Oral history interview with Evon Dean, 1990 [text/print transcript]

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UNCG CENTENNIAL ORAL HISTORY PROJECT COLLECTION
INTERVIEWEE: Evon Dean
INTERVIEWER: Anne R. Phillips
DATE: March 28, 1990
[Begin Side A]
AP: I'm here with Evon Dean at the Alumni House. Where were you born, and where did you
grow up?
ED: I was born in Greensboro, [North Carolina]. Our family moved out to Colfax, a place
near Greensboro. I was reared in the community there. I attended Colfax Elementary
School, Colfax High School. We had twenty-five seniors in our graduating class, but
most of them did go to college, even in 1941. And most of them have done extremely
well and have good solid lives and are very productive people and very happy people. So
I had an awful lot of opportunities in a small community.
AP: And you felt security there and had a good time?
ED: Oh, yes. And we knew our teachers also. Public school teachers then visited the homes,
and my favorite teachers were always those who came to Woman's College [of the
University of North Carolina]. Even in school, I could tell the difference between the
teachers—and they didn't come from Wake Forest [University]. [laughs] The Woman's
College teachers were so outstanding—I could just name you the teachers. They did
extracurricular activities. We had plays in the local school community. And the plays in
the auditoriums would be packed and jammed; it was a dressed-up occasion on Saturday
evening.
[tape interference]
AP: That's perfect. It's very open-ended, and I may ask you, but I'm going to let you—I'm
considering this a chat. Let me see; well, it's good thing I test.
[interruption]
AP: You had teachers here from Woman's College, and your plays were good, the operettas
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were good, and that you could tell a difference. The Woman's College graduates were
really good. So after grammar school and high school, then what did you do?
ED: I had an offer to go to Guilford College on a four-year scholarship. Dr. Clyde Milner was
president at that time. And our school principal saw to it that each student who wanted to
go school found a way to go to school. And Dr. Milner had offered me a scholarship to
go to Guilford College, which I did not accept. I chose instead to come to Woman's
College; I took a commercial course. And—the commercial course at that time was one
year of very strong educational preparation for working in the business world. Many
alumni got great job opportunities through that program.
I did that because World War II—it was the time of WWII—and my husband-to-be
had graduated from a military academy; and he was going to the military. And we
wanted to get married before he went into service because we knew if he got to service,
we would be separated endlessly because my parents were not the kind of people who
would have allowed me back in 1942 or ’43 to have travelled to Miami, where he took
basic training, for instance, to visit him. So we just decided to get married, and that had
to do with my decision to come here rather than to go to Guilford College for the
academic four-year program. And then when I came here, Mr. Charlie Phillips was
director of public relations. And he was also so wonderful in placing students, and before
I finished my commercial course, he told me about this job in the Alumni Association in
the Alumni House with Miss Clara Booth Byrd—that wonderful, strong alumni secretary.
So I came over and worked with Miss Byrd, beginning on August 2, 1942. As a
requirement for the job, Miss Byrd gave me a postal book telling me that she wanted me
to learn all the counties in North Carolina. And by the time we got through, I had learned
all the cities and all the counties in North Carolina. That was a requirement literally for
the job because we work so closely with the alumni scattered throughout the state. And
this is what gave me the insight to knowing the alumni in the different areas of the state.
AP: That's quite a job. Where were most of the graduates from—the Piedmont or from
the East or from the West—in those years, say, in the thirties or forties?
ED: They were really from all over. And beginning in the forties especially, a lot of our
students came from out of state—Ohio, New Jersey, New York. We had wonderful
alumni who came from those states and all states. We were really more national then, I
would think, than we are now. I don't know current dates and percentages, but the
influence of the out-of-state students in the earlier years—in the forties—I know since
1941 or ’42, since I've been here, that the out-of-state students brought an awful lot into
this campus because they were—many, many bright girls came. They were academically
strong; they brought the influence of another region to our school. I think that's one thing
that made the Woman's College so very strong. We did have students from all over North
Carolina, and some of the earlier students in 1900s, like women who were representatives
of that era, a lot of those folks, of course, came from North Carolina. It would be
interesting to know how many came from out of state for those earlier years. I don't know
when the great numbers started coming from out of state. I know it also happened in the
thirties, too, because I know a lot of alumni who graduated or attended here in the thirties
were from out of state. It was very strong in the forties.
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And Dean Harriet Elliott [political science professor, dean of women], of course,
was probably one great reason for that because she was a national figure in World War II.
As you know, she had an assignment from President Roosevelt, and she was in
Washington [DC] serving the country much of the time during World War II, and she had
a great stature. Of course, she was just a nationally-recognized person. Elliott Hall is
named for her. And she had an influence on this campus that was very strong.
AP: What year did she come here? Do you know about what time?
ED: She came in the late thirties [Elliott came to the school in 1913], I would think, maybe
mid-thirties. But she was here during the early time that I was here—when she was dean
of women.
AP: And she was serving as dean of women when she got called to national service. Could
you tell me more about that? Or what the country thought of her? What was she like?
ED: She was a woman who was very strong in political science, very strong in the needs of
women. I would say that she was one of the early people who recognized the needs and
the value of women. She imbued in the students here the fact that women were not
inferior to any other class of people. And the girls who came and were here during that
kind of representation or that kind of influence, they're still that way today. I have known
so many of them through the years; they've maintained that wonderful, positive attitude
about themselves. And they have been political leaders; they have been social leaders in
the community—educational, cultural leaders. The value that she gave was tremendous.
Louise Alexander [Class of 1914, Greensboro’s first female lawyer, Woman’s
College faculty], Miss Alex, you know her, of course. She was another one of those
greats who also—everybody adored Miss Alex, and she was so very bright, and she was
so involved with the students. I think that one of the greatest things as I thought back
through the years that made this school so strong was the faculty. I really feel the faculty
was the influence. We had good or average presidents, I would say—they were called
presidents then. And I'm trying to think of the outstanding people I have known—almost
every single one of them goes back to faculty rather than administrators. I could just go
on for days about the different individual faculties, but I'll pause to see what you think.
AP: Well, I like what you're saying, and I would like to hear more about faculty. You've just
been—as you talk about individual faculty members. Tell me about some of the ones you
think about.
ED: Miss Louise Alexander, of course, would be right there with Dean Elliott. Dr. Helen
Barton in the math department, she was a very strong figure in the math department, and
women learned math then, too. We had a good math department. Miss Coleman in the
physical education department—that was one of our strongest programs in the early
forties. Miss Coleman, Mary Channing Coleman, was head of the School of Physical
Education. Our girls in that department left here, went to Wellesley, went to Vassar, went
to Smith [all colleges]. They didn't go not only to do graduate work; they went to teach
when they left here. And that physical education department was absolutely one of the
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strongest in the nation at that time.
