Gladys Whipple Goode Oral History Interview, July 31, 1979

JL: You didn't need any schooling to be a librarian then?

GG: You had to pass the librarian examinations which were very, very rigorous and long. I say I wrote all day. And uh, of course I knew quite a bit about literature because as I say I was an infederate reader. And I read the classics and I read lots of, lots of real literature, and I uh, I guess I knew more than I thought I did. But uh, then I had uh a set of literature books, there' the gray books over there, that had been given to me by my, by my an uncle a few years before, and they were a great help to me because uh there was a great deal 00:01:00of material in there that I, condensed material about the classics and literature that I it helped me in cramming, because I did cram, I didn't get at it in time to do much else.

JL: Well would you consider yourself a loner then?

GG: No, no I was not a loner. I was kind of a, well without a doubt the leader of the group, but that, went from Sellwood to high school. But I didn't as I say there were about 1000 students, and we just attended classes and went home. And I didn't get well acquainted with many students in high school. It was a uh, 00:02:00kind of a, oh just kind of a thing I had to do. I didn't form new friends like you do when you go to college. I we just had our own gang that came and went. Got there at 8:30 in the morning and left at 3:00 in the afternoon. And we'd all go home together on the streetcar. And we did things together. But as I got older, as I say, I, I got into , I don't if I mentioned the fact when I was quite small my mother would attending a painting class, did I tell you that? Well so by the time I was in high school girl I had a painting class, I did lots of painting. And uh, I was going to, that was my ambition. But of course in 00:03:00those days you didn't, you didn't have much opportunity. In high school I had a very good art teacher, I would a lot of charcoals that I did then. And uh, uh, but I didn't have as I mu ambition was to go to Paris to study art, but it was way off in my mind, I didn't have any opportunity.

JL: Why is that, why were there not very many opportunities?

GG: Well, here we were way out in Oregon, and uh Paris was a long way off. And uh, it would take considerable money, before anybody get to Paris from Portland, Oregon. And uh, of course I was naive enough when I was little, so that I 00:04:00, I even save, I grew cucumbers and took them to the grocery store and saved my money, I saved my money from my painting classes. And when I went away to college, I, my, I sold a pictures, all uh, as I told you, I sold them all.

JL: Well why did you want to go to Paris?

GG: Because I thought that was the place to go to study art. And that's what I wanted to do. And I didn't give it up until I was in college. And when I left Whitworth, I left Whitworth, I uh, don't know if I should tell this. But I uh, the president tried very, our school wasn't too large you know, 100 or 125 or so, And it was a very intimate kind of school and I had uh, well as I told you 00:05:00I had been sent to this convention. I was the girl chosen and it was a boy who was the football hero. What?

JL: This religious convention?

GG: Yes. And uh, we went across the country in a special train, and stopped at the cities across the country.

JL: What kind of special train do you mean?

GG: Well, the train was made up just for students, and as we would come to a city where we would get another delectation of students. And every city entertained us for a couple of days, and showed us around. And uh, of course I had never been anywhere out of Oregon, I guess at that time.

JL: Well what, what kind of a convention was it. What were you sent to do?

GG: A world student convention. There were students there from all over the world. And uh there motto was the Christianization of the world in this generation" and they had the best speakers and the greatest men in the Cristian movement at that time. John Armont, and Robert Eastspear, and I don't know whether, you're too young to have heard sf about uh, Brian, what an orator he was, ha, ha. He was there, and uh there was no end of them... But there were students from everywhere. And I, I was for instances, it was a great education 00:07:00for me just to meet students from New England and Canada and from say Florida, the south. Uh we, we were uh we lived for the days, I guess it was a week or ten days, I don't remember, in the same place. And ate a a big round table. And we could not understand each other, we all spoke English but we had, all had such different accents. You know, the broad accent of the south, and the New England is a more English accent. And we had a lot of fun laughing because we had a little difficulty understanding each other.

JL: Where was this convention?

GG: I didn't think I had any accent. In Kansas City, Kansas.

JL: And what year what it?

GG: Well, that was the year uh, see I went to, I graduate in '16 and uh 1913.

JL: I meant do ask you, when did your father die?

GG: What?

JL: When did your father die?

GG: My father died when I was a sophomore in college. So that would be 1914. My mother lived a long life and died here in this house. In those days, both my mother and Mr. Goode's mother, although we did get her to a hospital in the last days. When my mother did there were, people didn't go to the hospital that day.

JL: What year did she die?

GG: Oh, I can tell you, See our son, our son was about two years old and he'll be 47 this summer. So you can figure that out.

JL: About 1934 probably.

GG: uh-huh

JL: Well, now you graduated from high school then in 1912 is that correct?

GG: Yeah

JL: And then you became a librarian?

GG: I worked for two years as a branch librarian,

JL: Where was the branch, what was the name of it?

