CHAPTER 9

 

OBERLIN ‑ IT'S DUMB TO BE STUPID

 

            The four years at Oberlin were in some ways the worst time in my life.  Yet they taught me a lot. 

 

            Ten girls shared the second floor of my section of Dascomb Cottage.  The months of preparation had enabled me to feel pretty good about myself, proud of the clothes I had made, eager to make new friends, hoping that I would somehow emerge into a new glam­orous world.  But it was a precarious state to be in. 

 

            Freshman week went well‑‑I later found out that I was the only one in the Freshman class who made a perfect score in the test we took on how to go about studying.  Looking back I think that is revealing‑‑I don't think of myself as having such a high I.Q. as much as of being able to see how to put things together.

 

            The first "mixer" I went to was a qualified success.  Jack Ranney walked me home‑‑a very pleasant fellow.  But he did not ask me for a date nor call afterwards.  Unless I had instant success I felt I was doomed to failure.  And it was all downhill from there.  Lots of nice girls at Oberlin never had a date.  My idea of a date was an invitation followed by a suitable expen­diture like a movie and a coke or soda afterwards, or being invited to a dance.  Following the pattern of the movies was to play "hard to get" which I was good at.  But just to be natural and friendly with boys was much too hard.

 

            On the other hand I made lasting friends of a number of girls.  My roommate, Ruth Freeman, was petite, Jewish, ambitious and talented as a flutist.  She was only interested in "getting to the top" where her mother had told her there was plenty of room.  She bounced out of bed at 6 a.m., exercised until 6:30, bathed until 7 a.m. when the rest of us were just rubbing the sleep from our eyes, hoping we could make it to the last call for breakfast.  She never practiced less than 5 or 6 hours a day and most days far longer than that.   Later Ruth had a distinguished career, playing with ensemble groups and as a concert flutist across the country and in Carnegie Hall.  She was not interested in exploring her soul or delving into anything that didn't fur­ther her career.

 

            All of my friends liked to wallow in the new experiences, sharing each other's past and present and future.  I felt that I was valued more than I had ever been for having common sense and insight and I also developed a reputation for being funny,  some­thing that I seldom felt at home.  It was as if I suddenly was released from whatever stereotypes my family had laid on me.

 

            Some time in the middle of the year when our floor had become really quite chummy, I evolved an idea of how we could "improve" ourselves.  One night at a "spread" (meaning a pajama party after hours in one of the girls' rooms) I outlined my idea.

 

            "Look," I said "we've all been close together for several months now.  We know each other quite well, and each of us can see how the others can improve, where we can't see the flaws in ourselves.  Why don't we each take 9 slips of paper, write a suggestion for improvement for each of the other people on the floor.  We'll tack 10 envelopes up with our names on them and after each of us has distributed our suggestions, we'll have another spread and read the suggestions in our own envelopes."

 

            Everyone seemed to think it was a great idea.  One week was allowed to carry it out.   And everyone cooperated.  The fateful night arrived.  There was general good humor and nervous laughter as the jelly doughnuts and pop bottles were assembled and each girl received her envelope.

 

            Suddenly the silence became awesome.  The first girl who burst into tears didn't bother to look around or see the devastated faces around her‑‑she simply fled from the room.  One after another everyone walked out.  The untouched refreshments made the awkwardness more strained. 

 

            It took several days before the mood shifted back to any­thing like normal.  Roommates didn't speak to each other.  Twenty years later one of those girls, Liz Prentiss, dropped in to see us in Hanford, California.  I hadn't seen or heard of her in those 20 years.  First she introduced me to her Forest Ranger husband, and then she said, "Remember those slips..."

 

            No psychotherapist in his right mind would have allowed such an event (though I've seen some do equally stupid things since).  But that was long before the days of pop psychology.

 

            The things I loved at Oberlin were the wonderful professors and the mind boggling courses and lectures and concerts.  But where my smarts ended and my stupidity took over was that I was still obsessed with the idea of making it look easy.  Don't open a book if you don't have to.  Study just enough to make an "A" in a course but no more.  Get by.  Unfortunately Oberlin was on a ranking system where they didn't give "A's" but straight ranks like 2/89 meant you were 2nd in the class of 89.  And of course 88/89 would be the equivalent of a "D".

 

             Professors I especially enjoyed included Dr. Oscar Jaszi for  political science (Dr. Jaszi was a former member of the Hungarian Cabinet who had fled the Communists after the First World War); Dr. Taft who made Shakespeare and Chaucer come alive; Dr. Frederick (Freddie) Artz in Medieval History.  I did especially well in math and was invited to be a math major‑‑in fact the professor begged me to consider it.  But I was put off by the thought of being considered a "grind".

 

            So I drifted.  I was getting more and more unhappy inside.  I enjoyed all my female friendships, but some of the friendship came out of shared unhappiness.  One unfailing comfort was eating and there were lots of opportunities.  As I became pudgier, my clothes didn't fit as well and I hated myself. 

 

            I roomed with Martha Barry my sophomore year.  She suggested I apply to Harkness Camp on Lake Erie for a summer job.  I had just completed a semester of swimming (I remember having to race to compulsory chapel after swimming every day‑‑my hair would still be wet and during the coldest days I even had icicles hanging down my neck) and I had received my Senior Life Saving.

 

            Harkness Camp was a church run settlement camp where poor children and some middle‑class children came for two‑week stints.  It was a prized job, for the staff was known to have a lot of fun, especially since it was coeducational which was unusual in those days.  I managed to do an adequate job but inside I was miserably unhappy.  The best times I remember were a special day off in the war canoes‑‑absolutely wild battling with the elements‑‑and the fun I had planning a successful final banquet.  But I was spiraling downward in being self‑conscious, self‑ centered, eating too much.  I looked out at the sun setting on Lake Erie and thought of suicide.  I didn't think of doing it, but, for the first time, I knew why people did it.

