Oral history interview with Ruth Cooke, 1990 [text/print transcript]

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UNCG CENTENNIAL ORAL HISTORY PROJECT COLLECTION
INTERVIEWEE: Ruth Whalin Cooke
INTERVIEWER: Missy Foy
DATE: September 4, 1990
[Begin Side A]
MF: I guess if you could start giving me some general information of when you were at
Woman's College [of the University of North Carolina] and just some brief, general
information.
RC: I came down in the fall of 1934 and graduated four years later. I had never heard of the
school until three weeks before I came.
MF: Oh.
RC: I just happened to pick up—my mother happened to pick up a college catalog up
near Gatlinburg [Tennessee], and said, "This looks cheap." [laughs] It was six
hundred and fifty dollars—room, board, tuition and laundry. And that was—I had to
pay an extra fifty dollars because I was from out of state.
MF: Oh, the out-of-state tuition.
RC: And then both of my sisters [Frances Whalin Dulin and Jane Whalin Watson, both Class of
1942] came down here to college. And I married a fellow [Arthur Cooke] from Greensboro,
and they married men from Charlotte. And that changed our lives considerably because my
mother picked up that college catalog.
MF: Oh, really?
RC: I was registered in a Maryville College, a little Presbyterian school up in [Maryville]
Tennessee where my parents had gone. And this looked good. And I came on. I had a hard
time at first because I came out of a little country high school.
MF: Oh, about how many students were in your high school?
RC: I think there may have been thirty in our graduating class. And I was—you know, made all
As in high school. And I hit this place. I got a C, and it just tore me up. And I gradually
improved. The last year I made all As one semester, and that pleased me.
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MF: Oh, I bet it did. How would you characterize dorm life?
RC: Oh, it was fun. It was kind of primitive when I look back on it. The bathrooms were on the
hall, and we didn't have showers. We had tubs and a big bucket of scouring powder and
great big brush, and you were supposed to scrub the tub out afterwards. And it was always
gritty when you got in it.
MF: [laughs] Oh yeah.
RC: And, you know, a line of lavatories, and the toilets were in cubicles. And in the fall of 1934,
there were at least three empty dormitories—those three that overlooked the tennis courts
were locked up, empty, because there were not enough students.
MF: Because of the Depression [severe worldwide economic depression in the decade preceding
World War II]?
RC: Because of the Depression. And I was in Spencer [Residence Hall, North Spencer, and if
you wanted a private room, you could have it because there was plenty of room. The cats
had kittens in the closets and had a few mice around. [laughs] And we ate in the dining hall
at big square tables where the senior hostess and then seven students, seven younger
students, sat around for dinner at night. I've got some good friends that I still keep up with.
MF: Oh, really?
RC: Yeah, that I've known—I lived, let's see, one year in North Spencer, one year in what we
called then New Guilford [Residence Hall]. No, not New Guilford—Mary Foust
[Residence Hall].
MF: Oh, yeah, okay.
RC: And then went to Cotton [Residence Hall]. I lived two years in Cotten. And my feet grew.
MF: Your feet grew?
RC: I decided, each year I lived in Cotten because I was walking more than I'd ever walked.
MF: Oh, okay. I thought, "What?" Okay. I guess there were a lot of town students at that time
too?
RC: Yeah, because of the Depression.
MF: Right.
RC: I understand, there were even some men town students.
MF: Oh, yeah, because some of them couldn't afford to go anyplace else.
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RC: Couldn't afford to go anyplace else. I don't know if they ever graduated, but I know one
fellow who went there for a while, then went to [University of North] Carolina [at Chapel
Hill] one year, and then went on to law school. That was when you could go to law school
after three years.
MF: Oh, yeah. I forgot about that.
RC: The man practices law here in Greensboro now.
MF: Oh, okay. And with the town students, did they seem at all disconnected from the campus?
RC: I felt kind of sorry for them because I felt they weren't having as good a time as we were,
and they really didn't get to know people as well as we did. And they couldn't participate. I
don't know that that's true, but that's my feeling about it.
MF: Yeah, yeah, I know what you mean. With student life then, there was a lot of so called
parietal rules, and a lot of regulations, especially if you lived in the dorm. What were some
of those like?
RC: Oh, you had to be in by 10:30 [pm] on week nights and 11:30 [pm] on Saturdays and
Sundays. You had to sign out in a book when you were going out to uptown. You had to
wear hats and gloves. And we were sure that we should not walk backwards looking for a
ride, looking for somebody to pick us up. Of course, the trolley, the trackless trolley, was a
nickel. And cabs were a quarter. And we could get five people to go to town—cost us a
nickel apiece.
