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When it was time, she went to Francis W. Parker School in Chicago, which was then, she recalls, "a pioneer progressive school . . . bound by the most unbreakable atmospheric conditions," the objective of which was to keep girls "youthful and wholesome." It was unholy to put up your hair until your last year.
From there she went to Vassar. There she burgeoned. She was president of the Christian Association, a weak reed on the hockey and basketball teams, and a shining member of Phi Beta Kappa.
Teacher's Career. Her sisters are married to a minister and a college president; Mildred chose another career. At 20, she launched into teaching: at Monticello Seminary, Godfrey, Ill., a job which her father arranged; at Francis Parker, where she taught eighth grade; at Tusculum College in Greenville, Tenn., where she arrived with her hair bobbed, shocking Tennesseans in 1923; at Oberlin, where she was dean of women; and finally to Wellesley, where she became a college president at 36.
This leap would have scared lesser women than Mildred McAfee. She had to step into the shoes of the late Ellen Fitz Pendleton, in itself a terrifying job. Miss Pendleton had ruled the conservative New England college for 25 years and was tenderly remembered by Wellesley alumnae. Miss Mac stepped carefully. She started no revolutions. She was smooth and diplomatic, with just the right touch of tartness.
One official was heard to remark: "She gets less things done wrong than anyone I ever ran into." One of the things she got done was a boost in salaries, which endeared her to the faculty. She settled firmly into the president's chair, surveying the academic world with snapping brown eyes and an air of self-sufficiency.
Life was all any young unmarried woman could ask for. Occasionally she visited her sisters and delighted her nieces with her brisk wit. They always looked forward to being with "Aunt Milly." Wellesley students called her "Milly Mac," but not to her face.
Then the war came.
The Evangelists. It was Barnard's determined Dean Virginia Gildersleeve who talked Miss Mac into it. Dean Gildersleeve was head of an advisory council of university women set up by the Navy to help get something started. It was decided that the head of the WAVES should be Mildred McAfee.
Why Miss Mac finally took the job, after much soul-searching, she explained to a graduating class at Smith one summer's day.
"Human beings are the most important things in the world," Miss Mac told them, "but the interesting discovery which hundreds and thousands of your contemporaries are making is that the supreme satisfaction comes to the person who is willing to give his own life so that other human beings can have opportunities he will never have. . . . The achievement of any woman of responsibility for the large purposes of the nation, the world, will speed the day which I used to think had already dawned, when women and men can be judged first as persons. . . . America calls on you to do your part in carrying your common load."
Two girls fainted during the sermon. Miss Mac remarked afterward: "Now I know how Frank Sinatra feels when he sends them."