College of Mount St Vincent - Parapet Yearbook (Bronx, NY)

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exotic creature in scarlet and ermine. I recognized her to be Jeanne Maher, one of America's ten best-dressed women. She was waving a white orchid at me when somebody knocked me to the floor. and everything went black. When I recovered consciousness I found that I had been caught in the path of a group of rapacious reporters, led by Mary Nicholson, who was wearing a formidable press card and several pads and pencils. They were hot on the trail of some elusive creature named Press Relations. I was struggling violently to escape when the group converged on its prey, Mary Cleland. I was rescued in time to witness the noisy arrival of Kay Banfield and Rita Suttlehan, accompanied by twelve assorted greyhounds from Kay's blue ribbon kennels. I was about to cross the lobby to congratulate editor Grace Lyons on her special tribute to Stephen Vincent Benet in her literary review Friday Forecasts of F iciion, when I spied Mary Jane Lawlor and Ruth Morgan bearing down upon me waving blank contract forms for their advertising agency. Knowing they intended to snare my rabbit farm account, I beat a hasty retreat into the nearest phone booth. It was already occupied by a wildly disheveled and inkstained person wearing a green eyeshade and scribbling frantically on the back of an old envelope. This peculiar character was Kay Curtin, leg man for the Kokomo Herald and still trying to make deadlines. I left hurriedly. Wedging myself into the line of patrons entering the theatre, I found myself in the cross fire of a rapid three-way conversation in French, Italian, and Spanish among Marthe Lavallee, B.A., M.A., PhD., Litt.D., recently returned from the Sorbonne, Theresa Laudo, already known for her remarkable translation of the Italian operas, and Dorothy Aloia, who was mixing up all three languages with great ease. Pulling out my pocket-sized dic- tionary, I discovered that they were discussing the merits of thc.educational system of the Fleming-McGrath Cfounded by Helen and Dorothyj School for Select Young Ladies. French prof Vi Schiavo joined the cosmopolitan group as I left in search of an American friend. Nearby, Jeanne LaMothe and Lauretta Balassi were discussing the European situa- tion on which both historians were authorities. Finding that discussion as unintelligible as the foreign languages, I hurried off to my reserved box. I found it already occupied by four other persons, three of whom were male. The fourth was Mary Mallon and her three escorts were the famous Mallon brothers. Borrowing a pair of binoculars, I scanned the press box and in the position of honor I made out the figureof the renowned drama critic, Mary Devereux, who sat with pencil poised and literary criticism notes at her elbow. But I knew that we had nothing to fear this night from that formidable critic. Just then the light dimmed, once, twice. The orchestra leader raised his baton. The audience quieted expectantly. The lights flickered one last time and went out as the music swelled forth and the curtain was raised on the first act. CATHERINE Cvarxx 111

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By that time the plane was hovering over La Guardia. On the ground, we boarded a Comiskey Comfy Cab and headed for Mount Manor, exclusively for Mount patronage occupying the site of a once famous New York weekend rendezvous for Mount boarders. At the hotel we were greeted by one of the owners, Eleanor McNerney, who told us that her partners, Nancy Wortman and Sally Dougherty, Qthey began buying stock in their college daysj, were overseeing preparations for an after-theatre party. Navy wife Betty Coggins Kelley was already registering at the desk with B. Altman exec Pat Reynolds. I rode up in the elevator with matron Peg Dennehy and several smaller editions of the Dennehy red-hair and freckles. Across the hall from my room, Rita Cuddy was trying to sell a pair of her newly designed invisible convex lenses to Peg Feeney, who was washing her hands with twelve different kinds of perfume to rid them of the formaldehyde odor of her biology lab work. I delivered a suspiciously odiferous package of dissection material to bio professor Dot Cancro, who pounced on it eagerly and promised her compatriot Eleanor Keane half, Over in a corner Ruth 0'Brien sat absorbed in Culbertson's latest Tactics for the Bridge Fiend. While we were chatting, gag-writer Maureen O'Brien strolled in to test some of her newest Irish jokes for the Can You Top This? radio program. When our hilarity had subsided, it was time to dress for dinner, and the theatre. My dinner companions were the brilliant mathematician Kay Daly and Fordham Math professors Dr. Catherine Martin and Dr. Nan Herklotz, who were mumbling together about the cosine of Z2-14xy and scrawling unintelligible formulae on the table cloth. I was about to break in upon their calculations when they rushed off exultantly, saying something about calling Einstein. I left a few minutes later to walk to the theatre. I went around a few times in the revolving door with Eileen O'Rourke, who was clutching her model's hat box and wearing one of the creations she has made famous. In search of a little fresh air, I hired one of the hansom cabs of Kay McTague's concession in Central Park. After a relaxing drive, I continued my pedestrian way to the theatre. Almost immediately I found myself in the midst of a picket line of striking secretaries led by enthusiastic Anne Rowan, who left her soapbox long ,enough to point out Therese McMorrow, Theresa Moran, and Jeanne Piazza, bearing placards denouncing employers who dictated more than sixty words a minute. A Leaving them, I stepped into Dot Hanrahan's Everything for Juniornshop where Gemma Boccia was trying to buy a size one sweater with Fordham, Class of '76, on it. Irene Leonard, buyer for the Foundling Hospital, waved hello from over a pile of infant unmen- tionables. Just across the street I noticed Maria Pennisi's famous bookshop and went in to browse around. A large crowd had gathered there to admire a current exhibition of the watercolors of Betty Fitzgerald and Regina Vogt. A second exhibition consisted of a collec- tion of fantastic cloth animals, complete with neon noses, luminous teeth, rolling eyeballs and false hair labelled with the distinctive trademark of Charlie Newell's Nonsense Novelties Company. In one corner, city librarian Agnes Martin was ordering best-sellers for her readers. In another, I bumped into Mil Engels and Mary Niewenhous who had stopped in on their way from their A.A.A. gymnasium for women where back-stroke, breast-stroke, and free style co-champions Monica Scherzinger and Marion Kane had just given an exhibition. We had begun to discuss Rhoda Leary's fifth book on William Make- peace Thackeray entitled My Ten Years With W.M.T. when we realized that curtain time was drawing near. We left together and made our way to the theatre. The brilliantly lighted lobby was a gay and hectic crush of evening gowns and tuxedoes. In the box office I could see C.P.A. Alice Canapary standing behind the ticket-seller, mentally calculating ticket returns. She stopped between 82,568 and 82,569 long enough to explain that she was filling in for an exhausted adding machine. Ogling with the all too evident air of the cornfed farmer, I stumbled into a' jungle-jim of tripods and flash cameras from amid which Jane Skehan and Colleen O'Brien explained that they were covering the opening night for the picture magazine Flash, Colleen as lay-out editor, and Jane as one of the mag's crack photogs. At the moment their cameras were trained upon a phenomenally 110

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