And about that time, about 1944, Woman's College was second only to Hunter
College [New York City] in the residential college for women—as a residential college.
Now there were others, I think, who had more students maybe, but this was a residential
college, basically residential at that time.
AP: Second in the number or percentage of students who stayed here.
ED: The second in the number of students enrolled to Hunter College. And ours, of course,
was a total residential—almost totally, not complete, of course. We had day students at
that time, too, but basically it was a residential college.
AP: So that made a different makeup of the college—well, it's very different from today, for
instance.
ED: Yes, it made such a difference because people did not go home. We didn't go home
except at Thanksgiving and Christmas. And during the war, we didn't go home at
Thanksgiving; people stayed on campus. And that is, everybody was in house, and that's
when the real education took place because this campus had outstanding speakers; every
weekend there were concerts, plays, opportunities for seminars; the great cultural events
took place. And faculty was involved with these things; the students were not just left
over here on campus. The faculty was right there with them, involved in all the things
that made an education full circle.
AP: Did some of the faculty live on campus and some live off campus?
ED: Many of the faculty were not married. They were women who were not married. And I
often wonder if teachers were really being—if they should have just been wed to teaching
profession because it made such a difference. And the day when I tried to sort out how
the teachers are today—and I have sympathy with them today because they have their
families, their lives, their homes to look after, and they have so much to do. And in those
days, the faculty—generally they were unwed faculty—and the professors who were men
—they had wives and families, and they were part of the campus community also—but
the women for the greater part were not married. And they lived nearby; the apartments
on Forest Avenue over here, on Highland [Avenue], all the little houses around here, Tate
Street, McIver Street, they had their lovely houses or apartments, and they didn't close
the doors to students at that time either. They had students in for coffee, for tea. They
made candies for Christmas for the students, and they really were a part of the lives of the
students at that time.
AP: And the students had to feel that—
ED: Oh yes. Oh yes.
AP: Now were there housemothers or residential counselors? Were there women who stayed
in the dorms? What were they called?
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ED: Housemothers. And they were also people who contributed greatly to the lives of the
students. They, as I think about those women who were housemothers, they were all very
cultured ladies. They were very gracious people. Some of them were widows, and they
brought their families up right on campus. I think of Annie Beam Funderburk [Class of
1914], who brought her daughter, Nancy Beam Funderburk Wells [Class of 1949]; she is
one of our graduates also. She lived right here. And another one was Annie Fulton Carter,
Class of 1921, from Walnut Cove. She and her daughter, Anne [Carter] Freeze, who
graduated here [1944] and now lives in High Point; they were a part of the campus life,
you know, really living in house. And these women had great influence on the students.
And when the girls come back to commencement now from the forties and the fifties,
they want to see their housemothers, their counselors. I think the name was later changed
to counselors—
AP: Yes, that's right. I think so.
ED: And those counselors have maintained their friendships through the years with these
young girls who have had families, and they keep up with their children and that sort of
thing. So it gives a lot of ties back to the university, back to their alma mater, to have had
those kind of relationships.
AP: That was a different time—I mean, and a time when students felt a security, I believe—
don't you?
ED: Oh, yes. Oh, yes.
AP: So what about campus life itself? The dorm life was important, and university life. What
about rules on campus, dress code?
ED: The rules were appropriate for that day. Of course, today they would seem rigid and
intolerable, but they were very appropriate for that day. If a girl was caught smoking in
the thirties, I know they would be sent home. I know at least one of our most outstanding
alumni was a young lady who was sent home because she was caught smoking. She came
back and graduated.
AP: Came back after one semester?
ED: Yes. And so the rules were very important.
AP: Did she give up the smoking? [laugh]
ED: I don't know about that. She was from the eastern part of North Carolina so that probably
would be questionable. [laughs] But the girls used to walk downtown on Saturdays, and
that was just a beautiful thing to see—all these college girls strolling down McIver Street,
Tate Street, everywhere, heading down Market Street to go downtown—just in droves
and droves. And, of course, it was the boys' delight to cruise Market Street and all these
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other nearby campus streets, but the girls had dressed for that also.
AP: What did they wear when they walked downtown?
ED: A lot of them wore class jackets; they did wear flats, and I remember that. But they were
dressed very neatly, of course. And they had to sign out to go downtown, and then a lot
of them—[University of North Carolina at] Chapel Hill. And they had regulations that
were enforced about their going away if they were going overnight and out of town.
But the dining hall—going back to campus life with the small things—the dining
hall meals were served family style, and housemothers and faculty folks sat with the
students, and so they were exposed. Those students who had not been brought up or
reared in places that they learned table graces and the finer manners of life—they had
total exposure, and they had role models. They really had mentors—that word, I don't
remember having ever heard it when I was here—but now I reflect and realize that we all
had mentors, unknowingly to us at the time. We just adored the people so much that we
wanted to be like them; we wanted to emulate them. So campus life was really fun.
Organizations were strong. The societies, of course, were in place.
AP: Debating societies or literary societies?
ED: Literary societies and also debating societies.
AP: How many did you have of each of those?
ED: I'm not sure.
AP: But two or three or more?
ED: Oh, more.
AP: Debating and literary societies. Was the literary society an older group?
ED: Very old. It was very old.
AP: And then debating took over after that?
ED: I don't know when debating really was started here. It was strong. And debate teams
came here from all over the country to debate. And liberal arts, of course, was so strong;
that was the main subject matter on campus. And we had these seminars in the spring—I
cannot recall what they were called—but in April of every year, the strongest liberal arts
schools around the Southeast came here—I remember Randolph-Macon [College in
Virginia], for instance, or the University of the South [Tennessee]. And the schools that
were really liberal arts schools came here, and they had poetry readings, and they had
writing sessions, and they were held in the Alumni House. They came from everywhere,
all up and down the East Coast, and it was one of the most exciting times to bring the
bright students across the country here for their liberal arts work—art and that kind of
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thing.
AP: You said there was a festival, there was an arts forum—what did they call that in the
springtime?
ED: It's nothing like what we have—we don't have it now. I'm sure we don't; I don't know of
anything like this. It was disbanded several years ago, but it was very outstanding—Peter
Taylor [English and creative writing faculty, won Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 1987], I
recall, was one person who was so wonderful with that program.