 

            The end of the summer finally arrived.  I boarded the bus in Cleveland to head for Englewood.  A largish elderly woman (probably in her 50's) sat down beside me.  We had nothing to do for the next 20 hours or so but talk and sleep.  She turned out to be a "lecturer" on her way to some sort of engagement.  We exchanged life histories.  I told her how unhappy I was.  She told me that I was nice looking, that I had a nice personality, that I should use my talents.  Not exactly unusual or spectacular advice, but I've never forgotten that ride‑‑and I've often wished I knew her name and could thank her.  For it was definitely the lowest point of my life.  I was not only fat‑‑I was dirty.  There was a deep grime from swimming constantly in Lake Erie that even showers had not removed.  And she said the things that needed to be said at a turn‑around point in my life.

 

            Alison Jacobs was married the end of that summer and I remember making myself a blue silk dress to wear to the wedding.  It didn't come out very well, partly because I was plumpish, but it was a beginning.

 

            A book that influenced me deeply at this time was "The Courage of the Commonplace," ‑‑ the story of a Yale student who fails to make Skull and Bones, though all his family tradition has laid that expectation on him.  The thing I got out of it was that there was something better than being "successful" or being "smart".  You could simply be yourself and accept what life brought.         

 

            It wasn't until my junior year that I woke up to the joy of maximum studying instead of minimum studying.  The worst grade I had received was in Medieval Architecture my sophomore year, but I had loved the class with Dr. Clarence Ward, a real medieval expert.  Suddenly I wanted to know more than I needed to know, and in my Junior Year I began to haunt the art library.  I was still by no means a bookworm, but I began to see that if you go deeply enough into a subject it begins to come together.  At the same time it opens up all sorts of vistas.

 

            The Dean of Women, Mildred MacAfee (later President of Wellesley and Head of the WAVES) called me in and asked me if I would like to go as a Senior Counselor to Lord Cottage.  I would live in the Annex, but I was to act as Chaplain which would pay for my board and there were some other minor duties.  This was definitely better than washing dishes and I jumped at the chance.  The Chaplain had to say grace at all meals.  Grace meant coming up with a high‑minded aphorism or short poem that would direct our thoughts toward God and gratitude but that would not be either sanctimonious nor overtly Christian in order not to offend anyone's faith.  One day at lunch I was preoccupied and forgot my responsibility.  Suddenly I realized that the whole dining room was waiting for me and I blushed and blurted out, "Will wonders never cease!"  There was much laughter.

 

            I loved having the Freshman girls come to me with their problems.  It was good experience too.  The most complicated problem that developed was the havoc caused by a conspicuous Lesbian.  At that time we didn't use the words homosexual or Lesbian publicly.  And the general attitude was to hush the whole thing up.  I thought I handled it very well in consultation with the house mother and the dean.  At least I felt very important I remember in being a go‑between.  I wonder how it would be handled today.

 

            I was elected Secretary of the Peace Society (a big thing on campus) and got my picture in the paper.  Peace Society advocated and demonstrated for peace, sometimes using slogans like "WAR IS HELL".   We also arranged for speakers.

 

            I was head of the Social Action Committee for the YWCA.  The idea was that previous generations just talked about social action‑‑we would DO something.  Ha. We had a brilliant German exchange student who had had plays produced in Berlin.  As Social Action chairman I invited her to talk to us about Nazism (this was 1936).  We all sat around on the floor and listened to her hold forth on the glories of Hitler and the new spirit of health and wholesomeness that pervaded Germany.  Then I asked, "But what about the treatment of the  Jews?"  This was my first realization of the horror of Nazism, for her expression suddenly changed and she practically spat out the words, "Jews‑‑they have been the cause of all our problems‑‑it doesn't matter what happens to them."  It was a closed subject.  We all felt the horror of the moment, but we could not conceive of what history would be made in the years ahead.

 

            One of the high points of my Senior Year occurred when I gave my paper on "St. Peter's Cathedral" in the graduate seminar in the art department.  I had studied long and hard and dreaded the occasion even though my written paper was in hand. I was to have the whole two hour seminar including slides. Dr. Ward was there of course and Charles Parkhurst, one of the graduate students, who later headed the Art Department. 

 

            When I was about three quarters through my lecture, who should walk into the room but the President of the College!  Ernest Hatch Wilkins was the model of a College President:  a brilliant scholar with a specialty in Italian and Dante, a gracious philosopher, a man beloved by students and faculty alike.  He listened to the rest of my paper, asked some intelligent questions, complimented me.  I floated back to the dormitory in a cloud of glory.  

 

            Another high point was the all college assembly when the list for Phi Beta Kappa was announced.  I was totally unprepared and thrilled when my name was read out.  There was a special dinner for us at the Oberlin Inn and many good things came to me that I could not have anticipated.

 

            Finally graduation.  Mother and father and Molly came.  Oberlin had given me so much, and yet why do I still look back at these years as unhappy ones?  Little by little I was overcoming the deep inner lack of confidence, but I suppose in my heart of hearts I equated happiness with finding fulfillment through marriage and that was a long way ahead.  Sometimes I wonder if the young women of today realize how much our college generation talked about "careers vs. marriage".  We didn't choose to be "oppressed".  We chose what we wanted, and most of us felt an overwhelming desire for the deep commitment that marriage would involve.  I can't think of any of my contemporaries who feel gypped about the choices they made.  The big choice was to find the right person and not to settle for second‑best.