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UNCG CENTENNIAL ORAL HISTORY PROJECT COLLECTION
INTERVIEWEE: Laura Brown Quinn
INTERVIEWER: Missy Foy
DATE: May 6, 1991
MF: So, if you could start with some general information, like where you're from and when you went to Woman's College [of the University of North Carolina].
LQ: Okay. I started at Woman's College in 1938, after graduating from Greensboro Senior High, now Grimsley. We only had eleven years of school, so I felt at a disadvantage because the girls from the north had all finished twelve years, and I was only sixteen. But I loved school, and I struggled with my first year. I did all right, but only made one "A" and that was a big disappointment to me. But, after the first year, I got into it, and I did better each year. So I did end up Phi Beta Kappa [liberal arts and sciences honor society] my last year.
MF: Oh, great.
LQ: And that—I've got a little clipping I'll show you. You are, too. Great.
MF: Yes.
LQ: And majored in sociology. Let's see. I got married my junior year, after my junior year, and at that time, not many people got married before they were finished, but with the war coming on or just about to begin, my husband was going into the service. So we got married in June, and he went into the service as a cadet of the [United States] Air Force in February of the next year. So he wasn't around when I graduated. But I went with him as soon as I graduated. And we went to various places and finally came back to Greensboro after four years. And by that time, we had our first child. And then we settled in Greensboro and had five more children over a twenty-year period. And when my last child was in pre-school, I decided to go back and work on a graduate degree and would have taken social work, but they didn't have it then, so I took child development and family relations. That resulted in a job over at the Church of the Covenant. I was the director of the day care, filling in for somebody on a maternity leave. That—after she was ready to come back—we thought she was coming back, but she didn't come back, so I stayed on there a while longer. Then I got an opportunity to go with the Forsyth County [North Carolina] Department of Social Services—a day care director for their federally-supplemented day care, and I worked there four years. And then that was closed when the federal funding ceased, so I went with the social services. Since this was already in social service, I was given a position as a social worker I, working with adults, which was different. 2
MF: Yes.
LQ: But I thoroughly enjoyed it. It was what I've always wanted to do.
MF: It wasn't too long ago when they started [the] social worker program.
LQ: No, very recently.
MF: Yes. That's what I thought.
LQ: But I did take two courses in social work under Miss [Mereb] Mossman [sociology and anthropology faculty, dean of instruction, dean of the college, dean of faculty, vice chancellor for academic affairs], who had been undergraduate instructor in child welfare. And I was so fond of her. And Virginia Stephens [professor of social work], I think, is still there in social work as a profession. All this time, my husband was traveling, so I had to really work a tight schedule. But some of my children were already grown and married. My oldest daughter—in fact, her oldest son was born the same year that my youngest son was born, so they are contemporaries and have been real good friends. Her son, now, my grandson, is teaching English in Japan. And my son is married. And all the rest of them are married too now.
MF: Yes. Gotten them all out of the house.
LQ: I have one son living with me and his son, my grandson, who is in the ROTC [Reserve Officers Training Corps] right now; he's gone to Norfolk [Virginia] for a week in the ROTC. He'll be on the big ships and such.
MF: Oh, yes.
LQ: So that's the story of my life since high school, and what else would you like to know?
MF: What was student life like at Woman's College?
LQ: Well, I have to get my annual out to review that.
MF: Okay.
LQ: Okay. See, this was our fiftieth.
MF: Oh, yes.
LQ: Well, this is some stuff. This was me. I was doing archery at that time. This was our collegiate newspaper. This was my Phi Beta Kappa thing.
MF: Oh, yes.
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LQ: Those are the girls that made it at that time, six Greensboro girls; there were twenty-one in all. This is the program of our graduation. And what was life like? Well, it was a much smaller school then. [laughs]
MF: Oh, sure.
LQ: The library was over where the Forney Building is now.
MF: Yes.
LQ: I worked in the library three of the years I was there. I didn't work my last year, but I worked with—
MF: I was going to say, I recognize that. That's North Spencer [dormitory].
LQ: Yes. That's right.
MF: That's how North Spencer looked when I was there. Now they have some big thing on the front.
