Oral history interview with May Lattimore Adams, 1990 [text/print transcript]

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UNCG CENTENNIAL ORAL HISTORY PROJECT COLLECTION
INTERVIEWEE: May Lattimore Adams
INTERVIEWER: Missy Foy
DATE: February 23, 1990
[Begin Side A]
MF: Okay, if you could start maybe by telling a little bit about your education, like when you
were at Woman's College [of the University of North Carolina] and—
MA: Well, now, I came during the Depression. And so I took the one-year commercial course,
was what I took. And, at that time, Mr. E.J. Forney was still the treasurer of the college,
the university. And he was still head of the Commercial Department. He did not actively
teach. And, as a student, I had had typing and shorthand before, before I came to
Greensboro and to what was then WC-UNC [Woman’s College of The University of
North Carolina], and already knew typing and shorthand, so I worked as secretary to the
dean of the School of Music as a student and did all of his letter writing. And for some of
the other members of the school of music faculty and, at that time, during the music
contest—well, even after I'd started working I did—I took notes from the judges for the
music contest and helped with that. But I finished the course in June and started working
the first of June in the office of Miss Laura Coit.
MF: That was in 1935?
MA: Uh, huh. June 1, 1935. In the office of Miss Laura Coit, who was called the secretary of
the college. But our duties were very, very [inaudible]
MF: I'm sure.
MA: The actual admitting of students was done in the Registrar's Office, but the office I was in
did all the preliminary correspondence, getting the applications together, all the material,
and then turned it over to the registrar's office, and they did admitting. There was no
admitting in our—. There were not many loans and scholarships, but her office had
administered all of those up until the year I came as a student. And the first student aid
office was opened the year I was a student. And that was the—that was through that, I
think, that I got the job of working in the School of Music.
MF: Okay, so that was like a financial aid type?
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MA: Yeah. It was actually a government program called NYA, National Youth
Administration.
MF: Okay, so a New Deal program?
MA: Yeah. It was a New Deal program. And that was the way—I had
finished high school three years before, but wasn’t able to come, and I had written at that
time and they offered no financial aid of any kind. And there were a few individual
scholarships that had been set up by families for people in certain regions, certain
counties and that kind of thing. There was no publicity or work to get students except
what was done in Miss Coit’s office. One of the first things she assigned me
to do when I went to work—I went in there and she had a list of the high school Beta
Clubs. I really think they hadn't been in existence very long, and I went through all the
files and pulled out if we had received anything from anybody who was a member of a
Beta Club. And she wrote to them, and then she wrote to a lot of the others. She was very
interesting and lovable person. She sat on a sofa, just like this, and I sat there and she
dictated. And she would write about a two line letter or a three line letter. A little bit more
than that when she was trying to get students, because there was, I think, for the first
time, a little brochure she would enclose. I don't think they had any before that. Things
had been so limited. Two dormitories were closed, and that was before a lot of the ones
that we have now were in existence. The last two on the quadrangle—the ones now
Grogan and Jamison were closed when I was a student.
MF: Because of the Depression?
MA: Because of the Depression. And I think the total cost when I came to school was three
hundred and fifty dollars a year and that was tuition, room, board and laundry.
[Inaudible] You can't understand that, but that was hard to get together. As I said, I had
not been able to do it before. And so we did all of that until that—at that time. That one
student aid office had a woman named Mrs. Arthur Fullerton was in charge of it. And
then, in a few years, Mr. Charles W. Phillips was employed in placement and student aid
and, of course, was there until his retirement. And Phillips dorm is named for him. And in
Miss Coit’s office, when I worked there, was Miss Kathleen Hawkins [class of 1923] for
whom Hawkins Hall was named. And she just died in the last year and a half. And, as I
said, that work was very varied and for a while when I was in there, I also took on sort of
a supplementary job as a substitute counselor in the dormitories. I got my room and board
just to fill in when any counselor was away. I moved over to her place and stayed if she
went away for a day or two or a weekend or there was illness or something. And I moved
all over campus and got my room and board for it. [laughs] And then, in I think, 1938 or
'39, I went into Miss Harriet Elliott's office to stay for a year while the person in her
office got a master's in personnel, and that person didn't come back, so I stayed. So I was
her assistant for ten years and that was really wonderful times. That was the most
interesting thing that I have ever done over there, of course. At that time, she had been on
a leave of absence for a semester, campaigning for Roosevelt for president. See, she was
a political science teacher to begin with. She had taught at UNCG [The University of
North Carolina at Greensboro] for a long time. In fact, she was instrumental in forming
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the first student government organization. I think she was the one who really did it.
