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Home Sweet Home

@Mizzou readers share their favorite residence hall memories . . .

I lived in Cramer and then in one of the newer halls (I can't remember which) in 1971-72. I remember three things:

• Almost nightly visits from people asking me if I knew Jesus (I told them he lived down the hall);

• Being a hero because my physician gave me a note saying I needed a refrigerator for medication (we did find some space in there for the little bottle of medicine);

• An explosion at the power plant on campus that blacked out the residence hall and sent people running down the stairs. I remember everybody urging each other on, but as I recall, there was little pushing or shoving and it was fairly orderly. People were close to panicking and the stairs were dark, but they held it together. Being a good journalism student, I headed for the newsroom, although to be honest, I can't remember if I was working with KCCS or KBIA at the time.

— Doug Fenichel

One of my favorite memories occurred during the first week of 2nd semester classes in Jan. 1995. Columbia received a record snowfall and classes were canceled. Tons of students in Hatch and Shurz stole cafeteria trays and huge garbage sacks and went sledding behind the vet school. It was a blast!!

— Tammy Griffiths, '98, Des Moines, IA

My name is Annie Fischer Best. I live in Leawood, KS. My oldest daughter, Madeline, is a senior majoring in Finance at MU, and my youngest daughter is a freshman, looking to get into Nursing School. I lived in Schurz Hall in the 1974-75 school year, and cherish a photo of my late father and me in front of the Schurz Hall marker over the entry. Imagine how sentimental I was when Madeline's dormitory assignment twenty-five years later placed her in Schurz Hall, and I was able to recreate my father-daughter photo with her father, my husband Michael, who also graduated from the University of Missouri in 1978. Thanks for the opportunity to share this memory!

— Annie Fischer Best

One of my fondest memories is skipping class to watch Days of Our Lives with all the girls from the second floor of Schurz (especially on rainy days when we couldn't bear to make the endless hike back to campus.) Also getting ready to go out on the town (usually to the Blue Note since we weren't old enough to hit the bars.) We would crank the tunes and go from room to room trying on clothes and getting opinions on our outfits. When we finally rolled in after a night of dancing, we'd hit the number for Imos or Papa Johns on our speed dial.

— Jennifer Bolton, BJ '98

My roommate Claudia and I lived in Gillett Hall in the fall of 1968. It was a beautiful Sunday afternoon in October, when I was "buzzed." I went down to see who it was and it was BRAD! I had the biggest crush on him and he was inviting me to go for a walk and get some ice cream. Little did I know that Claudia had followed me down stairs and was up to "no good." I went back up to the room, jumping around, changing my clothes and saying how this was the "greatest day of my life!" As I was putting the finishing touches to my lipstick, out walked Brad from Claudia's closet. (The whole dorm floor was outside the room laughing.) She had snuck him up the stairs while I had waited for the elevator. I can't remember what kind of ice cream I ate, but when Claudia and I talk on the phone, we ALWAYS talk about the day she snuck Brad upstairs in the Dorm.

— Nancy Sigoloff Taback, BS RPA '72

My freshman year (1963-64) I lived in a quad-room in Johnston Hall, considered even then to be older than the Columns! Two of my roommates were worldly wise Kansas Citians, one was Columbia born and raised and I was a farm-girl from north of Kansas City. While the two from Kansas City had attended the same high school and chosen each other for roommates, none of us knew each other all that well. The four of us arrived the week before fall semester began and went through rush. Three of us pledged and two of us made it past our freshman year. One of us who pledged seemed to be working toward an MRS. and the girl who did not pledge appeared to be majoring in ZZZs; my roommates who worked on these deviant degrees did not return as sophomores, one married and the other flunked out. You can guess which one of us flunked out. Most mornings three of us dragged ourselves out of bed and braved the elements as we walked to class. Our sleepy fourth roommate imitated a log, her slender form barely visible beneath the coverlet. Princes who might have awakened our sleeping roommate were not allowed upstairs back then, so she slept away the entire year.

Our resident assistant was a physics major who studied with her windows open and her bare feet braced on a window sill. Although I was sure she would die of pneumonia, I don't recall her ever having a cold. While she was into physics she wasn't into alarm clock services.

