Complex sentence: Female students noticed the general disrepair of the letter, which led to a custom of cleaning the letter in the fall and whitewashing it in April on the Thursday before the Miner's Ball.
Split into simpler sentences: Female students noticed the general disrepair of the letter. This lead to a custom of cleaning the letter in the latter part of the year (fall) and a whitewashing in spring in April on the Thursday before the Miner's Ball.