When Grace Holderman was a freshman at Penn State there were only 5,000 students. The nearest traffic light was in Tyrone and Old Main was brand new.

State College is an entirely different world now, but one thing will always stay the same: "There isn't a place any better," she said.

She came to State College in August 1930, a time when few women attended college.

"Of course 1929 was the big stock market crash so it was at the start of the Great Depression, and money was very tight, so college was not the thing to do. Most kids out of high school got a job," she said.

Holderman said a year's expenses were between $600 and $700, but with the help of a $300 scholarship, she made State College her home.

"I had no money from home. No money at all," she said.

Penn State at the time had customs that freshmen had to follow.

Only women lived on campus, and they were required to sign in and out. Freshman women had to be in at 8 on weeknights. The only time they could talk to male students was during class or on a weekend at a prearranged time and place.

Freshman men had to wear "a green dink, a small cap, and wore a black tie, a long string black tie, so upperclassmen would mete out some sort of silly punishments if they didn't abide by some of the rules," she said.

For the first eight weeks of the semester, freshman women wore a four-inch wide green ribbon with a bow in the front. Freshmen also had to wear a big placard with their names on a string around their necks so people could learn their names.

These were not the only customs that would seem odd to students today.

Michael Bezilla, director of development communications and special projects, and author of Penn State: An Illustrated History, said for many years, freshmen could not walk on the grass.

"If you were caught walking on the grass then upperclassmen could have you do other things," such as singing Penn State's alma mater, he said.

Students sent their dirty laundry home in a box. Their mothers would do the wash, and send it back, sometimes with added treats.

"Boy, when someone's laundry box came back, there was always a little bit of feasting going on in the dorms," Holderman said.

For fun on the weekends, students attended sporting events and went to fraternity houses, but not for late-night partying.

"Bridge was a big thing in all fraternity houses, in dorms, everywhere, so that was a big activity," Holderman said. She said a common pastime was singing by the piano in fraternity houses.

Students also attended dances throughout the semester; however they were not coed.

"Of course we didn't even know the word lesbian in our naiveté...we didn't know that word, but when I think now of the connotation of stuff like that. There was a big dance, two big dances that the girls had. One girl would dress as a fellow," she said.

Bezilla said Prohibition did not stop alcohol use.

"If students wanted to drink, they would drink. There were drinking parties at that time. It was just part of student life ... they would find a way as they always do," he said.

Holderman is an original member of Kappa Alpha Theta sorority, which was the first women's social club, called Nita-Nee.

She was also a member of the Penn State Thespians, through which she met her future husband, Ken Holderman.

"I can picture myself now with my tap shoes under my arms walking from Mac (McAllister) Hall to the side door of Schwab Auditorium," she said. "I did a time step and he was a very explosive, expressive guy, and he almost fell on me and said, 'We've got to do a dance together.' "

She graduated in 1934 and married in 1937.

"Everybody always said to me, 'You two oughtta go to Hollywood.' It was very different in those days. Hollywood was a charming little town just about like State College," she said. "After all, it was 1937, there was nothing else to do, so why not? So in our little old second-hand Ford Sedan with the back all packed with our belongings, we drove to Hollywood."

They stayed until April 1941.

"It was a wonderful experience. We wouldn't have given it up for anything," she said. "I can remember one time I was walking on Hollywood Boulevard ... and I saw a guy coming toward me, and I thought, 'Oh, who is that? He's going to say, 'Hello Grace,' and what is his name, I cannot think.' But by the time he got up to me, it was Bob Hope."

Eventually Penn State beckoned the Holdermans back.

"It was just a safe, good, normal place to raise children, and we have always been very much involved in Penn State stuff," she said.

The couple raised two daughters, Kenna, 60, and Vinnie, 55, who was also involved with theater. Her husband died in 1987.

The 89-year-old has spent nearly 70 years of her life in State College.

"It's a great place. We had many, many opportunities to move elsewhere ... but it was where we were happy and comfortable and with people we cared about and doing things in our own school and all that, so all those things took precedence over the money side," she said.