Uncertainty About the Dates of the Housemans' Vacation

In August 2015, I published in this blog an article titled The Housemans Stayed at the Resort Three Weeks. There I explained my calculation that their vacation lasted from August 10 through September 2, 1963. Since I published that article two years ago, I have used that time-frame in many other articles.

This morning, however, I woke up from a nightmare in which I realized that my calculation might be wrong. I was dreaming about Baby Houseman, after her family vacation, showing up at Mount Holyoke College to begin her school year.  My nightmare was like a David Lynch movie.

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In this morning's nightmare, Satan himself announced gleefully to me:

Baby Houseman was supposed 

to arrive at Mount Holyoke College 

before the Labor Day weekend !!!

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My worst fear was confirmed quickly by an Internet search. According to Mount Holyoke College's current academic calendar, new students are supposed to arrive on campus on the Friday before the Labor Day weekend.

In 2017, new students are supposed to arrive at
Mount Holyoke College on the Friday before Labor Day Weekend

If that was the rule in 1963, then Baby was supposed to arrive at Mount Holyoke on Friday, August 30, 1963. If so, then the Houseman's family three-week vacation must be shifted a week earlier to August 3-25.

The shift of the three-week vacation that would enable
Baby Houseman to arrive at Mount Holyoke
on August 30, the Friday before Labor Day of 1963. 

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This Satanic revelation was a crisis for me and my blog. I sure did not want to re-write all the articles that mentioned dates within that framework. For example, I have published an article The Beatles' Activities During the Housemans' Vacation that detailed the Beatles' activities from August 10 to September 2, 1963.

I already have written much of a future article about Lee Harvey Oswald's activities during that same period as he prepared to assassinate President Kennedy.

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Then I re-read my 2015 article and found that my calculation might be correct after all. That article includes the following passage:

Right before Johnny almost punches the waiter outside a cabin, someone remarks: "Well, cousin, it's almost over. Labor Day weekend is here."

(I don't know who said the remark, because it is missing from my TV recording, which has been cut for TV commercials. I use a dialogue transcript that does not identify the speakers.)

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There is one other consideration about the vacation's dates. In a blog article titled The Undertones to Dirty Dancing, I wrote about a video in which scriptwriter Eleanor Bergstein herself in an interview remarked that the Houseman parents scheduled their vacation to prevent Baby from attending the March on Washington, which took place on August 28, 1963.

If the Housemans had returned home on August 25, then Baby should have been able to travel to Washington DC by August 28. Therefore, the Housemans must have been at Kellerman's through the last week of August.

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I decided to stick to my original calculation that the vacation lasted from August 10 through September 2, 1963. I remained puzzled, however, about when Baby was supposed to show up at Mount Holyoke.

Searching in the website Newspapers, I found the following article in the Berkshire Eagle newspaper, published in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, on September 5, 1963, reporting that classes would begin no earlier than September 23.

Classes in 1963 began no earlier than September 23.

I found also this article in the Berkshire Eagle, in the issue dated September 19, 1963. Although the article does not mention Mount Holyoke College, it does indicate that many colleges in the region began classes in the second half of September.

On September 19, a newspaper article reports
that many students are beginning college classes.