Oral history interview with Jeanne Tannenbaum, 2008

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PRESERVING OUR HISTORY: ROTARY CLUB OF GREENSBORO
ORAL HISTORY COLLECTION
INTERVIEWEE: JEANNE TANNENBAUM
INTERVIEWER: KATHELENE MCCARTY SMITH
DATE: October 24, 2008
KS: It is October 24, 2008, my name is Kathelene Smith and I am at the home of Ms. Jeanne Tannenbaum for the Preserving Our History: Rotary Club of Greensboro oral history interview. Good morning Ms. Tannenbaum. Thank you for having me to your lovely home. Please tell me when and where you were born.
JT: I was born in Alexandria, Louisiana.
KS: Were you?
JT: [Yes]
KS: That’s wonderful; a Louisiana girl. That’s where my family’s from. So, tell me about growing up in Alexandria.
JT: I lived there only until I was four and then – my father was in the service, and then we moved back to Greensboro – we moved to Greensboro.
KS: So you moved back to Greensboro when you were four and you’ve been here ever since.
JT: I grew up here. My adult – most of my adult life I have been away, but I’ve come back now that I’m retired.
KS: Well, tell me about your family and home life growing up. Do you remember anything in Alexandria or do you mostly have just memories of being here?
JT: Vaguely. I remember a little bit in Alexandria, not very much. I mostly remember after I lived here.
KS: Do you have any siblings?
JT: I do. I have two sisters and a brother.
KS: So how was growing up in Greensboro? Was it a lot different back then?2
JT: Yes. I think Greensboro’s larger and richer for a lot of what’s happened to it but it’s a lovely – it’s always been such a nice community. It’s partly enriched because of the six colleges and universities that are here. It has been a wonderful cultural base to the whole state.
KS: So tell me, what did your parents do when you were growing up? Your father was in the military?
JT: My father was a physician. He was in the military at the point at which I was born, but he – and that was during World War II, but he was a physician. He is now deceased. My mother was a housewife. My mother, actually, was from Greensboro, so I have many roots here.
KS: Where did you go to high school?
JT: When or where?
KS: Where, or when.
JT: I went to what is now Grimsley High School. It was Greensboro Senior High. When I entered, it changed its name just after that and I went for one year and then I went away to school in Pennsylvania for the last two years of high school.
KS: How was that? That was a change, I bet.
JT: That was a change indeed, but I did go to Grimsley my first year.
KS: Well, any interesting memories of Greensboro? I know people have talked about the Christmas parades. What are your big memories from growing up?
JT: Oh yes. I do remember the Christmas parades. They were a very big highlight of the community. My goodness. I was a sophomore at Grimsley Senior High School the year that it integrated and that was a very big deal.
KS: How was that?
JT: Well, unfortunately, there was only one girl who was sent to integrate the school and it was very difficult for her. It was an especially difficult, but important process and some of us tried to make it a little easier for her but it was – it’s a very large school and at a teenage time of life without real strong direction from school administration, meaning the principal, assistant principal; it was a very difficult struggle for her.
KS: Can you imagine? It’s hard enough going to school under the best of circumstances.3
JT: Yes. She went on to – I believe that she has a doctorate and she is teaching at the college level. She’s – that has to be very difficult. All through the southeast, especially the NAACP [National Association for the Advancement of Colored People], I think legal defense fund, sponsored minority students to integrate and what they did was promise them a four year scholarship to college, and that was a very difficult – that’s very expensive so they couldn’t afford to have multiple students going at the same time which is why in communities there was one at a time.
KS: I didn’t realize that’s what happened.
JT: And Greensboro again, has been a very wonderfully open community relative to most and this probably happened earlier than most. Brown vs. The School Board was in ’54 and this happened in ’57, which was relatively soon. We had a strong chairman of the school board; I think that helped too. That was an important milestone when I was in high school. There were a lot of wonderful times; that just always comes to mind because it was so striking at the time.
KS: Right. Anything else about growing up in Greensboro?
JT: My great uncle had a small place way out in the country and he was nice enough – he didn’t have children, we were like his grandchildren and so he had a horse and we’d go out and play and ride. We’d have birthday parties there. It was – now that was very special. A lovely time. Actually, we lived across the street from a park and so, that was nice too. We had lots of time to play.
KS: And then you went off to school in Pennsylvania. How were those years?
JT: They were fine. They were good years. There were only two years.
KS: Two years in Pennsylvania? So what school did you go to in Pennsylvania?
JT: It doesn’t exist anymore. It was an all-girl school. I think they have kind of gone by the wayside among other things.
KS: So what were your favorite subjects in school?
JT: I guess I enjoyed, after a spell, I found school difficult at that time. Just being a teenager was hard enough and I’m not sure that I had favorites. [Both laugh]
KS: Well, did you move back home to Greensboro after that?
JT: Yes. And I went to, what is now UNCG [University of North Carolina at Greensboro], what was then Woman’s College. And I was an economics and math major. 4
KS: Now were you there when they had the sit-in?
JT: I missed the sit-in because it happened during my senior year in high school when I wasn’t here.
KS: Some WC [Woman’s College] girls were down there.
JT: That’s correct, they were. They were. I missed that completely. I did do some picketing and marching at what was called “The Corner.” It is down on Tate Street just below where Aycock is, there are some stores. Those were – the land was owned by the University and the stores rented space, and so we didn’t feel like since it was University or state owned that they should be able to discriminate.
KS: And did they?
