Oral history interview with Elizabeth Yates King, 1991 [text/print transcript]

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UNCG CENTENNIAL ORAL HISTORY PROJECT COLLECTION
INTERVIEWEE: Elizabeth Yates King
INTERVIEWER: Missy Foy
DATE: April 9, 1991
[Begin Side A]
MF: If you could start by giving a little bit of general sort of background information like where
you grew up and when you were at Woman's College [of the University of North Carolina].
EK: Well, I'm a native of Greensboro and went to Greensboro High School and finished in 1932,
and then I went directly to Woman's College. That year it was North Carolina College for
Women. And it was in 1933, I think in the spring or summer of '33 that the name was
changed to Woman's College, and it became a part of the Consolidated University [of the
University of North Carolina]. But my freshman year, which was '32-'33, it was North
Carolina College [for Women]. Dr. [Julius] Foust was the president, and Miss Drinkwater
was dean of women. I think that's what she was called. Geneva Drinkwater. And then in
1933, Dr. [Walter Clinton] Jackson came from [University of North Carolina at] Chapel Hill
to be dean of administration, which was what the head of each branch of the University was
called then. There were three branches: Chapel Hill [University of North Carolina at Chapel
Hill, North Carolina], State [North Carolina State University, Raleigh, North Carolina], and
Greensboro [Woman’s College of the University of North Carolina, Greensboro, North
Carolina]. And it remained that until it became University of North Carolina at Greensboro.
MF: Yes, and that was in '62 or '60. Somewhere. I don't remember. [Editor’s note: 1963]
EK: In the '60s.
MF: In the early '60s.
EK: And during those years, these were the [Great] Depression [worldwide economic depression
preceding World War II] years?
MF: Yes.
EK: And the banks closed, students—many of the dormitories were closed. On the
quadrangle, I believe all of them were. [Editor’s note: three residence halls closed]
I'm not sure about that, but—
MF: I think Jamison [Residence Hall] was the only one that stayed open.
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EK: I'm not sure.
MF: I don't remember, but—
EK: That would be in the records. But enrollment dropped way down because nobody could
afford to go anywhere. And being in—living in Greensboro, it was a foregone conclusion
that I'd go in Greensboro.
MF: Oh, yes.
EK: And I think tuition was a hundred and twenty five dollars.
MF: And that included room and board?
EK: No, that's just tuition.
MF: That's right. That's right.
EK: I lived at home and walked back and forth because I lived nearby.
MF: Yes. I think with room and board, it was a little over three hundred [dollars].
EK: It was amazing. And that year—maybe it was '33, I guess, they admitted men as town
students. We had [clears throat]—oh, I think, maybe twenty-five. [Editor’s note: eighty men
registered in the fall of 1932] I'm not sure of the number. That'd be on the records too. They
were day students, and we thought that was very exciting.
MF: Oh, I bet. Did you have any in any of your classes?
EK: Yes. Some of them had been—I think very few of them were freshmen actually. I think they
were—by that time I was a sophomore. A lot of them had been away for one year and then
couldn't go again for their second or third year, so they came out. And they participated in
some of the extracurricular things like plays. They took the men's roles in the Playlikers.
Prior to that, of course, women would dress up in men's clothes and take the male roles. And
it was fun having them on campus for dances. We used to see them at what was called the
"Junior Shoppe" in the day students’ lounge. The Junior Shoppe was mostly candy and soft
drinks—
MF: Oh, okay.
EK: —in the basement of what is now Forney [Editor’s note: the Junior Shoppe was in the
basement of the Administration Building, now called Foust Building], I guess. The old
Administration Building. It was a little one-room shop, and the junior class ran it as a
fundraising thing. Nickel candy bars, nickel coca-colas. But it was kind of fun to have the
men there. I think most of them there resented it. They begrudged the fact they had to go.
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MF: Oh, yes. They wanted to—
EK: They enjoyed their role as men on campus, but they were a little bit—
MF: How long did they—was it just the one year they had? I think it was a couple of years.
EK: Maybe two, but I'm not real sure about that. I think it was two. And things began to pick up.
[Franklin D.] Roosevelt [32nd president of the United States] inaugurated a lot of programs,
like the NYA, National Youth Administration.
MF: Yes.
EK: And there was a plethora of jobs, like in the bookstore, waiting in the dining halls, all kinds
of jobs that students could get to get help.
