A Puzzler and A Game about Bryn Mawr College and Lucy Lombardi Barber

[updated 4/19/2010, in response to some corrections]
One of the re-occuring patterns in my family that strike others as odd, but actually makes sense if you think about the social spheres in which both my mother's and my father's parents operated, almost sounds like one of those odd puzzles. My mother, my grandmother, and my great grandmother, all went to Bryn Mawr College, but they were not direct descendants. How is this possible, the puzzler asks?

The answer is that my father and my paternal grandfather both married women who went to Bryn Mawr and my paternal great grandmother went to Bryn Mawr. (I went to Haverford rather than Bryn Mawr, a story for a different forum).

Some of you may associate Bryn Mawr with the quote of M. Carey Thomas that "only our failures marry." My distant memory suggest that it is important to read the rest of the text surrounding this quote. As I recall, it was more a statement meant to imply only our failures JUST marry and raise children; others, marry, raise children, and stay active in their profession and their community.

I will focus here on Lucy Lombardi, later Lucy Lombardi Barber, who did marry, but was hardly a failure. She is pictured above with me in 1967.

Lucy Lombardi graduated in 1904. As indicated by the Program from Bryn Mawr from 1905, she came to Bryn Mawr with considerable education first in Portland, Oregon, and then later at Miss. Shipley's Miss Baldwin's School (a prep school across from Bryn Mawr College)


Thanks to some digitization projects we can see what these places looked like:
Here is one of the halls at Bryn Mawr:

As was common in such schools, women published literary magazines. Below is my great-grandmother's take on Tennyson's poem about the old clock:



I like the reference to her Waterbury watch as the new measure of time, but have not had time to trace down the reference. [see comments below for information] Otherwise, literary comments are welcome; she is not around to be sensitive about criticism, and had a good sense of humor so probably welcomed it.

Finally, a little game that others can help me with: One one of the mysteries of the Overrepresented Family is when people first met. Likewise, I am curious about the networks within which my great grandmother was active in. So here's just a raw list from the 1905 Program of people who would overlapped at Bryn Mawr with Lucy Lombardi. If you know who someone is, or have a guess of how that adds to the connection, put it in the comments. All names come from here The Program of 1905:[list is by no means inclusive, indeed it is quixotic]

Helen Adams Wilson, pg. 200
Evelyn Walker, pg. 199
Clara Louise Whipple Wade, pg 198
Alice Goddard Waldo, pg. 198
Eloise Ruthven Tremain, pg. 197
Helen Whithill Turner Flexner, pg. 196
Agnes Maitland Sinclair, pg. 193
Edna Aston Shearer, pg. 192
Elizabeth Shepley Sergeant, pg. 192
Emma Dunwoody Roberts, pg. 189
Marion Reilly, pg. 189
Helen Jackson Raymond, pg. pg. 189
Lucy Rawson, pg. 188
Louis(?) Lyman Peck, pg 187
Marrion Parris, pg. 187
Marion Edwards Park, 187

[oops, bored. Skipping to the A's
Maria Hawes Albee, pg. 152
Alice Anthony, pg. 153
Eleanora Frances Bliss, pg. 156
Elizabeth Middleton Bryan, pg. 158
Mary Wiley Cameron, pg. 159
Amy Lilley Clapp, pg. 169
Katherine Innes Cook, pg. 162.

Some obvious family connections come with
Bertha Havens Putnam, pg. 188
Mary Skerry Rockwell, pg. 190
oops see comments for correction

Correct and comment away!

Lucy G.