Oral history interview with Mary Bailey Williams Davis, 1990 [text/print transcript]

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UNCG CENTENNIAL ORAL HISTORY PROJECT COLLECTION
INTERVIEWEE: Mary Bailey Williams Davis
INTERVIEWER: Missy Foy
DATE: February 23, 1990
[Begin Side A]
MF: Okay, why don’t you start by telling a little bit about your education and when you were
at UNCG [The University of North Carolina at Greensboro], you know—basically what
you did after that?
MD: I grew up in Greensboro. Went to Curry Elementary School [laboratory school on
campus], which is a part of UNCG, and then to Greensboro High School and to—right
straight on—then to UNCG and finished in 1933. I had a major in history, had a minor in
English, and I don’t know what the other—had a major in [unclear].
MF: All right, and when you finished at UNCG, what did you—?
MD: Graduate—a year of graduate school, a school of Christian education.
MF: All right. Basically, how would you characterize student life at UNCG—well, Woman’s
College [of the University of North Carolina]?
MD: Well, my being a day student made a difference for me from what it would have been for
everybody else. But, in those years, anyone from out of town stayed on campus. There
was not the large day student population. I grew up so close to the college and had been a
part of UNCG life all my life, and we played on the athletic field over here, and it was
just a whole lot of connection there. But I was president of day students, which put me
then on the student legislature, which gave me a great deal of campus life.
MF: Okay. Tell me about being on the student legislature.
MD: Well, when our own children were in college and one of them was having trouble getting
grade points, I believe that’s what we called it. His grades weren’t all that good. I thought
—well he could have brained me for being the one who was chairman of the committee
to get grade point systems into the—into our college. Because it was not—we weren’t
given grade points. You didn’t have to achieve a certain number of—what is it that—
what’s the term—it’s not grade point.
MF: Grade point average?
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MD: Grade point average. But I was chairman of that, and then I worked to get other things in
student legislature and [unclear]. I was not a house president, but I was president of day
students
MF: Okay, and as being president of the day students, how did you feel that you worked with
student legislature? And did you feel that—?
MD: Oh, I enjoyed it very much. And as I said, I lived so close to the campus that I would
walk over in the morning, go home for my noon meal, come home in the afternoon, and
many nights go back by myself, and it was perfectly safe to do so.
MF: Right, and you didn’t worry about—?
MD: Yeah, and I was in a lot of college activities—more than a lot of the day students—but
somehow or another that was really important to me. I was in the college orchestra and
that met every Tuesday night, and that sort of thing.
MF: Okay. How was—how did it—being a day student, did it feel any different than being a
student living in the dorm?
MD: Oh, I’m sure it did. I’m sure it did, and there was no question about it being a difference.
But I had—had I been a dormitory student, I would have a particular group of friends that
were my special friends, and I wouldn’t have had as many diverse friendships. As it was,
I had friends in every phase of college life that made it—gave me a diversity there that I
found really advantageous. I wasn’t tied down to one group.
MF: Yeah, so you felt pretty free to associate with everybody?
MD: Right. And in those years, everybody—I think I’ve—I’m right about this, I know it was
with me—but I have a speaking acquaintance with and knew the names of most of the
students in my—well certainly in my class and upperclassmen. ’Course when you get to
be a junior and senior, those are lowly freshmen. You don’t pay that much attention to
them, but I did. My class had 360 who had graduated, and I think we were a student body
of around 3,000. So you knew people, which meant there was a great deal more
friendliness on campus too, you see. I walk on the campus now, and the students don’t
speak to each other. They don’t speak to strangers on the campus. Only seldom do you
have someone greet you. Do you find that true?
MF: I guess, I’m more wrapped up in the history department. I don’t—I’m not walking around
campus most days, I guess.
MD: You’ve got to go to the library, don’t you?
MF: Oh, yeah.
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MD: But you don’t think people speak to each other very much do you?
MF: I guess I—I’ll have to pay attention to that. I’ll look and see if I notice that.
MD: Course I’m a gregarious person, so that I guess we’re different.
MF: You were saying that you knew most everybody in your class. How did you come to
know everybody, I mean, and know which class they were in? How—?
MD: I don’t know, you just—there was a little more intimacy in the classes. I would guess that
was part of it. I don’t know, you would sit by different people. And in chapel, of course,
we had to sit alphabetically. Well, that meant that I was with people who I wouldn’t have
been with in class, and, of course I’d get to know them.