MF: Yes. Let's see. I was trying to think if there were any other New Deal [series of United States
economic programs enacted between 1933 and 1936] programs that came on to campus.
EK: Well, the WPA [Works Progress Administration] was in force then. Students didn't
participate in that, but there was work going on on campus that was funded by the WPA, like
campus cleanups. And the Alumnae House was built in those days with WPA money.
MF: Oh, all right.
EK: And construction—Uh, oh.
MF: Is it a bee?
EK: Yes.
MF: Well, he flew away.
EK: Let me see if I can get him on the door. I can let him out. [pauses to let bee out] I don't know
how they get in, but they're awful.
MF: I know. I keep getting wasps in my house.
EK: Yes. I think that's what that is.
MF: I think he just flew into the front of the house there somewhere.
EK: Could have or couldn't. Now if you see him head toward that door, I'll open it and usher him
out.
MF: I didn't realize that the Alumni House was built with WPA funds.
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EK: Yes. [pause] In those days we had card dances. Do you know what a card dance is?
MF: I've heard a lot of people say—talk about card dances, but I'm not sure what they are.
EK: Well, each girl who went to—now these were Saturday nights, of course, in the gym, and
boys were invited from all over. They weren't just students, the men students necessarily. But
you would have, say, twenty dances, twenty-four dances, something like that, and you had a
little card like a bridge tally, and numbers one to twenty four. And a guy would ask you for
date fourteen. I mean, dance fourteen. And you would fill your card, and then you moved
from one partner to another at the end of each dance. Usually the date you had invited to the
dance—sit real still [bee is back in the room]—would have the first and last dance
automatically.
MF: This bee is just really interested in us.
EK: He's a good size. Have you got hairspray?
MF: No.
EK: No. He's trying to get out. See, he thinks the window will let him out. All right, buddy, let's
go.
MF: I'll try to get him to get him to go that way.
EK: That might make him angry. If he lights on the window, I'll wop him with the paper.
MF: Where'd he go?
EK: Where?
MF: Oh, he's over there. [laughs] This bee is just like, controlling everything here. He's huge. Let
me pause this thing.
[recording paused]
EK: —was over by midnight. I'm sure they were. Maybe sooner. I can't remember that. Things
were very strict. We couldn't wear—had to wear hose. No bare legs.
MF: I think—didn't you have to wear gloves if you went downtown?
EK: I think so. See, I wasn't covered by any of those restrictions because I was living at home.
You couldn't ride in a car without permission. I think even your father had to have
permission. You had to have a permission slip. But somebody who lived on campus could
tell you more about those regulations that I wasn’t subjected to.
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MF: Right. Being a town student, did you feel sort of separated from the atmosphere?
EK: Yes, a little bit. But I got involved. I worked for The Carolinian [campus newspaper] and did
things on campus. So—some people were more isolated than I was, I think, because I got
sort of involved.
MF: Yes.
EK: It was up to you, you know. It was—and I had friends on campus. I'd sleep over there a lot.
MF: Did you get involved in student government at all?
EK: Yes. I think it was sophomore year I was secretary of the sophomore class. And I was on the
Student Council. I was more in The Carolinian. I was business manager my junior year and
editor my senior year.
MF: Oh, okay. Going to a women's college and working as editor of the newspaper and being
involved in student government and stuff, do you think that that's something you would have
been able to do if you had not gone to a women's school? Or something that you would have
done had you gone to a coeducational institution?
EK: Maybe, but it was certainly easier for women to take—to be active. And I think it was true at
first. Now I don't know what the situation is now, whether women have the same
opportunities, really, that the men do for president of the student government and that kind of
thing. But there was no alternative. Most of these men who were day students did not present
a threat to us in that way because they felt temporary.
MF: Yes. Do you feel like some of the girls who went to school at WC [Woman’s College] really
benefited from that environment, that all-female—?
EK: Yes. I think it gave an opportunity to develop leadership and to participate, where some girls
would not have made the effort. They wouldn't have been aggressive enough, maybe, to try
because they would have felt defeated to start with.
MF: Yes.
EK: These were the days when men assumed a leadership role whether they deserved it or not.