LQ: I think, if I recall, it was when the soldiers were just beginning to come. There were lots of them around, servicemen. And I had many, many friends from out of town [unclear]. And I have a picture of our group. It won't show up on your tape, but I'll show it to you. [chuckles]
MF: Oh, okay.
LQ: Last year, I wasn't in the picture. I didn't get there in time, but it was at the graduation, and they always take pictures of the classes. And a very small number there. I'll show it to you in a minute. Let's see what kind of things—so many of our classmates have died. I guess that's normal for our age, but it's always a shock.
MF: Oh, yes.
LQ: That's Eppie Turner [Mary Eppes Turner, Class of 1942, 1969 Master of Education].
MF: Yes. I interviewed her.
LQ: Did you?
MF: Her last name's Turner now.
LQ: She was president of our class. I think she was president of the student body also. Yes, Eppie. She's in Greensboro.
MF: I think she lives over on Battleground. 4
LQ: That's right. I was in the sociology club and the biology club and the archery club, those kind of things. I was in the botany club too. So many of our professors have died. Of course, after fifty years, you'd expect that. Miss Mossman, I was really fond of her. And Dr. Lyda Gordon Shivers [sociology professor], Miss Mary Jean [unclear], in criminology. I took all the courses she taught. And I took child development in the home ec[onomics] department. Let's see. [unclear] This brings back a lot of memories.
MF: Oh, sure.
LQ: I haven't looked at it in a while. That was from 1941. The Coraddi [student magazine] got All-American.
MF: I see the May Day pictures.
LQ: The only thing athletic I did was archery.
MF: Did they still at that time have—oh, what was the name of it? It was a course—body mechanics?
LQ: Yes.
MF: What was body mechanics?
LQ: [laughs] I took that. It was for people who have poor posture. They would give you some exercises to do and try to get you straightened out.
MF: How did they determine who was supposed to take it?
LQ: Oh, everybody was evaluated as freshmen; you take a test before you could do anything like that. It's in here somewhere. Modern dance. We did that in phys[ical] ed[ucation] too.
MF: Now all of the athletic clubs and so forth, they were all just within the school, weren't they? They weren't, like, intercollegiate?
LQ: I don't think they had any intercollegiate, but I couldn't swear to it because I don't, wasn't into athletics that much. This is our fiftieth. There's Eppie, Eppie Turner, Mary Eppes, she was then. Let's see. Yes, the Blitz [strategic bombing of England by Nazi Germany during World War II, 1939-45 global war]. Here are the soldiers.
MF: Oh, okay.
LQ: This is the beginning of the war and we had lots of soldiers at our dances and things; always a bunch over there dating.
MF: How did that seem to affect life on campus?
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LQ: Well, they were just like any other boys. You know, they just were there dating. I don't think it made much difference until it was by the time I went back as a graduate student, there were undergraduates.
MF: Right.
LQ: And there were lots of on campus [unclear]. So, let's see.
MF: What seemed, though, to be sort of like the attitude of the students on campus with the war coming on and—did there seem to be sort of a real worry or did most students seem kind of unaware of what was going on in Europe?
LQ: I think we were very aware of it, especially in the history courses. When I think about it now, the history we had, see, stopped right at '38 and think of what's happened since. I went back before I went—before my last child was born. I went back to think I'd get a teaching certificate and teach social studies. So I had to take American history. [interruption redacted] Until I went back and I took one half of it, since 1865, and I was pregnant, so I didn't go back. It was right before my last child was born, so then I didn't go back until he was in pre-school. And I didn't go back for the same purpose.
MF: Right.
LQ: I decided I didn't want to teach in high school anymore.
MF: Oh, yes.
LQ: So, that's—I forgot to tell you about that. The lecture and concert program was very outstanding, and I went to everything I could go to that they had.
MF: What were some of the—?
LQ: Well, you know, music concerts and lectures. I remember Margaret Mead [American cultural anthropologist] came a lot and Margaret Bourke-White [American photographer and documentary photographer] and Ève Curie [French and American journalist, writer and pianist] even came. Jose Iturbi [Basque conductor, harpsichordist and pianist] came more than once. [unclear] I'm trying to remember some of the things that happened. Fifty years is a long time ago. But I visited in the dorms a lot because I was a town student. And the town student room was interesting. It was in the basement of the Administration Building, right down here.
