You can't go home again was the premise and title of a book by Thomas Wolfe written in 1940 about a homecoming in 1927. In 743 pages Wolfe justifies this theory.
"But, Mother Gibbs, one can go back...I feel it. I know it... " Emily declares in the play Our Town by Thornton Wilder. "Yes, of course you can," I remember saying as Mrs. Gibbs in the Tucson High School production in my junior year, 1945. "I can go back there again and live all those days over again ... why not?"
The Stage Manager cautions Emily, "You not only live it; but you watch yourself living it. And as you watch it... You see the future. You know what is going to happen... "
Our Town had its first run in New York only a few years before our high school production. These words have been echoed many times. The play has become an American classic.
I worked on my 1990 book for three years. It was hard to "go back home again" where the people and the buildings live only in memories and photographs, but I want you to know them.
Peters, took this picture of my father and his mother Cora Louise (Brand) Peters in
front of Old Main. The University was 38 years old; I was almost six months old. I do not
remember my first visit to campus. The buggy was purchased Friday, August 3, 1928 at
Ratners and cost $21. Joe Ratner was the proprietor of the Second Hand Store on Congress. My father's diary records every detail. Those of you knowledgeable in styles of knit baby bonnets will recognize this as a boy's cap, a hand me down from my Croxen cousins. WCP
building, 40 acres and a barbed wire fence.
295 acres on the main campus, plus 42 acres for UMC.
The UA's 2006-2007 Factbook lists 91 buildings and 387 acres.
Arizona Historical Society building at 949 E. Second Street, Tucson, Arizona.