G.G. shots.

In the following decade, a list in The View of memories by the Class of '67 (May 11, 1967) includes a mention of one poor student (Linda Robson) who came down with the measles the night before the annual Fleur de Lis Ball. We hope she didn't spread it around.

Measles also warrants a couple of mentions in the Mount's literary journals Inter-Nos and Westwords, where characters in short stories encounter an outbreak (Go to our repository at http://bit.ly/TxaMvC and type in "measles" to see a range of mentions over the years.)

The measles vaccine was introduced in 1963 and in the following years it disappears from the Mount. The current outbreak, however, has revealed the huge numbers of people who were not vaccinated as children and now at risk for exposure. Mount students are required to be vaccinated, but we can't be too careful with this nasty disease.

Our fine team of professionals at MSMU Health Services is sending out regular updates and keeping ahead of any possible problems. Tell your friends and family to get their shots and stay well!

Extra, extra! Read all about it

Younger siblings of Mount students help out with the SWES toy drive in 1954.

WE HAD OCCASION TO BROWSE the digitized editions of the long-running The View campus paper earlier this week and wondered what Mount journalists were writing about in back in the day. Pretty typical stuff, it turns out. In some ways, student life doesn't change a lot decade to decade.

Fifty and 60 years ago there were Christmas parties and fundraisers, event planning for the New Year and looking forward to Winter Break (or Christmas Vacation, as it was called). Here are some choice tidbits from yesteryear:

Sixty years ago - December 1954

• Costume dance party is planned for Jan. 5 by the Gamma Sigma Pi sorority. The locale is "Hernando's Hideaway" at Sepulveda and Slauson boulevards in Westchester, and the theme is "Hard Times." Dance music by the Johnny Delfino Band.
• The Student Councils of Mount St. Mary's, Immaculate Heart College and Marymount share a holiday dessert party on the Marymount Campus in Palos Verdes. 
• The SWES (Social Work, Economics and Sociology) Club holds a toy drive for underprivileged children. The main event is the special delivery of toys by little brothers and sisters of the club members
• The Parnassians literary club and Sodality of Mary Literature Committee hold an annual Christmas book sale. Bestselling titles are Little World of Don Camillo, The Second Conquest, Deliverance of Sister Cecilia, and Holding the Stirrup.
• A front-page editorial urges student to be more respectful of each other in the New Year.
• Two full pages are dedicated to student poetry about Christmas. Another page is given over to coverage of club Christmas parties. 
• "Personalities of the Month" are the three Bondan sisters, senior Anne, junior  Kathy and frosh Jo.
• Christmas Vacation begins on Friday, Dec. 17, 1954, at exactly 4;25 p.m. Classes resume on the dot at 8:30 a.m., Monday, Jan 3, 1955.

Fifty years ago - December 1964

• An article discusses the slow start of the new national program VISTA (Volunteers In Service to America), the domestic version of the Peace Corps.
• To help alleviate a citywide shortage, four Mount students sign on as substitute teachers in L.A. public schools, part of a pilot program to put student teachers in real classrooms. The article notes that they earn the same pay rates as credentialed substitutes.
• Sister Dolores Cecile Schembri, CSJ, of the Music faculty will give a piano concert.
• Volunteers are need for a trip to bring medical and other supplies to poor parish in Tijuana. 
• An article provides in-depth details on Christmas planning in Doheny Hall (the Mansion, then a CSJ convent). The results of the annual CSJ "cookie-baking spree" will be shared with the neighborhood. Sister Mary Irene Flanagan of the Home Economics Department plans an all-white flocked Christmas tree with gold ornaments, while banisters of the Grand Staircase will be festooned with silver garlands and red ornaments. Midnight Mass will be held in the third-floor chapel. 
• Popular book author and illustrator Leo Politi is the guest of honor at a Las Posadas celebration sponsored by the student members of the California Teachers Assn. 
• Nationally renowned artist Sister Mary Corita Kent, IHM, is to give a presentation on her famous serigraphs.
• No. 17 will finally available for classroom space in the spring semester following the death the previous June of Dr. Rufus von Klein Smid, former USC chancellor and a Chester Place resident for 30 years,

Old newspapers are fun to look at, and the Mount Archives has lots of them! Fortunately, they're all available online. Just head over to http://bit.ly/16SHydt. Happy browsing!