MF: Right. [both laugh]
EK: Before the days of the movement. "The" movement. I think we lost something when we
became part of the university. And we also gained a great deal. I think we were headed
toward being a first-rate all-women's college, academically. But I think, realistically, we
would not have been funded sufficiently to maintain it or even maybe to acquire it. So it—
the school benefited by becoming part of the university, I'm sure. As in everything—you
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gain something, you lose something.
MF: Yes.
EK: There are many people—were many people—they may not still think this—who opposed it
bitterly. They didn't want us to become a university, and they didn't want us to become coed.
They felt a liberal arts college had a real place, and our institution had a real opportunity.
That's history.
MF: Yes. There are still a lot of alumnae now who feel like the school should have never gone
coeducational.
EK: There are?
MF: Yes.
EK: I don't hear that. I did for a long time, but I don't hear that as much now.
MF: No. I guess you probably used to hear it a lot more, but I've heard quite a few who say they
felt like something was lost when it was—
EK: Well, I do too. But I think something was gained also.
MF: Yes.
EK: It's getting too cool, isn't it?
MF: No, I'm fine. It doesn't matter.
EK: [walking; closes door] Yes, I think it cuts both ways.
MF: How so?
EK: That you lose something, you gain something.
MF: Right. I guess what I'm asking is what do you think was lost and what do you think was
gained?
EK: Well, I think the identity of the Woman's College. Hopefully, they have not lost emphasis on
liberal arts. But that's a prejudice with me. I think a basic undergraduate education in the
liberal arts is the most important thing.
MF: Yes.
EK: I think the feeling of—that we had of belonging to a relatively small group disappeared.
That's inevitable. That happens on a university campus everywhere. The ratio—or the
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feeling between faculty and students changed.
MF: Right.
EK: All of us in my day had faculty advisors, and they weren't just on call when we
needed them. We had regular conferences with them. We were invited to their
homes, some of us, for meals. And you felt close to your faculty advisor.
MF: Yes.
EK: That, too, is always up to a student. They can take advantage of that or not.
MF: Right.
EK: And that may exist today. I don't know.
MF: I think it depends both on the student and the faculty.
EK: And the faculty. And I think the quality of teaching then was excellent, and I'm not going to
say better than it is now. I don't know. But teachers were not pressured to publish. They did
not have as large classes as they do now. We had some classes that were pretty big, and they
were strictly lecture classes. [clears throat] But I think the smaller classes and the ratio of
teachers to students was important. And we've lost some of that in undergraduate school.
MF: Right. Yes. I think that any time a school grows, that—
EK: It's inevitable. Yes. And you find instructors who are student—graduate students—we didn't
have any of that, of course. All of our teachers were mostly master's degrees, some PhDs. I
had a number of PhDs as a freshman.
MF: Yes. What were some of your classes like?
EK: Well, I was an English major, and, of course, the first two years the curriculum was pretty
well set. You took required courses in science, foreign language. I took French and had
planned sort of to take Latin. And then—in fact, I had thought about majoring in Latin
because I liked it in high school. But it was not offered, I don't believe, as a major. May have
been, but, anyway, there was just one teacher. But anyway, I majored in English. My classes
were [short pause] fairly large because English was a popular major. I don't remember how
large. We had survey courses in history. We had World History the first year, American
History the second year. And they were rapid fire. To cover the whole world's history in one
year was impossible. It was a survey course. But we had to work hard. We had to be
prepared. There was no such thing as goofing off that I remember, at least not for me. I had
to work.
MF: Yes. I guess some people get it naturally, but I'm one of those that have to work.
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EK: Well, some people didn't care, and I was conscientious, I guess.
MF: Yes.
EK: I had had an excellent high school English teacher, and I was prepared, I think, for college
English. And some of the girls who came from small rural schools weren't. And it was
evident.
MF: Yes. Was there a big gap as far as academic preparedness between, say, some of the North
Carolina girls who came from rural towns and who'd gone through eleven grades and some
of the northern girls who had gone through twelve grades?
EK: Yes. The Northern girls, basically, were better prepared, I think. I wouldn't say that, but I
believe so. And those of us who came from the cities in North Carolina, like Charlotte,
Winston-Salem, Durham—
MF: Greensboro.
EK: Greensboro. We had only one high school when I went to high school in Greensboro. And
we had excellent math departments, English departments, history, Latin. We had a good
school, I think. I don't remember many girls coming from private schools. The private school
group probably went elsewhere. Hollins [College, Roanoke, Virginia]; Sweet Briar
[Lynchburg, Virginia], up north. Many of them were—certainly my freshman year—
planning to be teachers. In those days, if you agreed to teach two years in North Carolina,
you got free tuition.
