She never used the library when she was a student at Goucher College in the 1920s. She was a Ruzicka, after all -- the fifth generation in a family devoted to the bookbinding business. Her father's extensive home library suited her just fine.
Years later, when Marie Ruzicka Feldmann was running that Baltimore company, Joseph Ruzicka Inc., her sales staff often visited Goucher's library in hopes of drumming up business. The librarian, Feldmann recalls with a smile, would always ask about her "old friend Marie."
But "she gave her business to my competitor," Feldmann, now 96, said this week. "My own college boycotted me, and still I became successful."
So successful that at a luncheon today honoring Goucher graduates celebrating reunions of 50 years or more (Feldmann marks 75 years as a member of the Class of 1927), the Towson school will announce that she is donating $1 million to its library. Her donation will be used for Goucher's special collections, including its works by Jane Austen. Feldmann is obviously not holding a grudge.
"She's very interested in books, of course, and this plays right into Goucher's needs at the moment," said Ethel W. Berney, a member of the Goucher Class of 1946 who has done a lot of fund raising for the school.
Feldmann's family emigrated from what is now the Czech Republic in the late 19th century, when her father was a young boy. Her grandfather was a publisher and bookbinder who, though a Catholic, criticized the church's practices. His very public objections forced him to take his family to the United States, where they settled in Baltimore.
"I'm afraid my grandfather was as modern as I was," she says with a laugh.
Feldmann graduated from Eastern High School and told her father she wanted to go to college. She meant she wanted to go away to college, but he insisted she attend the women's college a short walk from their Guilford Avenue home. Goucher was located at the time on St. Paul Street, much of it between the 2200 and 2400 blocks, where Lovely Lane United Methodist Church stands.
While at Goucher, Feldmann studied social work. She planned to spend her life working. Her plan, she said, was never to marry and not to have children but instead to be a career woman (it was even more difficult back then to do all three). She ultimately married twice (and was widowed twice) but never did have children.
"My mother thought I was foolish," Feldmann said. "She couldn't understand why I wanted to go to work."
