Podcast Extra - From the Earlham Digital Archives

Tennessee Tomlinson, 1875.

The first May Day celebration at Earlham College was held in 1875. The first May Queen, Tennessee Tomlinson Phillips, returned to the College in 1937 as guest of honor at the May Day celebration. Click the photo to visit the College's digital archives and learn more about the history of Earlham.

More than six decades after the first May Day celebration, Tennessee Tomlinson Phillips was asked to write an account of that first celebration. Here's what she said:

My early life was spent in the town of Plainfield, Indiana where I went through grammer grades at school. There being no high school here, My father, Ebenezer Tomlinson, being a Friend and knowing of the personal attention and training given at Earlham College, sent me there to school. I entered the preparatory course. Joseph Moore was President at the time and Eli and Mahala Jay and David Dennis were some of the teachers. In the spring of the second year, 1875, two sisters, Hattie and Lizzie Folk conceived the idea that we should have a May Day Party.

For a week or so before time we were in quite a state of excitement, getting ready for it. The Queen was voted for and the honor fell to me. My maids of honor were Belle Worth, Emma Wilson, and Margaret Hill McCarter (later a writer of Western stories who lives in Topeka). It being a cool spring, there were not many flowers but we went to the woods west of the College where the wild flowers were plentiful. We got enough to make a wreath, which was the crown. The Queen must be in white and I, not having a white dress with me, was loaned one by a girl. It was rather thin (and this was in the day of heavy flannels). The matron felt that I might catch cold, so she got me a white jacket and put it on me.

Isadore French, from Mississippi, attended to my hair, which was quite long and heavy. And after I was fixed up I felt quite proud of myself. I will mention here that the girls' gymnasium was where the excerises were held. Sally Cain, the janitor, made the throne out of packing boxes, and placed a chair in the middle for the Queen. We draped this platform with shawls and rugs from some of the floors. When the afternoon came we formed in line. I was escorted to the throne by my maids of honor. The girls marched around to the music of a French harp which one of the girls played. Each one held a short stick or ruler with a handkerchief tied on it, which they would wave as they passed around. They seated themselves and Lizzie Folk gave quite a talk upon the subject of May Day in the Old English time. She seems to have read much about it. Then, I sang a song.

I almost smile when I think how inappropriate it was for that day. The title was "Dublin Bay." The boys were not allowed in, but as they say, it "leaked through lines" and at supper that night many questions were asked. The next day I received a beautiful basket of oranges, bananas, apples and pears from Joseph John Dickinson and Ed Fletcher with their compliments - which was greatly appreciated and gave me joy supreme.

As the years have rolled away every May Day I look back with clinging to this, one of the happiest days of my life, which I shall never forget, also shall always treasure my love for Earlham College.

-a recollection of Tennessee Tomlinson Phillips, 1937