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Special
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Joan (Hoppe) Campbell
Campus School, 1922-1930
WWU, 1934-1937, "Special Normal Diploma"
Campus School parent, 1951-1965
Interviewer: Tamara Belts
Date of Interview: September 16, 2005
Location of Interview: Interviewee's home, Edmonds, Wash.
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Authorized Transcript
This interview was conducted with Joan (“Jan”) Hoppe Campbell at her home in Edmonds, Washington, on September 16th, 2005, her husband Philip Campbell is present and also makes some comments. The interviewer is Tamara Belts.
TB: Today is Friday, September 16th, 2005 and I’m here with Joan, she goes by Jan, Campbell. She’s the daughter of Victor Hoppe. We’re going to do an oral history, kind of in two parts. The first thing we’ll talk about is the Campus School. She attended the Campus School. So, how did you happen to attend the Campus School?
JC: Because at that point, I had no choice. If you were involved through your parents in the Campus School, you just went to Campus School. But you had to register. Some people registered their kids at birth to be sure they’d get in to Campus School. But, being a faculty kid, you were automatically admitted to Campus School. That was your school.
TB: Okay, did anyone else in your family attend the Campus School and what were their names?
JC: Our kids. I only have one brother and he didn’t go to Campus School. I can’t remember why he didn’t go to Campus School. Our own family, let’s see, Nancy and Ginna and Tom and Rob. They all went to Campus School.
TB: Okay. What were the years and grades of your attendance?
JC: I went to a public school for three years, but then during my eight years at Campus School, we spent two years back in Michigan, when my father was getting his master’s degree at the University of Michigan. So, I went spasmodically K through 8, but I missed a couple years.
TB: And those must have been something like through the Twenties?
JC: Oh, let’s see. I was born in 1917. Yes, it had to be. I graduated from high school in 1934. So, it had to be the late Twenties.
TB: Do you remember paying any fees? Any kind of tuition, especially?
JC: Did our kids pay fees (referring to Philip Campbell)? I don’t think they did.
TB: Were there any fees to attend the Campus School? Tuition?
PC: No.
JC: I don’t have any recollection of paying fees.
TB: OK.
JC: Getting in was difficult, because there were so many people who wanted to get their kids into Campus School. That’s why you had to sign up your children at birth.
TB: Where did you live when you attended the Campus School?
JC: 521 14th Street, on the south side.
TB: Do you know what you did for lunch? Did the school provide lunch or did you go home for lunch or bring a sack lunch?
JC: I think we carried our lunch.
TB: Do you remember any favorite classmates and can you name any of them?
JC: Favorite classmates at the Campus School? Let’s see, that’s a long time ago. I can’t think of anybody that I still [am in touch with].
TB: That’s okay if you can’t.
JC: I’m sure I can, but right now I’m blank.
TB: That’s fine. Who were your favorite or most influential teachers?
JC: Well, Priscilla Kinsman was Kindergarten. Let’s see.
TB: Do you remember what you liked about her?
JC: She was very sweet, very loving, charming, and a very good teacher, was perfect with little kids. She wasn’t intimidating. I can’t think of anyone special in the older grades. If I had thought about this ahead of time, but it’s a long time ago.
TB: That’s fine. Do you remember any of your student teachers? I know that one would be really hard.
JC: That’s a tough one, yes, because we had so many. I mean, they were constantly changing, of course.
TB: How did you feel about that? Did it bother you?
JC: Not really, you got used to the fact that you were going to have several teachers. You were being observed and lots of observation, but that was just part of school for us.
TB: Okay. What were your favorite subjects or classroom activities?
JC: Oh, music, usually. Well, just literature, reading…
TB: Can you talk a little bit more about the music program they had there?
PC: May I interject something?
TB: Yes.
PC: I was under student teaching out at Meridian, Orpha McPherson was the director of student teachers. Orpha McPherson [was] back when I was in grade school, so she goes way back. You wouldn’t remember her because she worked in directing the student teaching outside of the college. That name just came to me.
JC: That’s true. Did you have student teachers?
PC: Yes, we did.
TB: So anything more about how the music program worked there? Did you go to a certain room or did the teacher come to you?
JC: As I recall, the teacher came to us. We just sang. I can still remember a lot of the songs I learned. We had a songbook and I can still sing. Want to hear me sing a couple?
TB: What were the names of them?
JC: I was kidding. I do remember some of the songs I learned though.
TB: OK, OK. Did you use regular textbooks, or what kind of learning materials do you remember that they might have used?
JC: Yes, we had regular textbooks.
TB: Do you remember what kind of grading system was in use during your attendance?
JC: Good old As, Bs and Cs.
