Interview with Ethel Allen

Ethel Allen #236 Transcript

LS: This is an interview with Ethel Allen on December 16, 1982. Dorothy Collins and Laura Smail are talking in Ethel Allen's home. To begin with and I think to sort of set the stage, Mrs. Allen, will you give us a little bit about your background, where you were born and when and what kind of a family you lived in, this kind of thing, so we can see where you started.

EA: I started in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, on July 13, 1906, which is close to 77 years ago. I took my bachelor's degree in botany. When I did accomplish that in 00:01:001928 the depression was on us and there were no jobs available so I went back and got a master's degree in bacteriology under Dr. Fred who later became president of the university. My husband in the meantime had his two degrees from the University of Texas and came up here in about 1927 to get his doctorate in bacteriology under Dr. Baldwin. He was what they call a TA now, teaching assistant, laboratory assistant. Immediately after we both graduated in 1930 he got a job to teach at the University of Hawaii. We left and proceeded out to Honolulu to take that job.

LS: What was the degree you came back for?

EA: Master's. Master's of science I guess you would call it. So we had 15 years in Honolulu together. He mostly was a teacher, he also was interested in botany, as that was my main interest really. The combination of botany and bateriology was accomplished professionally in this symbiotic association between leguminous plants and this particular group of organizations that are able to fix nitrogen from the air in the plant by way of root-nodules.

LS: Alright, before you get that far--

EA: You cut me off whenever you--

LS: What kind of family did you grow up in?

EA: Oh, of course, I grew up in, my mother was second generation Dutch and my 00:03:00father was second generation German.

DC: To what degree was your family educated, was it unusual for someone from your family, particularly a woman, to go to the university?

EA: Well I think that was conditioned by the fact that my sister was, had ten percent sight, she was legally blind, so she did not go on. But my father saw to it that she got a musical education. She had a beautiful voice and she was operatic quality, but because she had no stage presence she couldn't make it in that direction. My brother got a master's degree in chemistry, and because my father was in the business of oil, he was trained in oil chemistry. None of the cousins had college experience. But I knew from the beginning that I was going 00:04:00to be a biologist, you know, this is, this is--

LS: Do you remember what got you interested in science?

EA: Oh yes, a wonderful biology teacher in high school.

DC: Where did you go to high school?

EA: West Division High School in Milwaukee.

LS: In Milwaukee.

EA: Yes.

DC: How did your family react to your going to Hawaii and how did you feel about going from the great midwest--

EA: Oh well, it's wither thou goest, I will go. There was no question about it and my, my husband and I had a tremendous symbiotic, we were like twins. Nothing would have interfered with my going even though my dear mother was heartbroken, you know, really, naturally. This was the great unknown in those days. And in those days it took 8 to 10 days to get there by boat, there was no airplanes. So it was difficult for them, yes. But for me there was no choice.

LS: Were you excited about it?

EA: Oh--

LS: Going that far away?

EA: I don't know. I really, it was just we were going, that was it. Sure, I suppose so.

DC: And what did you do in Hawaii? Your husband was at the university?

EA: Yes.

LS: And were you there as well or were you--

EA: No I had, because our interests were absolutely parallel and intertwined more than parallel, I worked with him with no pay. I hardly ever received any pay for what I did.

LS: This was--

EA: This was understood you see and wives didn't work in the same department with their husbands in those days. In fact, wives seldom worked.

DC: Yes, this is quite common. Was there, in Hawaii was there a rule against this or was it just sort of taken for granted that this was--

EA: I'm not so sure. I've had a different understanding of wifehood I think. My idea was that the men earned the living and the wives helped them as best they could in entertaining and in being agreeable, sociable with the rest of the people in the--it was a small college, small university at that time. Whereas the University of Wisconsin was about 8 to 9 thousand student population, the University of Hawaii was I think about between 2,000 and 3,000. And we were one big family and every one of us was foreign, we were all away. And so we hung together as it were. We made our own social life. It was a wonderful place to be 00:07:00in those days. It was very oriental, it was 80 percent oriental. We were a long way from home, it took the mail two weeks to get to us. And so we did, you know, we had very very close friendships and it was just a delightful situation to learn how to grow up and get matured, I think.

DC: Did you have a family out there, any children?

EA: No, no we've never had children.

DC: You felt that you both were doing what was a labor of love, working with your husband in the laboratory--

EA: Oh yes.

DC: But you also felt that you were, had social obligations as a non-working wife?

