| From
the December 8, 2005, edition of 'Northwest News' Newsletter.
by Dana Ternus
The May Fete was a popular campus celebration on the Northwest campus during the 1920s and ’30s.
Celebrations of all kinds are deeply woven
into the fabric of life at Northwest. Commencement, Homecoming,
Walkout Day and the Yuletide Feaste are just a few of the special
gatherings that help break up the daily grind of studying and
going to class.
During the school’s early years, the
annual May Fete was an especially popular event that signaled
both the return of mild spring weather and the impending close
of the academic year.
The first such festivals were organized
by women enrolled in physical education classes and consisted
of folk dances performed around a traditional maypole –
the high vertical beam wreathed with flowers and colorful streamers
that has been part of European folk tradition for centuries.
As time passed, the number of students involved
in Northwest’s “May Day” celebration grew steadily,
and sometime in the early 1920s the term “May Fete”
was coined.
By 1923 more than 120 students were involved
in what had become an ornate pageant highlighted by the coronation
of the Queen of May. Lethel Garten wore the first crown and held
court amidst a bevy of costumed dancers in flowing robes.
Three years later, in 1926, there were a
total of four queens, which allowed each class to pay royal homage
to its own representative. The celebration was also expanded to
include schoolchildren enrolled at the Horace Mann Laboratory
School.
The heyday of the May Fete came in the
late 1920s and early ’30s when it was directed by physical
education instructor Nell Martindale. Arriving at Northwest in
1928, Martindale had already acquired a reputation for organizing
elaborate May Day celebrations at the University of North Dakota.
During her tenure at Northwest, Martindale
worked to make each May Fete more elaborate than the last. In
1935 more than 600 people participated in an event that featured
elaborate scenery, ornate costumes, an orchestra, a chorus and
comedic acting and dancing.
It was the biggest Fete ever –
and the last. Martindale left Northwest at the end of that year,
and the event was consigned to history. It lives on only in old
photographs, yellowed newspaper clippings and faded childhood
memories.
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