AP: It was called a spring something—not an arts forum. Arts council? But it was a
combination of music and poetry, you know, writing and drama and dance, all of that.
ED: Yes, it was what we might call today an arts festival. But it was more academic at that
time because they had sessions in writing and sessions in poetry reading and had the
great writers and the great artists talk with the students and work with the students hands
on and that sort of thing. It was not open to the public, I don't think. I think it was mostly
attended by faculty and students, and students from other colleges also were here.
AP: It was quite a drawing card. Was that before Woman's College had put in a master's in
English? Certainly before that PhD in English or the master of fine arts.
ED: When was the master's put in, do you know?
AP: I don't know.
ED: I would think we would have had a master's in the late forties. I'm not sure about that.
AP: But in any case, I'm guessing, that sort of activity certainly made the writing program
here very strong and known throughout the country.
ED: Oh yes. All of our liberal arts courses were. Our drama department was so strong under
Dr. Taylor, W. R[aymond]. Taylor. The drama department was just outstanding also, and
our School of Music has always been strong.
AP: You were telling me about faculty. What about Dr. Taylor? What was he like? Why was
he such a strong leader?
ED: Well, he was in the drama, of course, and he had such wonderful plays and developed the
students so much. Everybody who went under his program adored him—just idolized
him really. That was the case with so many of the faculty. Almost any department you
can think of that was the case. The students really related to the professors. And, let's see,
in another area, Miss Cornelia Strong [professor of mathematics and astronomy] was
another delightful little woman. She was a wisp of a person with hair pulled up back, all
twirled up on top of her head in a nice little bun. The most feminine and dainty little
thing you've ever seen. She lived over on Adams Street. I can see her house right today as
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she walked back and forth; she was in the math department. She had wire-rim glasses,
and she was a very fine person and a wonderful math teacher. She was just one of the
best math professors in the country.
And then, over in our infirmary—the infirmary stood where Elliott Hall now
stands, back of the Alumni House—Dr. Anna M. Gove was a very famous woman
physician. And she went to China; she travelled worldwide. And she did such things—as
when she returned, she would bring young people on campus, such as myself, a token
from her trip. I have mementos from every country that some of these faculty people
travelled to because this is the kind of relationship we had with them. They knew that we
were people—that we were young people—they wanted to help us and influence us.
They would bring back some little vase or something—a candlestick or things like that—
they would bring back to us. And Anna M. Gove was also a small person in stature; she
was very small and very neatly dressed, always so professional. And I marveled at how
professional these women were and yet how humane they were. They had a wonderful
combination that we miss today because I think somehow we get the idea that in order to
be professional, you are not humane and not concerned about the average persons around
you. But these people were intensely concerned about everybody, and their influence
went out. And then after Dr. Anna M. Gove, for whom the infirmary's named today, you
know, Dr. [Ruth] Collings was our campus physician. And she was another very
outstanding person. She was strong—
AP: Where did she come from? Do you know?
ED: I'm not sure where Dr. Collings came from. But she was a fine physician and a good
influence, and she cared for the students. And everybody went to the infirmary, and the
nurses wore their nice garbs back then, and everything seemed so sterile and so right. Of
course, the times are so different; I try not to compare. The times when they seemed so
right, with times today, because our culture has changed so much that I don't want to ever
get the notion that things are bad now and so right then because I'm not sure that's the
case. I think every age does have its own individual mode of life and everything. And I'm
just glad that I came along at a time when I could know these wonderful people who did
bring to young people in this state this kind of influence.
Going back to the housemothers, I did indicate that they were very influential.
Miss Ione Grogan, one of our graduates—Class of 1926, her first class was 1913, but she
chose to be known by the 1926 degree, which is understandable. And she was very
"proper." She was a very handsome lady. She dressed elegantly, and I always wondered
how these women dressed so beautiful because they truly were elegant. And Miss Grogan
insisted on students attending teas with hats, white gloves, and heels and the whole thing.
They just did not leave here without knowing that you could have teas and that you were
to dress properly for these social functions. And Miss Grogan had a great influence, as
did all the counselors, going back to the counselors; she had a great influence on the
students. Now some of the men students, I'd have to think about some of those—
[tape interference]
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AP: —but also men who were leaders. Let me ask you a little bit more about the woman
administrators. Were they strong? Tell me a little about Mereb Mossman [faculty in the
department of sociology and anthropology, dean of instruction, dean of the college, dean
of faculty, vice chancellor for academic affairs].
ED: Let me talk about some of these men professors ’cause [sic] I don't want to leave them
out—Dr. [Malcolm K.] Hooke [professor of romance languages] was one of the
professors. Dr. Key Barkley was a psychology professor—he was an interesting person.
Dr. [Winfield S.] Barney [professor of romance languages]—most of these people had
their families in town, and their children were always on campus, and the children
attended Curry School [laboratory/demonstration school on campus], so we saw them—
the male professors—from a little different perspective. Because we saw them with their
wives, who were very much involved with the wives' organizations on campus, and then
we saw their children, who mostly came to school here and grew up playing on campus
and that sort of thing. So we did get to know their families also. The women
administrators were very strong indeed.
Dean Katherine Taylor [Class of 1928; dean of women, dean of students, dean of
student services, director of Elliott Hall] of course, was one of those women. She was
dean of women here following Harriet Elliott. And Dean Taylor was a very, very bright
person. She studied in France after she graduated here. She was from Salisbury [NC].
And she had a Weil Fellowship [graduate fellowship honoring Henry Weil, Greensboro
businessman and philanthropist], and she studied in France and she was a French
professor here. She was very, very bright. She served in the [US] Navy during WWII,
and she came and replaced when Dean Elliott died. Dean Taylor took her place as dean of
women. Dean Katherine Taylor had offers to go to other large, large colleges and
universities. She declined those offers to go as president of a college, by the way, in order
to stay at Woman's College. I recall one or two offers she had to go to some very strong
women's colleges in the East, and I have regretted that she didn't take one of those jobs as
president at some of those colleges because I think she was ready for it at that time, and
that it was a case of not moving on in the profession as women do today, of course. They
don't stay as much as they did.
The Forneys were also an interesting family in the history of the college. Mr.
Edward J. Forney [head of commercial department] was the treasurer of the college, and
he was tall, very bony, very, very lean, very gray hair and very small in stature. He was
also a teacher in business courses in the early years. He was very, very strict. One person
told me when she was in his classes that he would ask them a question in the morning
about some article in the newspaper and, if you didn't know about that article he asked
you about, he sent you from class back to your room, and you read the paper before you
come back to his class. So people became well-informed young women, you see; this
goes back to those women who were so well rounded. Also one woman in Mr. E. J.
