Oral history interview with Maria J.M. Griffin, 2009 [text/print transcript]

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THE UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA AT GREENSBORO
INSTITUTIONAL MEMORY COLLECTION
INTERVIEWEE: Maria J.M. Griffin
INTERVIEWER: Hermann J. Trojanowski
DATE: July 20, 2009
HT: Today is June 20, 2009, and my name is Hermann Trojanowski. I’m at the home of Mrs.
Maria Griffin to conduct an oral history interview for the UNCG Institutional Memory
Collection. Mrs. Griffin, if you would tell me your full name. We’ll use that as a test of
this interview.
MG: My full name when I went to the Woman’s College was Maria Justice Moore. Then I got
married, and it became Maria Justice Moore Griffin legally. I went down to Social
Security and changed, because I didn’t want to lose the Justice or the Moore.
HT: Thank you so much for talking to me today. If you’ll tell me something about your family
such as where you were born and where you grew up and that sort of thing.
MG: We were a navy family. My father was the Class of ’27 of the Naval Academy. And my
mother, I think, went to St. Mary’s Junior College and, then, progressed no further,
because the [Great] Depression had come. And she met my father. He had already
married, but his wife died in childbirth so that my sister—there he was with a fourteen-day
old baby. They put too much of the silver nitrate drops in her eyes, and they thought
the baby was going to be blind. And he was a wreck. And he met my mother about three
years later in Norfolk, [Virginia] which is where she was from. He was from New Bern,
North Carolina. And long story short, she took the train out to California, and they were
married in Coronado, California using shipmates off his ship as groomsmen. And she
had, I think, one bridegroom—matron of honor. And she wanted to go claim his child
who had been living with the child’s grandmother. Which they did. They had one day of
honeymoon. Then they went up to San Francisco, and they claimed—reclaimed my
sister, Georgia. She had the best intentions, but it didn’t work out very well. Then she
had—three years later, she had the first of the boys, Benjamin Eugene Moore III, because
granny Pops was still alive at that point. And, then, three years later she had another boy.
And that was Francis Laird Chadwick Moore. And, then, two years later she had another
boy, David Baker Ames Moore. And, then, two years later she had me. And I was born in
the Portsmouth Naval Hospital in Norfolk. I know that’s confusing to call it the
Portsmouth Naval Hospital in Norfolk. But it was sitting on Norfolk territory. But I’ve
often thought she was trying to have—she was trying to have a girl. That was why she
kept having babies, waiting to have a girl. And, so, she finally had a girl. And, then, she
stopped having babies and this is pre-war. For the two oldest boys. We all had nicknames
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in the family. Like the oldest boy was “Skip,” or “Skippy.” The number two boy was
“Laddy.” From Laird.
HT: Is that Laddie or Laddy?
MG: Yes, and, then, when David came along he was David Baker Ames Moore. And, so, he
was called “B. Ames” by the family. And, then, I was known as “Ridie,” R-I-D-I-E. It’s
Southern for Maria. Don’t ask me how that came about. I have no idea. I have met two
people that were named Maria, and they were nicknamed “Ridie.” It was terrible going to
school because teachers would call it “Riddie,” or “Rowdie” or they never got it right. So,
I was born in December 22 at 2:10 a.m. 1943.
HT: So, this was in the middle of World War Two?
MG: And my father was on the USS Franklin which had been commissioned in October of
1943. It got a fast shake-down cruise, and then it was off to the Pacific. [When] my dad
graduated from the Naval Academy, he was asked if he wanted to go down to
Jacksonville, [Florida] and become an aviator. Well, you know, does a bird fly? Does a
fish swim? Of course, he wanted to become an aviator. So, he went down to Jacksonville
and became an aviator. And learned to land on the USS Langley which was originally not
designed to be even a small aircraft carrier. They just took the superstructure off, laid
down boards, and had the pilots land on it. And, of course, these were—metal planes did
not come along until close to 1939-40. So, they were, you know, using planes with
canvas and wire. Which is really spooky when you think about it. I mean that’s tough
flying. And, then, they came out with metal aircraft. And he’d already been out in the
Pacific on an aircraft carrier, but he was not there as an aviator. When the [USS] Franklin
was commissioned he was there as a navigator. The family stayed in Norfolk. He bought
the land and built a house that we lived in, in Norfolk, which sold for $225,000 the last
time I heard. And he built it for $5,000. So, the Franklin, this was the fourth USS
Franklin in the United States Navy. And [this is] spooky. There was a Moore on every
single one. My brother found this out when we were doing the genealogy. And the first
one was in the Revolution. And the next one was in the Civil War, and then in between
the Civil War and the turn of the century they built another USS Franklin. And a Moore
was on that. So, we were sitting in Norfolk and both the East Coast and the West Coast
were on alert for Japanese attacks, and Japanese submarines were seen on both coasts.
There wasn’t much chance of the Japanese attacking the East Coast. But the West Coast
was a very viable target for the Japanese. So, the Franklin was hit by a kamikaze and had
to come back to Hawaii, which she did under her own steam. And, then, she went up to
Bremerton, Washington Naval Shipyard. And while she was in the shipyard my dad flew
back home to see us. And that was in—I was two or three, which of course I don’t
remember at all. The boys do, and my sister did. They remembered Pop coming back.
And, then, he flew across country and went back. When he was a young aviator his one
sister, the older sister, Mary Belo, married Irving Carlyle of Womble Carlyle, the law
firm in Winston[-Salem, North Carolina]. And the younger sister, Elizabeth, married one
of my father’s friends, Jessie Blackwell, who developed tuberculosis as an aviator. That
was one of the problems early aviators at high altitudes had. And, so, she went and took
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him to a sanatorium in Colorado. And he died. And she’d had a son. They’d had a son.
So, she came back to North Carolina and New Bern where she met Charles Waddell who
worked for Wachovia [Bank]. And his father was the—I’m not sure of the term for it. He
was the engineer for Biltmore House in Asheville. Because he converted all the gas lights
at Biltmore House to electricity and all the washing machines and stoves and all that
stuff. So, she married Charles Waddell and then had another son, Charles Edward
Waddell, Jr. And, then, she had a daughter, Norwood [Waddell], who was born with
Downs Syndrome, very severe Downs Syndrome. And in those years they just – nobody
knew what to do with these children. Pop flew back when the Franklin was ready to go
back to the Pacific. He went back to the Pacific. My mother wanted to move back to
Coronado. But my father said no. They were better off staying in Norfolk where she had
family. So, he flew back and got back and was ready get back on the Franklin when they
told him he was going to be captain of a [escort] “jeep” [aircraft] carrier. These were
smaller carriers that were used to carry replacement airplanes, that carried parts. They
carried aviators, a few aviators on board. And they followed the fast carriers, task force.
By then the United States had been cranking out air craft carriers like crazy, because one
of the aircraft carriers was at Pearl Harbor. And at that point I think we had something
like seven, which is not a whole lot. So, they really had, you know, a terrible time in the
Pacific. Most people know about the war in Europe. The war in the Pacific was awful.
And he became captain of the [USS] Thetis Bay. And he was the youngest captain in the
United States Navy.
HT: How do you spell that?
MG: T-H-E-T-I-S, Thetis. It was one of the Greek characters which is really strange, because
the Navy you normally doesn’t go around naming, but—
HT: This was the name of an aircraft carrier?
MG: Yes, it was a “jeep” carrier, what they called a “jeep” carrier. John Wayne made a movie
that he came up with in the movie. He came up with the idea that what we need is our
little carriers that can follow behind the big carriers with replacement planes and parts
and aid replacement. Other than that, the public didn’t really know about them. And, so,
they did. They followed the fast [attack] carriers back out to the Pacific and where there
for the battle of Midway. They were there for the [battle of] Guadalcanal. And the USS
Franklin was hit by two kamikaze planes off of Guadalcanal. And the first time it took
some severe damage. The second time was horrendous. Because they had planes up on
the flight deck that were ready to take off. There was aviation fuel dripping off the sides
of the plane that was on fire. Men were trapped down below. And they lost about 700
men. But, again, the dear good old Franklin, she started listing. And she got over almost
thirty degrees which is not a good sign. And my father is there with the Thetis Bay
watching this. And the reason I’m telling this story because it affected him. I think he had
survivor guilt even though he wasn’t on the ship. But he knew the people that were on the
ship. And there was actually nothing that people could do. But they managed to get the
fire under control. And people were jumping off the ship and the destroyer USS Santa Fe
picked them up. He picked up some men that were burned and took them over to the
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Santa Fe which had a better medical capability. And the Marines took Guadalcanal at a
terrible, terrible price. And they were going island by island. But they were jumping.
They’d jump over an island so that the Japanese would build up thinking the Marines
would land there. And we’d jump to the next island. So, they got right up to the islands
that are right at the bottom of Japan. Mr. [George] Bush was shot down in the channel
that led directly to the main Japanese harbors. Because we were battering the hell out of
several islands that were there. And Thetis Bay was right there doing its job. And then
they dropped the atomic bomb which nobody in the Navy knew about. So, and they
dropped the second atomic bomb, and the war was over. And, so, the ships all went into
the harbor, including the Thetis Bay. And my father was there at the signing on the USS
Missouri of the formal surrender of the Japanese. And, then, he went back on the Thetis
Bay, and he took it back. Well, they had no real use for them now. So, he was given a job
in Washington, two jobs eventually. Because we lived in Washington, DC for six years.
And before that we lived in Alexandria. And my parents were having a major problem
with my older sister who was emotional disturbed and out of control. So, she was sent to
live with my grandmother Moore down in New Bern. And it had played havoc with her
marriage. So, they separated when we were living in Alexandria. And I was sent to live
with his younger sister in Asheville, [North Carolina]. The boys were sent to military
academies. And he was working in Washington in the Department of Personnel. For me,
it was the strangest experience of my life because I was – had always been in cities. And
Asheville in—let’s see, I was five, 1949 is not what it is today. And they lived away from
Asheville. She had a garden, a huge vegetable garden. And she would tell me to go out
and pick this, that or the other for dinner. Which was really something I didn’t know
anything about. In the fall they slaughtered a hog. And I was fascinated by the process,
because Uncle Charles was explaining to me, you know, what parts of the pig they would
take and they had a tenant farmer living there. And he would get some of the hog, too.