MF: Oh, yeah. Okay.
RC: Let's see. What else did I start to tell you? Oh, the sign-out rules. If you were going uptown,
you signed the book, and if you were going out on a date, you had to sign it as to where you
were going. You couldn't go away for the weekend without written permission from your
parents until you were a senior.
MF: Oh, wow.
RC: If I wanted to go to Chapel Hill for the weekend, I had to get a written letter from home
before—
MF: So, you really had to plan in advance.
RC: Yeah. And things were pretty tight.
MF: Do you think that was good or bad or—?
RC: At the time, we accepted it. We didn't think anything about it. Of course, there were a few
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people—I remember one girl from Brooklyn [New York City borough] who got in trouble.
She was Phi Beta Kappa [academic honor society], but she didn't have the greatest
reputation because she would climb in the windows after eleven thirty [pm]. [both laugh]
MF: Actually, though, I've heard quite a few stories of people sneaking in and sneaking out after
hours, so—. Did it seem like—a lot of that, or just occasionally?
RC: There was never a lot of it. I think it was occasional. Most of us were law abiding and
fearful.
MF: Right, I think that's more accurate. Yeah. Just not get caught.
RC: That's right. And we had no cars. It was hard to get around anyway. And we used to order
food from down at Tate Street. Two or three restaurants—soda shops—
MF: The Corner [variety store] was there.
RC: The Corner. I'm not sure the Corner Shop was there, but there was one called "Bert's," and
you could call—you get out in the hall at night and holler, "Anybody want an order from
Bert's?" And people would come out the doors, you know, "Well, I want an orange dope."
That was an orange coke. "I want a lemon dope or a cherry dope." Or, "I want a grilled
cheese on rye." And Bert would get the order together and send it up by bicycle at the side
door—the end door of the dormitory—and somebody would go down and pay the boy.
And, of course, cokes were a nickel. Sandwiches were ten or fifteen cents. But my
allowance for the month was fifteen dollars, and I had more than my roommate. Hers was
five dollars. Times were that hard.
MF: Oh, yeah.
RC: And silk stockings were a dollar a pair.
MF: And they tear.
RC: Yeah, especially the thin ones. You had two thread holes, which was the sheer. And then
you could have three or four thread, which was the service weight. But you'd wear two
threads going to [University of North Carolina at] Chapel Hill.
MF: You wanted something to look nice, yeah. What about faculty?
RC: We had wonderful role models. I didn't know I was a second-class citizen until I graduated
and left. But Miss [Harriet] Elliott [history and political science professor, dean of women]
and, in particular, Miss [Louise] Alexander [first female lawyer in Greensboro, political
science professor]. And then Miss [Minnie Lou] Jamison [domestic science professor] was
still there. She was one of the originals. And Miss [Mary] Petty [science professor]—we
were all kind of scared of Miss Petty. And I didn't take education, but there were some
people in the education department I know had been there a long time, and they were just
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wonderful people. And they never—they could do anything, and we could aspire to be just
as good as they were—and to be leaders, as they were. And, as I say, I didn't know I was a
second-class citizen until I left school and went to New York [City]. And then I was not
only female, but I was a southern female and, boy, [laughs] that was kind of a shock to find
out the southern females were even lower on the totem pole than the females. They were
assumed to be silly and shallow, you know.
MF: Yeah, I was going to say, there were some type of stereotype.
RC: And I went to work at the library at Columbia University. I worked in the office of the
director of the library. And a girl who finished the year after I did came up there. She was a
BSSA [bachelor of science in secretarial administration]. And she did a good job. And they
were so pleased with her. The girls from WC [Woman’s College of the University of North
Carolina], that they—the director of the library needed a new secretary, and I was coming
down for commencement, maybe ten years later or five years later, something like that.
And they asked me to interview a girl to come up there and be secretary to the director of
the library because they wanted another WC girl. And I thought that was great.
MF: Yeah. There was quite a reputation that WC had, as being a good school.
RC: Yes, indeed, one of the better schools and known for its academics. And that's why—one
reason I object to this emphasis on sports. And gosh knows, we don't need to be in that
NCAA [National Collegiate Athletic Association] cesspool.
MF: Yeah. There are a lot of people that are unhappy about that. With classes at WC, how was a
typical class schedule for you for a semester?