I managed to graduate with my BA in 1967 and returned twenty-seven years later for a PhD in English Education in 1994 and my memories of my quad in Johnston Hall are frequently re-awakened.

— Minta Hash Napier

I am one of the charter resident members of Defoe Hall. Went there the fall of 1940 when it opened and lived there on the first floor room next to the northern entry way until it was closed for the use of the NAVY (I believe) in the fall of 1942. The group during those two years was largely the same people with a few changes to fill in departures. This was while there were penny postcards and three-cent letters.

During the departure in the spring of 1941, someone broke one of the windows in the door on one of the basement floor doors. It was never known who was responsible. So during the summer all of the old residents who would be returning each received a letter sent with a three-cent stamp. The enclosed document dunned each of us two cents for the cost of repairing the door. The system had spent three cents plus administrative costs to collect two cents from each of us. For many of us that was our first exposure to governmental management of our money.

— Sidney R. Morrow

In the early 1980s Mizzou's on-campus dorms were full so the University leased space at Stephen's College. We lived on the top floor of Smith Hall on Walnut St. On warm spring days in 1981 we would plug together everyone's extension cords, go up to the roof, drop the cord over the side of the building, run it into our window and plug it in. Then we would go up on the roof with a T.V. and watch General Hospital while working on our tans.

— Beth Dickhaus, AB '84

During the infamous "Panty Raid" era in the 1950s, drills were held in the women's dorms so that we would be prepared in case of a raid. As I recall, my job at Gentry Hall was to help "man" a fire hose to defend the dorm in case of attack! It was all quite exciting but, much to our dismay, we were never called into action.

— Judith Paulton Siska, BJ '56

Practical jokes abounded and when the mirrors were removed from the individual rooms and placed in the windows to reflect into the next dorm; things escalated into one of the largest shaving cream fights and grafitti mess you had ever seen. The Assistant Director of Housing Don Graham ordered the residents to clean up the mess. So they scrubbed the walls and floors and then took the fire hose from the wall cabinet to rinse it down. Needless to say, there was a minor flood in the basement. The next year some of the so-called ringleaders were placed in separate residence halls. The leadership was extremely creative and are now attorneys, doctors, and businessmen. Another memory from the early 60's was a massive snowball fight between the Independents and Greeks on what was Rollins Field. It began on one night and was continued the next with the Greeks bringing reinforcements that aroused the dormies, who turned out in mass and pelted the Greeks back across Rollins. The Campus Police arrived and broke it up as they thought it would become a major riot back in those days. Early skateboarding became a fashion and it was a challenge to ride a board from the hill behind Graham Hall down the walk and take the precipice adjacent to the steps and shoot down onto the sidewalk in the direction of the Commons. Fortunately, there were no broken bones, but lots of bruises and some daring speed down the incline. There are many fond memories of dorm living and shared fun; and lots of practical jokes on residents. I believe the residents of Hyde House earned a well-deserved nickname — OUTLAWS.

— Russell Stokes

I could say so many things, because I have so many wonderful memories of living in Lathrop Hall (521) for all four years at Mizzou ('66-'70). Phone duty, quiet hours, candlelit holiday dinners in the dining hall, dressing up for Sunday dinner, "Man on floor!", birthday cold showers, etc. One highlight is being director of the Spring Sing group from Lathrop. We almost won!! Call me a fuddy-duddy, but I still think it's a good idea to have single-sex dorms with strict visiting hours. (By the way, I still know the combination to my mailbox!)

Go Mizzou!
— Linda Gillum Breck

I helped open the cafeteria at Johnston Hall in the fall of either l948 or l949. The dorm was added at a later date. We had a lot of fun working there.

— Earl Brown, ‘53

The Saturday night before I started classes my freshman year I had been out at a Fraternity party. Two girlfriends walked me to the door of my hall. A strange guy was there with a key card in hand, but was too drunk to figure out how to use it. I asked him very politely (fearing he may be someone with negative intentions) if he lived there. He rudely barked back at me, "Of course I live here! Why else would I be standing here!" He seemed harmless enough so I let him in. At the steps, while I was running up and he was running down, I called out, "Hi, my name is Jen." He bellowed back, "Hey, I'm Ted the Drunk." I thought to myself, "I'm looking for a nice Jewish boy, and I'll end up marrying this guy." Two weeks later we met again, five years later we got married, two years later we had our first child, and at this year's Homecoming she and her sister had their picture taken at Cramer Hall's back entrance.