And—because I have a cousin still living in Shelby who was student government
president in 1925. And I think she had classes under Miss Elliott as well as working with
her. And, at that time, Miss Elliott was dean of women because there were no—there was
nobody but women, no students but women, and she was appointed by President
Roosevelt as the only woman in the consumer representative on the Defense Council, on
the National Defense Council. I'm—it concerns me that nothing's ever been written about
her. It really does. Because she was a very unique person. She was way ahead of her time
without being a feminist, objectionable person about women's rights. Of course, she had
campaigned all over the country for women's right to vote. And you see that wasn't too
long before I was here. Wasn't that 1928, I think? And she had been very active in that
movement. And she, in addition to serving on the Defense Council, she was on the
committee that organized the WAVES [Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency
Service] during World War II, the Women's Navy Corps. She was also at the first
meeting of UNESCO [United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization]
in England as the United States’ representative. She was the best woman speaker I've
ever heard in my life. And in addition to working in the office and working very closely
with her and that kind of thing—I drove her places to make speeches and all kinds of
things. Of course, our office at that time, was the main focal point for students of the
other campus. I worked very closely with all the—she was the first person who said
counselors were counselors and not housemothers. She worked very hard at that and
employing people who were qualified. A lot of the counselors then maybe taught one
course in their field and things of that kind. They were all—most of them had master's
degrees. And so they were active in all kinds of things. And she was the first person who
said that—that I heard say—that college or university education was twenty-four hours a
day. It wasn't just in the classroom. It wasn't just what you learned in the classroom, it
was how you learned to deal with people, live with people, work with people—
MF: So it was a social education, too?
MA: That's right. And that it was very important that people who lived in those residence
halls, as she said, were people who could be counselors and advisors and work with all
kinds of people. And I worked with the treasurers of all the student organizations at that
time, helping them keep the books and keep their records straight. Do students still have a
finance board as such? Does that still exist?
MF: What—as part of student government?
MA: Uh, huh. Yes.
MF: I'm not positive.
MA: I'm not either. But the finance board was a very—well, it was made up of students and
faculty. But they really had good policies for—because at that time they hadn't insisted
that everything go through the university business office. And they had a separate bank
account downtown. Just one. And I was the treasurer of that, I guess. But each
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organization, the treasurer, kept good books and you know, did that kind of thing, worked
for [inaudible] and I was in her office for about ten years, and they really were exciting
years. A lot of the way I think and feel and what I believe was caused by that. Somebody
who said, "We are all a part—we're a part of all whom we have met." And that's true.
And I really—a lot of what she did rubbed off on me, and what she thought. And she
was—she was an extremely ethical and fair-minded person and wanted to see that
everybody got their chance and things were fair for them. And then she—when the
Defense Council, I guess, was dissolved after a while and she went all over the United
States for the Treasury Department selling government bonds, war bonds, and was there
for several years. But when she was a consumer representative on the Defense Council, I
went to New York on a trip to [inaudible] you know, to see her. And she, all that time,
kept in touch—there was an acting dean appointed for part of that time at UNCG, but she
still kept in touch and back and forth and then when that Defense Council stint was over,
why came back as dean and of course, she stayed in that position until she became ill.
And of course, I've seen a lot of buildings built. [laughs] And a lot of changes made.
Even at my age, I'm not averse to change and I think it's probably because of that.
MF: Yeah, probably.
MA: And so then I went into Physical Plant and was the administrative assistant in Physical
Plant for about twenty years until I retired. So, my—the things I did over there were
varied and different.
MF: So you saw a lot of different aspects of the campus?
MA: Yeah. I enjoyed all of them. And I think perhaps, that it was one of the best things that
ever happened to me when I went into Physical Plant in the sixties. They worked so
closely with students, and the way the pendulum—now the pendulum's swung back
now—but in the sixties, you know what it was like. That would have been hard to work
with.
MF: I'm sure it would have been.
