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Hamilton Hall: Where young ladies and romance blossomed (continued)
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| Hamilton Hall interior. |
Everyone remembers that if a houseboy was sent up to unclog a sink, he'd shout "Man on second!" or "Man on third!" to warn the young ladies. "Of course, sometimes we may have been a little late in shouting it," Ross admits.
In addition to instructions in etiquette, Ham Hall provided social development. "One girl would play the piano and we'd practice dancing with each other after dinner," Uhlrich remembers. She graduated in 1944 with a degree in home economics and worked as a nutritionist in the college's food services until she quit to raise a family.
"Sometimes boys from one of the fraternities would come to Ham Hall to dance with us," Huffman recalls. "One night the AGRs were there and I was dancing with this fellow named Roy and he was telling his friend a joke over his shoulder, while we danced. I laughed and laughed. A few days later, he called and invited me to a movie."
She really couldn't remember which young man had told the funny joke. "When they rang the bell on the second floor to tell me my date had arrived, I wasn't sure who I'd find waiting in the parlor." Apparently she was not disappointed. Roy and Menga were engaged before her freshman year was over. She dropped out of school to get married after that momentous freshman year but later, as a faculty wife, she went back to school and earned her B.S. in general studies in 1964.
As for those ROTC students currently on the upper floors of Ham Hall, there is a precedent. During the summer of 1943, more than 100 young women receiving accelerated nursing training were crammed into the building. That fall, the coeds were moved to fraternity houses that had been emptied by the war and young male air corps trainees filled Hamilton Hall.
Ham Hall completed its career as a dormitory in 1967 and was converted to offices. As it approaches its 100th birthday, it remains a favorite campus landmark, although it's had some narrow escapes according to Terry Sutherland, who presides over the architectural archives in MSU Facilities Services.
"At one time there was a proposal to build an underground museum topped by an office tower right where Hamilton Hall stands," he says. Now, MSU plans to spend about $1 million on structural stabilization work for the building.
"The evolving campus master plan envisions preserving Hamilton Hall for the long term," promises Robert Lashaway, MSU's associate vice president of university services.
-marjorie smith
Marjorie Smith is a Bozeman writer who is thankful for the dances held in Hamilton Hall during its heyday. She is one of three children of Menga Herzog Huffman and the late Roy Huffman, MSU's first vice president for research, whose romance began in Hamilton Hall.
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| Hamilton Hall, 1910. |
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