RC: I don't remember. I had the normal fifteen hours, I suppose. I think that was the normal
thing. And I don't remember much about that.
MF: Do you remember what classes were like—what some of the classes were like? I know they
had Saturday classes at one time.
RC: Yeah. And they had one hour Saturday classes. And I misguidedly took one one time. It
was a marvelous course, but you only got—if it was a one hour course, you got one cut.
That meant I would have one Saturday I could get off during the whole semester.
MF: My gosh, yeah.
RC: But Dr. Hurley taught a course on Jane Austen [English novelist of romantic
fiction] in that one hour class, and that was one of the most memorable classes I
ever had. I still reread Jane Austen sometimes.
MF: Some of the weekend trips that people took—I mean, I hear a lot of people talking about
going to Chapel Hill for the weekend.
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RC: Well, they used to have what they called sets of dances at Chapel Hill and Davidson
[College, Davidson, North Carolina] and Washington and Lee [University, Lexington,
Virginia] and VMI [Virginia Military Institute, Lexington, Virginia], and you'd go down on
Friday, and they'd have a dance on Friday night, and then they'd have a tea dance on
Saturday afternoon and then they'd have another dance on Saturday night. And then Sunday
morning, those fellows were ready for us to leave. They couldn't wait to get us out of there.
But sets of dances were big. They'd have mid-winters. Everybody had mid-winters, and at
Davidson they had one called Bowery Ball. It was a costume ball on Saturday night. And I
can still remember some of those costumes.
MF: Were they good?
RC: Yeah. Oh, they were good.
MF: I think a costume ball would be kind of fun.
RC: There was no theme. They just wore anything. I remember one fellow from Winston-Salem
[North Carolina] that was connected with Hanes Hosiery. And he was over six feet tall, and
he got them to knit him a union suit with blue and white stripes going around.
MF: Oh, my. I bet that was kind of cute too. What about student government? That was pretty
important.
RC: It was. Very important, and you had a lot of respect for it. You didn't want to go before judi
board—the judicial board—if you were caught climbing in a window and had to go to the
judi board. And you could be campused. You'd be restricted to the campus. You couldn't
even go down to Tate Street for periods of whatever the board said. You couldn't go to
town. You weren't supposed to leave campus. It was pretty serious if you were caught off
campus.
And the elections were important. Of course, we didn't have the candidates—so
many candidates that the field was split up, as I understand has been the case lately. They'd
have one boy and three women, and the vote would be split amongst the three women, so
the fellow gets elected. That's my understanding of how they've had so many men elected. I
better let that dog out. [pause] And the people who were—go on, you want to go out? The
people who were head of student government were really prominent people and able
people. I don't think it—it probably didn't take the time it takes now because life was so
much simpler. I may be wrong about that.
MF: Yeah, I guess that depends how dedicated you are.
RC: Well, and what the problems are.
MF: Oh, true, yeah. It seemed like there was a lot of prestige associated with being on student
government.
RC: Oh, yes, people you looked up to. They were leaders you followed with pleasure. I don't
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remember anybody who's ever unpopular who was a student government leader.
MF: One of the other things that just comes to mind that I've heard a lot of other people say is
with Woman's College being a women's school, that student government and class
experience was even more beneficial because, as some people have told me, that you got a
chance to be an equal instead of an underdog.
RC: That's right. That's why I say, I didn't realize that women were unequal, so unequal. I came
down here to school at sixteen and as I said, from a little country town. And I really had had
no experience with being unequal. I mean, I got along fine in my hometown. I never had
any feeling that I wasn't as good as the boys in the class.
MF: Right.
RC: And then, I certainly felt like we had these marvelous role models on the faculty
and then these able, intelligent women who were leaders of student government, so
we had no reason to feel like we weren't first-class citizens.
MF: Yeah, and was it—what was it like? What kind of experience when you got to New York
and you thought, "Wow, what's going on?"
RC: Well, I realized all of a sudden that I'd been living in a dream world, and that women—and
I've been a rampant feminist ever since because I object to being relegated or categorized as
being a underclass—
MF: Do you think that was because of your experiences at Woman's College?
RC: I think so because it came as such a shock to me. Well, here I am, twenty years old, and all
of a sudden, I'm just a—just a woman and a Southern woman.
MF: Oh yeah, horror upon horrors. Do you think that it was a good experience, though, to
develop the confidence that you did at Woman's College, even though there was that shock
afterwards?
