A Surprise Roommate Match at Whitman Sparked a Lifelong Friendship
By Mónica Hernández Williams
Molly McBranch ’84 (left) and Chris Beard ’84 (right) stand in a garden outside Maxey Hall at Whitman College.
Chris Beard ’84 vividly remembers the start of her Whitman experience.
After making the four-hour drive to campus from her hometown of Portland, Oregon, she was eager to find out where and who she would be living with during her first year at Whitman.
“I didn’t realize I had to pay a deposit to hold my room when I committed to Whitman so I actually was on the waitlist for housing until Move-In Day,” she says. But that snafu didn’t dim her excitement.
“When my parents and I arrived on campus, I remember walking through the side parking lot to Jewett Hall and meeting Molly and her parents for the first time when I got to the room.”
Molly McCurdy ’84, a first-year from Jackson, Wyoming, had a wool Pendleton blanket lying on her bed when Chris unexpectedly walked in.
“I thought she was someone who would be living down the hall and just popped in to say hi,” says Molly. “We weren’t supposed to be roommates.”
Molly was originally paired with another student who she spent the summer writing letters to. They had sent each other photos so they knew what each other looked like and planned how they wanted to decorate their room, but it was all irrelevant come Move-In Day.
“Her older brother went to Whitman, and he was like, ‘Oh yeah, by the way, my sister is not coming to Whitman. I know she was supposed to be your roommate … sorry about that.’ ” Molly recalls. “It was the first day of my first year. I had butterflies going through the roof. Then all of a sudden my whole world was flipped upside down. But I think the situation worked out for the better."
Molly and Chris immediately hit it off and became the best of friends—living together throughout most of their time at Whitman. Their unexpected rooming situation sparked a deep and lasting friendship.
Unbreakable Bonds, Wherever Life Leads
Molly and Chris spent a lot of time with each other’s families. Molly stayed with the Beards on academic breaks and Chris moved in with McCurdys for a few months during what would have been the start of their third year at Whitman.
Molly decided she wanted to change majors after her sophomore year. To catch up, she chose to take summer classes at a school in New Mexico—where her parents had relocated—so that she could still graduate from Whitman in four years. But by the start of fall semester, she was feeling burned out. So she took a leave of absence, promising to return for spring semester.
To make sure she kept her word, Chris decided to keep her company.
“We lived with my parents,” Molly says. “We both worked at restaurants and got into all kinds of shenanigans around northern New Mexico. When we came back to Whitman, we ended up graduating a little late but in the big scheme of things, it doesn’t even matter.”
After Whitman, they kept track of each other—Chris in Oregon and Molly in New Mexico. They both organized get-togethers with their friend group from Jewett Hall to celebrate birthdays and major milestones.
And they started families of their own. At Whitman, Molly had met her future husband, Duncan Branch ’85. They got married, combined their last names, and went on to have two daughters. Meanwhile, Chris welcomed two daughters of her own. Little did they know, their daughters would bring them back where it all started.
Like Mother, Like Daughter
Natalie McBranch ’17 graduated from Whitman with a Biology degree. And a few years later, her younger sister, Meredith McBranch ’24, became a Whittie too.
“Of course, my husband and I were both rooting for Whitman but we didn’t want to push either of them,” says Molly. “We told them, ‘Go to where it feels right. Where it feels like you are doing a big exhalation.’ ”
When Chris’ oldest daughter, Ruby Beard ’24, was going through the college search process, they asked Meredith—who was in her first year at Whitman—if she would show them around campus. When they came to visit, Chris had deja vu.
“I remember that feeling because when I met Molly she had a Pendleton blanket on her bed. And when Ruby and I came to visit Meredith, she had that same Pendleton blanket.”
Meredith ended up taking a leave of absence during the global pandemic. At that time, Ruby was entering her first year at Whitman. In the fall of 2021, they were both on campus for their sophomore year.
The two had known each other growing up from their moms’ meetups. At Whitman, they got to know each other better. They both majored in Psychology, conducted research with professors and graduated in 2024—exactly 40 years after their moms earned their degrees.
“I was so happy when Ruby decided to go to Whitman because I know what I got out of Whitman—which is a big community and a lot of connections and an excellent education,” Chris says. “Although her experience was very different than mine, I know she got a high-quality education, eventually found her community and got the most out of Whitman.”
A Full Circle Moment
As a sophomore, Chris Beard ’84 saw the northern lights in Walla Walla and never forgot it. She spent Ruby’s entire childhood trying to find them and show them to her.
“We’ve spent so many nights in her childhood driving out to dark places to try to see the northern lights, but we never saw them,” says Chris.
Then, on May 10, 2024, the northern lights were visible from her porch in Bellingham, Washington. She quickly snapped a photo and sent it to Ruby, who was days away from her own Whitman graduation.
“Ruby and her friends popped into somebody’s car, drove out to the wheat fields and saw the northern lights,” Chris says. “We both were watching the same sky from opposite ends of the state. That seemed very poetic to me.”