Adventure By Marty Dobrow


to be a woman on the Springfield College campus in the early 1960s—or to be most anywhere else in America, for that matter—meant living with some pretty clear cultural expectations. Women were expected to be demure and dependent. And in the case of Mary longland and lynn gregory,


dazzlingly adventurous. From the time they set foot on campus, through their


graduation (with Martin luther king Jr. as commencement speaker), and in the 50 years since, the Adventure girls of ’64 blasted apart pretty much any gender stereotype. longland came to Springfield


College from Pierre, S.D. She had seen a presentation from a traveling crew of college students affiliated with the Congregational Church. One of the men, Dick Chamberlain ’58, was from Springfield College, and longland felt intuitively that the school was right for her. So she hopped on board a greyhound bus in 1959 to check it out. “It’s a looong bus ride,” she said with


a laugh in a recent phone interview. I was just excited. I had never been out of the state of South Dakota. It was a big adventure to me. Everything was an adventure. I thought it was rather close to magic.” The visit confirmed the hunch, and


at the end of the next summer she again made the trek. This time she went via Chicago, attending a national youth meeting for the Congregational Church. “I left Chicago in a red dress with little white sailboats on it, and white sneakers, and a pile of books.” In a rush to get out to make her connection, she forgot to cash a check, and left—as she recalls—with 13


cents to her name. That became a problem when she got stranded in New York for three days by Hurricane Donna, an incredibly slow-moving storm that walloped the entire east coast. For three days at the Port Authority she was on her own, a time she remembers with surprising fondness. “I met fascinating people,” she recalls. “I really had


an interesting time. I never had a fearful moment. It was an adventure.” At Springfield, she plunged into her studies, determined


From the time they set foot on campus, through their


to hold onto a scholarship that required good grades. She didn’t socialize much, but the commitment to the books clearly did not do much to wash away the wanderlust. After her junior year, longland


graduation (with Martin Luther King Jr. as commencement


speaker), and in the 50 years since, the Adventure Girls of


’64 blasted apart pretty much any gender stereotype.


participated in Operation Crossroads Africa. The five-year-old organization, termed the “progenitor of the Peace Corps” by President John F. kennedy, took longland to Somalia, where the spirit of the people overwhelmed her. “I remember vividly my emotional response to walking the streets of Modgadishu,” she says. “I was so struck—I couldn’t wait to tell good friends. There was such a weight lifted from my psyche to be in a place in the world where people celebrated who they were.” upon graduation, longland landed


a teaching assistant position on one of the first voyages of the university of Seven Seas. Now known as “Semester at Sea,” the college study abroad program (which has had active participa- tion from Springfield College the last few years) seemed to longland “the most magical idea ever.” The trip took her to Portugal, the Mediterranean, Israel, Jordan, Egypt, India,


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TRIANGLE 1 Vol . 84, No.3


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