TRAILBLAZER. WORLD TRAVELER. FULBRIGHTER.

Jacqueline Case Hendricks '53 Studied Abroad When Transatlantic Travel was Rare

By Texas Christian University

November 3^rd, 2021

Graduating senior Jacqueline Case, far left, in the 1953 Horned Frog yearbook.

One day in the late spring of 1953, Jacqueline Hendricks (née Case) went to her TCU post office box and found a letter announcing her Fulbright award. The English major recalled that one of her professors first mentioned the program to her and encouraged her to apply. “I didn’t think I had much chance of getting it,” she said. Hendricks was only the fifth student at TCU to receive a grant from Fulbright, a program created by the United States government just seven years earlier.

RURAL ROOTS

Hendricks came to TCU from a small Kentucky town, but she had heard of the university through her great-uncle, E. M. Waits, a former TCU president. It was a big deal for the small-town girl to move to Fort Worth and an even bigger deal to travel and live in Toulouse, France, as a Fulbright recipient.

Hendricks was nervous to visit Europe by herself because she had not traveled much before. Her family expressed mixed feelings about her studying abroad. “At first, they were appalled that I was going, and I think they were a little nervous about me going out all alone by myself on this journey," she recalled. "But they were also very, very happy because, at that time, there weren’t many people traveling to Europe the way they do now."

E. M. Waits, Hendricks’ great-uncle, served as the ninth president of TCU from 1916 to 1941.

ALL ABOARD

Hendricks traveled to France aboard an ocean liner, as air travel was a rarity during the 1950s. She and four female roommates cruised in tourist class and slept in bunk beds. Hendricks said it was quite a journey and the trip took four or five days before they reached France.

The RMS Queen Mary, the ocean liner Hendricks traveled on from the United States to France.

Jacqueline Case Hendricks, left, with her instructor, Madame Christoffle.

A group of French students taught by Hendricks at the American library in Toulouse.

Case poses with her Fulbright friend from Mississippi on a trip to the Pyrenees.

Hendricks, left, and her friend studying French together in Toulouse.

Hendricks and her Mississippi friend stand atop the Leaning Tower of Pisa in April 1954.

ADVENTURES IN FRANCE AND BEYOND

Hendricks studied French literature at the University of Toulouse and also enrolled in a course to study French history and culture. On the side, she taught English in the American library to locals who wanted to learn. As a thank you, her students rewarded her and the other teachers with a ski trip to the Pyrenees. “It was beautiful with all the snow, but my attempt at skiing was not a great success,” Hendricks recalled.

Hendricks traveled quite extensively with the other Fulbrighters living in France, including a friend she made from Millsap College in Mississippi. She visited Spain, Switzerland, Italy, Germany, England, Morocco and the island of Mallorca.

World War II had ended only eight years earlier, so Hendricks and her cohort strived to be good ambassadors for the United States. “It was important to demonstrate goodwill because Europe was just beginning to rebuild,” she said.

One of Hendricks’ favorite memories from her Fulbright experience was meeting and interacting with so many people from different places, such as Spain, Germany, Switzerland, French Indochina (now Vietnam) and Africa. “It was fun to get their ideals and perspectives,” she said.

Once her Fulbright year concluded, Hendricks returned home on the French liner, the Liberté. She kept the invoice from that trip, which showed a passage price of $185.

BACK IN THE STATES

After returning home, Hendricks wrote a letter to Senator J. William Fulbright thanking him for beginning the program. To her surprise, he wrote back.

The Fulbright Program was created in 1946 in the aftermath of World War II through legislation introduced by Senator J. William Fulbright of Arkansas.

Because of Hendricks' association with the Fulbright Program, the Fort Worth Independent School District (FWISD) superintendent mailed her a letter to France offering her a job, but she never received it because she had already returned to the United States. Years later, when she applied for a job in the FWISD, she learned of the missed letter.

Instead, Hendricks secured her first job teaching English at a school in Ohio, an opportunity she credits to her Fulbright participation. She eventually moved to Hobbs, New Mexico, where she met her husband, a petroleum engineer who had just returned from serving in Korea. After getting married, the couple transferred to Roswell, New Mexico, and later moved to the small west Texas town of Monahans. In 1976, they settled in Midland, Texas, where Hendricks still lives today.

The legacy of Horned Frogs in Hendricks’ family continues: her daughter, Mary Lynn Hendricks Murray, attended TCU from 1976 to 1978, and her grandson, Mark Murray '11 '12, graduated with both a bachelor’s degree and master’s degree from the Neeley School of Business.

REFLECTIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS

For any student interested in applying to the Fulbright Program, Hendricks says to go for it. “Sometimes, when you think you don’t have a chance, things happen!”

Decades later, Hendricks still thinks back on her time as a Fulbright recipient with great fondness. “I am now 90 years old, and I can say that my Fulbright experience was one of the highlights of my life.”