Simonson, Muriel.

Born on April 25, 1907, Muriel Simonson graduated from Medford High School, Medford, MA, in 1924. The first woman in her family to go to college, Muriel was one of only two Medford freshmen at Jackson College in the fall of 1924. Muriel went on to excel in all areas while studying at Jackson College, Tufts' coordinate college for women since 1904: in academics, theater, voice, and theater production, as a sorority member, as a student leader, and as an athlete. Unknown to Holmes scholars until 2006, Muriel Simonson and John A. Holmes (A1929) became officially engaged in the spring of 1929. John A. Holmes subsequently gave her a black, three-ring binder containing 24 poems written for and to Muriel. Sometime in 1930, the engagement was dissolved for currently unknown reasons, and Muriel went on to marry John Rhodes (1903-1996), a year later. John A. Holmes became a renowned local poet and professor of English at Tufts in 1934. Muriel, however, kept his poems tucked away at home and only her son's recent donation of her papers to DCA brought them to light.