Scarves for Academics
Frankie Welch valued educational institutions, and they proved to be good clients for her design business. Early in her career she had many teaching jobs, including high school home economics and sewing at the YMCA, while later in her career she often was a guest speaker at colleges and universities. She also served on the boards of several schools including Furman University, Auburn University, and Marymount College in Arlington, Virginia, as well as on advisory committees for Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University’s Textile Department and Mount Vernon College’s Department of Business.
Mary Mathews, wife of the president of the University of Alabama, wrote to Welch that Betty Ford received the first UA scarf when she visited the campus in 1978. Mathews added, “Since that time they have been used for special gifts for national alumni officers, wife of the Ambassador from Singapore and assorted guests like that on campus. They are much treasured items.”
Welch designed this scarf for a fundraiser for the Alumni Merit Award scholarships at the University of Virginia. It includes dogwood branches, a stylized Rotunda (used as the university’s logo), and a border that recalls the serpentine walls of the campus grounds, in the school’s colors of burnt orange and white.
