The “Three Mus­ke­teers” Reflect on Their Life­long Bond

By Leigh Ann Lit­tle ’09

As years pass, change is inevitable for both the Col­lege as well as its grad­u­ates. How­ever, for many for­mer stu­dents who called Wes­ley home, the mem­o­ries cre­ated on cam­pus have endured the test of time. For a par­tic­u­lar group of alumni from the Class of 1959, the 50th anniver­sary of their Wes­ley grad­u­a­tion is quickly approach­ing. Three mem­bers of the class for­merly known as the “Three Mus­ke­teers”— Sara “Sally” (Kendrick) Cavanagh, Roval­dia “Val” (Megee) Hyde and Edna “Edie” (Whit­tle) Rogers — have planned to make the trip back to Wesley’s cam­pus this Octo­ber, as they have every five years, to relive a time in each of their lives when they not only found each other but also found themselves.

“I didn’t have a career objec­tive or plan,” said Hyde. “How­ever once I arrived at Wes­ley, I began to think seri­ously about my edu­ca­tion and future.”

Hyde came to Wes­ley from Frank­ford, Delaware. Her older sis­ter Edith had attended the Col­lege, so she knew the cam­pus well. Never hav­ing been away from home, she was itch­ing to meet new friends and have new expe­ri­ences. “I just loved cam­pus life in gen­eral. I liked liv­ing in the dorms. There were a num­ber of us who never went home on the week­ends and we all bonded,” said Hyde.

On her very first day on cam­pus, she met Rogers from Demarest, New Jer­sey. Com­ing from a high school of 2,500 stu­dents, Rogers never had the chance to par­tic­i­pate in clubs and orga­ni­za­tions because they would fill up so quickly. She said, “When I came to Wes­ley I was used to just sign­ing up for every­thing, but then they ended up call­ing me back for every­thing, which was a big sur­prise!” Attend­ing a small col­lege like Wes­ley finally gave Rogers the chance to get involved. “I ended up doing all kinds of things — meet­ing a lot of new peo­ple and hav­ing a lot of fun.”

Roval­dia “Val” (Megee) Hyde

Although Hyde was liv­ing down the hall in the dor­mi­tory, she grew clos­est to Rogers and her room­mate Sally Cavanagh. Cavanagh also had an older sis­ter, Sonia, who attended the Col­lege so she also came to Wes­ley with a good sense of its close cam­pus com­mu­nity. “Since I am from sub­ur­ban Penn­syl­va­nia, I kind of liked the idea of Old Main. We lived there and had classes there. I liked know­ing that I would know every­one and it was a com­pact set­ting,” said Cavanagh.

One of Cavanagh’s fond­est mem­o­ries was work­ing in the din­ing hall, housed in Richard­son Hall. There she served her class­mates, fac­ulty and staff mem­bers. On one par­tic­u­lar occa­sion, she remem­bers argu­ing with the chef to get some more fried chicken for Pres­i­dent Slay­baugh, Pro­fes­sor Wells and Miss Brown­ing, only to return empty-handed hav­ing to explain that ‘They had enough’ accord­ing to the chef.” It was moments like those that Cavanagh now real­izes had a very pro­found effect on her at the time. She said, “Deal­ing directly with the pres­i­dent and pro­fes­sors some­how gave me con­fi­dence to speak to peo­ple in dif­fer­ent places. I some­how turned it into some­thing positive.”

With Wes­ley being such a small school, the stu­dents were used to see­ing fac­ulty and staff around cam­pus just as much as they saw their class­mates. “It wasn’t just a job to them; it was a lifestyle,” said Hyde. The three ladies recalled fond mem­o­ries of many of their old men­tors, such as Mr. and Mrs. Kilby and Mr. and Mrs. Titus. Even the president’s wife, Gertrude Slayba ugh, played a huge role in teach­ing the girls social skills. Cavanagh recalled, “Mrs. Slay­baugh was on cam­pus every day stamp­ing and seal­ing envelopes. She was very seri­ous about her job as a col­lege president’s wife and spent a lot of time at it.” She added, “Mr. Wells was my favorite pro­fes­sor. He was just such a dynamic per­son. He was very funny but very stern too.”

After grad­u­a­tion, Rogers and her good friend Joanne (Spi­tal) Fields moved to Wash­ing­ton, D.C. to find jobs. It was there that Rogers met her hus­band Joseph and had two daugh­ters, Jill and Deb­o­rah. Even­tu­ally, she was hired as a kinder­garten aid for the Fair­fax County School Dis­trict and later became an assis­tant librar­ian. After 28 years work­ing at a job she loved, Rogers retired. Her fam­ily has grown and she now has four grandchildren.

Edna “Edie” (Whit­tle) Rogers

Hyde moved to Penn­syl­va­nia where she was mar­ried and later earned her bachelor’s degree from Neu­mann Col­lege. She spent most of her career in health care man­age­ment, work­ing for Crozer Chester Med­ical Cen­ter in Upland, Penn­syl­va­nia. Hyde now lives in Semi­nole, Florida with her hus­band of 47 years, Carl. Now retired, she enjoys spend­ing time with her grand­daugh­ter, work­ing at her church, sewing and read­ing. She comes back to Delaware every sum­mer to visit her sister.

Cavanagh even­tu­ally moved to Cal­i­for­nia with her hus­band and chil­dren. There she attended Cal­i­for­nia State Uni­ver­sity, Long Beach. She worked as a probation/parole offi­cer and later came back to Delaware where she became a social worker. She now has four daugh­ters, nine  grand­sons and one granddaughter.

All three women have taken courses at other col­leges since leav­ing Wes­ley, but all three agree that Wes­ley is their col­lege home. “I enjoy being able to list off all those peo­ple from Wes­ley who pro­vided author­ity and guid­ance when I needed it, which was prob­a­bly on a reg­u­lar basis,” said Cavanagh. “I can’t list off those per­son­al­i­ties from Cal State, Long Beach.”

Hyde added, “If Wes­ley had been a four year school at the time, I would have stayed and fin­ished there.”

Fifty years later these three friends have kept their Wes­ley mem­o­ries alive by talk­ing reg­u­larly and plan­ning ahead for vis­its. Through­out the years they have reminded one another of all the fun they had on cam­pus, whether it was the time they had to teach the new bas­ket­ball coach how to play half court, being left sleep­ing in the dorm dur­ing a fire drill, or swap­ping gowns and get­ting all dressed up for the dances. “I think reunions are the key and as time goes by, it’s become more impor­tant for us to return every five years,” said Hyde. “Since this is our 50th, I’m really look­ing for­ward to see­ing those class­mates who haven’t been back.”

Cavanagh, Hyde and Rogers encour­age all their class­mates to join them for a fun-filled Home­com­ing week­end, includ­ing a tour of their old stomp­ing grounds. “It was such a won­der­ful time in our lives. Why wouldn’t you want to come back and remem­ber those days?” said Hyde.

Though the cam­pus has grown phys­i­cally and in enroll­ment num­bers, there is still that same spirit on cam­pus which should be famil­iar to return­ing alumni. Per­haps Rogers best sum­ma­rized the com­mon thread of the Wes­ley expe­ri­ence when she expressed, “Going to Wes­ley gave me con­fi­dence, a sense of self, new life­long friend­ships and knowl­edge of a greater world out­side of my home­town.” Wes­ley Col­lege con­tin­ues to pro­vide that expe­ri­ence for each stu­dent who passes through its halls and will always be a place that alumni can call home. W

Rogers, Cavanagh and Hyde