Kathryn Vincent::  So, on the front of this sheet there is a "My name is..." If you just wanna say your name, the city you're currently living in, and your class year..... (Sounds from adjusting microphone.) And that should--
Virginia Lobell Rosen & Kathryn Vincent::  You want our maiden name and our current name?
Virginia Lobell Rosen & Kathryn Vincent::  Yeah, that'd be great.
Virginia Lobell Rosen & Kathryn Vincent::  Mhm. (Coughing)
Virginia Lobell Rosen & Kathryn Vincent::  So whenever you're ready.
Phyllis Miller Lawrence & Kathryn Vincent & Virginia Lobell Rosen::  Start?
Phyllis Miller Lawrence & Kathryn Vincent & Virginia Lobell Rosen::  Yep! Go ahead.
Phyllis Miller Lawrence & Kathryn Vincent & Virginia Lobell Rosen::  My name is Virginia Lobell Rosen, and I live in Northbrook, Illinois, about 30 miles north of Chicago, and I’m a member of the Grinnell Class of 1948.
Phyllis Miller Lawrence & Kathryn Vincent & Virginia Lobell Rosen::  Great.
Phyllis Miller Lawrence & Kathryn Vincent::  My name is Phyllis Miller Lawrence, and I live in Indianapolis, Indiana, and I’m in class- also the Class of 1948.
Phyllis Miller Lawrence & Kathryn Vincent::  Great. So we'll just go through these questions. Feel free to go off topic if you feel like it.
Kathryn Vincent & Phyllis Miller Lawrence & Virginia Lobell Rosen::  So, why did you come to Grinnell College?
Kathryn Vincent & Phyllis Miller Lawrence & Virginia Lobell Rosen::  I came here because my father was a graduate of Grinnell and came from this town, and that was the compelling reason.
Kathryn Vincent & Phyllis Miller Lawrence & Virginia Lobell Rosen::  And I came to Grinnell because my best friend and I had planned to go to an Eastern college and I was admitted and she wasn’t, and I decided, I really don’t want to go to a girl’s school far away with nobody I know, so we came to Grinnell.
Kathryn Vincent & Virginia Lobell Rosen::  So, what was your first memory of being on campus?
Kathryn Vincent & Virginia Lobell Rosen::  Well, we came by train, and in those days it wasn’t like kids today coming with a car full of things. We came with a camp trunk and a type writer. And we arrived in the evening, and were met by some senior boys at the station in Grinnell. They took our camp trunks. We took our type writers and we walked up the middle of the track from downtown Grinnell into the campus. That was our welcome to the campus.
Kathryn Vincent & Phyllis Miller Lawrence::  And what was your first memory?
Kathryn Vincent & Phyllis Miller Lawrence::  I lived in Iowa at the time and my parents drove me here, and I remember them parking behind Mears Cottage and unloading all the paraphernalia, and that’s about all. I was kind of excited to get into this little first floor of Mears, which was.. there were just four rooms and it was, it was kind of cozy. Good memory!
Kathryn Vincent & Phyllis Miller Lawrence::  Good memory!
Kathryn Vincent & Virginia Lobell Rosen::  Was there a professor, student, or staff member who had a particularly strong influence on your life at Grinnell?
Kathryn Vincent & Virginia Lobell Rosen::  I think Professor Dunner, who was Social Studies.
Kathryn Vincent & Virginia Lobell Rosen::  Okay.
Kathryn Vincent & Virginia Lobell Rosen::  And it was interesting: if you took two different subjects that covered the same period of time, you got an entirely different perspective. For example, Economics and History, you covered the same period in Europe from an entirely different point of view. I think that was part of the broadening experience of Grinnell.
Phyllis Miller Lawrence & Kathryn Vincent::  I don't rem- I liked all of my teachers. I thought they were all very good. The one teacher that threw the fear of God into me was my Biology teacher, and I was... I’ve never forgotten her, but the whole- I liked all of them.
Phyllis Miller Lawrence & Kathryn Vincent::  Do you remember that Professor’s name?
Phyllis Miller Lawrence & Kathryn Vincent::  No.
Phyllis Miller Lawrence & Kathryn Vincent::  In Biology?
Phyllis Miller Lawrence & Kathryn Vincent::  I probably blanked that out.
Virginia Lobell Rosen & Kathryn Vincent::  I can tell you about my favorite class, and the one I got the worst grade in, and that was Photography. We were a small campus, and I very much wanted to take a Photography class, and we were told that if we could get six people together, we could have a class. So we recruited all over campus and we got six people together and I just loved the studio work--
Virginia Lobell Rosen & Kathryn Vincent::  Mhm.
Virginia Lobell Rosen & Kathryn Vincent::  --and hated the chemistry part of it, but it was a wonderful class.
Kathryn Vincent & Phyllis Miller Lawrence::  So what are some of your best memories from Grinnell?
Kathryn Vincent & Phyllis Miller Lawrence::  Well, in this little four room area of Mears, on first floor, it became a second home, and we had a lovely house mother named Mrs. Blake, and she introduced the.. practice of having pie and tea on Sunday nights when they didn’t serve regular dinner. And that was delightful, just delightful.
