The Daily Files: Woman, 84, will graduate with English degree

25 years ago: May 1982

[HTML_REMOVED]A look backward in time through the yellowing pages of newsprint archives shows what The Daily and the UW looked like 25 years ago this month.[HTML_REMOVED]

Cora Chasse is amused by all the mail she has been receiving lately asking her to join the armed forces.

The letters are sent out routinely to most graduating college seniors, but this senior says she has no intention of enlisting. Chase turned 84 last month.

In between doing casework for the Welfare Department and recovering from various physical ailments, Chase has been attending the University of Washington.

Now, amost 45 years after she followed her eldest son to the University in 1938, Chase will be receiving her degree, a B.A. in English.

Chase, who at her granddaughter's insistence will be donning a cap and gown June 12, said she is happy to be graduating, but will miss coming to campus.

"I sat up on the steps of Denny Hall looking out over campus and was overcome with nostalgia," she said wistfully. "When I first got here that spring (in 1938), I was in my seventh heaven. I walked around under the trees and couldn't believe I was really here."

Chase remembers when the University was "overrun with service men" during World War II, when all the women wore mini skirts in the early '70s and when the trees that canopy parts of campus were just small.

She also remembers the last 40 years of her own life [HTML_REMOVED] in chunks and pieces according to what she was doing at the time. "See, that takes us up to ... ," she said with an embarrassed chuckle. "Oh, its awful for people to live so long. They should have enough good sense to bow out."