Oral history interview with Charles M. and Ellen Adams, 1990 [text/print transcript]

              1
UNCG CENTENNIAL ORAL HISTORY PROJECT COLLECTION
INTERVIEWEE: Charles M. Adams and Ellen Adams (wife)
INTERVIEWER: Anne R. Phillips
DATE: April 6, 1990
[Begin Side A]
AP: You said that you grew up in North Dakota?
CA: Yes.
AP: Yes.
CA: LaMoure, L-A-M-O-U-R-E.
AP: LaMoure.
CA: And he was a Canadian.
AP: Oh. [laughs]
CA: And a Presbyterian.
AP: And a Presbyterian.
CA: Oh yes. We didn't—connected with the South, you know.
AP: Oh. [laughs]
CA: Presbyterians in the South are different than—
AP: Yes.
CA: —Presbyterians in the North, until the last ten years or so.
AP: Yes, yes. So your family was Presbyterian?
CA: Yes.
AP: Yeah.
2
CA: I grew up in the Presbyterian Church.
AP: Let me see. [pause in tape] You were brought up Presbyterian.
CA: Yes, brought up Presbyterian.
AP: Yeah.
CA: I played in the church. I played the music in the church. I played the piano for a while.
AP: Oh my. Did you?
CA: Yes, yes. And conducted the choir, even.
AP: In the church, how many—
CA: Yeah, there were four in the choir. Remember, North Carolina [North Dakota]—LaMoure,
North Dakota, population of 900.
AP: Nine hundred.
CA: Nine hundred and one, with me, you know, or less—
AP: Well, so, how did your folks end up in North Dakota? By how did they—
CA: Oh, they listened to Horace Greeley, and he said, "Go West, young man."
AP: I see.
CA: Horace Greeley.
AP: They took him at his word.
CA: They went West, young man, then out of Boston.
AP: Out from Boston?
CA: Oh yes, out of Boston. So my family was born in the Boston area, the Adams family.
AP: Oh my. Did you hear them talk about the journey? What year did they go West?
CA: Some time. You know, they didn't talk about it particularly, but they resided in Grand Forks,
didn't they? They got the land in Grand Forks, North Carolina—
EA: North Dakota.
3
AP: North Dakota, uh-huh.
CA: Yeah, on the James River.
AP: Oh.
CA: James River. And they had a park there—I think they were given the land, but they went
back East to college, and they sent me back, but they—I didn't have the credit in LaMoure,
North Dakota, although the high school didn't have—but Carleton College, in southern
Minnesota, accepted me.
AP: Oh my.
CA: So, you know, I went there, you know, right out of high school, and at Carleton College my
records were all very good. But in the meantime, you see, my family had decided to send me
East, and they went to Amherst [College], so Amherst checked my record that summer, and
they said my record at Carleton College was good, and they would accept me and use my
credit for Carleton College for admittance to Amherst. So I got into Amherst with a couple
credits. Because they thought it was much better for me to go East to college then to come
back.
AP: Yeah.
CA: But Amherst wasn't quite ready to accept me right out of—I think I was the only North
Dakota person they ever had.
AP: Oh.
CA: And the first one.
AP: You made history at Amherst. [laughs]
CA: [laughs] Well, Amherst was—I wouldn't have gotten accepted at Amherst except they
didn't—they wanted somebody from all forty-eight states. [laughs]
AP: Well how—did you accept them? What was your feeling of Amherst?
CA: Well, I don't know. Yes, yeah, I was very upset because they—I'm forgetting the reason why
I was. At first, they didn't want to accept—Oh, I know the reason. [laughs] I had to have
cash to get in.
AP: Oh my.
CA: And my family didn't have—you see, that was—I was broke. I didn't have that cash. I didn't
come with the cash to pay all the tuition and everything else, got it at Amherst. I didn't have
it. And boy they were going to—so, gosh, I was upset they weren't going to accept me. But
4
then they gave me a big scholarship, you know.
AP: Oh. [laughs] So you saw—
CA: North Dakota didn't have a lot of money. Everything was going broke, wasn't it—what
was—I forgot the date. But North Dakota must have been going broke. My family had land.
I had a couple sections of land. Do you know what a section is?
AP: A section is—remind me again?
CA: Six hundred and some acres per section.
AP: Six hundred and forty. I was thinking 640.
CA: And this was the big prairie, so we had a couple of sections of land.
AP: So Amherst didn't want to take—
CA: Wasn't worth any. And he was a banker and he had a—you know, we had to keep the bank
open. The bank had to take all our cash to keep that bank open, you know. LaMoure. You
know, it was just—
AP: So you were land poor, according to Amherst standards.
CA: Yeah, according to Amherst standards. No cash. [laughs] No cash. Although I went to
Carleton and somehow they had money enough to start. Carleton didn't have to have cash
down.
AP: Yeah.
CA: So I made it at Carleton all right.
AP: Well.
CA: And they were pleased because I had good records at Carleton. Now Carleton—and Carleton
in some way, I think, is academically as strong as Amherst.
AP: Oh fully—yes, I'd say.
CA: I don't know that Amherst knew this. Oh, no, they were willing to accept me.
AP: Was that a feeling about the East coast that colleges maybe looked down on anything west
of the Mississippi?
CA: No.
5
AP: No, no.
CA: Of course, Carleton isn't quite west of the Mississippi—it's on the Mississippi, isn't it?
[laughs] Not the Missouri.
AP: All right.
CA: Okay, no I don't—I'm not quite sure. Amherst, you know, they finally—I don't think they'd
ever had a person from North Dakota before—
AP: I see.
CA: —But I think they were interested in getting a variety of students.
AP: I see. So then—I'm sorry.
CA: They didn't have cash. So I didn't have cash.
AP: Yeah. But you—so after Amherst, then, how did your life take a turn?
CA: Oh well, my—at Amherst, you know, I decided at—North Dakota was, you know, a very
simple, primitive—I needed some world experience, so I accepted a job in Caligula Avenue.
Athens College is in Psychico, a suburb of Athens, and so I went to Athens College and
taught English and Mathematics, because I majored in Math at Amherst, and I had a group
of students at Psychico, which is a suburb of Athens, I had a group of students that were
American children of American—This is way back in 1929, mind you, when they were
building the dam at Athens, Psychico Dam, so I had a group of American, children of
American students. I had one group of students that were children of Greeks, but American
Greeks that knew English. [laughs]
AP: Oh, I see.
CA: Then I had one group of only Greek students, so I didn't let them speak a single word of
English for the first five weeks, and I would take ten words a day and talk about ten words a
day, English words, and then they got my North Dakota accent [laughs] before they said a
word.
AP: I'd like to have heard that.
CA: An accent, and I had that one-year course in English, and then I had one class of Greek
American students and then one class of American students who were coming back, but the
former president was a graduate of Princeton [University], and he knew Greek, ancient
Greek, but not modern Greek. Modern Greek is quite a different language, and although he
knew and he grew up with a major at Princeton for ancient Greek. He didn't know a single
word of modern Greek. And now there are two modern Greeks, remember that.
6
AP: I see.
CA: One with the newspaper and one for talking.
AP: So how long did you stay there?
CA: Three years. My contract was three years.
AP: Three years.
CA: Three years contract, you see. Near East College Association gave me a three-year contract
and that was just for the nine months teaching, and my salary was fifty dollars a month and
board and room, so I had six hundred dollars—no, three—yeah, six hundred dollars. But I
could live—plus board and room, and the cost of living in Greece was such that I could live
in Greece—well, I could travel in Europe on two dollars a day. That included travel and food
and things, so I could go my summers and have a hundred dollars extra money.
AP: Oh my.
