I

My husband and I spotted the deer
lying in the woods
outside the college library.
Through a tunnel of green leaves,
she held our gaze.

Eighty years before our visit,
his mother came here to college,
a tall, shy girl burdened
by her mother’s expectations.

She found a young woman’s paradise.
Stately buildings on sloping lawns
housed lecture halls and classrooms,
dormitories and common rooms,
a dining hall with chandeliers
and murals on the walls.

There was a boathouse on the lake
and trails through the woods.
When she wasn’t studying,
she loved playing the piano
and sailing a Sunfish
on the silvery lake.

                        II

When Wells College was founded in 1868,
the founder’s son gave the school
a marble statue of Minerva.
It was a contemporary copy
of a Roman statue in the Vatican,
itself a replica of a Greek bronze.

Generations of students venerated
their goddess of wisdom.
They kissed her feet for luck
when they passed by.
In the spring they decorated her
with garlands of flowers.
They painted her toenails
in glittery colors.

                        III

In 1888, the Wells campus was destroyed by fire.
Placed in the alcove to the Main Building
and surrounded by thick walls,
the statue of Minerva was the only object
to survive the conflagration.
In the aftermath of the fire,
the college was rebuilt, and it thrived.

In 1975, students at Hobart,
the neighboring college for men,
kidnapped Minerva from her pedestal
and put her in the trunk of a car.
She was too big, and it wouldn’t close.
Stopped by a state trooper,
the students were charged with grand larceny,
and Minerva was restored to her niche.

                        IV

In the following years, my mother-in-law
served on the Board of Trustees.
She cherished her connection
to the college that had nurtured her.
She had no sisters of her own,
and it gave her a sisterhood.

It distressed her to vote to admit men
to the incoming class of 2005,
but she believed it was the only way
to secure the future of the college,
even if its character was changed.

                        V

That July day we visited in 2023,
ten years after my mother-in-law’s death,
members of the new freshman class
were expected for orientation.
In the Main Building, staff arranged
welcome bags on long tables.

A middle-aged woman
who worked in the kitchen
confided that she loved the college
and hoped to work long enough
to enroll her young daughter.

In the grand salon of the Main Building,
there were prints and drawings on the walls
by nineteenth and twentieth-century masters.
The doors were unlocked. People walked
in and out. I felt in a time out of mind.

We walked across green lawns
down to the beach on the lake,
where the college had a boathouse.
Little waves lapped against the shore.
Sequins of sunlight sparkled on the water.
I listened to the rocking of small boats
at their moorings—sailboats, kayaks, canoes.

                        VI

In April 2024, the Board of Trustees
voted to close the college,
citing inadequate finances,
the global pandemic, inflation,
and a shrinking pool of students.
The class we saw being welcomed
was the last incoming class,
and they were marooned.

That June, after the students departed,
maintenance workers were sent
to move Minerva to what was called
“a secure location indoors.”
They lifted her from her pedestal,
strapped her to a dolly,
and laid her across a backhoe’s bucket.

While attempting to raise her
from the bucket into the back of a truck,
they dropped her to the ground.
With a loud thud, her head broke off
and rolled on the dirt.

Seeing the damage, the backhoe driver
covered his face and cursed.
News of the decapitation
spread through the Wells community,
provoking general outrage.
The administration was criticized
for attempting to move Minerva
without protection or professional oversight.
“On top of everything else, a final unraveling,”
commented the local historian,
who was a Wells graduate.

                        VII

Idealism inspired the founding of Wells.
At a time when higher education
was denied to women, here they would thrive.

Today women have more opportunities,
but those making policy have less idealism.
The Board closed the college without consulting
alumnae, students, or faculty. To some,
the decision seemed as precipitous
as the destruction of Minerva.

My mother-in-law was a reserved woman.
She kept to herself and was shy in company.
Her connection to Wells sustained her.
When her husband of sixty years died,
the college president wept on the phone
with her. The personal endures
after the people are gone.

                        VIII

After my mother-in-law died,
we found a heavy glass vase
on the bottom shelf in the back
of the glass-fronted maple cabinet downstairs.
Its fluted sides curved gently in two parabolas.
On the front was inscribed,
“In grateful appreciation, Wells College.”
My sister-in-law gave it to me.
In spring and summer,
I fill it with bouquets of flowers.

– Anne Whitehouse

Author’s Note: I first learned of Wells College from my mother-in-law, Martha L. Whitehouse, who cherished her time there as a student and in later years devoted her efforts to strengthening the college, eventually serving on the Board of Trustees. She was sad when Wells College went co-ed because she supported all-women’s education, but she believed it was the only way to save the college.

In the summer of 2023, ten years after my mother-in-law’s death, my husband and I were traveling to Ithaca, New York, and we made a detour to Aurora to visit Wells College. The college was bustling with preparations for an orientation for the incoming freshman class, but we were still shown around the campus, saw the beautiful buildings, including the library with no right angles. We learned about the college, its history, and its lore, including the veneration of the Minerva statue. It was a beautiful afternoon, full of promise. Little did we know that the following year the college would close unceremoniously, without informing staff or alumnae, and stranding its students.

All the details in the poem are true, including the story of Minerva’s abduction by Hobart students and her decapitation during an ill-planned transfer when the college was closed. It is also true that when my father-in-law died in 2010, the president of Wells College, Lisa Marsh Ryerson, wept on the phone with my mother-in-law. “I don’t think they’re shedding any tears at Harvard (my father-in-law’s alma mater),” I commented when my mother-in-law told me the story. And I treasure her Wells College vase.