RC: Oh, I do. I never would have gotten it if I had grown up in a different—or gone to school in
a coed school, I never would have gotten it. You know, I would have been cowed and been
distracted to a certain extent by having boys on the campus and having to dress more
carefully or be more conscious of what you went around in all during the week, maybe. Of
course, those days we dressed pretty carefully. As I say, we had to have hat and gloves to
go to town. And you never thought of going without hose, except for bobbie socks and
saddle shoes. But when you were dressed up, you always had on hose. I guess we wore
garter belts to hold them up because there were certainly no pantyhose.
MF: Oh, right. That’s right.
RC: And we had to keep—well, maybe some of them garter, I don't know. I doubt we wore
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girdles.
MF: Yeah. I don't know, there might have been a few. Do you remember anything about the
societies on campus?
RC: A little bit. We were all arbitrarily assigned to one of the four. And they didn't mean a lot.
But each society had a dance every year, and, as you may have heard about the dances, you
had a card that you filled out. And you got your date dances with your friends or girls you
admired, that you thought they’d enjoy dancing with you. Every now and then, you'd get a
dud who'd come up and ask you to put your date's name on her card, you know, and there
was no breaking because you just danced with whoever you had danced number three with;
that's who you danced with. And that's strange when you stop to think about it. Because you
did that, you know, a couple weeks in advance. Even the junior-senior—. [phone rings]
You want to stop that and let me get the phone. [interruption]
MF: I think we were talking about the societies and the dances.
RC: And the dances. I don't remember much about them other than that. I remember vaguely
going to a meeting one time, but—and I think the societies elected the marshals.
MF: Yeah. They did, yeah. And the marshals were for all the events?
RC: All the concert and lecture series we ushered and gave out programs. Had a white dress that
you wore, the same long white dress to every event all year long.
MF: I heard they were kind of pretty, though.
RC: They were pretty. And we had a sash that went across one shoulder and tied down here.
And then you had a placard sort of thing that you embroidered. I think I still have mine.
And mine was in green satin, and I embroidered "1938" in it, and you filled it with cards
from the laundry list. Because the college laundry picked up your wash every week, I guess
it was, and you had a laundry list. And you'd put your dirty clothes out, and you checked
how many sheets you had, how many socks, all those things. And we had these cards that
were just this size and people—I’ve never looked at mine, but you got people to write
things on the cards sort of like in an autograph book, and then you took this pack of cards
and put the satin over it and wore it on the sash. You'll see in the old annual.
MF: Yeah. People have described them to me. And then at the end of the year, I guess they'd
take out the cards and read them.
RC: Well, I never took mine out. I ought to do it just to see who wrote and what she said.
[laughs]
MF: Yeah, it might be interesting.
RC: Probably people I don't remember, some of them.
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MF: There were a lot of other traditions like class jackets.
RC: Yes, ours were green. I couldn't afford one. I never had a class jacket. I couldn't afford a
ring. Somebody gave me this one later, a friend. I said, "I've always loved those rings."
And she said, "Well, I've never worn mine. You can have it. You can have it cut down to
fit." So I did.
MF: Oh, that was nice.
RC: Yeah, wasn't it though. I think it's a good-looking ring.
MF: Yeah. I know a lot of people tell me that they'll recognize the WC rings and see people
wearing them and go, "Oh. I've got one." And what about Daisy Chain? What do you
remember about Daisy Chain?
RC: There was a College Farm. I wish I knew where it was. But the milk used to come from—
they had the cows out on the College Farm, and in the spring it tasted like onions. It smelled
like onions. And they picked us up early one morning. I guess it was probably Friday
morning, and we went out to the college farm and picked daisies. And we brought them
back and put them in the bathtubs in those empty dormitories—in one of those empty
dormitories. Filled the bathtubs with water and put the daisies in there, and then we made
the daisy chain down the hall of the empty dormitory. We tied them in bunches and then
tied them on a big rope.
MF: Oh, okay.
RC: And that's the way the daisy chain was constructed.
MF: And that was for commencement?
RC: It was class day. We had class day on Saturday afternoon, as I recall. And then
commencement was on Sunday.
MF: And what was class day?
