Boyle is the grandson of Bob and Faye Smithwick, who met as new students at Elon in 1948, and will receive his Elon diploma on Friday, May 24.
Whitley Auditorium is a special and historic place, located within the heart of Elon University’s campus. Its ornate interior includes a pipe organ and orderly rows of seats that have borne witness to countless speakers, ceremonies, performances and scenes of personal accomplishment since it first opened its doors in 1924. Among them was Elon’s Summer Commencement on Aug. 22, 1952, when a young man named Bob Smithwick crossed the stage to receive his diploma from Elon College.
Sixty-eight years later, almost to the day, that young man’s grandson arrived at Elon to start building his own Elon experience, his own bank of memories on the oak-filled campus. Matt Boyle would even create a strong connection with Whitley, where as a member of the a cappella group Vital Signs, he joined with his fellow singers to fill the auditorium with the melodious sounds of their voices.
Now Boyle is preparing to receive his own Elon diploma as he crosses another Elon stage — this one in Schar Center — and concludes his undergraduate education on the same campus where his grandfather and grandmother, Faye Branch Smithwick, once met and fell in love.
“There have been points during my time at Elon when I have been walking Under the Oaks and I’ve gotten chills because I realize I’m walking where they once walked,” said Boyle, who will graduate from Elon College, the College of Arts and Sciences, with degrees in music and exercise science. “While I was never able to walk it with them, there have been moments when I have felt them here.”
This Friday is particularly meaningful for Amy Boyle, Matt’s mother and the daughter of Bob and Faye Smithwick. “Unfortunately, my parents passed away before they could know that Matt would go to Elon and walk in their footsteps,” said Amy Boyle. Her father passed away in 2010 and her mother in 2016. “Every time I am on campus, I feel like I get a little window into my parents’ past and am so encouraged to know that Elon is a part of my son’s story now, too. This legacy is so important to our family.”
That window opens onto a history at Elon that includes Bob Smithwick and Faye Branch both arriving as new students in fall 1948, Bob from the area around Norfolk, Virginia, and Faye from Goldsboro, North Carolina. Bob was two years older than Faye, having served in the U.S. Army in Korea before leaving the military and pursuing his degree.
The pair met early in their Elon careers and soon became a couple. Bob worked at a grill on campus and at the end of his shift would leave with a cheeseburger and chocolate milkshake to take to Faye. At the time, men were not allowed in women’s dorms, and so Faye tied a rope to a bucket and lowered it using a pulley so Bob could deliver it to her upper-floor room from the ground.
They would marry in 1950 and lived in housing for married students that stood where Skids Restaurant now stands on West Haggard Avenue near North Williamson Avenue. Their marriage was featured in an April Fools spoof edition of the Maroon and Gold student newspaper in an article with the headline, “Groom Center Of All Eyes At Spring Holiday Wedding.”
They befriended J. Earl Danieley ‘46, who had returned to Elon as a young chemistry professor and would become Elon’s sixth president in 1957 at the age of 32, and would remain close friends with Earl and his wife, Verona. Faye decided to stop pursuing her degree and went to work in the bookstore, scooping ice cream to help support the couple. They frequently hosted friends who had growing families of their own in their Elon apartment.
“This was the beginning of their lives together,” Amy Boyle said. “So much of the fabric of the beginning of their marriage was at Elon.”
Matt remembers first learning about first hearing about Elon when he was about 10 years old when he spied some Elon memorabilia in his grandparents’ house in Virginia Beach, Virginia. He remembers his grandmother later proudly wearing an Elon sweatshirt.
“I remember seeing her wear that, and I now wear it around campus,” Matt said. “When we found out I would be going to Elon, that sweatshirt became mine.”
During his college search, Matt had an impactful visit to campus that would make him realize that Elon was for him. He was looking for a living, learning environment with a close community where relationships were valued. He was the only student on his campus tour, and he formed a connection with the tour guide, who celebrated with him when he was accepted.
“The individualization of Elon from the beginning was what stood out to me,” Matt said.
At Elon, he’s found a range of reminders of his family’s connections to campus. As a music major, he has spent a lot of time in Arts West, and walking past Skid’s, he’s been reminded of where his grandparents lived. A photo in the Oak House of Alamance Building from decades ago always makes him think about what campus must have been like when his grandparents strolled across it.
“It reminds me of how cool it is that I have this experience and that I can relate this to what they experienced so long ago,” Matt said.
Across the past four years, Matt has developed his own connections to the people and places that make Elon the community that it is. Along with his time on campus, he was able to study in Florence, an experience that stands out to him among the many powerful experiences he has had since arriving in August 2020. He’ll be joined by his loved ones in Schar Center on Friday as his family celebrates another Elon Commencement and extends its legacy at the university.
“I think it would be super meaningful to my parents to know that he has walked where they walked and been right where they were,” Amy said.