But they used the whole thing. And that’s where their bacon came from. And, then, on
Sundays we would go to church at Christ Church in Asheville. And, then, we would go
over to grandmother Waddell’s house. Sometimes we went over to grandmother
Waddell’s house before church, because I can remember riding in the rumble seat with
my cousin, Charles, who is six months younger than I was. And mother had started me in
kindergarten earlier than I should have, having been born in virtually the end of
December. I was almost six months behind the rest of the kids. So, I was in—I’m trying
to remember. I was in second grade. And Charles was in first grade. And we walked to
school, rain, sleet, snow, or hail. We’d walk to school. We were not permitted to take
automobile rides from anybody, even if we knew them. Because I remember one time we
did take a ride from a neighbor that we knew very, very well. And it was pouring down
rain. And she gave us a ride home. And we got switched for that. And I don’t remember
anything about school in Asheville. But I remember that Charles and I got chickenpox
together. And I remember getting sick. Aunt Beth taking me out of—I had this huge four
poster-bed that had a stepladder to get into it. And it was down mattress, you know, and
I’d sink in it. And she took me out of bed, and she took me downstairs. And she gave me
a cup of tea. She’s the one that got me drinking tea. And, you know, and she put me on
her lap. And, you know, tried to comfort me from being sick. And my own mother
wouldn’t have done that.
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HT: Let me ask you, why did your parents split the kids up and send them to various places?
MG: Um, well, there was nowhere to put four children in one place. And my older sister was
already down in New Bern. And, so, the only logic—for them the only logical solution
was to put the boys in military schools as little as David and Laddy were. And Skip was
in there, too. Aunt Elizabeth said, “I want Ridie. So.
HT: Did your mom work at this time?
MG: She worked at the Norfolk Country Club as a hostess. She knew everybody in Norfolk.
She’d been part of Norfolk society for a very long time. She made her debut in Norfolk.
And she also made her debut in Philadelphia. My grandmother made her debut in
Norfolk, Philadelphia and New York. This was going to get—this gets important because
my parents had separate plans for me, which they didn’t tell me. So, after a year my
parents got back together again. And all the children were brought back home. And we
went to live in a house on 31st Place in Washington, DC. I was now in the third grade.
And we [recorder turned off and back on—phone ringing] and we moved every year.
Because we only rented houses in DC, because we didn’t know [when] Pop was going to
get orders.
HT: So, he was career Navy by this time, I guess?
MG: Well, he had thought about getting out and becoming an attorney, but the Depression was
on when he thought about this. And, so, he decided to make the Navy his career. So—
and, then, we did get orders out to Hawaii. And we lived on Ford Island which is in the
middle of Pearl Harbor. And I haven’t a clue as to what my father did. He must have
worked for the commander for CIC PAC. Let’s see, what does that stand for?
Commander in Chief of the Pacific. Because he wasn’t on ship. I know that. And there
was bullet holes in the houses from the attack on Pearl Harbor. And bones would float up
from the [USS] Arizona. Because I collected some and I asked my father, what was I to
do with them? And he said, “To treat them with respect and give them to the shore
patrol.” And the memorial is very nice and neat about it now. But this was a very short
time after the Arizona had been sunk. And bones would float up regularly. And, so, that
made World War II very—a significant part of my life. Not just because of where we
were, of being transferred out to Hawaii but picking up bones made it real. And from
there we went to Coronado. And Pop went to Stanford [University] and got his master’s
in business administration. And we rented a house there. But as soon as he got his
master’s and we were back in Washington, and he was on an aircraft carrier. Because he
made admiral when I turned ten, which when you live in Washington admirals are a dime
a dozen. But when you get shipped out to a relatively small base in terms of kids your
own age, it’s a big deal having a father for an admiral. And my parents split for the final
time when I was in the ninth grade, and we were living—renting a house in Virginia
Beach, [Virginia]. We’d been up to Wesley Hill, Massachusetts. My grandmother had
told me the Yankees ate little children. She grew up out of the Reconstruction. And I’d
never been across the Mason-Dixon Line before. So, going up to Wesley Hill,
Massachusetts I didn’t leave the yard except when we went down to watch my father
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bring the USS Boxer in. We got a dog that we named Boxie. And, then, he took the Boxer
back out to – he was alternating between Vietnam and Korea. And he had an atomic
bomb on board. We didn’t know this at the time. We only learned about this later. Gossip
in the Navy is terrible. But [Dwight D.] Eisenhower had asked the French if they wanted
us to help, and they said, “No,” even though at that point they were completely
surrounded at Dien Bien Phu, [Vietnam] and massacred. They said they didn’t want any
help. Just like the French. And, then, the Korean War was going on. And [Harry S.]
Truman was president when the Korean War started. And it was one of those wars where
it didn’t really catch the American public’s attention. It caught the military families’
attention. So, we knew about it. And my father, like I said was on the Boxer sitting there
going back and forth between Vietnam and Korea with an atomic bomb and waiting to
drop one. Because if Eisenhower told the North [Koreans] that if they didn’t sit down for
peace talks he’d drop an atomic bomb on them. So, they sat down for peace talks. Ho, ho,
ho. You know? That was the longest peace talks, I think, that ever took place. So, Pop
came home off the Boxer and we were living—David, and Mother and I were living in
Virginia Beach. Skip was at [University of North Carolina at] Chapel Hill, and Laddy
was at NC State [North Carolina State University]. Pop maintained his residency in North
Carolina. And he got orders for the second time out to Hawaii. This time as
COMFAIRMED which means Commander Fleet Air [Mediterranean], not
COMFAIFMED, [but] COMFAIRPAC. And his job was – the admiral that had been out
there was supposed to get the Barrier Wing up as part of the national defense program.
They had just—do you remember the Super Connie [Super Constellation] planes that
came out? At the time they came out they were almost a version of a B-57, but they were
for passenger planes. And they [had] propellers, and they were big planes. And the Navy
had them. And that’s what they were using along with submarines and ships for the
Barrier Wing to keep an eye on the Russians. Eisenhower was president, and [the]
Russian [force], I forget the name of them. They had radar and radio. And their subs were
there, too. And they would sail wherever the United States had an interest. And use their
radar and radio for communication and to keep an eye on whatever the Americans were
doing. And when Pop got out to Hawaii there was this big hole, the Alaskan Barrier was
up, but there was no Barrier Wing from Alaska to Hawaii, which covered the West Coast.
And, so, the admiral that had been there, this was kind of a funny story. Did you ever see
Dr. Strangelove, or: How I learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb? Well, there’s a
scene in there where there’s a guy who goes absolutely nuts, and he locks the base down.
Well, when my father got out there we first lived on Ford Island in the big house, which
was a house built on top of—it was either Portuguese or Spanish fortification from way,
way, way back. Anyway, it had seven bedrooms with seven baths. And it had the longest
hallway I’d ever seen in my life. You could ride a bicycle. Well, actually, I did ride a
bicycle down the hallway. And you could ride a bicycle all the way around the house on
the porch, what we would call a porch. And David was there. [Now] he was known as
David. But for some reason, perhaps they couldn’t pronounce Ridie, I became known as
the admiral’s daughter. And wherever I went, and wherever David went, they would
report to the duty officer that David and the admiral’s daughter had left Ford Island and
had gone to school. And then we would come back. Which was the only way to get there.
There was a ferry boat and a boat that took the kids across to Pearl City, [Hawaii] where
we got on a bus and David went to Panahou School, and I went to Radford High School.
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And if the water was too rough we couldn’t go to school. Which happened one time right
after the parents had left the island on the ferry boat. And the water was coming down at
the rate of seven inches an hour. And the wind was blowing, and there was really no way
to get a gig boat across the harbor. So, they said, “There’s just no way we can take these
kids across to Pearl City. So, we’ll wait.” This storm which periodically happens to
Hawaii for three days. There were no parents, and with teenagers running loose, and it
was—we had a great time, absolutely had a fabulous time. But the shore patrol kept
coming around during the day, during the afternoon. And I think they were coming, I
think, around every two hours. Because you just don’t have teenagers running loose on an
island that’s one mile long and half a mile wide that’s—and with no parents, how do you
feed them? So, we ate with the crew that was left on the island and would go to the movie
at night. And various other things. But we got in a lot of trouble when the parents got
back, because we’d done a lot of things that we shouldn’t do. And I was still known as
the admiral’s daughter. David had a name. My name was the admiral’s daughter. And it
stayed that way. We went from Hawaii to—well, Pop went to Quonset Point, Rhode
Island. I was under the terms of their divorce agreement to go to school in Virginia if it
was at all possible. And we came back in ’58, going on ’59, ’59. Hawaii had just made
statehood. And they gave my father the key to the city, which I have on my charm
bracelet. And North Carolina and Virginia, I don’t know about anybody else, were in
massive resistance. So, all the schools were closed. And they had become private. And I
didn’t know anything about this. But Pop had apparently kept an eye on it. And, so, I was
sent to St. Anne’s Episcopal School for girls in Charlottesville, Virginia. And the head
mistress, I kid you not, was Mrs. Thomas Jefferson Randolph III. And there was an
assistant head mistress named Miss Williams. And the agreement that my parents had in
the divorce agreement about my going to school in Virginia if it was all possible, Pop
really should have said, “It’s not possible for her to go.” But my mother’s plan for my life
was beginning. Because as I found out, this is where all the [future] Norfolk debutants
went to school. And I did not have a happy time at this school. My father told them I was
a disciplinary problem, which I couldn’t believe. I don’t know what I did that made him
think that, but they jumped on me for everything. I mean it was just—I had demerits from
day one till the day I left. And they guaranteed they could get you into any college
because seventy-eight was passing. And I could not possibly have learned anything in a
territorial school, which was ridiculous, because I had some outstanding teachers that
were Japanese or Japanese mix. And, so, they made me repeat the tenth grade. That
didn’t make me happy. So, the only thing that Pop gave in on was—I had started riding
horses when I was in seventh grade. And he agreed that I could continue to take
horseback riding lessons at St. Anne’s. Now, the handbook for St. Anne’s had not
changed since the Civil War. Couldn’t show your ankles. And this was on the campus
which was ridiculous. They changed everything the next year. But I struggled with that
school both academically and disciplinary wise, because, well, academically moving
from school to school every year literally, and moving always in November, was very
difficult. Because one public school, you know, would teach something the next year.
