Southern Housepitality

by Sam Hendrix '97 | Sep 7, 2022 | Alumni Stories, Auburn History

Architecture & Design | Auburn History | Auburn Spirit

A century before high-rise apartments and Chick fil-A, boarding houses fed and housed Auburn’s hungry students

Half a century later, Clay Nordan ’71 remembers the look on their sweaty faces.

Walk-on football players were dragging themselves into Land’s Dining Hall, in back of H&A Dorm on West Magnolia. Late on a warm spring afternoon in 1968, the players had finished a bruising session on Coach “Shug” Jordan’s practice field. They were famished. Parched. Their expressions told of a singular purpose.

“They took seats at a table, and before even thinking about food, they each downed a pitcher of tea,” Nordan remembered. “Then, like everybody else, they got their single serving of meat, but they also hit the bowls of vegetables. They’d finish a bowl of beans or peas and potatoes, then have one refill after another of unlimited vegetable servings. I’d never seen anybody eat like that.”

Nordan probably learned from his API graduate father, Clay Nordan ’39, that boarding houses and dining halls represented an Auburn tradition that predated the institution, and lasted until abundant dormitories and apartment complexes rendered them obsolete. His lodging space, H&A, had no food hall built in but offered meal plans through Land’s next door.

“Good country cooking. My brothers and sisters and I worked in the dining room at mealtime, filling and refilling bowls of
vegetables and cleaning up.”

“Old Mr. Land and his wife opened this place after he got out of the Navy,” Nordan said. “It had the feel of a bingo hall. Mr. Land would sit by the front door, chomping on his cigar. His wife did a lot of the work. They had some local Black ladies—wonderful cooks— working the kitchen. They made sweet tea in garbage cans—the best tea you ever had. They had benches and chairs for you as you waited for a table. Only when eight people were ready would Mr. Land seat you. And only after the food was on the table.”

Nordan remembers the magic words: “Next eight!” Mr. Land would growl, leading hungry college boys to the promised land.

“I was a beanpole when I came to Auburn in summer 1967,” Nordan said. “Because of the quantity and quality of the food, I put on a few pounds. I had a lunch-and-supper meal plan that first year, and I don’t remember the cost, but it was reasonable.”

Leila Terrell

Auburn’s first institutions of higher education—the Masonic Female College and East Alabama Male College, at either end of the 1850s—each advised students to seek lodging with local families as neither school had boarding facilities. Within a generation, Auburn’s first boarding houses became the most common form of lodging for out-of-town students until API began building residence halls and private developers began opening apartment complexes. Dorms—beginning with O. D. Smith Hall in 1908 and continuing with the Quad Dorms’ arrival in two phases in the late 1930s and the early 1950s—and private apartments gradually spelled the end for boarding houses.

But for decades, many students counted on living in multiple-student dwellings and taking meals either in those locations or in purpose-run dining halls. Boarding houses were often run by widows, whose experience in managing a household fit with their need for staying home with young children while supporting themselves. These houses brought into close proximity student roommates and neighbors who often did not know each other before arriving. Living, studying and eating with other students meant people were not strangers for long. This cemented relationships and led to a close-knit student body. Is it any wonder an Auburn Spirit developed among early cadets?

While these establishments have, for the most part, vanished from town, the spirit of cooperation they fostered between landlords and college representatives has been preserved.

“The shared experience of caring for students established a bond between faculty and boarding house operators that served as a foundation for the cooperative town-campus relationship that continues to exist today,” suggested Carole Zugazaga, chair of the Department of Sociology, Anthropology and Social Work in Auburn’s College of Liberal Arts.

Scott Yarbrough House

McAlister Boarding House

Green House

Masonic Female College Trustee Nathaniel J. Scott built his sizable home in 1847 on a rise a short walk east of where the Masonic campus would soon locate, at the northeast corner of today’s Gay Street and Magnolia Avenue. Early enrollees who came from outside Auburn likely lived at the Scotts’ home, which today serves as headquarters of the Carolyn Marshall Draughon Center for the Arts and Humanities on DeBardeleben Street. In the twentieth century’s middle years, this house was owned by physician and several-times Auburn Mayor Dr. Cecil Yarbrough, who also rented rooms to API boarders over many years.