MF: Oh, okay.
EK: Now I think that was—I don't know when that was abandoned, but it was true when I first
went.
MF: I think they're trying to revive that now.
EK: Are they? Are they low on teachers?
MF: Something called the Teaching Fellows Program. They are taking some of the best high
school students that express a desire to teach, and if they'll agree to teach for, I think it's four
years in the public school system after they graduate, that they pay for everything—tuition,
fees, books, everything.
EK: Good. Is that state money?
MF: Yes. But it's like a scholarship, so they only take the top students. But—
EK: Well, that's good.
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MF: And then if you don't teach, then you have to pay the money back like it was a loan. So,
either way, it's still a good deal.
EK: Indeed it is. That's good. I'm glad to know that.
MF: I don't know how many students are able to do that, though. I don't know how many they
take each year. But I think it's a good program.
EK: Our testing was different—all over the country, I guess this has changed. You have so many
true-false, objective testing. Objective tests, don't you? True-false?
MF: What? In school?
EK: Yes. Multiple choice.
MF: I don't know. I guess it depends on the instructor.
EK: Do you have many essay-type questions?
MF: Well, in the history department, that's about all I have. But I don't know. I guess that depends
what department you're in. I guess if they're large lecture courses, they like to use something
where they can fill out the little thing and send it through the computer to grade it. Yes.
EK: I think the essay-type question is very important, and I think in the public schools, for
example, they do very little of that. It's mostly objective.
MF: Yes. I think that's because of—
EK: Size, I suppose.
MF: —the time it takes to grade them. I don't know. I taught for a little while in high school, and I
always had an essay on my tests.
EK: Did you?
MF: Yes.
EK: I think that's terribly important.
MF: Yes. It's a hassle to grade, but—
EK: Well.
MF: Yes.
EK: We, in high school, were required to write a theme every week. We were given the subject
on Monday, and we had to turn it in on Friday. And it was corrected and back in our hands
on Monday. And we had to correct the corrections. You know, write it with the corrections.
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Every week. And that was a bore and a struggle, but it was good training.
MF: Yes. You can write something under a deadline now, can't you?
EK: [laughs] Well, yes. And like everywhere else, we had some teachers that were better than
others. That's always true and always will be. And some teachers that I thought were
excellent didn't appeal to other people. And that's always going to be true.
MF: My eyes are starting to run.
EK: Are they? Do you need some Kleenex?
MF: Excuse me. Yes. Let me pause this a second.
[recording paused]
MF: I guess we're still talking a little bit about faculty. Do you remember any of the faculty that
really stood out for you?
EK: Yes. Jane Summerell [Class of 1910, 1923; 1978 honorary degree]. She was in English.
Bernice Draper, history. Her last name was Gullander. Magnhilde Gullander, I think, was
history.
MF: Yes
EK: Meta Miller, French. Lyda Gordon Shivers in sociology. I didn't have her, but she was an
outstanding teacher. Leonard Hurley, English. Did I say Jackson in history?
MF: No.
EK: W.C. Jackson [history faculty, dean of administration, chancellor]. He taught a course called
Representative Americans, and it was a biography course. Harriet Elliott. Excellent teacher.
Political science. A.C. Hall, English.
MF: What about Miss Elliott? I've heard a lot about her.
EK: Well, she became dean of women. And she was a real dynamic person. She believed in
pushing women into leadership roles. She was ahead of her time, really. Very active
politically, too, in the Democratic Party. Did I mention Louise Alexander [Greensboro’s first
female attorney, government and political science faculty]?
MF: No, you didn't.
EK: She was—I knew her, but I did not have her. She came after my day, but she was an
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excellent teacher in political science, history.
MF: A lot of the women really looked up to Miss Elliott, didn't they?
EK: Oh, yes. And she respected her students, too. She expected and respected. She expected good
work. You didn't go to her class if you hadn't read the morning newspaper, particularly the
editorial page. She made you very aware of what was going on, insisted that you keep up
with it. Also, the rules on campus changed drastically when Dr. Jackson and Miss Elliott
took over.
MF: Oh, really?
