Campus Life

Campus Life will feature "Memories of Notre Dame in the Early Twenties" by Walter C. Houghton '26.

Excerpted from Alumni Newsletter, January 2001. www.nd.edu/~alumnet

Memories of Notre Dame in the Early Twenties
recalled during the summer of 2000

In 1922, when the class of '26 enrolled, the University had 1,799 students. I kept a receipt
for my first year charges. It reads: Tuition, $175; Books etc., $ 23.79; Medical Examination, 50 cents; Lodging, $40. That was for the dormitory-style board in the Main Building. But there
wasn't room to house us and Freshman Hall ($2/ week) and Sophomore Hall were hastily built. (The original Freshman Hall stood at the present site of Breen-Phillips Hall. Sophomore Hall was where Zahm Hall now stands. When Freshman Hall was torn down, Sophomore Hall was re-named Freshman Hall.) We called these the "barracks." Freshman Hall was a long, narrow, two-story wooden structure. There were about 40 rooms with three students to a room. The rector, Father Gassensmith, had his office near the entrance where he could see everyone who entered or left. We had a strict 10 p.m. curfew, but it didn't take long for some students to find a drain pipe at the end of the building that they could climb and get in the building through a window. We went to Badin Hall for meals. It was a pay cafeteria. On pleasant evenings, we would gather on the porch and steps of Sorin Hall to discuss such subjects as the size of the universe, was there a hell and where, etc. It was agreed that you were a success if you attained an income of $10,000 a year. Often we were joined by Father O'Hara (later to become Cardinal John O'Hara) who raised the intellectual level of the discussion dramatically. We admired him and looked forward to his presence.

We would walk along the lake to what was then called Niles Road. Across the road was
Saint Mary's College, and we hoped to see some girls walking on the campus. All we ever saw were grey stone buildings. At a dance at the Hotel Oliver arranged by the University, chairs were set up in the ballroom on one side for the St. Mary's girls and on the other side for us. When the music started, the boys were to cross the floor and ask the girls to dance, under the watchful eyes of the nuns. But the boys rushed over for the prettiest girls, and some of the less attractive girls were left sitting. It was very embarrassing and the idea was abandoned.

We were a football powerhouse with the famous "Four Horsemen," but we had no television or even radio for play-by-play of away games. We wouldn't know whether we won or lost until the extra edition of the South Bend newspaper late Saturday. Then came the "grid-graph," an electric panel that hung from a girder in the fieldhouse. The "grid-graph" showed a diagram of a football field, marked off with 10-yard lines. An electric light representing the ball would move according to the plays, which were received by telegraph. It was exciting and we cheered and groaned accordingly. I went out for the Freshman Hall football team, but on the second day the coach said, "Sonny, I don't want you to get hurt. These guys are just too big for you."

I often went to the practice field to watch Rockne put his players through their paces, including his famous "shift," in which the four backfield players would shift left or right into a box formation, pause one second, and snap the ball before the defense had time to adjust. It was so successful it was outlawed, which hurt their running game and turned football into a passing game. In those days players played both offense and defense. If a player was taken out of a game, he had to wait until the next quarter to return. Rockne would demoralize other teams by substituting 11 men at a time. I've seen him play the second team players for the fIrst quarter and then bring in the fresh first team for the rest of the game.

In my sophomore year I was lucky to have a roommate named Frank Donovan, who was
rated as one of the two best junior tennis players in the country .He was captain of our tennis team and I was just good enough to make the team as a back up. The tennis courts were located between the football practice field and Knute Rockne's office. He was athletic director as well as football coach and he often stopped by to watch and offer words of encouragement.

I barely made the team but he gave me, as well as the others, a blue sweater with a gold ND on it. When I encountered Rockne on the street in New York City about six years after leaving school he said: "Hello, Walter." I didn't know he even knew my name.

In those days it was the fad at Notre Dame to consider ourselves as "he-men," as compared to the "sharpies" who wore bell-bottom pants and went to Northwestern. We wore flannel shirts, corduroy trousers and hobnailed boots. The administration banned the boots in the Main Building lobby because they were tearing up the wood floors.

On the day of the Ku Klux Klan's rally at South Bend, word suddenly spread that they were erecting a burning cross on the campus. Students began pouring from buildings and running to the supposed site, only to find nothing. Many of us decided to go downtown and see what was happening. Klan members were arriving in town. When asked for directions, we took pleasure in sending them the wrong way. We formed a large crowd outside Klan headquarters until the police, mounted on horses, charged through and sent us scurrying.

I vaguely remember playing the piano for $3 a night at a speakeasy on the West Side, which was off-limits to students. But I clearly remember the beautiful music at Sunday Mass in the Basilica.

One of my favorite memories of my later college days was being deeply in love with my future wife, and going to the post office to get three love letters a week.