GG: Well, the first one was in Montebilla, which was on the edge of the far other far edge of Portland. And I had to uh, I had to take uh, streetcar to the city and then take another streetcar out to Montebilla. And uh, I closed the library at 10:00 at night, and when I came in, I came in on the last streetcar, that left Montebilla. And it was run by one man, he was both the conductor and the man that, and uh, I got, I got so I was afraid. He got uh, kind of fresh with me, and I was the only passenger. And he got so he wouldn't take my fare, 00:11:00it got so that he didn't come to get my fare, you know, and I didn't know when he'd stopped the car, where nor what, it was way out there. It was really no place for a young girl Well, when I thought I couldn't take that anymore why they, put me in Brooklyn, which was on the way down to Portland, from my home. Which was very convenient, but it was kind of a tough gang of hoodlums that ran. And they uh, they undertook to take advantage of a young girl, too, By coming in, not doing anything awful, but coming in to the library and making a 00:12:00confusion and uh, turning on the alarm, or the clock. Doing things to make, just silly things to make a disturbance. And uh, I got uh, oh those are not the real reasons why I stopped, but uh, I did I guess I'm kind of fierce when I get stirred up, but anyway but I didn't know what would happen if I, if I be prudent, I'd have to be prudent of course, but I knew I had to get them out of there and keep them out of there. So when they set the alarm clock off, why I 00:13:00went to them, and I said- You'd boys get out of here, and you stay out." Well I didn't know what they'd do. But they looked at me very strangely and they walked out and they never came back. But by the end of that year. I had suddenly made up my mind I wanted to go to college. Well I don't know why, I can't tell you why. But because there was nobody in our, nobody I knew that went to college.

JL: Nobody you knew? Went to college?

GG: No, you can't imagine such a thing can you? It just wasn't done.

JL: You mean no women, or no men?

GG: Well I didn't know anybody in my community who went to college. Oh, I knew that older people who had been to college. Our minister for instance, who was a 00:14:00very close friend, we lived across the street. I suppose that was the thing that inspired me, I don't know, But uh I uh, I my reading, and what not. By that time of course my uh

JL: Did you ever talk about it with your girl friends?

GG: What?

JL: Did you ever talk about going to college with your girl friends?

GG: Oh, they knew I was going, but they had no, no such ambitions. But I had the time of my life at Whitworth. It was a wonderful experience, those two years. And I, I didn't want to leave, but by that time realized that I would have to, my father had died, I realized was going need to have a profession, and I wasn't 00:15:00getting to Paris very fast, and I uh, I decided on, our Home Economics teacher, home economics had come had just come in. Uh shortly before then. We had a young woman, we were, she became a very wonderful friend of mine.

JL: This was at Whitworth in Tacoma?

GG: It's in Tacoma, yea.

JL: How did you decide to go to Whitworth?

GG: Well, it was a Presbyterian college and I was Presbyterian. And I think perhaps our minister had something to do with it. They had moved by that time to 00:16:00Olympia, and they knew about Whitworth. I'm not sure he wasn't one of the trustees. He may have influenced me. Well we came, my mother and I came up here to OAC though, but we found at that time, OAC was not an accredited school and the two years that I was at Whitworth it became accredited. And so when, when Whitworth, suddenly was given this tract of land in Spokane and was moving up there and the president really put pressure on to go. I knew that I, I made up my mind that I had to be a home economists and uh, and I had to go where I could the best, where I would have some standing when I graduated.

JL: Why didn't you want to be a librarian anymore?

GG: Well. I got bored with it. Uh the passing out books is different than reading books.

JL: Well, did you work long hours?

GG: No, not overly long hours, but all it is doing is classifying books, and putting them back on the shelf, and, and keeping tack you have to know lot about them and all. But it's kind of a boring job.

JL: What did you feel about men, about marriage and men?

GG: Well, uh Chuckle, I had a youthful love affair and uh, I was uh, at the moment not interested. I was interested in to many other things to uh, to want 00:18:00to settle down. And I suppose my home economics teacher inspired me to uh I want, I liked her so very much that I, I think that I just thought that since I knew I could go into the arts line which I did do, not right away though, but uh, anyway when I got here to OAC the second time, the school had become accredited. Home Economics was developing very rapidly. Uh we had Dean Calvin, 00:19:00who was one of the first great ladies in Home Economics, and was the head of the home economics divisions or department or whatever they called it in Washington DC. She was a motherly women of about oh I suppose 60 years at that time. But she was among the early women of home economics and it was a real privileged to have her. And uh,

JL: Well before we go onto that, how did you choose home economics?

GG: Well I chose it because, as I say I know my home economics teacher at Whitworth had a my admiration for her and my interest for it there.

JL: What was her name?

GG: Her name was Consay, Gail Conway, she's long been dead.

JL: Why were you taking home economics courses?

GG: Oh

JL: If you were interested in art?

GG: Uh, because they had home economics and they didn't have art. I didn't have any art at Whitworth.

JL: Well why did you go there?

GG: Well, because I wanted to go to college. I didn't, I didn't have any place where I could go to study art at that time. We had, they had the art museum in Portland, but there wasn't any opportunity for studying art.

JL: What did your parents want you to do?

GG: They didn't have anything to contribute. Accepting my mother said once to me she didn't want me to be a, she was afraid after I went to Kansas City that I 00:21:00might want to be a missionary and, which I never considered, But she thought that I might and she said that I couldn't stand that.

JL: Why?

GG: Have me go to some foreign land.

JL: Why is that?

GG: Oh she was, you know all foreign lands in those days were savages, chuckle

JL: I wanted to ask you, speaking of that, what do you remember about the women's movements towards to vote, in Abigail Scott Duniway in Portland, in Oregon?

GG: Nothing.

JL: You didn't know anything about that movement at all?

GG: hmmm (negative) I must have been gone by that time.

JL: That was right around the first part of the century.

GG: Didn't pay any attention to it.