And I would get to another school, and they taught it the previous year. So, when I was in
the fifth grade they found out that I did not know how to write script. I could only do
block printing. And I only knew my multiplication table up to five. I did not know
fractions or decimals or how to read a ruler once you got past half an inch, no quarter of
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an inch. I could read a quarter of an inch. After that I didn’t know what I was doing. So,
they put me with a tutor to catch me up which in terms of math they did catch me up. But
you cannot catch somebody up when they’ve changed schools every year. Which
continued to happen. So, when I got to St. Anne’s I was a real hodgepodge of classes.
And approaches to how people taught, and the Japanese teachers out in Radford really
straightened me out and did it in such a way that it was not—did not appear to be like a
punishment, or that I was stupid, or that something, was wrong with me.
HT: Did your brothers have the same type of problem having been sent to so many schools?
MG: [David] did but not nearly as profound as I did, because he had a couple of solid years at
the military school before we started jumping around again. And, plus, when he got out to
Hawaii, he was able to get into Punahou, which is the school. It’s private. It had been put
into existence by the Mormon missionaries. And he spent two years at Punahou— well,
two and a half years at Punahou. There was only one opening in the ninth grade, you
know. And they did testing on me and said, “Nothing wrong with her IQ, but she doesn’t
know—her vocabulary is very bad. She reads very slow. She doesn’t understand math.”
So, I took on a self-improvement program. And when I went back to be tested to see if I
could get into the one slot, my reading comprehension had gone up to 100. And my
reading speed was way, way past what a typical child my age would be reading at. And
there were various parts of the test that I just blew off the wall. But math still gave me a
problem. And I couldn’t score high enough in math to get into that one slot, which is
okay with me, because all my friends were at Radford. And I didn’t have any problem
with the education at Radford. But when I hit St. Anne’s, that was a jolt because they
taught totally differently. I don’t know how to explain. But they just taught you
differently. English, history—They’ve got English, history, math, Latin, French, and for
physical education I had the horseback riding.
HT: What was your favorite subject?
MG: History. And I never scored lower than a ninety-eight on a history test. English, we were
reading George Eliot and Jane Austen, and that crowd, which I considered to be utterly
boring. But that was the age difference, that six months age difference of maturity. So, I
struggled my way through. And at Easter when I went home to Quonset Point where Pop
was, they had sent him a letter and said that if I didn’t improve that I wouldn’t be asked
to return. Well, that was a personal insult to my father. Anything that we did was a
personal reflection on him. And David had gone off to the Naval Academy and having
the time of his life. I begged. I pleaded. I threatened suicide if he—“Don’t make me go
back.” And he said, “You have to go back. And you have to improve.” So, I went back.
And lights out was at nine o’clock. Study was from seven to eight-thirty. Then you had a
half an hour to get ready for bed. And for me that wasn’t enough study time. So, I just
stayed in the bathroom after lights out, and the housemother would come in and say,
“Maria, it’s lights out.” And I said, “I know.” She said, “That twenty demerits.” And then
she would walk away. And I would continue studying for another two hours. And
whether that helped or not, I don’t really know. I remember in riding, we rode on
mountains, the mountains around Monticello, the back side of Monticello. And Miss
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Elliwood was just incredible. I mean she would have us tearing up these mountain roads
that were covered with ice and snow and rocks. And I was, you know, this was not what I
had in mind, but she did. And if you were going to do any jumping, you had to get your
parents’ permission. And I had called my father and asked for permission. And he said,
“No.” And I said, “Why not?” And he said, “It’s too dangerous.” I said, “This from the
man who flew under the San Francisco Golden Gate Bridge?” He said, “That has nothing
to do with it.” I said, “You crashed your plane three times in Greensboro, and you think
this is dangerous? You know, jumping a two-foot log? Come on, Pop.” “No.” He
wouldn’t allow it. So, when I told Miss Elliwood, and she told me, “Well, okay. There’s
always a side trip that you can take [where you don’t] have to jump.” And after two of
[these] she called me “Moore.” She’d say, “Moore, this is ridiculous. Get up here and
jump this log.” I said, “I don’t have permission.” She said, “Do I see your father here?” I
said, “No, ma’am.” And she said, “Then jump that log.” So, I learned how to jump in
spite of the fact that it was something my father—I never met anyone that had defied my
father. Of course, it wasn’t in person mind you. But it was an inkling that this was
possible.
HT: So, how long did you stay at St. Anne’s?
MG: One year. I brought all my grades up to over seventy-eight, except Latin, which was a
sixty-eight. I never could do Latin. And Mrs. Thomas Randolph Jefferson III called me in
her office before the taxi left to take us to the train station, and I would take the train up
to New York City to meet my father. And I would go to Rhode Island. And she said, “We
are very proud of you for bringing your grades up. And we are very happy to invite you
back.” And I said, “I will commit suicide before I come back here.” And I walked out. I
don’t think she told my father that, because when I got to New York he was very happy.
And we lived in a house, of all the houses that we lived in, and I think there were
fourteen of them, I loved the house at Quonset Point the most. My bedroom faced out on
Narragansett Bay. So, when the sun came up in the morning you could see all the
wonderful colors. And it had been brought in and they had blown off some rock from a
hill. They called it a hill. I would have called it a small mountain. But they called it a hill.
And the house was fitted against the side of this chunk of rock. And it had its own private
driveway that wound around and up to the house, and a three-car garage and apartment
over it. And the only thing the Navy wrecked was the grand piano which was—mother
was the only one who played the grand piano. I took lessons one year, but [we moved].
And the way the house was designed it had two bedrooms upstairs and possibly a third.
That was actually a den. And then downstairs was a living room and a dining room, and
then there was a porch off the dining room. And then it went into the kitchen area which
had a barman’s area. And then this huge kitchen. And, then, in back of the kitchen was
where the washer and dryer were. And it had basement. I never had the nerve to go down
into the basement. And, then, off of the living room there was what most people would
call a sunroom. It had a tile floor, and there were windows all the away around it. And,
then, off of that were three bedrooms with each one having a bath and a linen closet. And
we had big houses, but it wasn’t the size. And it was turned around backwards. A lot of
people in Newport get that. They turn the front of the house, what was considered the
front of the house, to the bay. And, so the back door was what you drove up to. And it
10
was a Dutch door. I’d never seen a Dutch door before. And there was an area around the
back that was a lawn and garden area, and then steps that led down to another lawn and
garden area. And, then, the steps gave out. And it was just from there it went down to a
pond, a swampy pond, that froze over. And you could go ice skating on. And then a little
bit beyond that was the airfield. And there were woods on both sides of this lawn area.
So, you were as isolated as an admiral could be. And if I wanted to walk over to a
friend’s house, I had to walk through the woods and over the golf course to get to where
the rest of the teenagers lived. And I learned—I was old enough to drive. And I got my
driver’s license. And going to get my driver’s license I ran into a shore patrol truck. And
Pop came out and said, “Way to go, you know?” And I said, “I don’t know how that
happened.” And he said, “I think you’re a little nervous.” So, we went out and got my
driver’s license. And he said, “You can have total use of the car.” Because he had his
own personal car from the Navy, for Navy business that his flag was on. And his flag was
on the personal car in the form of a sticker, two stars. And once again the kids were dying
to know what I was like. And as a school bus came and I got on the school bus, I had
been through this so many times that I almost felt like saying, “Yeah, I’m the admiral’s
daughter. And that and thirty-five cents will get you nowhere.” As it turned out there
were some really cool people that lived in the officer’s area. And in the other—where the
lieutenant commanders were and lieutenants were. There were some really wonderful
people. And Pop had two stewards. One was a chief warrant officer who was responsible
for buying the groceries, seeing that the house was clean, seeing that everything that my
father needed was taken care of, seeing that everything I needed was taken care of. And
who did the menus each week and presented them to my father. And, then there was – his
name was Ferris. And he was about six feet, three inches tall, very lean. And when he and
I would get into it over some issue, he’d say, “Who’s bigger than you are?” I’d say, “You
are.” He said, “Do you have a rank in the United States Navy?” And I’d say, “No, but I’m
the admiral’s daughter.” He said, “That will get you nothing with me.” And this man
mothered me for two years. He was like a mother to me. And, then, there was—it was
just there, and it’s gone. There was another steward. Both of them were black. And can’t
remember his name. It will come to me. Made the best sandwiches in the world. I mean
the best sandwiches in the world. Ferris made the best monkey bread in the world. And
Pop and I would eat breakfast together and eat dinner together. My brother Laddy was
there going to URI [University of Rhode Island] because he flunked out of NC State. But
he wasn’t around very much. So, I got my driver’s license, and Pops said, “You can have
use of the family car as long as you see that it has at least a half of tank of gasoline in it,
and that you see that the tires are checked, the oil is checked,” all that good stuff. And he
said, “And the minute that doesn’t happen, then you lose privileges to the car.” And I was
very religious about that, because I didn’t want to lose privileges to the car. But Laddy
was a problem, because he would go take the car and bring it home at midnight. And,
then, I would get up the next morning and look and there was a quarter of a tank of gas in
it. Which was fine for me, but if Pop had gone out and said he needed the family car, I
would have been the one in trouble. And Skip flunked out of Chapel Hill. And Pop made
him join the Navy as an enlisted man. And he came up to visit. He was in Seattle,
[Washington]. And, then, he was—I’m not sure where he was assigned. But he came to
visit, and he was another one for bringing the car home at one a.m. and leaving the car
almost empty. And I did get blamed one time for that. But, once again, I was the
11
admiral’s daughter. “The admiral’s daughter has left the base.” And, then, I would come
back from school and, “The admiral’s daughter is back on the base.” And I could hear
them. And he said, “Just remember they’re saluting the sticker and not you” like I didn’t
know this by now. And that really began get to me that I didn’t have a name or rather I
did, but my name was, “The admiral’s daughter.” And like I was somebody special when
I wasn’t. I was just a teenager was all I was. And I went to the local high school in North
Kingstown Senior High School where we all went. And I had an English teacher that was
to die for. And I never could figure out what my father’s obsession with French was. I’d
been taking French since the third grade. And if it was possible I would go to summer
school and I would take typing and French every year. It was ridiculous. Wasn’t until we
found his letters that his mother had saved, and we put them all together, that we found
out why French was an obsession with him. Because French was the one subject that he
had the most difficult time with. And his first cruise as a midshipman was to Paris. And
he wrote that he was going to do his time in the Navy. And, then, he was going to quit,
and he was going to go to the Left Bank and be a writer. And I could see right then why
he and I began to clash so much. Everybody else, if the admiral, your father, your
personal father said, “Do this,” you did it. But I began bucking against him. And he made
me his hostess. And I had to read the New York Times, the Washington Post, US News &
World Report, and Foreign Affairs. And the sheet that his flag lieutenant would arrange
for him of whomever he was meeting, or whoever was coming for cocktails, or whoever
was coming for dinner, with their background and current subjects to talk about, and I
would get a copy of that from the flag lieutenant. And my mother, who hadn’t seen me in
four years, was still sending me skirts with poodles on them. And I was in New England
where you wore prep clothes. And the young—one of the teenagers who turned out to be
my best friend, Mandy Maxfield, her mother went to my father and said, “You really
need to buy Maria clothes that are befitting of a sixteen-going on seventeen-year-old
young lady. You know, poodles are not in here. They’re not in anywhere.” So—
HT: Now, where was your mom living at this time?