EA: This was the way to be a husband and wife was to be a helpmate in the home 00:08:00and a helpmate in the--for me it was because I was so--I was trained in this direction, this was my great love--to just carry on. It would have been a waste of training in my book if we hadn't done it.

DC: When did you come back here and did you come directly to Madison when you came back to the United States or did you move, what brought you back?

EA: We came back once for about a week and then went on to Europe for 15 months and studied in European laboratories and continued our project in botanical gardens in Europe and made that kind of contact. And then we went back to Honolulu, that would have been in 1937. And then for three successive summers, my husband was invited to take the head of the department's place at the University of Texas because that was where he got his degrees, from University of Texas.

DC: Was this at Austin?

EA: Yes, it was in '37, '38 or '38, '39 and '40. Just for the summers, so I've never seen Austin when it was anything but hot. Le's see, where do we go from here? Then the European War broke out of course in 19--are we running out of time or something?

DC: No I'm just trying, I couldn't see it from the way the light, but go on.

EA: In '39 the European War broke out, and we went back, you known we had been at Austin for the summer, and went back. And then we were there for the outbreak of Pearl Harbor.

DC: Were you in--

EA: In Honolulu, yes. We saw the thing happening and experience it. And in fact right now I'm getting ready to make a duplicate of a war diary that is two volumes for the archives.

LS: Of yours?

EA: Yes.

LS: How fascinating.

EA: It is full of news clippings and mostly it is rumor stories. Honolulu was a rumor mill at the beginning of the war. Just horrible rumors developing all around. My husband then--the University was closed immediately and stayed closed for about three months. And our laboratory was turned into a water bacteriological laboratory, but first I want to backtrack. Because the reason I think that we found Honolulu so, Hawaii rather, the Islands so fascinating was because there was this vast wealth of leguminous plants which is our field of work. I think one can safely say that nearly 50 percent of the trees present 00:11:00were leguminous trees, and this is the bean, pea, alfalfa, clover family in temperate zone but in the tropics it takes the forms of enormous trees that are blooming trees. They bloom with flowers first as a rule so that you will have an entirely red display of flowers or an entirely yellow, or entirely pink. The so-called shower trees; it is a fascinating thing. And as one goes into the tropics proper then you get into the timer trees, the Philippine mahogany and the rosewoods, the very valuable timber trees which are now being eliminated. You know, this is where Hugh Iltis gets excited. So then, of course, that kind 00:12:00of plant exploration and hunt for the organisms, hunt for the nodules on the root system so that we could isolate the organisms and find out what makes them tick you see. You have to get a pure culture of the organism to mix with the seed in order to get this symbiotic associaiton.

LS: I'd like to know how you worked together, that is, you went into the laboratory every day and--

EA: Not every day, that's the reason I didn't really want a job because if I had to be at a tea party or if I had to do some social work or something like this, I was completely free of obligations monetarily. But if we had a run of isolating these organisms or if we had to go into the field to get them in the 00:13:00first place, then I was completely free to do that you see.

LS: And were you, were you preparing the cultures--or I don't suppose that's what you were doing.

EA: A little of everything, yes, a little of everything, sure. Helping in plant identification and in isolating the organisms and preparing and making sure that they--they have to be kept alive and they have to be fed. You know, we feed them on an agar plate that is like jello. Has a sugar in it and has a protein source and has vitamins and this sort of thing. And then they gorw and by gorwing, they grow in enormous numbers by the millions so that they finally become visible, from a microscopic thing into a big colony that is visible. And then you take from that and you put it onto fresh medium and keep it alive for years and years and years-forever if need be. But they do need to be tended, as it were.

LS: So he had to be responsible all the time for them.

EA: Yes, actually, it ended up being my responsibility because he was teaching and--

LS: So you did have to go in--

EA: Oh yes.

LS: You could maybe take an afternoon or two off--

EA: Oh, I could--

LS: Or more?

EA: Weeks off, really, I mean because we traveled a lot. And then these things do, you can put them in the refrigerator and they hold for three to four to five months because it's not a demanding organism for instance, a pneumonia organism would be. That you would have to keep in cultivation every several days or it would die off on you.

DC: During this period of research, were you publishing results?

EA: Oh yes. Oh yes. Always jointly.

DC: It was always a joint paper?

EA: Always jointly.

DC: With your name on it? No question about it?

EA: With my name on it, sometimes first, sometimes second depending on who had carried the load. Yes.

DC: It was essentially, then, a research team--

EA: Exactly, as a research team.