JT: And they did at that time; just like Woolworths did. It was not an uncommon thing throughout the South. I’m not sure it was uncommon in lots of places. When I left college, I went to Boston and I found that segregation was terribly alive and well there too.
KS: Oh really. That’s interesting.
JT: In different forms but oh certainly it did. Everywhere in the country it was, that’s why there was a Supreme Court case.
KS: So when you were at WC, what else were you involved in; what did you major in? You said economics.
JT: I was an economics and math major. My father insisted I get a teaching certificate.
KS: Very practical. [Both laugh]
JT: I had to be able to do something. One of the things that was terribly interesting, I was involved in the NSA, the National Student Association. I went to a national conference one summer and I understood later that that was something the CIA had paid for on campuses throughout the country so I suspect there must be a dossier somewhere in Washington. It was very interesting. It was a wonderful time. Students were excited about – fraternities and sororities had clauses saying that they couldn’t have blacks or Jewish members, nationally, so they couldn’t on local campuses, and that was an issue we were – nationally people were very upset about. It was right at that time that Martin Luther King marched on Washington. There were a lot of things going on in the country that we could be part of. In North Carolina we had something called “The Speaker 5
Ban.” It was a law. At that point, North Carolina was one of two states where the governor did not have veto power. Terry Sanford was the governor of North Carolina and without his knowledge, the state legislature in about twenty minutes time took up a bill where they banned on any state supported campus or building
– anyone who was a “Communist” or was in any way part of a Communist party and so theoretically, the Bolshoi Ballet couldn’t perform on the campus and it meant that speakers couldn’t come and speak. It was just after the McCarthy era and we were following behind that. And so many us were concerned and were picketing and writing resolutions as if we really could make a difference. It was a very interesting time to be in college.
KS: I know when Martin Luther King came to Greensboro he spoke at Bennett [College] because it was private. I don’t know if he could speak at any of the other schools.
JT: I suspect he couldn’t. I don’t know that. I do know that when Mrs. Roosevelt came, she also spoke at Bennett; she did not speak elsewhere. But that was – I don’t know when Martin Luther King came, so I don’t know if it was part of that.
KS: That’s amazing.
JT: Well, that’s an interesting part of history and if Terry Sanford, the governor at that time, had had veto power, he would have vetoed that immediately. But he did not have veto power.
KS: So you were very civically active.
JT: I was.
KS: What dormitories did you live in at UNCG?
JT: I started in Bailey, I lived in Woman’s which doesn’t exist; it’s where the library is, and then I lived in Strong.
KS: Any favorite teachers?
JT: Oh, several. I remember Dean Mossman was a wonderful teacher. She was a sociologist and she was just fabulous.
KS: Did the teachers encourage civic engagement at the time?
JT: Some did, some didn’t. I had Dr. John Kennedy who was head of economics department. He went on to be dean of the graduate school. Graduate school didn’t exist. He was the first dean. Actually, I picked economics because it had the smallest number of majors for the largest number of faculty. [Laughs]6
KS: That’s an idea.
JT: There were some great gals. And so it was interesting time to be in economics.
KS: So when you graduated, what did you do? You went to Boston?
JT: I did. I went to Boston.
KS: Why did you go to Boston?
JT: I had a friend and we set out to see the world. [Both laugh] She was dating somebody who was in graduate school at MIT [Massachusetts Institute of Technology] and that’s how we picked Boston as opposed to, I don’t know, New York or Philadelphia or some other city.
KS: So how was Boston?
JT: It was wonderful. It is just a terrific place for people just out of college to go. It is just full of people who are doing all kind of interesting things.
KS: And were you teaching?
JT: No. And it’s just as well. But, you have to take an exam, at that time it was the fifteenth of December and I didn’t know about that. [Laughs] And this was already in the summer so no, I didn’t have a teaching – and I didn’t have a car so teaching in the suburbs was problematic. No, I had lots of interviews and I ended up working in the placement office at MIT.
KS: Great.
JT: Part of my job, they had never had anybody who dealt with summer jobs, so part of what I was to do was to find summer jobs for MIT students which was a terribly easy thing to do. [Both laugh]
KS: Well that’s wonderful. So how long did y’all stay up there?
JT: I was there for several years. After MIT, I worked in what was called Personnel; it is now called Human Resources. And I was at the Peter Brigham and the New England Baptist Hospital. And I decided after several years that I could perhaps do more for employees either as a union organizer or for management and I had met – at MIT I had met some people who had been in industry and they said they had no women in management and weren’t going to have any and there were lots of women in hospitals, why didn’t I do that. So I went to Duke [University] and have a masters in Hospital Administration which is now in the Business School.
KS: Really! So you went from Boston to Duke.7
JT: [Yes] And then went on back to Boston. And my first job was to help three Harvard teaching hospitals merge. I was the administrative person to do that. And they never did that. And they actually spent about ten years or so and still didn’t and they finally built something called The Affiliated and there are still three teaching hospitals; wonderful places. But after that experience, I left Boston and I went to Baltimore at Johns Hopkins where I had my first position in Operations and I was there for a few years. Then I went to Greenville, South Carolina, where I ran a psychiatric hospital.
KS: My goodness! That is wonderful! And how long were you in Greenville?
JT: I was in Greenville for several years and then I went to Portsmith, Virginia, where I ran the largest hospital in the chain of psychiatric hospitals. Those were for profit. And my hospital was sold and so I left and went to New Orleans where I went back into medical-surgical to a teaching hospital and I had all of the ambulatory and diagnostic; all of the health care, non-hotel functions.