MG: She was living in Norfolk. She had developed angina. And she was living in an apartment
on Drummond Place at the foot of the Mowbray Arch Bridge. And the difference
between the house in Rhode Island and her house, her apartment, was tremendous. I
mean it wasn’t the lack of stewards. I wasn’t a lazy person with that. It was just too much
of a change for me. And I didn’t know anybody. I didn’t know a soul. And so going
down to visit with her was not exactly a fun thing to do. I mean she was funny, and I
always had a good time with her. But I always came back to Rhode Island a wreck.
HT: I assume your father had custody of the children.
MG: What?
HT: Did your father have custody of you and the other children?
MG: No, it was split custody. If it had come down—people often asked me why, when my
father arrived in Virginia Beach he had orders to Hawaii, why did I go with my father?
12
Well, my mother was a chaotic person. And my father, with his Naval Academy training,
was a very organized individual. And chaotic things didn’t happen when he was around.
So, for me, I didn’t even bother to think about who I was going to go live with. I was
going to go live with my father, because chaotic things didn’t happen. And I didn’t like
living in chaos. And I remember the day we left I was walking on the beach, and I was
extremely torn about it. But realizing that I just couldn’t handle my mother any more.
And love her as I might, I was better off with my father than I was with her even though I
was just turning into a young female. My father didn’t know what to do with an
adolescent female at all. So, he ordered me—I’m not kidding you. He ordered me to stop
it. So, I did. And I had menstrual cramps one time, and he went to the dispensary, and he
came home with—the Navy has a pill that it’s good for anything: aspirin, penicillin, and
codeine. And he brought me home a bottle of that. And I could have gone to school. I just
didn’t feel like going to school that day. And, so, he slapped the pills down on my side
table, and he said, “Don’t ever let this happen again.” And he walked out the door. And I
kind of laughed like; I had some control over [menstruation]. I was one of the very
fortunate females. I didn’t have cramps very often. And I mean I’ve known people who
were absolutely crippled with them. So typical of my father, “Don’t let this happen
again.” And “Don’t be an adolescent,” were his words. I said, “Yes, sir.”
HT: Well, after you graduated from high school, did you decide to go to Woman’s College on
your own, or how did that happen?
MG: No, I wasn’t. I wanted to go to Boston University. This is where the big clash came. And
he said, “No, you cannot go to Boston University.” And he made me apply to the seven
sisters, [Barnard College, Bryn Mawr College, Mount Holyoke College, Radcliffe
College, Smith College, Vassar College, and Wellesley College] Vassar, Goucher,
Radcliffe, all those. I said, “This is ridiculous. I don’t have high enough SAT scores. I
had to take the SAT test [three times]. I don’t take standardized tests well. I had to take
them three times. And one time it was given at my own high school. And I got lost. Now,
how psychological is this. I couldn’t find my own high school to go take the test. And, so,
I mean they came up a little bit, but these were the days where they were looking for
people that made 1600 or very close to it. Getting into college in 1962 was a very
difficult thing. And kids were going around the school saying, “I got into Harvard,” and,
“I got into” wherever. And I knew I was not going to get into [one of] the seven sisters.
And all seven rejections came on the same day which was a bit of a downer. And I just
looked at my father and said, “Are you happy now?” And he said, “Well, you’ll just have
to go to the Woman’s College.” I said, “What is a Woman’s College?” And he said,
“Well, it’s where your Aunt [Mary] Belo [Moore] and your Aunt Elizabeth went, and
your grandma went there for shorthand. It’s out of North Carolina.” I said, “And it does
what?” And he said, “What do you mean, ‘It does what?’” It’s all female. And I about
choked. And I said, “You’re going to stick me in another all-female school just like St.
Anne’s?” And I said, “I don’t want to do that again. That was not a good experience.” He
said, “Well, we don’t have any real option since you didn’t get into any of these other
schools.” So, I sent in my application for the Woman’s College, and was rejected. And I
said, “Now what?” He said, “You can’t possibly have been rejected from the Woman’s
College.” And by then I’d found out a little bit about [Woman’s College]. I said, “You
13
know, it’s like trying to get into [the] Radcliffe [of the South] as to get into the Woman’s
College.” It’s like the, you know, the Radcliffe of the South. And he said, “Well, I’ll call
your Uncle Ervin [Carlyle].” And I said, “What’s Uncle Ervin going to do?” I was very
depressed, because everybody had gotten into the college of their choice, and I hadn’t
even gotten into one. So, the next thing I knew I got a letter from Chancellor [Otis]
Singletary saying I’d been admitted to the Woman’s College. And that he had great hopes
that I would live up to everyone’s expectations. Well, I considered that just “Whose
expectations? What in the hell is he talking about?” Obviously, my Uncle Ervin had
pulled some strings.
HT: Who is Uncle Ervin?
MG: [What]?
HT: Who was Uncle Ervin?
MG: Uncle Ervin Carlyle [an attorney] who was married to my aunt Mary Belo, who had gone
to the Woman’s College and done very, very well. She graduated Phi Beta Kappa. And,
so, I wrote Chancellor Singletary a rather snippy letter back, because I didn’t know what
expectations people had of me, but that I certainly would do my very best. But it was a
snippy letter. I know, because I wanted it to be a snippy letter. And, so, we packed up and
my brother, Skip, [who] had gotten a job at R.J. Reynolds, and he came up and drove me
down. And I found my dorm assignment and he just dumped everything in the room and
left. And I was like, “Gee wheeze, gosh.” And, it was in Jamison Hall. And they could
accommodate three people in a room. And the first person that walked in was from New
Jersey. And, then, finally, the third roomie was from Burlington, [North Carolina]. And
Pat lasted three weeks. She got home sick, which was totally beyond my understanding.
How can somebody be homesick when they’re only sixteen miles away from home? But
she left and got married. And we didn’t have a roommate. The other was Jean Meyer
from Red Bank, New Jersey. And we found out—well, everyone found out. This was like
a New Jersey dorm. They put a lot of people from New Jersey. They had just recently
made a major recruiting effort up into New Jersey. And I don’t remember very many
people from New York. But, so, we used to call ourselves the [New Jersey] mafia. The
[New Jersey] mafia dorm. There were people from North Carolina there. And maybe
from other states. But I don’t remember. It seemed to me it was mostly North Carolinians
and people from New Jersey. Now, my father had maintained his permanent residence in
North Carolina. So, I was for all intents and purposes—I was an in-state student and a
North Carolinian. But I graduated from a school in Rhode Island. So, I was considered a
Yankee which is why I was put in the mafia dorm with all the other Yankees. And [I]
didn’t find that out until later. Jean was a dream as a roomie. We are still friends now.
And she could whip up a Chanel’s suit over the weekend. I took home economics
forever, and I could sew a button on. And she just fascinated me on doing that. And some
things we had in common, and some things we didn’t. And she was in pre-med. And I
was in—I-don’t-know-what-I-want-to-be-when-I-grow-up.
HT: So, you were not taking history courses or anything like that?
14
MG: I was taking the core courses. Somebody said, “You have to take this, this, and this.” And
I said, “Yes.” So, and then I met Randall Jarrell. And his class was closed, of course. And
there was absolutely nothing wrong [tape recorder turned off]. I didn’t have any problems
with Mr. [Robert] Stephens who was teaching English. I was very grateful to Mr. Quinn
at North Kingstown High School, because he made us focus on every detail in a poem.
Because he only gave ten-question tests. And they were how many buttons were on—like
in Chaucer, how many buttons were on the burgher’s coat? And for that kind of detail,
you had to focus. You really had to focus on the material. So, English with Mr. Stevens
was a real breeze. And I had Mr. [Walter Luczynski]—it’ll come to me—for history. And
he said, “If you want to get an “A” in my class, you have to go and read the New York
Times before class, and you have to be here at class. It was an eight o’clock class. You
have to be here at a quarter till eight and be able to answer questions. All the Yankees did
this. Well, I’d been reading the New York Times for two years so, that was nothing new.
And I’d have to look at a year book and see him. He died recently.
HT: Was that Dr. [Richard] Bardolph?
MG: No, I [never had] a class [with] Dr. Bardolph. Anyway, this was back in the days when
you took the honor code, you took it seriously. And not like the kids today take the honor
code, but they don’t take it seriously. It’s very—they obviously don’t, which is a shame.
So, I can remember on my midterm I had guessed right on [Luczynski’s] exam in history
that he was going to ask for all the additions to the United States land acquisitions. And I
practically hooted in the classroom. I went outside and danced. Because I had focused on
that, and a couple of other things. So, I went to the Soda Shop and got myself a drink.
You could do that in those days, because you were under the honor code. And you didn’t
break it. So, I went and got a cup of tea, and then I went back and I wrote the exam out.
But I met Randall Jarrell at a nighttime poetry reading. Now poetry really isn’t my thing.
Writing prose was. In fact when I asked my father he sat down and he said, “What do you
want to be?” Well, I said, “At first I wanted to go to the Naval Academy.” And he said,
“Don’t be stupid. They don’t take girls.” I said, “Well, then I want to work for the [U.S.]
State Department.” And he said, “Don’t be stupid. They don’t accept women at the State
Department.” This is the first time I’m hearing this message. And I said, “Well, then I’ll
be a writer.” I had touched a nerve there. He said, “You can’t make a living as a writer.”
Well, I spent the rest of my life making a living as a writer. I said, “Well, what can I be?”
