Jobyna was from a large farming family and had attended a country school through eighth grade. I first saw her, accompanied by her mother, a few days before school was to start, as we were registering in the principal’s office. Her dark blond hair was in pigtails and she wore a plaid dress of a style none of us town girls would have worn since fifth grade. We were into sweater sets with strings of fake pearls or skirts and blouses with tiny silk scarves worn like neckties, If we ever wore braids in public, they would have been sophisticated French braids, not little girl pigtails. I felt a little sorry for her, thinking she’d have a rough time fitting in. When school started a few days later, however, she was clad in a fashionable skirt and short-sleeve sweater; she even wore the requisite saddle shoes and I learned later that she had older sisters who had met the same challenge and clued her in on all the new rules.
Even as freshmen, we had several elective classes each semester, and classes often included students from other grade levels. Jobyna and I shared only two or three classes each semester and few opportunities to get acquainted after school, as she rode the bus most days. If she took part in after-school activities, they were none that I participated in, aside from occasional musical and dramatic productions. Much like Eleanor, she walked had an odd little hop,. I learned later that she had broken her kneecap as a youngster and, as it could not be repaired or replaced in those days, it had simply been removed. She had learned to lock her knee joint and developed extra strong leg muscles that enabled her to get along without a brace.
Joby, as she soon came to be known, was a good student and, I later discovered, very active in 4-H. During our senior year in high school, she was elected the Iowa State President of that organization. We were both involved in most of the school plays and musical productions during our high school years; she as an actor and singer, I as a sometime chorus member, set designer and perennial stage crew member. For some reason I didn’t know that Joby was planning to attend the University and had obtained what was known as a board job. She had various duties over the years – mostly acting as waitress in the dining room or manning the front desk in the main lobby where she greeted visitors, answered the phone and notified residents when they had callers. This last was a rather hectic undertaking on weekend nights when many girls had dates who called for them, or professors, teachers or their wives who had engaged them as babysitters.
There were other girls from Knoxville living in the same dorm, but they were not from our class and I didn’t know them well. Most of my new college friends were met through my job at the University Library, my roommate Pat and others who lived in the same section of the dorm. After I found that Joby lived just above me on the third floor, I came to know the friends she had made among her dorm neighbors and her board job. She had several friends who had similar jobs at the dorm, One of those, Phyllis, was her roommate for two years before marrying and moving to married student housing with her new husband. Martha lived directly across the hall from them with a girl who had a summer job being shot out of a cannon in a traveling circus. Martha was in nursing school, and eventually moved to the nursing students’ dorm. At that time, my roommate Suzie would quit school to get married and Joby and I, left without roommates, would share my room for the next year.
She was neat and precise; I was casual and messy. She would tidy up my desk when things began sliding off onto the floor; I would be understanding when she threw my scribbled notes in the waste basket or “hid” my box of colored pencils. She was an early bird; I was a night owl. She put up with the smell of turpentine; I resigned to having to make my bed every morning. We exchanged Christmas and birthday gifts; shared disappointments and celebrated triumphs, dissected new ideas and lent an ear to troubles. And became lifelong friends.