DC: You weren't really, did you ever feel as if you were more an assistant than a, or--

EA: Never, never. No. Completely symbiotic. It was really, it was a wonderful relationship. A most unusual relationship.

LS: It sounds it. You must have felt that you were lucky compared to--

EA: Oh yes.

LS: Not every woman who was a student in the same field that her husband was, would be able to get along that well working with him.

EA: Well I think that's true, he was completely unselfish. And I suppose I was too because I never demanded any salary, or I never demanded first place but he would say, you know you did most of the work on this, this time we will put your name first. You know. This kind of thing. And between the two of us we published, I don't know, some 35, 40 papers together and some chapters and books 00:16:00together. And whenever he was asked to give a lecture before a group of a society, there was no question but that I was to come along. We were very compatible sociably, socially and professionally.

DC: What took place then once there was the war situation and the university was closed?

EA: Oh yes.

DC: Did your husband have to go into the service or did he stay out?

EA: No he was just, he was considered essential and I don't think they could have stood another soldier over there.

DC: I could imagine.

EA: Oh the island was about to sink for all the military that was over there. He was concerned, he thought--we were really convinced that we were expendable and 00:17:00he was convinced that I should leave. I wasn't at all convinced of that, I think that more families broke up because of just absence. For instance, it would be very hard for a lone man to exist. Who was going to do the grocery shoppiong when you had complete total blackout at sunset. And it was just no go. I saw more families break up because the wife was, she took the children to the mainland or--it was just not a good deal at all.

DC: There was an atmosphere then in Hawaii of fear of attack and--

EA: Oh yes, yes. And grave shortages, immediately. There was no sale of liquor. The stores were closed for a day in order to get their wits about what they 00:18:00could supply us with. And then I think the maximum purchase was maybe $10 which would amount to maybe $20 now. And absolute total blackout, that is the interesting thing about the diary is what people did to blackout. What could you do when you're living on hillsides and you are surrounded by an ocean and there were submarines out there that would reflect moonlight against glass. You know, we were, we were, this was really something, people would think there were signals being flashed, but there weren't. It was just moonlight, a tree waving, this kind of thing. Well first of all what we did, the laboratory was turned into a water analysis station. Because the army was in great need of opening up 00:19:00areas for men to bivouac in--tent colonies, this sort of thing. And they had to hook it up with running water. And the only flat areas would be farm lands that belong to Chinese and Japanese. And those farm lands had rice and taro, which is a water growing plant, and maybe little vegetable patches. And the fertilizer of choice to the oriental is always what is called night soil which is human feces. And so the soil was contaminated as you may well imagine with enteric organisms. And so when the army came along and laid the pipes, the boys would just put the pipes off the truck and just dump them on this soil and they would get--the pipes inside would get contaminated. So waht needed to be done then, once they 00:20:00were all hooked up, was to flush them out thoroughly with water, just flush flush flush. And what we did then, the army would bring us the water samples until we were sure in the laboratory they were completely free of any organisms that were related to typhoid or enteric, human intestinal organisms you see. Well, eventually, and not too long after, the army was in complete control and didn't need that kind of work any more, you see. So then, and this was all free, you know. We didn't get paid for doing this, we just--

LS: Who was paying you? How were you getting money?

EA: The army, well the army would be. I mean I had a big badge that meant that I could walk through areas and had my picture on it and it was called a US Army, 00:21:00what do they call it? Engineering Corps. Well the army paid the stenographers handsomely, oh yes, they had gobs of money.

LS: But not you?

EA: I didn't ask for it, I mean this was your war duty. When disaster hits, you want to be useful, you weant to be busy. And you know, what's the difference? What is money?

LS: But your husband must have had a source of income then?

EA: Well, I'd suppose so, I don't remember ever seeing any army checks or anything like that. I really don't, I don't, that angle may--

LS: But the university opened up again?

EA: Oh, not for, not until the following March or May or April and I think we had some money from the university because we were under contract. But I don't remember that angle of it at all. I really don't.

DC: Did your husband take care of all the business, family business arrangments--

EA: No, I did.

DC: Paying the bills--

EA: No, I usually did. I enjoyed that kind of thing. There wasn't too much to take care of really. We were renting a house. We were limited to maybe ten gallons of gasoline a month or something like that. There wasn't--you know, at night you just didn't do anything. We didn't have TV, we didn't have radio. We read, we read like mad. We read everything we could get our hands on.

LS: Behind the blackout?

