Mabel Pernot Oral History Interview, May 19, 1983

MP: My name is Mabel Pernot.

EC: Mabel, what was your position in Home Economics?

MP: I was manager of the Clothing and Textiles Stockroom.

EC: We no longer have a Clothing and Textiles Stockroom in the College. Can you tell us a little bit about it before we get into the "Margaret Snell" part?

MP: It was rather interesting. The first women who managed the stockroom was 00:01:00Marian McMaster, and it was really like a store. One of the important things about it was that it saved the students a great deal. In classes where they needed anywhere from one to five or six hooks and eyes, I would sell them just the amount they wanted instead of them having to buy a whole card. Sometimes they'd want buttons of several different kinds and I'd sell them a single one. I would buy the merchandise downtown or send for it; we shipped in a lot. I'd simply cut off what they wanted, so they'd only have to pay a penny, five cents, or whatever. In the beginning, we had all of the findings for tailoring. This 00:02:00was very important because the stores here were small and they didn't carry tailoring materials.

EC: What years are we talking about Mabel?

MP: I came in 1947. Mrs. McMaster had been here quite a long time, from its inception, and had gotten it rolling; it was quite wonderful. They had classes making gloves out of wonderful imported leather. They had millinery, and they had all of the findings for millinery like braids, trims, feathers, flowers, and beads to trim hats. They had a big stock of those things; a big choice. The 00:03:00courses weren't very limited so it was really very interesting.

EC: Where was this located?

MP: Well, when I first came, it was in the old original building on the third floor in the east end of the building. Then when the new wing came, we moved to the second floor in the west end of the new wing. I think it was room 302 if I remember correctly. Let's see, what else can I tell you about it. Oh, hem stitching was done before I came, but I refused to do it. I told Trudy Strickland, (I was her baby; she had hired me), "I just don't fit in that kind of picture." I just knew that I couldn't do that kind of a job. I knew nothing about sewing and cared less, but she said, "We do the teaching, you don't have 00:04:00to know anything about it". "The fact is, it's better because the girls can't ask you something that you might answer contrary to what they have heard in the classroom".

EC: How did you get involved with the School of Home Economics?

MP: Through Trudy Strickland who taught tailoring at that time. The fact is, she was the author of a book on tailoring? Mrs. McMaster had reached retirement age and they were looking for someone. Trudy happened to think of me. I was working at Whiteside's Hardware Store, downstairs in the dishes and glassware department, a job I loved very much. Trudy told me what she happened to think one day. She said, "All of a sudden I snapped my fingers and I thought of you, 00:05:00and came down to take you up there". At first, I steadfastly refused to come to the campus. I had visited Mrs. McMasters and knew what she did and what she had had to deal with. I felt wholly inadequate, but Trudy said, "Yes, I know you can". She said, "I've dealt with you down here and you're just the kind of a person we want." "Won't you please come and visit us at least?" I said, "Yes, I'll do that". So I came up a couple of times. I had been there a number of times before because she (Mrs. McMasters) was a friend of mine. Finally they pressed it real hard and I gave in, so in June 1947 I came up here. My first experience was with summer classes to sort of "break in".

EC: Were you a student here?

MP: No, when I first came, they had charge accounts for the students. It was 00:06:00just like a store; you could charge it or you could pay cash. We kept a sheet for each student and then billed them at the end of the term; they paid on a cash basis. After the state system changed over to civil service, they had certain rules, and the department couldn't handle cash in the way it had so they put in the "ticket system". You'd buy a $5.00 ticket made up of blocks of one and two's; if you wanted a penny you cut off one "little one". If you wanted a nickel, you didn't dare cut the whole nickel off in rows so you'd take two 00:07:00"two's and one "one". It got kind of complicated after a while. Also, you had to count all those little bitty polk-a-dots at the end of the day to see what your cash intake was. It was tedious but you couldn't accept cash, so that's what it had to be.

EC: Did they close the Stockroom when you retired?

MP: No, Edith Albright succeeded me and stayed until her retirement; then it was closed.

EC: Okay. Could we turn the conversation to Margaret Snell?

MP: Yes.

EC: We feel so privileged to have you here to tell us about Miss Snell. Dean Hawthorne really felt strongly that she wanted to get an interview with you recorded. You are the very first person that we have chosen for this project, 00:08:00and we have some very special feelings about you because you really take us back to our beginnings. Would you start off, maybe for the benefit of people who will be hearing this for the first time, and tell us how it is that you first came to know Margaret Snell?