CA: And there's my Greek chest, you see, that I bought, and it's all full of stuff.
AP: Oh that's lovely. You got that there and then brought it back.
CA: Well, full of things back to my parents in North Dakota.
AP: Oh my.
CA: Or Minnesota.
AP: Well, that's quite a combination with your—
CA: Is that spread on there, on there? I think it may be Greek. Yeah, it is Greek.
AP: Yeah, so what made you—you came on back to the States, then, and what was the next step
after that?
CA: Oh, I went to library school, a librarianship. I planned that, and it was a question of money. I
had a hard time in—because they couldn't send me any money, the—what was happening in
1931, '32, you see, through '29-'30, '30-'31, '31-'32, then I went to graduate school at
Columbia University in this field of library science, but they had no money for me.
AP: Yeah.
CA: How was I going to—I had my ticket but didn't have any money. And I don't quite know
how they—I made some friends up in Strasburg, you know, because—I had some relatives.
My grandparents was a French Canadian. I mean, you know, a French, not Canadian, but he
7
was a Frenchman. Marshall is, Marshall—so I have a little, I have a little French in me.
[laughs]
AP: I see. So you somehow managed at Columbia and—
CA: I managed at Columbia, and, well, I inherited apparently a little money that they had saved
for me, some stock on U.S. Steel, which financed my year through—my whole year, first
year at Columbia and apparently I—well, what was the school? Do you know Columbia
University?
AP: Just, yes, some.
CA: Well, you know where Earl Hall is?
AP: Actually I don't know the campus that well.
CA: There's a little building right beside Earl Hall. Columbia didn't move up from downtown, but
it used to be the old building was the insane asylum.
AP: Pardon me.
CA: And they repaired it and made it the graduate school for library science, so I graduated from
the library asylum in New York City.
AP: Perhaps that's appropriate, I don't know, for any of us.
CA: Oh, okay.
AP: Sorting through life.
CA: That was moved up from downtown. [laughs]
AP: So you finished—that's quite a story. So you finished there and then after you finished there
then—the next step?
CA: Well, my next step at my graduate school was getting a job, you see. But they see—I got a
job at the New York Public Library, that's Forty-Second Street and Fifth Avenue.
AP: I see.
CA: A little prestige, you know. That was John Jacob Astor, so I was an employee of John Jacob
Astor. My salary was a hundred dollars a month.
AP: I see.
CA: And not that the other one, fifty dollars. A hundred dollars a month. An employee of John
8
Jacob Astor, and he did the Fifth Avenue banquet just two blocks, Fifty-Fourth, Forty-
Second Street for the New York Public—Forty Fourth Street. He was—so I could have as an
employee of John Jacob Astor, at the New York Public Library was a private institution. It's
not the city part. This has a little ring, but I was an employee of John Jacob Astor with a
bank account at the Fifth Avenue Bank, and with a prestigious bank—
AP: That's quite a story.
CA: —It has a carpet out in front, and there the widows would come with carriages to do their
banking and I had the—I could write checks in New York City on the Fifth Avenue Bank for
a dollar or a dollar and a half. [laughs] Now that's back in—you won't remember 1932, '33,
or '33-'34, but this was in the middle of the Depression, and they took care of me and New
York Public was well, a prestigious place to get a library job.
AP: I should say.
CA: I mean, this was Astor—I was an employee of John Jacob Astor, yeah.
AP: So then how long did you stay there? What was your tenure there?
CA: Well, I stayed there, and then I've forgotten what I went—they had me work on exhibitions,
so I did some exhibitions at Forty-Second Street at Fifth Avenue, some training. They
wanted me to belong to the Grolier Club. Do you know the Grolier Club?
AP: No.
CA: It was the prestigious place. I wasn't going to spend the money. I didn't have the cash, too, so
I didn't—
AP: So is that—
CA: —But then Columbia wanted me to work up there, so I went back to Columbia again, and I
can't remember the exact date, but this was before the war. I'm talking about 1945 war.
AP: Right, yeah.
CA: But then who was the—my friend, Ralph—you know the one in Florida, Miami.
EA: Stanley West.
CA: Stanley West. He had a job, and so I went—that was just at New York Public. Well, Stanley
West—but that's all right. I had a job—no, I wasn't. It was him [inaudible]. Well, the New
York Public. I got a job at Columbia.
AP: After Columbia. And then you came—so how did you get to—
CA: I went to Columbia University, and then they had, you know, then they had a job, and I was
9
in charge of special collections—
AP: Yeah.
CA: —Because that's what I worked at New York Public, on exhibition.
AP: So then what brought you to UNCG [The University of North Carolina at Greensboro]? Or
Woman's College [of the University of North Carolina]? How did you happen to come
South?
CA: Well, I'm trying to think. I was in charge of the collections at the Lowe Memorial Library.
Do you know that big building?
AP: Oh, no.
CA: I was in charge of collections there, but you know, again, it—I'm trying to think. I really
didn't—it meant by that time I married you, didn't I? '36? I had another girl. I could have
married her, Mom.
AP: I think this is an important piece of history. We've got a—
CA: I knew her back in college. She was Mount Holyoke [College], and I was Amherst. They're
close to each other, aren't they? Yes, so—
AP: So how did you—how did you—how did you win the battle?
CA: No, she didn't win the battle necessarily, but she knew I'd gone to Greece and I couldn't, you
know, with my salary of fifty dollars a month, you know, and board and room, I couldn't get
married. So we didn't really get married until 1936 , did we?
EA: That's right. I didn't know anything about it.
CA: Oh yes, you must have.
AP: Oh, I see. I think you're pleading innocence, but then you headed South pretty soon?
CA: Well, no I was going to—no, it wasn't until you see, I applied for military service, you know,
but they turned me down. I was thirty-four or thirty-five, and this is—
AP: Yeah.
CA: They decided not to have me exempt, because I was helping the military service—
AP: I see.
CA: —Service around Greensboro, Long Island. We were living on Long Island City. We had
10
two children.
AP: And then what made you decide to come South? To come to North Carolina?
CA: Well, I was—what made me decide to find another job was they got a new director for
Columbia University, and they were—they wanted somebody with a doctor's degree.
AP: Oh.
CA: And you know, but I was not—there wasn't a doctor's degree in library science at that time.
There was not.
AP: Yeah.
CA: I think they're doing it now.
AP: Perhaps.
CA: At a lot of colleges—I mean a lot of universities now do doctor's degree in library, but not in
that time.
AP: So you came here to Greensboro then from Columbia?
CA: Columbia, right, from Columbia.
AP: And about what year did you come?
CA: 1945. After the war.
AP: So—
CA: Just after the war. Now I'm not talking about the Civil War, you know. [laughs]
AP: Oh no. [laughs] I know. All right.
CA: That's the war.
AP: Were people still fighting the Civil War when you got here?
CA: Mentally, no, but they were coming South, accepted me. See, I was born in North Dakota.
[inaudible] My friend offered me a job in Hawaii. This was northern, Yankee land. Hawaii
was northern, and I went out there, and then after that I came back and decided to settle in
Greensboro. Not in Florida where one of my children—or not up North, you know. We
decided to settle in Greensboro, so I guess half way between. Nine hundred miles south is
our other son and 900 miles north.
AP: So when you came here in 1945 what was the campus like?
11
CA: Now just a minute. 19 oh, '45 is when I left, I left Columbia in New York City.
AP: And you came here in 1945? And what was the campus like that would have—that was
Woman's College?
CA: Oh, yes. It didn't have a library.
AP: It did not have a library? Oh.
CA: Yes, I was in the library, but it was across the street from where the old student—and there
was a highway—what was the highway?
