Spinning Hollins’ class news from 1898

Above: “Where Singleness is Bliss ‘T is Folly to be Wives,” Hollins Institute’s The Spinster Yearbook, 1898.

Lamar’s cousin Suzie hurled me down this rabbit hole by sharing some transcriptions of letters exchanged between Lamar’s paternal grandmother, Flora; and one of Flora’s sisters, Emily; about another sister, Jennie. The family letters indicate that the youngest sister, Flora, snagged Jennie’s former Boerne, Texas, beau, Radcliffe Spencer (1881-1965), while Jennie was out of state.

Joining the family by my marriage to Lamar in 1975, I only met one of the Johns sisters – Great Aunt Jennie. And, as Jennie and I both attended Hollins in Roanoke, Virginia, a relative shepherded me over to Great Aunt Jennie. Jennie had fond but faint memories of her pre-1900 time there, as she was at least 95 at the time of our introduction. In the midst of an overwhelming family gathering, my presence proved only confusing for her.

The Four Johns sisters from Kendall County, Texas

Above left: Mary Antoinette Johns Dickinson (1880-1962). Right: Jennie Dupuy Johns (1882-1983). Images courtesy of Suzie Sims Hudgens.

Above left: Emily Kusian Johns Kauffman (1889-1971). Right: Flora Houston Johns Spencer (1894-1962). Images courtesy of Suzie Sims Hudgens.

Following Suzie’s emails to me, I discovered decades of yearbooks – The Spinster – were available online. I wanted, but didn’t expect, to find Aunt Jennie to understand how two of the Johns’ girls from rural Texas ended up at what was then called the Hollins Institute.

The Johns girls of Boerne were daughters of Joseph Dupuy Johns (1832-1908), who was born at Aspen Hall in Lunenburg County, Virginia. Serving in the Texas Cavalry during the Civil War, Joseph had migrated westward, but his siblings stayed rooted in Virginia, including his younger sister, Emma.

Above left: Jennie and Mary Antoinette Johns with fashionable coats in preparation for the winter weather of Roanoke. Image from Suzie Hudgens. Right: Aspen Hall, the Johns’ former Virginia home. Image from Ante-Bellum Homes of Lunenburg, Evelyn Ferguson Arvin, 1969.

Emma married a German-born language professor, Auguste Kusian, who was hired by the Hollins Institute. The Kusians had two daughters, Mary Catherine Kusian Kellam (1879-1942) and Anna Louise Kusian Taylor (1887-1913). As the Kusians prepared to enroll their daughters at Hollins, sending Mary Antoniette and Jennie eastward under the Kusians’ watch seemed logical. Hollins accepted younger students back then; Jennie was but 16 and Anna even younger when she began studies there. In the 1900 Census, Jennie was still listed as “at school” and Mary Antoinette “at home.”

Above left: Auguste Theodore Louis Kusian (1840-1920). Image from The Spinster, 1900. Middle: Mary and Anna Kusian; Mary Antoinette and Jennie Johns. Right: Emma Lafavre Johns Kusian (1842-1910). Two images courtesy of Suzie Sims Hudgens.

What was Hollins like when they arrived? Judging from the from the image below, the main quad of the campus appears similar to what I first saw in 1971, aside from the size of the trees. I resided in Main, West and East dorms, all addressing that quadrangle. The clanging of the radiators we endured seemed relics of those early years.

Above: The campus of the Hollins Institute in 1898. The Spinster.

The profile of Tinker Mountain was a familiar landmark. The parlor in Old Main didn’t appear to have undergone much change in decor from 1898 to the 1970s, when the cookies served there drew us to interesting readings. While numerous students boarded their horses on the back campus, carriages were never seen in the 1970s. The parking area for underclassmen with cars was a long hike out past the stables, a walk so frigid in winter we called the lot “Siberia.”

Above left: Tinker Mountain. Center: The parlor in Old Main. Right: President of Hollins Institute, Charles Lewis Cocke (1820-1901). All images from The Spinster, 1898-1900 editions.

Spinster: A person (esp. a woman or girl) who spins wool, flax, cotton, or another textile fibre into thread or yarn, esp. as an occupation…. In legal and official contexts: A woman who has never married; an unmarried woman who is not a widow or a divorcee. Frequently following a name as an indication of marital status…. A woman who has never married and is considered unlikely ever to do so, esp. one who has remained single beyond the typical age for marriage, often stereotypically characterized as prim and fussy or as lonely, childless, and resentful.” 

Excerpt from the 2023 edition of the Oxford English Dictionary

I’d never paid much attention to the name of the yearbook at Hollins, but those young women certainly did. The word spinster was a running joke amongst them throughout the pages. Pictured serving tea to the costumed editorial staff of that first Spinster yearbook in 1898 was Assistant Business Manager, Mary Antoinette.

There were many clubs and organizations; numerous of them purely for camaraderie and amusement. Mary Antoinette and Jenny were among the 18 members of the Texas Club, charged with wearing pretty shoon, even then an archaic word for hats. The Texans’ official yell was “Hoop-la roo! Hoop-la reet! Texas, Texas, Hard to beat!”