KS: Now which hospital was that in New Orleans?
JT: It’s called the Touro Infirmary.
KS: I know exactly where Touro Infirmary is.
JT: That’s what it is.
KS: I lived in New Orleans for many years.
JT: Oh did you? Then you know just where it was.
KS: I do. That’s where all my family’s from, so I know where Touro is.
JT: It is fine place. I hope it’s doing all right, post-Katrina.
KS: That’s true. I hear everything was really bad down there. So how long were you in New Orleans?
JT: I was there for not so long; three or for years.
KS: It is a fun place to be.
JT: It’s an interesting city. I think it is more interesting as a tourist in some ways. People who – there is no in-out migration. There were not a lot – there’s no industry to draw people there and so families are there, they stay there; they’re there from birth to death. Kids go away or don’t go away and come back or don’t, but there aren’t a lot of extra people – that was my experience.8
KS: I’ve never thought about that before, but that’s true. My family was there for many generations and finally just died out. They weren’t going to go anywhere. You know they loved it and they stayed.
JT: It’s so interesting, but it’s not necessarily great for kids after college because there are not a lot of things for them – not lots of employment unless they are going into dad’s law firm. There were a couple of banks, there just wasn’t – I hope that New Orleans will do better. And then it became such a tourist spot and there is so much to do around tourism, but that’s not a great job for college graduates. There was ship building and there’s certainly health care, but there’s not a lot of industry. It was a fascinating thing. I remember once at – I guess it was New Years day, going with somebody who had years before been Queen of Mardi Gras, and we went to a party and she turned to introduce me to somebody and she said, “I’d like to present,” and she named my name and I thought, “Wow! That’s out of some other era.”
KS: It is.
JT: But that’s a mentality that doesn’t change. People had homes and the tax structure was such that I understood that you would be taxed – so much of the frontage wouldn’t be taxed, but upstairs or as it goes other directions, would be and that was for the old families. They would also fix up the parlor and the whatever, downstairs and the upstairs would be a wreck. It’s just a fascinating mentality.
KS: Yes. They’d have the – I went to several housed uptown where they only had electricity on the main floor and that’s where they had people over. Or the famous thing of only painting the front of the house and then sides would be left to just rot. It is, it is really a different type of mentality.
JT: It’s a very – you know the zoo was such an institution in the city that it would have fundraisers for the symphony. I’d never been anywhere where one non-profit would have a fundraiser for another, but the zoo was so successful and the symphony wasn’t – the museum was okay, but it wasn’t a cultural oasis in any way, shape, or – it was just fascinating and fortunately Tulane [University] was there and Tulane’s Law School wasn’t just a generalist law school particularly, it excelled in maritime law. I mean everything was a little bit different. I also had only been on the East Coast and everything in New Orleans went west. People who would go out of the town to shop would go west to Texas. Nobody would go north to Atlanta. Everything turned and went west and I know nothing about west. Everything that I knew was up; East Coast. It was a whole different – it was a whole something new. It was interesting. I was fascinated by it, but it was certainly different. I also found lots of people in New Orleans, if they went out of state to school, oh they might go to Alabama, Mississippi, but if they left that general area, they’d go to Virginia; nothing in between, nothing north of there. I 9
mean it was fascinating to me how they did that. Did you have that same experience?
KS: Yes and I don’t particularly know why, but that’s true.
JT: Everybody went to UVA [University of Virginia] or to Virginia.
KS: I knew a couple of people who I worked with who were from Virginia and then they’d come down to New Orleans. So they were sending people to New Orleans too. I don’t know what that connection was.
JT: Fascinating. But they didn’t go up to Penn, they didn’t go up to New England, it was to Virginia.
KS: That’s as far north as they got! [Both laugh]
JT: That’s a generalization, but I’ve found as I’ve moved places, I’ve just found the communities so interesting.
KS: And you have been all over, so you have a really good perspective.
JT: It is so interesting to get to know the power structure of all those communities. I spent some time with the man in New Orleans who was president of Dillard University; a wonderful man. Dillard being one of the historically black schools. He had been at Duke and he left to go there and I was just horrified one day when he explained to me – I asked him if he was going to some event and he explained to me how he couldn’t go because he was black and he couldn’t go in New Orleans. I was just horrified. He was the college president; university president and he still couldn’t.
KS: Some Mardi Gras thing? They’ve loosened up.
JT: They had no choice.
KS: They had to because they wouldn’t let them parade on city streets anymore. That’s how they finally broke it. They said basically, “If you’re going to parade on city streets, you’ve got to open up your organizations.”
JT: I didn’t know that. He also – they also, I don’t know of any other place that could change federal holidays. The holiday that comes in March – they would move – the mail – it was a mail holiday, mail was not delivered on the Tuesday of Mardi Gras, it would be delivered a different day instead. That was a holiday and there was no federal mail? Never heard of such a thing. [Both laugh] Only in New Orleans could that occur. Fascinating.
KS: It is different. So you got out of there at some point, had enough? [Laughs]10
JT: No, I thought it was very interesting; it was just that I decided that I would do some consulting. I had spent a career in Operations and I didn’t know where I was going to go so I came here and I just –
KS: You came back from New Orleans and then you came up here and that’s where you’ve been ever since. What year was that?
JT: Oh, I’m not sure. A few years ago. I have to go look it up. I did consulting for awhile and because I had never worked in North Carolina, my contacts weren’t here anyway, so I could go from here as well as I could go from any city.
