The Oregon State University Sesquicentennial Oral History Project

Sort Interviews by Affiliation or Theme

Affiliation: Alumni - 1930s

Dorothy Fenner Oral History Interview - March 22, 2014

Dorothy Fenner Oral History Interview

Life history interview conducted by Janice Dilg.
March 22, 2014
Dorothy Fenner (b. 1917) attended Oregon State College as an undergraduate from 1935-1939 and as a master's student from 1939-1941, obtaining degrees from the college's Home Economics program. During World War II, Fenner served her country as a code-breaker, intercepting and interpreting Japanese signals from a base in northern California. After the war, she and her husband John engaged the OSU and Corvallis communities in numerous capacities, including work with the OSU Alumni Association, OSU Foundation and Music Department. Fenner's interview focuses on her years as an OSC student, her war service and her connections to the university in the decades that followed.

Main Page | Video | Abstract | Biography

June McCallister Oral History Interview - July 3, 2014

June McCallister Oral History Interview

Life history interview conducted by Mike Dicianna and Chris Petersen.
July 3, 2014
June (Geil) McCallister (1919-2016) was the matriarch of a five-generation Oregon State family. A 1940 OSC graduate in Secretarial Science, McCallister married into a lineage that traced back to William A. Finley, the first president of Corvallis College, as well as Hugh M. Finley, co-founder and first president of the school's Alumni Association. She was also mother to three children, all of whom graduated from OSU, as well as nine grandchildren, many of them Beaver alumni. Her interview focuses on her memories of undergraduate life at Oregon State College in the 1930s as well as her family's extraordinary connection to the university, which dates back to the 1860s.

Main Page | Video | Abstract | Biography