Levelle Wood Oral History Interview

In this interview, LeVelle Wood discusses her career and lifelong accomplishments in home economics. Wood begins by talking about her affiliation with Oregon Agricultural College, explaining that as a child she already knew she would attend OAC one day because her family had lived in the Corvallis area for her whole life and her father was an OAC alumnus. She graduated in 1921 with a degree in home economics education. She worked as a high school teacher in Wasco, Oregon and Marshfield, Oregon for the next few years before enrolling at a university in New York City to pursue a master’s degree. She then went on to work as a part-time professor and was in charge of the residence hall food services at Kansas State University. She stayed for fifteen years. During this time, Wood co-authored the first ever general institution management textbook, titled Foodservice in Institutions. After she left Kansas State, she volunteered with the American Red Cross. She was assigned to the Mediterranean region and served there throughout the later years of the Second World War. The interviewer then redirects the discussion to a trip that Wood took to Japan and China with OSC home economics dean Ava Milam several years prior to her work with the Red Cross.

From there, Wood continues to discuss Dean Milam, acknowledging her as the most influential woman in her career. She then talks about her own career at Ohio State University, where she worked from 1946-1965, as well as several of the awards that she received throughout her career, including the prestigious Marjorie Copher Award and the Distinguished Service Award from Oregon State University. The interviewer then gives Wood the chance to fill in any details that have been left out so far in the interview, and Wood responds at length about the numerous scholarships that have been established in her name, her travels and experiences since retirement, and her fondness for the many students she has had who continue to stay in contact with her. She also talks about her father’s connection to OAC and her early life. She concludes by saying that although she spent much of her career across the country, she always knew she would return one day, with enough certainty to warrant buying her apartment ten years before she retired.