KS: So you’ve consulted ever since.
JT: I have.
KS: That’s great. So tell me how you have been involved with philanthropic causes and volunteerism in the city of Greensboro.
JT: During my entire working career, I always did some volunteer work in each of those communities, but it was a natural for me to do some of that when I came back. In addition, it was fun to get to know the community and one of the things I’ve always been interested in is power and who has it and how they use it and men have power and it’s been an interesting way to observe power.
KS: And how is Greensboro’s power structure different from other places?
JT: Oh I’m sure it probably isn’t. [Laughs] You know, I’ve seen more here, in some ways, than I have other cities, but I’ve been on more boards than I probably could imagine I would ever – one just sort of has lead to another; most being local, but a couple of state and a couple of national, but mostly local.
KS: Any favorite ones that you like to spend your time on?
JT: Well, I spent several years on the Greensboro Urban Ministry Board and was secretary for several years. It was a wonderful board.
KS: How have you seen Greensboro’s non-profit sector change through the years, or since you’ve been back? Or have you, since you haven’t really been back that long.
JT: No, I think I’ve probably been on fifteen or twenty boards here and as I’ve watched, successful ones have had to pull in younger people, had to become a little more diverse, had to realize strength that board members had to bring some real, either business strength with them or financial wherewithal or that boards 11
had to be more than nice little ladies’ luncheons – that didn’t work anymore. It is hard to keep – to raise the money that is necessary nowadays.
KS: Now tell me about the Tannenbaum Sternberger Foundation.
JT: It isn’t very big as foundations go. My great-uncle – it is money he left.
KS: And what kind of work do you do in the community?
JT: We are very interested in especially, I guess, in education, social causes and cultural.
KS: Any favorite projects through that? How are you involved in the Foundation?
JT: Not at the moment, I have been Chair. We are very interested in education. We give scholarships, actually $8,000 to thirteen colleges and universities for Guildford College students and they can be used for “C” students, “A” students, any way they choose to use them. For one student at a time or eight students at a time or however they choose to divvy it up. In addition, we give money – we’ve been interested in helping GTCC improve some of the – in their healthcare services sector, they didn’t have quality equipment to train nursing student, surgical techs, and so forth and so we helped them get that equipment. We’ve sent scholarship money to the United Day Care Services, to – an interesting program that United Day Care Services started with probably twenty different organizations working together and they’ve taken people who have four year old children or less to try to teach them how to parent better and how to read to their children and help children get ready so that they can go to Pre-K along with kids who’ve had lots of advantages. That has been very exciting to follow. We’ve tried to help the Guildford Battleground Company as they – we were the first group who gave them extra some money so they could buy pieces of land, specifically houses that were near buy. The Federal government will reimburse them but it often takes several years and so they needed some up-front money so they could purchase the house when the house came on the market so they could have a revolving fund for that. We helped them do that.
KS: I love the Guildford Battleground.
JT: I do too. Isn’t that wonderful?
KS: That is wonderful. We are groupies of the reenactment every year.
JT: You did notice that the Tannenbaum Park is sitting there and the reason that it is there is that a group of volunteers from Greensboro, just some nice community people, were very upset that the actual battle took place on land that was not necessarily where the battleground – the Federal park is, but that there was extra land going toward Guildford College and there was a piece of land that was quote 12
“virgin” where it had not been corrupted by lots of things and so they very much wanted it. On one corner was already a daycare center. On one corner was a – the other three corners – something was built on them. And so we gave them the initial $50,000.00 for which they could get the city and the county and other people to give them money to buy it and they were very grateful. And my father died at that point, so they named it – isn’t that a nice story.
KS: Isn’t that wonderful.
JT: But they couldn’t have bought it without the infusion of somebody saying, “This does sound like a –.” So we gave that initial grant that meant they could get the other money.
KS: They must be so meaningful to you to know that is named for your dad.
JT: Isn’t that nice. I think that is a lovely thing.
KS: Well, it is certainly a worthwhile project. It is certainly unique. Now you said they would buy up the houses around it. What does that mean? Do they tear them down?
JT: You know, they’re between the Guildford Battleground and Tannenbaum Park. There is some land and around it there are some houses. And if those houses go on the market, if they can possibly buy those, the Guildford Battleground Company can then own that land.
KS: So it will be a buffer to have this whole area.
JT: Right. So that is what they are trying very hard to do and I think that it’s a great thing to preserve that. We’ve helped the Eastern Music Festival over the years as it struggled and it’s been – it’s one of Greensboro’s finest jewels. My mother was chairman of that board at one point and we’ve been very interested in helping to be sure that they –
KS: The foundations in Greensboro are like no place else I’ve ever seen. The city is incredible and it must be fun for you to be involved in so many aspects of it. [Alarm sounds]
JT: I’m sorry. It is in my security system, when you open particular doors. Somebody opened the door.
KS: Are you involved with UNCG at all?
JT: Yes, I have been over the years. I figured UNCG did a lot for me and so I was, at one point, chair of the Friends of the Library. I’ve been on the Nursing School board. I’m on the Weatherspoon Foundation board. 13
KS: I understand that the Greensboro Jewish community is small but very tight knit and influential. Can you tell me about the role that you think they have played in the growth of Greensboro?