Virginia Lobell Rosen & Kathryn Vincent::  We all ate in the dining room on the... what is now the South Campus, and we had to dress for dinner every night.
Virginia Lobell Rosen & Kathryn Vincent::  Mhm.
Virginia Lobell Rosen & Kathryn Vincent::  No slacks. Had to be a skirt and decent looking shoes, and this was the formal part of it. We were expected to dress like that. And then we had- I think it was once a month, wasn’t it? Where we dressed in formals and that was our elegant dinner.
Virginia Lobell Rosen & Kathryn Vincent::  And the men from North Campus would work in your dining hall?
Virginia Lobell Rosen & Kathryn Vincent::  Yes.
Virginia Lobell Rosen & Kathryn Vincent::  Do you have any fun memories of any tripping incidents, or anything?
Virginia Lobell Rosen & Kathryn Vincent::  No, but I remember that we said somebody paid her tuition in raisins because they seemed to appear in everything we ate.
Margaret Lawrence Banning & Virginia Lobell Rosen & Kathryn Vincent::  When you were there, it was the last year of the war, so talk about the student population.
Margaret Lawrence Banning & Virginia Lobell Rosen & Kathryn Vincent::  Oh, our freshman year, we were about 200 hundred women and 16 men.
Margaret Lawrence Banning & Virginia Lobell Rosen & Kathryn Vincent::  Oh, boy.
Margaret Lawrence Banning & Virginia Lobell Rosen & Kathryn Vincent::  Because, the army units that had been on campus previously were not there that year. And the 16 men were either veterans who came home wounded, or high school boys.
Margaret Lawrence Banning & Virginia Lobell Rosen & Kathryn Vincent::  Hm.
Margaret Lawrence Banning & Virginia Lobell Rosen & Kathryn Vincent::  And the second year, we started to get all the veterans coming back to campus.
Phyllis Miller Lawrence & Virginia Lobell Rosen::  Ginny, didn’t we sort of... I don’t want to say make fun of those 17 young men, but it seems to me that as young women we were sort of.. we hazed them and we did.. I don't know, I think making fun of them just sticks in my mind, and I think back on it now and I’m very embarrassed about that because we shouldn’t have picked on them.
Phyllis Miller Lawrence & Virginia Lobell Rosen::  Well, we had--
Phyllis Miller Lawrence & Virginia Lobell Rosen::  Am I just- Did I make this up or do you remember anything like that?
Phyllis Miller Lawrence & Virginia Lobell Rosen::  No, we sort of bonded as a women’s college that freshman year, and we didn’t quite know what to do about these men. I don’t think there was much dating going on.
Margaret Lawrence Banning & Virginia Lobell Rosen::  And then when the- all the veterans came back they changed the honor code?
Margaret Lawrence Banning & Virginia Lobell Rosen::  Oh, yes. We were very proud of our honor code where we took exams and the teacher could walk out of the room, or you could leave and go to a washroom and come back, and... strictly honor system. And when the veterans came back the next year, they voted out the honor system.
Margaret Lawrence Banning & Virginia Lobell Rosen::  Hm.
Margaret Lawrence Banning & Virginia Lobell Rosen::  I’m not quite sure why, but they did.
Kathryn Vincent & Phyllis Miller Lawrence::  So what did your dorm room look like when you were here? Do you have any fond memories of--?
Kathryn Vincent & Phyllis Miller Lawrence::  I was just discussing this- discussing that with my daughter! In Mears, because it was so old and they were terrified about fires- and I do remember something extending from the ceiling in a glass, like a peculiar vase, and it had something to do with the fire code, but I never got beyond that. I don’t know what that glass of- or, base of water had to do with the fire code. But there was no smoking, of course, in Mears, because of the fire hazard.
Phyllis Miller Lawrence::  I remember a very comfortable room, and we had matching- We- Jill Scott and I coordinated ahead of time to coordinate what bedspreads to put on the bed. I remember that was a very important thing! I don’t remember draperies, but I do remember the coordinating Bates bedspreads. And it was a pleasant room, very pleasant.
Virginia Lobell Rosen::  I lived in Cleveland my freshman year, and I had a single. It was probably the smallest room in the dorm, but it overlooked campus, and I went down to the lumber store in town and bought a few pieces of wood and built a bookcase under the windowsill, and very much enjoyed my view of the campus.
Margaret Lawrence Banning & Virginia Lobell Rosen::  Senior year you were both in Loose.
Margaret Lawrence Banning & Virginia Lobell Rosen::  We were in Loose after a couple of months. Loose wasn’t finished. This was the prime, beautiful new dorm that was going to be built, and so we had to live in different places the first couple of months, and a bunch of us lived in Loose in the basement. Pardon me, we lived in Read, in the basement and we called it 'Loose Hole'. We had rows of cots, we hung our clothes on pipes up above, and we just had a rocking good time.
