In 1924, the first Winter Olympics were held in the French Alps, George Gershwin debuted “Rhapsody in Blue” and Lola May Armstrong Sherfesee graduated from TCU with an English degree.

Now 104, Sherfesee fondly remembers her days on campus, including cheering the Frogs at football games, traveling to San Antonio to sing with the Glee Club and the stimulating conversations of the Bryson Literary Club.

“Back then, TCU had about 500 students on campus,” Sherfesee said.

“There were a few trees, but not that many,” she said of the campus, which had moved to Fort Worth just 10 years prior to her enrollment.

“I haven’t visited the campus very recently, but I know it’s changed tremendously.”

That’s not all that’s changed.

“My father told me when I graduated, my degree had cost him $500,” she said. “Of course it’s more than that now.”

After graduation, she went to the University of Southern California and earned a master’s degree in sex education.

Asked what she did with her degree, she quipped, “I got married.”

That marriage was to Charles Sherfesee, who served as a combat engineer and trained Army troops during Worth War II. The couple eventually settled in Wichita Falls and was married almost 61 years, until his death in 1999.

Their daughter, Sue Sherfesee ’64, wrote to The TCU Magazine in response to the Winter issue profile of Dorothy Willey ’28, who at age 101 was believed to be the oldest living graduate of TCU.

“When I saw the article I said, ‘Well, Mom’s older than her,” she said.

These days Lola Sherfesee lives in an assisted living center, but still manages to pursue her lifelong passion of reading despite partial blindness that has left her with only peripheral vision.

“I just go slow,” she said. “Right now I’m reading Greek mythology — again.”