JT: I think that certainly in the past it made a huge difference as Greensboro really got off the ground. It was a small community until the late 1800s and then some families were here to start some real industry. The most prominent of those is the Cone family. The Cones had two mills, they wanted to have third mill and they ran out of having enough money and really enough management expertise and so my great-grandfather and his brother were in Columbia, (?) South Carolina, and had a store, a general store, and the Cone brothers were wholesale merchants and they had worked together for years and so they asked them if they wouldn’t come to Greensboro to help them open and run the third mill and so that’s how my family got here. There were lots of Jewish family who did things like that and what made it most unusual that they were very interested in the community and so they were involved in it. They were interested in the Red Cross and were chairs and they were interested in – what was called “Community Chest” is now the United Way and they were chairs and they were interested in the Boy Scouts and they were interested in helping all kinds of families. Ben Cone, Sr., was a mayor of Greensboro. They were just very active. Not only were they merchants, but they were very active in seeing that it was a better place to live and I think that has made a huge difference. That is not true in all communities.
KS: The contributions to the health industry and the arts.
JT: Cone Mills, also, unlike lots of other places during the Depression, realized that it had to play a role and so it had a general store that gave people who worked there credit. It had a couple of doctors on the payroll of the mills. It gave scholarship to children of families. That was a terribly important role for the community. That made a big difference in the community.
KS: Now are you involved with the Greensboro Jewish Federation?
JT: I’m a contributor.
KS: I’ve been on that Web site and I was just so impressed by all the things that were going on.
KS: Now when did you join Rotary Club? Who got you involved in Rotary Club?
JT: The person who asked me was Ray Covington. And I don’t know. I will have to go back and look it up. [Laughs] Six years ago, five years ago, I’m not sure.
KS: And what has your involvement been in the Rotary Club.14
JT: I haven’t had a – I’ve done some volunteer things and I’ve gone to meetings. I must say I have not taken a particular role.
KS: That’s an interesting group too. Such nice people.
JT: It is an interesting group.
KS: Now have you ever been involved in the political arena of Greensboro?
JT: Not more than just on a grass roots level.
KS: Or the civic arena? Have you considered running for anything? That’s a great experience!
JT: You’re so nice. I think I’m a little – I have not. I have not.
KS: Since you’ve lived in Greensboro, what events have occurred that stand out in your mind. I know that you’ve only been back for a few years, but you said that your family’s here. Anything in particular that maybe has changed since you had gone away to school or that stand out in your mind?
JT: Well, I think Greensboro has become, in some ways has become stronger. I hate to see that we’ve lost – we did have several Fortune 500 companies, and we’ve just dwindled away a lot of leadership and potential, and it makes me very sad and disappointed in the community. We don’t seem to have any real leadership at the moment.
KS: You know, that’s been a theme, I’ve noticed, that everybody is concerned about the general leadership of Greensboro.
JT: And what’s here seems to be a tight knit of – I laugh – of white men, and they’re older, and they won’t let go. And so it’s a stronghold, and so it’s very hard for others to come in. But it’s a small little band of white men and I hate that.
KS: It’s amazing that can still be true, isn’t it?
JT: It is, but it is true.
KS: Now how about downtown. That’s looking up.
JT: Well, it’s got some bars. I mean, and there are some few people living downtown, but, no. I don’t see it as a vibrant – it’s not the vibrant community that we need and lots of bars aren’t going to bring that and that makes me sad too.
KS: What do you think can be done about downtown or about Greensboro?15
JT: Well, first of all, I think we need to become a Triad. We need to grow with High Point instead of fighting with High Point and then reach out to Winston. If
we don’t, we’re going to die on the vine. So rather than just worrying about downtown, instead of having a Division A little baseball stadium downtown, we needn’t have done that. I was very disappointed. We needed to go out toward the airport. And Greensboro has a Division A team, it had one before we started. Winston has a Division A team. Burlington has a Division A team. We don’t even play each other which is even more stupid.
KS: We’re doing the same thing in Winston. They moved out of their perfectly good stadium to a spot downtown. It just doesn’t make any sense at all.
JT: It’s such a waste. We should have all – Greensboro, Winston, High Point, and Burlington should have built a fabulous facility centrally located. It would have taken us all twenty minutes.
KS: Why isn’t that happening?
JT: Because we are very interested in having this little thing downtown.
KS: Is it just that regionalized?
JT: It certainly feels that way to me.
KS: I’ve only been here for ten years.
JT: Does it feel that way to you?
KS: Well, I commute into Greensboro, but it does seem so. It really does.
JT: We have fabulous soccer fields for kids and we have some good public tennis courts for kids; for everybody. We don’t have – but beyond that, we weren’t thinking very regionally. We fortunately, have the family and children services and I’ve just gone on that foundation board, is Greensboro and High Point.
KS: What is it called?
JT: Family and Children Services. But we have a very few things for Greensboro and Highpoint, but most things aren’t. We have two Arts Councils, we have two United Ways, we have two everything and we are the only county in the state that has two cities and that makes it very tough too. So I wax a little bit outspoken, but I think – I think downtown is a fine thing. I think it’s important and I’m all for having some – I think more important than that is that we are not bringing any new industry and jobs by having the little downtown that we’ve got. And before 16
we worry about that, we’ve go to do economic development and we are not doing it here. We’re doing an especially poor job with it.
KS: Well, what do you think that can be done with the problems that are facing Greensboro? How do you think that they can be solved – water problems, racial problems. There are a lot of issues.
JT: I think our racial problems are – I think a lot of them have to do with jobs and I think if we could do something with economic development, I think a lot of the problems would be different problems. I think the water, like a lot of other infrastructure, during the seventies, when – I wasn’t here either, but when times were good, nobody worked on anything. And then they just sort of coasted along and you just can’t do that. It’s like the school bonds. We have to keep up with school bonds. You just can’t not do that. We have to do better by our kids in schools.
