Heart andsoul - Columbia College

Cornelia
Rickenbacker
Freeman ’33
Alumnae Spotlight:
An afternoon visit with Cornelia Rickenbacker Freeman
provides a delightful glimpse of a diminutive lady who
modestly acknowledges she has been a champion for
music in South Carolina. Now at age 97, she enjoys
life in a retirement community where
a focal point in her apartment is an
upright piano, the top lined with family
photos. “Oh, these hands really can’t
play anymore,” she says with a smile of
blithe acceptance at the toll of arthritis.
Quickly on to other subjects, Cornelia
is scarcely able to keep her seat as a
fresh anecdote compels her to find a
photograph or an event program in her
well-organized collection of memorabilia.
“I can lay my hands on it, just a
second…” as she rises and dashes into
her study to reappear with a Columbia
College 1933 yearbook.
Cornelia graduated from her rural school
in Cameron as valedictorian of a class of
twelve and decided to follow her mother’s
footsteps to Columbia College, “I thought
I might study to teach.” Asked if she was
already an accomplished musician when
she entered college she says, “Not really,
I did what you call ‘took’ music,” she laughs, “in other words, I had music
lessons as a girl. My mother went with me to Orangeburg for me to study
piano with a teacher named Angie McMichael.”
“After college, I taught in public school and arranged for
private piano lessons for pupils in the afternoon. When Bob
Freeman and I were married we lived in a house in Columbia
and had three children before he was drafted for army
service in World War II. While he was away, the children
and I moved to Cameron where we lived in a house near
my parents. When Bob was discharged in 1945, we planned
for a new house to be built for us in Columbia, returning as
soon as it was completed. There I was able to continue my
involvement with music in the community.”
in Columbia when the national season was over, usually in April.
I volunteered, solicited funds, sold tickets and worked with many
others to help make that happen. It became the Southern Symphony,
which was active until the very end of the war, then it sort of faded
away,” she recalls.
“Another effort was made to organize an orchestra in the 1950s
but it never quite took off. In 1963, there were a lot of musicians
who wanted try again so they got Mr. Harry Jacobs from Augusta
to have a trial concert---Columbia College’s Guthrie Darr helped
with that, too---and it went extremely well. So we put together a
very successful season for 1964. In 1965 we formed a Women’s
Symphony Association, which later became the Symphony League,
and I was on the board for that. In Columbia there were groups like
the Afternoon Music Club which had been active since 1905, the
Eaue Clair Music Club since 1940, and others that all belonged to
the National Federation of Music Clubs and attended the national
conventions. They were all active organizations with purposes,
aims and goals.” Cornelia doesn’t dwell on her leadership and
accomplishments and sums it up this way, “Anyway, one thing after
another happened, and I was elevated to positions on the national
scene with the Federation.” She served one term as president of
the South Carolina Federation of Music Clubs and became a board
member of the National Federation of Music Clubs from 1971 until
1991. She is a life member of both organizations.
Where Are They Now?
Columns Catches Up With Retired Faculty
Dr. Dave Day
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Her connection with Columbia College has remained strong through
the Alumnae Association, and she fondly remembers serving as
alumnae chair for the grand opening and dedication of the Spears
Music/Art Center when it was built in 1977. “The College was in a
rebuilding phase over the decade following the devastating fire of
1964 and it was an exciting time to be involved.” Over the years, her
love of music and her husband’s business success inspired them
to contribute over $100,000 to Columbia College. She describes
receiving an honorary doctorate from Columbia College in 1997 as
one the “greatest surprises of my life.” In fall 2001, one year after
Bob’s death, Cornelia decided to make a special gift in honor of Bob
and her mother, Louisa Salley Rickenbacker, Class of 1895. Louisa
was known for many years as the College’s oldest living alumna,
until her death in 1984 at the age of 107. With the encouragement
of her family, Cornelia donated her mother’s family property in
Orangeburg, South Carolina, to the College.