MA: I think for me because I had worked so closely with students in so many ways that I think
it would have been very difficult for me to be in that same environment [inaudible]. It
was better to be checking on whether the buildings were being painted and the plumbing
fixed or a new building built.
MF: Yeah, it'd be a little detached.
MA: Or a new building built.
MF: While you were a student at Woman's College, what was student life like for you? What
was it like to be a student?
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MA: Well, I enjoyed it. Of course, that was an era when—and now, it was a little bit different
for me because I had finished high school three years before and came and lived on
campus and in a freshman dorm.
MF: Oh, my gosh.
MA: But, I didn't find it too difficult, really. I mean, you know, I didn't rebel at things, and I
think study habits were, I'm sure, better than they are now. I know that changes have to
come, but I think that there were some things about when I was a student that were really
good—quite good.
MF: How was it to be in a freshman dorm and probably, I would guess, be the oldest student
in that dorm?
MA: Not really. I was a year or two older, but not enough to make a lot of difference. When I
was living as an assistant to the counselors—well, I went into Miss Elliott's office. We
decided that I should move out of a dormitory because I would be working closely with
all the counselors. Miss Elliott felt that it was better. And I moved out then. But when I
was living in there and serving as an assistant and filling in for counselors, we had one
woman, in a freshman dorm, who was forty-five or fify as recent widow, and she didn't
find it too objectionable. I'm sure we gave her some freedoms, probably, the others didn't
have. I'm not sure that she was kept to all the exact regulations of the younger ones. But
there's one person right now who teases me and will always tease me because—that I was
her counselor when she was a freshman—because she was older than I. I was just twenty-three
then. And she had been working and decided she wanted to come back to college.
And there wasn't— there didn't seem to be a suitable place to assign her to a room except
with the house president of one of the freshman halls. And that house president's
roommate had had to drop out of school and everybody else had made their
arrangements, and she was without a roommate. And they decided that the thing to do
was to put her in with our house president, that she would be real good help and all that,
and so she, a I said, still teases me that I was her counselor when she was a freshman,
[laughs] The regulations, of course, were very different, but life was different. All of life
was different, so you didn't find it [inaudible]
MF: What were some of the regulations?
MA: Well, we had closed study every night and bedtime every night. And you signed out if
you left the campus, always. I don't think they do that anymore, do they? No matter
where you went you signed out. And you very often dated in the parlor.
MF: You wouldn't go anywhere? You would just visit?
MA: Just visit, yes. Sometimes. There were places you could go. In fact, the friends that I
made then—you won't believe this. There are five of us who still take two trips together a
year. We—people who lived in the dorm that I did—and that's the reason I said I'm not
but one year older than one of them and two years older than one of the others. It was just
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a matter, you know, of when they happened to finish high school. And we didn't see that
much of each other over the years as our families came along, but in recent years we have
gotten together twice a year. There were six of us, but one died several years ago. But the
thing that happened to them—see, they were freshmen, and they went on to graduate.
Well, one transferred and another one ran the commercial course another year. But
anyway, they were still on campus when I was working, so I used to chaperone them and
their dates for Sunday picnics and take my date along. [laughs]
MF: That's a handy situation.
MA: It really was. It was good. One of them had a relative who had a house out on a lake close
to town that was always available if they weren't using it for a Sunday picnic, cookout,
and that kind of thing. Usually there were six or eight or us, and they could go because I
was the chaperone.
MF: I can't help it. That seems really funny.
MA: Well, they had to have a chaperone They had to have one, so it was fortunate that I, as a
member of the staff, could do that.
MF: Did they have to have a chaperone that was a member of the staff or—
MA: Yes, we did. Because one of the other things I did in the early years that I worked was to
chaperone buses to Chapel Hill for football games.
MF: Oh, I didn't realize that that's [inaudible]
MA: That was really a fun thing. See, the consolidation of [North Carolina] State, [The
University of North Carolina at] Chapel Hill and [Woman’s College of The University of
North Carolina at] Greensboro was new. It was done in '32. And so they were making
everybody feel a part of the university and for football games—it wasn't for anything
else—but for football games, they always furnished tickets for students here. And we
would charter buses and they had—now a counselor had to be on each one of those or a
staff person on each bus. And during football season, we were gone the whole time at
Chapel Hill.
MF: Oh, that must have been kind of fun.