TB: Do you remember any creative activities such as weaving, making things or that kind of thing that you might have done?
JC: Gee, I can’t remember. We must have had some kind of art. I’m sure we had art. I never was terribly creative, so…
TB: That’s fine.
PC: What about physical activities?
JC: We obviously had outside activities. I’m thinking of high school now, of course, it gets blended…basketball. We must have had organized games -- but not competitive.
TB: Backtracking a bit, what were your classes like? Were there a lot of student teachers? You kind of alluded to the observing; were the student teachers teaching lessons or parts of lessons?
JC: We almost always had somebody else in the room besides the master teacher. You got so observation wasn’t any big deal, because you were observed so much, being at the Campus School. Of course, that was the purpose of the Campus School.
TB: So did you not really get away with anything then? I mean, you had all these people watching you. How could you really misbehave?
JC: Some kids managed to misbehave no matter what. Not me. I was the perfect child.
TB: Did you attend summer school at the Campus School?
JC: No. I never went to summer school.
TB: Do you remember some of the extra-curricular activities that you engaged in? What did you do at recess? Lunch time? Or what did you enjoy the most, games that you played?
JC: We just played a lot of the old games that everybody plays. You know ball games. It wasn’t highly organized. We had a lot of free activity during recess rather than organized games, if I recall correctly.
TB: OK. Do you remember visiting the college itself?
JC: Campus School was in Old Main when I was there.
TB: Like going to the library or attending special assemblies or…? What was that like?
JC: We were always very aware we were a part of the college. We weren’t separated at all. The main building was it. That’s where everything was.
TB: Did you see the college students a lot or were you kind of isolated?
JC: Well, I did more because I had a father on the faculty. So I was more at home with the whole building. His office was way up on the top of Old Main, way up, third floor or whatever it was. He had a huge flight of stairs to go up and no elevator.
PC: The Campus School, it’s not even there today, but it was built sometime, do you know what the time frame was?
TB: 1943, I think.
JC: Yes, right.
TB: Well it definitely had been a wing of Old Main.
JC: Yes, absolutely.
TB: Then at what grade level did you enter public school? Why did you transfer? What was the transition like?
JC: Well, I went to first, second and third, at Lowell School because that was just about two blocks from where we lived on 14th street. I can’t remember now. Oh, golly I can’t remember why I went to… One of those years we were back in Michigan. I skipped a grade. We had As and Bs. I mean there was 1A and 1B and 2A and 2B. That’s been a long time ago.
TB: Oh, the grades. There were two grades.
JC: There was 1A and 2A.
TB: Okay.
JC: I skipped; I think it was the third one. I skipped two half grades that ended up I was a year ahead. So, I graduated from high school when I was barely seventeen.
TB: Okay. If you attended public school first, what was the transition like to Campus School for you?
JC: It wasn’t that big a deal for me because I was familiar with the school. It was a little bit different being a faculty child. I can’t remember if there was any great trauma. Besides, we had been back in Michigan for a year, so I had that transition. I went to a big old elementary school back there, in Kalamazoo.
TB: Please share any specific differences between public school and Campus School that especially affected you.
JC: Well, I know I was happier with the teachers I had at Campus than I was at Lowell School. I had some older teachers that were maybe strict disciplinarians. It was as if they didn’t like kids very much -- you know -- that kind of teacher.
TB: All right, and then what further education did you pursue?
JC: I went to Western for three years.
PC: You went to high school at Fairhaven.
JC: Well, I went to high school at Fairhaven High School, yes.
TB: Fairhaven High School and then you went three years at Western.
JC: Three years at Western and two years at the UW [University of Washington].
TB: OK. If you later attended Western and majored in education, did you observe or student teach in the Campus School and what was that experience like?
JC: I must have. I’m sure I must have done my student teaching in Campus School. I can’t even remember -- elementary. Well, it had to be in Campus School. I don’t think I taught in a public school. I can’t even remember whether we had teachers in the public schools or not. They must have student teachers, but I have no recollection of teaching in the public schools.
TB: Do you have any thoughts about how your attendance at the Campus School influenced your life or career?
JC: I think I probably had more music and art and literature, that sort of thing at Campus School than I probably might have gotten in the public school.
TB: Are you still in touch with any Campus School classmates?
JC: Am I? I don’t think I am.
PC: Nancy. Nan used to go there.
JC: Well, Nan, she went to Campus School, Nan Ballard. She was the one who was secretary to the…
PC: Nancy Jane Smith was her name.
JC: Yes, it was Nancy Smith. She was Dr. Hawk’s secretary; he was director of the Campus School. She was his secretary for several years, and she went to Campus School.
PC: And she lives right down the street.