Forney's class, according to Miss Byrd, who certainly knew, came to class with a
diamond on her hand. He asked her what that was about. She explained to him the intent
of the diamond really meant marriage. He told her to take the diamond off; she could not
wear the diamond. Can you imagine? When you ask about strict regulations and rules:
Mr. Forney had his own rules, and obviously they were enforced.
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AP: Did he not want her to get married, or just not want her to wear the ring?
ED: That was something she shouldn't be concerned about until she'd finished her education,
obviously.
AP: Did she take it off? [laugh]
ED: I'm sure she did, if she stayed with Mr. Forney's class. So his daughter, Mr. Forney's
daughter—Miss Edna Forney [Class of 1908]—followed her dad and worked in the
accounting office. She, too, was a very handsome lady. And it's interesting, I keep saying
that, but it's the way they really were. They were all so handsome and just looked so
wonderful. And Miss Edna Forney ran the accounting office, whatever it became known
as at that time. She worked until the fifties, I believe. She was cashier at the office. And
she had the same rigid standards that her dad had. And, of course, she was never married.
Mr. Forney and she lived on Spring Garden Street. Then later they built a lovely house
over on East Lake Drive, and their house is still there—a nice, updated house that they
lived in, and Mr. Forney died, and later Miss Edna died. But they were some of the
administrators.
And then, of course, Dr. [Walter Clinton] Jackson was president when I came
here. Dr. [Julius I.] Foust preceded him. Dr. Foust was still living; he visited on campus
in this very room in which we sit. Do you see this picture? That's Mr. E. J. Forney—no,
no, that's Dr. Julius Foust. Julius I. Foust. We were talking about Mr. Forney just a while
ago. I was in this room one day, right over in the chair, Dr. Foust walked in. And I was
very young and very new, and he walked in this room and pointed up to the portrait and
said, "Young lady, do you know who this is?" And I looked up awe stricken. I said, "No
sir." He said, "You're new, aren't you?" And I said, "Yes." He said, "You are very new."
[laughs] No small egos around at that time; there really were not.
AP: [laughs] I was going to say—he really wanted you to know who that was hanging on the
wall.
ED: Yes, and so, not only did I know Dr. Julius I. [Isaac] Foust, but his brother was also
superintendent of public instruction, superintendent of schools in Guilford County, I
should say. And he visited the school, so I had gotten the flavor of the Foust men by
seeing him in our classrooms. His brother in our classrooms, that's an interesting
correlation you see.
AP: Dr. Foust and Dr. Jackson, and then came—
ED: Dr. Jackson of course.
AP: He was here until 1950. And then that's when he took the title of chancellor? About
1945?
ED: Yes.
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AP: And then Dr. Graham, Dr. Edward [Kidder] Graham [Jr.] came here. What was he like?
ED: Well, his family lived in the chancellor's residence, back of the Alumni House. And that
was an interesting connection between the chancellor's residence and the Alumni House
because through the years when the chancellors came to have interviews, they stayed in
the Alumni House. So we in the Alumni House got a chance to see these folks and meet
their wives and their families. We made real good friends with the chancellors. Once they
got here, we were next-door neighbors, you know. We talked over the garden fence, in
other words. And their children came in and out, and the wives were in and out so it gave
us in the Alumni House a unique opportunity to really be close to the first families on
campus. And we had good ties.
Dr. Edward Graham and his wife and children, of course, were right here. They
were very close to us. He was a different kind of person, of course, from Dr. W. C.
Jackson. Dr. Graham was a bright young man. He had been brought up in Chapel Hill,
and he offered a change factor on campus, and changes are usually painful—and
especially at that time when we had such longevity for presidents and chancellors. And
Dr. Graham did create change; that's always necessary. But he had a following, and then
he had those who did not agree with him on many of the changes that he made. And
history tells us that he moved on, of course.
And then Dr. Gordon Blackwell came along with his family, and they were a very
well-received family on campus. Dr. Blackwell got along very well. He was a very fine
administrator, and he left a good influence. Then we had some interim chancellors.
Dr. Otis Singletary came, and he was a tall, tall handsome fellow, very strong-willed
man, and he too served in Washington [DC]. He served with President Lyndon
Johnson [35th President of the United States]. So he was away for a while. But he was a
nationally-recognized leader, and Dr. Singletary did a lot of innovative things here, and
things were beginning to change.
AP: What were some of those things that you might think of as Dr. Singletary's work or
changes, types of changes?
ED: Well, to be specific, I think he created things more outside. He was here when the
Excellence Foundation [university advisory board] was started—that was an outside
thing. See, he went out and got the business community and started the Excellence
Foundation, which today is significant in the life of the school. He sought the Katherine
Smith Reynolds Scholarship [funded by Z. Smith Reynolds Foundation, Winston-Salem,
NC]. He was so nationally-recognized that he could do this kind of thing, and the
business community would respond. He was strong academically also. And I believe he
named Mereb Mossman as vice chancellor for academic affairs. He was the person who
chose her for that position. And I think he gave women rather fair opportunities.
AP: Was there a time when she would have been considered as chancellor? Do you think she
should have ever been chancellor or could have ever been?
ED: I don't know that. She was a sociology professor and very well respected. Students really
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admired Mereb Mossman as a professor, and she was a good professor. And I don't
[know] whether she would have—there might have been talk I think at that time about
her having been a chancellor, but Otis Singletary did tap her for vice chancellor for
academic affairs.
AP: And that was one of the highest positions ever held by a woman?
ED: Yes, that was the highest. Academic, I don't know—the dean of women, of course, was
always an outstanding one. And it was so outstanding partly because the stature of the
people who held the jobs, you see, because the deans of women were very, very strong
women, and they were very intellectual women. Katherine Taylor was one of the
brightest women who ever came to school here. So they were smart women in every way.
AP: I've understood Katherine Taylor was very striking looking also.
ED: Very handsome. Just so striking, she really was.
AP: Someone told me about a time she may have come back from the war in uniform. Did
you ever know about that? Well, where did she appear on campus?
ED: Oh yes, indeed. Well, I'm sure she came on campus just to get back home, but I can see
her in her naval uniform. She was one of the best-looking things you ever saw. She truly
was—beautiful brown hair and brown eyes.
If we can move on—I don't know, I'd like to tell you about some of the presidents
of the Alumni Association.
AP: I would like you to very much.
