If Jack Barnes was the all-American boy of his generation at Carleton, then Mary-Alice Waters was the all-American girl.
In a table of her qualities, she received the top mark — “superior” — for native ability, reliability, leadership, emotional stability, personal appearance and social adaptability.
Her application to Carleton was accompanied by a single-line reference which said, “Mary-Alice will be a fine addition to any college campus.”
Her father, Henry Scott Waters, was a physician-surgeon who enjoyed a very comfortable income.
Mary-Alice was born in the Philippines and attended high school at Pen Yan Academy in New York State.
As far as Carleton was concerned, she was an ideal entrant: a member of the Baptist Youth Fellowship, active in the student council, a member of the school band and choir, cheer leader and fond of amateur dramatics.
She had also won two impressive awards — the American Legion Award and the Junior Good Citizen — just the sort of thing that appealed to the Carleton authorities.
Under “work experience” she listed three early vocations: waiting on tables during summer conferences, camp counselling, and voluntary work as a nurse's aide.
Her application to Carleton revealed the same incomprehensible unworldliness of the American middle class:
An unanswered question in our house inevitably brings forth an encyclopaedia, dictionary, or some other source of reference. Thus, my parents have encouraged my two older brothers and me to genuinely try to gain knowledge and broaden our scope of interest.
Also, as my parents were medical missionaries to the Philippines for fifteen years, I think they have taught me to view many subjects with a relative international attitude and this has been very helpful to me.
I have been fortunate, too, in having several very good teachers, especially in my last two years of high school, and I feel as if I have gained from them the desire to learn not for the sake of passing an exam but for the privilege of knowledge.
I hope that through college I will have the opportunity to learn to think and reason intelligently and to gain the knowledge and experience I must have to do so.
My life, I have been told, has been more varied and unusual than some. I was born in the Philippines Islands three months before the Japanese invaded, and spent the first three years of my life along with the rest of my family in a Japanese civilian concentration camp.
After we were released in 1945, we all returned to the US. My father spent a year working in the Kentucky Mountains for the Frontier Nursing Service.
My parents then returned to the Philippines while my two brothers and I remained in Ohio in a missionary children's home.
In 1949 Mother and Dad came back to the US. And we settled down in Upstate New York, where we have lived for the past ten years. Within the last few months though, we have decided to move to Mansfield, Wisconsin, where we will be living after July 1.
In school I find there are no subjects I really dislike, but I find that science, history and math are a little easier for me than languages.
Both in and out of school, I enjoy many activities, including those I have already listed elsewhere. I like to watch or participate in almost all sports and I particularly like to hunt, ride horseback and swim. When I have the time, I also enjoy knitting, sewing and cooking.
In school most of my time spent on activities is devoted to Student Council. For the last two years, I have been student council treasurer in our school and this year I am also president of District 12, which covers a large section of western New York State, and a member of the State Executive Committee which directs the statewide Association of Student Councils.
At the beginning of last summer, I attended the Leadership Training Institute at Syracuse University and to my mind it was the most significant experience I have ever had. During the four days I was working with 150 of the most outstanding students in New York State and this, more than anything else in my life, brought me face to face with myself.
I went with the self-centered attitude of wondering how I was going to like being with complete strangers and if I would like them. I came back realizing how interesting and wonderful other people are and how little. I have to be conceited about.
I learned how to meet people and how to work and to get along with them. In short, it practically changed my outlook on life and I sincerely feel it was for the better. In thinking over college and future plans, I am most troubled by my own uncertainty and indecision over what I want to do in life.
My guidance director and admissions counselors I have talked with all have said: “Don't worry, it's natural.” It is impossible not to worry about a decision which is so important, but I also realize that my opinions will probably change during my first year or so of college, and I am willing to let any final decision rest until then.
I feel sure, though, that for any field I am likely to choose, I will be able to get the preparation I need at Carleton and I hope I will be able to continue my education there.
Waters glided into the Carleton scene without a ripple. Soon she was co-chairman of the Hoedown Dance committee, co-chairman of the Winter Carnival Tea, a member of the Ski Club, associate member of the Saddle Club, and a member of the English Club.
The only activity vaguely “political” was her position on the executive committee of the Student Peace Union — no doubt where she met Douglas Jensness.
There was one very intriguing departure from the normal Carleton curriculum. In 1962 she travelled to Paris to attend the Sweet Briar College in Boulevard Raspail, where American undergraduates do courses to brush up on their French.
On June 14, 1963, at 10 o'clock in the morning, Waters and 270 other men and women received their BA’s. A press release issued by the college said, “Miss Waters, an English major, graduated magna cum laude with distinction in her department, English.”
“During her years at Carleton, she has been secretary of her Freshman Class, a participant in a Student Leadership Conference, and co-chairman of the committee for a Winter Carnival, an annual event at Carleton.
“As a sophomore, she had the honor of being selected an usherette for the Junior-Senior Prom.”
The main address to the graduates was given by Eugenie M. Anderson, the American ambassador to Bulgaria.
The following day, June 15, she married Charles Sheridan Styron, another one of Carleton's “bright stars.”
On the surface of things, they looked set for careers in education, government or the commercial world.
In fact, they had both been “plugged into” the SWP and they were about to become leading “Trotskyists” in the revisionist SWP.