Mary Antoniette was Keeper of Mystic Records of E.Q.A., with its motto, Ecce Quam Bonum, in Latin. While that might be the title of the “133rd Psalm,” the social club was not a religious one. Its “Guardian Spirits” were “the powers of darkness, Hollins rats, and all the little imps.” The group was governed by only two by-laws:

I. All members must comport themselves with proper decorum at a meeting of the society, otherwise, a mild form of swearing is allowed. II. Resolved: That the initiation of a new member be celebrated by drinking to her health a brimming goblet of blood-red lemonade.”

The Spinster, 1898

Above left: The Spinster staff, 1898. Right: Texas Club, 1898. Both images from the pages of The Spinster.

The Hollins’ curriculum appears well-rounded and rigorous. Attendees often left the boarding school better educated than the pool of eligible bachelors in their hometowns. They emerged with a degree of sophistication and interests not shared by many of their peers. Were they destined to be spinsters? No. The ones mentioned here all eventually married. Save Jennie, who anticipated Rad Spencer would eventually ask for her hand in marriage.

It’s difficult to piece together what Jennie did after Hollins, but Suzie’s work is of immense assistance. At age 27, Jennie was recorded in the 1910 Census as living on the Kendall County family farm outside Boerne. The transition back to Kendall County, might have been hard. Things were slow. By comparison, Roanoke was a bustling city of 21,000, while Boerne’s population would not climb up to even 1,000 until the 1920s. At some point, she taught school, according to her obituary.

In the summer of 1912, Jennie left for two months to visit her sister, Mary, who lived on Roseland Farm near Burkeville, Virginia, with her husband and two young children. When she returned, Jennie began working in the Boerne office of Malnor Shumard (1890-1964), who had recently married one of Rad’s younger sisters, Roberta Spencer (1893-1983). Jennie wrote that Malnor’s fledgling business was drying up as World War I began, so she found office work at Camp Stanley, where the opposite was true.

After the war, Jennie moved to Washington, D.C. Perhaps she believed her absence would make Rad’s heart grow fonder. Personally, I have trouble envisioning Jennie, now 38, still believed she’d marry the boy back home. After visiting Jennie in Washington, Flora decided to join her. But first, Flora returned to Boerne.

It turned out, the person 39-year-old Rad missed during her time away was 26-year-old Flora. Family letters reveal that, fearing Jennie would view this engagement as a betrayal, Flora was hesitant to break the news to her older sister.

May (Mary Johns Dickinson) forwarded Irene’s (?) letter to me on account of the part about telling Jennie that I was to be married – I hadn’t said anything to her about it for she was always so mum on the subject. I thought she wouldn’t want me to speak of it but I have written her and told her in a matter of act way which I suppose the only sensible thing to do.”

Excerpt from a November 19, 1920, letter from Flora Johns to Emily Johns Kauffman

In one swoop, Jennie lost her potential roommate and her prospective husband. Jennie determined to remain in Washington working, making her living as an independent woman. Kendall County was part of the congressional district that sent Republican Harry M. Wurzbach (1874-1931) to the United States House of Representatives in 1921, and Jennie accepted a job in his Washington office. Wurzbach served in Congress until his death in 1931.

I’m not sure how long Jennie stayed in D.C., but an advertisement in a 1938 issue of The Boerne Star listed her as manager of the Kendall Style Shop, vending “all kinds of ready-to-wear.” Retail, like most ways of earning a living, was not ideal during the Great Depression. The 1940 Census showed her living on her own in Boerne, employed as a clerk in a storehouse of the Works Progress Administration. Her “spinster” lifestyle proved a healthy one for her, as she hit the century mark, outliving her three sisters and Rad.

I certainly could dig deeper for my husband’s family connections to Hollins. The Hornor sisters from Helena, Arkansas, in the 1898 yearbook undoubtedly were related to Lamar’s Helena-born maternal grandfather, Louis Hamilton Hornor (1892-1973). And there were Virginia Cockes lurking somewhere way back in my mother’s family tree.

But I went looking for Great Aunt Jennie, and I’m stopping there. I’m sure that Suzie has fleshed out more that I’m hoping she will add.

The two Brennan sisters from Virginia Beach, Virginia, who graduated from Hollins College

Above left: Susan Conway Brennan (then Poole), Class of 1970. Following in her footsteps, or tire tracks back and forth on 81 between Roanoke and Lexington in a 1963 Pontiac, Gayle Virginia Brennan (now Spencer), Class of 1975. Images from The Spinster, 1970 and 1975.

A Girl Graduate
Her lessons o’er, her golden honors won,
The college home, in leaving, grows more dear,
Her feet are turned forever from its door,
She goes into the future, half in fear
But still in joy; for ‘mid the sadder thoughts
The youthful heart with happy dreams is rife,
For round her, radiant in its golden glow
Lies the fair sunny summer of her life.

– Mary Antoinette Johns, The Spinster, 1900

Guess there are no Class Reporters from the Hollins’ Classes of 1898-1900 with whom to share this.