MF: Okay, you said chapel. Tell me about chapel.
MD: Oh, for goodness sake, that’s right. You don’t even know what I’m talking about, do
you? We had compulsory chapel twice a week, every Tuesday and Friday at 12:00
[pm]—from 12:00 to—may have been 12:30 [pm], I don’t know. Let’s see, 12:00 to
12:45 [pm]—but anyway, in that particular chair, and we had somebody marking to see if
we were present.
MF: And what would you do there?
MD: Well, there was a program of some sort. I’m sure that a great deal of study and funny
paper reading went on at chapel programs. But we had programs of real consequence
there. And sometimes you’d have devotional type thing. We would have sometimes—the
president of the college would be addressing the students or some faculty member would
be talking on some phrase of current events or something. I left the place without—I
don’t have any real clear pictures of it. But sometimes it was a fun program. We had what
they called senior unmusical every year, and that was a case there of the seniors put on a
program that would take off faculty people, and they would imitate them and that was
always fun.
MF: Getting back to this—where you were saying you knew everybody in your class. Was
there a real distinction between the classes? Did people feel very much a part of one
class?
MD: Oh, I feel—I did. I would judge that everyone felt that way and then, too, we had the four
societies which—are you familiar at all with them?
MF: Well, tell me about it.
MD: They were not quite the force that they had been in earlier years. But you were assigned
to one of the societies—the Adelphians and the Aletheians and the Cornelians and the
Dikeans. And they would have an occasional party. There was a party to welcome
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incoming freshmen to welcome them. And in those years students came to college and
went through four years. Now you don’t—I understand that you don’t have that in school
or colleges any more like we did then.
MF: That’s right.
MD: But I don’t—you don’t leave high school, go to college for four years and go out. You
have more—
MF: You have a certain number of hours to complete now.
MD: And we’d sometimes get out and work for a while and come back, and—which would
help destroy the feeling of class rivalry that was there.
MF: True.
MD: But we all had class jackets when we were, I think, sophomores—at the end of our
sophomore year we were measured for our class jackets and you later—see, we were
Depression [worldwide economic depression preceding World War II] years, and all of
us were poor, and so this jacket—we just did not have—didn’t begin to have the finances
that students have today. Y’all are rich by what—by our standards—I mean by the—as
compared to what we were in those years. But mine was a blue leather jacket with a white
patch that said WC [Woman’s College], I guess—’33—and I wore that coat
everywhere—it was my raincoat. I guess I had a fall coat. I’m sure I did, which I always
wore on Sundays. I also had a heavy wool skirt—and walk in the rain—you didn’t feel
you would melt. Some students had cars or some had their parents take them. I didn’t
have a heavy raincoat, so that leather jacket was my—
MF: The jackets were very important weren’t they?
MD: To me they were, and I think they were to most everybody. I think in those years most
everybody had a leather jacket. But later they became [unclear] sport jackets. And I don’t
guess they have them now do they?
MF: The jackets? Not that I know of.
MD: You see, our daughter came here to college. We weren’t living in Greensboro then. And
she had her class jacket, but theirs was a red and white color. We had class loyalty to our
class colors too, which y’all don’t know anything about. I was a blue and white.
MF: And what did that mean for you?
MD: Well, you just knew that if you were a blue and white class, then you had a kinship with
every blue and white class that came through. When you—when we graduated, then our
class then—I mean our colors became the colors for the incoming freshman class. And
then lavender and white and, I guess, green and white, I’m not sure.
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MF: Yeah, I think those are the four.
MD: Blue and white—red and white. But my mother [Lillie Boney Williams, Class of 1898]
had come here to college too. She entered college in 1893 or 4. I guess that’s right—fall
of ’94. And—which was just the second year, I guess, of the college [then known as the
North Carolina State Normal and Industrial College]. But she had known Dr. [Charles
Duncan] McIver [founder and first president] as a father figure and he—she had a great
reverence for Dr. McIver. He was a great man apparently and certainly did a lot for
women in North Carolina.
MF: What do you know of Dr. McIver since your mother had come to school here?
MD: Well, he, of course, was dead when I came to school here.
MF: Right. That’s why I’m saying since your mother had—
MD: Oh, yeah. She had such high regard for him. And my mother had this close friend that
died a good many years after my mother did, and she was telling me one time that Dr.