MA: It was. It was a caravan sometimes. I mean large numbers of busses. And after I went into
Miss Elliott's office, see, I did the chartering of those and organizing those and getting
them together. And they would load on Walker Avenue down in front of Shaw
[dormitory], down that way. And sometimes they were almost from way down
[inaudible] and occasionally we went to State. It was real special occasion when we went
to State.
MF: Why the difference?
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MA: Chapel Hill was still the University to some people, you know. And I don't really know.
The ones when we went to State were extremely well organized. Students came out and
got on the busses before we drove in to Raleigh and you know, acting as hosts and being
real cordial and that kind of thing, which they didn't do at Chapel Hill. But—and I know
we went one night to State for some really special occasion. Of course, that wasn't a
football game, because it was dress up [inaudible] a very special occasion, I think. See, I
grew up in Shelby, and that was the home of [O.] Max Gardner who was the governor,
who proudly said he was the father of consolidation. He was very proud of that.
MF: [O.] Max Gardner.
MA: Yeah. Max Gardner. He gave my parents those vases back there for a wedding present.
On that table. He was proud of that, and he and Miss Elliott were friends from working
together in Washington. He had a law office in Washington. Because, see, he had been
made the Ambassador to the Court of Saint James and was ready to sail when he died of a
heart attack.
MF: Oh, okay. I didn't realize that.
MA: They were in New York ready to go.
MF: What were classes like? I know you were in the commercial program, and how did that
differ from classes some of the other students were taking?
MA: Well, I'll tell you, ours differed in one way in that they did not limit the commercial
course in any way. In fact, I assume the commercial course saved the institution during
the Depression. People who couldn't come but one year came, and so they didn't limit the
number of classes and there were people in the, classes were quite large. There would be
sixty, seventy-five people in a class. Because I had had it in high school—before that, all
the classes had been Pittman shorthand. And I had had Gregg [shorthand] when I took it,
but of course, I couldn't get a job. I thought I would have trouble forgetting it, and they
came in the first day and said that those of us who had taken Gregg in high school could
take Gregg under the teachers in the four-year BSSA [bachelor of science in secretarial
administration] course, which was sort of new, because they taught Gregg. Now Mr.
Forney, as I say, was the head of the department. He didn't like that a bit, but somebody
higher than he was made that decision. And so our classes were relatively small, and we
really had excellent teachers. Just—we went on into everything, law and medicine and all
kinds of things. But as far as the other classes, there were a lot of teachers who were well
known for teaching excellence, really. Just superior teachers. And in the dorm and
everywhere, you know, I heard other people discussing them and their classes and I really
think that—of course, I think that UNCG has always been known for a good solid
academic program and good teaching. But I learned from—and now, as I said, we were
smaller, and Mr. Forney was a colorful person.
MF: What do you mean, colorful?
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MA: He was quite a character. He would love to make—he loved to make a student mad
enough to talk back to him. He really did. He just thought that was an achievement to get
a student to talk back to him. So he would come into our classroom, which was small,
and ask the teacher in there to send two or three students into this great big classroom
which was in the old administration—Foust Building, upstairs, right in the middle, a great
big classroom. I don't know how many people. And he said, "I want them to [inaudible].”
And we had a fiery little redheaded teacher, and she said, "But you don't write Gregg on
the board. You only write Gregg on the board to [inaudible]." And so after I was
working, one day I was walking down the street, and somebody yelled at me, and I turned
around, and she says, "You may not know me." And I said, "Yeah, I do." She said,
"Well, I just thought you wouldn't know the back of my head like I do yours from seeing
you stand at the blackboard." And he would dictate just very [inaudible] over and over
just as fast as he could talk. And I'd finish, all the Gregg students would finish— his
favorite ending sentence, before he finished saying it. It ended with, "At the earliest
possible date. Miss Lattimore, will you explain to me how you can write that before I get
it said?" But he also thought he was extremely progressive. [phone rings]
MF: Let me stop this.
MA: Stenotyping, which is—
MF: Let's back up.
MA: Oh, Mr. Forney was really set in his ways, but he was extremely progressive, too. And
steno typing had just come into being, machine shorthand, you know, like you see used in
courtrooms all the time. And he had a class of that going, and of course he didn't teach it.
He didn't know how. But he had a class , and so when I took the job in Miss Coit's office,
he says, "You know you've upset my applecart." And I said, "What did I do to you?"