EA: Walker Avenue.
AP: Walker.
CA: Walker Avenue. Went right through so you know, I [inaudible]—
AP: Yeah.
CA: Chancellor [Walter Clinton] Jackson, we planned a library building. That was what I was
coming for, because I had been president of the college and university library thing, had
served on the library building, so I knew all about library buildings and this is what I came
down here to plan, partly, to plan—
AP: So that—
CA: —and so we planned the library building right on the top of Walker Avenue and closed
Walker Avenue.
AP: Yeah. So this structure with the curved—
CA: This is before the Home Economics Building was built, and so we closed Walker Avenue
with this. I was with Chancellor Jackson. We closed Walker, and I've got some pictures of
that lying around. And so we planned the building.
AP: Yeah, so you planned that, and then when was that building constructed, and when did it
open?
CA: Well, around 1950 it was completed, but it was '45 that it was planned, and we did the
drawings for it.
AP: Yes.
CA: But then I was with the library building planning—part of my program, at—with the
American Library Association and that—
12
AP: What was Dr. Jackson like? What was your perception?
CA: He's the one who hired me. [laughs]
EA: He was president at that time.
CA: President at that time. Go on about library buildings. I know you've got me, got me a little
confused, I mean, not confused, but I'm trying to think back to 1945.
AP: Well.
EA: Miss [Harriet] Elliott and Miss [Elizabeth] Sampson brought you here.
CA: Well, they didn't bring me, but Jackson was the one who was the chancellor. Miss Elliott was
the Dean, and Miss Sampson and Miss [Virginia] Trumpler were librarians, but neither one
of them had library school degrees, library science, and—but still this was a plan, a program
developing the library, people with library science. Were they teaching library science? It
was the Woman's College. But that took a little time. You know, they didn't have me doing
any—now, at Columbia I was teaching a course on library science. Isn't that—at Columbia, I
was, because I was teaching the history of books and library science, because I'd been to
Europe and theoretically around the world, I was teaching a course on history of books in the
library. Now down here they don't teach that. They don't make that—library school degree
from Columbia puts a little emphasis on the history of books and libraries, and I don't think
the course here in library science even gives that.
AP: I see. When you came here one of your main jobs – directives—was to simply plan and to
build—to help plan the library.
CA: Plan the building. Yes, I planned the library building, too.
AP: Someone told me that that you—well, this would have been before the days of integration of
the campus, and—did black students come and want to use the library, [North Carolina]
A&T [State University] or Bennett [College] students? Someone said that you did allow
students to—
CA: Oh, yes, I allowed students, but I was criticized for it.
AP: By whom?
CA: What happened—
EA: A&T.
CA: A&T. No, one of the faculty members used to come and sit and I used to let him, and then I'd
have to allow them, you see, to walk in the front door, or lend a book to them, you see. Now,
we had two other, two other black schools—three other black schools in Greensboro,
13
Bennett College, there was another one, and then A&T. You see, there were many. But we
would allow the students—well, there was Guilford College too, you see, which we had to—
I'm trying to think of what the problems we had on—
EA: Tell about the professor from A&T. The prince and Sue Vernon Williams.
CA: There was one of them, Sue Vernon Williams, wouldn't allow—she was nasty, wasn't she,
about lending them—lending a book over the front desk. And they would make them, you
know, lend them books, but out through the back door.
AP: Oh my. You're teasing.
CA: Oh, that was nasty. I've forgotten what it was.
AP: When did you find out that that was the case that was going on?
CA: Well, now who was our librarian? She came back from my office just angry as all get out.
EA: Sue Vernon Williams.
CA: Yes, but she scolded—who was her name? We know her. Who was—who's daughter is
here, you know. What was her name? That worked—
EA: Sue Vernon—oh, Libby Holder.
CA: Libby Holder. She came back furious because Sue Vernon Williams came in and scolded
her, you know, just furious, and I forgotten, you know, exactly how it happened, but I went
to see—I called up Jackson, chancellor, "May I see you?" He said, "Yes." You can tell by
my voice. But I went over and told him what was happening. We were to lend a book over
the front desk to a person, professor from A&T, and he said, "No problem at all." He was
known—knew the board. Somehow we passed that. Now I'm trying to remember all the
details, and I don't remember all the details, but it still—
AP: Yeah.
CA: We got it so we could lend—not got it. I mean we—he did not try to fire me. Now someone
did try to fire me, you know. Who was it tried to fire me? Because I came up
for—
EA: Laura Cone stood up for you at the trustee meeting.
CA: I don't know if you know the Cones?
AP: Yes, of them.
CA: Oh?
14
AP: Not intimately, but I know of them.
CA: Oh, Laura Cone had prestige, and actually they defended—they didn't fire me, you know.
They could have fired me. I would have gotten a national reputation –
AP: Yes, you—
CA: —If I'd been fired, because we allowed a black person to lend a book over the front desk.
AP: Yes, to borrow one.
CA: And I was president of the college and university section of the American Library
Association.
AP: So you called Dr. Jackson? He picked up something in your tone of voice that wasn't—
CA: Well, that's right. I said, "Can I come over and see you?" And I went over and told him.
AP: Yeah, yeah.
CA: That—we lent a book over the top desk and Sue Vernon Williams came in and scolded
Libby Holder, who became librarian. And I now I think someone else wanted the job I
wanted Libby Holder to have, you know. She got the job when I—my friend asked me to
come out to Hawaii to teach, so, you know—to run a library out there, so I went, you know.
But this made Libby Holder there, and they got a new director for the library there at the
Woman's College.
AP: Yeah.
CA: What was his name? You know him. He was here until recently, and he just gave up his job.
EA: Jim Thompson
CA: Jim Thompson.
AP: Jim Thompson. So he took over after you?
CA: He took over one year, though, in between to be able to have a year over there.
AP: I see. I see.
CA: So he gave the job, because I had my friend offered me a job in Hawaii, so I decided to take
it because I was not a—they got a new chancellor, and he was not going to—I mean, I
didn't—he was not going to fight the issue the way Williamson did. Williamson had a
terrific—
AP: Jackson. Dr. Jackson.
15
CA: I mean—well, no, no—
EA: [Chancellor James S.] Ferguson.
CA: We'd moved down—had moved into—I had gone up to Columbia by that time, and I was a
librarian and then they transferred me to the Lowell Memorial Library. Do you know where
that is with all those big old [inaudible]—north of 116th Street, and then so—
AP: Yeah. After Dr. Jackson, Dr. Edward Kidder Graham came in from—
CA: Oh yes, and we had a lot of trouble there.
AP: What happened?
CA: Gosh, just about—
AP: Everything?
CA: Yeah, that's right.
EA: He went off with [Elvira] Prondecki.
CA: Prondecki, who was—and he had an affair with Prondecki. His lovely wife, and she was a—
AP: Well, how did he cause trouble for you and the library and for library matters? Dr. Graham.
EA: For everybody.
CA: With Dr. Graham, yeah. Gosh, he sent me a nasty, nasty letter, didn't he?
AP: He did? What did he say?
CA: Well, I'm trying to think. He blamed me, you know, a lot of things. Then I wasn't quite sure.
Then I just decided I was so upset with that I went to Harry Miller Lidenberg, who was—
had moved down from New York Public Library, so I went down to him, and he read—you
know, he accused me of all kinds of things, and there was only one thing is that I had
admitted a black student to walk in the front door of the library.
AP: Oh my. About what year?
CA: Well, gosh, I'm trying to think.
AP: Well he—of course, Dr. Graham was there between '50 and '56, so it was in that time period.