McIver had that—the students had such awe of this great man. And she said she would—
she was a shy little person, and when she came she was just so scared and would come in
so hesitantly to a class. It was really interesting. I did an interview of her for the Alumni
News [Alumni Association magazine] some years ago before she died. You might be
interested in going back into the alumni files for that.
MF: Oh, yeah, it must have been—I’m sure it’s in the archives.
MD: I’m sure there’d be alumni magazine files; this was an interview with Miss [Virginia]
Thorpe [Class of 1899].
MF: What about—how did the day students relate to the students who were living in the
dorms?
MD: Well, it was completely personal. I mean—well, you—some related very well and some
didn’t. It was a matter of individuality though.
MF: As a day student—were you a day student because of choice or was there a problem
getting into dorm? Did some people have problems?
MD: Well, it was finances. It was a great deal cheaper to live at home.
MF: Okay. I guess because everything was pretty colored by the Depression.
MD: Oh, indeed it was—indeed it was.
MF: Help me to understand that, what it was like.
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MD: Well, we finished high school in ’29 when everything was glorious and everything was
on the up and up. And in October, the stock market crash came in. And, of course, ours
wasn’t as hard hit as a lot of families. My good friend who lives in Greensboro now said
that she didn’t know till the day before she—time to come to college—whether she was
going to get to come or not because her daddy’s watermelon crop had failed. And he
didn’t—you know, he had plenty of watermelons, but he couldn’t sell them. And he—she
wouldn’t have the money for her payment. And somewhere—her older sister went and
found that fifty dollars necessary. I think it was around fifty dollars. But that was the day
before time to come. This was a serious time. But then the stock market crashed after
that. So you can see how—her father was a farmer, and my father never lacked for a
salary during those years, but he had a mighty small salary. And that—that’s the way.
And in Greensboro you had transients coming in all of the time who would come and ask
for food.
MF: Did that happen around the campus at all?
MD: Well, I lived just two blocks over from the campus over on the other side of campus, but
it certainly happened on that street.
MF: Over near Tate Street?
MD: Mendenhall, the next street over.
MF: What about as far as on campus itself? Say for instance with the cafeteria and—?
MD: Well, of course, I didn’t have access to the cafeteria.
MF: But do you know anything about how, say, that was affected by the Depression?
MD: I don’t know about the ins and outs on that. I know they had very plain food. There
weren’t any—course in 1929-33 you didn’t have any frozen fish—you didn’t have any—
you just didn’t have a lot of refinements. You didn’t have nearly the self—ready-prepared
foods. It was a different day. And the students came in and sat at an assigned table, and
girls who were helping earn their way through college by being waitresses then would
wait on those tables, and they would—see, there wasn’t enough cafeteria time at all. And
they came to meals at specified times. Of course, I was invited to eat on campus some,
and sometimes I would spend the night with a friend, and she would take me into the
dining room for breakfast, which was I’m sure not the thing to do but it was done
[laughter] And goodness knows, students by the hundreds had eaten in my home, invited
by my parents over a period of many years, and so I didn’t see anything bad about it. My
family had fed students far more than I ever filched off of them so, [laughter] [unclear].
MF: You said that you had spent the night with a couple of friends who lived on campus.
What was dorm life like from what you saw the few times—?
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MD: Course people didn’t go off for weekends then. It was—we had Saturday classes. Nobody
had money to travel. Nobody had cars. You know, you just—that’s what you did. And
sometimes you would call Saturday night social life. You would have—a lot of girls were
having dates come from all over, but there would be—maybe a society—one of the
societies would have a party of one kind or another. And then they had—I think they had
dormitory parties. I don’t remember.
But we had—the dean of women was very much interested in the day students
and was very much interested in helping incorporate them into the college life so that
they didn’t feel like such outsiders. Her name was Miss [Lillian] Killingsworth, and she
was not very popular but she was always fair about things. I felt like she was—course
I’m sure other students who had had some harsh dealings with her would have thought
her not so fair. But I always had good relationships with her. But she would plan special
things for day students hoping to incorporate them into college life. Each spring we
would have a dinner in the dining room, and I would have the privilege as a day student
of inviting eight campus—well eight at a table—I could invite seven girls who lived on
campus to come sit at my table and I would decorate my table. You as a day student
would invite your seven, you know, and you could do it that way. It made it a real nice
evening.
MF: Really incorporated you into campus life.
MD: And we thought it was a very worthy thing to do to try to do it—I mean, to try to
incorporate us.
MF: How did the classes go? You were saying you had Saturday classes. What kind of classes
were there, and how long were classes? What did you—?