RC: Oh, that was—I don't remember exactly—probably things like the class poem and class
honors and that sort of thing. And this was done—the daisy chain was done by the
sophomore class; we were the little sisters. We had little sisters—we had big sisters. Before
I came to college, I got a letter from my big sister. I don't remember who she was now. But
I remember being a big sister. And you wrote to the girl—as a big sister, you wrote to the
girl before school started, and you looked her up and you were supposed to be kind of—
help her along. And so we were little sisters of the senior class, so we carried the daisy
chain on class day.
MF: Oh, okay. And then after they were gone, then you became big sisters.
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RC: Yeah. Our senior year.
MF: Oh, your senior year. So, in your junior year you're sort of in limbo, I guess. Do you
remember about Tuesday chapel?
RC: Yeah. We sat alphabetically. I sat with Margaret White [Umstead, class of 1938], and I've
forgotten who else. But Margaret White was next to me. And I don't remember much about
it, but it was a form of discipline and getting the college together, and I think that was a
probably a good idea. Something like twelve o'clock [noon], eleven thirty [am], twelve
o'clock.
MF: Do you remember what any of the programs were like? I know—I think two, maybe three,
people have mentioned something about occasionally during Tuesday chapel they would
have something called the Sedalia Singers come; and it was a black gospel group from
Sedalia.
RC: From Sedalia? No, I don't remember them.
MF: Oh, okay. I've just heard a couple of people mention it, so I was just curious.
RC: I remember Dr. [Walter Clinton] Jackson [chancellor]. I imagine he always presided. That's
all I can remember.
MF: Well, since you've mentioned Dr. Jackson, what can you say about him?
RC: Oh, he was beloved. I've always regretted I’d never gotten in one of his classes, but they
were very popular. It was hard to get into his classes. And his daughter, Lydia [actually
Lilian], was in my class. She still lives in Greensboro. You might want to talk to her. Oh, I
forget what her name is, but you can find out.
MF: I can find out. Yeah. What was Dr. Jackson like?
RC: I don't know, exactly. He was just a small man, but he was an attractive personality, and
you had a lot of respect for him. And I don't remember that he had a particular sense of
humor, but he was always pleasant. And I think maybe that was his first year as chancellor
in '34.
MF: Yeah. I think you're right. It was '33 or '34.
RC: I think it was '34.
MF: Yeah. I think you're right. Do you remember what people thought of Miss Elliott?
RC: Yes. They liked her and respected her, and we were real proud of her when she went to
Washington [DC, Consumer Commissioner on the Advisory Commission to the Council
of National Defense (1940-1941), Chairman of the Woman's Division of the War Finance
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Committee (1942-1946), Deputy Director of the Office of Price Administration, and U.S.
delegate to the UN Conference on Education, Science and Cultural Organization
(UNESCO) in London in 1945] during the war. And we had an active alumnae group in
New York while I was up there. And we had an informal group. We'd meet for dinner one
night a month at Stoker's on Fifth Avenue. And we'd pull out our calendars and say, "Now,
when are we going to meet again? Well, Miss Elliott's going to be here at a certain, certain
time." And we'd meet, and Miss Elliott would join us for dinner. And it was just really a lot
of fun. People would—a lot of WC girls had been from New Jersey. Most of the people in
the college when I came were, of course, from North Carolina. The second highest state
representation was from New Jersey.
MF: I think it's still like that.
RC: Is it really?
MF: Yeah. A lot of people come from New Jersey—come to school in North Carolina because
of the tuition.
RC: And so I had a lot of friends who lived in north Jersey and worked in New York. And so we
had a regular group, and then we had a formal alumnae group at one time. I'll never forget
that we were checking in at this big tea we were having at the Rainbow Room [upscale
restaurant and nightclub in Rockefeller Center], and this girl thought [inaudible] and she
said, "And you can't remember how you spell your name." She said, "S-M-I-T-H." [both
laugh]
MF: Yeah. Somebody said one time that they tried that one on someone, you know, and said, "I
can't remember how you spell your name." And he said, "It's Bill. B-I-L-L." And so, she
thought quick enough, and she said, "Oh, that's right. The second L is silent." [both laugh]
And so—I can't think that quickly.
RC: I couldn't either.
MF: What about Katherine Taylor [class of 1928, faculty member, dean of women, dean of
students, dean of students and director of Elliott Hall]?
RC: Oh, she was very popular. And the people just fought to get into her French classes. And
they loved being in her dormitory. I don't remember that I tried to get in it or why I didn't
because she was just extremely popular and admired.
MF: Why? Do you remember?
RC: Well, because she was so good looking, for one thing and so smart for another thing and
just a marvelous personality. You admired her so much and just wanted to be around her.