Cornelia’s decades of energetic leadership and influence, local and
national, now bring courtesy calls from people such as Morihiko
Nakahara, music director and conductor for the South Carolina
Philharmonic. “Until last year I hadn’t missed a single Philharmonic
performance. I was indisposed…a ‘dizzy day,’” she says with good
humor toward the occasional inconveniences of age.
Contrary to those who may think that Columbia’s music
Since retiring from the College in 2004 after 19 years gym regularly and enjoys reading, although much of
scene is relatively new, Cornelia holds the view that there
as professor of management in the department of his reading is work related. He and Barbara are avid
has always been a vibrant music community here. As far
business and economics, Dr. Day has been working travelers and have visited Norway, Sweden and
During her first year at Columbia College, Cornelia auditioned for the
Glee Club. “We toured South Carolina and I have some good stories
about that,” she smiles and shares a favorite. “We wore long dresses
and in one particular town the venue stage had curtains that rolled up.
Fortunately I was not on the front row, because when the curtain rose, it
caught one singer’s dress and rolled it right up, too!” She recalls living her
first year in the East Wing residence hall with another young woman from
Cameron. Later she roomed in West Wing with a younger cousin, “and
she stood up with me for my wedding a few years later.” The only campus
building that remains standing from her college years is the Vera Young
Library, which is now “The Parlor” of Alumnae Hall. Cornelia’s sparkle
and quick smile make it easy to imagine her as a popular young woman
who was active in campus life and elected president of the student body.
She graduated at the top of her class, valedictorian once again, with a
bachelor of arts degree and a certificate in piano.
back as her mother’s time at Columbia College in the 1890s,
“there were important music performances held at the College and uptown.
With the Depression things went
downhill, but there was a lot
going on in music. Even before
I was married in 1935, my future
sister-in-law was a violin player,
and she organized an impressive
orchestra of townspeople---not
just students---who practiced and
performed at Columbia College.“
During the war, she recalls, many
musicians fled Europe and then
found work in the big orchestras,
like New York and Philadelphia.”
Cornelia and others saw
opportunity in this influx of talent,
“The arts community worked
to draw those musicians here
by organizing a music festival
Cornelia with the table her son made of stairway
as a management coach for corporate clients in
Columbia and Florence, focusing mainly on two key
services. One is a ‘360’ evaluation process designed
to help managers identify strengths and weaknesses
that will help them become more effective. The
second is a concept called talent management in
which Day works with small groups of employees
who have been targeted as high potentials, and are
being groomed for future managerial opportunities.
His present work allows him to draw on his own
managerial experience, classroom teaching from
his days at Columbia College, together with his
counseling degree. Day likens his role to that
of a favorite Biblical figure, Barnabas the great
encourager. As a management coach, Day’s goal
is to serve as an encourager to those interested
in reaching their full potential as managers and
business leaders. When asked about his hobbies,
Day cheerfully says his work remains his primary
hobby. But, he also enjoys singing in the church
choir, to include being part of a male quartet, at
Northeast United Methodist Church where his wife
Barbara is the choir director. He also works out at the
Denmark. They also enjoy visiting New England to see
the fall leaves, have taken an Alaskan cruise and most
recently took a trip to Sedona, Ariz.
“Ole Doc D” is beloved by his former students, who
remember him as an inspiring mentor who brought
out the best in his students. His charisma and ability
to engage and relate to students created a reciprocal
classroom environment. Day says his mantra for
Columbia College students and alumnae has not
changed, that is, “Even after you graduate, you must
remain a lifelong learner, especially in today’s work
environment.” Alumnae often recall that he made their
classroom experiences energized and relevant with
assignments that were related to the real business
world, with lessons that influenced their career choices
and helped them to recognize their potential as
leaders in the workplace and community.
Dr. Day would enjoy hearing from former students
(his “Troops”) and colleagues. You can e-mail him
at ddavidday@earthlink.net or write to him at 212
Wiltshire Way, Columbia, SC 29229.
10 C O l u M B i A C O l l E g E spindles retrieved from Old Main after it burned
in the 70s.
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