There is an annual conversation, and annual grumbling, among students–and some staff–about the celebration of Memorial Day on Mount Ida. The day has not been a holiday at Emma Willard for years and years, in large part because graduation comes so quickly on its heels. This was not always the case, however. In the late nineteenth century, according to faculty meeting minutes, the school administration, in consultation with the faculty, decided each year whether or not to make it a day off. In 1900, for example, they decided not to hold classes on Memorial Day. The rationale: Buffalo Bill’s Wild West show was in Troy, and nobody was likely to show up at school anyway!
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