JC: Well, Mary Ann Fisher, you talked to her, of course she was, yes. There were a lot of people of that vintage.
PC: Most of them have passed away.
JC: Yes, a lot of them have, that’s true.
TB: Do you have any Campus School memorabilia? Photographs, class publications, crafts, art work or anything?
JC: Just in my head, like the songs I remember.
TB: Do you just remember the names of the songs, like a title of the song?
JC: Oh, dear. We did learn a lot of songs. We had a lot of music.
TB: OK. That’s fine.
PC: She sings a lot of them around the house here, but I don’t understand them. They’re very simple stuff.
JC: A lot of it was nonsense music. You know, it didn’t have any great message, but it was a just a catchy tune and nonsense words. I don’t think kids sing things like that anymore.
TB: Actually in the Twenties that was big to do that. Even some of the normal school yells were crazy. Do you have any other favorite memories of your Campus School days or any comments about questions that we’ve asked or things that you think we should ask other people?
PC: Since our children went to Campus School, she’s had a very close relationships with their teachers, perhaps more so than an ordinary mother of children would have. She had a close connection with the school while we were raising our kids, all of whom went to Campus School, at least up through the sixth-grade.
JC: Yes, that’s right. They went through sixth.
TB: Now, how did you happen to decide to have your kids go to the Campus School?
PC: It was her decision, basically. Her father was still teaching there.
TB: Oh, he was teaching there?
JC: Well, let’s see. That’s right, he was. He died when I was pregnant with our last son. So, three of our kids knew their grandfather.
TB: Tell me a little bit more about that; so you decided to have your kids go there because you went there and had a lot of good times?
JC: It was just the perfectly natural thing to do.
TB: What was your experience like as a parent?
JC: We enjoyed it. We had a lot of contact with…not parent-teacher meetings, because we didn’t have a parent-teacher association, but lots of occasions when parents were involved.
PC: I think parents were much more involved, if I may say so, those that had children there in Campus School…
JC: The classes were smaller to begin with.
PC: There was a feeling of closeness there, I think, between the parent and the child, in that setting, than there might otherwise have been at a public school. The teachers were so well trained, that taught the children, and were so involved with the child individually. Their classes were small, 20 to 25, something like that. They kept the parents informed with reports on the child. Not only their ability to be a good student…
JC: Academically.
PC: …their personal lives, as they saw them in the school. It was a complete report; we used to get those all the time. That was something the public school teachers didn’t have; those who had 35 kids or more in the class didn’t have that opportunity to do that much research with the child and keep the parent brought into the picture.
TB: So, roughly, what span of years was that?
JC: Well, they’re nine years apart, I mean from the oldest one to the youngest one.
PC: 1951, when did Ginna start? Born in 1946. She started Kindergarten, did they have Kindergarten?
JC: Yes, oh yes. They all went to Kindergarten, K through 6. It was only sixth-grade, then they went to…
PC: Actual span of years, actual calendar years?
TB: Yes.
JC: Figure that one out; nine years apart.
PC: I think 1951 through 1965.
TB: OK. So, it sounds like your kids might not have had actual grades. Your children had the more narrative kinds of reports more than letter grades.
JC: They were going toward the narrative report, yes. And you had conferences.
PC: But they also had complete reports beyond that.
TB: Right, and so, as a parent you really appreciated that.
JC: Yes, lots of contact between teachers and parents.
TB: Now, do you know, what did your children do for lunch? Did you prepare lunch for them or did they have lunch up there?
JC: I think we made lunches, as I recall. They must have had a hot lunch program, but mostly our kids just brought lunch from home.
TB: OK, and then we already talked about this. You didn’t pay any fees for your children?
JC: We don’t have any recollection of paying fees.
PC: What is the question?
TB: There wasn’t any tuition -- no tuition for your children?
PC: Not that I was aware of.
JC: You would have been aware of it.
TB: Anything else about your experience as a parent, with the Campus School, with your children? Any special memories?
PC: Well, we got a chance to observe the child in a different perspective, obviously than we would in our home environment.
JC: What do you mean by that?
PC: They responded differently in school in a way that we appreciated more than some of the activities they engaged in at home.
JC: It’s true. I remember one day Irene Elliott saying…
PC: We had a daughter who was very…
JC: Temperamental.
PC: Dramatic, something like her grandfather.
JC: Yes, she was very temperamental and emotional.
PC: But at school she was…
JC: She was absolute perfection. I remember Irene Elliott saying, “I can always tell if there’s something going on in the room that I should know about. I look at Ginna’s eyes. I can always tell by her big blue eyes if somebody was misbehaving, because she was sort of [a] monitor. She was absolute perfection at school.” Irene Elliott said, “Well, you don’t want her to act the way she acts at home, do you?” Well, actually that’s true, we didn’t. Anyway, she was the actress.