ED: If we could do that because the first president of the Alumni Association that I recall was
little Lula Martin McIver Dickinson [Class of 1921]. She was the daughter of President
Charles Duncan McIver. And she was married to John Dickinson, attorney with the
railways, Southern Railway, in Trapp, Maryland. I even remember her street address:
Trapp, Maryland, because when she came down to Greensboro, they would bring a train.
She would have a private car, and we understood that it was luxurious beyond thought to
us who travelled by Pullman [railroad car] at best. And Lula Martin McIver Dickinson
would come to town for commencement or for alumni board meetings. And she was
probably the most handsome woman you ever saw because she dressed gorgeously at that
time, and she was very, very wealthy. The signs of wealth exuded. And she gave
commencement address, I remember. She was just so stately and so bright, also; she truly
was. Her sister, Annie McIver Young, lived in Greensboro. She was the Class of 1905, I
believe. And she lived in Greensboro, too, and she was an interesting person to know.
Other alumni presidents: Miss [Eleanor] Ellen Grogan [Class of 1927] was an
alumni president of the Alumni Association. Mrs. Claude Morris, Emma Lewis Speight
Morris, Class of 1900, was one of our alumni presidents. May Loveless Tomlinson, 1907,
whose husband owned Tomlinson Furniture Company in High Point. She and Miss Clara
Booth Byrd were very close friends. And she worked as chairman of the alumni house
committee to build this house. This furniture that you see today is basically from
13
Tomlinson Furniture Company. This was custom made for the Alumni House. This is
how the furnishings look so great and have endured so long because Mrs. Tomlinson's
husband's company made this furniture.
AP: They seem to fit this room.
ED: Oh yes, everything was made so perfectly, just perfect. Perfection was one of the things I
can recall that people saw in those earlier times—perfection, of course, and
craftsmanship and pride in what you did. Working with Clara Booth Byrd—I worked
with her for five years from ’42 to ’47—and working with her was more than a college
degree, Anne, I really believe it was. She was just so bright. She was ahead of her day.
She was one of the women who was beyond her time. She was not popular. She did not
want anyone to smoke in the Alumni House; she protected the Alumni House as if it were
her private quarters. And she was very jealous of the Alumni House; this was her life,
you see. And Miss Byrd wanted this school to become coeducational. I guess I've never
spoken those words, but she used to talk to me about how this college needs men on
campus.
Mr. W[illiam] W[oodrow]. Martin was this [psychology] professor on campus.
He wore a long black coat in the day time: I can see him marching down College
Avenue with a brown felt-brimmed hat on, black cane in his hand, and he and Miss Byrd
used to talk about how this school needed to become coeducational. And a popular
feeling at that time was that we did not—wasn't to be coeducational. Of course, we were
doing too well as a women's college. And I knew at the time that I was hearing something
that was not a popular subject. But I remember how they were the first two people I ever
heard talk about the value of becoming coeducational.
AP: What was behind their thought? I mean, you knew her and worked with her so closely.
What was her thinking, her reasoning?
ED: Miss Byrd really enjoyed men, the company of men. She adored Dr. Foust; she adored
E. J. Forney. And I think she just admired men a very, very great deal. And she respected
them a lot. She was not as attractive to other women as she was to the male professors,
and that was in a good sense. When I say "good sense," she just admired them a great
deal. And she liked them and enjoyed their company more than she did women
professors or the women generally. She's one of those interesting women who enjoyed
the company of males, you know.
AP: And she was one of the first ones that you heard of to express that idea that maybe we
should be coed. Woman's College should be co-ed.
ED: And that would have been considered underground at that time to make that remark,
believe me. I never passed it on, of course, because I never would have thought of saying
that. But now that Miss Byrd is gone and Mr. Martin are [sic] gone, I think maybe it's the
time to say that. Because it meant a lot to me through the years to see their feeling that
we needed to be a coeducational institution. And then when it did become coeducational,
there was a lot of pain. Many women today are not happy that male students are here.
14
And I decided that if we needed to be an institution that accepted young male students, if
the demographics had changed to the point that young men in this area and in the state
needed another option, needed an opportunity, then I was truly able to accept it more
readily than many other alumni. Because I felt that if young fellows needed to come to
school here, they needed that opportunity. And I still that as being a school serves;
“Service” was our motto.
[End Side A—Begin Side B]
ED: It served well too as a women's college. Our early teachers came from here. Without the
Woman's College, without this institution, our state would still be intellectually deprived
in education, educationally deprived. We think we're deprived now with being the lowest
on the SAT [Scholastic Aptitude Test] scores, and this kind of thing. But without our
women who came to school here and went back into the communities—they were the
leaders; they were the ones who taught the children in all grades in one room. They were
the ones who were the cultural leaders, political leaders too.
I keep coming back to political leaders because political leadership was a part of
this college. It truly was, even before Dean Elliott. And Miss Louise Alexander, Miss
Alex, she was one of the first ones that I knew personally as a political leader. But the
importance of women being in politics was evident to me from the time I came here, and,
as you think about the alumni I speak of and think of, those people were political leaders.
Also Mrs. Gladys Avery Tillett [Class of 1915, honorary degree 1962], Mrs. W. Tillett
from Charlotte, was ambassador to the United Nations. She was one of our graduates,
you see; just countless people like that.
But women who came to school here in the beginning were the leaders in the
state. They were not only the teachers, they were the educational leaders, the civic
leaders, the political leaders—they were the leaders. And this institution has meant more
to this state from those early days than any other branch of the Consolidated University
[of North Carolina] or any branch of the university. There is no doubt about it.
And then when we did reach the point that we became coeducational, we did it all
slowly. Of course, overnight the law that enacted it took place, but gradually we had to
build up to becoming a university. And a lot of planning had to take place during that
time. Dr. James Ferguson was chancellor then, and he did a lot. A lot of work was done
by the faculty. The faculty just spent endless hours in committee work, in task force
planning, and all sorts of things to prepare for becoming a university. And the university
I think today is becoming more regional. I would like to see a breakdown on the
percentage of students who are from regions and from other parts of the state and out-of-state
students. It may not be as regional as it appears to be, but it is a commuting
university now, so that does indicate that it is regional—when you have a commuter
school. But that's not what made this institution great, however, because the diversity of
the Woman's College was the thing that made it very great. So as you study the climate
today with the commuter school, you have to realize that the state institution is to serve
the citizens of North Carolina. And if all these students who live in Ramseur, Randolph,
High Point, wherever they're living around here—if this is where they can come to
15
college as day students and they have an affordable education, does that mean then that
this institution is here to meet their needs and to serve and to give these young people an
opportunity, or are we at a balance with the rest? It's an interesting thing to think about,
and it may not be out of balance as much as it seems to be, but it is commuters.