Early veterinary students, studying under Charles Allen Cary, lived in the Cary home at 360 North College. At least they did for the first decade of the 20th century, taking meals in the first-floor dining room and sleeping in bunk space Cary allotted in the attic. The Carys had children at home in those years, and when veterinary boys would raise a racket after bedtime, Dr. or Mrs. Cary would rattle the ceiling with a broom to quieten their lodgers.

By 1909, Mrs. Cary had suffered enough late-night chatter. At her request, Dean Cary built a house next door. “Cary Castle” became Auburn’s first private dormitory. It’s still owned by the family and still boards Auburn students today. The famous story about this place is that Dr. Cary stopped by during the final stages of construction one September day, climbed a ladder to the roof and found a worker off-task. Cary kicked at the man, lost his balance and fell, landing inches from the trough where mortar was being mixed. He broke his leg and suffered shoulder and facial injuries. His opinion on the quality of local physicians was not recorded, but he asked his chief veterinary lieutenant, Dr. I. S. McAdory, to set his leg. Dr. Cary walked with a limp for over his remaining quarter-century.

Boarding houses could be found along practically every street near campus by the early years of the 20th century. Pebble Hill on DeBardeleben, Cary House, Cary Castle, and long ago math professor Bolling Crenshaw’s 1890 home—now the Crenshaw Guest House across North College Street from the Carys—served as boarding houses and are still standing. Another former boarding house still standing—at 140 Toomer Street—is the former home of Farmhouse Fraternity. Before Farmhouse moved in, it was the McAlister Boarding House. Henry and Frances McAlister purchased this existing boarding house in 1957. Henry died in 1978, and Frances continued running the boarding house until she made arrangements with Farmhouse. She stayed on as house mother for a time.

“Mom and Dad and us six kids moved in when we bought the house,” remembered Bill McAlister ’71. “We boarded downstairs, and the college guys lived upstairs and in three or four smaller dormitories Dad had built in back of the house.” McAlister remembered his mother—with assistance from three or four local ladies—cooking for 150 boys most days at lunch and dinner.

“Good country cooking,” he recalled. “My brothers and sisters and I worked in the dining room at mealtime, filling and refilling bowls of vegetables and cleaning up.”

A spiral staircase at the Halliday Cary Pick House.

Many old Auburn boarding houses, of course, are gone. Bessie Bailey’s—where Nichols ROTC Building now sits—was one. Mrs. Bailey was widowed when she came from her 40-acre farm in Hartselle, Ala. in 1938. She brought her children, belongings and enough canned vegetables from the family garden to open a boarding house. Lodgers’ fees helped Mrs. Bailey’s children, including son Wilford, get an API education. Mrs. Bailey’s boarding house operated swimmingly, at least until lightning during a ferocious thunderstorm struck and killed the cow. That event led to a big barbecue, but it’s not clear whether boarders partook. Mrs. Bailey later worked for years as the university’s chief phone operator from the basement of Samford Hall. Wilford, meanwhile, went on to graduate veterinary medicine in 1942 and to hold every office in the Veterinary College except that of dean. He served as the university’s 13th president between the administrations of Hanley Funderburk and James E. Martin as well as a term as president of the NCAA.

The Green House is also gone. It sat at the corner of Thach and South College and was, for years, home of legendary college and city physician John Hodges Drake III. In the years after Drake’s death, this house served as a boarding house, and Auburn native John Williams ’74, who taught English at LaGrange College, remembered the Green House as the first stop on his midday newspaper route in the mid-1960s.

“I can still smell that noontime cooking aroma,” he said. Jack’s Hamburgers, Auburn’s first chain fast-food restaurant, came to this location in fall 1965, but the aroma was never the same.