MF: Oh, okay.
LQ: No, it was in the back, right back behind it. And I recall, everybody there played bridge except me, I think. That's the main thing they did in the town students’ room, so I didn't stay there much. I spent most of my time in the library since I worked there for three years with Sue Vernon Williams [librarian] in the records department over at—for her the 6
whole time. And she's just recently died. She was in a nursing home here recently. I was very fond of her and always have worked in the library in every school I was in.
MF: Really?
LQ: And really enjoyed it. [unclear]
MF: Was that part of the, like, campus job system?
LQ: Yes. It was student help. I was paid twenty-five cents an hour. Can you believe that?
MF: Yes, I think there was somebody else who told me they had worked in the library and that they'd gotten paid twenty-five cents an hour. I can't remember who else had done that, but I remember somebody mentioning—
LQ: And Mr. Charlie Phillips was in charge of the student help, student aid or whatever it was. Anyway, that was it; that was my spending money.
MF: What were some of the faculty and the classes like?
LQ: Okay. Harriet Elliott [history and political science faculty, dean of women] was still there, and she was very prominent on campus. And, of course, Walter Clinton Jackson was the chancellor. Some of the other faculty members? Oh, Miss [Magnhilde Gullander [history and political science faculty] was my history teacher. Gullander. And—sociology was Mr. [Glenn] Johnson. Well, I guess they’ve got the faculty here.
MF: What were the classes like? About how big were most of the classes?
LQ: They were small. You didn't have any of the big classes like they have now.
MF: You still had Saturday classes, I guess, didn't you?
LQ: Oh, yes. You mean they don't have that now?
MF: Oh, no. [both laugh] Thank goodness.
LQ: They gave up on that. Oh, dear. Well, they usually have the pictures of the faculty up front, but there's the administrative officers. [unclear] I had her for health. Victoria Carlson. And she was real interesting. She was from Sweden and had a real heavy accent.
MF: Were the faculty pretty top-notch?
LQ: We thought so. And as far as I know, they certainly were. And Hugh Altvater in the music department was outstanding.
MF: Who? 7
LQ: Hugh Altvater. I had George Thompson for music appreciation. He played the organ—here he is—played the organ at our church. This girl married a Davidson professor. Nancy King [Class of 1942] married Charles Smith and they're still at Davidson, and they have six children also.
MF: Oh, wow. [pause] From looking at these pictures, it looks as though the departments weren't real large.
LQ: Oh, no. No.
MF: The chemistry department back there, was that all women in there?
LQ: Yes.
MF: There's not a single man in the chemistry department, is there?
LQ: No, I didn't see any. I mean, I didn't take it, so I didn't know. Florence Schaeffer was the one. Certainly they would have had their pictures if they had. Of course, in the phys ed department, no men in there.
MF: No men in the phys ed? Right, yes.
LQ: [Mary Channing] Coleman, that was who the gym was named for.
MF: Oh, yes.
LQ: You know, she was pretty well known. Dr. [Albert] Keister [economics faculty]. Dr. [Franklin] McNutt, from the education department. In fact there's a building named for him now.
MF: Yes, there is.
LQ: And had him—no, I had Miss Gullander. Dr. [J.A.] Highsmith; he's died recently. And Dr. Barkley was outstanding in psychology. He was the most fascinating professor we ever had over there, Key Barkley, because he was so humorous and up-to-date and natural and not real academic. But he knew his subject. And here's Johnson, Glenn Johnson, head of sociology. He was very boring and very low key. And what you got out of that class you had to get yourself.
MF: Oh, yes.
LQ: He didn't give you much help. But he was boring. That was in the sociology club. [pause] Anyway, I didn't know any of them. There were a little over three hundred in our class, you see. Small. And then we had the society here. Everybody was in a society, sorority, I guess you would call it, but there was no—wasn't any particular point in being in them except there was competition on Sports Day and things like that. And it was very—and 8
the marshals were taken from the societies. And they're called societies, not sororities. I don't remember which one I was in. [Both chuckle.] And these are the staff of the Pine Needles [yearbook]. Pine Needles was a very good publication, as you saw, the 19—yeah, 1941 got outstanding commendation for it. A pretty big staff. [chuckles] I declare. She was a good friend of mine. She's still—she moved here about fifteen years ago, attends the same church. This girl is still in Greensboro. Have you interviewed her, Marty Wilkins?
