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Transcript from "Education"

Well, talk to us a little bit. You did go on and you went to East Tennessee State.

East Tennessee State. There were no…it was an all female school at that time because guys were all off at war except the 4-F's and the preachers. We had a few of those, but so it made college experience different than it would have been if it had not been during the war, but we got a good education, and it was small enough. The college was small enough. It was made a university that year that I graduated. It was changed from college to university. But it was small enough that you knew all your teachers well. The classes were small, so it was a special kind of college education that a lot of kids do not get today.

You were a physical education major.

Well, that and I also majored in English and I got a teaching certificate for elementary school and high school, so you got the whole works.

And it was your dream to teach?

Pardon?

It was your dream to teach?

Right! Exactly! I can tell you now; I can name every one of my teachers, starting with first grade all the way through twelfth grade. I loved my teachers. We had two teachers that lived in our home when I was little who were teachers at the school. One later, a male who was the principal, lived there. So we were always associated with teachers, and I never thought of really doing anything else at that point, and after I graduated, four of us went to the same town up in Virginia and got a job and taught in the same school. I stayed there one year and then I came back to East Tennessee State to head the sports intramural program.

And at what point did you decide you wanted to work with college age folk? I know you went on to Columbia.

Well, when I was in college, the person I admired the most was the Dean of Women, a position at that time that was in some ways the most important position that women ever held. They reported, most of them, to the president. They were also faculty members and the teacher I had for Dean of Women taught English and also lived in one of the residence halls. I admired her greatly, and she was a principal person in my life and in my choice of going on to train in student personnel administration and eventually go back to that institution as Dean of Women.

You went to Columbia?

Went to Columbia University.

Quite a change.

Picked up a train in Strawberry Plains, got on with my trunk and went to New York.

That had to be…

That is an experience.

To be in New York City…

Absolutely. And as a matter of fact, I went on the train when I went to East Tennessee State when I started up there. The train stopped in Strawberry Plains, and I got on with my trunk and off I went. So, they don't do that anymore.

You certainly had a wonderful institution to attend, but just the mere fact of being in New York City that was an education of its own.

Well, it was, and I was scared, but you get up there and you go. I had a room in a dorm where there were all graduate women and it was a wonderful experience living in New York. Every week I cashed a check for $25 and I ate on that, and what was left at the end of the week, we went to an opera, or a movie, or some special thing in New York City. One of the ones I ran around with had a car. She was getting a masters degree in nursing. She had a car and we traveled around all over New York. I drove all over New York just like it was Athens, so it was a great experience, and when we had the car to go other places, we traveled some in the East as well, so it was a nice year.

So and then, at what point did you have your Fulbright in Holland? You taught in a school there…

That was while I was at East Tennessee State. I went back there after I had gotten my masters and was assistant dean of women and then dean of women, and I went to Holland and taught for a year in a girl's school in Rotterdam. It was a wonderful experience. I went back three summers ago to a gathering that they had at the school of those kids. Some of them were teachers. I knew a lot of them. I remembered them. I lived with a Dutch family, and it was a wonderful experience to be over there for a year. I had a car and traveled all over Europe.

That was your first trip abroad?

Yeah.

You got bitten by the bug then.

I got bitten by the bug then.

So you returned to East Tennessee State and at some point decided you needed to get that doctorate at Ohio State?

I left and went to Ohio State and worked in a residence hall, the first one that I guess over the country had been made coed. They thought I had experience, and so they put me in that dorm. As it turned out, there was a cinder block wall between the men and the women, so all they did was eat together, so that was a nice experience.