PC: That’s the thing that was so good about it, because the average public school teacher doesn’t have the background that the teachers up at the Campus School had -- looking into the child as more than just outward appearance. They delved into their, I don’t know how to express it, more intimately than they would have been looked at in the public school. We were afforded a type of education for those children that we did not feel we could have gotten at the public school. Not because the teachers weren’t good, but they weren’t as well trained in all the aspects of teaching and bringing children up as were the Campus School teachers. They went beyond the norm with training that the public school teacher never got.
JC: Well, they were master teachers.
PC: In those days you could teach after two or three years of college.
TB: So who are some other favorite teachers that you thought were really good teachers for your children? Like Miss Elliott?
JC: Irene Elliott, yes.
PC: Katherine Casanova.
JC: Let’s see, Priscilla, was Priscilla Kinsman there when…? Synva Nicol, she was first-grade. Some of the men, I don’t remember.
PC: You got Irene Elliott, Katherine Casanova.
JC: Katherine Casanova, second-grade.
PC: Who were some of the men? There were a couple of men.
JC: I know.
TB: Punches? Anybody have Frank Punches?
JC: No. Why can’t we remember the men’s names?
TB: Mr. Mork?
JC: I think so, yes. That sounds familiar.
TB: I think he was fourth-grade or something like that.
JC: Yes, definitely.
TB: OK.
JC: Campus School had sort of a family feeling. I mean, there’s a lot of continuity because most people, if they had their kids in Campus School, they sent all their kids to Campus School. I remember, Irene Elliot saying, “Your faces don’t look familiar, but your clothing certainly does.” That was when she had kids that she’d had in previous years or two. This is Irene; she had a great sense of humor.
TB: That’s a really good one. I hadn’t heard that before.
JC: And that’s true. Sure, our kids wore the same clothes. Our girls were only two years apart. So, I’m sure that they wore the same clothes.
TB: OK, well, some of the other teachers.
PC: Irene Elliot, we mentioned her name. You have Katherine Casanova.
JC: The men are the ones I can’t remember, except Mork.
PC: We got Mork here. I only recognize him from my knowledge of the school. Priscilla Kinsman, you got her already. Pearl Merriman, Pearl Merriman.
JC: Oh, yes. Yes, Pearl Merriman! I forgot, yes.
PC: Seems like I know these people…
JC: Of course, we had a different relationship because we knew a lot of the faculty. I mean, we were involved in faculty activities because of my dad. You’re using up time here.
TB: That’s fine. That’s just fine.
PC: I’ll show you this later, if you want to see it.
TB: Now, any other comments about the Campus School?
JC: We often had dramatic things that we did, like for special events. I can’t remember if it involved the lower grades or whether that was just the upper grades. They weren’t exactly plays, but they were dramatizations and music and things that were appropriate for the whole school. We did that in the auditorium. The auditorium was still there.
TB: Right.
PC: Excuse me for interrupting again, but they had a director of the Campus School, we called it Training School back in those days.
JC: Mary Rich was the director when I was there.
PC: It was a lady named Mary Rich.
JC: That’s what I said.
PC: Who graduated from Columbia University back in New York, which is a very high quality teaching school for teachers. So, they had some top flight people in that school.
JC: She was there for a long time.
PC: …that added a dimension that normally would not have been available to a lot of people who had trained beyond the basics to make them a public school teacher, you see what I mean? So that’s one of the assets, if you want to call it that, for kids that needed that training that they were qualified to give.
TB: OK.
PC: I’d be glad to share this with you. This is one of about 500 different books we had, I put some of them away.
JC: I hope not.
PC: I don’t want to interject here; I’m speaking out of turn.
JC: You can tell he’s a talker.
TB: That’s fine. I’m not in a hurry here. But, tell me about your father. Tell me about what your father was like.
JC: Well, he was unique. He was a very unique character, I’ll tell you. He had a fantastic imagination. And he made everything fun. That’s what I remember about growing up: everything was fun. He’d turn everything into fun. Nothing was inanimate to him, everything was animate. You know what I mean? Everything took on a personality. He would make up songs. He made up a lot of songs, about whatever was happening around the house, or my mother -- what she was doing or something -- very creative, very creative.
Of course, he did a lot of rehearsing and he would go in and close his door and I would lie on the floor with my ear to the crack. I could spend hours lying on the floor listening to him, like the Christmas Carol.
He did everything. When he went out to these speaking engagements he would take a play and do the whole thing, he’d play all the major roles. It [was] just a one man show. He did an awful lot of that for the college, public speaking that was his thing. He did speaking engagements all the time, for organizations.