EA: Yes. We had a room in the house that was build into the hill. We were on about the highest street in that valley in Honolulu. And the house was two story, there were people living above us. We were renting and they were renting. And this house was built into the hill so that one room had no windows, on one side had one little window and then it had no exposure to the ocean on the other 00:23:00side. So we were happy in there. We had lots of newspapers at first on that window and then finally I was able to buy black denim and we made a black denim curtain. And I think that house, that room was never ventilated, it was just too inconvenient to open windows you see. And many people painted, to their regret later, painted their windows black. And in the diary I have an ad that the paint companies, the hardware companies were renting paint brushes because they ran out of paint brushes, so they would rent you a paint brush for a day or two at a price. It was--and of course we were not permitted to drive our cars and those who did put black paint on their head lights so that if by any chance they made 00:24:00a mistake and turned the lights on it wouldn't show. It was war. It was living in a war zone. It was very interesting. And quite frightening. And then very boring because nothing happened really.

LS: When did you come to the University of Wisconsin?

EA: In 192--

LS: No, I mean afterwards?

EA: Oh, afterwards. We first, he was offered a job after midway--you know when the war was beginning to show that we may not be in complete command but at least they weren't going to come back this way. Then he was offered a job at the University of Maryland. And he went there and I went to my folks in Milwaukee. My father was very senile and very ill. My mother had died in the meantime. And 00:25:00so I went to Milwaukee until it became feasible for us to be able to live together which was a matter of about six months. And the University of Maryland was a mistake really. It was a second class university as far as he was concerned. And I went, well I spent several weekends going back and forth sitting--during the war you sat up in these horribly dirty trains. And I would go back and forth and see if I could find a place to live and there was nothing. I remember once I just sat on a curb and cried. I was so frustrated. We just--life was tough.

DC: This was in the '40s?

EA: This was, it would be '42 because the attack was '41. And we stayed on, I 00:26:00can't remember now, I think we stayed on all of '42 and this must have been '43 that he was made this offer and we came back.

LS: Oh, and then when did you actually come here?

ALLEN: Then we came the end of '43.

LS: To Wisconsin?

EA: Yes. And then we couldn't find a place to live toegether either, you see.

LS: Who invited--

EA: It was the bacteriology department through Dr. Fred I'm quite sure because they wanted to rebuild that area. They wanted to rebuild this symbiotic--because Wisconsin was the forerunner in the nation, was the foremost department in this field of study and they wanted to keep it that way, it had run down, they had lost people.

DC: Had they lost many people during war? Was the department--

EA: Well there was kind of a lack of interest. You know, there was a time when it was felt that everything that needed to be known was known. And it was just not going forward. The younger people didn't see the need for this particular phase of study and there was a great wave toward the end of the '40s away from practical bacteriology, you know, applied bacteriology. The young people pooh poohed this thing, it was all electron microscope and highfalutin enzymology and all this stuff. And this was agricultural application that was considered kind of old fashioned and farmerish. You know, kids they don't want to come to a 00:28:00farm, a cow college. Do you know what I'm speaking of?

LS: Yes I do, but that kind of research was going on here too, wasn't it? I mean the pure--

EA: The pure science yes. But you see, Dr. Fred was moved to president. Dr. Baldwin was moved up to vice president. Elizabeth McCoy, did you ever interview her?

LS: No that's one great failing.

EA: That's too bad.

LS: Maybe you could say something about her because I don't think anybody has talked about her on tape much. Do you know about--

DC: I know what she did and I'm familiar with her work but I'd like to hear more about it. She had been here a number of years before you arrived?

EA: Elizabeth was in Europe when I was in the department. When I came I wasn't in the department, I was on a $60 a month fellowship. You couldn't live on that 00:29:00now. Well it was $30 for your room and board and $30 for your food.

LS: This was for your M.A.?

EA: My M.A. yes.

LS: M.S. I suppose.

EA: Elizabeth was in Europe at the time so I'd hear about the great Elizabeth but I never got to meet her until we came back. And then the joke of it all was that I lived with her for about three months while we were hunting, we bought this house when we came back but we couldn't live in it, we had to evict--

LS: This house?

EA: Yes. We had to evict the people from it, you see, because there was such a housing shortage. The people, when we bought, knew that they were going to be evicted, and we felt very badly about it, but after all, we had to live too. So Elizabeth, she was a very very generous kind-hearted woman. And she said, "My 00:30:00mother just died and I've got this apartment, I'm living alone, would you come live with me?" But not my husband, just she and I. There wasn't room, it was a very small one-bedroom apartment. So I reluctantly did because I didn't feel it was right. But it was a case of living in Milwaukee or--and this way it was a transition for me. Because then I could work in the department, not in any paid position, but I could help my husband, as everyone in the department would say: "Are you here helping your husband?"