MP: Well, I would like to start it out when I was six years old. I was born in 1900. I would say that a child of about six is beginning to really observe things. Margaret Snell was like an Aunt to my sister and myself. I like to describe her as a "back door friend". She would come in the back door; there was no formality. She lived on Monroe Street near what would have been 22nd Street had that street gone through; it was a lane and stopped at the campus. Our house 00:09:00extended between 23rd and 22nd so she would come in that way. She didn't even have to knock if she didn't want to, and she visited frequently. She was terribly interested in trying to clear up the matter of household waste and drainage. She felt that a lot of disease, a lot of boils, stys, and things like that that happen to children were due to the insufficient handling of household waste.

EC: You knew Margaret Snell for several years?

MP: Yes, from six until I was eleven. At the end of 1910 we moved to Portland so I didn't know Margaret Snell; I mean I didn't see her very much after we moved 00:10:00to Portland, only when I came here to visit my grandmother.

EC: You know, I would like to ask someone like you who really saw and knew her in person - what did she look like?

MP: Oh, she was a darling. She wore her hair up loosely in a kind of flat pancake on top of her head. She wore "Manny" shoes because she thought the feet needed freedom. She didn't like pointed toes, and they had extremely pointed ones then. She always wore comfortable clothing, and she went on a veritable crusade against corsets, those tight-fitting corsets that were laced in the back and pinched the middle into an hour glass. She was constantly on a crusade against that, thinking that it just ruined women, and I guess it wasn't very good for them. Those were two things. She always wanted to contribute something 00:11:00that would help people in general; to make life better for them, and to free women from a lot of habits that they had gotten into because they were dictated by style.

EC: Do you think she was one of the first feminists?

MP: Well, perhaps so, yes. She was very vocal about it, and everywhere we went she spoke her mind.

EC: You mean she was vocal about women's rights?

MP: No, about the things she felt they were doing that were bad for them.

EC: You know, what you are saying is so different from what I thought.

MP: When I look at the photos of Margaret Snell, the ones that are in the book, she looks like kind of a severe person. I was going to say she was a sober person. Not severe, she was gentle, but she was a Quaker and the Quaker people 00:12:00are serious people. They don't laugh and giggle you know. It was the way of life with her. There were no Quaker gatherings here as there weren't enough for a quorum, so she joined the Episcopal Church because she needed to have some religious outlet. She became a member of the Episcopal Church, and I think that's probably another reason, aside from being a member of the faculty, that she was close to our family.

EC: Was that your religion?

MP: It was my mother, father, grandfather and grandmother's, yes. Miss Snell was just like a part of the family.

EC: Was she a hard person to talk to?

MP: I don't know about other people, but there was extreme friendliness with us; we children, there were just two, my sister and I and my family. She was so dear to us and we were always welcome in her home. One of the things that I remember 00:13:00about her particularly was her wonderful fires in the fireplace. She didn't build ladylike fires in the fireplace; she built roaring ones that really concerned my mother and father. They were always afraid that she'd catch the fringe of her shawl or something when she put firewood on. She'd have a great huge backlog and then build up with the cut wood in the front to get it started and to keep it going. They were just really magnificent fires. I loved them.

EC: Could you tell us more about her shawls?

MP: Oh, those wonderful paisley shawls she had. They were real paisley and she had quite a collection of them. I think her favorite one was sort of a brick red with gold and a little black in it in the paisley design. It was a beautiful thing. She had a cream one, and a black one and they both had paisley colors 00:14:00used in the pattern, and they were beautiful. She also used to carry a little round pouch purse that hooked or clipped into the belt of her skirt, and she always wore a shirtwaist and a black skirt. I don't think I ever saw her in anything but that, and I think the skirt was Alpaca because it was sort of shiny. She also had a little watch that I remember was pinned up near the pocket of her shirtwaist.

EC: One of the books commented that she always had a starched hankerchief.

MP: Oh, yes, she was such a darling person. In her classes my mother said that she always began class with an inspirational quotation of some kind, whether it 00:15:00was biblical or whether it was Longfellow or other poets of the times, it was always inspirational. She liked the students to start out with something higher in their minds, and something that would be nice for the day.

EC: That sounds really lovely. I was going to ask you about that. We talked a little bit about what she looked like. I want to know, too, about her philosophy; what she felt about different things. You mentioned that these quotes were important to her?