KS: What about economic development in particular. What would you like to see put in place?
JT: I’d like to see all of the people connected to economic development moved out and have a new group moved in. I think we’re not doing a very good job with economic development.
KT: Do you think we have a draw –
JT: Part of it is that it is a secret. We can’t know anyway what they’re working on. So who even knows?
End of Tape 1, Side A. Start of Tape 2, Side B
KT: Before we get further along, I did want to go back and ask you about your time at Duke. So you did get a masters degree at Duke.
JT: Yes. It was a – it was fun for me having gone to a woman’s college. My brother was an undergraduate when I was there and I went to some of the fraternity parties and I was the second class – Duke is the oldest program in hospital administration in the country and I was the second class that had a woman in it. So, it was an interesting time to be there and my classmates were just wonderful. We have kept up – as a matter of fact, just had a reunion in April and at least half of us were – we had it here and almost half of us came which was just fabulous, you know, it was a great time to be there. Duke has been awfully good to me. I’ve been on several different boards. At the moment I’m on the most interesting – Kenan Endowment has endowed – this is the fourth large piece that they’ve put together and it’s on ethics and so at Duke there’s a large Kenan Institute for Ethics and it’s a very exciting board and I was thrilled to be asked to be on it. Bill Raspberry, the writer, was on it. David Gergen was on it when I got on. 17
There have just been some real outstanding – it’s just a fabulous board of people who are – John Medlin who was a former CEO at Wachovia who is a wonderful man. He lives in Winston. There have been some great people and I’ve learned a lot and ethics is something I’m terribly interested in – reality ethics – those with power. [Laughs] And I’ve enjoyed doing that. Thank you for asking.
KS: Sure. Duke is a wonderful school.
JT: Yes. It has been fabulous.
KS: Now, what else are you involved in or do you like to do – hobby-wise? What are your interests outside of business?
JT: Well, I did not use to think of myself as a risk taker, but along the way, I seem to have taken some that didn’t seem like real risks to me, but having gone to graduate school when women weren’t doing that – there have been a lot of things that I’ve done. Well, someone, a dear friend, talked me into to going on Outward Bound. Couldn’t believe I did that. And from there, he – two people – two men from Outward Bound and their wives went also but didn’t finish, were going to climb Mount Kilimanjaro, and wouldn’t I like to that that. So I said, “Okay.” One of them was a doctor; I thought that was safe enough even if he was a Gynecologist; he was a doctor. [Both laugh]
KS: So they talked you into going mountain climbing did they?
JT: Yes. It was just – this is nothing technical, but we did climb – although their wives didn’t make it all the way to the top, I did. All the way to the 19,340 feet. It was quite an accomplishment. I actually had more trouble going down than I did going up.
KS: Really, why was that?
JT: It was different – different muscles, different parts of your leg. And at the top, it’s called “scree” they’re like little rocks completely covering it and I – here we were sort of sliding down on this stuff. Well, I got up on the morning of the sixth day, I think, or seventh and I came down in a day and a half. [Laughs]
KS: Did you train before you went?
JT: I did what I thought I should. I did a lot of endurance work. Probably in hindsight, I think I would have – if I had gone over to Grimsley High School and gone up and down the steps. That probably would have helped me a lot. I really didn’t know what we would do. [Phone rings]
KS: You were talking about training and about the scree.18
JT: Oh, the scree. No, I just had on boots. It was not anything technical, but coming down was just a whole lot harder for me. It used different things. You’re walking going up and then you’re walking going down and it’s different.
KS: Now, did you continue with that? Were you hooked?
JT: I’ve done two more. I went to Nepal for a three week trek. That was very exciting, a couple of years later. And we went down through some Hindu areas up to Tibet. We, at that point, we couldn’t go into Tibet. I’m so sorry. I’ve always wanted to go to Tibet. And then the third time I went, I went to Peru.
KS: Really, where did you go in Peru?
JT: Well, we first did – I did two smaller treks: one was the old Machu Picchu.
KS: You’ve done that? I’ve always wanted to do that.
JT: You can take a train.
KS: Can you?
JT: Yes.
KS: I thought that there was absolutely nothing up there. I didn’t realize that you could take a train.
JT: Yes. It winds around the mountains. But, we walked the five day walk as the Incas did and then we went on another one – another part of Peru, which was fun. I don’t know if I’ll ever do any more or not, and none of those were technical.
KS: Sounds awfully brave and technical to me! [Both laugh] I think you’re being modest.
JT: No, you walk. The ones I went on – I went on trips where people took my things. I didn’t have to carry all my belongings, I didn’t have to cook, I didn’t have to do any of that. [Laughs] Which is fine.
KS: To you prefer that kind of adventure to basically, straight traveling to see Europe.
JT: I think that both have their – I find people fascinating and for Mount Kilimanjaro there no people. And that was an endurance test. The other two were through little villages and around people and some culture. When we were in Peru, we were there in the end of June and there’s a celebration called Inti Raymi which is to celebrate the solstice. It’s around the longest day of the year and we were up in the old Inca capital and it’s a wonderful celebration and the culture is part Catholic, part old Inca traditions. The Inti Raymi is mostly old Inca traditions and 19
people are in costume and it’s just full of dancing. It’s just a fabulous time. It was wonderful. It is so interesting to see how the culture has evolved.
KS: So y’all had to stay in tents?
