Entryways

You are actually standing where the women of GWC entered their campus many years ago!

Although I passed away on December 29th, 1920, I heard the girls talking about building big brick entryways for the spot. And so they did! The classes of 1920 and 1921 built two large brick columns at the east entrance. The columns were each supported by a granite base that contained a steel box. During the commencement session the class presidents placed various class papers and memorabilia in those steel boxes and sealed them like time capsules. At the west entrance, close to where you are now standing, the classes of 1922 and 1923 did the same thing.

By 1947, two more columns were added, between the existing columns. The two new columns were dedicated to Ella May Smith Walker. She was a student and professor at GWC and had married Chief U.S. Naval Service officer, Ernest Brooks Walker in 1920. Her marriage was short-lived, however, as she passed away the following year, just one year after me. Her death came as quite a shock. I was a very old lady when I died; poor Ella May was in the prime of her life.

Furman's Special Collections and Archives opened those steel boxes inside the four columns in 1964. Inside the four steel time capsules were items such as bulletins and student handbooks of GWC, newspaper articles, pamphlets, scripts to plays, commencement invitations, pictures, real and artificial flowers, and lists of the graduating classes.

You can still walk through these columns today, as they've been moved to Furman University, facing the beautiful Swan Lake behind student housing (photographs attached to help you find them!).

Sources Used:

“A Sad Death.” The Abbeville Press and Banner, 4 Apr. 1921.

Judith Townsend Bainbridge, Academy and College: The History of the Woman's College of Furman University. Mercer Univ. Press, 2001.

“Interesting Marriage Announcement.” The Greenville News, 11 Apr. 1920.

Other materials and photographs from Special Collections and Archives at Furman University.