March 22,1977
Emily Holland Returns
(Again)
BY DAVE OWENS
Eating her words, Emily
Holland will graduate from
Guilford College in Greensboro,
N.C., as a member of the class
of 1977.
She figures it's high time
she finished. As Emily
Johnson, she entered Guilford
as a freshman in 1947.
The words she will be
eating?
Such as "Even though the
young students will treat me
like an old fogie, an antique,
I will go back to Guilford, go
about my solitary business of
completing my degree work,
and then quietly steal away
when it is done."
Also, words like "I will
not have my picture in the
yearbook, and I most certainly
will not have it in the Baby
Book," published each
fall semester by the college
to introduce freshmen,
transfers and returning
students.
And, "When it's over I will
say to the Academic Dean,
'Here's a stamp. Send me my
degree and I'll be happy. The
big brass band bit is not my
style. I am not coming
back for commencement.'"
Those were her words last
August, when she left home in
Dover, Del., and moved in
with her husband David's
parents in Greensboro, Mr.
and Mrs. C.A. Holland.
The "old fogie" became a
day student at Guilford College,
depressed by the prospect of
having to "endure" an entire
semester.
Emily sensed right away
that the young students were
sneaky. Surely they were star
ing at her as if she were an
antique, and surely they were
trying to avoid her. But they
hid their actions amazingly
well. They even appeared
friendly.
An immediate shock was
the first of several students
who approached her, smiled
Late March Recruiting
March 23: Kendal at Longwood (Planned commun
ity for retired people; Quaker operated)
March 24: Metropolitan Life Insurance
Camp Winaukee & Robindell (Summer
camp in New Hampshire)
Capital University Law School (Juniors
& Seniors)
March 25: Moore County Schools
March3l: Kenan Transportation Company
(accounting majors)
and said, "Hi! You're Emily
Holland. I wanted to get
to know you. You see, I saw
your picture in the Baby Book
and. .
"My what in what?" Emily
responded, her mouth ajar.
"You've got to be kidding!"
She soon solved that
mystery. Her son Steven,
24, and daughter Tracy, 19,
had sneaked her photograph
and sent it to Guilford
College. There she was, the
"antique," in a Baby Book.
Days and weeks flew by.
All too soon, her final semester
was finished. Quietly, as is
her nature, she described the
period in her life which she
had dreaded because of her
"advanced" age.
"It has been such a good
experience," she declared. "I
have not been received on the
parent-child level; it's been a
very person-to-person level.
"It was a good feeling to
have students want to talk to
me, to invite themselves to sit
with me in the dining room,
to lend and borrow books and
records, to ask me to join their
study groups before a quiz,
to consider me as just another
student in class.
"The atmosphere at Guilford
is that everyone is equal. It
has a leveling effect. It says
'l'm no better or worse than
you,' and, here, somehow
that idea of equality has a
different kind of polish on it,
saying 'l'm unique and
different,' that each person's
individuality and uniqueness is
precious," she said.
A question often asked
Emily was how Guilford had
changed.
"Physically, it is obvious
that it has improved consider
ably," she said, looking around
at the new and renovated
buildings nestling under
giant oak trees.
"And through the years, I
have changed, too," she
added. "I am more of a
person now. The student
body is different now . . .
The Guilfordian
clothes, music, the externals
. . . but it's a different world
than it was then.
"What makes Guilford is
not the trees and dogs or the
long hair/short hair, blue
jeans, bare feet, but the intan
gibles, the idea that you do
not have to conform to be
accepted.
"You're accepted here if
you can get excited discover
ing something, if you find pure
learning a delight, if you think
excellence is desirable, if you
have a reverence for life.
That's what makes Guilford."
There was a time, at the
beginning of the semester,
when Emily never dreamed
she would be voicing those
observations. She had strong
doubts, then, that she had
made a wise decision.
"At first I really was very
unsure of myself." she recal
led. "It was scary: just the
reality of the situation, the
idea that it was costing me
and costing so many others.
"I doubted that I should be
at Guilford. I felt I was
shirking my responsibilities to
my husband, my children,
my church. (Even though
Steven is teaching in Smyrna,
Del., and Tracy is studying
at the American Ballet Theater
in New York.) I felt that
Eldora Terrell Becomes Guilford
Trustee
CONTRIBUTION
High Point physician
Eldora Haworth Terrell has
been named a member of the
Guilford College Board of
Trustees.
She joins four other women
on the governing board of the
Quaker institution Mrs.
Edwin P. Brown of Murfrees
boro, Marietta Forlaw of
Greensboro, Helen G. Hole of
Providence, R. 1., and Elizabeth
G. Parker of George.
Dr. Terrell practices
internal medicine in High
Point in partnership with
her husband, Dr. T. Eugene
Terrell, and her brother, Dr.
Chester Haworth.
Both Drs. Terrell graduated
from Guilford College in 1949,
Dr. Haworth in 1959. The
Terrells received their M.D.
degrees from the Duke Uni
versity School of Medicine
in 1953.
She was president of the
Guilford College Alumni
i "*' /
Emily Holland selects lunch in Guilford cafeteria
people were making sacrifices
one way or another so I could
do something I wanted to do."
She sighed. "It was kind of
heavy."
She continued to reflect. "I
always was a quick student,
and my expectations for
myself have always been very
high. I've had to come to
grips with my rustiness, my
slow skills, to get the dust
and cobwebs out of my head.
I have had to revise my
expectations, and it has been
an intresting experience."
Another thing bothered her,
too. She found it difficult
to accept all the support she
received once her intentions
to return to school were
announced.
"It's much harder to
Association in 1974-75 and has
served as chairman of the
school's annual Loyalty Fund
drive.
The new trustee is a member
of the staff of High Point
Memorial Hospital, where she
directs the Medical Out
Patient Clinic for the Guilford
County Health Department.
She belongs to local, state
and national medical societies.
She has served as president
of the High Point Medical
Auxiliary, High Point
Altrusa Club twice and the
High Point Family Life Council.
The state Family Life Council
presented her the Sperry
Award in 1971 for leadership
in family education.
Dr. Terrell is a director of
Friends Homes Inc. and is on
the executive committee of
North Carolina Yearly Meeting
of Friends. She was the
Guilford County Medical
Society representative to the
N.C. Medical Society House
of Delegates in 1974-76.
Photo by Owens
i receive than to give, and I
had to learn to receive," she
confided.
Emily learned about Guilford
from a physics teacher in her
Tenafly, N.J., high school.
He was Henry Tew, a 1927
graduate of the Quaker
institution who "had at least
one student from Tenafly at
Guilford year after year," she
noted.
She met David Holland at
Guilford. They clicked. After
three years they transferred . . .
she to the School of Physical
Therapy at Duke and he to
UNC-Chapel Hill for economics.
A year and a half later, she
received a certificate for
completing her studies at
Duke and worked in the old
Central Carolina Convalescent
Her great-grandparents
were Quaker ministers who
answered a call to
Apringfield Friends Meeting
in High Point after the Civil
War. Currently, she teaches
Sunday school there and sings
in the adult choir.
Many of her relatives have
been and are Guilford College
connected, going back to great
grandmother Sara English
Blair. She was in the class
of 1850 at New Garden
Boarding School, which
became Guilford College in
1888.
Her mother and grand
mother attended Guilford, as
did all her brothers and
sisters. Two of the six
Terrell children are students
at Guilford now, Sara Beth
and Bill.
The Terrells operate a
charolais cattle farm between
High Point and Asheboro, an
undertaking featured several
years ago in Medical Economics
magazine on how physicians
invest.
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