MF: Somebody who was in her dorm, I think one time told me that she was dating somebody,
and they were all hoping she'd marry him, but they said nothing came of that.
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RC: I don't remember anything about that. I remember Miss [Lyda Gordon] Shivers [sociology
professor], Dr. Shivers, had a tragic romance.
MF: Oh, really?
RC: She was engaged to somebody; he died before they were married or something like that.
And she was another wonderful person. I'm sure she was gone before you got here.
MF: Yeah, probably.
RC: She was from Mississippi or somewhere and had this Deep South accent. And she was
another great teacher and a great person we all admired.
MF: How did the students and the faculty seem to interact? Was it more formal or more casual?
RC: It was pretty formal. I remember the shock when I went to the first class and was called
Miss Whalin instead of Ruth. I suppose they still do that, but at the time I hadn't expected it.
MF: And what about men on campus? I know that—
RC: You didn't see them except on weekends. I can't remember. It seems to me they ran a bus
up to Chapel Hill the first week or two of school, or maybe they ran a bus from WC to
Chapel Hill—to sort of get people—a few people knew each other. There were so few cars
even the men students didn't have cars. They rode the bus a lot, and they thumbed. They
thumbed everywhere, and it was safe. I was dating my husband, who was from Greensboro,
and he was going to Davidson. And he'd show up almost every weekend. He’d bum up
here. Sometimes he'd bring three or four fellows with him. His mother told me later—said
she didn't bother changing those sheets every Monday because they were going to be back
that weekend. He had a big old house on North Elm Street, an old Victorian house. This
was in it, and this was in it [points out articles nearby], for instance. And a great big ole'
house. And he would come in with one of this crowd of fellows, and they'd all pile in for
the weekend and go to WC.
MF: Yeah. Was there usually some kind of, like, organized activity on the weekends at WC?
RC: No, not that I recall. Just those special dances which would be, say, once a year for the
society, and then the junior-senior. Maybe there was a freshman dance. I don't remember.
MF: Some men usually had to—if you weren't going out on a date, you had to visit in the parlor,
I guess.
RC: Yeah. I always signed out for the Carolina Theatre. Very rarely went, but you had to sign
out, you see. And you—if you—say, he came, went home and got his family car, we'd go
out to Boar and Castle [restaurant] and the legendary steak sandwiches at the Boar and
Castle. It was a drive-in with a car hop. And that's the main thing I—the main place I
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remember going.
MF: And I know, at the time now that you were at WC, I guess—you graduated in '38, right?
So that was sort of like—the Depression was sort of tailing off, and how did that change
campus life other than the obvious decrease in enrollment?
RC: Well, by the time—my last year, they had three in a room in the dormitories, in some of the
dormitories. There was that much increase in enrollment.
MF: Oh, wow. And the first year—?
RC: The first year they had three empty dormitories and lots of empty rooms in Spencer. Now I
don't know about the others. But by the fall of '37, they had three in the rooms in those old
dormitories, which are now gone. One was called Woman's [Residence Hall] and one was
called Kirkland [Residence Hall. And they were big rooms, and they had three girls in those
rooms.
MF: Wow. That's quite a difference in four years.
RC: It really was a dramatic difference. It was illustrated by the dormitories more than—the
main thing that made an impression on me. And the food when I went to college was so
bad. We had a dietician from Massachusetts, and she served Indian pudding, which is made
with corn meal and molasses. That was one of the desserts. She served a big bowl of
mutton—stewed mutton on Sundays. I've never seen mutton before or since in my life that
would be stewed up with gravy. And we swore that people paid the tuition in sweet
potatoes, we ate so many sweet potatoes. And she used white pepper on the table, and you
would try and put pepper on your food to make it a little more palatable, and that awful
white pepper. I've never liked white pepper. And I was always hungry. They baked the
bread there in the kitchen, and it wasn't very good—white loaf bread, a square loaf. And
that's the main thing I remember was that awful mutton and those sweet potatoes and that
Indian pudding.
Oh, and we had a lady who came around periodically and checked your room. She
was the housekeeper, I guess. And she—you never knew when she might show up and see
how you kept your room. If it was too bad, you were called on the carpet about it—the
condition of your room.
MF: Did that ever happen?
RC: It never happened to me, but you lived in dread of it.
MF: Oh, right.
RC: She had a master key, and she would just show up at some dormitory some day and start
going in all the rooms and looking at them.