EK: Because they weren't as strict as Dr. Foust had been. Dr. Foust was old, and his generation
was different. Miss Elliott's philosophy was, "Give people freedom, and they'll take
responsibility. But they must take the responsibility with the freedom." And she relaxed
some of the social requirements, but expected the girls to behave in a certain way.
MF: She was real visible on campus, wasn't she?
EK: Yes.
MF: That seems to be one of the really unique things that I hear about women's colleges—that
there was such a lot of interaction between the students and faculty that it wasn't just an
academic experience.
EK: No. Exactly right. Size had something to do with it.
MF: Oh, yes.
EK: The times would affect it too. This has an impact, I think, up and down the system for
education. Way back when I was in public schools, most teachers were single.
MF: Yes.
EK: Most of them were women and single, and they had more time. Now so many are married
with families, and they have outside requirements that make a difference.
MF: Oh, sure.
EK: So I think that has—it reflects in the type of testing. They don't have time to grade all these
papers.
MF: [laughs] I know how that is.
EK: Read them word for word and correct them for grammar and spelling and punctuation and so
forth. And that's a very realistic problem. But I think the teachers, because of their lifestyle,
they had a greater opportunity to interact with students after hours. They weren't pressured
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by life at home.
MF: Yes.
EK: And when I was in grade school, public school, we always entertained the teachers in our
homes, you know, had them for dinner and that sort of thing. I don't think that exists much
anymore.
MF: Yes. I have a few—excuse me—great aunts who taught in the public school system in New
Jersey, and they were both single and they taught.
EK: And it was an economic advantage, of course, for these teachers to be invited out to dinner.
[laughs]
MF: Oh, sure.
EK: Plus the fact they got to observe the family life which is—it's a different world. You can't do
that anymore.
MF: One thing that I'd like to ask you about that's a little more—well, not just a little more, but a
lot more current—is this whole rift between Chancellor [William E.] Moran and the Alumni
Association that seems to have come and gone now.
EK: It's resolved, I think.
MF: Yes, I'm not quite sure how it's resolved. I think most people sort of think—
EK: Give and take.
MF: A lot of people never really understood what was going on to begin with, and now they don't
understand what happened.
EK: Well, there was give and take on both sides, and I think it's going to be okay. There's better
understanding now than there was. Hopefully it will all be advantageous.
MF: What has happened, though, as far as the standing of the Alumni Association and the role of,
say, the Alumni House on campus? Is that going to be held by the Alumni Association?
EK: Yes.
MF: Okay, because I think that was one of the—
EK: Management is in the hands of the [Alumni] Association.
MF: I think that was one of the big things.
EK: One of the big differences will be the way the Alumni Association is funded. It has been
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funded through the university—development area, and, of course, the legislature. We will
now pay dues to support the program of the Alumni Association. That will take place
gradually, over a period of three years, as I understand it.
MF: Oh, okay.
EK: So there'll be that responsibility which the Alumni Association has not had for a
number of years. But I think that's working out all right.
MF: And this was done through the Center for Creative Leadership [founded by Smith
Richardson Foundation in Greensboro, North Carolina; focuses on leadership education]?
EK: Yes.
MF: And I guess everybody sounds kind of—pretty happy with the—
EK: I think it's mutually agreeable.
MF: Well, that's good. I know that Moran hasn't really come out shining from this whole scenario
though. I think a lot of people still have some hard feelings towards him.
EK: Well, I guess that's inevitable when there's a controversy.
MF: Yes, that's true. And that is sort of inevitable. You can't be the good guy all the time.
EK: But, I think it's going to be all right.
MF: Yes. And being an alumna, how do you feel about the move towards Division I athletics?
EK: I didn't think we needed it.
MF: Yes. I didn't think we needed anything but intramural, but—
MF: They didn't have intercollegiate athletics at WC?
EK: No.
MF: It sort of went against—
EK: Intramural.
MF: Yes. It went against the grain of the whole philosophy of school, I think. The competition.
EK: But there are a lot of things about progress that I don't like, so I have to accept it. [both
laugh] This may turn out to be good; it may not.
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MF: Well, I hear good things and bad things. I hear some people say that they think it will bring
money into the university, and then I hear other people say, "Oh, but it's going to bring a lot
of problems." So—
EK: Well, it will. It'll work both ways. Look at what's going on now with the NCAA [National
Collegiate Athletic Association].