He loved camping. We went from Bellingham, Washington to Kalamazoo, Michigan in a Model A Ford. It took us three weeks and that was hard driving. You didn’t make a lot of time in that Model A. And it did, it literally took us three weeks. Some places we’d have to spend several nights because the weather was bad or we weren’t able to make it up the hill that led out of town. So, we’d turn around and come back and say, “Well, we’ll try again tomorrow.” If you want to think about that, I mean, that was almost a hundred years ago of course.
TB: So were a lot of the roads dirt roads.
JC: It was the Lincoln Highway, yes. Oh, yes, we went through gumbo (clay) in Wyoming and Montana. It was an adventure, it was really an adventure. We camped the whole way, put up a tent.
TB: There probably weren’t campgrounds, though, were there?
JC: Mostly we stayed in campgrounds. Oh, yes, there were campgrounds. Most towns had a campground, because that’s the way people traveled. That was when we were going back, when he was going to go to school, I think, as I recall. He was going to get his master’s degree, and we stayed with my grandmother in Kalamazoo.
TB: Is that where your family was originally from, Michigan?
JC: His family was from Ohio and my mother’s family is from Michigan, yes. And they ended up at Western. He had a brother, who taught at, was it Cheney? Yes, Eastern Washington. And he really got my father the job out here. He knew there was an opening at Western, or Bellingham Normal School, which it was then, of course. So, he came out. He and my mother had met when he was on one of his speaking engagements. I think they had mutual friends. But that was 19, oh Gosh, what was it? 1914? Must have been about 1914 that he started teaching at Western.
TB: Oh, so right after he had gotten married?
JC: Yes.
TB: OK. Well, what else about being a faculty child then at Western? Do you have some other stories about that?
JC: Well, we had a lot of social events. We always had picnics and stuff.
TB: Any stories about the summer barbeque?
JC: The salmon bake?
TB: Yes.
JC: Yes, that was always a big deal. The salmon bake was the big event, usually at Larrabee State Park, if I recall. You know how they do it, they build a fire and wrap the salmon up in seaweed, I can’t remember exactly how it was done. Did you ever go to a salmon bake (referring to Philip)? Where you bake the salmon on the beach?
PC: Sure. I was in the fishing business for years.
JC: No, I’m talking about when we were in school. They were still having them when we went to Western, weren’t they?
PC: I may have gone by then, I don’t remember.
TB: I think they had them until Dr. Bond retired in the Forties.
JC: Oh, that may be, yes.
TB: Bond was big behind it.
JC: That’s right, he was, Elias Bond.
PC: I’m trying to identify these people in a 1944 photograph, that’s not easy. I’ll show you, here’s your father here, this was taken in 1946 or 1948, I guess. This is her father, this is a friend of mine, I don’t know who this gentleman is here, and that’s a King Crab, these are large crab.
TB: Oh, wow.
PC: About 20 pound crab, King Crab.
TB: Yes
PC: We were in the king crab fishing business. You wouldn’t recognize that guy, would you?
TB: Is that you?
JC: Gosh, she did.
TB: What other faculty members do you remember?
JC: Oh, of course, we did a lot of our socializing, everything socially we were with faculty families.
TB: Do you remember Dr. Nash?
JC: Yes. Well, barely. I was an infant. I have a one dollar gold piece that Dr. Nash gave me when I was born. He was president when I was born.
TB: What about Dr. Fisher? What do you remember of Dr. Fisher?
JC: Well, of course, that was a period of turmoil in the college, of conflict. There was a lot going on.
TB: Well, even when you were a child? I mean, he was president for …
JC: Yes, he was president for quite a while.
TB: Did he ever come to talk to the grade school kids?
JC: I don’t recall that he did. I just vaguely remember him. I don’t recall how involved he was in the Campus School.
TB: Were you in the theatre program when you were at Western?
JC: No, I wasn’t. I think I had one class from him. He didn’t encourage me.
TB: Oh, OK. Now, I’m going to shift gears a little bit and ask you questions then about your time at Western as a college student. Why did you choose to attend Western?
JC: I didn’t even consider another possibility. I’d been involved in Western for so long already that it was perfectly natural for me to go to Western.
TB: Did you know you wanted to be a teacher?
JC: Yes, I think I did, at that point.
TB: What were your dates of attendance at Western?
JC: 1934, ’35, ’36, ’37, or, whatever three years is. I graduated from high school in 1934.
TB: What degrees or certificates did you receive from Western?
JC: We got some kind of diploma of course, obviously, after three years, and your certification.
TB: Did you go out and teach right after that?
JC: No, I didn’t. I went to the University of Washington.