Phyllis Miller Lawrence & Margaret Lawrence Banning & Virginia Lobell Rosen::  Ginny, do you remember when we used that area- of the lounge area in Main, the roof of that, and we went out there sunbathing? Of course, I think about it now with all of skin cancer and I shudder, but weren't we- wasn’t there always somebody, as soon as the sun started to get warm, didn’t they crawl through that window and…?
Phyllis Miller Lawrence & Margaret Lawrence Banning & Virginia Lobell Rosen::  We did.
Phyllis Miller Lawrence & Margaret Lawrence Banning & Virginia Lobell Rosen::  You did too?! That?
Phyllis Miller Lawrence & Margaret Lawrence Banning & Virginia Lobell Rosen::  Yes, and we did it with Loose too, on the second floor in Loose; crawled through the windows and sunbathe there and I remember we built an enormous, female snowman on that roof, in Loose, when we finally got into the building. She sort of dominated the walk. As you came off the walk, you couldn’t miss her.
Margaret Lawrence Banning & Phyllis Miller Lawrence::  But Loose was like the Taj Mahal. Did you have any parties in the lounge when you moved in?
Margaret Lawrence Banning & Phyllis Miller Lawrence::  You just- you could sit down in there, but not much more. No, but I don't remem- I remember being so pleased about it because it was so opulent. It was so different from the rest of the College. It was fun, but you didn’t do much shenanigans in there.
Virginia Lobell Rosen & Phyllis Miller Lawrence::  It was a very elegant lounge. It was so deluxe and so modern compared with all the other buildings, and you’re right, we weren’t allowed to just go in there and sit. We went into the lounge only for special occasions.
Virginia Lobell Rosen & Phyllis Miller Lawrence::  Thank you.
Virginia Lobell Rosen & Phyllis Miller Lawrence::  And upstairs we had a little kitchenette at the end of the--
Virginia Lobell Rosen & Phyllis Miller Lawrence::  Oh, I loved those!
Virginia Lobell Rosen & Phyllis Miller Lawrence::  --At the end of the hall, which we enjoyed very much, having a place to get a little bite to eat.
Margaret Lawrence Banning & Virginia Lobell Rosen & Phyllis Miller Lawrence::  What kind of things would you cook if you had a little spare time?
Margaret Lawrence Banning & Virginia Lobell Rosen & Phyllis Miller Lawrence::  I don’t think we cooked.
Margaret Lawrence Banning & Virginia Lobell Rosen & Phyllis Miller Lawrence::  You didn't cook?
Margaret Lawrence Banning & Virginia Lobell Rosen & Phyllis Miller Lawrence::  No, I don’t think there was any cooking.
Margaret Lawrence Banning & Virginia Lobell Rosen & Phyllis Miller Lawrence::  Coffee was the best cooking.
Phyllis Miller Lawrence::  But there was a little table and chairs in there and very often, late at night people would go in there and play bridge or something like that, sort of ending the day, but it was just so nifty to have those facilities. And I think we also had an ironing board, which probably is never used now, but we did iron clothes then. Press out your skirt.
Virginia Lobell Rosen::  Our campus was all women. The men were up in the North Campus; the women were in the South Campus, and we were very casual. We had one telephone at the end of the hall. Nobody had a room telephone. Nobody had a cell phone.  They weren’t in existence yet, so whoever would answer the phone would holler out the name of the person, she’d come running down the hall in her slip or whatever, and we were all very casual.
Kathryn Vincent & Phyllis Miller Lawrence & Virginia Lobell Rosen::  What kind of clothes did you wear on a regular basis when you were here?
Kathryn Vincent & Phyllis Miller Lawrence & Virginia Lobell Rosen::  I don’t remember wearing any jeans. I just remember skirts and blouses and sweaters. It’s kind of a uniform.
Kathryn Vincent & Phyllis Miller Lawrence & Virginia Lobell Rosen::  And--
Kathryn Vincent & Phyllis Miller Lawrence & Virginia Lobell Rosen::  Did we-?
Kathryn Vincent & Phyllis Miller Lawrence & Virginia Lobell Rosen::  We wore slacks, too, in the day time.
Kathryn Vincent & Phyllis Miller Lawrence & Virginia Lobell Rosen::  Did we?
Kathryn Vincent & Phyllis Miller Lawrence & Virginia Lobell Rosen::  We had to dress for dinner. That was a rule.
Kathryn Vincent & Phyllis Miller Lawrence & Virginia Lobell Rosen::  Yeah.
Kathryn Vincent & Phyllis Miller Lawrence & Virginia Lobell Rosen::  Heels and skirts.
Kathryn Vincent & Phyllis Miller Lawrence & Virginia Lobell Rosen::  But we weren’t wearing jeans then, were we?
Kathryn Vincent & Phyllis Miller Lawrence & Virginia Lobell Rosen::  I don’t think so. I don’t think we owned jeans at that point.
Kathryn Vincent & Virginia Lobell Rosen & Phyllis Miller Lawrence::  Were there any special occasions you remember dressing up for?
Kathryn Vincent & Virginia Lobell Rosen & Phyllis Miller Lawrence::  Once a month, we wore formals and had a formal dinner, and...