CA: It was that time before he—and he knew Prondecki, and I knew her real well, too. She was a
16
nice gal, but he was having an affair with her and—
AP: So he wrote you a letter? Critical—
CA: Oh a terrific letter. Where's that letter? [laughs] Accused me of—and I says, you know, I
want to check that letter and I didn't—you know, accused me of everything. Only one thing
was true that I admitted a black to walk in the front door without—I had done this without
his permission.
AP: Without his permission?
CA: Without his permission. I felt I didn't need this, and I said, "None of the other things I would
have checked him on." To permission to walk a black from A&T College, or the library
science, I could admit. I felt this was in my prerogative as the librarian.
AP: And this was a student in addition to the faculty member who had borrowed another—
CA: Oh, yes, I had that faculty member, that other faculty member—he was a black, African, and
that's right. I'm trying to, you know, exactly when it was happening, you know, I've
forgotten. But then we were admitting black students—after we had the new building, you
see, it's again, it just isn't the old building. I planned the new building. We closed Walker
Avenue and built the building right on. That's before the Home Economics Building was
built.
EA: Tell her how they transferred the books, Charles.
CA: Well, I'm trying—
EA: Marjorie Hood.
CA: Yeah, we moved them all from the old building over, yes. We had a—
EA: By baskets.
AP: Oh, bushel baskets, peck baskets.
CA: Well, they were laundry baskets.
AP: Oh.
CA: Filled up with books, and we moved them all over. Had the—you know, planning the library
and collecting—but there was another problem, you see. The library, you know, I don't
know, you know—I don't know if you know how the books were arranged—they're not
arranged by the Dewey Decimal System. That's the way we did have it, and we moved to the
Library of Congress collection. That's what LC is now. You have LC, yeah. I had to make
that move, and I got my friend to come down because they didn't really want to make all that
17
move. Some of them, and ought to give me more time and budgets and—what was his
name?—came down and just moved. Lock off—tighten all the other books and move in
through LC, so—
AP: How did you physically move? Just get student brigades like a fire brigade to, or did you
hire people?
CA: I'm trying to think how—we had these baskets full of from the old building to the new, and
I'm trying to think how we did the—Marjorie Hood did most of the—Marjorie Hood did
most of the supervising of that move, though. I don't—you know, I knew about it, but we
changed from the Dewey Decimal System to LC by that time. I think we had.
AP: Yeah. Well, I'm interested in—more about this letter from Dr. Graham to you. Were you
surprised to receive that letter from him and shocked?
CA: Oh yes, I was, because I was not only surprised but upset with it as I went with that letter out
to Harry Miller Lidenberg, you know. He had retired. I got him—he was retiring from the
New York Public Library and was down to Mexico City. They was looking for a place to
live and went out to Sedgefield.
EA: Avondale.
CA: Avondale. But then I found a nice house for them and his wife, you know, so you know—so
again, I'm trying to think. You know, I'm trying to get what's the problem now that I'm trying
to find an answer for. I'm trying to find an answer—
AP: Oh just—
EA: The letter.
AP: The letter and Dr. Graham.
CA: Oh, Dr. Graham's letter. And he accused me oh, of just all kinds of things, ending up with,
admitting the person, so I accepted the letter. I had admitted the person in the front door, but
none of the others—I did this without asking his permission.
AP: I see. Well, did he, did he write—how was he with the faculty? I mean, how did the faculty
respond to him?
CA: Well, I'm trying to think. The faculty—well, they had me up for criticism, didn't they, but
they never fired me. I would have gotten a national reputation if they had fired me. They
didn't fire me.
AP: Yeah.
EA: Dr. Graham went on to Boston University.
18
CA: Oh yes. He got fired, you know. He got—
EA: And then there was [Chancellor Otis] Singletary and then Ferguson. And oh, Ferguson was
wonderful.
CA: Now we have one graduate—Libby now is here, a woman, you know, that's a—and I've
marched with her on processions at the Woman's—
EA: Helen Thrush.
CA: Helen Thrush. Lives out here now, and she has her—in the Art Department, and we used to
do a lot of work with the—you were—gee, Helen was active with the Art Department. She
has not only a Mount Holyoke, but she has a Radcliffe [College] degree.
AP: Oh my.
CA: A Radcliffe degree in art, how's that?
AP: Oh my.
CA: So she helped with the exhibit here, you know, and collecting material at Woman's College
at Greensboro—but then my friend offered me a job in Hawaii, so I decided because they got
a new president—and he had no love for Columbia [University] or anything else that I knew
of, you know. Then he took a job in Asia, didn't he?
EA: Yeah.
CA: And it didn't work out.
AP: So you went to—what year did you go to Hawaii—that was?
CA: After the war.
EA: '69.
AP: '69. And so then you—but that was after you had planned the new building?
CA: Well, we'd gotten a new president by then, you know, and he'd taken—four or five of his
people went off to jobs—one of them went to Cornell [University]. Where'd they all go?
Columbia. I'd forgotten. He had all the directors do other things, and I was over in the
Lowell Memorial Library. In fact, I wrote the annual report of the—and then he came back.
Carl White came back and wrote one paragraph, and I'd written all the rest of the annual
report.
AP: That was for here?
19
CA: I'd forgotten which year.
AP: At UNCG?
CA: At UNCG. I wrote the annual report, except the first paragraph. Carl White has gone to Asia,
and wasn't there a problem—he didn't make a job of it.
AP: Well, after Dr. [Edward Kidder] Graham left, then Dr. [William] Pierson came in for a short
year, then Dr. [Gordon] Blackwell, '57 to '60. And then Dr. Pierson after that, so—and then
Dr. Singletary came '61 to '66.
CA: Oh yes.
AP: Now that was the time when civil rights, the civil rights movement was strong here in
Greensboro. What happened when UNCG integrated? What was your feeling? Did—
CA: I'm trying to think. Oh yes, I was very involved with it. I'm trying to think. Because we had
dedicated the new building I had planned, and we had a tea party, didn't we, or something for
the dedication? And we invited, you know, the blacks there also, but so we had to have a
party, you know, so they could—that a black could come. And this was in the Reference
Department. You know, I had it arranged so they took the tea after serving the blacks also.
They could be our guests in Greensboro from A&T—
EA: You stood up—
CA: What?
EA: You stood up and ate.
CA: That's right. You didn't take any seats.
AP: Oh, you did not have a sit-down dinner.
CA: No, we didn't have a sit-down dinner.
AP: What time of day was this?
CA: Well, this was during the—the tea wasn't until afternoon.
AP: Just time—tea?
CA: So we didn't have a dinner then, and we didn't—we had the lecture hall downstairs. But you
know, again, there was no sit-down dinner.
AP: About what year? '60, '61?
20
CA: That was the Friends of the Library, wasn't it? No, the Friends of the Library—we had
organized the Friends of the Library, and I'm trying to—our first president was?
EA: Mrs. Luther Hodges.
CA: Luther Hodges. She was our president, and then our first president, you know—so she
helped me found it and our first—and that was taking the charter from [The University of
North Carolina at] Chapel Hill and a twenty-five year break in there so—and I was a
member of the library group that was Chapel Hill, Raleigh, and ourselves—the three of us
had with Duke. And we used to meet, have meetings, and set up our policy, but when they
tried to throw me out, you see—yes, I almost got fired.
AP: Thanks to Dr.—
CA: There was somebody that really wanted to fire me. But then the trustees wouldn't do it.
AP: Thanks to Dr. Graham's letter, you mean. After his letter.
CA: Oh yeah. That's right. I've forgotten that, but you know, there was another trustee that wanted
very much to have me fired, because actually we had a—we were admitting blacks, and we
had a black librarian, didn't we, Ellen, for a while? Reference Department? I'm trying to
think how it came in, how the black—because we were accepting blacks. We had to accept
blacks at the University of North Carolina—was going to get thrown out, so we were
accepting blacks, they told me to accept blacks and that also was accepting men, wasn't it?
