Early spring at Duke means Cherry Allée in full bloom, students scattered across the kempt green lawns of Abele Quad, and lots and lots of campus visitors. Some are new, touring with hopes of one day becoming a Blue Devil. Others are alumni, reliving their Duke student memories and celebrating decades of friendship as part of Alumni Weekend.
“Well, 54 years of friendship, if you’re counting,” said Martha Gayle, T’75. “You have to include the four years we were students here, before we graduated,” she noted, waving a hand of festively painted Duke-Blue fingernails.
“These people raised me,” chimes in Amy Webb, T’75, as she gestures to the group of friends standing outside Karsh Alumni Center waiting to board the Class of 1975 Downtown Durham bus tour. “We raised each other!” she adds, smiling and nudging her husband of 49 years, David Webb, T’75, whom she met during freshman week.
As the tour bus rolls off campus, they pass Pegram Hall and The Ark, and the memories come flooding in.
“We ate lunch together every day in the cafeteria,” says Mary Laxton, T’76. “A bunch of us worked together at the student union.”
“One of my jobs was to sit on a stool and use a hole puncher to mark people’s little cardboard meal card,” Webb chimes in. “Can you imagine? That kind of thing probably seems incomprehensible to students today.”
Meal points aren’t the only thing that has changed for Duke students since 1975.
“Remember how we had a dorm curfew, but the men didn’t? I really didn’t appreciate that,” says Gayle.
Like Gayle, all the women from the class of 1975 were in the last cohort of the Woman’s College, established in 1930 as a coordinate to the men’s Trinity College. While both colleges had by then long been part of Duke University and shared the same curricula and requirement, the East Campus dorms — previously reserved for women — only became fully integrated when they officially merged as Trinity College in 1972.
Today, all first-year Duke students live on East Campus — 100-plus acres of open lawns, residence halls, classrooms, and a short walk to Durham’s Ninth Street District.
As the tour bus rolls down Ninth Street, guide Aya Shabu notes the changes to Durham over the past half century, recalling the 1970s era of Durham’s mass unemployment, abandoned buildings and economic challenges.
“A penthouse in this building is listed at $9 million, if you can believe that,” said Shabu, pointing to a passing high-rise.
She leads the group through downtown Durham, chronicling local history and sharing stories about Black Wall Street, the Hayti neighborhood and the Pauli Murray House, a National Historic Landmark.
As the bus passes the Museum of Durham History — which used to be the “old bus station” — and around Chicken Bone Park, alumni from the “Half Century Club” find downtown Durham nearly unrecognizable.
“The city of Durham was a sleepy tobacco town, now it’s a vibrant city,” Webb said. “There were a few haunts back in our day, like the Ivy Room — which didn’t survive — but we mostly had to make our own fun.”
Since 1975, the group of about 20 friends has continued to make their own fun, traveling on group vacations and often celebrating new year’s together. While the old haunts they remember may be gone, the bond they share only grows stronger.
In 2020, to stay more connected to each other and counter isolation during the pandemic, the group decided to shift their virtual book club from monthly to weekly sessions. They’ve maintained the weekly schedule ever since, and meet each Monday night on Skype.
“Our book group really helped me get through COVID in a big way,” said Laxton, who cared for her disabled husband at home during the pandemic. “It was one way for us to be there for each other, beyond just laughing and joking. It was like a support group.”
And the support extended beyond Skype calls. “My husband died toward the end of the pandemic,” Laxton shared. “I was facing the neediest time in my life. Everybody showed up for the funeral. They all made the effort at a time when we were just emerging from this tremendous uncertainty, and it meant so much to me to have their support.”
“This is a group that shows up,” Amy Webb said. “Maybe it goes back to that dorm life. We’re a chosen family, in addition to being friends.”
“I’m not part of the book group,” said Amy’s husband, David Webb. “But I've known these women for a long time, and they’re incredible. Whatever you have to do to keep in touch with the friends you make at Duke, do it.”