MD: I guess we had fifty minutes and then ten minutes to change classes. And if you had one
in the third floor of McIver [Building] and then had to get to the gym, get dressed. That
took some doing.
MF: Right.
MD: Y’all don’t have to take gym any more do you?
MF: I think you have—yes, I think you have to take at least one physical education course.
MD: At least [unclear]. I have a feeling we had to take it three of our four years. I don’t
remember accurately.
MF: Okay. ’Cause for instance now you’ll register for the classes you want to take and take
maybe five courses that’ll meet three times a week or something like that. How was it
when you were in school? What kind of classes [unclear]?
MD: Well, I don’t remember. There were cert—so many required courses. I mean, here a
student had to take freshman English, freshman hygiene, either a science or math, and
now I guess you have some of those requirements. But then—now they take such odd
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courses. You took freshman history which was always—everybody always took—I guess
European history. There was no question about that. And the home economics majors, for
instance, would have to take freshman history, English. They took things right along with
us. But then after the second—the sophomore year—then they didn’t have quite as many
requirements. But there was a basic—for a woman to be well educated, she had to have
these basic things of knowing some history, some science, all math, some lang—foreign
language, and I don’t know whether that’s required now or not.
MF: In general—we have general college courses now.
MD: And I tell you, we had good teachers there who were—they were fine women role models
for us—excellent scholars.
MF: Were most of your teachers women?
MD: No. I don’t remember what proportion, but we had some very strong women of real
influence. And so women didn’t have the authority then that they have now and didn’t
carry the weight, but they were very strong women of real character and real strength.
MF: What do you remember about the teachers you had?
MD: Well, I remember—I had very memorable teachers there. Miss Jane Summerell [Class of
1910, honorary degree 1978, English faculty] was the epitome as far as I was concerned
of all that was good—a twinkle in her eye and caring about her students and knowing her
students. Miss [Vera] Largent was a great woman; she taught history. Miss [Bernice]
Draper was another fine history teacher and a strong person. You had—and, interestingly
enough, the ones who were college professors—for instance when I was in elementary
school, I started first grade and went through seventh grade right there on that campus—
right where the science building is now. And later that building burned, and they built the
new Curry Building. And later generations went to the Curry Building over there. But the
head of the physical education department in the 1920s taught me physical education in
first or second or third grade. You know, that’s hard to believe. And the music education
teacher—the one who taught teachers how to teach—taught me “do re me fa.” And that
kind of thing is an amazing thing how I’d had that basic study through [unclear] college
right here.
MF: Was that a regular Greensboro school or—?
MD: Well, the people that—it was people that lived in this area—in the—in this the college
area. Of course, in my grammar school days, this was all country out here and when my
college days—Coleman Gym was out of—I mean, what’s the first gym? Coleman Gym is
the newer one.
MF: Mm, starts with a P.
MD: I can’t recall it right this minute.
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MF: I would know it if you hadn’t used the—
MD: Well anyway, that was the outer limit when I was in college. The rest of this from there
on over here [looking at yearbook] was the college dairy. I guess they’d given up the
college dairy by the time I got to college at that time. But when I was a child—well, this
was dairy right there where the—where Coleman Gym is and where—
MF: Petty. Wasn’t that the name—?
MD: Well there is Petty Building but—?
MF: Oh, that’s the science building.
MD: Yes, I don’t know what that is. It doesn’t matter. But anyway, that was the—
MF: Park. Park.
MD: No, Park is part of Curry Gym.
MF: Is it?
MD: Curry Building.
MF: Oh, you’re talking about where the gym is now.
MD: Yeah. The first of those gyms—you’ve got Gray [Residence Hall] and Howard [Ed.
Note: Hinshaw Residence Hall]—Shaw Building and then the driveway and then that
gym right there.
MF: Rosenthal Gym?
MD: Rosenthal, yeah.
MF: Okay, I didn’t—I thought you were talking about the Park Gym—Rosenthal. And then on
the other side of that was the dairy?
MD: Rosenthal Gym, and then from there on over to what is now Aycock [Auditorium]. And
from there clear on back to Market [Street]. ‘Course in college days now there—that
wasn’t a dairy. They had given up—
MF: Oh, right, but before that—
MD: Before that it was the college dairy, and the cows had the pasture out there. But from
Mary Foust [Residence Hall] on College Avenue, and there at the quadrangle you’ve got
Shaw and then Gray and whatever those buildings are. There—no more than three down
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that road. They were the outer limits. From there on over was Peabody Park, which is
now filled up with dormitories.