MF: Well, I guess you had to kind of stay on your toes.
14
RC: Well, a little bit.
MF: Yeah. Also, at the time you were in school it was that sort of in between—well, very
postwar, I guess, but very pre-war too. And what do you remember about that?
RC: About politics? I don't remember anything. I really don't, which is kind of unusual because I
know Miss Elliott and Miss Alexander and those people were deeply involved in politics.
MF: Were they?
RC: But I guess we were just ignorant and had our heads in the sand. I remember [Benito]
Mussolini [Italian prime minister who led National Fascist Party], of course, had come into
power or in power at that time. But I don't remember a lot about it.
MF: Do you remember anything about some of the New Deal [United States economic plan
instituted by President Franklin Roosevelt in response to Great Depression] programs? I
know there were some on campus. I just can't think of which ones right off the top of my
head.
RC: Probably NYA [National Youth Administration which provided work and education for
young Americans]. I was more familiar with that in New York when I worked in the library
up there, and we had NYA students that would pay twenty five cents an hour to shelve
books. And I imagine there were NYA students at WC. I don't know. I don't remember any
of that.
MF: Yeah. I just remember that there were a couple. I just—I wish I could think of what they
were. But I can't. I think also at this time—wasn't this about the time that they started the
one-year commercial [course]?
RC: It was in force. It was in operation. And those girls lived in Hinshaw [Residence Hall], I
believe. They were kind of segregated, which in a way was too bad because they were only
going to get to be there one year. They didn't meet as many people.
MF: Do you think that was like a conscious effort to keep them sort of separate from the rest of
the—?
RC: No, I don't think it was a matter of segregation. They somehow found it convenient to do it.
MF: Yeah, more a matter of convenience. Did you know any of the commercial students?
RC: Not that I remember.
MF: I guess that—wasn't that program eventually sort of merged with the secretarial
administration?
RC: I don't know what happened to that. That was—it ceased to be after I left.
15
MF: Yeah. I guess it—it only for a few more years, I guess. I think maybe '45 or so [actually
1967]. I'm not sure. I'll have to check on that. I guess also some of the things I'd like to ask
you about are some of the more recent things with UNCG, and we already hit a little bit on
the thing with the athletics, and I guess even more immediate than that is this rift with the
Alumni Association and Chancellor [William E.] Moran.
RC: He's trying to take over the building and the funds and the fundraising and the publications.
And we resent it. I think if it comes down to it, we'll have our own association without him.
MF: Separate from—
RC: Separate from. And it has been separate, you know—with our own publications, and for a
long time, it was our own money, our own budget. And most of us were not aware when the
college took over the money. And just in the last few years, I believe, the rank and file
having known about the grab for power and money. And I was shocked recently. I joined
the Weatherspoon Gallery Association. Something like ten or fifteen dollars, and I get an
acknowledgement for a gift to the college for fifteen dollars. And I thought, "I didn't intend
to give fifteen dollars to the college. I intended to join the Weatherspoon Gallery
Association." But he's got that—
MF: Yeah. I think that's a similar issue with the Alumni Association. It's separate, but I think
it's—
RC: It's similar.
MF: Because I know I—I think it was Adelaide Holderness [class of 1934, honorary degree
1975] that I had spoken with about the Weatherspoon [Art] Gallery. Do you think it's—has
anything to do with Moran's—I don't know, for lack of a better way to characterize it—
building frenzy on the campus?
RC: I think it's his ambition. That's my impression.
MF: Personal ambition or—
RC: Personal ambition and ambition for a nationwide reputation for athletics and—. ’Course I'm
out of touch, I don't know what kind of reputation we have nationally, but PE [physical
education]—we used to have a great phys ed reputation, I know. But—and it may still be. It
probably still is a good reputation for that department.
MF: Well there is, admittedly, a difference in the reputation that the college held as a women's
institution and the reputation it holds now as a coed.
RC: It had distinction. We were one of the distinctive, good women's colleges in the country.
And now we're just another branch of the university. It's been diluted. And the girls don't
have the role models that we had.
16
MF: Oh, yeah. I just want to get your opinion because I've been asking everybody that I
interview—if I remember to ask them—about this difference in the reputation of the school
as it went coed. And some seem to think it was a direct result of going coed, and some seem
to think that it has something to do with the school becoming a university versus a college.
And then again, others have said that they think that becoming coed put UNCG—or
Woman's College, however you want to look at it—in a different ballpark completely.