JL: As you look back do you...

GG: I've always had a reservation about uh, I've always had a reservation about women uh, well, try to take over all of men's jobs as well as their own. I don't mean everything at all. But there just spread out, till I think that uh, they sold their birthright.

JL: How is that, what do you mean by that?

GG: Well I think a woman's birthright, I think, I think we were meant to, uh to uh, make homes, and uh, raise families, and do all the things possible we can do to enrich our lives and our enlarge our, information and intelligence in all 00:23:00directions. But to feel like for instance we need to go to the naval academy that we need to help in road work, and that we need to be police woman, and that we need to do a lot of other things that are really men's jobs I think we've gone too far. All together with the first women who went into colleges and they were pioneers and they had a rough time of it. And I'm with that. But there is 00:24:00some lots of the things that women are prodding themselves in today that make a home, not a home but a place to sleep. A place to grab something to eat as quick as you can and go. And the children that are born into such a home are more or less, on their own, and uh, I think they have forgotten the thing that is most precious, that any human being can experience and that's making a home. I don't why they want to.

JL: Why is it then that you were thinking along the lines of getting a profession instead of getting married when you got out of high school?

GG: I didn't find anybody I wanted to marry.

JL: So you knew you had to support yourself then?

GG: Yes. I wanted to do things and I had other experiences. I had several before I did finally marry. And I think that's one reason why I, we have been so happy all our 53 years is because, well when you're young, when you're real young, you're in love with love. Maybe in love with somebody's personality or 00:26:00somebody's way of doing this or that or the other thing, but mostly it's because you are developing your personality, and your body, and , and you crave, you just more or less happen by chance. And eh so many times it's a mistake, it's an awful mistake. Which turns out later. Uh there is an awful lot you need to know about a person before you marry them. An awful lot that you need to know and learn about each other and uh it isn't merely a matter of romance. You can have a romance and have what you think is a broken heart and you can recover from it. 00:27:00And be the better for it.

JL: Did you learn this from your mother and father you think?

GG: Did I learn it? No I learned it myself, from my own experience.

JL: Were you tempted many times to marry?

GG: Several. Let's see I was 33(?) when I married. But I had uh, graduated here and I had gone back to Illinois as head of home economics in a school very like Whitworth.

JL: Before we get on to that pursue some more at OAC. You decided to come to OAC because it had become accredited. It had become accredited and I felt that by graduating in home economics that I had a better chance of getting somewhere with my profession. And uh it had grown till it was, it really had grown by leaps and bounds as far as home economics was concerned, it was just booming. Dean Milam was already here as assistant dean, and Dean Calvin, as I told you 00:29:00from the head of the department in Washington was here for that, at least part of that first year. And I took a freshman course just so I could have a course under her.

JL: Well.

GG: Very motherly woman.

JL: Did you give up your idea of being an artist?

GG: Oh well I didn't think much about it in those days, I was too busy. I was busy on the campus. In those days there weren't so many things to do. There was YM and YWCA. I was president of the YWCA.

JL: This was at OAC?

GG: At OAC.

JL: O.K. so you, just a minute, you decided to leave Whitworth and come down to home economics and who did you talk to when you got here?

GG: Well uh, I uh, I entered this, entered, the school of home economics, and uh, they were, as I said they had become accredited and uh, they examined my uh, records and credits very, went into it uh, thoroughly to be sure that my credits were uh, standard, and they were. And uh, the only honor society in my day was called the forum. And uh, you couldn't belong to the forum, I didn't care, it didn't make any difference to me, I just mention this in passing. But you 00:31:00couldn't belong to a forum unless you had been here your full four years, so I wasn't eligible. When I uh, my last quarter, as a student, as I say I had been president of the YWCA, which was the only thing there was to do, and uh I was called in and offered this position, which uh I remember. I had my mother here that year and she, we were living down on 6th with some, a couple of my other friends, and uh, I went home that evening...

JL: Your mother had moved to Corvallis?

GG: Uh-huh she was a widow you see, by then and she was alone and she came and kept house for me that year.

JL: Did your sister also come then?

GG: My sister was married when I was a sophomore in Whitworth.

JL: I see, and so your mother, this was in 1916 that your mother moved down to Corvallis? No, it would be 1914?

GG: 1914, yes.

JL: Well was your mother approving of that you had moved from Whitworth down to here?

GG: Oh yea, oh yeas, and anyway I was telling. I walked into the house that evening after I had been offered this position and given the position.

JL: What position was this?

GG: Head of home economics at Lincoln College, Lincoln, Illinois. And uh, they looked at me, and they turned and looked at me again, and they said "What's the 00:33:00matter with you?" "Oh, nothing" I said, "oh nothing". And (chuckle) I guess I had been sort of walking on air all the way home. I don't hardly remember my feet touching the ground. Chuckle well they finally got it out of me. I went back there and if you could imagine it I'm sure uh, there is I have in, I started to look it up the other day, I used to keep a scrapbook of uh, of our doings after, from the time we were married and so on. And I kept the little article and the picture that was in the, in the Gazette Times and in Portland Oregonian. Uh, Dean Restler who was head of placement in those days, said that it was the finest position that had been offered to any graduated of the 00:34:00university up to that time. And they made a good deal of it in the news.

JL: Well before we leave OAC, I'd like to hear, what do you remember about Margaret Snell?