MF: Oh, yeah, all the new high rises.
MD: But Peabody Park was used as a park, and when I was a child—of course, I’m mixing
you up on an interview like this.
MF: Oh, no. That’s okay.
MD: —switching back and forth. And when I was a little girl, we would come to programs
over there in the park, and they had—I remember college students having pageants in
there, and there was a little amphitheater in the park. It was—they’re very vivid
memories for me.
MF: And so growing up, even before you were a student at Woman’s College, you still felt
tied to it.
MD: Oh, very tied to it. You see, my father was pastor of the church closest—Presbyterian
church closest to the campus. And the faculty people were my Sunday school teachers,
and so they were part of our church and part of our church family and were in our home a
great deal—faculty people. And the faculty children were—went to school with us.
Seventh grade, Dr. W.C. Smith’s [English professor] son was Peck’s Bad Boy [1934
American film] in that grade. [laughter]
MF: You were telling me—
MD: You were asking about other strong faculty members.
MF: Right. Right.
MD: We had a strong French department. Dr. [Winfield S.] Barney was head of the
department, but Monsieur Ardre [?] had come from France after World War I, and his
wife never would speak English or at least she would not speak English to her children.
She wanted them to continue their French language. And Monsieur Ardre had joined our
church and was there every Sunday, and he was a delightful teacher, French teacher. It
was just good to be in his class. Then Dr. [Benjamin] Kendrick was a strong—history
teacher there, but you never forget Miss Elliott. You know who Dr. Harriet Elliott
[professor of political science, dean of women] is?
MF: Yes.
MD: Miss Elliott was a real strong, fine woman. And she—I remember her one day coming
down the hall—I had had a course—well, I was then taking government under her, and
she came in sailing down the hall—she was rather buxom—she was short. But she came
in, moved forward with great precision, and you know, no messin’ around about it. And
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she said, “Young ladies, I want to tell you. I just met a girl in the hall who said, ‘Oh, Miss
Elliott, I miss taking government because I miss reading the papers.’ Young ladies, if I
hear of you not reading the daily paper when you get out of this class, I will disown
having ever taught you.” [laughter]
MF: So she took it seriously?
MD: Oh, indeed she did. I read the editorial page today faithfully. [unclear] [laughter]
MF: One of the other things I wanted to ask you about is—we touched a little bit on some of
the traditions like the class jacket and the societies. What about a lot of the rules and
regulations that the university had set up because it was a women’s college?
MD: Well, of course I wasn’t under those rules and regulations, but I had my home rules and
regulations, which were, of course, pretty strict. But I’m not knowledgeable on that.
MF: Okay, so you don’t really know too much about them?
MD: No. The girls were under strict regulations, and I think even then smoking was a shipping
offense—I’m not sure.
MF: What do you mean by shipping offense—expulsion?
MD: Yes.
MF: Wow. Do you know of any—anything else like that that would get—?
MD: Well, there was no such thing as men coming in the dormitories. I mean, it—they could
come into the parlor. But it was a very strict kind of thing. Miss [Minnie Lou] Jamison
[home economics faculty], for instance, she was another fine faculty person—and at one
point became—started working in the residence hall department. And she would pass
judgment on young men who came for dates, and a girl didn’t get out of that dormitory
until she came—she had come and signed out for her for the evening.
MF: What do you mean as far as passing judgment?
MD: Well, she would just—she would speak to every date who came. And I don’t know
whether she ever passed judgment or—
MF: But they had to meet her.
MD: They had to meet her. I think I’m right about that. I can’t be sure.
MF: Right. What else do you know as far as men and—coming on campus?
MD: Well,—it must have been my junior year, which would have been ’31-’32. I believe that
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was the year—it may have been two years in there, but we had—men were allowed to be
day students on the campus—because the Depression was so deep that the parents
couldn’t send their children here—their sons off to college. And they could’ve gone to
Guilford College here but that was way out yonder, you know. Guilford College was—of
course, is not far now, but it was then. But they were allowed to come there, and they
paid the same tuition we did. There weren’t many at that time and they, as I remember,
they didn’t distinguish themselves as students. I think they would—most of them had a
real good time dating girls on the campus.
MF: I’m sure.
MD: I don’t know. I don’t remember being in class with any of them.