AP: And that's changed? When did that begin to change so drastically from residential life to
commuting?
ED: I believe in the sixties, ’62 maybe. Of course, when it became a university it began to
change. But in the early sixties, I would say. Through most of the fifties, I would think it
was basically a residential college. However, the numbers increased gradually. But
within recent years and all, the numbers have really increased. I think maybe thirty-five
hundred students live on campus now. Here again, I don't have enough data.
AP: Is that all?
ED: Maybe four thousand.
AP: Because we have ten, eleven thousand, and that may include the graduate students.
ED: Of course, a lot of students are here from different places, and they live in apartments off
campus, so that almost does not reflect as a commuters' campus because they are from
other parts of the area. They're not just local people, and they're not living so that they
drive back and forth. They are from out of town, out of state, all over and they have
apartments off campus. And I don't know whether those people are considered
commuters; I guess they are if they don't stay on campus.
AP: And it does make an interesting, maybe perplexing, idea. If someone said to me, students
are not there to talk in the dorms at night, to talk about lectures, to talk about life, to talk
about ideas—they simply don't mix as residential students used to. There's not the
opportunity for them to be together.
ED: No, you don't get the enrichment that you get in house here. And also when you were
town students, the town students—even though they lived in town—they still were a part
of the campus for social and cultural opportunities. And now with so many students
working and commuting, they don't have time, I'm sure, to take part in things that would
mean so much to them.
AP: Even lectures, I mean, let alone informal ideas, but just lectures—social—I want to go
back to your idea about women graduates here going out and being political leaders. And
because I'm a North Carolina native I can say this with affection, love, that sometimes I
feel, especially rural areas of our state, have tended to be conservative—that's a
generalization; it may not be true. But if women were political leaders, how were they
received back in their home communities? One, because they were graduates and so
maybe they were thought of as different because they were college graduates, but then
they also came back to get involved in politics. So I'm saying, from your own experience,
16
how were women received? How could they get away with being strong political
leaders? How did they do it?
ED: To begin with, they had their own identity, and they were respected because most of them
had done other jobs—teachers or whatever. I can't think of any jobs other than teaching
that would have been much that women did. Librarians, of course, and the things related
to schools and that sort of job. Accountants—we did have a lot of women who were in
the business field; a lot of them were accountants and bookkeepers. I think of one woman
who was secretary to Dr. Charles Duncan McIver—Miss Emily Austin, Emily Semple
Austin, from Tarboro (NC). She was treasurer of the telephone company and the power
and light company—Carolina Power and Light Company, treasurer of Carolina Power
and Light Company. Think of what that job is.
So these women, they had stature; they had respect. They had earned that kind of
respect, and they were already leaders, you see. So people I don't think resented them, but
I think they could get away with getting on the soap box and being political because they
had their identity and they were safe and comfortable. They were leaders; they had
served their communities already in so many ways. And, as they matured and were able
to grasp bigger things, then other people were basically pretty acceptable. And men—I
don't know that many men resented these women because they were so strong. Women
graduates of the forties and thirties were so strong. They were powerful people. And the
twenties even; I would include the twenties.
As an example of what I'm saying, Anne, our son, our only son, came to school
here. Our daughters did not come; they wanted to go to a different school, and they did.
Our son came here; he got a degree in the School of Business. He knew lots of alumni; he
knew lots of people on campus. Our three children had started their schooling experience
by coming either to kindergarten here or coming to Piney Lake [recreation area] every
summer. They would come in with me in the morning and get on the bus at 8:30 [a.m.]
and go to Piney Lake and spend the day and come back and ride home in the afternoon.
They did this from the time they were seven years old ’till they aged out. Then when they
aged out at fourteen, they became camp aides, and they were camp aides until they were
sixteen or seventeen. And so our son has a real good feeling for recognizing Woman's
College alumnae or university alumni. And he knew so many of them. He worked in
Elliott Hall when he was a student here, and he got to know people over there—faculty
and alumni, of course. And he says to me today often—he works with AT&T [American
Telephone & Telegraph] in Charlotte—and he says he meets alumni; anywhere he is, he
meets alumni. "Mom, I can tell they're Woman's College alumni." He says this more than
you can imagine a young fellow having an opportunity to run into women. Any place he
is—in any town in his travels and work, and he can tell when they were Woman's
College. He said, "They were so strong, they were so strong." And even that young child
knew this, and he sees it today. He adores—he was in Monroe, I believe, and he met
women down there at a restaurant, and they were from Woman's College—they had
graduated. He talked and found out they were from Woman's College. And two of them
were the wealthiest women in the city, he learned. He found out all about these women
because they were from Woman's College, and they were strong.
And the influence of those faculty people, and, of course, the administration, too.
I'm not saying we didn't have strong administrators—obviously we had to, but the
17
influence on the lives of the students was great by the faculty. I repeat that because it was
so true. And of course Dr. Jackson was a very strong influence on students too. He truly
was. And then those long-time presidents obviously had the greater influence, but the
others—we changed frequently for a period of time. That made a difference, obviously.
Going back to how the women were able to get into the political role. They had
their role models, not only from Dean Harriet Elliott, Miss Alex, they had role models
from all those other professors too. And, generally speaking, I suppose in retrospect that
the male professors here recognized how bright these women were, and they worked with
them. I'm sure there was professional rivalry going on at that time, and I used to think I
saw it in some of the professors—male versus female and female too, of course.
AP: Female versus female?
ED: Yeah. There were leaders through the years in the forties. I remember there were several
faculty people who held an awful lot of particular committee assignments. They were the
leaders, though, and they did a great job. Miss Jane Summerell [Class of 1910, honorary
degree 1978, English professor] was one of those women.
AP: I've heard of her.
ED: Miss Jane Summerell was just outstanding, just a fabulous leader, a wonderful woman.
And all these women who became political leaders—and they're still political leaders—I
don't know about the eighties years. I don't know how much any of our recent college
graduates are into politics.
AP: Maybe they should be more.
ED: They absolutely should be.
AP: Maybe our country would different and our state would different.
ED: I wish today that our college campuses would awaken to the needs that are before us on
the national level.
