Our First Year: A Female Morehouse Grad? Meet Mary Spivey

Editor's Note: Cascade Patch celebrates its first anniversary this month. This profile of an unsung community heroine, by seniors' correspondent Delores "Dee" Turner, is one of today's "Our First Year" features. It first ran April 20, 2011.

Cascade Heights resident Mary Robinson Spivey is an intelligent, opinionated and active woman who is the last of a remarkable breed of college graduates.

That is because Spivey is among a select group of women who matriculated and graduated from Morehouse College.

Yes, the "all male" Morehouse College.

Morehouse has primarily distinguished itself as the nation's premier college for African-American men. It is alma mater to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and many other giants in black history. It’s the college where president Benjamin E. Mays guided generations of young men to distinguished careers. 

Indeed, Morehouse is known for a tradition of educating great leaders in a variety of fields. Yet few people are aware of the fact that a small contingent of female scholars were among the very first students admitted to Morehouse.

Mary Robinson Spivey was one of them.

According to Morehouse spokesman Add Seymour, university records show that Mary Cecilia Robinson received her bachelor's degree from Morehouse in 1933, about two decades after the school—formerly Atlanta Baptist College—was named Morehouse College in 1913.

Spivey's daughter Yvette Cooper says her family recalls that her mother probably was the only female who attended classes during the daytime. The other women attended classes during the evenings. 

Spivey, whose family owned farm land where Clark College now sits, says she enjoyed taking classes with the young men.

“We got along just fine," said Spivey, who is not one to tell her age. "If they had a problem with me, it was probably because I was a good student and made better grades than many of them.”

Ironically, Spivey was not the first woman in her family to attend Morehouse. Cooper said her maternal grandmother took nursing courses on the campus before the school officially became a college.

After graduating from Morehouse, Mary Robinson enrolled at Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio, (now Case Western Reserve), where she earned a master’s degree in education.

She spent many years as an educator with the Atlanta Public Schools and focused in the area of special education. While teaching at Jessie Mae Jones Elementary  School, she was honored as the school’s  "Teacher of the Year."

A quiet, sometimes reserved woman, Spivey’s special hobby for the past four or five deacdes has been duplicate bridge. She excels at the game and loves the competition and mental challenges involved. 

Spivey has been an active participant in the American Bridge Association for a number of years and belongs to the local affiliate, the University Bridge Club. Most of her opponents are younger, but they are careful to note that her accomplishments at the bridge table are not to be taken for granted. 

“There’s no secret to winning at bridge," Spivey said recently during a bridge break at Quality Living Services on Danforth.  "However, when I first started playing bridge, I only partnered with men.”  Those familiar with Spivey's game, will tell you that her keen knowledge of the game and playing skills are remarkable.

During the last few years,  Spivey has been challenged with problems with her hearing, but this has not stopped her prowess at the bridge table. She plays at least once a week and sometimes twice.

Her winning ways in life and at the bridge table would make her Morehouse brothers proud.