TB: OK. Do you remember why you thought you needed to finish your degree then and not go right out and teach?
JC: No, I can’t remember. All I knew is that I wanted to get my degree. I knew I wanted to finish and get my fourth year.
TB: What other degrees, if any, did you receive elsewhere? I guess you got a B.A. from the University of Washington.
JC: Yes.
TB: OK, anything else?
JC: That’s it. That’s all.
TB: Did any other family members attend Western?
JC: My family members, you mean?
TB: Yes, did your brother go there?
JC: No, Russ didn’t go. He went to Portland State.
TB: Did any of your children go there as college students?
JC: Nope.
TB: But your husband did.
JC: Yes.
TB: What was your first job after leaving Western?
JC: My first job after leaving Western, my gosh, I can’t even remember.
PC: Colfax.
JC: No, I didn’t go to Colfax until I graduated from the University of Washington.
PC: Oh, after leaving Western? Oh, she went on to the University of Washington.
TB: Right.
JC: I didn’t do any teaching.
TB: What was your first job, I guess, as a teacher?
JC: Oh, as a teacher, would be Colfax; third-grade at Colfax.
TB: Third-grade, OK. Any distinctive memories of that experience?
JC: Oh, let’s see, we got engaged.
TB: Were you both at Colfax?
JC: No, but he was in the Spokane area, part of the time. You’re supposed to be talking, (referring to Philip). I was a freshman, you were a freshman, too, weren’t you, at the same time, 1934?
PC: No. I didn’t enter Bellingham State Normal until 1933. She entered in 1934. But I’d been out of school.
JC: You were out of school, yes. He worked…
PC: Before I went to college. Between high school and college I had one year out to try to…
JC: But we met working on the paper, the Northwest Viking. He was sports and I was our editor.
TB: This is going back to your first year then, teaching at Colfax. Any other distinctive memories of this experience? The salary, the work conditions, anything else about that?
JC: It was a very old school, a very old school building. It was a very supportive, congenial faculty. I mean, we had a good group. We had a lot of kids. It was a big, consolidated district. We had big classes and the kids came from miles around because an awful lot of little towns in there didn’t have schools. I don’t know, I can’t think of anything special. It was a good year.
TB: You were only there one year?
JC: No, three.
TB: Three years. And then what did you do?
JC: The next year I went to Sedro-Woolley for a year. That was when Phil was in the service. So, then after the first year, I went to join him in Florida, he was stationed in Leesburg, Florida.
PC: May I interject something, again, if it’s not in order? While she was at Western, she became editor of the Western Viking, that was in college.
JC: Northwest Viking.
PC: Northwest Viking. I’m reading this little picture of her here and I’m reading this comment about her, it’s very short. “Proving that men are men and women make good editors, Joan Hoppe ruled the Northwest Viking with a firm but gentle hand during the past year. Bubbling wit combined with an unsuspected intellect makes her an eventful scholar, everybody’s friend, and the most popular woman on the campus. Her ambition, she insists, is to be a second Pavalova.” Pavalova, being the dancer. And here’s the picture of her, here. She was voted the most popular girl on the campus and crowned the Queen of May. M-A-Y, that kind of May, which was very distinguished, complimentary in those days. I’m sorry to be interjecting, but that tells a little bit about her background.
JC: All I remember about that is they gave me a crown of roses. Instead of nice little rose buds, they were rather large cabbage roses. It was hot in there and it came into full bloom during the evening and all the petals fell off, so I was scattering petals everywhere. It was a lovely thing, really.
TB: OK. So, where did you live when you were at Western?
JC: At home.
TB: Who were your favorite or most influential teachers and why?
JC: Oh my gracious … Arthur Hicks for instance, because of literature, of course. And my father, he wasn’t my teacher, but Shakespeare was his thing. And I got steeped in Shakespeare, even though I didn’t take the class from him.
PC: Arthur Hicks?
JC: Arthur Hicks, I mean, he was English.
PC: Yes, and you had another one you liked, too.
JC: Who? Ed Arntzen?
PC: Ed Arntzen.
JC: Ed Arntzen, what was his field?
TB: Social Studies.
JC: Yes, I guess it was Social Studies. I had a couple classes from him. Of course, we knew everybody on the faculty personally. So, it was sort of a different relationship.
TB: They’d watched you grow up.
JC: Yes, they watched me grow up is right.
TB: I know that there was a Christmas party every year, right? That the faculty children went to?
JC: Yes.
TB: Do you have any special memories of that?
JC: I can’t even remember where it was.
TB: Up in Edens, I think.
JC: Edens Hall, yes, I guess it was Edens Hall, yes. I can’t remember anything special about that.