LS: By that time it must have been pretty unusual to have people coming into the lab and not being part of the paid staff.

EA: That's right too. And I wasn't helping my husband, heck I was helping myself. You know, I was with him and we could have lunches together, and we didn't have any home life together. But at least it was better than transporting 00:31:00myself back and forth to Milwaukee and I didn't care that much about living at home either.

DC: Where was he living at that time?

EA: At the club. The University Club.

EA: Do they still have people living there?

LS: I don't think so.

EA: I don't think they do either. He lived there while we were courting as it were. I lived at the place that is all torn down in Sterling Court. That was just around the corner. And he had lived at the University Club for all three years of his graduate work. Loved it. Had a great feeling that the University Club was an essential part of the university. And was very very grossly sorrowed at the way that club changed. You know, they have to haul in meals now from the Union don't they?

LS: Yes.

EA: And I think women can walk through the front door now.

LS: Now, I am curious as to how--did you go into the University Club?

EA: Always went through the side door.

LS: Did you eat with the women in there sometimes?

EA: I would eat with him.

LS: Oh, you did, you could eat with him?

EA: Yes, we could eat together, at noon. I don't know if they served evening meals or not. But anyway, that was getting back to Elizabeth, were we talking about Elizabeth?

LS: Yes.

EA: She was Dr. Fred's right hand man. She was a farm girl and her family owned two farmed that I know of. Right across the street from each other and they were milk farms. Elizabeth had a brother who had no interest whatsoever in the farm. And she loved to keep the books. She loved to keep the reocrds on the milk production for individual cows. She liked to keep the accounts on what they 00:33:00obtained from the slaughter house for the meat of the animals, the chickens. The whole business. She should have been a man. She ran that farm most efficiently and Dr. Fred admired her tremendously for this because essentially Dr. Fred was a farm man too. And he had tremendous admiration for her. I don't think Dr. Fred could have negotiated the way he did if she hadn't just really looked after the details.

LS: That's interesting.

EA: Yes.

LS: In the department you mean?

EA: Yes--

LS: Or do you mean even further when he was Dean and--

EA: That I wouldn't know. I think not. I think he had very efficient office help. But he sought out her advice a lot. I know that she made almost daily 00:34:00trips to the home. They would sit around and talk about production and farm, University policy and this sort of thing. She was very good. She had lots of good graduate students too. She was good at publishing. It wasn't a case of being just theoretical. She saw the application of things and carried them out at meetings and was-- She got good students, she recognized ability in students and negotiated to keep them on in fellowships and grants and this sort of thing. She was generous too. She was generous with her time and generous with her money, and her friendship.

LS: You became friends?

EA: Oh yes. We were very good friends because I lived with her.

LS: And you went on being friends after you left?

EA: Oh yes, oh yes.

LS: What, did she ever comment on your, did she ever say, Ethel you ought to be getting a job yourself, or you ought to be getting a Ph.D.?

EA: Oh no, Dr. Fred did, but she didn't.

LS: Did he?

EA: Yes.

LS: Did he mean it?

EA: Oh yes, I think he was grossly disappointed that I got married. He told me I was making a great mistake. Dr. Fred gave me about five bad pieces of advice and that was one of them.

LS: WEll you didn't follow that one--

EA: No I didn't--

LS: So you were alright.

EA: No no, I didn't follow any of his band ones--

LS: Well, what were the other pieces?

EA: One he absolutely objected to our buying this house, it was completely foolish. The market was too high and this was too far away from the laboratory. I took a job in California while I was doing graduate work. He talked to me, he 00:36:00made me come to his home and talked to me for about, oh I think I spent three hours there. Don't take the job, it's a waste of your time. It's out of your field. It was just-- and I said I'm going to take that job, I'm already committed. I want that job. I just bucked him all the way and he was quite angry with me. The other thing was when we came back, he wanted us to live in their house. Wanted to live in that--

LS: With them?

EA: With them. I said, "absolutely not." You know this is something we can't countenance. So I mean these were the things where he would, he was, I think selfish in that we he had something, he wanted you to go in that direction and I would not be pushed or lead or whatever. But we were great friends.