AP: Yes, about that year, '60, '61.
CA: Yes about that time we had to accept blacks.
AP: So did you hire—
CA: I'm trying to figure out—
AP: Yeah.
CA: When we were in the old building, we accepted men through the basement door, and they
got gambling.
EA: James Jarrell you hired during the hard times.
CA: Oh yeah.
EA: And he was black. I think he's still here.
CA: I knew him, he was using the library. But see he could use the library.
21
AP: What was the name?
EA: James Jarrell.
AP: Jarrell. How do you spell that?
EA: J-A-R-R-E-L-L.
AP: J-A-R-R-E-L-L.
CA: And he's a graduate of A&T, wasn't he?
AP: So you hired him?
CA: Yeah.
AP: About what year? In the civil rights times? Say at the time of the Woolworth sit-ins?
CA: Well, now he went—he got an honorary degree. Went to—not Oberlin [College], Oberlin,
yes.
EA: Not an honorary degree.
CA: No, not—but he went back there to teach or he would get scholarships at places—but I'm
trying to think how I hired James Jarrell. I've kind of forgotten. Did I have any—was he the
first black person I ever hired?
EA: I think so.
CA: No, I had some others.
EA: I'm not sure.
CA: Oh, I'm trying to think when we hired the first. It was a—no, some of the first blacks I ever
had were when we had the reception and the dedication of the library building, we had a
reception, and we decided, you know, we had a—we served a tea in the afternoon, so we
didn't have a sit down dinner—and I think we gave up all Friends of the Library on all sit-down
meals because, you know, we—I used to go to dances and I'd wear my tux and
everything else but not a single black person.
AP: Oh, now where were these dances?
CA: Well—
EA: Down in Elliott Hall.
22
AP: In Elliott.
CA: No, not Elliott, down in the gym.
EA: Sometimes in the dormitories.
CA: Down in the gym. Down in the gym. They had dances. And I have a tux. I still have that tux.
I don't wear it anymore.
AP: This was for faculty and students?
CA: Oh, no, I was the chaperone.
AP: Ah, I see.
CA: I was a chaperone for the dances.
EA: We, we.
AP: You were.
EA: I miss being invited to dances.
AP: Yes.
CA: Yes, and the children were going to Oberlin, weren't they? Yes.
EA: Well, now, James Jarrell was a help in the library when you had trouble with people in the
basement rowdying.
CA: I'm trying to think. You know, I'm trying to think of hiring James. I know I hired him. The
question of blacks was there and I had—in my background in North Dakota, because we had
no blacks. The one black person I told him I knew, and he was probably ten or twelve years
old.
AP: I see.
CA: Otherwise no blacks. I grew up with no blacks, so I could say there's no prejudice in my
background with North Dakota. We had no blacks. I didn't grow up with one. And Jackson
knew this. In fact, Jackson, I told Jackson, and he was pleased that I had a—not a—a good
education from a university. But not Yankee—North Dakota wasn't black—anti-black, I
mean.
AP: Yeah.
CA: I took care of blacks. And he was pleased with that, and he accepted my North Dakota
background, which was up to the time I went to Carleton College, before I went down to,
23
you know. This pleased him, I think.
AP: Yeah.
CA: And I think that's the reason he hired me.
AP: Yeah. So when you came—
CA: The job was being offered through the graduate school of library science at Columbia, and so
it was—he had applied apparently at a lot of places, and they sent my name in. So I went
down, but you [speaking to Ellen] didn't come with me, though. Not until I brought the two
children down. My son was born after we moved down.
AP: Oh, I see.
CA: That's right. 1946. I was—decided to have children, but then I bought a home. Wilson—
what was his name?
EA: George Wilson.
CA: George Wilson.
EA: In the English Department.
CA: English Department. Helped me find a house, and this was—
EA: There wasn't anything for sale or to buy or to build when we came.
CA: It was after the war. There wasn't much for sale, and I was close enough to be able to walk
down to work, but I planned that building, the tower up in back.
AP: Yeah.
CA: I helped plan that, with an architect. What was his name? He's in Winston-Salem. Nice
person, planned that.
AP: Yeah.
CA: Now the addition—no, that was the building in front. And he wanted those columns on the
building but, you know, I said, you know, it wasn't an extra—they planned the low ceiling
with ventilation and the screens in back. But he—to get those columns higher he wanted the
second floor, third floor over there—
AP: I see.
CA: And so then I said, "Oh, I need that low third floor for books." So he built the third floor on
there, but we moved the library up and left room in back to build that tower.
24
AP: I see.
CA: So, you know, they talked a little about building a graduate library of science. You know, a
library there in back, but I wasn't in favor of a separate undergraduate library and a graduate.
AP: I see.
CA: So they were able to put it enough forward, so they built that tower in back, which was—
instead of a separate library building, and just made it one library rather than separate
graduate library. Because we weren't thinking a lot in the terms of the graduate library school
at this time—
AP: Yeah.
CA: —Or graduate of library science. Wasn't a—this was—Chapel Hill took our—library science
went to Chapel Hill. Louis Round Wilson, wasn't it?
EA: That's right.
AP: I see, yeah.
CA: He wanted me to go to Chicago. He offered me a two year scholarship—
AP: He did.
CA: —To go to the University of Chicago, and I turned it down. I said I did not want to live in
south side of Chicago [laughs] with the children, of course. And he offered me the job out
there, but I—
AP: At Chapel Hill?
CA: Yes, no.
AP: Well, to go to Chicago and then—but to get training and come back?
CA: Well, no. I wasn't sure on that. I would have had a separate or higher graduate—a doctor's
degree, but I got a doctor's degree now, you know.
AP: Yeah.
CA: Mine is free.
AP: Yup.
CA: With—well, who was my classmate?
25
EA: Ben Cone.
CA: Ben Cone.
EA: And then there was—oh, and Miss Summerell.
CA: Jane Summerell and the three of us—
AP: Well, tell me about—
CA: No, there was one other woman, too, from library science at—taught music at—and she's—
EA: She's asking you something.
AP: Oh, no, that's all right. I was just going to say to tell me a bit about Miss Jane Summerell.
What was she like?
CA: Oh, well, [laughs] Jane Summerell. I'm trying to think what to say. I knew—
EA: You and she—tell her you had lots of fun talking about Emily Dickinson.
CA: Emily Dickinson, that's right. And this is Amherst College where I went. Emily Dickinson.
And so, you know, I could talk Emily Dickinson—
[Begin Side B]
CA: Emily Dickinson. I'm not sure—I don't know if she ever knew Emily Dickinson.
EA: No.
CA: But I have all her books over here by the way.
EA: And she was horrified by that last book that came out, remember? She didn't sleep all night
because she was thinking about the scandal at Amherst.
CA: The scandal at Amherst. I've forgotten what it was now. About Emily Dickinson. Oh,
because Emily Dickinson married this Italian. I—and then the boyfriend that she had taken
care of at—but you know, I had earned my way at Amherst by working in the library, but
they gave me the job at night. At five o'clock the librarian would walk off and all the others
would go out, so I was in charge of the library. But at Amherst, they had all the meetings,
exercise and meetings, so all the men had gone to their clubs, their eating houses. So I was in
charge of the library from five o'clock on and what was their name?
EA: Madame Bianchi.
