Campus Honors Retirement of “Spirit of Davidson” In Laundry’s New Name
Lula Bell Houston
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4/30/2004
Contact: Bill Giduz 704/894-2244 or bigiduz@davidson.edu
by Leslie Hempson ག
As if fifty-seven years of work weren’t enough, in a sense Lula Bell Houston will never leave her job now. That’s because the college on Thursday afternoon affixed her name forever to the laundry building, naming it in her honor.
Hundreds of well-wishers turned out to honor the eighty-year-old Houston at her retirement party, and cheered when President Robert Vagt made the surprise announcement of the building’s new name. In praising her loyalty to Davidson and irrepressible good cheer, Vagt called her “a biological mother to four children, but a mom to all who need her."
“This is a grand moment in the history of Davidson College,” he said.
When asked to respond, Houston could find few words. “What can I say? What can I say?” she asked. “I just want to thank everyone for being here, for letting me see your beautiful faces. I love all of you.”
Few retirees in local history have been so royally heralded. In a whirlwind twenty-four hours that capped her long career sorting student clothes and folding sheets, President Vagt also read a proclamation from the Town of Davidson declaring “Lula Bell Houston Day,” and the student membership of the Omicron Delta Kappa honorary campus leadership fraternity presented her with its Staff Appreciation Award at Spring Convocation.
Alumni and current students turned out at the retirement party to honor the woman who greeted them with a smile on their regular trips to the laundry. Joey Harris ’02, former student body president, took a day off his job in a Congressional office and drove from Washington to attend. "I couldn't miss it,” he said. “Ms. Lula Bell has been a good friend over the years, and we still keep in touch. There’s no other place I'd rather be right now than here."
The building where Lula Bell Houston worked for 56 years now bears her name.
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McKinley Glover ’04 said, “I’ve known Ms. Houston since I was a freshman, and she’s always shown a genuine interest in people’s feelings. She’s about the sweetest lady I’ve ever met.”
Born in 1923, Houston worked for a year in Davidson’s dining service in 1943-44. She spent the next few years in New York City and Washington, but The Lula Bell Houston Laundry has been her home-away-from-home since 1948. She has cared for the clothing of all but 1,226 of the college’s 19,731 living alumni. Even more valuable than her laundry services, Houston has bestowed grace and affection on students, offering them that same comfort of being in a home-away-from-home.
A retirement tribute to her stated, “Lula Bell has been greeting anyone and everyone with a warm smile and a kind word and a hug. Students drop off their dirty clothes, and leave with their spirits lifted and a reminder that there’s more to life than their next test or paper. They know someone is working tirelessly and without complaint to take care of them, someone who doesn’t care what their grades are, whether or not they won their last game, or how their love life is going. They know Miss Lula Bell’s unconditional love.”
President Vagt read a town proclamation declaring "Lula Bell Houston Day."
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One former Davidson student, lonely and discouraged far away from his home in Nicaragua, wrote her a letter thanking her for her kindness. Even though he graduated years ago, he still keeps in touch, and called her a few weeks ago to wish her a happy Easter.
Another former student, Matthew Arbuckle ‘02, organized his SAE fraternity brothers two years ago to show their appreciation by giving her $500, a dozen roses and a trophy recognizing her as “The Spirit of Davidson.” That trophy is proudly displayed in front of the cubby in which she keeps her keys and papers, next to a few small seashells and a list of laundry employees that dates back to the 1950s.
What few students know is that Houston’s work has provided a refuge in a life that has not been easy.
Houston began working in a time when racial discrimination was still prevalent in the South, and a black woman had very limited job prospects. After her first husband left her in 1947, she took the $12 a week job at the laundry to support herself and two young children. Houston had watched her mother, Rosa Potts, provide for a family without the help of a husband, and knew what to do. Her mother had risen at the crack of dawn to milk the cow, clean the house, and prepare breakfast for her two children before going off to a day job. Houston was determined to work just as hard.
The extended family of laundry workers past and present showed up to honor Lula Bell Houston.
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She has always waked at 4:15 and arrived at the laundry by 6 a.m., assuring that she would be on time for the 6:30 a.m. start of the work day. When her children were young, she brought them to the laundry with her. They played amidst the washers and driers with children of other workers until it was time to go home. Davidson’s laundry has always encouraged that feeling of family, and Houston’s association with generations of students has reinforced it. “The sense of being family makes the time fly by,” she said. “My family gets bigger with the bunches of clothes coming in. Students come in with smiles on their faces and hope in their eyes.”
In 1959 she married Arthur Houston, with whom she raised two more children. She continued to work at the laundry, and he worked at two jobs, until 1988 when Arthur died of a heart attack. She has suffered more losses recently, with the death of a brother from Lou Gehrig’s Disease five or six years ago, and the death of her mother three years ago.
It was hard for Houston to keep going after the deaths of her brother and mother, but work has always been a salve for her wounds. She likes the predictability of her laundry duties, her co-workers, and the students. Church, and particularly church music, has also been a constant solace. She has been a member of Gethsemane Baptist Church for seventy-eight years, attending services and Sunday school every weekend, and spending three hours on Saturday mornings practicing with the church choir. In addition to the choir, she is a member of the Gethsemane Baptist Church Gospel Singers, a group that performs at churches all across the region and has even appeared on television a couple of times.
Houston said her immediate plans for retirement are to finish thoroughly cleaning her house. She said she might also take a little break to visit relatives in Las Vegas and Baltimore, and maybe take a trip back to New York. She has also always wanted to learn how to play the piano.
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