DC: Did he feel this way about all of his students that he considered to be very good students? Did he have to--

EA: Dr. Fred had to have his way. Oh yes, oh yes. He often did not have good ideas in my opinion. But by golly that's the way it was going to be. He was set. I think he was not used to being bucked at home perhaps or--

LS: Yes.

EA: He was wa very fortunate man, he had people advising him wisely on the hill. He had very staunch help. I don't think he could have operated without Dr. Baldwin.

LS: Yes, I was going to ask you how much of the--

EA: I don't think he could have operated. One of my friends described him perfectly. He said he had a grasshopper mind, and he did. If you ever went up to his office, he was distracting you completely about his local little interests. 00:38:00This, the wood in this desk came from so and so. See that picture over there that came from so and so. He was always jumping around. Then he would be jumping on to some pet project or something like that. But he had people around him who stabilized him. Who brought him back on track.

LS: I know there are people who say that what happened was that you went to see Dr. Fred and then you went down to Dr. Baldwin to find out what actually was going down.

EA: Yes, exactly. Exactly. No, he had charm. He had tremendous charm. That southern graciousness, that soft voice and that ability to always remember your name. He would call people by name whom he hadn't seen for years and who were nobodies. And they were so flattered and so pleased. You know, this is, this is 00:39:00an art. A gift perhaps, a gift. Mrs. Fred was the same way. Mrs. Fred, she mad a study of this and she went in. She memorized, she had lists of names. She kept who belonged to what. Why this person should be recognized. I admire her for that.

DC: To revert back--

EA: Yes, we got lost there.

DC: This is why we are doing this project is to get this kind of thing that would be lost if we didn't talk to people. But we go back to the era when you first came here and you were living with Elizabeth McCoy and working in the laboratory.

EA: That was after we came back here.

DC: That was after you came back here.

EA: That was in 1945. After we had been to Maryland and then came back here--

DC: And you came back--

EA: It would be '46 I think. Yes '46, going on '47 yes.

DC: So what was the university like.

EA: Would you like to know what it was like in 1930?

DC: Yes. From a side stand point, how did you feel about it? You were a student at that time?

EA: I was a student and I was not a student. I was having lots of fun. This was the first time away from home. In 1924 on to '30 it was a very social school. We wore hats to class and gloves and high heel shoes, this whole bit. It was, you went to college to be seen and have fun. I was a very poor student actually, except in biology which I loved dearly. Then when I couldn't get, my father said 00:41:00you have go to take a teaching certificate, get that. You have to have some insurance of a job. That was a very good thing except, I'll tell you later about that. I got the teaching certificate. Hated every minute of those dumb ed courses. But I couldn't get a job because we had the depression. I was very short and very immature looking and I was told on the interviews, you could never control a class. So that--the reason then that I went back and got a Master's. Dr. Fred was responsible for seeing that I had a fellowship in the field, in his field. I didn't make use of that teaching certificate until during the war which was what, 15 years later. Then it came in very handy because in 00:42:00this war period, I taught some. I worked in the blood bank. That was interesting because that was the only blood bank in a United States war zone, and American blood bank you see. We processed blood to send out on ships. We processed blood for the wounded that came to the hospitals. It was good experience.

DC: And this was in Hawaii?

EA: In Hawaii. In Honolulu. I got it because I was a bacteriologist. I had to prove that the blood was pure, you see.

LS: And where did you teach?

EA: I taught in Honolulu. In an academy. That was an interesting school because that was the only academy or boarding school in the United States west of the Rockies. It was begun at the end of the 1800s and the missionary families who lived in Honolulu sent their kids here to boarding school rather than sending 00:43:00them east to Princeton and Yale and the big five women's schools. It was college preparatory. It was a very very excellent school. And it is still operating. It is a very high class school called Punahou.

DC: Say that again.

EA: Punahou. P-U-N-A-H-O-U.

LS: Now that you got back into your student days, did you live in a sorority?

EA: I was an anti sorority girl.

LS: Why?

EA: I don't like being molded with a group of people who are of like mind. I'm not a joined. I don't join clubs and things.

LS: Well, where did you live then?

EA: I lived in Barnard Hall for three years. That was wonderful because it was right on campus, you know. Lathrop Hall with the gym right next door and go out the back door to the hill. Then I lived in a rooming house somewhere off 00:44:00Langdon. Then I lived across from the stadium in an apartment house when I was a graduate student.

LS: You didn't have to work.

EA: No I did not.

LS: You had a fellowship.

EA: Yes. Yes. Well it wasn't that big then but it was--

LS: So you just had, you had a good time. Did you go, were you in student activities at all?