26
CA: Madame Bianchi that married this Italian, and they broke up. She had a boyfriend, and they
would come down about five fifteen, and I was in charge of the library. The only person
there and all the other guys were out eating dinner, you know, and she would walk in
[laughs], and I wasn't sure what she was going to do. I was horrified, you know. But I would
stand there, and she would go over and pull the drawer, and then she'd have her boyfriend,
and I thought they weren't married, you know. I'd say something, but surely I said they
weren't married, living together, you know. But actually I think they were married.
AP: Oh.
CA: But they weren't going to tell anybody in Amherst. They wanted it [gestures and laughs]
AP: Oh, I see.
CA: Well, that Madame Bianchi, actually, you know, married this Italian who wasn't—but then
this boyfriend, you know, this other guy I guess—she died. I've forgotten. I've forgotten what
happened.
AP: So—
CA: This is way back in my—
AP: So you discussed, well, certainly Amherst and Emily Dickinson with Miss Jane Summerell.
What about all the faculty members here, and I want to hear also about this—your dressing
up in the tuxedo, these formal dances. What happened on campus at those times?
CA: At Amherst, you mean?
AP: Well, no, I was thinking of here, when you said you dressed in tuxedo here.
CA: Oh yes. Well, we would go to dances, wouldn't we? I was in my—I have still the tuxedo
with high trousers for summer.
AP: You said you were chaperoning.
CA: Yeah.
AP: What were the young women like here on campus? How would describe them?
CA: I thought they were beautiful [laughs] for dances.
AP: Yeah, yeah.
CA: And they would have their boys from Duke and Chapel Hill and [North Carolina] State
College.
AP: Yeah.
27
CA: And they would come, but a lot of them would come, too, you know, in the library, and
some of them would, you know, sit and study together, you know—at eight o'clock they'd
come over and they'd sit there. They'd date and work together at the library at night—I mean,
the evening. But they would accept—they'd more or less agreed—but we didn't have couples
married in those days.
AP: Yeah.
CA: So as far as I know we knew about having the boyfriends at Chapel Hill and—but then I
used to know, what was it we used to have? Hiking and outdoors—I did a lot of that. You
know, that was my exercise but—and I knew the Greensboro College students, too.
AP: Oh, did you.
CA: Because Louise Chapfield taught down there, and I used—well, I knew the person in charge
of physical education and hiking and outdoors, because that was my hobby, and this was
partly Greensboro College, you see. And we did the hiking through the Southern
Appalachians.
AP: Oh, I see.
CA: I have—and so—
AP: Did someone—
CA: —The trail and mountain clubs and then I belonged to the outing club at, let's see, in Canada.
What was that club? You know, we—I'd go to Canada. I belonged to the Canadian outdoor
club.
AP: Yeah, when you went hiking, did some Woman's College students or UNCG students go?
Did they belong to hiking clubs?
EA: Yeah, the outdoor club.
CA: Outdoor club.
AP: Yeah.
CA: You know, most of mine were outdoors.
AP: Yeah, I see.
CA: They weren't students. Now the students did have an outdoor club, and they disapproved of
it. And we had—
AP: Who disapproved of that, Dr. Adams?
28
CA: Well, I'm not quite sure. I'm trying to think. All the students we met out in the west when
they wanted to—well, it was the outing club, outing club disapproved. The outing club
used to have camps, and they didn't have me take students, you know, on hikes and they
had—
AP: Was that too risqué for pampered Southern women to do?
CA: Oh, I think so.
AP: Protected Southern women?
CA: I'm not sure, but they didn't have the Southern—the outing club was not part of the
University. You know, the outing club was part of the—a chapter of the—
EA: Parks and Recreation.
CA: Parks and Recreation Department.
AP: I see. So were the women here more interested in dancing than hiking, do you think?
CA: Well, I don't think they were more interested, but they liked the outing club but they didn't let
me—oh, the outing club came to the—where is the camp? You know, the top point—Mount
Sterling, no, no.
EA: Oh, Piney Lake. It isn't Piney Lake. What was it?
CA: No, not Piney Lake, because we did that. I'm trying to think—where they—oh, I'm trying to
think, where the top point. Mount Whitney. Isn't it Mount Whitney in North Carolina?
AP: I don't know.
EA: No.
CA: What's that top point in North Carolina? The highest one?
AP: Mount Mitchell
CA: Mount Mitchell. You know, they would have—they would hike, and all the students would
come there, you know, for a hike, and I'm trying to think whether it is Mount Mitchell or
some such, but no—now where is the road that goes? Is that Mount Mitchell?
AP: I don't know that. I don't know.
EA: Yeah, there is a road up.
29
AP: So—well, I was interested—
EA: There is a road up.
CA: There is a road up off the parkway.
AP: Yeah.
EA: Charles, tell about some of the faculty. Randall Jarrell—
CA: Oh, yes, well—
AP: I'd like to hear that.
CA: Yes, Randall Jarrell. Oh yes, he used to come to dinner at our house, didn't he?
EA: Yes.
CA: And I'd have some of his books, and what Randall Jarrell liked mostly is that little box, that
little chest around the corner here.
AP: Oh.
CA: He thought that was nice.
AP: The one you brought back from Greece.
CA: Yes.
AP: Why did he like that? Why was that appealing to him, do you think? The chest?
CA: Well, I think, you know, I liked Randall Jarrell and his wife so—now just a minute now. She
had two children and—
EA: Mary [Jarrell].
CA: Mary. Yeah, that's right, and Mary's still around. And I'm not sure Mary—I'm trying to think
why—but for a while Randall and Mary didn't make it, you know, and I think Randall
almost committed suicide a couple of times.
EA: He was a wonderful teacher. The girls would look at his eyes and—[laughs]
CA: We knew those teachers real well. Randall Jarrell and Peter Taylor, and who were some of
the other teachers, you know? And they wrote their books, I have, and you know, elected
them you know, as librarians.
30
AP: What happened when Randall Jarrell came here to dinner? What happened at those times?
What were you—
CA: He had come to a party at our house, didn't they, mommy? You know, they came to a party,
but I'm trying to think what didn't happen. You used to have parties for them, didn't we. We'd
have all the faculty—we used to have a lot of parties, but—
EA: Well, my claim to fame is having a dinner at eleven o'clock at night for Robert Frost.
CA: Oh yes.
AP: Oh, tell me about—
EA: Charles was head of the committee, you know, the lecture committee, and we—
CA: All your programs I had to have.
AP: Tell me about the dinner for Robert Frost.
EA: Oh, well, I had invited twelve—there were twelve and Nancy Humphrey, Bob Humphrey's
wife, called up about five o'clock and said, "I can't get a babysitter. I can't come." So I
invited two more.
CA: Who was the other ones you invited?
EA: So at seven o'clock Nancy called and said that she'd found somebody, she could come. So
here I had thirteen at the table—
AP: Oh my.
EA: So I rearranged it so Robert Frost was on the side instead of the end, and it was much
better—
CA: And two of us again.
EA: —Because he could hear and talk with everybody then, rather than being at one end. But,
you see, he never ate until after his lecture.
CA: That's right.
AP: Oh, I see.
EA: And so—
CA: And we would give him things—food to eat and things after his lecture, and then I would
drive him to—back to Chapel Hill for his—but who was the person that would go with me
31
on—it was one of our faculty members who taught creative writing. We used to have—
EA: [Robert] Watson.
CA: No, it wasn't Watson. No, I've forgot his name, but, you know, he rode with me, and we took
Robert Frost back to Chapel Hill, and then we had someone to ride back with me, too.
AP: What did you talk about on the way to Chapel Hill with Robert Frost?
CA: [laughs] I've forgotten.
AP: What was he like?
CA: Don't push me. I'm not sure that I know, that I remember.
EA: My girls waited on table—
CA: Oh yeah.
