campus campus
Coker Memoir is Entertainingly Warm, Honest and Informative ~ by D onald E . Q uist ‘ 0 6 ~
“Growing Up in the Brown House commemorates a century of education. As readers are greeted with tales of happenings in the homes of Joslin and her extended family, we are given a closer look — a more intimate history of the college and the real life dramas tied to the landmarks now sitting on the college’s campus.” Seventy plus years ago, Coker College’s Administration Building was the childhood home of Mary Coker Joslin. In Growing Up in the Brown House: Memories of Old Hartsville (Coker College Press, 2008), Joslin flips the hourglass and sifts through memories to give a firsthand account of life in the emerging South. It is a coming of age story and Joslin tells it well, opting out of the linear storytelling common with most books of this nature. Instead, she chooses to drop little nuggets of exposition in a chatty way, allowing her mind to wander, shifting from one moment of her life to another. It works, making the text feel more like a conversation with Joslin than a history lesson. Her free-standing narratives create a heap of life experience, informing readers and dispelling myths about being raised in the rural south. As Joslin puts it, “For me, the culture of a small southern town was a good place to begin life. We had close friends and relatives. We had ample opportunity to immerse ourselves in the beauty of the gardens, farms, and forests of the surrounding area.” She revels in the charm of it all, residing in a town so small a young boy could simply pick-up a phone, say “Central,” ask for “Grandpa,” and be connected to his grandfather. One can’t help but smile as she recounts tales from the era of iceboxes, handwritten letters and wood-burning cook stoves. The book is made more
W W W. C OK E R .E D U
appealing by its honesty. Joslin gives a front-row seat to her past as she grapples with the uncertainty of youth and finding her identity. There is real emotion and Joslin does not shy away. She brings family skeletons to light confronting Coker family tragedies tactfully and without fear. By tackling issues like the loss of her mother’s first child in 1916, her brother Samuel’s mental illness, the premature death of her Aunt Jennie and her father’s first wife, Joslin humanizes the Cokers, a family that has become synonymous with southern affluence and generosity. “Compared to our urban kin and some visitors, the Brown House family was unsophisticated,” Joslin writes, as she strips away some of the preconceived notions surrounding her family. She presents her father, David R. Coker, as an everyman with a passion for education. Her book includes poems by her father conveying his love for literature and the arts. He instilled that admiration in his family and that fondness for education is illustrated in Joslin’s warm memories of Coker College. Joslin’s story is also the story of one of South Carolina’s most distinguished institutions. The creative energy and intellectual enthusiasm endowed by the Coker family is still very much alive today with Coker College which has once again been a Best Southeastern College by The Princeton Review and one of America’s Best Colleges by U.S. News & World Report.
Growing Up in the Brown House commemorates a century of education. As readers are greeted with tales of happenings in the homes of Joslin and her extended family, we are given a closer look — a more intimate history of the college and the real life dramas tied to the landmarks now sitting on the college’s campus. Looking back on her past with the charismatic introspection that only comes with time, Joslin’s voice is rich and profoundly grateful; sincerity flows from each word on every page. It’s easy to sink into Joslin’s writing. Her episodes couple funny anecdotes with elegant prose. It’s a quick read and people will enjoy following Joslin as she skips through memories of a family who built a legacy on education and charity. Joslin’s book captures her family’s belief that a community is only as strong as its people, a sum of the efforts and contributions of each individual. It is a virtue for which Joslin has dug through her past in order to retrieve and it is her gift to readers. Though Joslin reminds the reader not to confuse her memories with historical record, her writing is fluid — the stories so natural, it’s not hard to accept these happenings as fact. Recanting her childhood she helps give a deeper understanding, offering up another granule in the mound of sand that is the history of Hartsville.
Growing Up in the Brown House: Memories of Old Hartsville (ISBN 978 - 0 - 970 36 4 4 2- 5)
Available for $25
from the Office of Alumni Relations. To order, call 1-800-65-COKER or e-mail alumni@coker.edu. Proceeds benefit the College’s Annual Scholarship Fund.
D onald Q uist is a M edia S pecialist in the C harles W. and J oan S . C oker L ibrary- I n f ormation T echnology C enter . H e has written f eatures f or se v eral publications , including Th e M o r n i n g N e w s ( Florence ) and Th e M e s s e n g e r ( H arts v ille ) newspapers . H e graduated f rom C oker C ollege in 2 0 0 6 with a B . A . in communication .
THE QUARTERLY OF COKER COLLEGE , HARTSVILLE, S . C . - C O M M EN TA RY
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