He said, “You can be a teacher, or you can be a secretary.” And I had Harriett
[Kupferer]—I can’t remember her last name. She is in the sociology department. And
when she met with the class. She gave out the assignment. And she said, “And your next
assignment is to go find my office and look at the door.” And we all went trooping and
found her room. And on it was a typed list of women and what they had accomplished.
And we were all – I mean all of us were just stunned, because this was a totally different
message than what we had been getting before. And I remember saying to myself, “It is
possible for me to be a writer. It is possible for me to work at the State Department as a
diplomat. It is possible. It’s just a matter of how much work I’m going to put into it. And
so Randall Jarrell’s class was full. And I told him I would really like to be in his class.
And he said, “Well, it’s full.” But he said, “That doesn’t mean you can’t come and sit in
15
it.” He said, “You won’t get any grade, but you can come and sit.” And I met a girlfriend
who’d been in one of the schools in Washington, DC. And there was a guy named Mr.
Poteat who was from Duke who came over for girls who were really highly academically
placed, I guess. And it was what they would call now an honor’s class. Maybe it was
called an honor’s class back then. But it was really the people who were in there were
really academically advanced. And Kathy said, “Come and listen.” And I said, “I can’t do
that. I mean this is a special class.” She said, “Just come and listen.” I came and listened.
And it was wonderful. It was just wonderful. I never had a class like that in my life. You
know, it was all over the place. And he talked about religion. He talked about politics. He
talked about the role of writers in clarifying for people the new ideas that were coming
out of the Reformation. And all this. And I’m going, “Wow, this is just incredible.” And I
was a new face. And he said, “I don’t remember seeing your face here before.” And I
said, “Well, actually, I’m not.” And Kathy come up and said, “This is a friend of mine,
and she’s not part of the class, but she is really bright.” And he said, “Well, fine. Just
come and sit in on this.” So, I did the same thing with Robert Taylor during his final
years. And by the end of the first semester I did not want that school to become coed at
all. There were the pinks and the blues. And we were painting [the statue of] Mr. McIver
pink or blue. Blue was for boys, and pink was for keeping it in girls. Of course, I didn’t
realize that it was a legislative mandate just like integration. We had seven black girls
who were all put in a dorm together at the end of a hallway. And I didn’t think that was
right. And nobody did anything about it. And in my dorm, in Jamison, I got elected to be
in the student body, student government, I think, by default. I think nobody else wanted
it. But I got elected to be there. And Starr, I think her name was Starr Sterling [president
of Student Government Association]. I probably have that wrong [about who] was the
president. And she didn’t take any noise off of anybody. I mean, and she said, “This is
going to be a very difficult year, because we have no choice but to accept that men are
going to come into this institution.”
HT: This would probably have been in 1963.
MG: It would be.
HT: Because we—
MG: We were the last class to come in as the Woman’s College [in 1962-1963]. And she said,
“We will have to accept it. So, all of you who are going and painting Mr. McIver pink,
stop it. And tell your dorm mates to stop it. Because there is nothing that can be done
about that.” And somebody said, “Well, what about those seven black girls that are all,
you know, huddled in a dorm all by themselves?” I mean they’re not all by themselves,
but they’re all together, and it’s like, “Well, if you want to mix with any white people,
then it’s up to you.” The school wasn’t going to do anything to help. And, then, there was
a theater down on Tate Street where Adam’s [Bookstore] is, or was. I’m not sure. And
the freshmen English classes had all been assigned to go see a movie down there. And the
movie theater would not allow blacks to go in. And it starts at—this is something. This is,
you know, virtually on our campus front door. So, we’re going to do something about
16
this. We’re going to protest. And, so, we did. First protest I’d ever been in. And, also, the
first I’ve been called really ugly names and had things thrown on me and spit upon.
HT: How did you girls protest?
MG: We got this—just went down in front of the theater in our school clothes and as I
remember those who had their jackets, I was a freshman, went and we just went down
there. And later on the next day we made signs. [recorder turned off and back on again]
But [the administration was] not happy at all about this. And as Starr said, “Well, we’re
not happy about it either. I mean if freshman are assigned to see a movie, these young
ladies are freshmen, and they can’t see the movie.” So, what they did was—the movie
theater would not change its position. But they loaned the movie to the school and
allowed them to play it in a room which was packed with people. Now, there were a lot
of Southern girls that did not want to do this. And the [New Jersey] mafia was there. But
not so much because of integration as it was the unfairness, whereas there was a lot of
Southern girls and Northern girls who were there because integration was coming, and it
was about time that the school woke up and realized it. Seven girls did not count as
integration. And the student body told them so.
HT: Do you recall which dorm they—where all black girls were housed?
MG: No, I don’t remember what dorm they were in.
HT: Because in ’56 when the first, two black girls came, they were housed in the Shaw
Dormitory, which is—
MG: Which is even more ridiculous, because that dorm is named for Anna Howard Shaw.
HT: Right.
MG: And who never would have put up with this. I mean she was primarily for women’s vote
and women’s equality rights. But she never would have put up with something like this.
And there had always been a barrier between enlisted people and officers in the Navy,
which I understood. And I grew up believing that everybody lived on streets that were
lined with trees and colonial houses. It was a long time before I realized this was not the
case. And when I did, you know—it was [a] very embarrassing situation for me, because
it was a friend of mine who was beautiful. But I mean but she was Chinese-Irish, and she
was not allowed to go into the Honolulu Country Club, because she was dark-skinned.
Now, my father didn’t put it that way. But it soon became obvious to me that there was
something going on that I didn’t know anything about. And that it involved white people,
and it involved black people. And I didn’t know what the heck it was. And I can
remember sitting down with Jean. And I said, “You’ve lived in Red Bank virtually all
your life, and you went to academically superior schools that were boarding schools, and
you worked every summer in Maine or somewhere.” I said, “I’ve been flipping around, I
don’t understand anything about this.” And she said, “Well, it’s leftover from the Civil
War, I think. And it’s blacks, and it’s whites. And blacks are probably afraid to be around
17
whites, and whites don’t want to be around black people at all in any way, shape or form.
Not at church, not at school, not in theaters, not anywhere.” And then they came out with
the wonderful [North Carolina] Speaker Ban [Law]. And that was the most ridiculous
thing I ever heard of. A university that wouldn’t listen to a difference of opinion? I mean
that’s the whole point of a university is you listen to contrary points of view. And make
up your own mind which one you think has the better argument or whatever. And, so,
then there was a long line of protestors going down into Greensboro for that.
HT: Did you protest at all? Were you involved in that protest?
MG: Now, I did not know about the five and dime deal.
HT: That was before your time. That was in February 1, 1960.
MG: And – but there were severe repercussions left over from that. And it made the school
administrators very nervous. And we didn’t help by marching downtown over the [North
Carolina] Speaker Ban [Law] saying, “This is ridiculous,” with signs and all. And Jean
and I and a couple of other people pulled a trick. We made a real sign saying that Dr.
Brown from Diputs University was going to speaking on such and such a date on the role
of integration in Southern colleges, or something like that. I think that was the name of it.
And we plastered these bulletins all over town and all over the university. And if you
looked at, Diputs backwards spelled stupid. So—and people actually came to hear this
phony thing. And for us it was a funny joke. But it also taught me that people will come
and hear lectures or speakers that they know nothing about. That they didn’t bother to
look up. They didn’t bother to look up anything about the person’s articles to see what his
position or her position us. Mostly, they were male because there weren’t that many
women. And that it was part of your college education to learn to pay attention. Nobody
ever found out about this until Bruce [Stewart] went up and announced it from the stage
that they looked at the placard. Diputs was “stupid” spelled backwards. And then he
walked off the stage and walked out of the room. And they were very embarrassed and all
that kind of stuff. But it taught me that it’s very important to pay attention to detail. It’s
very important to pay attention to who is this person that’s telling me what to do? That
first semester grades came around, and I’d never gotten less than “A” in history. And I
had a “D.” And I was just flabbergasted. Jean said, “I have one, too.” And we were at
lunch, Kathy Topodas said, “I have a “D,” too.” I said, “This doesn’t sound right.” And
we went around to members of the class, and Yankees had “Ds.” Because I had come
down from Kingstown High School and was classified as a Yankee or Northerner even
though my father’s permanent residence was New Bern, North Carolina. So, we then
went to the dean of students and said, “Everybody in this class who came from the North
has been given a “D” in this history class.” And we just don’t get “Ds” in history.
HT: Who was the instructor? Do you recall?
MG: Dr. Robinson. And he went on a sabbatical the next semester. And as far as I know as
long as I was there he never came back to campus. And how long he’d been doing this is
18
beyond knowing, but I didn’t think—I personally didn’t think the dean of students would
do anything about it. You back up faculty. But she did right away.
HT: Was that Dean Katherine Taylor by any chance?
MG: What?
HT: Is that Dean Katherine Taylor?
MG: Yes. Well, our grades were changed to “As.” He went on sabbatical. And she asked us to
please not discuss it widely on campus. And I told Jean, I said, she gave us an “A,” and
he’s gone. I guess that’s fair. That’s a fair trade. But how many others is this happening
to? She said, “I don’t think this is a common thing.” I said, “How would we know?” So, I
was having in trouble in biology and Jean was pre-med. And I’ve never seen a live
paramecium in my life. And I studied, and I studied, and I studied, you know. Eighty-percent
of the exam was going to be identification of slides. And kept telling Jean, “I’m
not going to make it.” She said, “You are. If you think positive.” And then we’d go over
to the slides, and I’d go, “I can’t. I don’t remember what this is. I don’t know – I can’t
even see it.” And I barely passed with a “D.” And the next semester, I knew we had a
new biology department [head], the one they named the science building after. And my
senior year at North Kingstown the only thing I was required to take was senior English
because of my doubling up in the tenth grade. And I said, “Whoop ti doo, all I have to do
is take English.” And my guidance counselor said, “No, I can’t let you get away with
that. You’re crazy.” So, I took World History 4, and I took French 4, and I took Biology
3 with Mandy. And I took Chemistry 3. I said, “I don’t want to take French.” [He] said,
“Tough, you’re going to take it.” So, I took. And all it was was he stuck us in with the
brighter sophomores. And that year the biology teacher, Mr. Hinshaw, was doing genetics
all year. So, and this guy, the new guy, that they were going to name a building after, and
whose name I can’t remember, comes in and announces that his specialty is genetics. And
I almost went, “Whoop ti doo.” Because there couldn’t have been five other people in
that class of 1,000 that knew anything about genetics beyond [Gregor] Mendel’s little pea
thing, you know? And I was giving tutoring lessons like crazy. When you spend a year
focusing on genetics, you learn a lot. And I was having a great time. Because I didn’t like
a lot of the sciences, like chemistry. I didn’t particularly like biology. I fully enjoyed
genetics. And I was moving right along in English. And in history, and I decided I was
going to major in contemporary Russian history. Now, my father had been—he was not
going to get his third star. So, they asked him, “Where do you want to have your last tour
of duty?” And he said he had never been over in Europe. So, they put him over in Naples,
Italy. And he was Commander Fleet Air Mediterranean. And, so, [in the summer of
1964], I flew over with the other 10,000 kids that were going to join their parents in
Europe whether it was Germany or Finland or Italy or whatever. And we started out on
a—the equivalent of a 747 [airplane]. You know, there were just tons of kids. And the
closer we got to Rota, Spain, which was the first of my father’s possessions, I guess, the
more I moved up—the more they kept moving me up in the plane. Because I deliberately
sat in the back, which is what my father told me. If you can’t, you know, get in the very,
very front, get in the very, very back of the plane.