Perhaps no Auburn boarding house received a more widespread sendoff than the house at 112 East Magnolia Avenue. That house sat on the approximate location of one constructed by famous old Auburn widow Gatsy Rice, who was born a slave and—through her ingenuity, work ethic and sense of business— became one of the more prosperous women in 19th-century Auburn. Gatsy Rice gained freedom after the Civil War, earned a living by mending torn cadet uniforms, and then got involved in real estate.

She built a house at 112 East Magnolia and ran it as a boarding house before she died in 1895. Either that house—immediately east of the later-founded First National Bank—or a successor structure at the same location had a string of owners before “Miss Cora” Hardy bought it in 1920 and began a run of 32 years as a popular boarding house owner. Miss Cora fed varsity API football players for years, and after she sold the place to J. M. Tant in the early 1950s, it served one more round of students before First National Bank needed the space for parking. When the building was torn down, state and regional newspapers told the sad story of this landmark’s demise. While Miss Cora’s earned a solid reputation, no Auburn boarding house was more beloved than the one owned and operated for more than 40 years by Leila Terrell, who came to Auburn in 1902 as a widow with three young children. Mrs. Terrell’s Boarding House stood at 311 North Gay, at the intersection with Mitcham Avenue across from the train depot.

Leila Terrell had to consult a neighbor on the fine art of making rice, but once she got that and other recipes down, she fed entire fraternity chapters at a sitting, as many as 60 boys each meal. Local historians have estimated that more than 1,000 Auburn boys lived under “Ma” Terrell’s roof over her years of boarding. Many returned to see her time and again after their Auburn days had ended. They’d bring candy, bath powder or other gifts at Christmas and on her birthday. One year, on Valentine’s Day, an admiring boarder solidified his place at the table with a card which read, “If you were seven, and I were nine, I’d ask you to be My Valentine.”

Auburn University trustees acknowledged Mrs. Terrell’s contributions to boarding and feeding students when, in 1970, they named the Hill Dorms’ dining hall for her. She died that fall at 104, and her old boarding house was demolished in 1973 to make way for a succession of banks. None of Mrs. Terrell’s boys ever renamed her house, but Gail Langley ’69 remembered some of her family’s boarders adopting a new name for what they had called the Rutland House. This stood at the southeast corner of Thach and Payne and had earlier been the home of API English professor and librarian James Rutland.

“One year, one of the boys decided he’d rename the Rutland House, and he chose a Greek letter scheme. He put the letters for Sigma Epsilon Chi up on the front of the house. Mother didn’t think anything about it, but when our friend Ralph Draughon called us and told us to think about what those Greek letters spelled out, then she drew the line.” Sigma Epsilon Chi would appear thus: ΣΕΧ.

Southern Tea Cakes Recipe

by Ann Cipperly

Ingredients

1 cup (2 sticks) butter, softened
1 cup sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp. vanilla extract
½ tsp. baking powder
3 cups (about) all-purpose flour

Beat butter and sugar in a
mixing bowl until light and
fluffy. Add eggs and vanilla
and beat well. Stir in baking
powder and enough flour to
form a stiff dough. The dough
will be sticky.

Roll into a circle on waxed
paper. Cut into circles with
a round cookie cutter. Lift
each circle with a spatula and
arrange on a greased cookie
sheet. Bake at 375 degrees for
10 minutes. Remove to a wire
rack to cool. Makes 3 dozen.

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A New Tune For Auburn

by Todd Deery '90 | Aug 9, 2022 | Alumni Stories, Faculty, Students

Auburn Family | Auburn History | Auburn Spirit

Christopher B. Roberts started his new role as Auburn president on May 16, 2022, after 29 years as an engineering professor, department chair and dean at Auburn. He recently sat down with Auburn Magazine and revealed his love of ’80s music, his perfect day away from work and why the university “has earned the right to dream the biggest dreams.”

Auburn Magazine: Apple or Android?

CHRISTOPHER B. ROBERTS: Apple. Remarkable products. Great designs.

The Beatles or The Stones?

Beatles. My dad ran a music store when I was a kid, so music was a big part of our life. He was a huge Beatles fan. I inherited that, honestly. I was always fascinated with how the Beatles could take on different musical genres while creating unique Beatles songs that were clearly their own. The mark of genius in my opinion.

