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Show 54 MADELYN CANNON STEWART SILVER correct preparation. The college girl should become all that the word implies-queen of the home. Madelyn, however, was more interested in the life of the mind. She enrolled in the College of Arts and Sciences and majored in English. Her first year at the university involved more study, less social life, less association with old friends. Some of her friends mar ried; others went on two-year LDS missions; still others enrolled at other universities; some took full-time local jobs. Madelyn was anxious to be accepted on campus. The only national sorority at the University of Utah was Chi Omega, but Madelyn did not receive a bid to join. Disappointed but unde terred, she helped to found Alpha Chi Omega, a sorority that soon "went national." In describing the association she later said that she met wonderful girls and despicable ones. When she joined Alpha Chi she knew only one girl and one pledge. Yet she stalwartly rushed for this group to "the limit of my fiery ability, and then representing it in all school activities."? "My sorority life was the most character-forming of my education," she told her daughter. "I helped to make the sorority and that's a glorious feeling." She was also, as we shall see, a member of many other social and cultural groups. In Madelyn's era the University of Utah consisted of build ings grouped around a semi-circle in the center of which was the Park Building, named after John R. Park, the former teacher hired by Madelyn's grandfather, Isaac Stewart, to teach students in Draper. Park was the first president of the University of Utah. On the upper floors of the Park Building were the library and Law School and some fine arts classrooms. On the main floor the administrative offices. The Utah Chronicle, the school newspaper, was on the ground level, as well as the bookstore were and student lockers. Most of the student socializing was around and on the steps of the Park. In the center of the lower floor was drinking fountain, and a common expression was "Meet me at the fountain." In the semi-circle were the Physical Science building, Liberal Arts, the Museum, and the Industrial Education Building. The campus was small enough that most a |