GG: I don't remember Margaret Snell, she was before my time.

JL: She never came around Home Economics anymore?

GG: No, she was, Margaret Snell, Margaret Snell, Well I'm not going to say that she was dead. But I'm not sure that she was, uh when I was a student. She may have been uh, too old to uh leave her home. She lived on Monroe Street there, you know the house where she lived. I know (?) the house is, the house is gone now, I guess. But it, it's on Monroe Street uh, oh 26, 25, 24 about 23rd street I guess, 24th or 23rd street there was a house there. Whether it's still there I 00:35:00don't know. You realize I haven't been out of this house now going on 3 years, so I don't know if anything is like it is anymore. But um, anyway, when I got back to Lincoln, Lincoln, Illinois.

JL: Let's wait, can I hear that in just a second, can I ask you some more about the college?

GG: Yes.

JL: I want to hear about that, but first let's do it in sequence. Um, she had a philosophy, Doctor Snell had a philosophy of teaching people how to keep well, rather then cure, her idea was to prevent the disease rather than curing the disease. Was that still a prevalent feeling in home economics? Did you...

GG: Well, my impression is, as I say she had nothing to do with home economics, I imagine that there was a, a quite a break right there when she gave over and uh, uh, Dean Calvin and Dean Milam came in to uh, develop a, a really big home economics school. And Dean uh, Mrs. Miss Snell had, had home economics department going I think in the big basement of Waldo hall. But by this time they had built the home economics building and they were going in a big way. The 00:37:00department, the school had, was developing rapidly and to uh, well, somewhat what it is today. Of course it had improved in lots of ways. But it was, it was a regular large school of home economics when I came here, as a junior. And Mrs. Snell was retired and I never saw her whether she had died or died soon after I don't really really know. Of course, I heard lots of her philosophy which was all good.

JL: What did most of the girls want to be when they graduated? Your classmates, what did they want to do, why were they going to college?

GG: Oh, I suppose for the some reason I was. Uh, many of them of course, girls were fast developing into with the idea of having a profession. Which uh was I suppose not to old. But most of them, of course they wanted to marry no doubt, but they wanted to uh, wanted to get jobs, The school was uh, was fairly, the building of course it's been enlarged, the biggest part of the home economics building was already built, and uh, and the work developed rapidly there in those first years. And student were uh, I suppose most of the there for the same 00:39:00that I was. They going to earn their living.

JL: Today there's a great many women who've decided not to marry. How does this attitude compare to women back in your time, back at OAC?

GG: Well, I think most women in that day, uh, if they were, to be perfectly frank, would say they'd hope to marry. Uh women were not as independent as they are today. Not nearly, but I think they all had that hope. But they also wanted and of course an home economics course fits you on making a home, and uh, I don't 00:40:00know what their various ideas were, but I think most of them had hoped to marry. But wanted some way to earn their living if they didn't. I imagine so.

JL: What subjects did you study when you were in home economics?

GG: What?

JL: What subjects did you study?

GG: Oh, Well that's a little hard for me to tell you. Of course my main interest was in household art. And in those days women all made their clothes, you didn't buy your clothes ready made. But I had been making my clothes since I was a kid. I just to do it, I made them over every year whether I needed to or not, just to be doing it. And I was uh, I was mostly interested in the arts, but the food, we 00:41:00had food courses, and hygiene course, most of the course they have today. We took chemistry, and uh, my chemistry teacher I know, when I had most of the time, I had two years of chemistry. Uh professor Daughters had firm belief that no woman could be a good at chemistry. That was his firm belief. And he, I don't think I was anything extra, but I got by, and uh, well he a very good Methodist.

JL: He was a what?

GG: He was a very good Methodist, but he was a really unfair teacher. Because he had this decided opinion that no women could be a chemist.

JL: What was his name?

GG: Daughters.

JL: Daughters.

GG: Just imagine uh that idea to today is, it was bad enough in my day, uh I wouldn't ever want to be a chemist, and I didn't want any more of it than I had to have, but I still I was intelligent enough to get by. But he tried very hard, he would give us, he gave us an examination, this I should not tell, I'm sure he's been dead many years, and I bear him no ill will. But he gave us a final examination, one December, end of the semester. When it was very could in the 00:43:00upstairs in the dairy building, large auditorium sort of room, where he gave ah several sections examinations. It was of catch questions. And uh, he did it deliberately, I was sure he did, and uh, it was too cold, it was too cold for us. And it was my menstruation time which made it very difficult for me that I shouldn't say. But it was a very difficult long three hour session, and almost all, there were just a few of us that got by well enough so that we got a passing grade of a D. It was the only D that I ever had. But the majority of 00:44:00them flunked. And it was just because of that examination. And because of his firm belief that girls, chemistry didn't go together.

JL: You mean this was a class full of women?

GG: Well yes, we had, we had, the courses were designed for the type of chemistry that we should have for foods you know. It, I don't know exactly what the courses were called, but we had, we had two years of chemistry.

JL: Did you have any, were there other courses on campus that were restricted to women or discouraged?