Most used emoji?

I don’t know that I’ve used emojis.

Favorite food?

Pretty straightforward for me. St. Louis-style pizza at Rich and Charlie’s restaurant in South County, St. Louis. My grandparents took us there as kids and we loved it.

Watching a movie or reading a book?

Both. I tend to do both at the same time. My attention span’s not long enough for a movie.

Favorite book?

“Introduction to Chemical Engineering Thermodynamics” by Smith and Van Ness, 4th Edition. A classic!

Favorite saying or slogan?

“People don’t do what they don’t want to do, and they do amazing things when they’re motivated.”

Favorite decade and why?

The ’80s. It was the decade where I was coming into adulthood, experiencing college life and figuring out that I had aspirations of my own. During this time, I learned to appreciate the development of real friendships and the importance of quality working relationships (both personal and professional). Also, while some people didn’t care for it, I also really dug the music. I’m feeling nostalgic just thinking about it.

Favorite ’80s band?

Either Tears for Fears or The Cars. Or maybe The Police. Or Van Halen. Or U2. Or ZZ Top. Or Dio. Or The Psychedelic Furs. Or Rush. Or Triumph. Or Pink Floyd…and countless others. Frankly, I couldn’t decide if I had to. So, please don’t ask me.

“The Auburn Family, the spirit that we have on this campus, is the differentiator for Auburn.”

How does being a chemical engineer help you with being a dean and now as president?

As chemical engineers, we’re taught to take very complex systems, decouple those into individual elements or units, and apply a series of engineering and science fundamentals to optimize that particular unit. At the same time, we look at how those units integrate and we then optimize against that broader objective. I think it’s a wonderful training ground for whatever operation you find yourself in. Whatever the system is. In this case, it’s a university. The university is made up of multiple units, all of which want to be locally optimized with an eye toward global optimization as well. I think engineering’s a wonderful training for roles like this.

Did you worry when you became dean that your engineering training would serve you? Or did you always suspect it would help?

I don’t know that I really thought about it in that way. I think that when I was asked to serve as department chair, before I was dean, I found that my skill set matched what we were trying to accomplish in the department. I was deriving joy and living vicariously through the successes of my colleagues more than my own. That was a pretty good indicator that I like serving people that way. I like using my organizational skills and my background and training in what turned out to be not necessarily the solution of engineering problems, but the application of that training to advance our academic, research and outreach programs through systems-oriented thinking. Then as dean, I think it was just a natural evolution of this process.

My point is that having served as a department chair for 10 years and then taking what I learned there to a larger scale in the Samuel Ginn College of Engineering, I learned to appreciate that every department has its individual character and opportunities for continuous advancement. Now, to be able do this at the university level, recognizing that Auburn is made up of an amazing collection of programs that all have strengths and weaknesses, is a real honor and pleasure. Brought together, our colleges and programs create the lovely tapestry that we call Auburn University. The strength of the university comes from its breadth and depth. Overall, I think this was a natural progression in my career here at Auburn and I feel fortunate to be along for the ride.

What is the biggest difference so far from being a dean at Auburn to being the president?

The sheer breadth of the university is different. It’s something that I’m working very hard to make sure that I understand and appreciate and, as such I am taking the time to learn more about the university and the areas that I haven’t been as familiar with previously. What’s been reassuring to me through this, is that having been here for 29 years, I’m realizing I have developed rich relationships across campus. I think this initial familiarity is making the learning process more seamless.

Maybe on the more humorous side, I used to be able to walk away from the engineering side of campus and enjoy a little stroll on the other side of campus, a little bit incognito. That’s been a little more challenging here lately. That’s an adjustment, though it’s awesome. It’s been great to see the response that people have provided to what our future holds and represents. I’m in a really interesting position to be able to experience this with a level of Auburn knowledge while engaging with people that I haven’t worked with as much. I think we share the same hopes and dreams for Auburn. I’m enjoying being their cheerleader for that.