TB: OK. So, what was your main course of study?
End of Tape one Side one
TB: Which classes did you like the best and/or learn the most from?
JC: Well, I think literature. Arthur Hicks was the professor I think of as being connected with literature, of course; because that was his thing, definitely.
TB: Why did you like him so much?
JC: I don’t know he just lived what he was teaching. He was so into his literature that he made everything come alive.
TB: OK.
PC: Are you talking about Arthur Hicks?
JC: Yes.
PC: I took a course from a Stanford University graduate who came to Western the same year I did. So, I got in one of his first classes.
JC: When he was fresh.
TB: What other extra-curricular activities did you enjoy the most? Obviously, the student newspaper.
JC: Well, yes that was sort of extra-curricular and curricular, both. I turned out for, what did I turn out for? Field hockey.
PC: Hiking. She was a great hiker. We used to go on hikes and things, outdoors. The crew that did the Northwest Viking newspaper, we all got together and had parties
JC: It was a really tight group, yes.
PC: A really close group. In fact, several of those people who were killed during the 1939 avalanche…
JC: …were on the Northwest Viking staff.
PC: Up at Mount Baker, you’ve probably heard of that.
TB: Yes.
PC: So, we all had experience climbing, not climbing mountains…
JC: Not that kind of climbing, though.
PC: … Mount Baker, but we went on trips and of course, as I say, it was a pretty close-knit group. She was always the leader.
TB: What about dances? Were there a lot of dances?
JC: A lot of informal type dances, yes, Rec hour type. It was the Rec hour.
TB: Any other special memories of your college days?
JC: I don’t know. It’s just sort of a big…
PC: She has lots of memories. We all do, special.
JC: It’s hard to sort them out.
PC: Probably meeting me.
JC: Sure. It was a big event.
PC: I used to be a flashy dresser.
TB: Oh, you were both sharp dressers. I looked you guys up in the annuals; you were both very sharp dressers.
JC: I had a camel’s hair coat that was a knock out, it came almost to my ankles, it wrapped around three times, you know. But the funniest thing happened. One day, I don’t know where I was going, but I really felt that I was really dressed to the teeth, in that camel’s hair coat. And I was going some place and I opened up my coat and a fly flew out. I have several friends who never forgot that.
PC: She planted flies just to get attention!
TB: OK. What about Valkyrie? You were in Valkyrie.
JC: Yes.
TB: What was that like, or what was that all about?
JC: That was fun. I mean, you just, it was a pep club type thing. We had a lot of social events and activities.
PC: Did you say Valkyrie?
JC: Yes.
TB: Yes.
PC: I’ll see if she was there.
TB: Yep, she was. I wouldn’t have made it up.
PC: You got these books, too.
TB: I got those books, too, I looked you guys up.
JC: She got the inside information.
TB: Kind of.
PC: You didn’t see me in anything. I wasn’t a joiner.
TB: Yes, you were there. You were in the…and you were at homecoming -- the bon fire -- but I’ll talk to you in a minute. OK, anything else in your memory?
JC: He was what?
TB: Well, we’ll go over that in a minute.
JC: I was going to tell a funny story about that.
TB: Anything else that you haven’t commented on of either Campus School, your father or of your time at the college?
JC: Oh, boy.
TB: Just anything you’d like to share or have on the record.
JC: Is there anything I’d like to share, honey?
PC: What was the question?
JC: An outstanding event?
TB: I’m trying to get at anything else that was a special memory to her, of her time at the Campus School or as a college student or of her children’s time even, at Campus School or any other memories of her father?
JC: Oh, I have lots of memories of my father. It’s hard to pin anything down. Oh, dear. I don’t know.
PC: I wasn’t living with her at that time.
JC: No, you weren’t. I can’t think of anything special.
PC: She didn’t have a normal upbringing. With her father, nothing was really normal in the sense of calmness. We lived there two years after I got out of the service, because we had no place to live. We got married while I was in the service and we had no home, so I lived with the family and I got a chance to observe, in an intimate way, a lot about her father. But that’s not what you’re asking, the question, this is all incidental to what you’re here for. But he was a different kind of a person…
JC: A very unforgettable person. He influenced my life an awful lot.
PC: Some people might even say he at times could be considered eccentric, but not really, temperamental, yes, maybe, brilliant, no question about his brilliancy. Absolutely brilliant in terms of his profession and directing plays in the city and stepping ahead in a way that made him an outstanding citizen of the city, because of his drama and his ability to perform. So, I saw that from a different vantage point, maybe than Jan would. Then again, I was just a country hick. Pardon me, but I came to the city and grew up pretty fast, learning a little bit about the other side. I was used to working with farmers, people like that.