GG: No, not that I remember. Uh, we were, of course there was not all the courses there are today, and thankfully the home economics courses have 00:45:00improved, particularly the arts, are more developed then they were. They were too much, well of course as I say, we were making our clothes in those days, which now is not so much, although they do have courses in it. But they have developed the arts work which makes me very happy. That was one reason that make me well, when my husband decided all of a sudden and did of his own, uh establish a scholarship for me in my name, of course some household arts 00:46:00student, uh I was particularly pleased for that one reason. That I thought to would help to uh, encourage the arts side of home economics. And I know that it has improved very much the last few, just the last few years there's been a a movement decidedly in that direction. There were lots, of, there were quite a number of my uh, I've had about 5 scholarship girls now, and several have of them have, have had uh commercial jobs of some sort. That stem out of their training in household arts.

JL: Mrs. Goode, what were some of the subjects that were most meaningful to you? That you took at OAC, do you remember specific subjects?

GG: Well as I say, art has always been my, been the thing that uh leaking out my fingers, and my eyes, and uh, my courses in art, we had a very good uh, profession, Wence his name was. He was a good artist. I took art and uh, uh we didn't have too many things besides the dress making which of course I was 00:48:00toughly schooled in. But we did have weaving, and uh, two or three other things, uh block dying, and things we used to, we used to teach the children that came in summer school, the group that was going to be ready for college. They'd do some tie dying and things of that kind. And there were lots of opportunities of course in the, in the sewing classes too. Your expressions were there, feeling for art. But that had in as I say increased and I'm very, very pleased about that.

JL: What art medium did you enjoy the most as a student?

GG: Well, I ha, ha, I think just, speak frankly, I enjoyed weaving more than anything else, of the things I had access to.

JL: Which professors stand out in your mind as making an impression on you?

GG: Oh Dean Calvin certainly. Who was head of home economics of the department in Washington? Uh, I knew Dean Milam very well, she not only uh, as a student 00:50:00but uh professionally as because I was a teacher on her staff for many years, she I was in Illinois fax just two years, and the war broke out. And it just uh, well I had a break in my health too, I had to have a, I thought I had a doctor there said I had to have an operation, I had a fall on the ice and but anyway I left Whitworth as all the boys left France and uh was a general breaking up of things and I, uh, Dean Milam asked me to come here. I'm going off the trail again.

JL: Well. .

GG: But I started, I was the first one to teach, practice teaching uh, supervise practice teaching of household arts in the high school. The high school in those days was where Central Park is now. And

JL: Before we go on to that, can we finish when you were a student here?

GG: Yes.

JL: O.K, some of the classes you enjoyed the most were your art classes, were your weaving classes. What were the other girls doing in these classes, what would talk about, what were there interests also? Do you remember?

GG: I don't know. I don't know, I really don't.

JL: What were the backgrounds of most of these girls, were they rural, or urban, or was there kind of generalization you can make?

GG: No, I don't think so they came from all, they were just uh, all, about the same as I was. They came from all, of course they came from the most of them 00:52:00from the state, some city of the state of Oregon, but uh, they were pretty much the same type of girl. Uh I think home economics was particularly a popular because it was just developing with such, with such a such and such an enthusiasm. It was uh it saw some of those early women who started the movement, were women in strong positions who, the schools home economics and across the land developed rapidly. And they were popular among the girls.

JL: Why did most girls go into home economics?

GG: Well I wouldn't be able to answer that. OF course they'd have various reasons. They'd do it because in those days, foods were very different than they are now, I think of the foods now, there are two reasons that have changed foods so much. And that is, one thing is, going to the moon and so forth, they have to take their food in a capsule and they have to have a balanced diet you notice (?). and uh also the fact that so many women, so many woman work, so women work 00:54:00and have to get their meals in a hurry, and so food you can just go to the store and buy your food and come home and warm it up and you be got a meal. And of course things weren't like that in those days. You studied food principles, you know what, the chemistry of the food was, and uh, saw that your meal was made up of the type of foods that would supply all that was necessary for the body, which hadn't been a things that governed our meals very much, because we didn't know that much about it. But now you can go to the store and get all these things just all ready, already put in the oven, which my husband does now.

JL: How many course did men take in home economics?

GG: Well my husband took a course in camp cookery, he was a scout master, he was the first scout master in Corvallis. And he took this course in camp cookery which he enjoyed very much.

JL: Were there any men in any of your classes?

GG: No, no there weren't. I never saw a man in the home economics building. But um, uh my son when he went to college, he took a course in tailoring. I don't remember just why he did that. But I remember him making a white wool shirt and doing a very nice job of it.

JL: Why do think there were no men in any of your classes?

GG: Well, they just didn't do that. I think the camp cookery class what the only class that men were interested in. I don't remember seeing any of, men, 00:56:00otherwise. No, I'm sure.

JL: I wonder why men didn't take and ever take any practical courses like that?

GG: Well they hadn't yet come, come to the point of realizing uh, of course the college boys is rather young, and they're used to having their food put before them and they are not uh, anticipating any having to cook for themselves or anything of that kind. And uh, the movement was too new to be interesting to men. I don't remember seeing a man around the building at all, excepting as I 00:57:00recall these camp cookery classes were in the evening.

JL: What clubs and extracurricular activities were popular with the girls in home economics?

GG: Well there weren't, there weren't many. Sororities had not yet come to OAC, uh, they were uh, the year that I left, the first one was formulating. Uh, President Kerr was against sororities, but as his daughters grew up, they began to urge him a lot (?). And I think it happened the following year after I left 00:58:00the campus. And when I came back two years later, there were many. As a teacher, my second year here, I was invited into tow sororities, the same day. One proceeding the other just by hours. And I became the advisor of Sigma Kappa. Kappa, Kappa Gamma asked me very soon afterward, but I decided that I better do it on that score. The first one that asks me. I was their advisor until I was married. I guess a little while afterward

JL: Why did Mrs. Henrietta Calvin resign as dean in 1915?