AP: I'll tell my class that in the morning. [laughs]
ED: Okay, please do. Maybe you're the person I need to talk with. I have a message to give to
a college class or to student government leaders—I would be glad to go out and support
these people as candidates. I would prefer to have a young person in your class who's
graduating to run for office, to support that person, and let that person serve. I think our
college campuses need to say, "We want government that's honest." They need to be
marching; they need to be doing what has to be done because we've got to have honest
government, and we've got to have people who serve us and represent us in politics who
are honest people. And our young people can just change this whole thing, if they would
just go and just realize the opportunities they have, the responsibility they have too. They
have a responsibility to be candidates. They have a responsibility to be honest and to go
18
to North Carolina in the House, in the Senate. And they need to go to Washington [DC].
The college students of this country need to say, "We're not going to spend all of our
lives paying for this bankruptcy of the S&Ls [savings and loan associations]." They're
going to be—how much money are they going to give to support these kinds of—. "We're
not going to support the crooks." And I know that there has been deviations from
honesty on both parties, and I'm not trying to insinuate that, and I think young people
know that, and we all do.
AP: Rather than have me tell, they should have you tell them. I wonder if the women were
just very strong, the leaders, the teachers, and the students before they ever got here—did
they have a sort of certain personality? Or did they, you know, have that personality
reinforced? Was there a climate here so that they could grow and flourish and be strong,
as your son said?
ED: Well, I think a lot of them—I remember stories about the women who came here who
were very timid, so maybe that's an indicator that they were just frightened little young
girls. And they would come and get off the train. Dr. McIver would go down and get
them in his horse and buggy and all that kind of thing, and they were frightened little
girls. But I guess if they were fortunate in 1892 or 1900, if they were fortunate enough to
be able to come to college, that they had some background probably that had given them
encouragement. Maybe they did have a sounder foundation for developing. I don't know
that, but that's an interesting thought.
AP: But there still was a climate here, in any case. Tell me the best of times and the worst of
times for you. What were the good things about your work? I haven't asked you about
your own work. After these five years, ’42 to’47, you worked in Miss Byrd's office?
ED: Then Betty Jester, Betty Brown Jester, Class of 1931, was alumnae secretary, and she
was a grand person—very, very outgoing person. She managed the college bookstore for
twenty years, and she came over and was alumnae secretary. She and Dean Katherine
Taylor travelled the country from Boston to Florida, all the way up the East Coast, all
over the country having alumni meetings. And they just did a lot of outreach for the
college. Dr. Edward Graham was chancellor at that time. And then, following Betty
Brown Jester, she left in 1953 or ’54—Betty left in 1953, and Barbara Parrish came in
1954, and they're the only three people I've worked with as the alumni.
Then Mr. George W. Hamer was the vice chancellor for development. I worked
with him when the development division was begun.
AP: About what year?
ED: About 1963. From ’63 ’til ’86, I worked in the development area. But being in the alumni
area gave me the opportunity to know the alumni so well, you see. One time we got an
alumni dues payment—a little check—and there was no signature, and names were not
embossed on checks or at least not on this particular one. They could have been
otherwise. And I recognized the handwriting, and I knew to whom to send the check to
get a signature on it. So—
19
AP: That's an amazing story. [laughs]
ED: Mrs. Adams from Gastonia. And knowing the alumni, I probably am one of the luckiest
persons who ever has been on this campus—to have known the alumni that I know. And
to have gotten to know the faculty because they loved me, and I knew that they really
loved me, and they cared for me. I got invited to their teas, their Saturday coffees. They
treated the people on campus—there were not many clerical people on campus, very few,
and we all knew each other. And the faculty—we were friends with the teachers and
professors just as much as we were with the other clerical people. And the clerical people
in that day, we were very—we felt that we were very professional people, and we were
accepted and respected. And not only that, but we were appreciated, and that was very
important in nurturing us, you see.
AP: The college was lucky to have you. But you were going to say—?
ED: I'm the luckiest person of all people, I guess, because I came here as a young girl—World
War II was in place—and I got married in 1943, and my husband had just graduated from
military school. He went to the Air Force the very next day after we were married one
afternoon. He went to the Air Force the next day, so I spent my time on campus here
during those war years, you see. And it was difficult to commute—to find ways to get
back and forth because of the gas and tire shortage, but I worked and this is where I spent
all those years. And I had no outside activities other than the campus, you see, because
my young husband was away in Europe. And this was my life, you see, writing him and
keeping in touch with him as best I could and then being here on campus. And all the
faculty, they were just as concerned about him and his safety as they were their own
families. They all knew about him; they knew where he was. When the war was finally
over and I received a telegram here that was delivered to the Administration Building,
which was over in Foust Building. The telegram came to the receptionist, and the
receptionist called Mr. Joyce—I think he was the only man, it was in August during
break time, obviously—and Mr. Joyce and all the people in the Administration Building
marched down College Avenue. And they had called me to come to the front door of the
Alumni House, and I see all these people coming down College Avenue. And Mr. Joyce
was in front, and he had this yellow telegram, and it's a telegram from Willard saying he's
coming home, you see. And so this was the kind of sharing you had, so that was with
staff and faculty, you see. And then not only with staff and faculty, but students in the
Alumni House—we had student government offices in the Horseshoe Room, we had The
Carolinian [student newspaper] office, the Coraddi [student literary magazine], the—
AP: Maybe the debating societies?
ED: They were there, too. But the annual—the Pine Needles, of course, the Pine Needles
office were downstairs—so all these offices were downstairs, and this was where student
activities—we didn't have Elliott Hall. The organizations were meeting downstairs in the
Pecky Cypress Room. And we were in house with all the student leaders. This is how I
knew all the presidents of the classes, all the editors of the Carolinian, all the students
20
who were in any way in leadership roles, so we got to know them. And that served us
well because through the years as we worked with alumni, you see, we knew those
people.
I knew those people. Elise Rouse Wilson, Class of 1943, she was editor of the
Pine Needles, she was one of the first people—the first person to be allowed to be
married and stay on campus. She later became a member of the university board of
trustees, the university board of governors and has been a university leader, you see. She
was allowed to stay on campus after she was married—usually when you were married,
of course, you were expelled; you were not permitted to live on campus and be with the
other students, but Elise was allowed to stay as a student in 1943. And when I referred to
the student leaders being downstairs, then knowing them as alumni enabled me to be a
connector between the college or the university and the alumni because I could call those
alumni and they know me, they knew me, and we were wonderful friends when they
were students, and it gave us a good tie from the development division to alumni leaders.
And this is how I was able to use my contacts with the former students to benefit the
college and university later on through the years.
AP: That was, I know, a very critical link.
ED: And continuity was so important. I come to commencement every year because there are
alumni here who come back. They want to see somebody they know, just anybody. And
it's not seeing me means anything special. They would be just as happy to have seen Zeke
[Robinson], our first janitor that I remember, see, on campus.
