Greensboro College - Echo Yearbook (Greensboro, NC)

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MRS. LUCY H. ROBERTSON. jft N the canvases of many of the eminent painters a haunting recurrence of W features may be noticed, causing ofttimes the construction of rosy theories and romances of fancy. Leonardo da inci, the most accomplished genius of perhaps all time, was haunted by a face, the features of which he produced as St. Anne, as the Madonna, as Mary Magdalene, even using the same features in his face of St. John, and suggesting the same in the face of Christ. Was it some youthful influence that lingered pleasantly, or was it a striving to express his ideal ? Greensboro Female College girls and Alumnae find themselves in close sympathy with the great artist in this, for there is one face the) carry constantly in mind, and though memory ' s canvases may differ in background and in grouping, in varying chiaroscuro, that one figure holds the central place, increasing in wonder, in queenliness and in perfection as Life and Memory unfold their canvases. That face and influence is the face of Mrs. Lucy II Robertson, I ' resident of Greensboro Female College. When little Lucy Owen was born in Warrenton, North Carolina, one September morning, we hear of no special rainbow that spanned the town, or of any meteor bursting above the home to announce anything unusual. Little did tin happy family dream that this child would stand before the women of North Carolina, a pattern and model of womanhood, of dignity and executive ability. We hope the parents did not express a desire that she might have been a boy; as parents sometimes do. or did in those days: and such wishes were pardonable when ambitious fathers and mothers saw that only through their boys was there hope of future fame and glor) A few years later this family moved to I [illsboro and this hide daughter had tht advantage of the scholarly old Nash and Kollock school. Even here we do not read that the daisies nodded as she passed, or that the brook rippled a sweeter tone as her reflection fell within. Too much in the realm of fairy tales that might seem, yet there are more things in Heaven and Earth than is dreamed of by the average man. and to the pure in heart who see Cod in earth and sea and sky many things stand revealed. Rapidly she passed from one life-lesson to another. Shortly after graduation she married Dr. David A. Robertson, of Hillsboro. then moved to Greensboro to unconsciously endear herself beyond expression to the hearts of the Greensboro people. Her co-workers in the church realized her superiority and when the mission- ary movement among women was inaugurated she was made Vice-President of IS

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MRS. LUCY. II. ROBERTSON.

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the Woman ' s Foreign Missionary Society of the North Carolina Conference, a position which she held till she was, upon the division of the Conference, made President of the Western Society. As a presiding officer she has no peer; her presence, her voice, her intellectual strength, together with her rare magnetism, give her this easy superiority. Two little boys came to hless her married life, assisting in unfolding the great mother-love that would he necessary to preside over and mother a great historic institution such as she now controls. When her great lite sorrow came and her husband was taken away, she was horn into the Educational world, for like all who have the root of true greatness within them she grew greater with each responsibility, and while keeping faith with one beneath the sod she no less lived up to the great responsibility of provider for the boys and the home. Finding teaching congenial, she entered Greensboro Female College in that capacity. Ye old Alumna-, hark back to the days id ' the eighties and unfold that first memory picture! Did any of you study Physics in those days and bud your rather too exuberant spirits curbed into silence as the wonders of nature anil the laws which govern the earth were so clearly presented? Could Sir Isaac Newton have charmed or held your interest more completely? Or was it your essays she revised, or did she open historic treasures to your enthralled mind? If you have followed her thus far do you now wonder how she stands on her present pedestal, the first woman college President in the South? Does one wonder that Joseph became Egypt ' s peerless prime minister after reading the natural events id ' his life ami his faithfulness to the truth within? hues one wonder that Sir Galahad, the youngest of all King Arthur ' s Knights, became the King ' s favorite and the greatest in achievement of all that great round table, when we read of his faithfulness to the vision within? Was it Jeanne d ' Arc ' s silver armor or her white charger that delivered France in her fierce battle, or was it because of faithfulness to the voices? So all Mrs. Robertson ' s pupils learn the lesson that faithfulness to the higher ideals lead surely and rapidly to greater usefulness to all the world. At (he close of fifteen years ' work in Gre ens- boro Female College. Mrs. Robertson accepted a position in the State Normal and Industrial College, filling the chair of History in that great institution for seven years. Seven years of usefulness accomplished, she was recalled to he Lady Principal of Greensboro Female College, then to the Presidency, and at a time when the dear old institution was quivering with terror in the grasp of commercialism; but as Daphne escaped Appollo ' s embrace, s, , Airs. Robertson ' s influence saved Greensboro Female College. A few months later, when the building was crumb- ling, and hut waves of flame were searing the pines of the campus, W as it tears of weakness our I ' resident shed No, rather Rachel weeping for the children of her dreams and refusing to he comforted; hut only fur a season, for her same personal magnetism and power drew about her a strength and sentiment and love that brooked no obstacles: and now see the work of her hands in this new build- 16