EA: Swimming. But outside of that, no.

LS: You were having dates and--

EA: Oh yes. The usual stuff that kids do. I didn't know any better and I think that's important. It is important I think.

LS: But that went on outside of sororities and fraternities.

EA: Oh yes. Entirely, yes. I think partly, my brother was a fraternity man and 00:45:00he hated it. He didn't influence me but afterward when I didn't join he complimented me. Then he said I'll tell you now, I just hate my fraternity brothers. I just hate the fraternity. I hate the whole bit.

LS: THat would have been influential.

EA: Yes. It would have been, but he was smart enough not to tell me.

LS: Did you know Dorothy Knaplund or Emily Hahn, they must have been there about the same time?

EA: No, I don't. I think they are a little younger than I. Emily Hahn's books I know, but I never knew her.

LS: I was just wondering if your life as a student mixed up with theirs.

EA: No. No. No, it didn't.

LS: What were the classes you most enjoyed?

EA: I hated history.

LS: This is a little outside of our subject but--

EA: No, I think it's important. Well, anything that had to do with biology was my dish.

LS: So you, the history and English and--

EA: Oh I hated history and I was very poor. My father thought I should take econ 00:46:00and I damn near flunked it. Ancient history, you had no choice. Why I had to go on ancient history, which was--

LS: Didn't like it?

EA: Which was too bad, now I would love it, but I was--

[Tape 2]

DC: Now, you were talking about--

LS: Let's wee, a professor you had, was that what you were going to say?

EA: No, I said that I think I was going to follow through on why I disliked ancient history because this was my first exposure to lecturers who had terrific thick foreign accents and we just couldn't understand that man. He was a world authority.

LS: Was it Rostovtzeff?

EA: Yes.

LS: And you couldn't understand him?

EA: Oh well you [unclear].

LS: Oh dear.

EA: Oh now I know how big he is and what a reputation but then he was just a 00:47:00foreign guy who was un-understandable. Just awful. Kinds shouldn't go to college so young. They should go out in the world for a while and learn what is important and then go back. You agree don't you? You know, it's like love, it's wasted on the young or whatever.

DC: Well there seems to be at the moment somewhat of a trend to do that sort of thing.

EA: Yes, I think it--

DC: You think that's healthy?

EA: Yes I do.

DC: Well, as a young Milwaukee woman, you went from Madison which had eight thousand students to this small university in Hawaii and then you came back here and what was your--

EA: Then we went to Maryland.

DC: Maryland and--

EA: But that was, the war was not over and it was a horrible place to be because it was such a small town, College Park. There was no place to eat on Sundays and 00:48:00we had to go to Washington every Sunday by bus to eat. We couldn't get breakfast, we couldn't get anything. I understand that it's greatly changed now, that it's just a whole series of-- We had to live with these people who had children, share the bath with the kids. It was war.

LS: You were going to ask the comparison between--

DC: Yes. When you came back, the university had grown, this was during, when you came back here the war was still on so there was some feeling of that. What was the campus like at that time?

EA: The campus was, as I remember it, I think that the Freds refused to live in the house, that is left for the president. What is the name of that house? Up on the hill. Up on Prospect Ave., it has a name. Anyway, the Freds didn't live there because they thought that the WARCs and the WAVEs should live there. So 00:49:00they hung onto their little house. You knew that, didn't you?

LS: I didn't know that was the reason.

DC: That was why they stayed--

EA: Stayed down in the house that is Henry house.

DC: Yes.

EA: Because Dr. Fred really and truly, he loved that, this was pretty stylish to go up in that great big house on the hill. He and Mrs. Fred loved that other house. So they turned that over to the girls in the dormitory for a while. And then they did move up there. THat was, I think another reason was Mrs. Fred, she was a social person. She liked people. She was very outgoing and warm. But I don't think she liked to be responsible for big parties. So she didn't, if she didn't live in that big house, she didn't have to give--

DC: Yes, but what was it like, how many students were there?

EA: Here?

DC: By then? Were there more students than there had been when you were here as 00:50:00a student?

EA: Oh yes. Sure. Because all that dormitory building had taken place in the meantime. And students, since the war was now becoming over, were attracted back to college. And there were a lot of people in uniform even then. But that was the era of building those so called temporary huts. To house the war students, those eye sores. As Dr. Fred used to say, there is nothing so permanent as a temporary hut. It was a long time before they came down.

DC: Where were they?