GG: What?

JL: Why did Mrs. Calvin resign as dean in 1915? Why did Dean Calvin resign in 1915?

GG: Well dean Calvin was not, she wasn't here on any permanent basis. She was the head of the bureau of Washington DC in home economics, which had just been established not long before. But she came out here, that first year that I was here, to help established the school. And taught, I don't know whether she taught more than this one course or not. But it was a freshmen course, and I took it because I wanted to take a course under her. Her course, her class, was full of her philosophy and uh, of good talk, and I was very fortunate, I felt, 01:00:00she was a very motherly, and a very great lady because she's one of the leaders of the home economics movement.

JL: What was her philosophy?

GG: Well she felt that women should be better prepared to make the home, to uh, provide the most uh, knowledgeable of uh, life for her family, And you see at that time you just bought, you ate what you'd been used to eating whatever your 01:01:00ate at home as a child. And some of it wasn't good for you, and some of too many people were not eating balanced diets. And of course now things are shaped up that most people get the vitamins and various uh, things that they should get. As you get older there are many things you should avoid, and uh, you might what's in every food so you know what you're getting.

JL: Did she taught this?

GG: No, she just taught a general freshman course which was, which was, really quite as I would say, off the cuff. She would come in in the morning and pick up a piece of chalk and she'd start talking just in a kind of motherly general 01:02:00way. And then she'd start to write something on the blackboard and life is not, she'd say, Oh I can't spell today and put the chalk down (chuckle). She'd just, she just was a motherly women with a, with a good background for , and a great enthusiasm for the home economics movement and what it could do for women. And uh, I would say she was an inspiration...

JL: I wanted to ask you, what morals were taught in home economics or at OAC? To the girls?

GG: Well I can't remember that morals were ever mentioned in home economics class. We got a great deal of that in our YMCA, YWCA work. I had been very active in YWCA at Whitworth, and naturally fell into that as, as I came here. The home, the uh YWCA had a portion of, I don't know if whether you know the building that once was Shepard Hall, I don't what it is called now. It was across the street from the library, it's not a very large building, but uh, they had the YMCA there, and we had a wing of it, and uh, the only swimming pool we 01:04:00had was about as big as this well it was this room, I guess maybe not quite as big. And I didn't learn to swim, I was always, there was so many in the group and we'd all get in the pool, the pool was pretty full with us just standing in it. (Chuckle)

JL: You mean all the girls, a lot of girls?

GG: Yes, I guess the girls. And the period was just uh, oh I don't know, 45min. and uh, by the time you'd get into your bathing suit, the kind of bathing suits they wore in those days, and get yourself into the pool, why a good 15 minutes was gone. And then we were all standing so, so close and all, by the time you'd help somebody to float a little bit, why the period was over, (ha, 01:05:00ha) so we never, many of us learn to swim. But uh, that swimming pool was down under, the rooms that were the YWCA rooms.

JL: Which was in Shepard Hall?

GG: Which were in Shepard Hall. The women had one wing, about a third of the building was, was for the YWCA and the rest of it was YMCA. And uh we had a secretary, the secretary, I don't whether Mr. Goode has mentioned Mr. Jesen Or not, as a secretary of the college, and President Kerr? But uh he married Miss Frances who was a sec YWCA secretary at the time.

JL: Mrs. Goode haw did the girls know what was right or wrong, like having to do with men, and boys and dating? How did you learn that?

GG: Well we didn't have anyone to excepting as I say, through the YWCA and through we had uh, Christian endeavor in our various churches, and there was much more going to church in those days than now.

JL: So most of the women belonged to churches then and the YWCA?

GG: OH a lot of them did, and a lot of them didn't. A lot, didn't have any guidance in that was, we always had a Dean of woman if anybody got into trouble.

JL: What kind of trouble would women get into?

GG: Oh, uh, something I never paid too much attention about. There weren't, there wasn't so much trouble about sex and things of that sort, it was 01:07:00altogether different picture than there is now.

JL: There wasn't any sexual things going on, huh?

GG: There was not the, uh there was not the, there was more convention and less, and less freedom, and less uh, the question of sex had not come out and into the public like it had today. This idea of, of the schools teaching it to the small children and all. I don't know what my own opinion is about that. I don't think any of us really know. The old way wasn't perfect and the new way is worse, that's all I can say. I think uh...

JL: Well were, how were you taught these, these, well what you say perfect ways?

GG: We weren't taught them. We weren't taught them.

JL: How did you know them then?

GG: By uh, well I was going to say hear say, just, just how young people hear those things, from one another some way. But you never talked about it to your parents. My parents never talked about it to me at all. And uh, but uh, there wasn't the temptation to be so free in, intimate ways in those days as there is today. And that I think is too bad, because I do think there is the natural 01:09:00physical urge and all that at a certain time in the development of a life that uh, if there some restraint and something to give you restraint, it's better for you, because you are better able to handle it when you old a little older. I think they to try to handle those things entirely to young, these days. Uh but in those days, oh we wouldn't mention such things publically.

JL: Men weren't, men weren't as aggressive as they are today?

