Alumni

The Sanctuary
An alumna recounts how her admission to Lake Forest College was like coming home.

By Mary Louise Cox '64

His name was Dr. Ernest Johnson. The year: 1946. The place: the admissions office of Lake Forest College, where a stern and unsmiling admissions counselor informed me that Dr. Johnson, President of the College, wanted to see me in his office.

I walked slowly down the hall wondering what he wanted to talk to me about. It occurred to me that it must have something to do with the wording of my application for admission. I stopped in front of his door. Maybe the "strategic misinformation" I had written in my application was catching up with me. I was not accustomed to fooling around with the truth. I believe that is why the details of exactly what happened are difficult for me to recall. Heart pounding, I knocked on the door.

"Come in," a voice invited. Dr. Johnson's secretary ushered me into the inner sanctum. I was introduced to Dr. Johnson, a slight man, gray-blue eyes, graying hair, wire-rimmed glasses, dark suit, white shirt, colorful tie.

"Please sit down." He motioned to a chair near his desk. He looked at me briefly before he picked up some papers. "I have your application for admission here. I have a question I need to ask you."

"Yes?" I asked.

He continued, "You tell us that your mother will be responsible for your tuition and any other expenses that you might incur as a student here. Sorry to have to tell you that a conversation with your mother did not support this claim."

"Oh?" I questioned.

"Are you surprised at this?" he asked.

The time for fibbing was over. I began a flood of words telling him about the relationship I had with my mother who had been out of my life until I was 15. With high school graduation coming up I began to talk with her about college. She told me angrily that she would never scrub floors so I could go to college. "So, okay," I said to myself, "I'll scrub floors."

Dr. Johnson's manner invited the truth from me. I spilled my heart out in relief not knowing what his response would be. I was embarrassed. I told him how I had always had my heart set on going to college. I guess I figured that my mother might be pleased that Lake Forest was seriously considering my application and would come up with a plan for me to enroll. Then I stopped stammering and jabbering about the situation in my life.

"I'm very sorry," I said. He allowed a brief silence while I collected myself. He smiled. "I have another question for you. My wife, Edith, and I have been looking for an au pair. Would this position be of interest to you?"

I was stunned!

"Based on your excellent high school academic record and references, you would receive a scholarship."

He went into more detail about hours, duties, and allowance. I would be asked to do some ironing, set the table, clear the table, do dishes, help with cleaning, make beds, and help Mrs. Johnson. I would live in the apartment on the top floor of the President's home.

In a heartbeat I accepted, moved into the Johnson's home, and was treated like a daughter. I always had a place at the table whether it was just the three of us or a party for a visiting celebrity. In many ways the Johnsons gave me my first real home.

My son Scott was an Episcopalian priest. He once quoted the following in a sermon. "There are people, as well as places, who give sanctuary to our restless and exiled souls, people like Dickens' Nicholas Nickleby who flees the workhouse (where he has been a teacher) after assaulting its sadistically brutal owner. A character called Squeers, deformed by defects of birth, disease, and abuse follows the only one who has ever shown any kindness or compassion and catches up with him, to the mild annoyance of Nicholas who tells him to go home. "'You are home to me,' answers Squeers."

The Johnsons were home to me. My application for admission to Lake Forest had been accepted in more ways than one. 

Mary Louise Cox attended Lake Forest College for two years until she married and moved to the East Coast. Dr. Johnson walked her down the aisle in Lily Reid Holt Memorial Chapel. Nearly two decades later, she took advantage of a reciprocity program at Sarah Lawrence College to finish classes that counted toward a degree from Lake Forest, which she earned in 1964. Cox is the Poet Laureate of Mamaroneck, New York.