JC: My father was a shock to him, that’s what it was.
PC: … a rather demonstrative group of people.
JC: Another funny thing. My dad wrote the script for the Tulip Festival, which went on for years. So I got to be [on] the float. I always got to be [on] the queen’s float. I was a page or something, that was because my dad wrote the [program]. I said I didn’t participate in any of his plays, but I did one time. It must have been when I was five years old, probably, Kindergarten or First-grade, and I was going to be a fairy in Midsummer Night’s Dream I thought, “Oh, boy, I’ll probably have a gorgeous costume.” I was the moth! My mother dyed some cheesecloth gray and that was my costume. My friends had these lovely costumes. That was a blow. But I got to be part of it. I think I even had one speaking line.
TB: So, tell me a little bit more about the Tulip Parade. What kind of script was there?
JC: Well, there was a pageant, is what it was. In fact, I wonder if I still have a copy of that. I have a lot of my dad’s stuff.
TB: Oh, you do have some of your dad’s stuff.
JC: Well, just pictures and some of it goes clear back to when he was in college, because he was doing a lot of speaking.
TB: So do you have some of his speeches or different scripts that he used when he did his work?
JC: Well, the plays. I have a lot of his play books that are all marked for direction, just his little paper back play books. What do you do with them?
TB: Oh, we’d love them. How hard was it for your father to retire?
JC: Well, he didn’t retire at 65. I think he taught at least … see, he died at 70, so he hadn’t been retired all that long. I think he retired at 67 and he only lived three years after that.
TB: Wow. Any thoughts for him when they built the new auditorium? Did he like that or he didn’t like that?
JC: Oh, yes. Of course, he did Shakespeare. Of course before that he did Shakespeare on the knoll. Is the knoll still there?
TB: Yes.
JC: Yes, and that was a perfect place for something like A Midsummer Night’s Dream. He did several things on the knoll. Then, of course, when they built the [auditorium] I remember him doing The Merchant of Venice, not even in the stage, but in that narthex, the front part of the…with the stairway coming down, they used that instead of the stage. He played Shylock of course. He always played Shylock when they did The Merchant of Venice.
TB: Now, do you know why he liked Shakespeare so much?
JC: Oh, heavens. He had gotten that years before, I mean, he was just a Shakespeare buff. It must have been his own professors, he went to Denison University. He actually could have gone on the professional stage. He had an opportunity; he could have been an actor, a professional actor. But he chose to be a teacher. I just grew up with Shakespeare -- that was his love.
TB: Did you know Angus Bowmer?
JC: Yes.
TB: Do you want to talk a little bit about their relationship?
JC: He was what we called a perpetual school boy. He was in school for a long time after, he kept coming back. And of course, dad was really his mentor. He was in practically every play. During the time he was in school, he was in every play that dad did. I’m sure that’s what inspired him to start acting.
TB: He credited your father with that, he wrote a book.
JC: Yes, he said dad was his mentor.
TB: Well, I don’t have any other questions, so if you don’t think of anything [else]?
JC: If I had just sat down and [coddled] my brains I might have remembered more. It’s awfully hard. That’s been a long time.
TB: Why don’t you tell me a little bit about Mabel Zoe Wilson? Or your memories of her?
JC: Well, she was always a character, she and Lillian both, always characters. I don’t know I don’t have any great stories to tell about her. We felt that she was a personage and she was always treated with great respect and she did a tremendous job with the library, absolutely tremendous job. But, beyond that, I don’t know, I thought she was really a very lovely person, very enjoyable and really a very gracious person, too.
TB: Did she show a lot of interest in you as a child?
JC: Well, not undo interest, but I always knew her. And as I say, I always felt that she was someone to be respected. Of course, that was my upbringing, to respect my elders anyway. She was my elder, then -- quite a bit my elder.
TB: What about Lillian George?
JC: Well, Lillian George was a very direct, very much to the point. She’d say exactly what she believed and if that bothered you, well, that’s just tough. She was definitely a character. She loved outdoor sports and especially this place down on the Oregon Coast that she called Yachats. I’m not sure just how you spell that. Anyway, it was her favorite place, right on the ocean, and she talked a lot about Yachats. She did a lot of hiking. She was a tough old gal.
But beyond that, they were always there and they were always part of the library as far as we were concerned, because they were the only librarians we knew at Western, then.
TB: Did you go on to the hikes with her?
JC: No, not really.
TB: Was she stern?
JC: She had the effect of being stern, yes she was. But we knew her a little more personally, and I thought she was a delightful person. But she was very direct, if you didn’t like what she said, well, that’s just tough. What you see is what you get.
TB: That’s right, OK. Thank you very much.