GG: No, no, no oh no. You uh, it was sometimes, I don't know, when, now you look at the TV uh, and all that goes on you just wonder if uh, well, one of the serials that I watch, has one of those problems in it, of parties for young people are, are uh parties were they take uh, the kind of drinks and what they call grass, and things like that to turn them on. And they get they do all sorts of things that wouldn't do if they didn't uh, weren't in as such a situation. But we, we used to always have parties without any thought of uh, uh intimacy as all.

JL: What about alcohol? Did many...

GG: No, alcohol was not a problem. I was sort of a, I shouldn't say this on uh, I shouldn't have this recorded, ha, what I'm going to say, would you shut it off?

JL: So women didn't drink alcohol during your day that you knew of anyway?

GG: No. no. we hadn't had such problem at all.

JL: What kind of extracurricular activities did you do then?

GG: Well (clear throat) perhaps we didn't have as much uh, uh social life. There was uh, as I say the YW and the YC, YMCA and a they had their affairs and uh and 01:12:00there was the presidents reception was a big event of the year. All the faculty was invited and it was dancing and and refreshments and general visiting, and played games and all such things as that. And there was the folk club parties and entertaining and getting acquainted with the new women on the campus, and uh, and as far as the students went they uh lived in uh, either in dormitories or see there was no sorority houses in those days, but we had two dormitories, Waldo Hall, and Cauthorne Hall. I lived in Cauthorne Hall my first year. And we had our parties.

JL: You didn't live with your mother then?

GG: I just, my senior year I did. My senior year I brought her here because she was alone and uh, I thought it was best to do it that way.

JL: So you lived in Cauthorne Hall?

GG: What?

JL: You lived in Cauthorne Hall?

GG: I lived in Cauthorne Hall My first year I was here.

JL: What kind of things did you do with the fellas, when you went out on a date?

GG: Well, (clear throat) very innocent kinds of things, we would uh, go out to a movie, and maybe have refreshments afterwards. Take a stroll, chuckle

JL: Where were the movies?

GG: Well there were two movies, the Varsity and uh, oh, what's the, other one that mumble

JL: That the Whiteside?

GG: What?

JL: The Whiteside?

GG: Whiteside!

JL: This was when you were a student.

GG: Yes.

JL: What kind of movies would you see?

GG: Oh, some of the really good Charlie Chaplin and uh ha, ha, ha and uh Gone with the Wind, uh I remember that was a great one. They weren't urn uh, there were, uh soundless you know, but there would be a pipe organ playing soft movie all the time. But the movie itself was the silent affair, ha, ha, ha.

JL: Lot different from now.

GG: You can't remem... you can't imagine such thing can you?

JL: How did this urn Smith-leveer Act in 1914 affect home economics?

GG: How did....

JL: The act that established the extension service.

GG: Well, (clear throat) that I wouldn't be able to much about that. The extension although I did go hack and work in the after I was married and, and uh helped with the, with the, the TV program uh, which was under extension of course. But I can't even tell you the year that the home economics extension was uh, established. But it wasn't, it wasn't uhm, I think it was, well perhaps I shouldn't say, but my impression is that it was uh toward the end of my teaching period, uh, oh maybe four years or so before I stopped teaching. But now I 01:16:00wouldn't want you to put down any date because I don't really know that. I didn't pay enough attention to the extension.

JL: Didn't that open up jobs for women?

GG: Yes, I think it did, I think it did. I think all ext, all of the extension work is was very valuable to the state.

JL: What happened during farmer's and home makers' week?

GG: That I can't tell you, because that would be under extension I wouldn't know anything about that.

JL: Why were the departments changed from domestic science and art, to household science and art? It was changed about the time you were there.

GG: Well I really wouldn't know, I don't know. I didn't pay any attention to that to, See the first, the first four years I was teaching here, I was uh, spending most of my time down at the high school. Supervising, two rooms of practice teaching. I was very well situated because it was on the ground floor and there were windows all the way around, very well lighted rooms, and uh my office was in the middle, glassed in, so that uh, I could sit in my office at my desk and which the two rooms and what was going on and all about it without 01:18:00seeming to intrude into the, it not the process. Which was very important, I thought. I uh, I wouldn't have enjoyed doing it otherwise. And uh, the reason I stopped because I was headed fourth, at that time I thought maybe an indefinite time of supervising and being a supervisor and I didn't want to, I wanted to get back into teaching myself. And so I'm getting off the subject again, but uh...

JL: I'd like to hear about uhm, Ava B. Milam. You knew her as a student, is that correct?

GG: I knew her as a student and I knew her after I was on her staff. She brought me back here. And I knew her quite intimately.

JL: What kind of a person was she?

GG: well, she was a very professional person. Uh she had been very inspired by the idea of home economics and had got into it. She went to, I have a book call about her somewhere.

JL: I'd like to see it.

GG: Uh,

JL: That's OK, I can, do you want me to get it?

GG: Uh I don't know just where it is, I would have to have Delmer. Delmer! A student, and being a teacher and then uh being a wife and being entertained by 01:20:00her and, and entertaining her here, and I have visit her many times when she was ill, and uh,

JL: Why was she such a special person?

GG: Well, Uhm, I she was a very, very professional persona and devoted herself absolutely to it, and still when she had an opportunity to marry, she was the happiest person that uh you would ever know. And of course her marriage was short, because he died. But uh she was very devoted, very devoted to the home economics movement, and very, very professional.

