Campus and Homecoming Tales
This year marks a century of Homecomings at Illinois. We’ve received
fond memories from alumni that run the gamut from meeting new friends from a
different era to car trouble in the midst of a Homecoming celebration in the
1950s – see them all below. We still want to hear from you, though, so
submit your
own campus tales soon!
All those years ago
In my working years, I held season tickets for football. Several years ago, a fraternity brother living in Dallas … who had not returned to campus since graduation, asked if I could get tickets to a Homecoming game. He flew up, we met on campus and stayed two nights. On the way to the pep rally Friday night, we happened to link up with two cheer leaders on their way, too. They told us they had never met anyone who had graduated as long ago as we had, and we spent 20 wonderful minutes answering dozens of questions about “what it was like on campus in the early to mid-’50s.” Most shocking to them was the cost of our tuition compared to the cost of theirs. Second was the housing and hours restrictions for women that were not applied to men. Finally, we told them there were only about 10,000 [students] on campus, and we still joked about being just numbers and herded like cattle!
– Carl P. Hartmann ’56
ahs
When push came to shove
Having earned my master’s degree in 1955, I set out to work, teaching, in September 1955. I bought my first new car in 1956, a new Buick Special, and was really going to show it off at Homecoming [that year]. While driving through the campus, with all the Homecoming traffic, for some reason unknown to me at the time, the car just stopped. It was most embarrassing to have to “push” my brand-new car out of traffic. It turned out to be a small, needed adjustment on the carburetor, but it was just the wrong time for it to happen.
– Donald S. Wieczorek ’54 ed, edm ’55
Riding my father’s coat tale
During my freshman year at the University of Illinois in 1956, my folks had
booked a room at the Illini Union for Homecoming. As I was walking toward the
Union from Lincoln Hall (“LAS Central”), I noticed a gaggle of photographers
gathered around a man waving an Illinois pennant and decked out in a vintage
raccoon coat – a picture-perfect throwback to the Roaring Twenties.
small crowd had gathered, and it soon became apparent that the object of photographic attention was my dad [Walker W. Means ’19 eng]. Enterprising Illio photographers were toting a raccoon coat through the Union in search of a willing-and-able alumnus “of a certain age” to model the Twenties attire for a “photo op.” Although my dad graduated in 1919, he looked 10 years younger and was picture-perfect for this venture.
The following spring, the 1957 Illio (p.134) featured Dad (Rah! Rah!) among photos of the ’56 Homecoming, the perfect capstone to my freshman year – father and son both appearing, albeit separately, in the same yearbook.
– John B. Means ’60 las, am ’63 las, phd ’69 las
Strange bedfellows
The following interview with Kathryn G. Hansen ’34 media, ms ’36 ed, is taken from the “Oral History Projects” at the Student Life and Culture Archival Program at the University of Illinois Archives.
Did you have big Homecomings?
Oh my, Homecoming was very important, and all the alumni came back, and we had
to give up our beds to the alumni.
They stayed in your [sorority] house, [Alpha
Delta Theta]?
Oh yes, but they always brought us money. They came with gifts, and we were told
how we had to treat the alumnae, and there was to be no grumbling and so on and
so forth, and we had to sleep on the floor, and they came for the whole weekend.
They came on Friday, and they left on Sunday. We were very close to our alumni. …
But
they were mainly the people who had just graduated?
Oh no, they were very loyal, they came for years. We had a big Chicago alumni
group, they always came, and they brought us money, bought the grand piano and
a lot of the nice things that we had – very important to us. But I can
remember these people fondly.
Send us your campus or Homecoming tale! 
