{"id":534,"date":"2024-03-25T16:05:00","date_gmt":"2024-03-25T16:05:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.marshall.edu\/moments\/?p=534"},"modified":"2025-04-21T15:41:18","modified_gmt":"2025-04-21T15:41:18","slug":"stepping-back-in-time-marshall-alumna-relives-her-own-marshall-moment-54-years-later","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.marshall.edu\/moments\/2024\/03\/25\/stepping-back-in-time-marshall-alumna-relives-her-own-marshall-moment-54-years-later\/","title":{"rendered":"Stepping back in time: Alumna relives Marshall moment 54 years later"},"content":{"rendered":"
Life is all about the moments that make us. Moments we may not realize are life-altering at the time, but later become memories we cling to as the years pass by.<\/p>\n
\"Charlotte
Charlotte leans against the door frame of her old dorm room<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

For Charlotte Chapman, stepping into Laidley Hall on a hot summer afternoon 54 years after moving in as a freshman was a moment she didn\u2019t expect to relive.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s the old elevator\u2026 This was the front door over here. We came in this door,\u201d she recalled as she toured the building in June 2023.<\/p>\n

Laidley Hall, one of the oldest buildings on Marshall\u2019s campus, was decommissioned at the end of the 2015-2016 academic year\u2014a decision made by the university based on underutilized campus space.<\/p>\n

Even with the absence of beds, desks, closets filled with clothes and joyful laughter resonating in the hallway, it was still like stepping back in time.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis was my room,\u201d she said. \u201cSee that light? The sink was right here, and there was a door that adjoined that room. This was a prime room. You had two windows, so you had a good view.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe had a big, square desk because if you had a roommate, there was a chair on each side. I didn\u2019t have a roommate, so I had the big desk here and a chest of drawers here, but the sink was the big draw.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHere\u2019s the shower I used all the time! Yeah, it looks the same.\u201d<\/p>\n

It was the fall of 1969 when Charlotte moved into her second-floor dorm room in Laidley Hall, as she started her freshman year at Marshall. The cost for room and board each quarter was roughly $250, which was a lot of money at the time.<\/p>\n

\n\t“\u2018As an only child, it was an exhilarating experience to be part of such a large group of girls\u2014almost like a slumber party every night!”<\/span>\n\n\t\t\t- Charlotte Chapman<\/span>\n\t<\/div>\n\n

“As an only child, it was an exhilarating experience to be part of such a large group of girls\u2014almost like a slumber party every night!\u201d<\/p>\n

Even for such a poignant time in life, photos of those days are hard to come by. They were expensive and not commonplace, unlike present day students with a smartphone in hand. Instead, those moments live on in vivid memories of the good ol\u2019 days, when life was carefree and the possibilities seemed endless.<\/p>\n

Built in 1937, the building was named after John Laidley, a local lawyer, member of the Virginia House of Delegates and founding trustee of Marshall Academy. He hosted a meeting at his home with residents from the community of Guyandotte, which was then part of Virginia, and farmers nearby to discuss how to provide better educational facilities for their children. Marshall Academy was born, named after Laidley\u2019s late friend, Chief Justice of the United States John Marshall.<\/p>\n

Now, 84 years since the building went up, it is coming down. A fence surrounds the property as demolition crews carefully remove windows and other items from inside before the building falls. The future for that part of campus is yet to be determined, but green space for students will occupy it before any other decisions are made.
\nRegardless of what happens with the space, memories of those happy times live on in the hearts of those who experienced them.<\/p>\n

\"Charlotte
Charlotte poses with her grandmothers on her graduation day; May 1974<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cThere was a pay phone there,\u201d Charlotte remembered. \u201cThey\u2019d holler and tell you if you got a call.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThis was the little TV room. You could come up here and watch TV. I can only remember doing that a couple of times.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019d come in here, and you could watch on Sunday night the girls telling the boyfriends who had driven them back from home goodbye at the front door. There was a lot of kissing going on down there.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI had a good room for the panty raids,\u201d she continued. \u201cEveryone would run in there and hang out the window!\u201d<\/p>\n

Memories that flooded back were all representative of attending college in the late 1960s.<\/p>\n

Charlotte\u2019s college years had their fair share of adversity, too. After that fall semester in Laidley Hall, she developed hepatitis and had to stay at home in Logan, West Virginia, attending a local community college for three semesters while she recuperated. She also knew some of the young men who were lost in the Marshall plane crash. She made her return to campus, however, and lived in Laidley Hall one more semester before moving on to an apartment with a friend. Charlotte graduated with a bachelor\u2019s degree in home economics in 1974 and a master\u2019s degree in elementary education in 1976.<\/p>\n

But, just like for so many others, that first semester spent away from home in a dorm at Marshall was magical.<\/p>\n

“This room was for girls,\u201d she said. \u201cIt was really pretty. There were wingback chairs. You could come down here in your pajamas because nobody came past the corner. On Sunday nights at 10 o\u2019clock, there was a little church service over here in front of the fireplace.\u201d<\/p>\n

Those cherished Marshall moments\u2014memories made a lifetime ago\u2014are still as vivid as ever.<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Life is all about the moments that make us. Moments we may not realize are life-altering at the time, but later become memories we cling to as the years pass by. For Charlotte Chapman, stepping into Laidley Hall on a hot summer afternoon 54 years after moving in as a freshman was a moment she […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":198,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-534","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-moments"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.marshall.edu\/moments\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/534","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.marshall.edu\/moments\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.marshall.edu\/moments\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.marshall.edu\/moments\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/198"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.marshall.edu\/moments\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=534"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/www.marshall.edu\/moments\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/534\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1056,"href":"https:\/\/www.marshall.edu\/moments\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/534\/revisions\/1056"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.marshall.edu\/moments\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=534"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.marshall.edu\/moments\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=534"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.marshall.edu\/moments\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=534"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}