Читать книгу The Deans' Bible - Angie Klink - Страница 12

ON A VERDANT JULY DAY IN 1987, a camera clicked and a roll of 35-millimeter film advanced to record a moment in Purdue University history. Five women were captured in a photograph that represented six decades of striving for the advancement of women, a quest for equality for all beings, and an interweaving of lives that formed a chosen family. The photograph became known as “Five Deans Walking.”

Betty Nelson, age fifty-two, had just completed her first two weeks as Purdue’s dean of students when her predecessors, Beverley Stone, age seventy-one, and Barbara Cook, age fifty-eight, invited her to lunch at the white two-story colonial they shared on Western Drive in West Lafayette, Indiana. Betty thought she merely was invited to a nice lunch with the women who had become like family since she first worked in the Office of the Dean of Women twenty years before. Bev and Barb said the meal would be “something small, just a little salad.” And, as an afterthought, “Oh, Helen and Dorothy might be there, too.”

Neighbors and friends had nicknamed Western Drive “Deans’ Row.” Down the block from the “Cook-Stone” home, Dorothy Stratton, age eighty-eight, Purdue’s first full-time dean of women, shared a contemporary house with her successor, Helen Schleman, age eighty-five. The four former Purdue deans lived their retirement years, houses apart, along the edge of the emerald bunkers and bays of Purdue’s North Golf Course (today named Kampen Course).

Betty arrived and noticed that the deans were dressed in summer suits, pastel skirts, and crisp blouses. Helen wore her gold Purdue pendant watch around her neck. Dangling from Bev’s ears were her signature faux pearl earrings. The table in the breakfast nook with a panoramic view of the golf course was set in style, and the women were in high spirits. Celestial Chicken Salad was served nestled in crisp lettuce cups.

Celestial Chicken Salad was a recipe handed down to Barb from her mother, Thelma Wood. Thelma told her daughter it was a dish to be served when one wanted to impress. The chicken salad was aptly named, for it was heavenly, indeed. The five deans sat at the kitchen table feasting and chatting. The lineage of their common chosen professions was nearly palpable.

CELESTIAL CHICKEN SALAD

Dice cooked chicken (always white meat, of course). Toss lightly with celery, whole mushrooms (whole, not sliced), toasted pecans, fried bacon, mayonnaise (must be Hellman’s—this is important), sour cream (not low fat), and lemon juice. Garnish the luncheon plate with halved cherry tomatoes.

Dessert was served, and at the invitation of Barb and Bev, Dave Umberger, Purdue’s senior photographer, arrived. The women knew Dave loved Key lime pie, and Bev’s southern recipe was a refreshing favorite. It was then that the reason for the gathering was revealed. Barb pulled out a tattered brown leather Bible.

Betty watched, hands folded and resting on her poplin skirt, still thinking she was simply there for a pleasant noontime meal. She loved to hear these women’s stories, some captivating and new, others familiar and deep-rooted like family fables. Betty sat waiting, glancing at the old book in Barb’s hand. It was then that the four past women deans shared with the new woman dean their long-standing secret—the tale of the deans’ Bible.