JL: When you say professional, what do you mean?

GG: Well I mean uh, (pause) all teacher and not a home person, ha, ha, I don't know how, better to say it. But she went in, inner latter teaching years, she did a great deal of traveling about the world, helping to develop uh home economics in various lands, and she had met this couple uh, oh I've forgotten, I think in China, anyway in some foreign country where she, was establishing a 01:22:00department of home economics and the uh, time came when the wife died and the children were grown up and uh, she and uh, the man got together and were married.

JL: What was his name?

GG: In their later years. That I don't remember, I ought to know but I...

JL: It's interesting that she should teach home economics and yet not be one herself.

GG: Well she practiced it, but she was uh, she lived alone or she had a student that she was helping with her. And she in the, latter part of her service, she got so she did all this traveling, so that he--here he is, Clark, Jessie Cod 01:23:00Clark. This is their marriage. And this is he with his children an his wife.

JL: She was a very young Dean wasn't she? She became

GG: In, in the beginning yes, yes she was. She became the Dean uh almost uh this is a very good picture of her. And uh

JL: This is in the book called the adventures of a home economist.

GG: yes

JL: OK

GG: uh

JL: I wish I could have met her.

GG: Yes.

JL: So you got, you, she was one of your teachers when you were a student?

GG: Uh, yes I think I must of have some courses, a course, or two with her. But was mostly a Dean, she didn't do much teaching. She had the school was very well developed. By the time, in the two years that I was uh was at Whitworth it had developed enough so that she had a full time job as Dean. And uh Dean Calvin was here just that short time. I don't think it was a full year. I uh, I uh she I just came out to sort of get things, well going and of course had to go back to her job, back in Washington. And Dean Milam was fairly young and uh, took her job very seriously, too seriously really. But uh, maybe the fact that she never, 01:25:00well, I more less talking off the cuff, but you never made enough difference to me to mind, but she held things down pretty strictly. But I didn't care whether I was here, in fact I wanted to be somewhere else. Part of the time. But she didn't let, she wouldn't let me go. I don't want to say that, but there are ways from keeping a teacher from going if you want to, chuckle.

JL: Right so in 1916 you graduated in home economies?

GG: yes.

JL: And that's when you were offered the job in Illinois.

GG: yea.

JL: What happened to your mother when you moved to Illinois?

GG: Well, she uh, she uh was uh was uh, my married sister and her husband were still with her in one of our houses.

JL: You mean your sister had moved down here also.

GG: No, no in Portland. House next to our old house.

JL: So your mother moved back to Portland then.

GG: Oh yes. She was in Portland until, uh until after we uh, several years after we were married. She became ill, she had hea- bad heart, and then she came to live with us, and uh...

JL: How did you get out to Illinois?

GG: What?

JL: How did you, how did you get to Illinois?

GG: By train. That's the only way to go was the only way to go then. I went the first time I went I went Canadian Pacific, and uh

JL: What was that like?

GG: Well it's a very scenic, lovely trip. Beautiful, Lake Louse and all along through there, Canadian Rockies and beautiful, beautiful uh it is, it's a of course in the last very years things have been very difficult for train, but the people that are used to traveling by air should take a train trip because uh, when you go be air, you're here and then you're there. But when you go by train 01:28:00you see all of the country between here and there. And for one thing you realize the distance and you realize the different uh, the different uh types of country and the different types of people and the different ways they live and you see other cities and you have a lot of comprehension of, uh, what, what our country is like for instance. Anyway you go by air, your just step on the plane and you step off and that's it.

JL: That's true. I wanted to ask since your father was a railroad engineer, did you ever take train trips when you were living in Corvallis?

GG: Oh, uh, I don't remember every having an occasion to take one.

JL: Did you ride to Newport?

GG: Oh yes. I uh, often went to Newport. We uh, we went by stage, to Newport when I was a student.

JL: Tell me about that.

GG: What?

JL: Tell me about that.

GG: Well, the stage has four horses, and to pull it up the grades. And it's a large enough to carry a at least a dozen passengers. Uh, of course there was, 01:30:00the highway was an improved constantly throughout the years. Who would you go with when you would go on the stage?

JL: Who would you go with when you go, went on the stage?

GG: Well usually when I was here as a student, when we went to the beach it was with my family. We always had our vacation at the beach, a months' vacation.

JL: You mean you came down to Corvallis and rode to Newport?

GG: No, not always, not we didn't always take this route. It would depend on where I was. Where we would, we uh, finally, I once owned a lot at Neocene 01:31:00Mountain, I don't know if you know where that is, but that's a lovely place along the beach. And uh, we always thought we'd build there sometime but uh we cage that up. Uh my vacation, as a girl, young girl in my teens, and through some of my college days, my father always rented a house at the beach. And he looked in the Oregonian for houses uh, for rent. In those days the houses were large houses and uh houses not particular suited for the beach, because all 01:32:00metal things tarnish at the beach on account of the salt air. And so some of the house would get uh, would get pretty well tarnished in that way. And uh, but it was the only way, and we usually had lots of company, so we would get a large house at the beach and, and in the first years that we went, we went by stage- which of hours and as I described. And uh,

JL: Would you ever go from Corvallis to Newport in a stage?

GG: Well uh, I'm not I don't think so, I don't think so. I think it was the Tillamook beach. That we went to in those days, in those first days.