Please watch our Ball Hall Memories Video, then share your own memories here.
20 Responses to “Ball Hall Memories”
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Please watch our Ball Hall Memories Video, then share your own memories here.
When I was at Keuka (1948-52) there was a student snack bar in the basement of Ball Hall called the Buffet - pronounced the way it’s spelled. I wonder if you have turned up any evidence of it. It was a small room with tables and chairs, and served a lot of coffee along with sandwiches etc., but nothing like real meals. In fact, it was closed to students during dinner, because single faculty members often ate there. My roommate (Mea Cole Martineau) and I waited tables for this group, carrying the legendary oval metal trays laden with food down a long hall from the main kitchen.
The Buffet was still in full swing from ‘57 to ‘61. As I remember it had a back room where the faculty got served on special days. Not a hair had changed since your day, I am sure.
I worked with a photographer in 1960-1961 that was hired to make a booklet on Keuka. He was Hans Landsoff and he was a photographer for Glamor Magazine. Anyway, he did some beautiful photos of the college and grounds. When it came time to photograph Ball Hall he said he would photograph it at night as it was of Gothic architecture and it “was the worst example of that style that he had seen”. If you find the booklet you will see the photo of Ball Hall with all the lights on–at night! The photo is a tribute to the talented photographer and the “Hall”.
I lived in one of the small rooms that connected to another small room–”a single” right across from the bathroom. I still remember the light hanging from the cord on the ceiling, and the switchboard, and the front porch, and the wooden floor, and the elevator, and the alcove on the 2nd floor, not to mention the dining room, the dishwashing machine etc., etc.,etc. . . . It certainly was an
experience!
Four of us lived in Ball Hall in our Sophomore Year (’47-’51) on the second floor in one of those double rooms with one being like an attached sun room. The only way we could fit in was with bunk beds. I fell off the top bunk a few times. My one roommate (Edie Protzman Vanderbeek) and I also waited on the faculty our last year in the Buffet. It was really a very pretty snack bar and gathering place for students but mealtime was meal time for the faculty. It was a fun place to gather and to work. Edie and I worked in the regular dining room in prior years. That was hard work. I remember when we got new melmac dishes and Johnny came our with a tray full and “fell” and dropped them as a joke to show they wouldn’t break. Unfortunately the guarantee wasn’t completely true and several shattered. I wonder if he got into trouble over that.
Janice - what a funny story! You would think that was a scene stolen from a sit-com. Thanks for sharing.
Fred
I was at Keuka 1971-75. When I arrived, I vaguely remember that the Buffet was located up the road across from the post office. Then it was incorporated into the “new” student center - Dahlstrom. I worked there a few hours every week - grilling hot dogs and hamburgers, making milk shakes, toasting bagels. It was a pretty popular place with a great view, and was open all day and into the evening. Is it still there?
And, oh yes, I lived in Ball Hall, and on the 2nd floor, all 4 years while at Keuka. We did have fun there. It was hard to tear ourselves away?
I got a chuckle out of Janice’s crowded “doule room. During my Soph year my roomate and I had one of those “doules to our selves and 2 good friends had the dopuble across the hall> After our cramped room the year before we were in”space” heaven.
I too waited tables…never got to wait on the faculty in the Buffet. I did work at the Buffet tho.
Speaking of the large oval trays… one night we has snow and a group of us raided the kitchen and slid down the lake side lawn on the trays. They were none the worse for the outing when we returned them. We had a great time too.
Helen’55
Like Terry, I was at Keuka from Sept 71 - May 75, and I lived in Ball Hall my freshman year. My roommate, Miss Ellen Louise Peabody, and I lived on the 4th floor. My favorite thing about Ball was the wonderful breezes that came through the lobby on good days. In those days there was a seldom used “TV room” in the basement, and honestly, you could believe it was haunted! I also remember another structure on the back called “the Fishbowl.” That disappeared when there was major construction in ‘72. Mud was a prominent feature of my sophomore year, actually.
I’ll never forget the first day I arrived at Keuka and was assigned to an end room on Ball Hall’s third floor. All those stairs!! The room was shared by three of us and we used the back room for desks and studying. The wallpaper was the most memorable. Huge pink flowers that were fading and old. The windows were huge and had to find curtains to fit. In the winter the cold came through the single panes of glass and I thought we’d freeze. During the fall and spring we had the windows wide open and it was wonderful. We didn’t have air conditioning and didn’t really need it. We had a sink in the bedroom area and put a small wooden drying rack next to it for our small hand washables. When we left that year there was a big mess under the tray we used to catch the drippings. Ooops!
Ah yes, DeeDee, the Freshman year in Ball Hall 1957-58. I, too lived in 2 rooms at end of 2nd floor toward Hegeman. We 3-Alica McArthur, Anne Lee McClure and I also tried to use the smaller room for study but ‘Licia was a late night studier and Anne and I went to bed earlier so ‘Licia soon had the room to herself!
I also remember a water fight with Judy Ericson, Mary Lee Powers, June Slocum and me-using wastepaper baskets for water and we were in PJ or underwear-have the pictures to prove it. Then the elevator started up and it was Claude on his night rounds and did we run!