MF: Oh, so you didn’t have any in your classes?
MD: I don’t remember that. There may have been, but—
MF: Did you have—?
MD: But that was only for a year or two.
MF: Right. Did you know anybody who did have men in their classes?
MD: I don’t have any recollection about that especially. We’d have student dances at the gym
a couple nights a week, and I remember one of them. Alice—it was mostly girls—you
know, girl break dances—but most of them was just the girls dancing with each other.
And it was good fun. I mean, you—it was a means of recreation and good exercise, and I
guess that’s one of the ways I got to know a lot of the students, but one of them said—he
said to me, “Mary Bailey, you didn’t break on me last night. You didn’t treat me right.” I
don’t remember exactly what he said, but I thought that was so conceited of him
[laughter] But you see they could have their pick of the girls that were there.
MF: So did they—did you get the feeling that the men that were on campus for those couple
years—that they were very important or that the other girls were [unclear]?
MD: That the girls were of primary importance [laughter] and they weren’t? Well, some of
them were just really nice guys, but they weren’t—you know, that didn’t last long. I don’t
know if the powers that be didn’t think it was very successful because—you see, at that
time, this was a women’s college and that was purely an emergency measure.
MF: And being a woman’s college like that—I’ve heard a lot of people say that it was also the
cream of the crop, so to say—that it was a very—
MD: Oh, it was. [North Carolina] State [University, Raleigh, North Carolina], [University of
North] Carolina [at Chapel Hill], and Woman’s College were the top echelon. We were
the three. And I didn’t—I think now Chapel Hill feels like it’s far superior to anybody
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else. I don’t know whether they—that’s not an accurate—. You know, and I don’t have a
really good judgment there, but I have that feeling. But at that time, I thought of these
three being sort of a triumvirate. Of course, I could have been mistaken about what I
thought too.
MF: I’ve heard other people say that too more than once.
MD: Yeah, and it was a top-notch women’s college—and recognized in the United States. I
was in—I think the legislature passed it making it—it had been the North Carolina
College for Women. See, my mother was here in State Normal and Indus—Industrial
College for women. State Normal and Industrial College. And then it became North
Carolina College for Women. And during—the 1932 state legislature made it the
Woman’s College of the University [of North Carolina] which we—the three—these
three colleges—State and Carolina were the university. And so that—I guess that the—
my junior year, I guess, those who graduated that year still had North Carolina College
for Women on their diplomas ’cause they would have been [unclear]. I don’t know what
their diplomas said, but I felt like we were the first class to graduate from the Woman’s
College. And then, interestingly enough, my daughter was the last class.
MF: That is interesting. What about—I know that FDR [President of the United States
Franklin Delano Roosevelt] was a pretty important figure.
MD: Oh, indeed he was. And Mrs. [Eleanor] Roosevelt [wife of Franklin D. Roosevelt] came
here to speak—and I remember her very distinctly. He was elected—I think he was
elected in 1933, wasn’t it?
MF: ’32?
MD: ’32. I think that was it. And she was—must have been my sophomore year or something.
Anyway she was not campaigning, but she was speaking—I don’t remember what she
spoke about. But she had never done public speaking much, and she spoke with great
composure. But she had this high squeaky voice. [unclear] you know, that kind of a
voice. Later she took—I understand—took speech lessons and—so that her speaking was
a great deal more—you know she learned to drop her voice and spoke with a great deal
more composure. But we had other distinguished speakers, but don’t ask me who they
were.
MF: You’d remember if I asked you about a particular one?
MD: But I remember her. And we had a good concert and lecture series too. We had the
Minneapolis Symphony come one time; the Joffrey Ballet, I think; just a top notch
concert—
MF: Were these usually highly attended events?
MD: I think you would say that they were. I think that at that time Aycock would hold the
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student body. The people in town could also buy tickets, I think—I believe they could.
MF: What about as far as the Woman’s College and its reputation in the surrounding
community? Was it an important focal point?
MD: I felt that it was. I felt that it was a very important thing in the community of Greensboro.
MF: Yeah, ’cause you were saying that a lot of people would attend the lecture series and—
MD: I don’t know whether it was a lot or not. I believe it was—it seems to me that it was
available to them. But the students attended them [unclear]. It was part of our student
fees, and you didn’t have to pay to get in. You had already paid for it.
MF: With your student fee. Are there any memorable stories or tales that you have about your
time?