And the young woman who was leaving there was a stenotypist, and she was his shining
example on the campus of a steno typist and since I wasn’t, I was ruining that image for
him, but the other classes, of course, I didn't have personal knowledge of, but—except for
hearing other students talk. And of course, Miss Louise Alexander was here at the end.
And she and Miss Elliott were real, real good friends. And because I worked in Miss
Coit’s office and Miss Elliott's office, I knew a lot of the old original faculty members
quite well, because they would come in and out and they were friends. And see, Miss
Coit was one of the first students on the campus when it started and was one of the early
faculty members. And all—everybody knew her and dropped by and they, Miss Elliott
had taught a lot of people who by then were faculty members and had worked closely
with them in politics and student government and all kinds of things. And so I really was
privileged to know a lot of them personally. And as I said, I enjoyed every day I was
there as a student and as a staff person.
MF: I know we had been talking earlier about the Depression and how that really had a lot to
do with the atmosphere at that time. Can you give some examples, maybe, of how it
really affected the college and life at the college?
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MA: Well, they had cut a lot of faculty and staff members about the time I came. As I said,
they closed two dorms. Enrollment was way down. And I think I'm right that everybody
had taken a salary cut. You know, I think that everybody had. And they were just
beginning, then they began in 1935, to go back up just a little bit. I think that that was
probably the first salary increase in a long time, was 1935, given by the legislature. And
there were just not a lot of extras. At that time, people who came to college probably
came on the train or the bus. Families didn't drive them. Lots of families didn't have cars,
and they came. When I would go home for a weekend—I sometimes went on the bus, but
the very best way was to go on the train. But I had to get off the train in King's Mountain.
One didn't even run through Shelby. It was fourteen miles away and I rode with the
mailman the rest of the way. And you did just that. Transportation was however you
could, you know, get it. And we had dances on the campus at the gym. And in the
summertime, there was an outdoor gym that was later torn down, where they had
Saturday night dances during summer school. It was screened—it was an outdoor gym
with screened sides. And—well, you didn't go out to eat. You ate in the dining hall. It
was paid for, you know, with that three hundred and fifty dollars, and you didn't do a
whole lot of extra things that cost money. Of course, things cost less then. Your money
would take you to a movie and do some things like that.
MF: With the commercial program, were people in the commercial program still in one of the
different societies? You know, there were the four societies.
MA: No. We were mixed up with the others.
MF: But you were members?
MA: We were members of the societies, yeah.
MF: What were the societies like? What was that like?
MA: Adelphia, Dikean—I was a Dikean. You know, the old Students' Building was in
existence then where the Faculty Center is now, and—I'm getting out a yearbook.
MF: Oh, it's okay.
MA: And—[pause to look for yearbook] Now, Dr. [Walter Clinton] Jackson came as dean of
administration the year I was a student. That was his first year, in the fall of '34. Dr.
Foust had been the president and Dr. Jackson came that year. And that's when the bridge
was over Walker Avenue, before Walker Avenue was closed. And—[pause] Clyde Hoey
was governor. This is not for '38. I don't have the one for '35. Clyde Hoey was also from
my hometown—the extra things back here. They ought to have those societies. The
marshals who marshaled at the auditorium were chosen at the societies, was the way they
were chosen at that time.
MF: And was that a prestigious position?
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MA: Yeah, it was. And there was a man in biology, Dr. Archie Shaftsbury, who was over
them—who saw that they knew what they were supposed to do and that they did it well.
That was one of his extra things to do. Here we are. Adelphian Society, Alethian,
Cornelian and Dikean. See, these were their marshals.
MF: Oh, okay. And what kinds of things did the societies do?
MA: They didn't really do a whole lot. They had a few meetings a year, had a few programs a
year, and mainly this. That really was the most that they did. The programs were—I
don't even remember. They didn't have many formal meetings. Everybody belonged to
one. You see, the administration was opposed to sororities and it was very democratic.
Everybody belonged to one of the societies. And I don't know how—there was no
choosing. I think you were just put into one.
MF: Yeah. That's the impression I've gotten. That you just found out.
MA: And as I said then, those marshals were—they worked all year. They worked hard. They
were at every event in the auditorium, in Aycock Auditorium, and they chose their
dresses, I think, at the first of the year. And—
MF: For being a marshal? Their dresses for being a marshal?