RC: I think that's it. It’s diluted the strength of having been a distinctive women's college. It's
now just another college. I am concerned, so far as anybody I contact from someplace else,
but I remember being so proud when I was in New York that people knew about that
college even before the three of us went to work up there at Columbia. They were familiar
that there—with the fact that is or was a school like that. And it was one of the prominent
women's schools in the country.
MF: Yeah. With this movement to the NCAA—or, I guess, the ACC [Atlantic Coast
Conference]—Division I, with athletics, what do you think are going to be the results?
RC: Well, I think subsidized athletics in the NCAA is ridiculous. They're training grounds for
professional teams maybe, and they're not student-athletes so much as they're athlete-students.
And I think that's unfortunate, and I think it's demeaning that this college has to—
that this school has to go into that mode to achieve a reputation.
MF: Do you think it's a move to get more money, perhaps, or—I know this is all purely
conjecture, but you know—
RC: I have no idea. Obviously, I have a feeling that the administration wants national athletic
recognition in order to draw attention to the school.
MF: Yeah. Well, that makes sense. Yeah. Is it—it just crossed my mind, the move—the athletic
move here—I wonder if that's something that has to be approved by the trustees.
RC: Or the Board of Governors?
MF: The Board of Governors, yeah.
RC: I don't know. I should think that certainly the trustees would have something to say about it.
MF: ’Cause I would imagine that—I know some of the people that are on the Board of
Governors are not too keen on the idea of Division I athletics.
RC: I just think it's unnecessary.
MF: What about Barbara Parrish [secretary of the Alumni Association, director of Alumni
Affairs]? Did you know Barbara Parrish very well?
RC: I worked with her—every time my class had a reunion, I was involved in it because I've
17
always been here, almost always been here. And certainly been here all the time that
Barbara was there, and I found that she was very creative and very enthusiastic and
energetic, and I enjoyed working with her.
MF: Yeah. I know that about this time last year she was making decisions to resign. I guess that
was effective December of '89.
RC: Yeah. I think so.
MF: So a lot of people I talk to are really sad that—
RC: Yeah, that she left unhappily. It was an unhappy departure, and she was much admired.
And sometimes things got a little behind schedule with Barbara, but—[both laugh]
MF: Yeah. If you ever saw her office, you would know why.
RC: And sometimes I've heard people express a little dissatisfaction with the way things got
done on time, but they generally got done. And we had real good reunions, as I say. She
was very creative, and I enjoyed working with her. I hope she's having a good time.
MF: What do you think are some possible solutions to the rift with Chancellor Moran? Like, you
as an alumna, how would you like to see it resolved?
RC: Well, I'd like to see him let alone the Alumni Association and let their money alone and
even—
[End Side A—Begin Side B]
MF: The question I had just asked was, “What are some possible solutions you'd like to see for
the rift with the Alumni Association and Chancellor Moran?”
RC: Oh, well, I think they—the administration ought to leave the Alumni Association alone.
We've gotten along fine for a number of years, and we've raised money and we've had our
own publications. And we've had our own fundraising. And we've had our buildings, and I
resent the encroachment on the building and the taking over of our mailing lists and our
publication.
MF: I know some people I have talked to they say that they're withholding any donations to the
university until they find out how this is going to happen. If the university does more
completely take over the Alumni Association, how do you think that's going to affect
some—because a major part of university donations is from, you know—
RC: Alumni giving?
18
MF: Yeah.
RC: Well, I'm not giving another dime. I don't have any intentions. I'm waiting to see what
happens before this '92 centennial celebration. I certainly don't intend to participate in that
in any way until things are settled more satisfactorily. I wrote a letter to—sent a copy to of
course Moran and the Board of Trustees and the Board of Governors. I sent out I don't
know how many letters. But one of my points was, they were fixing to have a big party.
Now who's going to come? They better straighten up and fly right.
MF: Yeah.
RC: And I know they're already working—one of my classmates is on the public relations
committee for the centennial. They've been working for a couple of years. Lee Kinard [class
of 1974, master of arts in 1977, doctorate in education in 1988, Greensboro television
broadcaster] is making a tape and so forth, and I don't want any part of it.
MF: Finally, I don't want to forget anything, and so I want to give you a chance—if there's
anything that you remember that's really important to mention.
RC: I don't really know what you're—exactly what you're looking for. I don't think I have
anything to add.
MF: Well, thank you.
[End of Interview]