Reflections from Richard Foss
As her husband, I have been asked to share some of Nancy’s memories of her life at Macalester and beyond for the 50th Reunion book. Besides your contact with her in classes, many of you may remember Nancy as chapel organist during several of her college years, succeeding David Gehrenbeck, Richard Gehrenbeck’s older brother. Nancy was a smart girl, co-valedictorian of her Edison High School class in Minneapolis (1952), and eventually went on to graduate from Macalester cum laude in spite of our being married before her senior year.
I met Nancy in her freshman year on her 18th birthday at a student American Guild of Organists’ meeting, composed primarily of organ students in the Twin Cities from Macalester, Hamline, and the University of Minnesota, which I attended. So, score one for Macalester early on—and the college environment in many ways nurtured our relationship throughout her time at Macalester through its many social offerings, dances, etc. In spite of her family living close by in NE Minneapolis, Nancy chose to live on campus in Wallace Hall, which was just fine with me, as I only lived 5 blocks away from Macalester. Many are the memories of Wallace Hall, with its downstairs “living room” environment; the last few moments spent together in the vestibule before the “witching hour” curfew; and the constant admonition of the house mother not to wear patent leather shoes, lest they “reflect upward!”
Because my close friends were attending the University of Minnesota, I did also, but I felt very close ties to Macalester because my mother was a Mac graduate, as was her brother and my cousin—even my grandparents attended (all Fisks), along with my two sisters and brother, and subsequently some of their offspring. The smaller class size and individual class help available was a definite plus for Macalester, as opposed to the huge lecture halls common at the University, and an impersonal atmosphere where you often didn’t get to meet or know many other students, especially if you lived off campus. So for me, treading on Nancy’s coat tails, Macalester’s many social functions fulfilled that need for me, as well as for Nancy, and I felt “included” as her companion at Mac!