Angeline Stickney entered fully into the spirit of the place. In a letter written in December, 1852, she said:
I feel very much attached to that institution, notwithstanding all its faults; and I long to see it again, for its foundation rests on the basis of Eternal Truth—and my heart strings are twined around its every pillar.
To suit her actions to her words, she became a woman suffragist and adopted the “bloomer” costume. It was worth something in those early days to receive, as she did, letters from Susan B. Anthony and Horace Greeley. Of that hard-hitting Unitarian minister and noble poet, John Pierpont, she wrote, at the time of her graduation:
The Rev. John Pierpont is here. He preached in the chapel Sunday forenoon. He is a fine looking man. I wish you could see him. He is over seventy years old, but is as straight as can be, and his face is as fresh as a young man’s.
Little did she dream that this ardent patriot would one day march into Washington at the head of a New Hampshire regiment, and break bread at her table. Nor could she foresee that her college friends Oscar Fox and A. J. Warner would win laurels on the battlefields of Bull Run and Antietam, vindicating their faith with their blood. Both giants in stature, Captain Fox carried a minie-ball in his breast for forty years, and Colonel Warner, shot through the hip, was saved by a miracle of surgery. Of her classmates—there were only four, all men, who graduated with her—she wrote:
I think I have three as noble classmates as you will find in any College, they are Living Men.
It is amusing to turn from college friends to college studies—such a contrast between the living men and their academic labors. For example, Angeline Stickney took the degree of A.B. in July, 1855, having entered college, with a modest preparation, in April, 1852, and having been absent about a year, from November, 1852 to September, 1853, when she entered the Junior Class. It is recorded that she studied Virgil the summer of 1852; the fall of 1853, German, Greek, and mathematical astronomy; the next term, Greek and German; and the next term, ending July 12, 1854, Greek, natural philosophy, German and surveying. She began her senior year with calculus, philosophy, natural and mental, and Anthon’s Homer, and during that year studied also Wayland’s Political Economy and Butler’s Analogy. She is also credited with work done in declamation and composition, and “two orations performed.” Her marks, as far as my incomplete records show, were all perfect, save that for one term she was marked 98 per cent in Greek. Upon the credit slip for the last term her “standing” is marked “1”; and her “conduct” whenever marked is always 100.
However, be it observed that Angeline Stickney not only completed the college curriculum at McGrawville, but also taught classes in mathematics. In fact, her future husband was one of her pupils, and has borne witness that she was a “good, careful teacher.”
If McGrawville was not distinguished for high thinking, it could at least lay claim to plain living. Let us inquire into the ways and means of the Stickney sisters. I have already stated that board and lodging cost the two together only one dollar a week. They wrote home to their mother, soon after their arrival:
We are situated in the best place possible for studying domestic economy. We bought a quart of milk, a pound of crackers, and a sack of flour this morning.