Getting involved in the Eighties

WORKERS ARE SETTING UP in the Circle for the Involvement Fair today, where students can find out more about the Mount's 30 clubs and organizations, from the Accounting Association to WISH (Women In Science and Health).

Associated Student Body logo
in the early 1980s.

The names may change but many activities are unchanging from one decade to the next. Others fall out of fashion, like the campus newspaper.

Here's a look at the involvement opportunities 30 years ago, in the 1984-1985 academic year, as listed in the Student Handbook:

• COPUS - Coalition of Private University Students 
• Amistad Hispanica (Spanish interest club)
• Black Student Union
• Business Student Advisory Council
• Deltas (Doheny Service Organization)
• Fleur de Lis Ball committee
• Grad Ball committee
• Health Advocates
• International Students Organization
• Kappa Delta Chi sorority
• Los Angeles Collegiate Council
• Model United Nations
• Mount Chorus/Mount Singers
• Mount Christian Fellowship
• Phi Gamma Nu (business sorority)
• Physical Therapy Club
• Resident Assistants
• Sigma Delta Pi (National Hispanic Society)
• Ski Club
• Student Nurses Association of California (SNAC)
• Spring Sing committee
• Student Orientation Service
• UCLA Student Committee on the Arts
• The View (newspaper)
• Women's Leadership
• Yearbook

Another way to get involved was the fitness parcourse in the west cloister.

Green Week

Mount freshmen sing a goofy song for a couple of upperclasswomen
circa 1960 during Green Week. They're wearing their official "dinks."

THE MOUNT IS WRAPPING UP Welcome Week, the annual series of events that orient incoming students to life at Chalon and Doheny. Besides the fun and games, Welcome Week comprises a set of rituals that have been going on for a long, long time. Some things don’t change, like introductions to residence life and information about various clubs and activities. And food, parties, and movies.

But some things do. Like… free cigarettes.

We'll get to those in a moment.

"Green Week," as it was known during the 1950s and 1960s, was organized during the previous year by the sophomore class. More than just information, Green Week provided a true initiation to Mount life. Here’s what the schedule looked like for the week of September 22, 1952:

• Monday - Introduction to Student Government 
• Tuesday - Lectures by seniors on "Student and Personal Responsibility" followed by a fashion show featuring the proper attire for classes, dances and around the dorm
• Wednesday - Talks on grading systems, rules and regulations 
• Thursday - "Frosh Frolics" in the afternoon followed by a movie and mixer evening with freshmen from Loyola University 

"Frosh Frolics," sometimes known as "Freshman Follies," was an annual variety show written, produced, and performed by the incoming freshmen. The purpose was to acquaint the boarders with the day hops, or as we would call them today, resident students and commuters.

A Lucky Strike "prom date" ad from 1952.

In 1952 the "Frolics" theme was "Video Varieties" featuring send-ups of the TV shows of the day (remember, this was the era of "I Love Lucy"). Also on the program were four students doing the Charleston for a "Roaring 20s" number, background music by a newly formed freshman jazz band, a dance performance by the Mount’s Hawaiian students, a skit called "Rocket MSMC" spoofing the harrowing drive up Bundy and Chalon, all interspersed with comedy commercials -- including Lucky Strike cigarettes.

Cigarettes seemed to abound during Green Week. Did the tobacco companies send free samples? Freshmen were required to provide cigarettes for all the faculty and upperclasswomen (juniors and seniors) who asked for them. In fact, smoking was quite popular in those days, with plenty of ashtrays in the student and faculty lounges.

For the non-smokers, freshmen handed out candy bars and lollipops.

Frosh "Mounties" also had to wear their official purple-and-gold "dinks" (beanies) and to perform silly songs on demand. Upperclasswomen could also demand spontaneous military-style marching drills in the Circle. It was a wacky week.

Mount "freshies" were included in other schools' activities. The all-male Loyola U. – the Mount’s “brother” school – hosted an annual freshmen-only picnic for incoming students at the Mount and other Catholic colleges, Immaculate Heart and Marymount.  For a weekend “mixer” at the Mount in late September – swimming party and sock hop for resident students – the Green Week planners invited members of more than sixty fraternities from among local colleges and universities.

Then as now, the fun eventually comes to an end. Classes started up in earnest the following Monday and everyone got down to the hard work of reading, papers and tests. And the sophomores started plotting next year’s Green Week.

If you’d like to know more about life at the Mount over the last 89 years, please browse our online collections of campus newspapers, yearbooks and photos.

