The Ginkgo Tree

by Cheryl "Sherrie" Jackson Cooper, MUW '82

The ginkgo tree was selected as the chief graphic element in the new logo designed for The Mississippi University for Women Alumnae Association by Nashville-based graphic artist Eric Stars. The ginkgo leaf was suggested by MUWAA members due to the prominent place the ginkgo tree holds in MUW lore.

According to the “MUW Campus Tour” at www.muw.edu, “Many years ago, ginkgo trees were given to MUW and Mississippi State University. A female one survived here and a male one survived at MSU. The legend goes that if a girl is sitting underneath the tree and a leaf falls on her shoulder while at the same time a leaf falls on a boy’s shoulder at MSU then the two of them are destined to be together.”

Another version of the ginkgo tree tale calls for a “W girl” to catch a falling ginkgo leaf before it touches the ground if she wants to be certain that marriage is in her future. This is made more challenging when you realize that the ginkgo tree sheds all of its leaves within a single day each year and so as is often the case, timing is critical.

“I think ALL the versions are ‘true,’” said a smiling Dr. Bridget Smith Pieschel, an MUW alumna who serves as Professor of English at MUW, Director of the Women's Center, and co-authored Loyal Daughters: One Hundred Years at Mississippi University for Women 1884-1984.

“I do know our ginkgo tree was planted in 1900 as a part of the then national turn of the century fascination with all things Japanese,” Dr. Pieschel explained. “If you look at the yearbooks from that era, the students are constantly having ‘Japanese teas’ and performing in ‘Japanese’ plays and musicals. In fact, in 1905 or 1906 Tennessee Williams' future mother, Edwina Dakin, performed in a ‘Japanese’ musical extravaganza in the pavilion at Columbus' Propst Park!

“In ‘Loyal Daughters,’ we use a quote from a 1960 Commercial Dispatch article that explains it as well as I've heard anywhere else: ‘For the story goes that if a leaf from the Ginkgo tree at the 'W' should fall on a girl there at the same time a leaf from another Ginkgo tree at Mississippi State University falls on a boy there, the two are destined to meet and marry. So whatever the scientific-minded might say about such a betrothal by chance, 'W' girls keep on walking under the tree just the same." (The Commercial Dispatch, Columbus, Mississippi, November 15th, 1960.)