MP: Remember, I was only about six years old. We didn't go into that very much. I would hesitate to say anything about her philosophy other than she was always desirous of making life better for people. That was uppermost in her mind; making the way they lived and the things that they did better for their health. She had another drive, what word should I use - a desire to have people have 00:16:00more fresh air. She wanted windows open at night. People slept in bedrooms with shut windows, and she wanted sleeping rooms to be wide open so you got fresh air all night; she was the first advocate of sleeping porches. I can remember this as the people were talking about her. They thought she went a little bit too far, because they were sure everybody would die of pneumonia if they slept on a sleeping porch or a screen porch of some kind. But she did so herself and she practiced what she preached.

EC: She's described in some of the books as a "hygienic person".

MP: Very. Extremely, yes.

EC: I'm not sure what that means.

MP: Well, I think that's another reason why she was extra close to our family, my father was the first bacteriologist here. He established the first department of bacteriology, and she would consult him about problems, especially about drainage and that sort of thing; the bacterial side of it. The course he taught included the State Experiment or National Experiment Station, and so he had problems come in about water and the general usage of things. In fact, it was sort of like the first EPA.

EC: You mean the Agricultural part?

MP: Yes, and of course Miss Snell, she would be an advocate of EPA. I know she would be a strong participate in that if she were alive today.

EC: I bet she would be.

MP: Yes.

EC: I read your card. I hope you don't mind. (A card Mabel Pernot gave to Dean Hawthorne on her retirement.)

MP: Not at all, not at all.

EC: There is a beautiful line in your card where you say that you feel like you've witnessed the two ends of the rainbow; on one side is Margaret Snell and on the other side is Betty Hawthorne. Do you see any similarities between these two people?

MP: In their seriousness, yes, and their desire, not for self-aggrandizement, publicity or notice, but for the good of people and the benefit people; to each 00:19:00leave her mark on the world as having really done something positive and forward. In that respect very much; in the seriousness of the way they approached their work.

EC: Do you remember at all when she died?

MP: I believe it was 1923.

EC: Yes, according to the book. (Adventures of a Home Economist by Ava Milam Clark)

MP: I believe it was 1923, yes.

EC: Did you know her then?

MP: No, because between 1910 and 1923 I only saw her a few times and that was very briefly.

EC: You know, your memory is so perfect about Margaret Snell in many ways, I can't help but feel that maybe she influenced your life.

MP: I'm sure she did, because I do think of her; I mean there are times and occasions when it comes to my mind about how she tried to get some things started. Some of the things were so startling to people the way they lived then 00:20:00that they just weren't willing to accept her ideas at first. I really think that we progressed more after World War I than at any other time. Before, everything was just sort of status quo, and then after World War I everything changed. Technology began to develop and medicine began to just blossom, and many things happened; all of this preceded what is occurring now. Then after World War II there was another enormous advancement, so those wars really launched a great deal.

EC: I'll bet they did and she wasn't here. So far I've been the one that's been 00:21:00asking the questions. Are there things you remember that you'd like to add that we haven't covered?

MP: Oh, yes, there was one thing that I remember fondly, and that was a cooking class that was held in old Waldo Hall. It was in the basement and we had little gas stoves that were up on top of a counter. There were two plates. The children of the faculty had a class on Saturday mornings, and I think we had about ten or twelve children that were in it. We had a heavenly time. I never could wait, especially the day we made fudge.

EC: What happened that day?

MP: I ate most of my fudge before it got cooked! The awful part of it was that there were some girl students that were looking in the windows; it was right on 00:22:00the ground level, and they were standing there watching me. I had dipped down underneath the counter where I thought they couldn't see me, and I was spooning up the liquid fudge; there they were, standing outside of the window watching me. I felt such chagrin, and I wondered if they'd tell my father and mother.

EC: This was in Margaret Snell's class?

MP: Yes, that was on Saturday mornings. The first loaf of bread I made was like an adobe brick! They were little tiny loaves. They were so cute, but mine was not edible!

EC: What did Margaret Snell say about the fudge incident?

MP: I don't remember that really. I was so chagrined; I had "ashes all over me" because I was caught doing what I shouldn't have. It's all right if you get away with it, but when you have somebody observing you, you feel awful; just very exposed!

EC: Mabel, that's absolutely a marvelous story. Thank you for sharing it with us.