Pledging TAZ, 1964

A Tau Alpha Zeta pledge paddle from the MSMC College Archives.
Its owner, Jitterbug, is unknown, but we wonder if it once belonged to
TAZ alumna  Helen Connelly '47, the student body president
(1946-47) famous for her awesome jitterbugging.

STUDENTS PLEDGING TAU ALPHA ZETA sorority in the spring semester of the 1963-64 academic year were in for a challenge.

TAZ, as it was known, was one of the oldest and largest sororities at MSMC, predating even the Chalon Campus opening in 1930. It was active for more than 40 years. Members were known for their look-alike sheath dresses.

We found a document in the sorority files from February, 1964, letting the pledges know what to do and how to behave.  Some of the requirements are pretty old school -- smoking rules, housedresses and bermuda shorts -- and others would probably be considered hazing today: paddles and Hell Night.

PLEDGE RULES

• Memorize sorority songs.
• Know Greek alphabet perfectly.
• Make a notebook for weekly signatures of each active [member], with separate section for merits, demerits, and activity points; keep always with you.
• Make a green painted paddle with TAZ inscribed in gold, and pledge name on the reverse side; keep always with you.
• Make an alphabetical address book of active members with pledges in back.
• Give actives a seven-course dinner during pledgeship.
• Call actives "Miss".
• Be courteous to actives at all times.
• Stand when actives enter the room.
• Eat lunch with your Big Sister once a week (find out when it's convenient for her).
• Attend all meetings
• Wear old housedresses to meetings.
• Wear no make-up to meetings.
• Wear pledge pin over heart at all times.
• Wear no other pin but pledge pin.
• Answer to pledge name and correct members on this matter.
• Meet pledge mistress at the appointed times.
• Maintain at least a "C" average.
• Pledge pins must not be worn with bermudas, etc., formals, or on pockets.
• No smoking in presence of actives unless you have their permission.
• Have your formal picture taken before Hell Night.
• Enter Spring Sing as the United TAZ pledge class.
• Attend the TAZ charity.
• Write a letter to Miss Pat Kirk.

We're sure TAZ alumna Pat Kirk '63 appreciated getting the letters. She had just joined the newly created Peace Corps and was stationed in Liberia.

TAZ members in spring of 1963. A year later they'd receive the
homage of the 1964 pledge class.

Missing a lion?

The birthday girl, center, with her purloined mascot. (Mount Archives)

ALL THE THANKSGIVING FOOTBALL CLASSICS last week got us thinking about sports and mascots, and the time the Loyola Lion made an unauthorized appearance at the birthday party of a Mount sophomore.

Mount memorabilia belonging to the late Margaret "Pegi" Parkinson '53, who passed away in 2012, recently came to the Archives. 

In among the letters and drama programs was this April 1951 newspaper photo showing Pegi at the center of some collegiate friends trying to pin a couple of corsages onto the mane of a life-sized lion mannequin. 

The picture accompanies a clipping from the Social Notes column of the weekly La Canada-Flintridge Ledger. It describes how 50 of her closest friends helped Peggy celebrate her birthday April 23, 1951, at a surprise party at her parents' home. The papier-mache lion, which had recently gone missing after a pep rally at Loyola, had been spotted in the back seat of Peggy's yellow convertible as she roared around Brentwood and nearby communities. At the party, the Loyola Lion was returned to his rightful owners, but as a substitute the Loyola sophomores pitched in and gave Peggy a 3-foot stuffed version.

The partygoers in the picture are identified, from left, as Ellen Farmer,  Dick Sulik, Joe Kamoda, Peggy, Frank Tarrentino and Mount student Dawnie Cobb (Dolores Cobb Berry '52). In the lion's jaws is Joan Odiorne. The three men were all sophomore members of Loyola's football squad.

Postscript: The spring of 1951 was a big year for pranks involving animal statues.  Just weeks before, a giant plaster Easter Bunny showed up in the Circle, with credit apparently due to a Loyola fraternity. Maybe the lion's disappearance was payback time? 

Department of Security, 1931

Tige, the Mount's first dog, keeping an eye on the tennis courts.

WE'RE PROUD OF OUR SECURITY OFFICERS at the Mount, who keep their watchful eyes on us and our beautiful campuses. We thought for today's blog (it being #ThrowbackThursday) we'd look back at MSMC guards in history. Today's folks, after all, are standing on the shoulders of giants.

Well, giant dogs, anyway.