MF: No, I haven't.
LQ: She'd be a good one. She would remember a lot. She was active in many, many things. Very outstanding.
MF: What about student government?
LQ: Oh. Well, I didn't have much experience with that because it was—I wasn't in it, and most of them were in the dorm.
MF: Oh, sure.
LQ: They had a lot of plays, and the Playlikers, some of those people that were there when I was there turned out to be real actresses. One was June somebody. She went on to make quite a name for herself as an actress. These two were in high school with me, and graduated together. [unclear] was forever there at the Alumni Association.
MF: Yes.
LQ: She was always real helpful. Let's see. And our class advisor. I remember her face but—Dot Griffin [Dorothy Griffin Crouch, Class of 1942], I remember her. And Ellen Griffin [Class of 1940] was a senior, I think, when I was freshman. She came back on the staff, and she's died recently. She was a golfer; she was quite prominent in golf. This girl was in high school with me. She was a year behind me, but she went on to join the WACS [US Women’s Army Corps] and was over in Okinawa [Japan], and when she came back, she and her friend started a girls’ camp up at, you know, near Asheville, Swannanoa. And taught—they had a girls’ camp in the summer. It wasn't girls, it was boys. And then they taught in the local high schools. They just retired and got all kinds of acclaim.
MF: Oh, yes.
LQ: We had swimming in the pool in the Rosenthal Gym. We had all the sports, but, as you can see, they were just collegiate sports on the campus. Modern dance club and riding. Archery. Hockey, field hockey. They don't do that anymore, do they?
MF: I don't think so.
LQ: It's all soccer now? 9
MF: Oh, yes. That's getting real popular.
LQ: We had field hockey then, and it was very prominent back in those days. And then the dance troops, tap dancing, clogging, whatever, and modern dance. [unclear]
MF: Oh, there's your Phi Beta Kappa certificate.
LQ: Oh.
[doorbell rings; recording paused]
MF: Going back to school—when you went back for graduate study, it was already coed and a university by then. Did it seem incredibly different to you?
LQ: Yes, it was different, but not as different as it is now.
MF: Oh, sure.
LQ: For the last few years, of course, '73 to '91 is a long time too. But, I really enjoyed—the course I enjoyed the most was philosophy, philosophy of education, because of the professor. [unclear] He was so good. He’d had a fellowship to New Zealand for a year and he [unclear]. I read a lot of books while I was in philosophy, while I was in his class. What—this annual is so special because they had collected all the pictures and information about the school from the beginning. And I had an aunt who was in one the first graduating classes. She died a couple of years ago at 101, and she would come back every year for the graduation in the Old Guard. And she represented that for many years.
MF: Which one is Dr. [Charles Duncan] McIver [founding president of the institution]? [background noise] That's what I thought.
LQ: Isn't that amazing. There he is. The first graduating class was in 1892. I think my aunt graduated in 1902. She was the only one left in that class. She was [unclear] old guard. But [unclear] 1893. [interviewer and interviewee looking through annual]
MF: Oh, who's this man, Zeke Robinson?
LQ: Oh, he was the maintenance man, I guess, for years. But I didn't know him. That was before my time. They had a college orchestra in 1902. Field hockey in 1920. So 1942 doesn't sound so old. [chuckles]
MF: Oh, sure. I know. Yes.
LQ: But, it does now, but— 10
MF: Oh, there's the YMCA [Young Men’s Christian Association] hut, which is no longer there.
LQ: Yes. Did you know the girls built that during the first World War [1914-18 global war centered in Europe]?
MF: No, I didn't realize that.
LQ: Yes, the girls built that.
MF: Wow.
LQ: And that's the library. Well, I know if I really thought about it for a while I could have come up with a lot more memories. But, see here, the girls that built the Y Hut.
MF: Wow. "Enthusiastic suffragettes led by Miss Elliott."
