Exploring the happenstance of room 429
March 21, 2008

---

Kelly Lane Janette Hood Edwards

Dressed up with all the adornments, baubles and bric-a-brac one might expect in a teenager’s roost, the apartment on the fourth floor of the southeast corner of Hawkes Hall looks like a typical freshman dorm room … but there’s a story hidden in room 429.

This past fall when first-year student Kelly Lane got the chance to pick which apartment she would make her home for the coming year, she ended up unwittingly selecting the very space her grandmother had occupied some 65 years before. Who knows if her choice was psychically inspired or fate? At the very least, it involved big coincidence.

“My mom was on the phone with my grandmother describing my room when she realized that was my grandmother’s old room,” Kelly said, explaining how she learned of the fluke.

Kelly’s grandmother, Janette Hood Edwards, said, “I was surprised to learn that it was the same room I had when I was a freshman. When I visited Kelly (later that fall), it was hard to believe it was the same dormitory.

“We did not have elevators … the basement was for physical education; the first floor was the library and some classrooms. Looking out the window, we saw a wooded area. Also, there was a big field behind Hawkes for athletics.”

The dormitory and surrounding campus were not the only things that were drastically different about the College when Edwards arrived in 1942.

“We had chapel in the auditorium once a week and were required to attend,” she said. “We were allowed to go to town once a week – had to sign out when we left campus and sign in when we returned.

“Of course, we did not have cars and were told if we needed a car, we could go to another college.”

An ever-looming presence in the back of everyone’s mind during Edwards’ time on the Hill was the war that raged in the Europe and Pacific theaters. Everyone was expected to do their part.

“To support the war effort, Mrs. Quillian, the president’s wife, recruited the girls to knit socks for the servicemen,” Edwards said. “I did knit a pair of socks.”

Edwards, who spent two years at LaGrange before transferring to finish up her degree at Georgia, said that she’s happy her granddaughter chose to come to the Hill.

“I’m so pleased that Kelly is at LaGrange College, and she seems to be enjoying it very much.”

For her part, Kelly is excited about living in her grandmother’s old room.

“I thought it was really neat that she had stayed there and slept there in the same room so many years ago,” she said.

Reader feedback Let LaGrange College know what you think E-mail the editor at editor@lagrange.edu with your comments or questions. Note: If published, feedback may be edited for length, style and clarity.