If you had a perfect personal day away from work, what would you be doing?

Truth be told, I don’t take a lot of them. My wife tells me all the time that I’m not very good at down-time. It would probably involve a round of golf, a nice musical concert, an Auburn sporting event and time with my family. Those would be included in the things that I would want to do.

We hear a lot about the term “Auburn Family.” What does that term mean to you?

Sitting here in this seat, this new role I find myself in as president, and being asked the question about “Auburn Family,” what does it mean to me? It means everything. It means everything. The Auburn Family, the spirit that we have on this campus, is the differentiator for Auburn. I’ve said this before, it’s not about the content—the academic content that we provide to our students—it’s about the academic content coupled with the extraordinary experiences that we provide to our students inside and outside of the classroom. The fact that we have a sense of community, that’s unparalleled by other universities, is really what differentiates Auburn from other institutions. People who aren’t familiar with Auburn just can’t grip the concept of the Auburn Family. You almost have to live it and experience it. What’s the Auburn family mean to me? Everything.

President Roberts marvels at how Auburn has “retained a community culture and shared a vision for excellence for Auburn that we refer to as the ‘Auburn Family.’”

Your wife, Tracy, is very accomplished in her own right. How would you describe what she brings to your family and to your work?

Tracy’s a remarkable person who brings a sense of calm and peace that I, or my other family members, don’t always have. She’s remarkable that way. Tracy’s inner calm gives me and our family a great deal of confidence. To know that we support each other in every way. I think it all stems from her.

How does she hope to use her current role to help support veterans?

As a veteran of the Air Force, she’s very proud of her service and very proud of what the Air Force provided to her in her life and her path forward. As a result, she wants to make sure that she uses her new role as Auburn’s first lady, if you will, to help other veterans or students who are pursuing military service. She’s going to make sure that Auburn is able to provide the right environments for those students to succeed and feel supported. I know that’s something she really cares about.

You have a piece of paper with your wife’s phone number on it from the day you met. What does that mean to you that you’re still carrying it all these years later?

It’s a reminder to me as to just how lucky I am. It’s a reminder of that happenstance meeting that occurred between us and how it changed my life. That’s a very personal thing and I don’t show it to a whole lot of people. Now I guess the whole Auburn Family is going to know that [President] Roberts carries around a piece of paper that signifies that life-changing moment.

Do you take that lesson with you when you’re meeting somebody new? To never take for granted when you’re meeting somebody what that association might lead to?

While folks might not think that an engineer would be so reflective on personal relationships, I am wired that way. When I would travel as dean and would be returning from meeting alumni, I would begin to reflect on who we just met and the amazing trajectory that we heard about from these people’s lives and what the Auburn experience meant to them. In some cases, those alumni were students who were involved in leadership positions. Sometimes those alumni were students that struggled academically and needed tutoring along the way. Sometimes those alumni were students that benefitted from a particular major that Auburn offered that provided a unique experience.

Whatever I was told by those alumni on those trips, allowed me to learn about the vast array of experiences that our students and alumni experience. This would then allow me to turn my thinking to the concept that the next generation of that person is on our campus right now. Do we have in place the experiences necessary for the next generation of those amazing alumni to thrive on this campus? Frankly, the relationships that I get to develop with members of the Auburn Family are wonderful interpersonal relationships that I cherish deeply. They’re also a great vehicle for us to reflect on. Are we providing what we need on campus for our students to become those amazing alumni in the future?

“Having seen those profound effects and our successes, I think that we have earned the right to dream the biggest dreams.”

What’s the biggest difference you’ve noticed at Auburn from when you started in 1994 until now?

I’m going to give you an answer to a slightly different question. I have thoroughly enjoyed watching Auburn advance academically with its amazing facilities, and the campus has never been more beautiful than it is today. All the wonderful experiences that we’ve had through our athletics programs through the years that I’ve been here. It’s all wonderful. It’s an amazing university with, I like to say, tremendous potential for greatness.