JT: On the treks we did.
KS: That’s brave in itself.
JT: Well, there were no hotels. We don’t pass anything like that, so we don’t have choice.
KS: And y’all walked the whole way.
JT: [Yes] In Peru, in case somebody had trouble, they took a horse in back. They didn’t for the other two. I am not a horseback rider and to me, I would have had to have been very incapacitated to go up and down on rocks on a horse. [Laughs] I couldn’t have done that.
KS: So you don’t have anything else planned yet?
JT: No, I haven’t. We’ll see, maybe, but those were very interesting trips. They were parts of the world I wouldn’t have seen otherwise.
KS: Do you do a lot of traveling otherwise?
JT: I have loved to travel. I think traveling is very interesting. And mostly if you can go somewhere to be part of the culture of the people rather than – I don’t know what it would be like to be on a ship and spend two hours and say I’ve been to this country. I don’t think that seems as interesting. I think it is more interesting to spend several weeks in a country and get to know it.
KS: What have been some of your favorites that you’ve been to?
JT: Well, the first trip I ever took, I was in college and it was when something called the “Common Market,” there were six European countries that were part of the Common Market, and I spent twelve weeks traveling and studying the Common Market and that was fascinating. I think most trips – the Galapagos Islands were very interesting.
KS: You’ve been there – that’s wonderful.
JT: Yes, they were great and do go before they aren’t there anymore. It’s very expensive for Ecuador – Ecuador owns them – for Ecuador to keep them up and my fear is that they won’t always exist. That would be a tragedy.20
KS: You’ve been to so many wonderful places.
JT: Someday I will spend more time in Europe. I haven’t spent much time in Europe. [Laughs]
KS: You’ve been going to all of these other exciting places. You can go to Europe any time. [Laughs]
JT: I figured I could do that when I was older.
KS: You can wheel your way through Europe if you need to – that’s what I’ve told my dad.
JT: One interesting trip I took was a State Department trip studying health care in Russia and China in ’84.
KS: How was that?
JT: It was fascinating; absolutely fascinating.
KS: Were they pretty free about what they’d let you see and what they said?
JT: Who knows? Yes and no. No, probably they weren’t very free at all. On the other hand, they weren’t very interested in me anyway. I knew that. I mean, you would have to tag everybody in your country one to one to be – but no, you’re escorted everywhere you go by somebody from either Russia or China. I mean, they’re not let me get very far necessarily. But I was a guest in their county.
KS: Oh, that’s wonderful.
JT: But it was fascinating. I’m only sorry I didn’t get into a single home in either country. That would have been my pleasure.
KS: Were you allowed to bring, because you were still in operations at that time, were you allowed to bring anything back from there as far as anything that you would want to implement here?
JT: Well, you know, you just go through and have tours, it’s hard to – No, I don’t think so. When we were there in China, they were must more advanced than we were here as far as attaching limbs and I saw someone who had an arm severed and had been put back. There were things that just weren’t happening here yet, but most things we were – I thought to myself, we were probably fifty years ahead of them in lots of medicine which is remedying itself as time goes on. The world has become very small. 21
One thing in Russia that I will never forget – we were riding in a bus, there’s a big kiosk and looking out a window, you’d see people walk up and there’s a cup, and they’d pick up the cup and they’d put it under like a water fountain or something and you’d see this tan colored liquid coming out; they had put a coin in. It was – it wasn’t very appetizing, and it was beer. And they’d take the cup and they’d drink some beer and they’d put the cup down and the next person would come and pick up the same cup. Sanitation was not their long suit. At the same time in China, in the large teaching hospital in Beijing, I knew I’d discovered the laundry when I made a – I left the group for a moment and I went in and there was the largest pot, floor to ceiling, I had ever seen in my life, over fire. And they would take –
KS: A real fire?
JT: [Yes] They would take uniforms or take things and dip them down in this very hot water and put them on a line and the line went outside the front window and that was – it was so interesting. [Laughs]
KS: That is amazing.
JT: In the operating room, when we were back in Moscow, the windows were up. It was just not our same view of sanitation that they had at that time. It was so interesting. By the same token, a couple of people did have acupuncture; somebody had arthritis, somebody else had – they were people on the trip, and they said it made a big difference. So, yes, I mean, I don’t know. I did not choose – I was a chicken, I just wasn’t sure how clean those needles were and I just wasn’t going to do that.
KS: Yes, after experiencing the laundry – that was a safe bet. [Both laugh] That’s amazing. Did you go on any comparable tours through Western Europe?
JT: Not like that. That was a fabulous experience. I’m so glad that I had that. And I didn’t realize at the time how fabulous it really was going to be. I was just very lucky.
KS: Now is there anything else we haven’t covered? I am out of my questions, but else would you like to talk about?
JT: I’m not sure, if you’re out of your questions – [Both laugh]
KS: Any future plans that you have in mind either business or travel, hobbies?
JT: I’m thinking because I was just there yesterday, Greensboro has something called “Impact Greensboro,” I don’t know if you’re familiar with it. The human relations part of the city Community Foundation, I think UNCG together, are trying to – it’s a leadership development program and they divided the participants into five 22
groups and one of them is on race and racial relations and low and behold I find myself on that group and it’s been very interesting. They’ve tried mix together a huge mixture of people. You know, half black, half white, young, old, and that’s been interesting. I thoroughly enjoyed it. We had a session yesterday and that’s what made me think of that. That’s been fascinating and I’m glad Greensboro is looking at some of its racial problems.
