Love at First Sight
1940–42
As the new decade began, I plunged into college life at Southern Methodist University in Dallas. Sororities and fraternities played a big role at the university, but Greek life was a bit different than it is today. There were no sorority residence houses at SMU, so all female students lived in the women’s dormitories, where we had a chance to make friends with a diverse group of women who were members of other sororities, as well as independents. Sororities and fraternities rented small cottages that served as their headquarters and meeting rooms. I pledged Delta Delta Delta (“Tri-Delt”), whose members seemed to excel in music and sports. The beautiful voices of my music major sisters ensured that we usually won the university’s singing contests. My own prowess in archery and table tennis contributed to our success in the intramural sports contests. One year we won first-place trophies in seven out of the ten competitions! Of course, as pledges we had to maintain our academic standing, and I had some outstanding professors who were wonderful mentors. My favorite was the debate coach, Dr. A. Q. Sartain, and I have thought of him often in the last seven decades of my political career as I participated in hundreds, if not thousands, of debates. Although I had never been particularly attracted to science courses, I signed up to take geology from Dr. Claude Albritten, along with half of the coeds in school, because we all thought he was so good-looking!
At Southern Methodist University, I joined the Tri-Delt sorority in 1940. Those sisters became lifelong friends.
SMU had an all-men’s cheerleading squad that rallied crowds during the fall football season. During my sophomore year, a surprising change occurred. The head cheerleader, Lucas Gariputto, invited three women to serve as guest cheerleaders for homecoming weekend, and I was so excited to be one of them. Of course, our activities were carefully monitored by the very dignified dean of girls, Dr. Lide Spraggins, who was not thrilled with the idea of women cheerleaders. Our chosen uniforms, in the SMU colors of red and blue, could not be too short or too revealing or allow our skirts to fly up too high while we were jumping around. Dr. Spraggins also made it clear that our tenure as cheerleaders could not extend beyond homecoming weekend. It would be nearly a decade before the university had full-time women cheerleaders, but we may have set the idea in motion, and as we all know, the uniforms have changed considerably over the last seventy years.
Gatherings of good friends, bridge games, late-night discussions about school, boyfriends, food in the dormitory dining hall, all accompanied by the music of our favorite dance bands, including Glenn Miller, Tommy Dorsey, and Benny Goodman, thanks to a modern record player—these are universal college experiences, although the music has changed. And, of course, there were great adventures. My roommate, Joan Hendry, and I got permission from her parents and my grandmother to sign up for the special “football train” when SMU was scheduled to play the University of Pittsburgh in the finals. Our school mascot, a small mustang horse named Peruna, occupied a special reserved stall in the baggage car and received student visitors throughout the two-day train trip from Dallas to Pittsburgh. As it turned out, Joan and I were among a small number of young women who had been able to get permission and financing for the trip. We stayed in the Tri Delta house on campus, and the house telephone rang nonstop with calls from young men wanting to escort us to events. Our Tri Delta sisters were mightily impressed, and we never explained to them that the ratio of available women to men on our “football special weekend” was strictly in our favor.
During my junior year, I became active in the campus YMCA/YWCA organization, and for the following summer, in 1941, I applied for a summer job in Estes Park, Colorado, at the beautiful YWCA conference grounds. The job combined interesting seminars, some work experience, and magnificent scenery. In the evenings the staff and college students would gather around a fire, where we had serious discussions about issues of the day, including race relations and Christian values. Since the staff included representatives from several historically black colleges, those of us from colleges that were predominantly white at the time had an opportunity to hear and better understand the concerns and obstacles our African American counterparts faced.
For our work duties, men were assigned as handymen, garbage collectors, and other positions, and women were either waitresses or housekeepers. We took advantage of our free time to enjoy and explore the beauty of Colorado’s Rocky Mountains, including visits to Pikes Peak. I enjoyed the seminars and discussions at the conference center and dates with young men on the staff, but everything that happened that summer was eclipsed by my meeting a young man who was destined to become my husband, the father of my children, and my lifetime love.
One morning during my waitress break between breakfast and lunch, I strolled over to the post office to see if I had any mail. I had just picked up some letters when a young man walked in. I turned to glance at him, and as we made eye contact, I felt something I had never experienced before. We did not speak, but I must have been clearly smitten, because I walked back to my room somewhat in a daze and said to my roommate, “I think I have just met the man I am going to marry.” She looked at me with great skepticism. I didn’t even know his name. I didn’t know anything about him. And yet somehow I just knew.
From the moment I saw Sidney Earl Cockrell Jr. in a crowded post office, I was smitten.
That day at lunch as I was serving my tables, a friend walked over and said, “There’s a young man at my table who would like to have a date with you.” Even before I turned my head to see who my friend was referring to, I knew who it would be.
Sidney Earl Cockrell Jr. was the boys’ work secretary in the Tulsa, Oklahoma, YMCA. A graduate of the University of Oklahoma, Sid had been president of that campus’s YMCA and had been active in many other college activities. He also held a reserve commission as a second lieutenant in the U.S. Army Reserve, having participated in ROTC at the university. In Estes Park for a YMCA boys’ work secretaries conference, he would be there the rest of the week. We had a date every night, and we both felt by the end of the week that there was something special between us. Sid went home to Tulsa after his conference ended, and I hoped this was not just a summer romance that would fade away.