LQ: Oh, yes. And, oh, Louise Alexander [political science faculty, Greensboro’s first female attorney] was one of the outstanding teachers. She and Harriet were real good friends. They may have even lived together as housemates, but they were very good friends. And they worked together in the suffragette [right to vote] movement back in the First World War [1914-18 global war] or right after, I guess. And Miss Alexander—everybody really tried to get in her classes. She taught political science, and she taught a course in biographies. American Biography, you would have loved because she made those men come alive, men and women. But she really had a real knack—and she was so natural with it, so folksy. She was just delightful. Louise Alexander. She was good, I tell you. She was, I think, the most outstanding teacher over there. You know, the girls cleaned the campus during the labor shortage. Oh dear, it looks so quaint now. Anyway, that's it.
MF: What about the change, though, with the school? Do you think it was a good move to become coed? Or do you think maybe the school lost something?
LQ: Well, there are a lot of women's colleges, private, that people can go to. But they just wanted to expand and enlarge its facilities and everything. That was inevitable if we wanted to go beyond this local women's college.
MF: Yes, because there seems to be some people who think the move to university status and coeducational institution was good, and there are some that I have talked to that really regret it having occurred. What about, also, I guess some more recent—a couple of more recent things is—I don't know how familiar you were with all the controversy in the Alumni Association.
LQ: Oh, yes. We were kept informed about that. It was very unfortunate. I guess it's been resolved and peaceably. And I was real delighted to see Brenda Meadows Cooper [Class of 1965, 1972 master of education, assistant director of alumni affairs]. She's such [background noise, unclear] contribution to the Alumni Association [unclear]. I went on 11
one of the travel things, which I really enjoyed, and I'd love to go again. But I doubt I'll ever get too. [unclear] And that was so much fun.
MF: They're not doing those long tours like that, right now, are they?
LQ: Well, it seems to me that I got some brochures about several trips coming up this year.
MF: Oh, okay, I couldn't remember if they were or not. I guess they are. I think they stopped them for a while.
LQ: They sponsor them, more or less, but there are travel agencies that really do it.
MF: Oh, okay. And do you have any opinion on the move that the university is trying to make towards [National Collegiate Athletic Association] Division I athletics?
LQ: No, I don't keep up with that.
MF: Okay. Some people seem really—like they really have a definite opinion on that. Other people say, "Oh, I don't really know. Whatever." Is there anything that you think I might have skipped over?
LQ: I don't know. I probably will—
MF: You'll think of a bunch of things tonight.
LQ: Oh, yes, that's true. But it was a different thing when we were an undergraduate school than today. It seemed like a big place to me.
MF: Yes.
LQ: But I look back—
MF: I guess the size it was then is about the size that Grimsley High School is now, or, no, I guess Grimsley's really not that large—as large as I thought.
LQ: No, we had the major [unclear] out on the campus. [unclear] I'm glad we've kept the administration building, I hope they're going to keep it as a historic one.
MF: Oh, yes.
LQ: The architecture was so unique.
MF: Yes.
LQ: Let's see. I went to classes in the Graham Building when I was back the second time; that was there. 12
MF: Oh, there's been a real building surge the past decade.
LQ: We reminisce and get together at reunions [unclear].
MF: Are you going to go to the thing this weekend?
LQ: Our big one will be next year.
MF: Right.
LQ: I was going to show you something. Classmates [sound of moving things around to find a photo]
MF: Oh, and when was this taken?
LQ: [Nineteen] Eighty-seven.
MF: Oh.
LQ: And there's Eppie Turner.
MF: Yes.
LQ: And this is my good friend, Margaret Mocksman. And I didn't get there in time to get in my picture that year. I have some from other years, but I couldn't find them. I have them filed away somewhere. I'll show you where my picture is in this one. Let's see. I was just a child. [chuckles] And we all had these similar hairdos. White collars and—I'm in here somewhere else but I've forgotten where.
MF: Yes.
LQ: They have them listed in the back. Let's see.
MF: Oh, this in the back lists every page that you appear on?
LQ: Yes.
MF: Oh, that's something else.
LQ: Sociology Club, but I can't find me. That's Georgia Bell Hagood [Class of 1942]. She was a good friend of mine. We were always doing something, same classes mostly.
MF: Yes.
LQ: Well, surely I wasn't there that day.
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MF: Well, they must have thought you were.
LQ: Okay.
MF: Well, all right, thank you so much.
LQ: You're welcome. I really feel like I—
[End of interview]
UNCG University Archives