The part that is the most astounding to me over the 29 years is the fact that we have retained a community culture and shared a vision for excellence for Auburn that we refer to as the Auburn Family. I believe that a lot of that is rooted in the fact that we have a stated set of values that we reflect on periodically through the Auburn Creed, that I believe sets Auburn apart from so many other institutions. Particularly public land-grant institutions. It helps us to identify our expectations.

To me, that’s been the most remarkable part of my journey here for 29 years. To see that while we’ve changed, while we’ve advanced in so many areas, while we’ve brought in leading scholars from around the world that are doing some of the most amazing research that’s improving people’s lives every day, that we’ve done it in a uniquely Auburn way. That’s allowed us to keep an environment that we all love to be a part of.

Favorite sport to watch?

I would say all the Auburn sports. You can’t win with any other answer.

Did you play any sports growing up?

I was on our high school football team, basketball team and I played in a baseball league as a kid. I played a lot of sports as a kid. While I was not particularly good at any of these sports, I always enjoyed being involved and I loved the teamwork.

Do you believe that being on sports teams helped you in your professional life?

I think being involved in sports teams definitely helped me in my professional life. I also think that being involved in other activities that I was probably even more involved in helped as well. The rock band that I had in college and in high school, particularly in high school, represented a very influential experience. Where a small group of friends would all go off and learn our individual parts, come back together, learn how to work together, put together enough songs that we could go out and play for some people and be proud of what we did together. I think we learned a lot about responsibility that way. We learned a lot about accountability to each other. We learned how working hard to achieve something can also be very rewarding and a lot of fun. I think that sports did the same thing for me. For me personally, I probably found my involvement with my friends with music was even more formative.

What were the years you were in a band?

We started when we were early teenagers. I was involved with different friends and bands all through high school, college and through graduate school. I just had a great time with that. It will remain a very important part of my life. When I do need a little stress relief, I still like to pick up one of my guitars. You were asking before about what’s a perfect day? What do I like to do to clear my head a little bit? I love picking up my guitar and immersing myself in a little bit of music for a few minutes. That’s about all the escape I really need.

What was the name of your first band?

The Allies.

What type of music did you play?

Eighties pop music. Eighties rock music. We played everything from the Cars to Loverboy, to the Romantics. You name it.

If you were not in academia, what do you think you would’ve done for a career?

What would I like to have done or what was realistic? Can we go with what I would’ve liked to have done? Guitar player for Steely Dan.

Beautiful. You’d have to put up with [Steely Dan founder] Donald Fagan though.

I could learn a lot from that guy.

What’s your favorite spot on campus?

In the early years that I was here at Auburn, when I was trying to establish my career, I did a lot of laps out here in Ross Square. Given that my first office was in Ross Hall, when I think about campus, I often think of that space out there.

You were walking and thinking?

My graduate students and I would take a little stroll when we were struggling with something. We just had to get up and get out of the office for a minute. We’d just take a little stroll around Ross Square and talk for a minute. All of a sudden something would come to us. My colleagues and I spent a lot of time standing out there in Ross Square, brainstorming on something. Then we’d go back into Ross Hall and roll our sleeves up. Somehow or another it seemed to be clearer to us after that. I think there’s a magical spot there in Ross Square.

Do you have a hidden or useless talent?

I’m a less than average musician. I guess that’s useless at this point.

If you could pick a song to describe your life, what would it be?

I don’t really have a song that describes my life, but I have always considered “A Song for You” by Leon Russell as one of my favorites.

Favorite instrument?

Guitar

When you travel around the country representing Auburn, what’s the one thing you want them to know about the university?

The one thing I want someone to know is how impactful Auburn is in affecting people’s lives. The research and outreach and extension that we perform, and all that we undertake on campus, has a significant effect in improving people’s lives and advancing our society. Having seen those profound effects and our successes, I think that we have earned the right to dream the biggest dreams.

That’s what I’d really like to get across to our alumni—that their alma mater is an amazing institution that can have tremendous impact going forward. That we’ve earned the right to dream the biggest dreams and that we need all of Auburn’s constituents, our students, our faculty, our staff and our alumni and friends to support and help us maximize our impact.

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