EA: —And they had their books, and he autographed them.
AP: Oh my.
CA: Oh, my daughters, that's right. Our daughters waited on table. They were teenagers.
AP: Yeah.
CA: This is way back in the teenagers. Ah, another day, another day. Well, we were busy,
because I arranged programs. I was in charge of lectures.
EA: Margaret Meade slept at our house, too.
CA: Yes.
AP: Oh, my goodness.
CA: Yeah, I went through—I was in charge of the lecture series, wasn't I?
EA: Yeah.
AP: Yeah, okay. Well, tell me about Margaret Meade's coming to stay here and stay overnight.
CA: Well, Margaret Meade stayed at our house, didn't she?
EA: Yes. I think—I don't think I had a dinner. I think there was a dinner at the college, but she
was talking about her experiences in the museum, and she was rather slight then, so I was
32
kind of surprised to find out how large she grew. [laughs]
CA: Well, see, her training is museum training, so she was [laughs]—Harvard.
AP: So she came here. Did she—did people come in great throngs to hear her?
EA: Yeah, yes, yes, the lectures were well attended.
CA: I was in charge of the lecture series at that time.
AP: Well, in days—in many—a couple of decades ago the students here stayed on campus, you
know, much more so than now.
CA: Oh yes, that's right.
AP: It's become—and there was a whole different feeling about the campus and about campus
life, was there not?
CA: Yeah, that's right.
AP: Faculty and students together for programs and weekends.
CA: That's right. They wouldn't—the students actually took a very—to live with their families
otherwise they were not allowed—there was a certain regulation. They might live with their
parents. Otherwise, students did not live in town. We had dormitories for them, but then the
registration was, you know, under 2,600. It wasn't at the 10,000 level.
AP: Yeah. Was that better? Was that better for students to be on campus, or how do you see the
difference from today when students are commuting?
CA: Oh, I think it's a lot different. We used to have dances, and I'd dress in my tuxedo and take
her out. They'd have boyfriends from Chapel Hill and Duke and—
AP: Yeah.
CA: The dances, and they'd have a formal dance with a procession and things like this, but after
they began getting blacks they was not able to do that.
AP: I see. So that's when—
CA: Now when is the date the first blacks were accepted by rule?
EA: I don't remember, dear.
CA: I was trying to—
33
AP: In the early sixties, I think. I heard someone say that not even all administrators liked having
blacks here.
CA: That's right. They didn't.
AP: Is that correct?
CA: That's right. In fact, the dining hall was a problem—of letting a black eat in the dining room.
When we had a problem—we had a problem with that. And who was the black we had a
problem? Who was the man that was in charge of allowing them to eat in the cafeteria—a
black? And who was—who was in charge of all food, Ellen? What was his name? We
know him real well, you know.
EA: I can see her, but I can't think of her name.
CA: No, his name. In charge of the buildings and grounds, you know, and his—
EA: Sink?
CA: Sink, you're right. Sink is his name, and, you know—but you know, I can almost remember a
black students and Sink coming over and saying, you—this black student has to leave, you
know. No black students can come in the cafeteria.
AP: But blacks were admitted to school, so what was the plan?
CA: I don't know. I'm trying to—No—
AP: Oh, were they just visiting?
EA: Why don't you talk about Jim Allen—bringing Jim Allen?
CA: Oh Jim—do you know Jim Allen? Because he's your vice—and I brought Jim Allen to the
Church of the Covenant.
EA: Over to the Presbyterians.
CA: Jim Allen—that's right. And he, he admit—he was the one that would set up at night and
take these students from the South going North to riot, and he would put them up in the
Presbyterian Home.
AP: Oh, my goodness.
CA: But the Presbyterian Home was a little cottage that we bought, and then we got that separate
land, and we tore down that cottage and built that Presbyterian home. Now they're going to
take it away, aren't they?
34
AP: I haven't heard the latest, but possibly.
CA: [laughs] I think they're going to. So Jim Allen I brought to the campus—
AP: Oh.
CA: And you know he's your vice president, and he was in charge of the Presbyterian Home, but
we had somebody else in charge of the Presbyterian Home, and he was an Episcopalian, you
know. In charge of religious activities.
EA: No, Presbyterian—[Reverend Joseph] Flora.
CA: No, but there was in charge of religious activities. He was an Episcopalian that lived up in
the house on the way up to the church.
EA: But when they had riots, Jim Allen—
CA: Yes, they had riots on the campus, we were having riots on the campus, and Jim Allen would
go and help take care of them. It used to be, because then Katherine Taylor didn't get up in
the middle of the night and do it. Katherine Taylor didn't, you know.
AP: She did not?
CA: But Jim Allen would.
AP: Oh.
CA: Would take care of riots—
AP: Tell me—
CA: And we would put them up in the Presbyterian Home.
AP: So who was actually rioting, you know, and where were they for these activities?
CA: Well, just a minute. I'm tired.
AP: Yeah. I mean, on campus or off—
CA: Yeah, there were riots but they were on their way north, and we put them up on the way to
Washington.
AP: Who were the people? I mean, blacks or whites or both?
CA: I don't remember there were any blacks at all [laughs] that was going to riot, you know. They
were burying them down in Alabama, weren't they? I'm sorry. And they were coming to
35
Washington. You know, I'm not into—but I had Jim Allen.
AP: Yeah, during the Civil Rights time? The early sixties.
CA: Yeah, I helped hire Jim Allen, and Jim Allen worked in that period, and he later became vice
chancellor, but the other guy was the Episcopalian before Jim Allen that was more or less in
charge of some campus [unclear]. And then Jim Allen got the job which was right after I left.
Jim Allen got the job because we were getting another chancellor, you know, and another
program and Jim Allen could move right in. They were taking one of the religious leaders,
and Jim Allen qualified and got in, no problem. So you know, I was North Dakota, you
know, Presbyterian Yankee—
AP: Yeah.
CA: —Moved South—Presbyterian Southern, then moved out to Hawaii when they finally gave
me a job. This is a Yankee Presbyterian.
AP: Yeah. So you brought—
CA: Now I came back South again and later the Presbyterian church has joined.
AP: So you brought liberal thought and liberal ideas—
CA: Well, that's not—I weren't the only ones, you know. You had a good fifty percent of our
faculty were not necessarily Southern.
AP: Southern.
CA: That's right. They weren't. I think we had a liberal, intelligent faculty, you know, a good
faculty so—but they weren't in favor of hiring me.
EA: When we came, there were so many from Ohio.
CA: Oh yes, that's right. We would—knew those faculty, you know. Bob Clutts' sister, you know,
is from Ohio. Well, we knew these people, and Oberlin—our children went to Oberlin, so
Oberlin was—so it was probably smart to send them to Oberlin, and so again. No, there
wasn't too much connection with Amherst that I know of.
AP: Yeah.
CA: But there was a lot of connection with Oberlin, I think.
AP: Yeah, for the young women who were here, you know, about in the forties and fifties and
sixties, were most of those young women from North Carolina, and would you consider
them provincial in thought or action when they came to the University?
36
CA: Well, I don't know. We've got one right here that we go and eat meals with every time and
she [laughs] had a liberal education. Then she went off and got a job in the war –
AP: Oh.
CA: And went to England, you know, to help and she married an Englishman.
AP: Oh.
CA: And he lived down here about—just fifty feet away from here, and she brought him back and
gave him a job in Greensboro. Now she's a Woman's College graduate, and we have dinner
with them every so often. When did she graduate from the Woman's College?
EA: I don't know.
