The Maryland State Normal School at Carrollton and Lafayette avenues (1876-1914), where alumna Ethel Nowell Andrews ’09 attended college.
In the spring 1991 issue of the alumni magazine, contributing author Jan Lucas interviewed a range of Towson University alumni about their reminisces from their time at their alma mater. This post is an excerpt from that larger article. It is the first of a series of alumni interviews that will run on Thursdays as part of the TU 150th anniversary celebration.
I attended the Maryland State Normal School from 1905 to 1909. There was no campus then; the school was located at the corner of Carrollton and Lafayette avenues in West Baltimore.
The students had a gymnasium for physical development and health. We ate lunch in 10 minutes and danced for 20 minutes!
I was corresponding secretary of my class and the president of the Normal Literary Society, and I’m proud to say I recited the poem “Sail On” at graduation.
On March 4, 1909, the day President William Howard Taft took office, I was supposed to teach my lesson before the junior and senior classes. There was a terrible snowstorm – wires were down in Baltimore – and with three classmates, I walked 12 blocks to school. [Then-Vice Principal] Sarah Richmond met me and said, “Miss Nowell, I thought you had better sense.”
I thank God for the marvelous instructors who taught each subject well and made me feel equal to becoming a teacher of some good report. What an influence they played in my life – I can quote each one today.
Ethel Nowell Andrews, of Shady Side, Maryland, retired in 1955 after teaching for 46 years. She passed away in October 1997 at the age of 108. At the time she had long been considered the university’s oldest graduate.