KS: Well, before I leave I have to say that your house it absolutely fabulous.
JT: Thank you.
KS: 2904 Winwood Drive and you were saying that it was built by a wonderful local architect. Can you tell me a little bit about your house?
JT: Certainly. The local architect’s name is Ed Lowenstein. It was finished in 1963. It is of the modernist period. It is set in the woods which is wonderful. It’s natural materials. It’s stone, wood, and glass.
KS: You said it was your parents’ house.
JT: My parents built the house. They are both deceased and I bought it from my siblings. As you pointed out to me, it’s a great house to have a party.
KS: It’s an open, wonderful space with a beautiful fish pond right in the center.
JT: It is.
KS: Just a gorgeous house.
JT: Thank you, it is. It feels good to be here. It is a beautiful home. He did a fabulous job. He was a wonderful man. He was a friend of my family’s. He was a patient of my father’s, actually. The story goes is that he had a heart attack and was in the hospital and dad thought he was kind of depressed. My father and mother had wanted to build a house. We had lived in a very small house; four children, one bathroom. And so dad didn’t want to build anything until he could pay for everything himself; every penny ahead of time and while Ed was in the hospital, he and Dad started planning the house and it was built at that time.
KS: That’s amazing.
JT: [Laughs] Isn’t that a nice story?
KS: Well, it’s an absolutely fabulous house. It really is, and what a nice connection to have too.
JT: It is. It really is. It is just great.23
KS: Well, it has been a pleasure being here today with you in your lovely home.
JT: Thank you. You’re just delightful and I’m so glad to meet you.
KS: I appreciate it. Thank you so much.
Tape stops and restarts
KS: Before I leave, I do want to talk to you a little bit more about some of the things that you are involved with currently. Could you tell me a little bit about the organizations that you are involved in?
JT: I would be delighted to. One of the things I think we talked about was a program that Greensboro has started called “Impact Greensboro.” I don’t know whether we talked about it.
KS: I think that you did mention it.
JT: I think that it’s important and I have thoroughly enjoyed my time on the Greensboro Public Library Foundation board. It’s a wonderful organization and I’m proud to be part of it. The public library has a board that’s a city board and the Foundation board has raised funds and done things to augment the public library and I think that’s one of Greensboro’s crown jewels. Did I mention that – Duke University I was on the Kenan Institute for Ethics?
At Wake Forest, I have just gone off a very interesting board. I was the – Wake Forest has traditionally been part of the Baptist Church. The prior president broke from the church and it’s now historically Baptist, but it is not affiliated – it’s not a church affiliated school. It also was affiliated with a divinity program in Wake Forest, North Carolina, that was a Baptist seminary. It was part of the seminary and it broke from that and formed its own divinity school which is interdenominational, though that really means Christian interdenominational and dean asked me if I would be on the board as he was starting it and I was hesitant at first, but it was a fabulous experience. He very much wanted to broaden and have someone who was Jewish and I was just delighted to be – I think that Bill Leonard has done just a wonderful job and I’m just thrilled. I also have chaired the Board of Visitors at Greensboro College though I have just stepped down from that board and that has been an interesting experience.
I have been on the NCCJ Triad board. That is the National Conference for Community and Justice. It started out its life as the National Conference of Christians and Jews which is a national organization and for several years, I was on the national board which was wonderful and I have thoroughly enjoyed being on the local board an active as a board member. I’ve been on the Greensboro Symphony Board and the Eastern Music Festival Board. The Eastern Music 24
Festival has been near and dear to my heart and I’m thrilled that the Greensboro Symphony has done so well here also.
In the past I was on the United Arts Council board as several years and still on the Sternberger House Commission for them. I have been in the past on the Central Carolina Legal Services board which is kind of interesting. They had, by law, to have several lawyers and clients and one community person who was neither and somehow I found myself on that board. [Both Laugh] And that’s been fun. It’s an important part of the community and I think that people – it doesn’t have high visibility. I think people forget it as does the National Defamation League which is more national and it’s an advisory board in the state, but it is very important, I think, and I have been on our local GTCC [Guilford Technical Community College], the Community College Foundation board and that has been an important focus. I think you’ve talked with Don Cameron, the president, and you know what a wonderful force he is.
KT: I was very impressed by what they doing – anticipating what the community is going to need economically. That’s very impressive.
JT: It’s been wonderful. He is – I just don’t know what will happen when he decides to step down. He is just fabulous. I have been very proud to have been on the North Carolina Humanities Council board and that’s been fun to see the state in a very different way and the North Carolina Medical Society has a foundation where I have been on that board. It’s kind of unusual, but most of the people are doctors.
KT: It would be natural because of all your experience with hospitals.
JT: Well, they have raised some money and are raising more money to place doctors and now some PAs in underserved parts of the state, so it’s been – It started with a big grant from the Kate B. Reynolds Foundation which was very exciting. And I have been on the Communities in Schools Board which is interesting. People from Greensboro – kids to try to keep them from dropping out of school which is very important. And the Weatherspoon Foundation Board. The Weatherspoon has a wonderful collection of contemporary art, twentieth century American art, and it’s been fun to be part of that and I think I mentioned I joined the Family and Children Services Foundation board this year and that’s an important board for the community too.
KS: That’s amazing.
JT: [Laughs] I am very proud to be part of Greensboro. Thank you for asking.
KS: I hope that you will send me your resume. You’ve been involved in so many things –25
JT: Thank you.
KS: Thank you so much.
End of Tape A, Side B and End of Interview.