CA: I'm not sure. And then there were—I think the education we gave the girls, you know, was a
fairly good education, and they were part of the University. They knew there were men, you
see, they—Chapel Hill was not accepting women until the war period. And then they began,
which made it complicated for us so we, you know, had to, almost had to begin accepting
men, you know, because they were going coed—they were losing, they didn't have students
at the University, so they started accepting women which actually was a—they did it because
the faculty were teaching there and were not in the—so it was a real question. They decided,
I think, Chapel Hill moved ahead of us in accepting women.
AP: Oh.
CA: And, of course Duke had a women's college separate anyway, so and State College always
had women and men, but Chapel Hill was accepting women which threw us out, you see, as
a women's college of the university, made it so we were accepting men, but we had—
Greensboro had the ORD [Overseas Replacement Depot]. Or what was it? For sending men
overseas.
AP: Oh.
CA: Was at Greensboro, the camp.
AP: A training—
CA: A training camp, and so we've tried to set up the [inaudible] closure, the library, in the
basement of the library, before we had the new building. They started playing poker over
there.
AP: And that was on the Woman's College campus or on the training grounds site?
CA: Oh, no, this is the basement of the library. The old building was an outdoor there, and I
couldn't—it was set up a separate library building for them—
37
AP: Yeah.
CA: So I said, I gave them that room in the basement just for the men and the men, you know,
liked it. I set up a library but I couldn't have—I didn't have staff enough for a library—
AP: Yeah.
CA: —But they, they accepted but they didn't want—they just started playing poker.
AP: I see.
CA: And I had to go down and tell them—now who was it? The person in the English
Department one night decided to go there, and said, "Well, we can't have a poker game den
down there." So we really have to close it up, they had to stop playing poker.
AP: Oh my.
CA: I'm trying to think of what her name was that got very upset when I closed that down.
AP: Oh.
CA: One of the English department people.
AP: I see.
CA: Cause these weren't simple days. Well, this was after the war.
AP: Yeah. Well, what is—what were some of the best changes that you saw and maybe some of
the worst changes that happened from Woman's College to Greensboro? What were some
good times and some bad times?
CA: Well, I guess it was I suppose planning the building. And I'd consider that a good time. We
closed Walker Avenue. And Dr. Jackson had us close Walker Avenue and build the library
right in the center between classrooms and the dormitories.
AP: Yes.
CA: So and I—Jackson supported that and built the library and actually helped build a second
floor, but we built the library in front instead of, you know—so any graduate work so there
was land enough for the tower to go up.
AP: Yes.
CA: But you know, Jackson helped plan that building and closed Walker Avenue.
38
AP: Yes.
CA: And there's—that was—I think Jackson was a good chancellor, you know, just—and we
were part of the university—but I don't know when we became—all eleven institutions got
together. I'm not quite sure.
AP: Yeah.
CA: But then we're not part of the Chapel Hill group, really, closely related to it. Now, I'm trying
to think of something else that we did that in planning the library building, and you know,
I'm trying to think what it is that might interest you. [laughs]
AP: Well, that was an enormous job to get that done.
CA: Well, we planned the building. I was American Library Association—College and
University Section, American Library. Ben Powell was offered the presidency, you know,
and he—Duke had a lot more prestige—
AP: I see.
CA: —Than we had so he ran for the office, and he got the job over me. I don't know why they
would do two southerners like Ben Powell and me, and Duke has a little more prestige so he
won a little higher election than I got.
AP: Those—
CA: And we wanted her to do something, and she turned it down. I don't know why she was—I
know Doris Betts—
EA: She gave her collection and then she took it away.
CA: That's right. She gave it away. She wanted it to go to a school that I had, I think had no
prestige at all, and it was really an insult, and I don't think she's got the prestige that we
would have given the University of North Carolina would have done.
AP: I see.
CA: But then that's Doris Betts. Now who's the other one?
AP: Oh, Lee Hall became chancellor of the Rhode Island School of Design.
CA: I'm not sure that I know him.
AP: Or Bonnie Angelo went to—
CA: Was it—Bonnie Angelo sounds familiar.
39
AP: —Washington desk of Time magazine. She was a graduate, is that correct?
CA: Bonnie Angelo. [interruption in tape]
AP: When the University changed from Dr. Frank Porter Graham's heading the University to Dr.
Bill Friday's, tell me about how that happened, and the feeling when Dr. Graham—
CA: Yeah, that was a split, and I testified on it. I'm not quite sure. Frank Porter Graham, you
know, you're thinking of—he fired him—
AP: The uncle of Edward Kidder Graham or the cousin.
CA: Oh, I see. He had an affair with Margaret [Elvira] Prondecki—
AP: Edward Kidder Graham.
EA: That's not—She's not talking about Edward, she's talking about Frank Porter Graham.
AP: Frank Porter Graham.
CA: Oh, Frank Porter Graham. Yes, I knew Frank Porter Graham. He's the one who was in
charge when I came down. Frank Porter Graham. You're not talking about Edward Kidder
Graham.
AP: No, no, I'm not.
CA: You know about him, don't you? Okay.
AP: I just suppose that's history. [tape interruption]
CA: [laughs] Ah, so they used faculty for parts and I—
AP: You played in the theater here at the Woman's College?
CA: At UNCG, and so I used to, I used to cause they didn't like to go out and hire men in town. I
took parts. What were some of the parts I took? I've forgotten but I'd go down—Well, I
remember once they had a—Kathryn England was teaching, and she lost the part, you know,
but it was one of three men. I've forgotten what it was. She asked me, you know, would I
finally take a part, and I said I'd be the third man she needed. You know what the third man
does? The third man makes the speech at the end of the whole thing, all dark, in the full
floodlights, I come up, and I had the final speech of—what's the play? It's the one of the
more famous plays that we did. Kathryn England had me do it, and I did the final play, the
final speech and I can't—I ought to know it, but you know, I could almost recite, but the
floodlight I walked in and did the final speech as the old man. I guess what it is. I'm trying to
think of the name of the play. The name of the play. I know the play. I only had about a
week—I learned it. I remember we lived out, we lived on, what—we lived on what street?
40
EA: Chapman Street.
CA: Chapman Street, and it's about one mile off down to the back of the library. [laughs] Recite
it, you know, going to—
AP: Going to—walking down the street. [laughs] Did you—
CA: But then, you know, they weren't hiring men out in town. They took faculty men.
AP: Yup. That was a good time to practice the speech, walking along.
CA: Well, I'm not sure [laughs]. I'd [inaudible], but it was the final speech. Now what was that—
who did that play? I know that play.
AP: Yeah. [tape interruption]
CA: I don't think I've got anything more exciting.
AP: Well—
CA: Okay, it was another world, another day, you know, but I was taken care of me out here.
EA: I miss the Daisy Chain, though.
AP: Do you?
EA: The Daisy Chain was so pretty.
AP: Yeah.
EA: And we had a Norwegian girl living with us a couple of years.
CA: Oh yeah.
EA: And her sister lived with my mother for one year, and then was, then they were taken by
different people, but they were very nice and they—one of them was the May Queen.
AP: Oh.
CA: Oh yeah. They—we hired, we took the two Norwegian girls, one of them took care of Ellen's
mother, took the other one. The other Norwegian girl, one of them got married to a boy in
Winston-Salem, and they came up from South America. I think they probably were kicked
out of—
EA: Burnett.
41
CA: Burnett, that's right. But I think there was a problem of one of the fathers was Jewish or
something in Norway and then South America. Then we took them. They came up to
Greensboro, and we've got that chest, you know, I didn't think we've got that—where is that
blanket we got, you know, that she gave us? You know, that blanket that—
EA: No, the little rug.
CA: Is that the one there, right there?
EA: No, it's in your closet.
CA: Yeah, it's in my closet. You're right. And—
[End of Interview]