Kathryn Vincent & Virginia Lobell Rosen & Phyllis Miller Lawrence::  Ginny, did we really wear formals or just dressy dresses? I don’t remember those formals.
Kathryn Vincent & Virginia Lobell Rosen & Phyllis Miller Lawrence::  Well, I had a closet with several. Well, actually, I think I owned two, and then we would swap formals with other people for the other occasions.
Kathryn Vincent & Virginia Lobell Rosen & Phyllis Miller Lawrence::  Any big dances or anything like that that you would dress up for?
Kathryn Vincent & Virginia Lobell Rosen & Phyllis Miller Lawrence::  Oh, dances, yes!
Kathryn Vincent & Virginia Lobell Rosen & Phyllis Miller Lawrence::  Yeah.
Kathryn Vincent & Virginia Lobell Rosen & Phyllis Miller Lawrence::  Yes.
Kathryn Vincent & Virginia Lobell Rosen & Phyllis Miller Lawrence::  What were those like with 16 guys?
Kathryn Vincent & Virginia Lobell Rosen & Phyllis Miller Lawrence::  No, no!
Kathryn Vincent & Virginia Lobell Rosen & Phyllis Miller Lawrence::  No-- By our senior year, we had a lot of people on campus.
Virginia Lobell Rosen::  All activities were included in your fee. You didn’t pay extra for anything, and that, I thought, was the just a wonderful thing about Grinnell. All the lectures, all the concerts, all the games, all the dances, everything was included.
Phyllis Miller Lawrence & Virginia Lobell Rosen & Margaret Lawrence Banning::  I remember Count Basie was the orchestra that played at our senior prom--
Phyllis Miller Lawrence & Virginia Lobell Rosen & Margaret Lawrence Banning::  Oh, yes.
Phyllis Miller Lawrence & Virginia Lobell Rosen & Margaret Lawrence Banning::  --and he’s still going, isn’t he? Or am I…?
Phyllis Miller Lawrence & Virginia Lobell Rosen & Margaret Lawrence Banning::  I don’t think so.
Phyllis Miller Lawrence & Virginia Lobell Rosen & Margaret Lawrence Banning::  No, but they have a Count Basie Orchestra.
Phyllis Miller Lawrence & Virginia Lobell Rosen & Margaret Lawrence Banning::  Oh, ‘cause I hear his name--
Phyllis Miller Lawrence & Virginia Lobell Rosen & Margaret Lawrence Banning::  Mhm.
Phyllis Miller Lawrence & Virginia Lobell Rosen & Margaret Lawrence Banning::  But that was big stuff... in little Grinnell.
Virginia Lobell Rosen & Kathryn Vincent::  And we would get corsages or we would wear the flower in our hair and then the next morning, we’d all take pictures.
Virginia Lobell Rosen & Kathryn Vincent::  Mhm.
Kathryn Vincent & Phyllis Miller Lawrence::  What book influenced you most in college?
Kathryn Vincent & Phyllis Miller Lawrence::  I was just discussing that with my daughter. The three books that I have saved all these years were my English Lit. book and my American Literature book, and I refer to them often, but.... I don’t think- I know I didn’t keep anything on Statistics and I didn’t keep anything on Economics and I think I had my History book, was... important, but it was the literature books that I kept.
Virginia Lobell Rosen::  I remember the most boring class I ever had, as well as the best. The most boring was Statistics and we had a teacher who said “and uh” after every few words, and to stay awake I remember marking in the front of my book a stroke with every “uh” and the front cover was covered.
Phyllis Miller Lawrence & Virginia Lobell Rosen::  What was that book?
Phyllis Miller Lawrence & Virginia Lobell Rosen::  Statistics.
Phyllis Miller Lawrence & Virginia Lobell Rosen::  Oh! Who was that? What was his name, you remember?
Phyllis Miller Lawrence & Virginia Lobell Rosen::  No, I’ve conveniently forgotten.
Phyllis Miller Lawrence & Kathryn Vincent & Virginia Lobell Rosen::  Well, this was- I'll remember that, because he walked in one class day and said he had a size 46 tuxedo if anybody- any men was interested and then we popped right into Statistics, and that was the only time during that class that he- that whole semester- that he ever said anything other than strictly Statistics.
Phyllis Miller Lawrence & Kathryn Vincent & Virginia Lobell Rosen::  Mhm.
Phyllis Miller Lawrence & Kathryn Vincent & Virginia Lobell Rosen::  Yeah.
Phyllis Miller Lawrence & Kathryn Vincent & Virginia Lobell Rosen::  It was boring; it was awful!
Phyllis Miller Lawrence & Kathryn Vincent & Virginia Lobell Rosen::  Yes, it was!
Kathryn Vincent & Phyllis Miller Lawrence::  What was your favorite class or academic experience that you had at Grinnell?
Kathryn Vincent & Phyllis Miller Lawrence::  Well, with me, it was freshman English. We did- the first research paper I had ever done was in that. And that made a- played a big influence in my life. I don’t know why, but I chose the subject of young Black children in Washington, D.C., and I wrote a paper on it and it opened my eyes. I had almost no experiences racially... differences and that was a very important thing for me.