MA: Yeah. The marshal dresses. Because they wore that same type of thing at everything.
That same dress and those—at one time, I was responsible for replacing the satin—what
do you call the thing—
MF: Sash?
MA: Yeah, but there's another word for it.
MF: Yeah.
MA: And that fringe was pure silk and this long and it cost, by that time, what we considered a
fortune. In Miss Elliott's office, I worked on getting some new ones made and ordered the
fringe and it had to be—I think it was in inches—had to be ordered and all that kind of
thing.
MF: What about as far as men coming on campus? I know a lot of people talk about the
parlors and the dorms and—
MA: They were welcome and, really, they came in large numbers on the weekends. Instead of
everybody leaving like they do now. There were dances. There were things that were
planned on the campus and see, of course, then we started having soldiers, and they were
welcome on campus, too. If they were stationed nearby and came in groups, we planned
dances to entertain them, you know, to welcome groups of them. This probably should be
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off the record. Greensboro College, the dean over there came over to see Miss Elliott
because she was so upset because whoever was president of Greensboro College at that
time forbade, a uniform on campus, She forbade them to come on campus. And she had a
son. This woman had a grown son who was in the service, and she just got too upset. She
came over and spent an afternoon in our office one afternoon talking about that. These
were well planned, well supervised, and I don't remember any problems.
MF: Oh, okay. Another thing that I'd like to ask you about, is I know as an alumna, that
there—I'm not exactly sure of the nature of it, but there's a disagreement of some sort
between the alumni and Chancellor [William E.] Moran.
MA: And I hope that can be worked out.
MF: Well, I don't know what—I don't really understand—
MA: The problem is that the alumni have always—well, for years the Alumnae Association
was the prime fund raiser on the campus and, of course, the Alumni House was built
with university contributions .
MF: University or alumnae?
MA: I mean, alumnae contributions, excuse me. alumnae contributions. One of the first things
that I did on that campus was Miss Clara Byrd, who was the alumnae secretary, asked
some of us to come back at night and type specifications for it. She didn't really have that
authority over our office, and it upset Miss Coit a little bit the next day to find out we had
worked till eleven o'clock the night before. She made us go home a little early. But
anyway, we did type a lot of specifications and all that. And it has always been that the
alumnae director has been employed both by the university and by the Alumni
Association. And now Dr. Moran says that can't be done anymore.
MF: Why?
MA: I'm not really clear about that myself. I don't understand all—now I went to what they
call Mclver Lectures on Saturday, all day. And both the alumni president and Dr.
Moran spoke briefly. But what they said at that time is they're working with a
disinterested mediator hoping to work it out, so they couldn’t discuss it.
MF: I wonder what that is supposed to mean?
MA: Well, I asked Betty Ervin. And I know that as president of the Alumni Association I have
great respect for her. And I asked Betty before the day was over if she thought things
could be worked out. And she said, "We've gotten very close to it several times. And I
still hope.” And what she said a year ago, at commencement at the alumni business
meeting, was that they had met with Chancellor Moran several times, and he was not
even receptive to listening.
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MF: I'm sure that made tempers fly.
MA: Beg your pardon? Well, he was sitting there and heard her say it. So, you know, I don't
think she said anything that was not true.
MF: Right. Yeah.
MA: Because she said it to me, I mean, he was on the second row. And I don't know what the
outcome will be. I really don't.
MF: I don't understand, also, what—
MA: They say that on other campuses, it has worked out like we had had it before, and that
there's no real reason that—not that the alumni can see—that it can't still be done that
way, even if not in its entirety, at least in part. See, what he says is that the alumni, the
director, is answerable only to him, not to the Alumni Association.
MF: Oh, okay.
MA: That's the biggest—that's why Barbara Parrish [alumni office secretary and Alumni
Association president] resigned.
MF: Okay. So, I guess that's making a lot of the alumni feel pretty
MA: Well, see, because they'd really made a big—and some—there have been one or two
good letters to the editor.
MF: Oh, to the Greensboro News and Record?
MA: Yeah.
MF: Yeah. I'm aware of those.
MA: Have you seen those? The one written by—her name was McCoy, Nell Davis McCoy
[class of 1948]—and it was well worded and well expressed, and what is so true is that a
lot of loyal alumni who have given—and she is one of them who has given generously,
because her family's wealthy. I mean, she and her husband are wealthy and have given
generously. They are not going to do it anymore until something can be worked out.
