Have you ever thought about trying to sneak in and sleep in the library overnight? Well, some alumni from the class of 1972 recently did just that. Eastern Mennonite University recently had a fundraiser that they organized with this group of alumni. On the 31st of March, there was a group of eight women that all graduated from Eastern Mennonite University. They were doing this as a fundraiser, as they had all graduated in the class of 1972 and they all helped raise money to build this library. Some of these ladies had decided to sneak in the year they graduated to try to sleep in the library that they had raised funds for. Now in the year of 2023 these 70, 71, and 72 year olds decide that they want to sleep in the library again and catch up with one another. So this group of ladies reached out to EMU to do this and said that they would be willing to donate to EMU to be able to do this. EMU set it up for these ladies and turned it into a bit of a fundraiser. Another notable person that was there that night was the Mayor of Harrisonburg, Deanna Reed. Reed said, “I work in advancement now and when I heard that a group of great ladies like you would be doing this I had to come and meet all of you wonderful ladies.” Reed also brought along co Student Council Presidents Sophomore Merideth Lehman, and Junior Hannah Beck.
The eight ladies that came back to sleep in the library were Dorothy Jean Weaver, Sharon Metzler Ruth (mother of admissions worker Matt Ruth), Jan Faderaro, Carolyn Yoder, Mary Beth Bucher Lind (author of the “Simply in Season” cookbook), Sue Hess, Marcy Keener, Kate Hess Cooker. All of these ladies had amazing stories to tell and a lot of history to impart on the next generation that listened to their stories. There was a lot of “The Mennonite Game” that was being played and all of the students that were there were in some way or another connected to the eight ladies.
These ladies talked about some of the more strict policies that were at EMU at the time. One of them said how men did not have a curfew back then but the ladies did have a curfew. The ladies had to be back in their rooms by 10:30 on school nights and 11 over the weekends. They also talked about how the women on campus had to sign out whenever they wanted to go off campus but the men did not have to do so.
Entire pages could be written with all the stories that they told that night but there is one last main story that they touched on,. about how the Hartzler library came to exist and the part that they had to play in it. Back then the library was a small room in the campus center, nothing big or special, and it wasn’t able to support the rapidly growing EMU community. The administration said that they did not have the money to build a new library for the school so the student population decided to help raise the money for the school. This was also during the Vietnam War, and students did not normally help schools like this back then. So one weekend the students went and raised money, they called family members, did yard work, bake sales, baby sat, all sorts of things to get money. By the end of the weekend they had raised $11,000 dollars. Every time they raise another thousand they ring the bell that you see hanging in the lobby of the library. That is the story of how the library came to be, and now all the way in 2023 these eight ladies figured that since they helped build the library, why not sleep in it again?