Virginia Lobell Rosen & Kathryn Vincent::  My freshman year, I took French and Spanish—Intermediate French and Beginning Spanish—which was an accelerated program that they had used for the soldiers the previous year. And the Intermediate French, I had had four years of Latin and two years of French in high school, and the two years of French with a teacher who really didn’t teach us very much, so I got into Grinnell intermediate French, and it was a review for everybody else and it was brand new for me.
Virginia Lobell Rosen & Kathryn Vincent::  Did you stick with the French?
Virginia Lobell Rosen & Kathryn Vincent::  No, no I didn’t.
Virginia Lobell Rosen & Kathryn Vincent::  I’m a French major.
Virginia Lobell Rosen & Kathryn Vincent::  Ah.
Virginia Lobell Rosen & Kathryn Vincent::  Just, a personal interest.
Kathryn Vincent & Virginia Lobell Rosen::  What memories or images do you have of the town of Grinnell? Did you guys get into the town very often when you were here?
Kathryn Vincent & Virginia Lobell Rosen::  The town was very nice. It was much smaller than it is now, and... there was a movie house which ran very modern, up-to-date movies, sometimes before they got to the big cities. We usually went there once a week, ‘cause they changed the movie, and across the street was a restaurant, the Raven, with a bowling alley in the basement.
Phyllis Miller Lawrence & Virginia Lobell Rosen::  Ginny, I haven’t thought about the Raven ever! I’m so glad you said that.
Phyllis Miller Lawrence & Virginia Lobell Rosen::  Heheh.
Phyllis Miller Lawrence & Virginia Lobell Rosen::  I’m sorry to interrupt you, go ahead.
Phyllis Miller Lawrence & Virginia Lobell Rosen::  Go ahead.
Phyllis Miller Lawrence & Virginia Lobell Rosen::  No, I just… The Raven.... well, that was it.
Virginia Lobell Rosen::  Well, and we had an ice cream parlor. I don’t think they exist anymore.
Margaret Lawrence Banning & Virginia Lobell Rosen & Phyllis Miller Lawrence::  Was it Cunningham’s?
Margaret Lawrence Banning & Virginia Lobell Rosen & Phyllis Miller Lawrence::  Yes!
Margaret Lawrence Banning & Virginia Lobell Rosen & Phyllis Miller Lawrence::  Yes.
Margaret Lawrence Banning & Virginia Lobell Rosen & Phyllis Miller Lawrence::  Cunningham’s Drug Store.
Margaret Lawrence Banning & Virginia Lobell Rosen & Phyllis Miller Lawrence::  It was still there and still had an ice cream counter when I was here. Green... "Green River"? "Green" something, sodas... and malts.
Margaret Lawrence Banning & Virginia Lobell Rosen & Phyllis Miller Lawrence::  Yup.
Virginia Lobell Rosen & Margaret Lawrence Banning & Phyllis Miller Lawrence::  And there was a dairy on the edge of town, which just had wonderful, enormous ice cream concoctions.
Virginia Lobell Rosen & Margaret Lawrence Banning & Phyllis Miller Lawrence::  But she doesn't- they don't remember bakery runs.
Virginia Lobell Rosen & Margaret Lawrence Banning & Phyllis Miller Lawrence::  What?
Virginia Lobell Rosen & Margaret Lawrence Banning & Phyllis Miller Lawrence::  Bakery runs, remember I told you about th--
Virginia Lobell Rosen & Margaret Lawrence Banning & Phyllis Miller Lawrence::  Oh, the bakery runs… No, that was not in my memory at all.
Margaret Lawrence Banning & Phyllis Miller Lawrence::  Wait, Mom, did your grandparents still live in town when you were going to school here?
Margaret Lawrence Banning & Phyllis Miller Lawrence::  Oh, no. They had long gone. And back when- we drove by it the other day- there was a large gasoline station where they had their home. But I have dull memories about the town, and coming back here is very special.
Kathryn Vincent & Virginia Lobell Rosen::  How has Grinnell changed since you were a student?
Kathryn Vincent & Virginia Lobell Rosen::  We took a tour this morning, and saw things that I never knew existed, like the Spaulding automobile complex.
Kathryn Vincent & Virginia Lobell Rosen::  Hm.
Kathryn Vincent & Virginia Lobell Rosen::  I don’t know what we thought was there at the time, but we never saw that corner of Grinnell, and the new town library, which is enormous for a town of 9,000 people.
Phyllis Miller Lawrence::  I miss the Rocket, the Rock Island Rocket. I think when they took that passenger train away that was a great loss to Iowa, ‘cause my poor daughter had to come here on the bus, and.. Everybody else just got on the Rocket and got to Grinnell.
Margaret Lawrence Banning & Phyllis Miller Lawrence & Kathryn Vincent::  And Mom, when you went here in that first year, you were a campus driver at the hospital?
Margaret Lawrence Banning & Phyllis Miller Lawrence & Kathryn Vincent::  No. Nurse’s aide! They refer to it as a nurse’s aide. Everybody had to have some sort of a... a participation in the war effort--
Margaret Lawrence Banning & Phyllis Miller Lawrence & Kathryn Vincent::  Mhm.
