Pets, legends, accidents, and campus treasures—basically, cool facts that didn't really fit in any other section!
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Katharine Lee Bates, class of 1880 and professor of English, was known for her love of pets. Bates had two collies—Sigurd, who is buried on campus behind Whitin Observatory, and Hamlet—plus her grumpy parrot, Polonius, who demanded toast and coffee every morning. (Photo by Richard Howard.)
138
When Henry Wadsworth Longfellow visited campus in fall 1875, he witnessed the christening of one of Wellesley’s first rowing vessels, named Evangeline after his epic poem, before becoming the first guest to be rowed on Lake Waban. Later, the College named an artificial pond near Lake Waban (above) after the poet; a version of it still exists today, beside the 1975 west addition to the Margaret Clapp Library. (Image Courtesy of Wellesley College Archives.)
139
The marble bas-relief memorial to Alice Freeman Palmer, the second president of Wellesley, in Houghton Chapel was executed by Daniel Chester French, who sculpted the statue of Abraham Lincoln at the Lincoln Memorial. It holds her ashes and those of her husband, George Herbert Palmer, a Harvard philosophy professor (see No. 113). (Image Courtesy of Wellesley College Archives.)
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Wellesley’s iconic lampposts, first installed in 1926, were designed by architect Ralph Adams Cram. Shaped like a lantern hanging from a shepherd’s staff, they reference Psalm 119:105: “Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path.” (Cram’s design of the lamppost courtesy of Wellesley College Archives.)
141
In 1968, a man attending commencement attempted to drive a Chevy Malibu down the staircase from the Academic Quad under the Jewett archway, thinking it was a ramp. Bollards have since been installed at the top of the stairs. (Image Courtesy of Wellesley College Archives.)
142
In the 1970s, Eleanor Blair, class of 1917, found five pillars from College Hall, which was destroyed by fire in 1914, abandoned by the golf course. Blair and her classmates, members of “the last class to know the original Wellesley College,” had them restored and placed by Tower Court, near their original home. (Photo of the pillars being presented to the Wellesley community at reunion 1972 courtesy of Wellesley College Archives.)
143
Each fall, Wellesley sophomores plant a tree to honor their class. The spade used on the very first Tree Day in 1877 is one of the few items the College Archives takes out of stor-age (which, for the spade, is a custom-made, soil-streaked box) to “circulate”—once a year, every year, to plant another tree. (Photo of the class of 2028 planting their tree in October 2025 by Joel Haskell)
144
During World War II, a select group of Wellesley students was invited to learn cryptanalysis, in secret. Most worked as code breakers, deciphering intercepted messages sent by Japanese and German forces. Their work contributed directly to numerous Allied victories, including the 1942 Battle of Midway. (Photo of Wellesley students listening to news of World War II in 1942 courtesy of Wellesley College Archives.)
145
From 1963 to 1966, Wellesley’s Junior Year in the North Program welcomed students from historically Black colleges and universities in the South. Among them was Dillard University student Ruth Simmons, pictured above, who went on to become president of Smith College, Brown University, and Prairie View A&M University. (Image Courtesy of Prairie View A&M University.)
146
Wellesley has had four Olympians: Colette Flesch ’60 (Luxembourg, fencing: 1960, 1964, 1968); Isheau Wong ’11 (Chinese Taipei, equestrian: 2016, pictured above); Clare Egan ’10 (USA, biathlon: 2018, 2022); and Lara Dashti ’26 (Kuwait, swimming: 2020, 2024). (Photo of Isheau Wong ’11 show jumping.)
147
The ballroom in Diana Chapman Walsh Alumnae Hall used to hold a soda fountain called The Well, and legend has it that the theater is haunted by the ghost of a gentleman wearing a top hat. (Photo of students at the Well courtesy of Wellesley College Archives.)
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The Wellesley College Choir, founded as the Beethoven Society in 1876, has performed at St. Peter’s Basilica, Washington National Cathedral, and Notre-Dame Basilica of Montréal. (Photo of choir members at the inauguration of President Paula A. Johnson in 2016 courtesy of Wellesley College Communications and Public Affairs.)
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Wellesley’s W logo, introduced in 2010, is derived from the classic Garamond typeface, but with an enclosed, central triangle and open, extended arms—innovations that Patricia Berman, Theodora L. and Stanley H. Feldberg Professor of Art, said create a balance of “permanence and stability, but also a sense of excitement,” telegraphing Wellesley’s historic foundations while also “reaching into the future.” (Photo of the logo in basement storage in Green Hall by Lisa Scanlon Mogolov ’99.)
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More than 100 alums are also College employees—aka WAWAWs (Wellesley Alums Working at Wellesley)—including Lisa Scanlon Mogolov ’99, editor of this magazine, who thought curating a list of 150 notable facts about the College would be a “light lift.” She thoroughly enjoyed the experience, though it turns out 150 years of history is actually pretty heavy. (Photo of WAWAW members taken in 2023.)
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