MF: Yes. I don't know. I guess that's one of those things. We'll just have to wait and see.
EK: Wait and see, and be careful and try to guard against the pitfalls that are very obvious.
MF: Yes. I think the Division I athletics was really sort of something Moran really pushed for.
That's the feeling I get. I don't get the feeling from people that I've talked to that it was
something that alumnae or alumni or anything really pushed for at all.
EK: I don't know that, but I suspect you're right.
MF: I don't know that either. It's just a feeling I have.
EK: I don't know that it was Dr. Moran any more than maybe other people in the administration
as well. I don't know.
MF: Yes. I just got the feeling that it was an administrative sort of—
EK: There were people in—citizens of Greensboro who felt that it would be an advantage. Give
the college more name recognition. I mean, the university. I still say college. More name
recognition, more appeal to people—young men students, particularly because—let's face
it—they have the spotlight in sports.
MF: Right. When it was WC, and they really—well, gosh, they really discouraged any kind of
intercollegiate competitions.
EK: I don't remember that it existed.
MF: Well, yes, it didn't. I think that it was—that any kind of competitions—athletic competitions
that went o— they wanted it to be as fair as possible. And so, therefore, it was only
intramural, and that anybody could participate.
EK: Well, we didn't have Greek fraternities or sororities then either. We had four societies, and
you automatically were dealt out into one of the four. And they were primarily social. Some
of them had service activities. But we had an annual dance. They supplied the marshals for
auditorium—functions in the auditorium and that sort of thing. But some people participated
more than others. Just like everything else.
MF: Yes.
EK: And we had May Day in those days—
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MF: Oh, yes.
EK: —which was fun. I guess. [laughs]
MF: And Daisy Chain also.
EK: Yes, that's right. Got the worst case of poison ivy I've ever had in my life making the Daisy
Chain.
MF: Oh, really?
EK: I was a sophomore.
MF: Oh, no.
EK: We had to go out and pick the daisies.
MF: Yes, poison ivy's no fun. At that time, did you have—I think it was called Rat Day?
EK: No.
MF: Okay.
EK: I don't remember it.
MF: That seemed like a really short-lived thing, where the freshmen would have to go around and
do whatever their junior class—
EK: Big-sister type—I don't know. They may have had it more on campus, in the dorms. I don't
remember that.
MF: I get the feeling that was something that just pretty much lasted in the '40s, and that was it. It
was sort of short-lived.
EK: We did have the library burn my freshman year.
MF: Oh, really?
EK: Have you had that?
MF: No. I don't know anything about that.
EK: And they moved the books to student hall—Students’ Building, which was across College
Avenue from the library. And that was inconvenient and messy.
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MF: No. I didn't know that had happened.
EK: The Students’ Building was—let me see—just this side of Walker Avenue. You know where
the bridge is? [Editor’s note: College Avenue had a concrete bridge over Walker Avenue
until Walker Avenue was closed in the late 1940s] Just up toward the Alumni House from
the bridge. And they—we had Carolinian offices in the basement, and upstairs was the
library for one year until they got the library restored. We had society meetings in the upper
floor. Each society had a room there. Cornelian, Adelphian—I've forgotten what the other
two were. Alethian? You've got that on the record, too.
MF: Yes. Dikean.
EK: Dikean. Yes, Dickean, Corinthian [Editor’s note: Cornelian Society not Corinthian]—
MF: Corinthian and Adelphian.
EK: Yes, and one more. And they all wore white dresses, and banners, regalia, across the front,
and ushered at all the concerts. In those days we had excellent concert lecture series before
TV [television]. And we had live orchestras. The Philadelphia Symphony, for example, came
regularly. Eugene Ormandy was the conductor in those early days. He was early on. We had
excellent lecturers: H.V. Kaltenborn [American radio commentator]. These names will not
mean anything to you except in history, of course. But he was the Walter Cronkite
[American broadcast journalist, anchorman of CBS Evening News] of the radio. And
Richard Halliburton [American traveler, adventurer and author], Kirsten Flagstad
[Norwegian opera singer] came to sing. Randolph Churchill [son of British Prime Minister
Winston Churchill, Member of Parliament] came to lecture. Clare Boothe Luce [American
congresswoman from Connecticut, ambassador to Italy]. We just had all the top-flight
people. Well, on the lecture circuit because, of course, they were not on TV.