There were lots of incidences thruout that year-remember the flu epidemic and how the student nurses kept track of vital signs as there wasn’t enough room in the infirmary for all the sick!
The Buffet in the Ball Hall basement…ah yes, I remember it well in the late 50’s. I’d scurry downstairs early in the morning to clean it up from the night before as part of my workstudy. Ashtrays, ashtrays ashtrays!! But it had an absolutely great black and white huge photographic mural of the area around the college, which almost made the visit worth it.
In 1962 Mary Agnes Thompson gave me her watercolor painting of the view across the lake in the early morning from the top story (no student rooms up there). I still treasure it. I think she must have chosen me because I’d go up there before sunrise to study, and always loved to watch the sun come up over the lake.
I lived in Ball Hall (4th floor) my freshman and senior years (that would be 1970 and 74). The memories come rushing back and seem like yesterday. I never had a nickname before I walked into that room in September of 1970. My senior hall advisor, Sandy, immediately decided that Marguerite was way too long. My initials were MIC - she dubbed me “Mic” and it stuck. Even the president, Dr. Glick, called me Mic! So… many wonderful friends!!!!!!!!!!!
My fondest memory of Ball Hall is the day I proposed to Barbie Lepcio (’86) on graduation day 1985. We were both students and we had been dating for two years. I thought she might want to tell her graduating friends, so I proposed on the second floor of Ball just before commencement. We were married in the Chapel (where else?) a year later after she graduated from Keuka with her BSN. It was the beginning of our wonderful life together, our two beautiful daughters, and many returns to Keuka for more fun times.
I began my freshman year in 1967 as a resident of Ball Hall (room 311). Back then, there was a dress code: you had to wear a skirt to class and to the dining hall. You were permitted to wear pants to labs only. There were sign-out/sign-in sheets whenever you went out on a Friday or Saturday night, and there were curfews as well. On weeknights you had to be in your room by 11 p.m.
I had two roommates: Sue and Beryl, both of whom I still correspond with today. Our room overlooked Keuka Lake, and it was hard to get up on those very frigid mornings to make an 8 a.m. religion class in the chapel. Spring improved things with an 8 a.m. golf class instead, except for the fact that those were the mornings my roommates could sleep late, and they never appreciated me trying to get my golf clubs out of the closet — it was always met with some serious groaning.
We also had junior residents on our halls with mandatory meetings, which took place on the hall floors. Usually we wore our pajamas, and it was a nice time to catch up with girls you hadn’t seen in a while. There were no phones in our rooms… just one pay phone in the hall, so it wasn’t very easy to make or receive calls. There were no computers, either; we bought our own manual typewriters to type our papers on.
When we wanted to go to town, there was a yellow school bus that would make daily trips in and out of town. If the bus didn’t go at a time convenient for you, you could find other girls who wanted to go and would be willing to share the $1.25 cab fare with you. My friend Pam and I often walked to and from town on nice days. It was a long walk, but there was always something to talk about.
One night my roommate, Sue, was looking out from our room toward Richardson. She said, “get up; you’ve got to see this.” We saw a couple of girls on the balcony throwing off pillows and blankets to someone in the shadows. Then we could see them go down the stairs and disappear into the night.
We had to go to the dining hall to sign up for dinner — there were two seatings. The food was always remarkably good, except for Sunday nights, when it was usually “scoopies:” tuna salad, egg salad, etc., served with an ice cream scoop.
I guess the year — with its trips to mixers, the R&M and the Wagner, where seniors were usually dancing on tabletops — was a typical freshman year, but at the same time, it wasn’t. The Viet Nam War was raising our consciences. In the spring of 1968, I awoke to my clock radio hearing the news that Dr. Martin Luther King had been shot. My friend Carol was particularly affected by this news. There was a march by the entire student body, led by President Glick. There was also grief and outrage. Then before we went home for the summer, more bad news came out of the clock radio: Bobby Kennedy had been shot as well.
In between those two major events, in April 1968, I met my future husband, John, in Ball Hall. I was helping to set up an oriental flower exhibit done by Ms. Hsu’s class in the lounge at Ball Hall when Caroline came and asked if I was willing to on a blind date… the rest is history. I guess you can say much of my life was shaped during my unforgettable freshman year living in Ball Hall.
Sophomore year I was in Davis Hall, but did go in and out of Ball Hall occasionally. I was also invited to the teachers’ lounge at the base of Ball Hall, which I thought was an honor and which I enjoyed as well.
Please, please, please tell Ms. Goodrich that Mic Cahn says “Hi!”.
Merry Christmas Keuka!!!
Mic Cahn Durbin
Class ‘74
In my Sophomore year I lived on the 3rd floor corner rooms with “Len” Ellen O’Brian, Ginny Tyler and Ann Page. Ginny and Ann had the room overlooking the lake and Len and I had bunk beds in the inner room. I remember the wonderful sing alongs on the steps at Ball Hall. I also remember working in the dining hall Sunday evenings getting the trays prepared. The prune whip was delicious and something I had never tasted before and I guess it did its job in keeping us regular. I also remember the rumor that they were putting saltpeter in our food!!!! I am so pleased that Ball Hall is being renovated because it holds many wonderful memories.
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