When the College moved from St. Mary's Academy to the new Chalon site -- a lonely outpost on a mountaintop -- the Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet decided they needed a watchdog. Thus began a long and faithful tradition that continued for more than 50 years.

The story of the first dog is too good to miss, so we are reproducing Sister M. Germaine McNeil's rendition from her History of Mount St. Mary's College, Los Angeles, 1925-1975 (New York: Vantage Press, 1985, 425).

The first and most intelligent in the long succession of Mount canines was Tige, a huge blue currier, given as a watchdog by a friend of Sister Winifred Riecker and Sister Celestine Quinn  [Music faculty -- Ed. note] soon after the college moved to its Chalon Campus in the spring of 1931.

Tige was a gentle and obedient dog, trained by his former mistress to obey commands in French and German. Sister Winifred fed him on a diet of toast and pancakes, which he quickly learned to supplement by catching quail. Sister prepared a bed for Tige in the passageway leading to the engine room [Brady basement -- Ed. note] and tucked him in nightly with an old blanket. The dog would remain until Sister left, then lope across campus trailing his blanket caught in his collar. If he thought something was being concealed from him he would open a drawer or a door-latch with his nose to satisfy his curiosity.

Tige with a friend, possibly Buzzy, who arrived
a few years after Tige and left in a hurry.

Tige was hostile to strangers but did not bite. Instead, he would firmly grasp their upper arm in his teeth and conduct them out to the road off the campus. 

The students were Tige's special friends. He chaperoned them on their hikes in the hills and accompanied them on their walks into Westwood. In this latter instance, he became an embarrassment because he would chase every motorcycle he saw. When the girls wanted to leave campus without Tige, they would lock him in the elevator [in Brady Hall -- Ed. note]. Then, of course, the dog would bark until he was released. 

Tige's coat was so thick and heavy that it was usually clipped in summer to make him more comfortable. He was so ashamed, however, of being deprived of his coat that he would hide for several days in the thick brush of the hillsides.

He faithfully attended Father Vaughan's classes in the Lecture Hall [now Brady lounge -- Ed. note], where he slept in the rear on the flat of his back with his legs up against the wall.

Sister Germaine's dog tales warrant a couple more blogs if we can locate more photos. When she finished her history in 1985, the Mount still had a four-legged security team -- although the two-legged variety had supplemented the department for decades. We'll tell you about the last two, Zac & Zelda, in a future post.

Thanks to all our Security team members for their hard work and keeping up a venerable tradition.

Off the hill and into 'jail'

Student Body President Vincie
Ginevra, front and center, with other
Class of 1945 members (front) L-R, Helen
Fitzpatrick, Vincie, Phoebe Tours,
Arabella Barnes; (back) Blanche Van
Oort, Mary Albachten and
Margaret Thalken. 

VINCENTIA 'VINCIE' GINEVRA LESKO '45  paid a visit to the Chalon Campus and the College Archives today along with two of her six children, Matt and Stephanie, and Cindy Hizami of the Institutional Advancement office.

We love alumnae visits because we always learn something. Vincie did not disappoint.

A self-described "grumpy old lady" of 93, Mrs. Lesko was anything but. Asked if she could help identify people in photographs from the 1940s, she cheerfully flipped through a stack of pictures while Cindy hastily wrote down names on a sticky note.

Possessed of an impressive memory, Vincie also reminisced about her days at the wartime Mount, when blackout curtains and air raid drills were as much a part of student life as as chapel veils and kitchen raids.

Vincie was student body president her senior year, and like her predecessors during the war years presided over a close-knit class. Stephanie scanned a few of her mother's pictures, including this one of Vincie and a few of her classmates smiling behind bars below a sign reading "Santa Monica Jail." It was just an amusement park, or we're pretty sure they wouldn't look so pleased with themselves.

Slowly but surely, Vincie hiked all the way up the stone steps to Mary Chapel, recalling that it was built while her older sister Beatrice was a Mount student. (She graduated in 1941.) Then we took Vincie to the cafeteria and dined in the same room where she and her classmates ate their meals 70 years ago.

As we were going in, a trio of Mount students looked at us politely but curiously. When it was pointed out to them that Mrs. Lesko used to live in Brady Hall on the third floor near the elevator, they seemed a little shocked.

Yes, this will be you someday, we thought -- and we hope your memories will be as sharp as Vincie's when you look back. And we hope you enjoy your time here as much as she did. Finally, if you wind up in jail we hope it's one at an amusement park.