"One girl got married during final examsbecause she said that was the only way she couldkeep her mind on her studies," Maynard says.
Some students didn't even finish their collegecareers. Hyde, for instance, left Radcliffe at 19.
"It was wartime, so I was only at Radcliffe fortwo years," Hyde says. She left to follow herhusband into the service, she says.
Relationships Split
But even though the war often brought the sexescloser together, it also split relationships apartor made them impossible.
Condon recalls being "quite romantic" with aHarvard geology major for a year and a half.
Wakefield Dort Jr. '44 even rode this bicyclefrom Cambridge to her home in the Boston suburb ofMelrose in order to see her.
But when Dort went overseas to serve in thearmy, the relationship ended abruptly.
"I didn't see him again or hear from him againuntil this winter," she says. "I was watching theCharles Kuralt show... They were looking at theremains of a crater in a big field. And he said aprofessor, a geology professor, Wakefield Dort, isgoing to tell us about it."
After college, she married Donald Condon, whodid not attend Harvard. Now, 50 years later, shehas still not seen or spoken to Dort.
Even more than splitting relationships, though,the war often prevented them from starting tobegin with.
At first, the mass entrance of young men intothe service may have drawn female students to theUniversity.
"There were no boys at home, so maybe that'swhy we all decided to go to school in Cambridge,"Drackett says. "It was fun, but it was serioustoo, because the war was very much a part of ourlives."
But as even those students in training programslike ROTC departed overseas, romance became moreand more difficult.
Maynard transferred from Bryn Mawr in 1942. Bythe time she arrived on campus, she says, the menwere nearly gone.
"I'm sure other people had more exciting sociallives," Maynard says. "But it was getting morescarce as the men were being drafted."
"We mingled with what Harvard men there were,"Maynard says.