For instance, Eliezer Krumbein '46-'47 had aparticularly intimate co-ed experience in 1944when his clothes caught fire while he wasperforming an organic chemistry experiment.

"Before I knew, two beautiful young women toremy clothes off and pushed me under the shower,"Krumbein recalls.

As Krumbein fumbled to cover himself, he says,he noticed that the amused lab assistant took asuspiciously long time bringing him a lab apron.

The newly integrated classroom broughtopportunities for romantic meetings as well, someof which had lasting results.

Ellison met her future husband John Ellison '44a senior in Robert Hillier's lyric poetry class,when they studied together for the final. He gotan A, she got a D.

They didn't see each other again until justbefore graduation, when a chance meeting in theRadcliffe Quad revealed that they both planned togo to Washington, D.C., in the summer--she to workfor the Army Signal Corps, and he to attend theVirginia Episcopal Theological Seminary.

"He told me to call him at the Seminary once Igot to Washington. I told him, 'I don't call men,"Ellison says. "In those days, girls didn't callmen."

But when she got to Washington, she made justone call to the Seminary-and was invited to thedance that would cement their relationship.

"Of course I was a great hit," Ellison says."That was the beginning of the romance."

Even before the classes were integrated, someactivities provided opportunities for students tomeet members of the opposite sex. Joseph A. King'44, for instance, recalls meetings his wife at aCatholic Club function. After seeing each otherfor several years, they married after he graduatedfrom medical school.

Abrupt Marriages

But the war brought people together in moredramatic ways than simple classroom interaction.

For many couples, the war was an incentive formarriage before the fiance had to enter service.

"A lot of us accelerated," Drackett says. "Theboys accelerated too so we could finish in threeyears."

Many say they remember the series of hurry-upweddings that occurred while their classmates werestill in school.