AP: Oh, tell me about him.
ED: Oh, he was a wonderful person. He was a small frail little man, very old from the
beginning. And he stayed in the Administration Building, over in Foust Building. He was
so gracious and loved everybody and took care of everybody. He met the needs of the
faculty, did all the chores and did the errands and that sort of thing.
AP: Was he the only janitor for the whole campus?
ED: Oh no, I'm sure there were others. One, I cannot think of his name who was in Curry
[Building], he wore a skull cap, and I didn't know him that well because he was in Curry,
but I knew him of course. And—
AP: Was Zeke a descendent of the slaves? Had his folks been slaves, do you think?
ED: Oh, I'm sure they would have been in the age group of people who would have been.
Don't know that they were. I'd like to know that, Anne. And I'm sure we could learn
about his history from the library, from the archives.
AP: Yes, maybe his folks had been from Greensboro or around here.
ED: I had the feeling they were. But he was a legend. And the reason I mentioned him is if
21
alumni could come back and see Zeke, that would have made their trip back to their alma
mater successful. So that's the way it is today: if they come back and can see anybody
they know when they return at commencement time—. So I come to every
commencement. I've only missed one since 1942.
AP: Which one was that?
ED: That was May 29th, 1959, when our son was born on commencement day.
AP: I'd say that's a good reason for missing it. [laughs] You even timed that; it's a very special
day—makes a special tie to the University.
ED: Yes, Barbara Parrish didn't think so when I told her we were going to have a baby. She
said a baby can't come at commencement, you know, because commencement is the
climax of all the year's activities.
AP: You fixed that. Just took it into your hands. Yeah. Thank you so much. We need to talk
more, and— I'm thinking of any bad times here or unpleasant times that you—
ED: Oh, of course there were unpleasant times. We had some times when administrations
were faltering and administrations fell apart. And they were sad times because all of us
were affected. In the early fifties, when Dr. Edward Graham—the first one that I think
of—when that happened, that was a sad time. It tore the campus apart in many ways.
There were people who supported Dr. Graham and those who did not, and so we had
divisiveness, and that was sad. But that's part of the evolution of any organization,
family, work, or educational institutions. And I guess up until that time we had just been
blessed with such security and such longevity among people. I guess Dr. McIver, Dr.
Foust, and Dr. Jackson were the only leaders of the campus—only presidents—up until
1952, maybe ’51. So when you follow leaders who have been so long, I can see how it
would have been difficult for any person to come in. And today, I know in public
education, that's known as a change factor. You expect it—and businesses have this, too,
I understand—you have a change factor that comes in and makes changes deemed
necessary, and then they move on. And a lot of people do this continuously. So that was a
sad time, though. It really was a sad time.
And then when we became a university—that was a time of such change that too
had reverberations that were not all pleasant. Even as we've gone into higher levels of
athletic endeavors, you know, that's not being well received by all the faculty. But that's a
change that has seemed to be needed or certainly is being done. And hopefully it will be
successful and will be worthwhile. I hate to see the college have an athletic team that
always loses. I don't think it speaks well for the institution. If you're going to have one,
I'd rather have somebody that has a chance at doing well than always have those losers
like we seemed to be for so many years. And if it takes change into a different level or a
different league, maybe it will enhance activities for the students, and if that's necessary,
then so be it.
Another point, Anne—I was thinking of change—I think being on campus gave
me the flexibility to change more than any place I could have ever been. Because during
22
the Vietnam War, our office was moved to the [tape interference] building, and the
students, of course, like took over the building there, and we had to keep our doors closed
because if I opened the door backwards and stepped out into the foyer. And the bodies
literally fell backwards that were leaning up against the door. And we had to walk over
the students to go to the—you would have to open the door and they would have to move
from the door against which they were sitting, literally step over the bodies that were
lying on the floor in order to go to the restroom. Coats, and I remember the girls who
wore long green overcoats and all had long hair, and they looked like the sixties. They
were wonderful students though, and I've always been so happy that I was there seeing
this. And some of those very students are our wonderful leaders today.
AP: What do you see? What was there?
ED: Well, they looked grubby, of course, and the dirtier they looked—somehow they liked
that. And I guess I could recognize the imperfection in our ways, the imperfection in our
political system, the imperfection that a lot of times adults think is all right, and what the
young people see is not all right. That—I believe that. And I believe I saw that young
people had a right to be heard. And, of course, when I was brought up, we were not to
speak, literally. That's what we were told, and that's the way we felt. And I was glad to
see the young people get a chance to be heard. And I admired them; I really did like
them. I liked them a lot.
AP: Even though it might have been a strange feeling to have to step over people. [laughs]
ED: I didn't mind that. I didn't criticize them. I never objected to long hair, and when the girls
began to wear pants—older women thought that was the worst thing in the world. And
now when I see all these older women wearing slacks—the older women going to the
shopping centers invariably in their slacks for comfort and common sense, I often say to
my husband, "Dean, just think, when these women were ridiculing those young girls
because they wore jeans and because they wore pants, and they were ridiculed, which
was unfair." And I don't like that. I didn't like it then. I felt that those young people had a
way to dress; if they wanted to dress differently, it did not bother me. Their long garbs
didn't bother; I really didn't mind it.
AP: So you've always had a liberal mind?
ED: It appears that way.
AP: I would guess that.
ED: I would believe so. And then, too, when the dress changed so much from dress codes—of
course, we had dress codes even in public high schools, and when the changes were made
in dress—in the forties and the fifties especially, when girls came to school, they had
wardrobes, they had dresses that cost tons of money. They had all sorts of beautiful
clothing, and when Easter would come, everything would be fresh and new. Parents
couldn't afford that. So I sensed at the time, by girls beginning to wear jeans and the
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kinds of clothes they wore, it equalized people. Their clothing helped to equalize people.
And I rather thought that was good. And some of the changes were radical, of course, but
on the other hand, sometimes it requires somebody to be out of the ordinary in order to be
heard.
AP: And making a radical step to bring about some change.
ED: Well, it's too bad that society can't hear without people having to be radical. You know, if
we had been more fair through the years, if we had provided funds for the black schools
in our county, for instance—and we did not, we really did not—if we had provided
funding on an equal basis, we wouldn't have had all the troubles that we have now. We
were unfair ourselves.
AP: So it came back to haunt us. Well, we've covered some bases, and I've enjoyed it so
much.
ED: I've rambled so much, I'm sure.
AP: No. It's been good. Thank you so much.
[End of Interview]