When my duties in Estes Park were over, I headed back to Fort Worth and stayed briefly with my grandmother before returning to Dallas in September to begin my senior year at SMU. That same month, Sid was called to active duty in the U.S. Army and assigned to the 70th Field Artillery Battalion at Fort Sill. The war in Europe was escalating, and America wanted to be prepared to send troops if needed.
Sid visited Dallas as often as he could, driving the nearly 200 miles from Fort Sill, and our romance continued to thrive. I was working hard at winding up my scholastic requirements and looking forward to graduation in June. My senior year was a glorious time that included my selection as queen of the theology school and a nomination for homecoming queen. We rode in open convertibles in the homecoming parade, holding sprays of chrysanthemums, and were presented to the crowds attending that weekend’s football game.
I was busy on the Student Council of Religious Activities and in the campus YMCA/YWCA, and I was elected chair of the North Texas Area Council of Student Christian Associations, which also included representatives of several black colleges. Discussions similar to those I’d experienced in Estes Park convinced me that changes were badly needed in race relations in the 1940s, and I hoped this organization was an early starting point.
One of my favorite activities was participating on the SMU debate team, traveling to out-of-town competitions, learning the art of presenting and defending a variety of ideas, and winning awards, including the coveted Mustang Award for outstanding service to the university. I also leapt at opportunities for extemporaneous speaking and radio narration; all these experiences proved invaluable in my later career in public life.
My senior year seemed to speed by, and as the end of the fall semester approached, I attended a YWCA weekend retreat in Glen Rose, Texas. The featured speaker was Dr. Sherwood Eddy, who shared his view that despite the war overseas, the Japanese would never attack the United States. That Sunday—December 7, 1941—he was proven wrong when Pearl Harbor was bombed and our country officially became a part of World War II. As we drove back to Dallas that Sunday afternoon, we knew our world had changed. From that moment through my graduation in the spring, life was much more serious.
In January 1942 I celebrated my twentieth birthday and the start of my last semester at SMU. The dark cloud of war was evident at the university, as many of the young men there were debating with themselves and their families about whether to leave school to enlist in the armed forces. I was deep into final coursework and papers, focusing on completing the requirements for graduation.
At my grandmother’s recommendation, I had taken quite a few education courses. She knew that earning a permanent teacher’s certificate in Texas would ensure that I would earn a living after graduation and explained that teaching was a fine choice of vocation for women. I followed my grandmother’s advice, recognizing that there were few vocations open to women at that time. I recall that there was only one woman in my senior class enrolled in SMU’s School of Engineering! Other careers open to women at the time were nursing, secretarial and office work, and retail sales. In the 1940s most young women married and became full-time homemakers.
As I pursued my teaching certificate, I undertook a research project for a senior-level education course examining how the concept of separate but equal education was working in the Dallas public school system. My study revealed that overall spending in the segregated schools for black children was about one-half the per capita spending in schools for white children. Salaries for black teachers were half of what their white counterparts with the same level of college training earned. The bottom line was that only the separate portion of the “separate but equal” mandate was being carried out. What was true for Dallas schools was probably also true for other school districts in the state. It took the civil rights movement to effect change. I hoped to be a small part of that change when I graduated that spring, prepared to seek a teaching position in one of the state’s public school systems.
A surprise visit from Sid in April changed my plans, however. He met me at my grandmother’s apartment, and we went to a drive-in theater to see the movie Brother Orchid. With the sound system attached to the open window of our car, we were lined up next to other cars to watch the feature under the stars, munching on popcorn delivered by roving attendants. Not long into the movie, Sid proposed. I don’t remember one thing about that movie. I was somewhat in a daze, and thrilled, and I accepted on the spot. We talked about having a June wedding following my graduation and continued talking and talking until the show was over. Then we went back to the apartment to share our plans with my grandmother, who was pleased. Next we called my parents, who had relocated to Kansas City, Missouri, where Dad was serving as attorney-in-charge of the district office of the Treasury Department’s alcohol tax unit. They had not yet met Sid, and they were somewhat startled by our news. They immediately made arrangements to come to Texas to meet my fiancé, and our plans proceeded.
Sid and I were married in Fort Worth, Texas, in 1942.
Our wedding took place three weeks after my graduation from SMU. The ceremony was at the First Methodist Church in Fort Worth on Saturday evening, June 20, 1942, with Dr. J. N. R. Score, pastor of the church, officiating. My roommate, Joan, was maid of honor, and five of my closest friends at SMU were bridesmaids. Sid’s brother, Coleman G. (Tracy) Cockrell, was best man, and his groomsmen were his best friends, both military and civilian. I wore a white organdy wedding dress, and the bridesmaids wore yellow organdy gowns with ruffled skirts. Sid was so handsome in his white dress uniform, and my heart soared at the prospect of spending the rest of my life with him.
We spent our wedding night at the elegant Warwick Melrose Hotel in Dallas. The next day we drove to Siloam Springs in Arkansas, a popular honeymoon spot in the 1940s, known for its healing waters. I was so exhausted from the pressures of graduation and all of the prenuptial activities that I slept most of the way while Sid drove. When I woke up, I saw the Ozark Mountains in the distance and beautiful blooming dogwood trees surrounding the resort. After our week-long honeymoon, we drove to Fort Sill, in Lawton, Oklahoma, where we moved into a garage efficiency apartment Sid had found and rented for us. Housing was extremely tight in Lawton because of the wartime expansion of Fort Sill, so we felt fortunate to find our tiny love nest. I had left family, college, and old friends behind, and I was ready to begin a new phase in my life.
