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A day to remember

By Sarah Chuby ’03

Jean Chisholm stands on a stool in her Sloan Hall dorm room. Her long white dress hangs over its sides. At her feet, with a needle and thread, Jean’s roommate Kathleen Sanford quickly hems the dress.

Looking at the clock, both women are nervous. Kathleen, ’48, because her boyfriend is waiting impatiently in the Sloan Hall lobby. And Jean, because she needs to be at the parade on time.

This is how the now 80-year-old Jean (Chisholm) Ryan remembers Homecoming 1946.

How could she forget it? After a three-year hiatus because of World War II, Central Michigan College had resumed its traditional Homecoming game. And Jean had made headlines as the school’s first Homecoming queen.

“Well, I can’t recall absolutely everything. Like, I can’t remember who the football team played,” says Jean, ’47. “But I will always remember that dress.”

The home economics department made dresses for Jean and the 1946 Homecoming Court. But since materials were rationed for the war, the home economics department had to travel to Grand Rapids to get the heavy fabric.

“I wasn’t too fond of the material, but let me tell you, the dresses they made never went out of style,” Jean says.

However, there was a bigger problem than the material: The dresses weren’t delivered until the day of the game.

“Some of the girls had to glue the dresses,” Jean says. “I was lucky to have such a great roommate. I was lucky to have attended CMU. I was lucky to be named Homecoming queen.

“You could say that I’ve been just plain lucky.”

Cherishing old photos, dear friends

Sitting in her St. Joseph home’s living room – in summer 2007 – Jean sifts through black and white pictures and yearbooks with frayed corners.

Stopping at a photo taken of the court and their dates eating at the 1946 Homecoming Jubilee Ball, Jean points out the women in the photo.

“Oh, that’s Sally Carnahan, she is so beautiful, always was,” Jean says, putting her finger on bottom left of the photo.

Excited, she continues pointing to the other women on the court. “And that is Marjorie Prior, Elinor Haskell, Shirley Lagesen, and Joeann Muntz. I still write to Joeann.”

Plucking another picture out of her pile, she continues. “And there is Joe Leadem. He was my boyfriend. He was upset with me that day because I had my father walk me out onto the football field instead of him. Joe and I eventually broke up, so I think it was a good choice to be escorted by my father.”

Jean says that even though she has been married to her husband, Pat Ryan, for 58 years, she still hears from her old beau Joe Leadem, ’47.

“I think he is waiting for me to die,” says Pat, 90, with a smirk. “Well, he’ll have to keep on waiting.”

CMU: ‘Best times of my life’

On October 16, 1946, Jean had picked up the latest edition of Central Michigan Life at the Keeler Student Union. The headline read, “Chisholm Elected Jubilee Queen.”

Sitting today in her motorized wheelchair, Jean – who was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in the 1970s – reads the first line of the article, “Jean Chisholm, popular Flint senior, was elected Homecoming Queen 1946 by a comfortable margin of votes.”

She says she was a little surprised when she was named Homecoming Queen.

“It definitely wasn’t because I was the most beautiful. The other girls were gorgeous,” says a modest Jean. “But it was a good feeling because it showed that people liked me for me.”

Jean also had Central Michigan school spirit.

She joined Alpha Sigma Tau sorority as a sophomore; she was president of the Women’s Recreation Association; and she was president of Masquers, the college’s theatrical group. She also was named one of Central’s most outstanding students along with Barbara Force, ’47, Robert Griffin, ’47, and Robert Waldrop,’47.

“In college I had some of the best times of my life,” she says. “I still remember dancing the polka with (physical education teacher) Miss Grace Ryan. She told me that I did it right, and I was so pleased to get her approval.”

After graduating with a physical education degree, Jean taught at several southwest Michigan Schools, starting at St. Joseph Public Schools and retiring from the Berrien County Intermediate School District in 1978. She says she retired shortly after being diagnosed with MS.

To this day, Jean keeps herself busy. She leads a bridge club, she’s active at the St. Joseph Art Center, and she writes to Oprah Winfrey and Michigan legislators about enlarging the size of handicapped-accessible restrooms.

Jean’s says her school involvement began at Flint Central High School. Jean was Flint Central’s first female class president and named Michigan’s most outstanding high school girl.

After high school graduation, Jean returned to visit some of her high school teachers when one of them asked her where she was attending college.

“I told my teacher, ‘I am not going to school. I didn’t take the college prep course. I took business prep,’ And my teacher said, ‘What do you mean you are not going to school? I never heard of anything so ridiculous.’”

Jean says the dean of women authorized her transcript to be changed. The dean then found two Flint Central teachers – Louise Williams, who later taught at CMU, and Jean McNamara – to provide her with a college scholarship.

“I chose to go to Central because my high school boyfriend was there,” she says. “He was gone in the service by the time I got up there. So that was the only college I knew anything about. In the fall I took a train to Mount Pleasant. And that was my start.”

Life-changing experience

“Oh, to have a waist like that again,” says Jean, looking at the belted white Homecoming dress.

Reliving her experiences from more than 60 years ago, Jean talks about spending time with friends at the Cabin.

“Is it really still there?”
She talks about the tight-knit CMU community.

“After all of these years I still write to so many of my friends,” she says. “We share our life stories. Even though I haven’t seen some of them for many years, we just always have so much to talk about.”

And she talks about Homecoming.

“I haven’t been up to Homecoming for a few years because it is not the easiest for me to get around. If you are a CMU graduate, you need to go,” she says with her eyes watering. “You need to see the progress that school has made. You need to enjoy your friends and those memories.”

The mother of four and grandmother of eight says CMU changed her life.

“Because of Central, I became a teacher at the St. Joseph Schools, which is where I met my husband,” she says, clutching the 1946 “Her Highness” float photo. “You sometimes wonder how life takes you down a certain road.”

Jean will never forget the road she traveled down that warm October day. •

Jean (Chisholm) Ryan, ’47, holds up an
old yearbook that pictures Jean and her
then-boyfriend Joe Leadum, ’47, during Homecoming 1946.

Jean sits at the head of the table with the members of the 1946 Homecoming Court
and their dates.

Jean sits on the “Her Highness” throne during the 1946 Homecoming Parade.