— Jennifer Houser

Freshmen year, Jones Hall, 1973-74 . . . a golden year of memories . . . a wild decision to have a formal dinner in the dining hall . . . about 20 girls put on formals, brought sheets for tablecloths, took our food off the trays, and had a formal dinner . . . one dormie, DiDi, refused to dress up so she wore her one piece gas monkey jumpsuit and was the "Garcon". . . aww, if those dorm walls could talk!

— Paula Donoho

The dorm (Graham Hall) was vacant for the 1960 Christmas vacation except for some athletes who remained on campus. Jim Lockett and Terry Turlington had a room on the first floor. They had gone to lunch. While they were gone, a daring two-some, lifted a telephone pole from the parking lot outside Graham Hall, stuck it through their bedroom window (across both of their beds). This strange sight greeted them upon their arrival at their room. The perpetrators of this highly planned event were never discovered and remain to this day one of the mysteries of the MU mystique.

— Charlie Henke, MU Basketball 1957-1961
(A resident of Graham Hall along with
his roommate, the Honorable L. Joe Scott)!

I am an MU grad and lived in both Johnston (my freshman year) and Gillett Hall (for sophomore year). I graduated from MU in 1979. Soon I become part of a rowdier crowd of girlfriends. We prided ourselves as being sisters from 6th floor Gillett. One morning, I am taking my shower, with numerous girls from the floor in the bathroom, all lined up and waiting, when we all hear very loud and distinct, "MAN ON THE FLO," which was to say "man on the floor." We all immediately crouched and covered ourselves up but also got really quiet . . . wondering what the heck to do! Then, our outspoken girlfriend and spokesperson realized we were subject to this guy walking in on us . . . so she hollers in reply, "PROVE IT!" We don't know where he went to this day . . . we never saw him and he never showed his face again.

— Cathryn Taggart

As my son goes through his first semester of college and residence hall life, I keep thinking about how much things have changed. I lived in Schurz Hall in the mid-60s. Of course, there weren't Internet and phone connections in each room, and we didn't have cell phones. We had only one phone for each wing of the floor, and long distance was expensive, so I wrote letters to my family in Kansas City. There was no microwave for popcorn, and we had to take our popcorn poppers to the laundry room in the basement to use them. As for the cafeteria, if we didn't like what was being served that day, too bad; we didn't have different food stations to choose from. In some ways college life back then was not as "luxurious" as it is today, but the excitement of being away from home and on one's own is the same.

— Joyce DeHart Lynch
Austin, TX

It was my freshman year and my roommate, Shannyn, and I had already gotten into trouble a few times that week for being loud in our dorm room (in Gillett Hall) during finals week. It was Saturday night and I was telling her about the awful date I'd just had. We were both giggling and eventually there was a pounding on our door. We decided to pretend we were sleeping. Finally the RA (we'd dubbed her Big Roz because she had it in for us) said "open up or I'm keying in." I quickly got into my closet and shut the door. Shannyn opened the door with her eyes half closed and mumbled that she was sorry, she'd been asleep. Rox apologized for waking her up and said she must have had the wrong room. We both had to burry our heads in our pillows so she wouldn't hear us laughing after she left! It was funny at the time!!!!

— Melanie Goodlow, BS '97

Favorite or most frightening, I don't know which, but after reading this month's article about the renovations being planned, I had to share . . . one night while on duty as an RA in Johnston Hall, I used the elevator down by the cafeteria to go up to the fourth floor. The elevator stopped and was stuck between 2nd and 3rd floor. It took us (2 RAs) over an hour to get up the courage to try and pry open the doors on our own. We finally got the doors open enough to crawl through and get out onto the 3rd floor — just as the elevator fell drastically to the bottom! After calling for repairs, we found the cable hadn't been changed in like a decade!! We had been pretty scared, but it was also quite funny!! Or at least many of our residents told us!!

— Meredith (Yeager) Williams, BS Ed '92

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Last Update: November 19, 2007