I graduated from King City High School in 1929 and in September I decided to go to St. Joseph and attend Platt Gard Business School. The YWCA sounded like a dormitory, so I got a room there. If there were four girls in a room, it cost $1.50. I had a room with one other roommate, so it cost $2.00 or $2.50.

We had a living room for everyone and we would congregate in the evenings and chit-chat. We had a walk-in cooler and a stove in the basement and we would buy food and cook down there.

There was a stairway from the third floor to the roof. I don’t know whether we were supposed to ever get up on the roof, but several of us thought it fun to go up there and take pictures of each other in our pajamas, as that broke the monotony of the week.

When we went out in the evening, we would have to be back before 10 o’clock when they locked the doors. We signed out when we left and signed back in when we got home. If they locked the doors before we got back, there was a bell we could ring and the house mother would unlock the door for us.

Several times a year, the YMCA boys would organize a dance and come over to the YWCA. We would have an evening of dancing. Naturally, that was a special event.

There was a sandwich shop at 10th and Francis where we could phone in an order and they would deliver them to us. Some of my friends there were: Juanita Graham, Mabel Long of Grant City, Dorothy Trimble of Jamesport, Octa Stillfield Tiller of King City. Bernice Wilson and Shirley McClure Wheatly were each roommates of mine.

I lived at the YWCA for six years until I got married, and I wouldn’t take anything for the memories!

Ida May Irwin Frederick

Living Community, St. Joseph