Margaret Lawrence Banning & Phyllis Miller Lawrence & Kathryn Vincent::  --and the Red Cross had recruited us as nurse’s aides, which meant mostly bed pans and things like that; but, you still felt like you were doing something.
Virginia Lobell Rosen & Kathryn Vincent::  There were various things that the war influenced; one was our Phys. Ed. Program. We took Phys. Ed. every day, and I think we were in the best shape we were ever in our entire lives that year. And we were encouraged to do other things like, oh, life-saving classes in the pool.
Virginia Lobell Rosen & Kathryn Vincent::  Mhm.
Kathryn Vincent & Virginia Lobell Rosen::  Anything about the campus that you remember fondly that isn’t here anymore?
Kathryn Vincent & Virginia Lobell Rosen::  Well, the Gym was in an old building, a round building. At Halloween, we had a Halloween Chamber of Horrors down in the basement, and I think it ended with a cattle prodder that we got from downtown.
Kathryn Vincent & Virginia Lobell Rosen::  Oh!
Kathryn Vincent & Virginia Lobell Rosen & Phyllis Miller Lawrence::  Oh, was that the.. the gym- the first gym or Darby?
Kathryn Vincent & Virginia Lobell Rosen & Phyllis Miller Lawrence::  The first gym.
Kathryn Vincent & Virginia Lobell Rosen & Phyllis Miller Lawrence::  The first gym.
Kathryn Vincent & Virginia Lobell Rosen & Phyllis Miller Lawrence::  Before Darby.
Kathryn Vincent & Phyllis Miller Lawrence::  Was the pool in there?
Kathryn Vincent & Phyllis Miller Lawrence::  No.
Kathryn Vincent & Phyllis Miller Lawrence::  No?
Kathryn Vincent & Phyllis Miller Lawrence::  In Darby.
Kathryn Vincent & Phyllis Miller Lawrence::  Oh, okay.
Kathryn Vincent & Phyllis Miller Lawrence::  I took hours and hours of lessons, and never learned how to swim. I did finally learn how to float, but I never could manage.
Kathryn Vincent & Phyllis Miller Lawrence::  That's all you really need.
Kathryn Vincent & Virginia Lobell Rosen & Phyllis Miller Lawrence::  Def- Oh, I already did that. Describe your favorite place on campus when you guys were here.
Kathryn Vincent & Virginia Lobell Rosen & Phyllis Miller Lawrence::  ...Hm.
Kathryn Vincent & Virginia Lobell Rosen & Phyllis Miller Lawrence::  Golly!
Kathryn Vincent & Virginia Lobell Rosen & Phyllis Miller Lawrence::  I remember climbing in the back window of Goodnow, because I loved the photography lamp down in the basement, and at night time when the doors were locked, I would just climb in the back window, and go down to that basement, and have the place all to myself, which, probably pretty stupid to do it, but it was fun at the time.
Kathryn Vincent & Virginia Lobell Rosen & Phyllis Miller Lawrence::  I can’t answer that. I really don’t know.
Kathryn Vincent & Virginia Lobell Rosen & Phyllis Miller Lawrence::  If you knew then what you know now, what would you have done differently during your time at Grinnell College?
Kathryn Vincent & Virginia Lobell Rosen & Phyllis Miller Lawrence::  Maybe studied a little harder. I don’t know.
Kathryn Vincent & Virginia Lobell Rosen & Phyllis Miller Lawrence::  Yes! I would have spent more time at the Library. I fooled myself thinking that I could study in my room, but I should have been in the Library. That's the place to go.
Kathryn Vincent & Virginia Lobell Rosen & Phyllis Miller Lawrence::  I think the Library was a favorite place.
Kathryn Vincent & Virginia Lobell Rosen & Phyllis Miller Lawrence::  Mhm, yeah.
Kathryn Vincent & Margaret Lawrence Banning & Virginia Lobell Rosen & Phyllis Miller Lawrence::  Where was the Library when you were here?
Kathryn Vincent & Margaret Lawrence Banning & Virginia Lobell Rosen & Phyllis Miller Lawrence::  It was Carnegie.
Kathryn Vincent & Margaret Lawrence Banning & Virginia Lobell Rosen & Phyllis Miller Lawrence::  Carnegie, okay.
Kathryn Vincent & Margaret Lawrence Banning & Virginia Lobell Rosen & Phyllis Miller Lawrence::  Mm.
Kathryn Vincent & Margaret Lawrence Banning & Virginia Lobell Rosen & Phyllis Miller Lawrence::  Yeah.
Kathryn Vincent & Virginia Lobell Rosen & Phyllis Miller Lawrence::  Did you have a favorite place in Carnegie to study, or move all around?
Kathryn Vincent & Virginia Lobell Rosen & Phyllis Miller Lawrence::  No, but I know what my un-favorite place in Carnegie was. I was--
Kathryn Vincent & Virginia Lobell Rosen & Phyllis Miller Lawrence::  Where?