19
HT: For safety reasons?
MG: Yeah, if the plane crashes, then you’re better off in those two places. So, I was in the very
back of the plane. And as we got to Madrid, you know, I was moved up about not quite
halfway. Then we landed in Rota, Spain, and we were on a littler plane to go over from
Rota over to Naples. And I was moved up not in the very, very front but very close to it.
And, then, when we landed in Naples—I don’t know who he was. Maybe he was a
captain of the plane. But somebody said, “Nobody can leave the plane until the admiral’s
daughter does.” And I said, “There it goes again.” Yes, I swear to God, two years in the
university, and I’m still the frigging admiral’s daughter. And I walked to the front and I
walked down, and there was Pop at the end of the runway and all smiley and I said, “Hi,
Pop.” And, anyway, long story short we got into a discussion, and he said, “What are you
going to do?” He said, “Your grades are all over the place.” And I said, “Yeah, I know,
but”—I said, “What I really want to do is I want to study contemporary Russian history
because I really believe that the Berlin Wall is going to come down. I don’t know when,
but it will come down.” And the Russians are going to fail. Because communism won’t
work. It just won’t work. And that means they’re going to have to collapse.” And he had
spent the last ten years chasing Russian submarines. And he said, “You’re ridiculous.”
And I said, “Well, maybe I am. But that’s what I believe, and that’s what I want to study.
I want to study contemporary Russian history, and work towards being—having the
country be in a better position. Because this is going to happen, and it’s going to change a
lot of things.” And he said, “Not on my watch.” I said, “Excuse me?” And he said, “You
can be a secretary. I will send you back, and you can go to the secretary school.” I said,
“You mean the commercial school?” And he said, “Yes.” I said, “I can’t do that. I’d
make a lousy secretary in the first place.” And he said, “Well, that’s it.”
HT: Was this the end of your second year at WC [The Woman’s College of the University of
North Carolina]?
MG: Yes, and I said, “I’m in my junior year, and I’ve been elected to be editor of the Pine
Needles [yearbook], and I was going to be with [Kathy] Topodas in one of the old dorms
that fronts on the walkway, the street, now. And, as far as I was concerned things were
going really great. So, you know, some of my grades weren’t very good. But they were
classes I shouldn’t have taken in the first place. And because the classes I liked I did
very, very well. In the classes I didn’t like, I didn’t do so well in. And, so, he said,
“That’s your choice. You either go on the street, or you go and back and take secretarial.”
And I said, “Well, I guess it’s the street, because I can’t do that. It’s wrong.” And, of
course, there was no way to get any scholarship money because of his income. And, plus,
it was an embarrassing situation to go to the school and say, “my father has given me an
ultimatum that I either become a secretary or, that’s it.” This is the third time he
disowned me, and I was getting tired of it. But, he gave me fifty dollars, put me on the
airplane. And that was it. And waited to see what I did. And I never ever took a dime
from him.
HT: So, when you came back to the United States, what did you do?
20
MG: I went to my mother’s at first. And she already knew about it. And she was very unhappy.
Because my sophomore year she had let loose with her plan for my life which was I was
to be a debutante. And I said, “Why would I want to go and act like a piece of meat that’s
been hung out for marriage?” And Pop called up and said, “You will do this.” And I said,
“Yes, sir.” So, I went and became a debutante my sophomore year. And tried not to let
anybody at school know.
HT: So, where did you make your debut?
MG: In Rothic, [at the Norfolk, Virginia] German Club. And I made mother happy. And, then,
she said—and I said, “Now, you’re up to something.” And she said, “Well, no, I’m not up
to anything. But it would be nice if you married a doctor or lawyer from Norfolk.” I said,
“Like you did?” I said, “You can’t arrange a person’s life like that.” I said, “You’re doing
the same thing that’s Pop’s doing.” And she said, “No, I’m not. Is it asking too much that
you date some people?” And, so, I said, “This is not going to work.” And my sister was –
her husband was stationed down in Charleston, [South Carolina] and he was out at sea,
and she had a gallbladder operation. This was back when it was really a slash and burn
operation. And she had two little kids, two girls. And, so, I said, “Well, I’ll come down
and I’ll help take care of you.” And Pops sent her a check for $350 for room and board
and whatever. And I grabbed the check, and I tore it up and threw it in little pieces. I said,
“Don’t you accept a dime from him. I will get myself into a position where I can get a
job, okay? And I don’t know what that would be. My cooking skills consisted of boiling
water and heating up leftovers. So, I went to a computer school and learned how to make
IBM machines do what they did back in those days. And I—
HT: The cards and things like that.
MG: And the board, depending on what you wanted a calculator to do when it read the cards, I
knew how to put the wires in to the board that went inside. So, I took the civil service
exam. And they said I had scored the highest on the civil service exam in Charleston
they’d ever had, which worried me, because where did that mean they were going to put
me? And they put me in the data processing for the Charleston Naval Hospital payroll.
And I started out keypunching cards. And pretty soon I was – well, I just moved up until I
was doing the payroll all by myself. And—but I was allergic to something in Charleston.
I don’t know what it was. But I was sick as a dog. And I couldn’t afford to go to a regular
doctor. I mean I only made, let’s see, minimum wage was $1.25 an hour. I didn’t make
very much money by the time I paid my rent. And I took my shoes off and walked home
in the rain because I couldn’t afford to get them resoled. And things like that. And, so, I
went to a clinic that was an after-hours clinic that a doctor did for black people. And he
looked at me in the crowd and he said, “What are you doing here?” I said, “Same thing
these other people are doing.” And he said, “Come on in.” I said, “No, these other people
were here before I was.” So, I eventually got in. And he said, “Who was treating you
before this?” I said, “The Navy, they were using penicillin.” And he said, “Well, they
probably made you so that you can’t ever have penicillin again.” But he said, “You’re
allergic to something in this town. And we can go through and test you for every mold
21
that is in Charleston, which is somewhere in the seventy to 200, or you can leave.” So, I
left. Went back to Norfolk. Cleared my sinus infection right up. And was out of a job.
Got a job with a plumbing company as [recording stopped and started back] a secretary to
the boss taking dictation off of the belts. And, then, [the father of] one of my debutante
friends said, “Well, I’ll have to see what I can do.” And the next thing I know he called
me up and he said, “I got a job for you at The Virginia-Pilot. I said, “Doing what?” I’d
gotten very suspicious. He said, “Well, it’s kind of a temporary thing to see how you do
being in the women’s department.” I said, “The women’s department?” Well, from the
women’s department I moved [on] to the Sunday entertainment section.
HT: This is a newspaper?
MG: The Virginian-Pilot. And I reviewed all the movies that the movie editor didn’t want to
review. And I laid out the pages. I learned how to lay out the pages. And I would go in
the back—this was when they were still using hot type. And would—somebody wanted
to cut a paragraph, I had to go back there and work with one of the journeymen to pull the
type out. Which I found absolutely fascinating, you know? But the science editor came to
me and said, “Tell you what, I’ll switch jobs with you.” I said, “What’s the matter, don’t
you like the way I review your wife’s books?” And he said, “No, it isn’t that. It isn’t that.
But, you know, I’m getting tired of doing this. Your job looks like more fun.” I said,
“This guy is laying a bunch of moose hockey in front of me.” I went out and talked to
Bob Mason who was the editor. And I said, “This is the deal, now I’ve got three choices
here. I can take this job that he’s offering, or I can stay where I am, or I can try to go back
to school.” And I said, “If you had a choice of hiring somebody who had a degree, and
someone who didn’t have a degree, what would you do?” And he said, “I would take the
one who was the better writer. It doesn’t matter whether they had a degree or not, and
you’re the better writer.” And I said, “Aw shucks.” And he said, “Having a journalism
degree doesn’t mean that you can write or do journalism.” So, I said, “So, I should take
the job.” He said, “Well, I’m just telling you that going back to school and getting a
journalism degree, you know, is not going to help you.” So, I decided, I took the job with
the science editor. And I ended up writing some of the most fantastic things in Norfolk. I
wrote the first story of the first cardiac bypass operation that was done in Norfolk. I did
the story of the first—they did an aneurysm. They removed an aneurysm. It wasn’t in a
deadly place, fortunately, for this young lady. But they removed it. And, then, when they
got going and they were working on liver transplants. And, then, I got the story that the
city was no longer going to pay the emergency ambulance to take people to the hospital.
They were going to back to what they’d always done, which was throw people in the
back of the police cars and take them to the hospital. And I got on to that story. And the
metropolitan editor—there were great people at the Pilot at that time. They were just
golden. And they told me, they said, “You need to do this. You need to do that. You need
to call and find out if a city the size of Norfolk, what they do.” And all this kind of stuff.
And I did. And I kept battering away at the city. And the last one that I did was the city
charter very clearly says the city is responsible for the health and well being of the
citizens of Norfolk. And I was getting—that was on Friday. Saturday was my regular day
off. And I got in to my riding outfit, because I was going riding with the Pony Club. And
they call me from the office and they said, “The mayor wants to see you.” I said,
22
“When?” And he said, “Right now.” I said, “Ed, I’m getting ready to walk out the door to
go ride my horse with the Pony Club.” And he said, “Well, don’t bring your horse, but
get down to the mayor’s office.” I said, “Well, give me time to change clothes.” He said,
“Now is now.” So, I said, “All right.” So, I drove down to the mayor’s office. And he
said, “I wanted you to be the one to know that I’m capitulating to you. And we’re going
to renew our contract with the emergency people. And in fact we’re going to see if we
can get some more money for them so that we can provide better emergency services for
the people of Norfolk.” Because his position had been that providing emergency care was
not something that the city government was responsible for doing.