MD: No. I can’t especially remember the ones—they were happy years for me. I loved college
life. I don’t—I remember the legislature of the student government officers went to camp.
Silver Pines, I think it was—up there at Roaring Gap before college opened. And the
president would go with us, the college president. He probably didn’t spend—we were
there for two or three days getting ourselves inundated with various things about college.
And I guess Dr. [Julius] Foust [president] just came up one afternoon maybe to address
us, I don’t know.
MF: Okay.
MD: But this threw me with the leaders on campus, which I loved—having that touch with
them—I think I went two different years.
MF: What did you do with—I mean you said you were the day student president in student
government? What did you do? What did that involve?
MD: Well, we would have day student meetings from time to time, and I don’t remember how
often. We had a room there that day students could go to. I expect—you see, this was just
for the girls. And I guess the boys used it when they—and a lot of girls would bring their
lunches and eat in the day student room. It was a place you could study at tables—and I
guess some easy chairs, I don’t know. It wasn’t particularly well equipped, but it was in
the old administr—in what we called the Administration Building. I think they call it
Foust Building—where I was free to hang out. I didn’t have—we didn’t have lockers
there, but it was right there at—on the back side of the Administration Building, and so
you were right in the middle of things all the time.
MF: Were there a lot of day students at that time?
MD: I don’t have any idea how many, but there was. It was a much-used room, and a lot of
students would be in and out there.
15
MF: Another thing that I wanted to ask you about is—there’s apparently some type of rift
between the alumni and [Chancellor] William Moran.
MD: Well, I’m very unhappy about that situation because it ought not to be.
MF: Okay, well I’m not exactly sure what the situation is so—
MD: Well, I don’t know either. If it’s up to me to try to tell you.
MF: Okay, it’s not something you want to talk about with the tape playing. Well, without
talking about it specifically then—
MD: Well, I just think it’s unfortunate that 15,000 alumni are being alienated by some
misunderstandings that haven’t been cleared up. I just think it’s very unfortunate. And I
long for the time to hurry and get here when it’s worked out. I’m not sure that it’s going
to be—that they’ll be able to work—well, I’m not in on the planning, but I just don’t—I
feel like it’s very unfortunate.
MF: The only thing I do know is there’s something going on as far as the Alumni House itself.
Is that part of it or—?
MD: Well that’s part of it—the problem is the house was built purely with alumni giving
money to it.
MF: Oh was it?
MD: Oh, indeed it was. And it was given to the university.
MF: Okay.
MD: You see, the alumni did the planning for it. I’m sure they had help from the
administration, but they raised the entire amount of money—now I could be wrong about
some of those facts.
[End of Side A—Begin Side B]
MD: I think it was on that other tape wasn’t it? Did you get it on the other side?
MF: Well, I’m not sure if it had stopped beforehand—so just about coming to the Alumni
House and—
MD: When I was on the alumni board. We always—the board members stayed at the Alumni
House.
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MF: Weren’t there room upstairs?
MD: Yeah, there are about four—maybe six—bedrooms there. And they are often used by the
college for college guests—some speaker comes to campus, he is given that privilege.
And one time I came back for Friends of the Library dinner. You spoke to Dr. [William]
Link [UNCG history professor] a minute ago. Well, his father was the main speaker at
the Friends of the Library Dinner. And the Links have a cottage at Montreat [North
Carolina] and so do we. And though we never see Dr. [Arthur S.] and Mrs. Link
[American historian] there to amount—not often. But I was just—I admired so much his
interest in Woodrow Wilson [28th president of the United States].
MF: Right. Dr. Link.
MD: Yeah, and so I was just real anxious to hear that lecture. And we were—my friend and—I
got a woman friend to come with me. Tom couldn’t get away to come with me. And so
we drove up to Greensboro to—and stayed at the Alumni House, and then the next
morning had heard this wonderful lecture on Woodrow Wilson.
And incidentally, the Link daughter, Peggy, and our—one of our sons were the
same age, and they’d grown up together there in Montreat. So Lucky (?) had been to
parties over to the Link’s house and you know, he and Peggy would be in—always in the
crowd there together. So we knew Peggy.
But that time when we were staying at the Alumni House we were served
breakfast along with Dr. and Mrs. Link, and that was such a pleasure to spend—to have a
chance to converse with them. And, of course, there was a lot of talk about Montreat and
a lot of talk about our friends that we have in common. He had also I think taught at
Davidson [College in North Carolina] and I—my husband went to Davidson. So we had
quite a good conversation. But it was also interesting to sit at the feet of that great scholar
there.