MF: What does the Alumni Association stand to lose if things can't be worked out?
MA: I'm not real sure of that. Have you read—the alumni president sent out a long letter and
then the chancellor sent out one. Have you seen those?
MF: I haven't read them completely, no. But the last person I was just interviewing was
commenting on it.
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MA: Yeah. I'm not really sure of all of the details myself, but—
MF: As an alumna, and as someone who worked on the campus, how does that make you feel
personally?
MA: It makes me feel like they're taking something away.
MF: Right.
MA: You know, that they're taking something away from me and from all the alumni.
MF: I know somebody else had mentioned to me that apparently there was some concern over
the Alumni House.
MA: That's it. That's the other thing, too. It will be the property of the university, not of the
Alumni Association as it has always been.
MF: Some of the alumni told me sort of what that Alumni House means to them. Is there any
special meaning in that place to you also?
MA: Not other than that I've seen it from the beginning, was on it from the beginning. I'm—it
does hold a lot of memories, and a lot of the things that are in that house were contributed
by alumni. There are some outstanding things in it, pieces of furniture and all that. I'm not
a person who attaches quite as much to that kind—
MF: Sentimentality?
MA: Yeah. To that. I mean, I'm sentimental in some ways, but it's just like when people said,
"Don't you miss your house?" No. I was ready to give it up. I’m not going to worry over
my house. And so I don't attach quite as much sentimental thing, reason to it. Maybe
some people—although I can certainly understand their feelings. And I don't think that—
I think it would lose a lot of its –
[Side B begins]
MF: You were talking about the Alumni House itself. And before we finish, I'd also like to ask
you a little bit about student government. I know as a commercial student, you were only
really a student on the campus for a year, but since you also worked there afterwards,
how did student government operate? Did it seem like a really important part of the
campus?
MA: It was. Definitely. It definitely was. All the time that I was working with--they had
faculty advisors on all the boards and everything. But the students really, really and truly
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ran it. Back also, was a lot of reasons—a lot of the reason a lot of people felt strongly
about a woman's college, because women did get much more experience in student
government and in leadership roles. I mean, that's just natural. And up until that time,
women didn't have too much leadership experience or experience in government of any
kind and that kind of thing. And so, the experience—I watched the alumni and see that
happening all the time. People who are really doing important things were people who
went there and had that experience.
MF: With the student government?
MA: Yeah. With student government. And even a lot of them that didn't, they experienced the
way it worked. You know, if they didn't—they may have, at that time, been shyer people
or that kind of thing, but have come out later with roles of leadership. Because, after all,
all the capable people couldn't be in leadership.
MF: Right.
MA: There were plenty of very capable people who were not, but they are today in their
communities in various ways.
MF: A lot of people say that Woman's College, because the nature of being part of the
university system in North Carolina, that they really got the cream of the crop there.
MA: I think so. I definitely do. The academic standards were definitely higher for one thing.
I'm not putting down any other schools, because I think a lot of them have come a long
way. But at that time, a lot of schools were, not really finishing schools, but the academic
standards were not nearly as high as they were there. I think that's definitely true.
MF: As far as—did that trickle down even into the classroom?
MA: Oh, yeah. Yeah.
MF: So they had high academic standards—the faculty as well as the administration?
MA: Yeah. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Of course, I heard one real outstanding alumna say one time that
the three best classroom teachers she knew, she had, then went into administration. They
were Frank Graham [president of the University of North Carolina], W.C. Jackson [dean
of administration and chancellor], and Harriet Elliott.
MF: Okay.
MA: But—and she was later head of the women's division of the National Democratic Party in
Washington. that’s what she was. [laughs]
MF: Are there any other things about Woman's College or anecdotes or anything that you
want to make sure you mention?
15
MA: I don't think of any right now. A student who used to work in my office said that she
could just pull out an annual from the shelf, she'd get me started. I don't think so.
MF: Okay. Are there any last things you want to make sure you say?
MA: No. I don't think so. I think that's all I can think of right now. After all, I'm ten years
removed from it now.
MF: Right.
MA: Because I retired ten years ago.
MF: Okay, well, thank you very much.
[End of Interview]