HT: What changed his mind?
MG: I battered away at him. And, then, the last piece I wrote which was from the charter for
the City of Norfolk and where it very clearly said that the city was responsible for this,
this, this, and the health and well being of the citizens. And he’d been arguing that health
and well being did not include emergency services and ambulances.
HT: Was this the mid 1970s?
MG: No, it’s tail end of the sixties. Because I got hired away by one of LBJ’s [President
Lyndon Baines Johnson] Great Society Programs of 314-b, Comprehensive Health
Planning Agency which was to organize and improve the American healthcare system
without changing the existing forms of healthcare provision. Talk about a Catch-22. So,
we decided—it wasn’t really that we decided—the hospitals were the ones that decided –
they tried to start a medical school. They succeeded. There is the Eastern Virginia
Medical School. And they all wanted Norfolk General, the administrator there. He
wanted to be the Boston General of the South. So, he wanted another 170 beds. And
when the other hospitals heard that, they all said they wanted to increase the number of
beds so they could be competitive with Norfolk. And it was a nightmare. So, we said –
we declared a moratorium. Now, we had [little] authority. We had no authority to do this.
But we did it anyway. And for some strange reason they listened to us. Perhaps because
all the chief power players of Norfolk, Portsmouth, Chesapeake and Virginia Beach were
on the board. So, we declared a moratorium. And we fought like Trojans to get them to
understand that opening more beds, or building more beds, was not the solution to their
problem, and that [our option] was the solution to the problem. But they wouldn’t pay
attention to it. But I’ve never seen anything so political in my life. That’s when I learned
about politics. We even flew the Reverend [Claude Charles] Vaché, back from his
conference to a meeting so he could vote and we would have enough votes. And then he
flew back that night to wherever his conference was. And that’s when [Richard] Nixon
was being slashed apart for being stupid and doing things illegal. And I was so
disillusioned.
HT: You were working in Washington around this time, I guess?
MG: What?
23
HT: Was this position that you were working in Washington, DC?
MG: HEW [US Department of Health, Education, and Welfare] was then, for our area, was
then in Charlottesville. Then it moved to Philadelphia. And I did a lot of things for them.
And they ended up using me a lot for—they came out with the regulation, rules and
regulations, for end-stage renal disease. And I read it. I was the one assigned to read the
Federal Register. You want to read something boring, read the Federal Register. And I
said, “Nobody can understand this.” So, I rewrote it in language that people could
understand.” And I sent it to the head of our division and said, “I think this is a better way
to say this.” And he called me and he said, “This is great. I’m going to send this out to
everybody.” I said, “What do you mean you’re going to send it out to everybody?” He
said, “Nobody can understand these damn rules and regulations on this end-stage renal
disease, and this is really important stuff and people have to understand it. And you put it
in language that people can understand.” So, he said, “I’m going to send it out to every
314-b agency in the United States and every state CHP agency in the United States. I
said, “Eric, please don’t do that.” Well, I became the resident expert on end-stage renal
disease which was not true. But I understood the rules and regulations on it. And, then, I
did another one taking it out of bureaucratese and putting it into just English. And Eric
kicked it upstairs, you know, and it went all the way to Caspar Weinberger. And I said,
“Oh, my God.” And I lasted with them for five years, because at five years they
[Congress] rewrote the legislation. And there were only two 314-b agencies that didn’t
survive. Us, and the one in Geneva, New York, the ones that had actually accomplished
things. And in my accomplishments I got a sickle cell clinic started. I wrote the grant, and
we submitted to the United Way. And it was the first black, all-black board, that they had
ever funded. And I wrote a grant that was impossible to turn down. And they got it. And
there was a little old lady that I worked with. And she was the one who was responsible
for me getting shot at by the KKK [Ku Klux Klan] twice.
HT: And where was that?
MG: Right in—one was in town [Portsmouth], and one was—we were driving back from
meeting with some black people on the Eastern Shore of Virginia. And all a sudden a
truck without any headlights come up and Richmond, I can’t remember his last name. He
was in the Coast Guard, and he drove Thelma Jones around. And he said, “Get down.” I
said, “What?” He said, “Get down on the floor.” And Thelma turned around and she said,
“Uh-oh, we done picked us up the KKK.” And I said, “Don’t be ridiculous.” And a shot
went whistling by the car. And I said, “Holy [_ _ _ _]” and I got on the floor just as fast
as I could be, because I didn’t like getting shot at by the KKK the first time. And they
were Portsmouth Policemen for the City of Portsmouth.
HT: Was there a trial or anything like that?
MG: No. There wasn’t anything we could do. I asked—I told Richmond. I said, “I’m going to
do something about this.” He says, “You can’t do anything.” He said, “You know who
these people are? Did you see their faces? Do you know their names? Did you get a
license plate?” I said, “No.” He said, “You can’t do anything about it.” And I couldn’t
24
believe it. I just really couldn’t believe that the KKK was doing this. And in the
seventies. I mean it didn’t make any sense to me, even with Nixon doing the things that
he was doing.
HT: Well, how did it come about that you went back to school what is now UNCG?
MG: Well, we all sat around and said, “You know, we’re not going to get funded again even if
we write a grant, Maria. And, so, we’ll just have to sit here and make money.” I said,
“I’m not going to do that. That’s against my principals.” I said, “But I can understand the
rest of you’ve got mortgages [and families]. I can understand that. But I’m done. I’m beat
up, worn out.”
HT: This was after you were shot at a couple of times as well?
MG: Well, it wasn’t just that. It was, you know, how crooked everything was. Crooked in the
sense it was political. You pull the political strings. And that combined with watching
Nixon all day long. And I said, “What’s the difference between him and me?” So, I had
bought a horse and all I had was an apartment. And a little car. And, so, I said to myself,
“Well, what are you going to do? Where do you feel safest?” And I said, “WC.” So, I
called them up and I said, “Are my credits any good?” And they said, “Sure.” I said,
“Can I come back?” And they said, “Sure, but you better do it fast, because registration is
going to be over very shortly.” So, I hopped in my little bug and drove down and they
assigned me to a—what do you call them? Somebody who helps you to decide courses
who is brand new to the political science department—[a student advisor]. And I had
three credits in sociology, and three credits in history, and three history of English. And I
said to him, “I don’t care which one I get a degree in.” I had a chip on my shoulder about
the size of Mt. Everest. And he said, “I’ll tell you what. I’ll get you out of here in three
and a half semesters, but.” I said, “Uh-huh, there’s always a 'but' when a man is talking.”
And he said, “But, you can only make one ‘B.’” I said, “Excuse me?” He said, “That’s
the deal. I’ll get you out of here in three and a half semesters.”
HT: Was this the fall of 1974 or ’76?
MG: ’76. Dr. [James C.] Thompson in the political science department. And he was brand new
to the school. I said, “Can you do this?” He said, “Sure, I can.” He said, “Don’t you have
the guts to do it.” I said, “Ah, no, don’t do that to me. Because I can roll you over and
throw you down and make a mess out of you.” I said, “I can do it. It’s just why are you
asking me if I can?” And he said, “Can you do it?” And I said, “Sure, I can.” He said,
“Well, let me see.” And he did it.
HT: How had the school changed—
MG: Tremendously. There were black students that were living in dorms all over the place. I
was living with a black student.
HT: Were you living on campus?
25
MG: Yeah, I lived on campus. Who could afford to live off campus? I had accumulated [not]
that much savings working for a newspaper or even working for the 314-b agency. And
they paid me more money. And [my roomie] had to have the television on all the time.
Drove me nuts until I finally went into the back of her television and took the tube out. I
couldn’t help it.
HT: You were a mature woman by this time, and here you were rooming with someone who
was what?
MG: Younger.
HT: Ten to fifteen years younger?
MG: Yes.
HT: That must have been difficult.
MG: I was gone almost—I was over at the library at seven o’clock in the morning, and I was
there until almost eleven o’clock. And then I would come back and I would go to sleep,
and that was my schedule, you know. And she still had the television on and talking on
the telephone. And that’s when I said, “This is wrong.” But I did it anyway. I went and
pulled her bulb out and her TV didn’t work. And then the next semester I told them, “I’ve
got to have a room by myself.” And they said, “The only place where you can do that is
on the graduate dorm.” And I said, “No, I know I can have a room by myself. Tell them
I’m allergic to everybody. Do something.” And I did have a room by myself from then
on. And [Dr.] Thompson slipped graduate courses in on me. And I worked like a beaver.
And I was on the Dean’s List every semester.
HT: So, you made all “As” except one “B,” or did you make all “As?”
MG: Yes, [I got one “B”] and I finished. And then they offered me the sun, the moon, and the
stars if I would stay and go to graduate school in political science. And I said, “I got to go
home. My mother is sick. And there is nobody else to take care of her.” So, I went home,
and I got a job at Old Dominion University which got me into more trouble all over
again. Because my boss was a physics genius. He was with [Enrico] Fermi and
[J. Robert] Oppenheimer and all those people at Los Alamos, [New Mexico]. And after
the bombs were exploded they weren’t allowed to leave Los Alamos. So, they gave
classes to each other. And Marvin [Wyman] had all the notebooks that he had from those
classes.