Kathryn Vincent & Virginia Lobell Rosen & Phyllis Miller Lawrence::  --an English and Journalism major and Professor Prescott was our Journalism teacher, and I was complaining how biased the Chicago Tribune was, and he sent me down to the basement of Carnegie, where there were stacks and stacks of newspapers, and I counted column inches and analyzed what was prejudiced and what wasn’t.
Kathryn Vincent & Virginia Lobell Rosen & Phyllis Miller Lawrence::  Oh...
Kathryn Vincent & Virginia Lobell Rosen & Phyllis Miller Lawrence::  That was a learning experience.
Kathryn Vincent & Virginia Lobell Rosen & Phyllis Miller Lawrence::  Not a nice one.
Kathryn Vincent & Virginia Lobell Rosen & Phyllis Miller Lawrence::  Did either of you meet your spouse or partner at Grinnell?
Kathryn Vincent & Virginia Lobell Rosen & Phyllis Miller Lawrence::  No.
Kathryn Vincent & Virginia Lobell Rosen & Phyllis Miller Lawrence::  How would you compare the students of today with your classmates, aside from the uneven male/female when you arrived?
Kathryn Vincent & Virginia Lobell Rosen & Phyllis Miller Lawrence::  I think the studying is entirely different nowadays. We were interested in the arts and, to a certain degree, in the sciences. We studied things like Philosophy and Psychology. I don’t know if people study those things now, or if they’re much more into computer type things.
Kathryn Vincent & Virginia Lobell Rosen & Phyllis Miller Lawrence::  ...I don’t know how to answer that. I don’t know.
Kathryn Vincent & Virginia Lobell Rosen::  Describe student and campus life as you experienced it during your time at Grinnell.
Kathryn Vincent & Virginia Lobell Rosen::  Well, the women were all on one campus and the men were on the other campus, and if a man of any kind entered the dorm on the women’s campus, they had to yell, “Man on floor!” and it was very unusual to have a parent or another student come into the women’s dormitory.
Kathryn Vincent & Virginia Lobell Rosen::  If you were writing a history of Grinnell College, what would you include from your years here?
Kathryn Vincent & Virginia Lobell Rosen::  Well, I think the sense of camaraderie that we had, and it was such an environment for learning... For example, you could be studying Modern European History, or you could be studying American History, and one semester I took American History and American Literature at the same time- one in the English department, one in the History department- and so you would get an entirely different view of the same events and I think that was part of Grinnell learning.
Margaret Lawrence Banning & Phyllis Miller Lawrence & Virginia Lobell Rosen & Kathryn Vincent::  Mom, what do you think made Grinnell special?
Margaret Lawrence Banning & Phyllis Miller Lawrence & Virginia Lobell Rosen & Kathryn Vincent::  ...Well, I was always very proud. I think the state of Iowa had always made a great emphasis on education, and I always thought that Grinnell was one of those prime examples of the interest that Iowans had in their education. That was very sincere, and.. it isn't duplicated all over the United States, so I’ve always been pleased about that.
Margaret Lawrence Banning & Phyllis Miller Lawrence & Virginia Lobell Rosen & Kathryn Vincent::  We had such small classes, and we had individual advisors, and it was just a wonderful atmosphere for learning.
Margaret Lawrence Banning & Phyllis Miller Lawrence & Virginia Lobell Rosen & Kathryn Vincent::  Mhm.
Margaret Lawrence Banning & Phyllis Miller Lawrence & Virginia Lobell Rosen & Kathryn Vincent::  We thought we had it all over the larger colleges.
Kathryn Vincent & Virginia Lobell Rosen::  What were your classes like? How small were they, and did you have men and women in the same classes?
Kathryn Vincent & Virginia Lobell Rosen::  Yes.
Kathryn Vincent & Virginia Lobell Rosen::  How did that work?
Kathryn Vincent & Virginia Lobell Rosen::  Men and women in the same classes, and, as I said, we had one with six students in it. All of our classes were relatively small.
Kathryn Vincent & Virginia Lobell Rosen::  What buildings would you have classes in?
Kathryn Vincent & Virginia Lobell Rosen::  ARH.
Kathryn Vincent & Virginia Lobell Rosen::  ARH?
Kathryn Vincent & Virginia Lobell Rosen::  Yeah.
Kathryn Vincent & Phyllis Miller Lawrence::  So, you two have any wh- that filled the recitation hall? The audit- the big auditorium, did you have any classes in there?
Kathryn Vincent & Phyllis Miller Lawrence::  I just remember that as the place where we had our freshman orientation, and I looked up to see a woman that I had known back in third grade walking up that aisle and it was so startling to see her, ‘cause we had stopped corresponding and I didn't know she was coming here, so it was just a happy experience!
Kathryn Vincent & Phyllis Miller Lawrence & Virginia Lobell Rosen::  So it seems like you two have remained friends after Grinnell.
Kathryn Vincent & Phyllis Miller Lawrence & Virginia Lobell Rosen::  We did.
Kathryn Vincent & Phyllis Miller Lawrence & Virginia Lobell Rosen::  Are there any stories after Grinnell that--?
