My grandfather, a proud 1962 alum of Notre Dame, recently passed away. When our family reunited at his house in rural Iowa to honor him and his incredibly interesting life, I happened across a neatly bundled stack of letters in a drawer. During his college years, my grandfather had written often to his parents; his mother, one of the most organized people I have ever met, kept his letters tucked away. The series of letters began with his sophomore fall, addressed to his parents (and his beloved dog) and return-addressed to 318 Zahm Hall, which is particularly interesting after the university’s decision regarding Zahm this past week. The letters offered his parents an idea of his life at Notre Dame, from updates on his grades to drawings of the layout of his dorm room. However, his desire for less restriction and rules felt especially timeless as a current Notre Dame student.
My grandfather always told me — and almost everyone in our family, including his own parents — to “be good.” This always came across slightly ironically because he enjoyed getting into a fair amount of trouble himself. The major theme of these letters was that he wanted more freedom, saying that he would have expected this amount of regulation from West Point. It appeared his rector had written home to his parents about some of his behavior, and he complained that he and his friends now were locked out of the study lounge after throwing a party in there the weekend before; he planned on throwing a party in the study lounge anyway the following weekend. Girls had to be out of Zahm by six p.m. on the weekends, and the dates to the ROTC military ball would be “inspected.” He wanted to visit New York City, and he sent home photos from a trip to Pittsburgh. He desired more freedom in what classes he chose to take, feeling as though the constraints of the business school were too limiting for his interests.
Although my grandfather and I are sixty-one years apart in our Notre Dame experiences, these themes are reminiscent of the complaints of today’s Notre Dame students. The university did not like rowdy dorm culture, as exemplified in his letters about Zahm parties, and this has not changed. My grandpa did not appreciate parietals, and he found the dorm rules too restrictive. He wanted more flexibility in his class schedule, and he debated skipping classes when he planned on traveling over short breaks.
In my lifetime, I rarely heard my grandpa utter a bad word about Notre Dame. He loved the university, and in place of a “hello” when answering the phone, he always said “Go Irish!” He inundated my Instagram DMs with Notre Dame-related posts, and every closet and dresser in his house is filled with Notre Dame apparel. But his letters also reveal a mindset of a frustrated, stressed and energetic college student who wanted more freedom. In many ways, that will always be a universal experience of a Notre Dame student.