MF: Oh, right.
EK: So—and we had live theater. We had the Martha Graham [influential modern dancer,
choreographer] dancers, the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo [ballet company]. We just had
excellent programs. And we got tickets. They were in our student activity tickets, and we
weren't required to go, but we were very smart if we took advantage of it. Some teachers
would require attendance, depending on what the program was, of course. And we had
chapel twice a week.
MF: Oh, twice a week at that time?
EK: Tuesday and Friday.
MF: Okay.
EK: Compulsory.
MF: It changed to just Tuesday at some point.
17
EK: Well, we had it twice a week, and I think maybe before I left, it was just once a week, but I'm
not sure when that took place. I stayed over there and worked after I was graduated, so I get
confused in what happened and who I knew at what point.
MF: Right.
EK: But anyway, we had to sit alphabetically by classes. And having the maiden name Yates, I
was always on the back row of the balcony.
MF: What kinds of things took place in chapel?
EK: Oh, always a devotional of some kind and then announcements and mostly campus things.
We'd have speakers occasionally, but they were, I think, thirty minutes, and then we broke
for lunch. Everybody flew.
MF: Is there anything that I've missed? I don't want to miss anything. I know you'll probably
think of a bunch of things tonight.
EK: Probably. But this happened later, when I was working over there, but Miss Elliott took a
leave of absence and went to Washington [District of Columbia]. She was on the War
Production Board [consumer commissioner on the Advisory Commission to the Council
of National Defense, chairman of the Woman's Division of the War Finance Committee,
deputy director of the Office of Price Administration, and United States delegate to the
United Nations Conference on Education, Science and Cultural Organization (UNESCO)
in London]. I think that's what it was.
MF: Oh, yes.
EK: Of course, things changed a lot on the campus when the war came along. And that
was after my day.
MF: I know there is something I've probably forgotten, but—
EK: We had Class Day, which I don't think anybody has anymore, on front campus. It was the
week of commencement or part of commencement weekend, and graduation was—well,
graduation was in the auditorium. But May Day was on front campus, and so was Class Day,
if it was possible. I think it was my sophomore year that it rained on and was cold on May
Day, so we had May Court in the auditorium, which was pretty grim.
MF: Yes.
EK: But the year I was a senior in the May Court it was a beautiful day. And Class Day, I can't
remember exactly what we did, except each school was represented by somebody. And I
represented it for [unclear] or whatever they call it. [unclear] I guess. And gave a little
speech, which your advisor checked carefully. And I guess awards were given. I've kind of
18
forgotten what happened on Class Day.
MF: Yes.
EK: Phi Beta Kappa [American collegiate honor society] came into existence when I was there.
MF: Oh, okay.
EK: But we did not have a chapter until either '35 or '36. I've forgotten. And that was—[Missy
shows her Phi Beta Kappa key]. Good for you. Well, I was robbed a year ago—
MF: And they took your key?
EK: And took everything. And one of the things—I had a charm bracelet—
MF: The Phi Beta Kappa dinner's tonight, as a matter of fact.
EK: I know. I'm not going. Who goes from town? Do you know any of the people who go?
MF: No. I go—
EK: Well, I go—who's the speaker?
MF: I can't remember. I'm not going to make it tonight. I usually go, though, mainly to hear the
speaker.
EK: Right.
MF: And plus, because the people who are being inducted, it's nice for there to be a big crowd.
EK: Sure.
MF: My advisor does the little speech about the meaning of the key every year, so—. It's [Dr.
William] Bill Link [history professor], and so—
EK: Well, my husband is also from Chapel Hill, Phi Beta Kappa, and we kept our keys hoping
that one of our children would earn it, but none of them did.
MF: Oh, yes. Well, there are only five schools in North Carolina that have a chapter.
EK: Well, the boys went to Chapel Hill. My daughter went to Randolph-Macon [College,
Ashland, Virginia]. She had a good time at Randolph-Macon. [both laugh] Too close to
W&L [Washington and Lee University, Lexington, Virginia] and Hampden-Sydney
[College, Hampden-Sydney, Virginia] and VMI [Virginia Military Institute, Lexington,
Virginia].
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MF: I really appreciate your time.
EK: Well, I hope I've given you something to go on that's not repetitive.
MF: No. There's a lot that I had missed from other people.
[End of Interview]