Kathryn Vincent & Phyllis Miller Lawrence & Virginia Lobell Rosen::  We made great friends here.
Kathryn Vincent & Phyllis Miller Lawrence & Virginia Lobell Rosen::  Yes, life-long friends.
Kathryn Vincent & Phyllis Miller Lawrence & Virginia Lobell Rosen::  Yeah, it was a marvelous experience.
Virginia Lobell Rosen & Margaret Lawrence Banning::  And this friend and her daughter brought me to Grinnell this weekend. My husband was not in very good health and I thought I was going to cancel our trip here, and Phyllis said she and her daughter would like to drive me, so they came up from Indianapolis to Chicago and brought me here.
Virginia Lobell Rosen & Margaret Lawrence Banning::  We slowed down enough for you to get in the car.
Phyllis Miller Lawrence & Kathryn Vincent & Virginia Lobell Rosen::  No, it was a lovely ride because we could just relax and talk about things that we hadn’t talked about for a long time--
Phyllis Miller Lawrence & Kathryn Vincent & Virginia Lobell Rosen::  Mhm.
Phyllis Miller Lawrence & Kathryn Vincent & Virginia Lobell Rosen::  --and people that we’d known, and people that are not he- not around anymore. That’s a sorrow. ‘Cause I do look for them when I get here, just, automatically want to see some of those old faces, and...
Phyllis Miller Lawrence & Kathryn Vincent & Virginia Lobell Rosen::  They’re gone.
Virginia Lobell Rosen & Kathryn Vincent & Phyllis Miller Lawrence::  It’s unbelievable that this is our 65th reunion.
Virginia Lobell Rosen & Kathryn Vincent & Phyllis Miller Lawrence::  Have you been back for many reunions, or is this..?
Virginia Lobell Rosen & Kathryn Vincent & Phyllis Miller Lawrence::  Almost every five years.
Virginia Lobell Rosen & Kathryn Vincent & Phyllis Miller Lawrence::  Yes!
Phyllis Miller Lawrence & Virginia Lobell Rosen & Kathryn Vincent::  Ginny and I have seen each other almost invariably at the reunions, and some people have never shown up for a reunion. I have a daughter like that, that has never.. I think... What- did Kate go back once for reunion? I can’t believe that. I would just never want to miss a reunion.
Phyllis Miller Lawrence & Virginia Lobell Rosen & Kathryn Vincent::  This one is bittersweet because so many people are gone.
Phyllis Miller Lawrence & Virginia Lobell Rosen & Kathryn Vincent::  Mhm.
Phyllis Miller Lawrence & Virginia Lobell Rosen & Kathryn Vincent::  But...
Margaret Lawrence Banning & Virginia Lobell Rosen & Phyllis Miller Lawrence::  And there's only four in your class here.
Margaret Lawrence Banning & Virginia Lobell Rosen & Phyllis Miller Lawrence::  Really?
Margaret Lawrence Banning & Virginia Lobell Rosen & Phyllis Miller Lawrence::  Well, that list-- That list on the wall in the lounge there, that’s very daunting.
Margaret Lawrence Banning & Virginia Lobell Rosen & Phyllis Miller Lawrence::  Oh, yes.
Margaret Lawrence Banning & Virginia Lobell Rosen & Phyllis Miller Lawrence::  To see that all those people that--
Margaret Lawrence Banning & Virginia Lobell Rosen & Phyllis Miller Lawrence::  Died.
Margaret Lawrence Banning & Virginia Lobell Rosen & Phyllis Miller Lawrence::  --are gone.
Kathryn Vincent & Virginia Lobell Rosen & Phyllis Miller Lawrence & Margaret Lawrence Banning::  Well, that’s it for the questions that I have, but if you have any other stories you want to share or…
Kathryn Vincent & Virginia Lobell Rosen & Phyllis Miller Lawrence & Margaret Lawrence Banning::  I think we’ve covered it pretty well.
Kathryn Vincent & Virginia Lobell Rosen & Phyllis Miller Lawrence & Margaret Lawrence Banning::  Do you know anything else we should ask- you should ask?
Kathryn Vincent & Virginia Lobell Rosen & Phyllis Miller Lawrence & Margaret Lawrence Banning::  You've been a great secondary interviewer.
Kathryn Vincent & Virginia Lobell Rosen & Phyllis Miller Lawrence & Margaret Lawrence Banning::  I'm not really prepared... I think that’s everything.
Kathryn Vincent & Virginia Lobell Rosen & Phyllis Miller Lawrence & Margaret Lawrence Banning::  Okay, good.
Kathryn Vincent & Virginia Lobell Rosen & Phyllis Miller Lawrence & Margaret Lawrence Banning::  Okay.
Kathryn Vincent & Virginia Lobell Rosen & Phyllis Miller Lawrence & Margaret Lawrence Banning::  Thank you, Babe, and thank you!
Kathryn Vincent & Virginia Lobell Rosen & Phyllis Miller Lawrence & Margaret Lawrence Banning::  Thank you very much!