HT: What did you do at Old Dominion, you said you worked—
MG: I worked—I had the strangest title. I was the Research Program Development
Coordinator [in the Office of the Vice President for Research and Graduate Studies]. No
one knew what that meant. As far as Marvin was concerned, he would be responsible for
26
all the grant activity in mechanical engineering. And I had everything else. Plus, I was
responsible for all the federally mandated boards for human subjects research, animal
research, hazardous waste material, DNA material. I said, “All of them by myself?” He
said, “Yeah,” and then he’d come with me to the—they had a research foundation where
the grant money actually went to instead of going to the university, very common
practice. And that was in fairly good shape. And Marvin did a good job of getting along
with the board and all that kind of stuff. And I was along to take minutes. And then I
would talk to the staff and find out what the real problems were. And then I would tell
Marvin. And he would say, “Well, go fix it.” I said, “You know what my title is? My title
is Research Program Development Coordinator, you know?” And I started going to the
master’s program in Public Administration. I was into decision theory, like I mean,
Thompson just got me turned on to decision theory like nothing else, like an electric bulb
going off and I went. I had to know this. I had to know this. And I talked to the head of
the department. Because, basically, the Public Administration Program [at Old Dominion
University] was designed for people who wanted to be city mayors, county managers,
something like that. And I told him, I said, “I have no interest in becoming a city manager
or a county officer [in] any shape or form.” I said, “I am in this because I want to find out
what makes a public institution go bonkers. Why they make a mistake that shouldn’t have
been made, like Coca-Cola changing the taste of it, Ford making Edzel. And hospital
staffing doing strange things. And allowing a medical school where there’s no money to
support it. Why would they do that?” And he said, “Well, we can give you some of the
courses for that,” and I said, “I want to write a theses.” I was the only one that wrote a
theses in the class. And I wanted Thompson on my theses committee. Do you know how
hard it is to get somebody from another institution on your theses committee? But I held
out. And Dr. Pindur said, “If she wants it, let her have it.” And, then, we had a young
man who had just started with the department at Old Dominion who was coming out of
healthcare. And he learned things that he never knew. And, so, we made up courses. They
have that in the master’s program. It’s like a 698 or 699 course. And we just invented
courses. Well, I submitted proposals to have the course, and the committee had to
approve it. And then I got married, and I had a baby, and my mother was sick. And I was
going to graduate school at night. And how I survived, I have no idea. I have no idea how
I survived it. But I did. And I got my master’s in public administration. And I wrote my
theses. I was sick as a dog. I had a fever of 103 and put it on Pindur’s desk. And I said, “I
don’t even care any more.” And, then, the dean refused to sign it because he said, “These
people are Rotarians. They would never behave like this.” And I said, “Oh, my God,”
because there is no appeal from the dean. And, of course, all my committee had taken off
to go to conferences or vacation or whatever. And I finally got a hold of Dr. Pindur. I said
the dean is refusing to sign it. He said, “Don’t worry about it. I’ll be back on Monday.”
He said, “Be in my office at nine o’clock.” I said, “Okay.” And I was. And he went up in
the elevator from the third floor to the ninth floor. And he came back in two minutes with
my theses signed. I said, “How did you do that?” He said, “You never put a Swiss up
against a German.”
HT: Who was Swiss, and who was German?
MG: The dean was Swiss and Pindur was German.
27
HT: Oh.
MG: And I said, “I think there is more to it than that.” And he said, “Well, it’s none of your
business anyway.” And, so, I was done. And, then, people started leaving. My boss got
[liver] cancer, and they brought in a new acting provost who wanted me to do things—
this [had become] a life rule for me. Don’t ever ask me to do anything that’s immoral,
illegal, or unethical. Sad that you have to have that as a life rule. But, you know, I had to
make that my number one life rule. And the acting provost was trying to get me to pay
for his girlfriend’s—he was married and had seven children—flight and stuff, you know,
bedroom and all that stuff. And I refused. I absolutely, positively refused. I said, “If I
won’t let the graduate student kids have beer and potato chips with indirect cost money,
why should I let you do this? You know? It’s not right. You pay for it.” And Marvin died.
And I was back in my [usual] position. So, I said, “I can’t go back to WC anymore.” I
guess I could. So, I started looking for a new job. I went out to the Grand Tetons, and I
said, “What do I do now?” I got back home. And the closer I got home—
HT: What made you go out to the Grand Tetons?
MG: They’re my Mecca.
HT: Oh, just to—
MG: And the closer I got to Norfolk the more my stomach ache, began to hurt. And I said,
“Well, that’s it. If that isn’t obvious, then nothing else is.” So, I arrive back on a Sunday,
and I went to work on Monday, and I brought a box with me. And I started putting my
personal things in it. Dr. Dunstan said, “What are you doing?” And I said, “I’m putting
my personal items in this box and leaving.” He says, “You can’t quit.” And I said, “Sure,
I can.” He says, “You have to give two weeks’ notice.” I said, “Tough luck” since I was
feeling that I knew how do anything around there. And I got all my things in the box, and
I just walked out the door and never looked back. And, then, I started looking for another
job about six months later. And I’d actually accepted a position at Mary Baldwin
[College] doing the same thing, looking for grant money for them. And I wasn’t happy
about it, because it really didn’t have a lot of things for little kids to do. And there was a
job down in Greensboro that was looking for somebody to be a development officer for
foundations and companies, corporations. And I apologized very sincerely to Mary
Baldwin, I said, “But, I have to have this other job.” So, I came back to WC after all as,
you know, director of development for corporations and foundations.
HT: When was this, nineties?
MG: [In 1986, I] learned another life rule: always ask to see the files before you accept the
position. Because when I found—when I asked where the files were, they were in the
furnace room in cardboard boxes. I said, “You’re joking?” He said, “No, we’re just
getting dial tone phones in instead of rotary.” I said, “You’re kidding?”
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HT: Where was your office at that time?
MG: In the Pecky Cypress Room downstairs.
HT: Of the Alumni House?
MG: The Alumni House.
HT: Alumni House. The Pecky Cypress Room
MG: Not that he had an office for me. He didn’t even have a desk for me. He said, “Sit at the
conference table and do it.”
HT: And who was your boss?
MG: And, then, he gave me an office that was over in the Forney Building where two of our
people worked. And, then, he called me over. And every time he’d fire somebody, I
would—he would dump their responsibilities on me. And after he fired the third person, I
said, “You fire one more person, I swear to God, I will quit. I can’t do everything.”
HT: Was this Bernie Keele by any chance?
MG: Yes. And he said, “Sure, you can. You’ve been doing it.” And I said, “No, you don’t
understand. I cannot work twenty-four hours a day seven days a week. I have a child.
And, plus, I need to sleep every now and then.”
HT: That would be nice, yes. Well, what did you think of Bernie Keele, because he’s got a
mixed reputation at the school.
MG: He had a lot of personality, and he made a lot of connections with the downtown people
like Jim Melvin and Hayes.
HT: Chuck Hayes?
MG: Yes, Chuck Hayes. A lot of that he did. But I ended up—and this was very difficult for
me to do. I ended up suing the university for sexual harassment and sexual discrimination
because of Bernie Keele.
HT: May I ask how it turned out?
MG: Yeah, I won my case, but it was also the same day my doctor told me that I had multiple
sclerosis and I was in a state of shock. So, Bill Moran, we’d gone from Dr. Moran to Ms.
Griffin to Bill and Maria. I thought that was funny. And he said, “You’ve won your
case.” And I said, “That’s nice, because I just found out I have multiple sclerosis.” I
didn’t even know what it was. I thought I was going to die. And, so, you know, and I
wasn’t asking them for money. All I was asking them for was to fix my resume so—
29
because it was rather obvious on my resume that I had been demoted. Bernie did that.
Thank you very much Bernie. And promoted this twenty-something person who had no
major job experience. And ended up being an associate vice president. That’s when I
snapped and said, “I’m sorry. I love this school to death, but I cannot let them do this to
me. I cannot allow this.” So, there I was with a neurological disease where I’d reach the
point where I could only walk sixty feet. And I wasn’t asking for money. I just ask them,
“Fix my resume, and give me a letter of recommendation.” So, I told Bill Moran, I said,
it’s very nice that I won, but I can’t go anywhere. I can’t even walk sixty feet. Where am
I going to go? What am I going to do? He said, “I’m so sorry.” I said, “So, am I.” And I
walked out the door. What a dummy!
HT: I understand that Dr. Keele left the university under sort of a cloud.
MG: Yeah, he left with—he hired a woman and brought her to town, and she was his
concubine. And dumb old me, being the one who always looked after women in the
office, and female graduate students. I’m the one who told her, “If you have a problem
with Dr. Keele, if he says strange things to you or what,” and the whole time she’s
sleeping with him. So, she goes back and tells him. And, so, then he tries to pick a fight
with me at the next staff meeting. And I’m like, “What’s he doing?” And, then, we broke
for lunch. And Debbie Yow was there. And she grabbed me and she pulled me [into our]
office and shut the door. She said, “Stupid, he’s trying to pick a fight so he can fire you.”
I said, “Why would he want to fire me?” She said, “I don’t know. But that’s what’s
happening. So, don’t let him get away with it.” I said, “Okay.” So, I didn’t let him get
away with it. I let, “Whatever you want, Bernie, that’s fine with me.”
HT: I think he finally left and went to Florida as I recall?
MG: He went to Hilton Head. Started a restaurant. Strange.
HT: I knew he did something strange, wasn’t anything academia after he left.
MG: Oh, no. And it took me one telephone call, one telephone call, to find out that was his
reputation up in Rochester, [New York] where he had been before. And that ticked me
off. So, I went into Duke Hospital and somebody had to loan me three days of sick leave.
And I was in there for ten days. As long as I was on the ACTH, I was fine. But as soon as
I came off of it, I was terrible. And if I was on the oral prednisone it was awful. I crashed
completely. So, I had to start all over again. It took me two years to learn to walk one
mile again. Sometimes I would crawl home on my hands and knees. I’m a very stubborn
person if you haven’t [noticed]. But, you know, “I am going to do this.” And I got – I
could walk a mile. And I said, “Okay, you can walk a mile.” Then thirty-five cents will
get me what—you can’t get a job. I was on permanent disability. Try raising a kid on
permanent disability.
HT: How old was your daughter during this time?
MG: What?
30
HT: How old was your daughter at this time?
MG: When I went down with the MS [Multiple Sclerosis]? She was eleven and her father had
just died of cancer. He had remarried. And she had a stepsister. And that’s my baby girl.
She looks more like a Griffin than she does a Moore for a Maria Justice [Haylander]
Hailey. And she told me that they were going to do a generic wedding invitation. I said,
“I didn’t spend a quarter of a million dollars on you to not get my name on the wedding
invitation.” So, my name is on the wedding invitation.
HT: Well, it’s getting awful late, and you probably need to break for lunch or something. And
I need to get back to the university. So, it’s 1:30.
MG: Have I answered all your questions?
HT: I think so. You have. I think you have.
MG: If I haven’t, I can do more.
HT: I think you have. Well, thank you so much for the very interesting afternoon—morning
and afternoon.
[End of Interview]