Life wifi Emma

(hard lasagna, beers in the dishroom)

IF THE Marx Brothers' film Horsefeathers could feature a college widow (Thelma. Todd) and if a sorority can have a house mother, it isn't really surprising to learn that there's a woman at Dartmouth who considers herself the College mother.

She's Emma J. Van Guilder, a sentimental great-grandmother who has worked at Thayer Hall some 14 years and who says, "I love my boys and girls."

Emma is one of the most popular "blue ladies," the women who dress in blue uniforms and dole out everything from spaghetti and chicken fingers to dietary tips and motherly advice. She doesn't know many of the students' names but she recognizes their faces and, often, their gastronomic preferences.

She cries when she talks about the years she's spent over steaming trays of food and says, "I couldn't even think of ever taking another job. These students make me feel so wanted. I'm not educated but they don't care. They like you as you are."

And she laughs when she talks about be- ing invited to fraternity house cocktail parties. "It may be a little bit unusual for a great-grandmother like me to be invited over to the fraternity houses for a drink," she says, "but for me it's a great honor."

Emma began to work at Dartmouth after her husband, who recently died, got a job as a janitor at the College. Since then, she's worked her eight-hour days with the students she says have "taught me to have a lot more confidence in myself." She works in the kitchen, helps the cooks, prepares desserts, and works on different cafeteria lines in Thayer. She even eats there often and has high praise for the fare.

"Working on the lines is the most fun of all," she says. Sometimes, however, it isn't all peaches and cream. "You try to serve that lasagna. It's hard. And the mash potatoes aren't easy either." But she thinks the students like the food - "They always come back for more."

She feels very close to her student coworkers. "They're willing to listen and they've done a lot of things for me. When you want help, they're always there to help you." She often hears from them - by letter, post card, or Christmas card - but it's often hard to figure out who is on the other end of the letter. "They just sign the thing 'Rick' or 'Herbie' or something." She has a similar problem when she encounters recent graduates of the College. "They all know me," she sighs, "but I only recognize their faces and their smiles."

Emma attended her first Dartmouth hockey game last month and came away with short breath and a sore throat. "I had a wonderful time," she relates. "I was yelling so loudly for our boys that I couldn't even talk afterwards. It was great." And although she's never seen a Dartmouth football game she counts herself among the team's most loyal fans. She used to work on the training table, and she listens to each game while she works at Thayer Hall. "The football team - they're my babies," she says.

Emma has received quite an education without ever attending a Dartmouth class. She's mastered most of the contemporary college student's argot, but often she's had to learn the hard way. Several years ago, for example, she overheard a student telling a friend that he got "shot down" meaning left without a date - the evening before. "I said, 'My goodness - what kind of a place is this? The students shoot each other here.' "

She's also witnessed some of the College's finest food fights. "They usually start near exam time and they begin when some students shoot pads of butter onto the walls with their knives. Then everything breaks loose." And one winter a freshman's father brought a keg of beer into the dishroom during Freshman Fathers Weekend. "Everybody started to pour beers," she recalls. "I had some, too. I almost got fired but I had a great time."

Emma, the shop steward at Thayer, plans to retire within a few years. But she's fearful about missing the companionship and friendship of Thayer and the students who eat there. "I feel a real loyalty to the College and I always will," she says. "Sometimes I get awfully mad, but I love working here."

Paul Moore, who runs Thayer Hall, is glad she does. "She's a great person to have, a real asset," he remarks. "She's a grand lady and the students really love her. She treats all of them as if they belong to her."

The lady behind the veal cutlet or the American chop suey feels she owes the students more than a healthy serving of food. "If it weren't for these young people here, well I don't know.... I don't have to take tranquilizers or anything, even at my age. All I do is just stay with the students. They keep me young. And I'm their mother away from home - you can ask any of them."