MF: Oh, I’m sure.
MD: And I didn’t know Dr. Bill Link. I hope I can know him.
MF: Yeah, I work with him.
MD: Well, you see that was where I came. When I wanted to come back to the college, I wrote
to see if I could get a room, and that was home to me you see. That was—
MF: Sure, I understand.
MD: That’s the kind of feeling that I have for it. Now I grant you, not—I don’t know that there
are many alumni that have that feeling, unless they had been on the alumni board or
something like that. I don’t know that that’s true. But the building is not only useful to
the alumni activities, but it’s also used for—it’s rentable by people, by any alum who
needs a place to have a wedding reception or something.
17
MF: I know Phi Beta Kappa [academic honor society] dinners are there.
MD: But we’ve been to a number of wedding receptions, and then our—one of my friends had
her fifth—she and her husband had their fiftieth wedding anniversary party in that lovely
Virginia Dare Room. So you see, there’s just a lot of functions—
MF: So if something—if the alumni were to lose that house, I guess that would—I’m not sure,
is there a fear of losing that?
MD: Oh, I don’t think there’s a fear of losing it altogether, but I don’t know how to describe
what that relationship really is about the house. But to find out that the administration
wants to take it over and have it be theirs more—
MF: More than the alumni.
MD: —is driving the alumni—
MF: Well, I never realized how important that Alumni House was.
MD: Well, it is to me. I can’t say for other people.
MF: Well, I’m sure it is to others also from the way you described it.
MD: You know we had—when we have class reunions, the classes just come in and just take
over the building.
MF: Oh, right.
MD: Of course, the alumni staff is just wonderful. They are so cooperative, and I tell you,
Barbara Parrish [Class of 1948, director of alumni affairs, Alumni Association secretary]
knew every person who ever went through that college, I do believe—whether she knew
her personally, she knows something about them.
MF: All right, she’s been very helpful.
MD: And Brenda [Meadows Cooper, Class of 1965, 1973 master of education, director of
alumni affairs] knows them equally. Brenda knows by now—knows as many as
Barbara—and they’re your personal friends.
MF: Well that’s real helpful because I didn’t realize [unclear]
MD: And I go to—I’ve been invited every year to the McIver Conference which is—at first it
was—I think they had in mind just inviting me one year, and then the next year another
batch would come in. But some of us go back every year to the McIver Conference. And
the first year or two it was paid for entirely by the Alumni Association.
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MF: Oh, that’s nice.
MD: But then—now we paid this year I think. We paid fifteen dollars to help pay for our
meals and stuff.
MF: Oh, right, like a plates, yeah. Fifteen dollars for a plate.
MD: You just go—and I feel free to drop in over there to do something—if there’s coffee
made in the kitchen, I feel free to go get some. You know it’s where I feel perfectly at
home.
MF: Okay. Well, is there anything else that you want to make sure that you remember that’s
real important to tell us?
MD: I want to encourage you to be a good alumna. [laughter]
MF: Okay.
MD: When I say pay your annual giving, I’m not sure whether to encourage anybody to give
the annual giving anymore or not when it looks like they are not going to fund the
Alumni Association like it ought to be funded—when so much of his money is coming
from alumni. Well, it’s a shame that it’s—this is entering in—whether it’s going to be
adequately funded.
MF: Okay. Anything else about Woman’s College?
MD: Well I need to say this. I think it’s distressing that the students don’t know the college
song. I just feel real bad about that. When we go to the Founders Day—well, the last
several years—anyhow, the Founders Day dinner—and they always have to sing the
college song. And the students who are present don’t know it a bit more than the man in
the moon.
MF: Quietest singing, right?
MD: But we sang it so often at chapel or at convocations of one sort or another. And I still—
I’m not sure I could sing all the words, but I think I could. It’s—and I’ll tell you this, the
that phrase in there—of course, this comes through my Christian upbringing too—but our
motto, “Service will remain and service we will do”—but that is so important a thought.
We have been educated for a purpose, you know. It’s not just a wonderful luxury to have
had a good education. It is—the fact that I’ve been educated means that I’ve got a certain
obligation to society, and I’m—I hope students feel that, and I hope the motto of the
college—you notice I still say the college—it’s hard for me to get used to saying
university, but I hope that the students continue to feel that sense of service as being part
of our obligation to humanity.
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MF: Okay.
[End of Interview]