EA: Well there was, for instance, here is the Bacteriology building, right at that corner, between that and Ag Hall, right in front of the Home Ec building . They were just scattered wherever ther was--

DC: Now was this for housing or for teaching?

EA: This was for teaching. These were temporary. That was where the ROTC units were.

LS: Yes.

EA: And I think, I don't know what they did about the housing. I think they were in the dormitories. Am I right, do you know about this?

LS: No, no not specifically.

EA: I'm not sure on that.

EA: Of course there was a down swing in student population at that time.

LS: Well, I think that housing went up after the war when the veterans were coming back and that--

EA: Yes.

LS: In '49 and '50.

EA: Yes.

LS: And then it went way up and then it went down a bit and then it started up again.

EA: Yes that's true.

DC: What was the social life like during that period when, was there any--

EA: Frankly, I don't remember. I don't know what the social life was like.

DC: As a faculty wife, were you still expected to entertain? Do you recall that--

EA: We did quite a bit of entertaining of students then. And had them for Thanksgiving dinners and had them for Christmas parties. But, and of course the League was operating and the Ag college women, what do they call themselves?

LS: Daughters--

EA: Daughters of Demeter.

LS: Daughters of Demeter, yes.

EA: They would have Christmas teas and--

LS: Did you go to those?

EA: I'm not that kind of person. I went once in a while, but very--

LS: Was it because you felt yourself a scholar?

EA: I just don't like that kind of thing. No, I don't consider myself a scholar. I just, being around people talking chit chat like that isn't my idea of a good 00:53:00time. I'd rather go out and walk.

DC: What was the reaction of the other women in the, the wives in the department to your lack of interest in those things or--

EA: No I think--

DC: Or didn't they react?

EA: I think they always said, well she is helping her husband. You know, I think that's it.

LS: And they understood that perfectly well?

EA: Oh sure. Sure. And they were having young children. I was older than most of them were. Elizabeth McCoy and I were the two older people in the group. Elizabeth used to come over quite frequently. She would bring us farm produce, she would bring a chicken or a duck or fresh eggs and have dinner with us.

LS: What about faculty women? Did you get to know any of them, Ruth Glassow or--

EA: Well I belonged to Sigma Delta Epsilon which was the scientific fraternity 00:54:00and that is Ruth Glassow, Elizabeth, and Helen and what is the one who is in the Medical School?

LS: Ruth Dickie.

EA: Yes. And--

LS: When did you, that is an elective membership is it?

EA: That is an honorary thing, yes. It's a society.

LS: And--

EA: In which they would give papers on what their work was about.

LS: Well, when were you made a member of that?

EA: I think Elizabeth saw that I was amde a member when we came back for a trip one summer. I think it was probably around 19-- I don't remember frankly. It would have probably been around 1939 or something like that.

LS: Well when did they, how often did they meet in--

EA: I think once a month, I think they still do. I don't go. But I still get the notices.

LS: But you were going then?

EA: Yes, their meetings were interesting, yes.

LS: Then you did enjoy this.

EA: Yes, yes. Because it has a cross section of astronomy and geology and chemistry, medicine, that kind of thing. Yes, I enjoyed it. That is the kind of thing I rather enjoyed.

LS: Did you give papers yourself?

EA: I may have given, yes I think I gave one. Short, very informal.

DC: Were there other social interests you had with you husband, music, drama, what did you do--

EA: Theater.

LS: Were you part of a little theater group a--

EA: No we just went to theater.

LS: You went to theater, here in Madison--

EA: Yes, I still do. I think Madison has a lot of talent. I think it's getting better. I think the theater groups are great. The Savoyards are wonderful 00:56:00indeed. Let's see. And I think that now that we have theaters to go to, the Mitchell Theater and the downtown theater. Before it used to be all these experimental awful things that they would put on at the Union. Remember, do you? They were awful. They were just awful.

DC: So it's gradually sort of changed and then the university went through another change after the war. Were you part of that, where, how did it affect you--

EA: Oh, you mean--

DC: When all of a sudden all of those GIs hit and things began to expand.

EA: And those awful revolutionist you know, that era. When the street people got 00:57:00out and were militant?

DC: Well I'm--

EA: You're ahead of me.

DC: You're ahead of me. I'm thinking in terms of you were here during the war and things were expanding and the temporary huts appeared but then all of a sudden there were all of these students and the university went from eight thousand to how many thousand?

EA: Forty. Too many. It's overwhelming.

DC: And during that period it was a, was it a gradual growth? How did the expansion of your department affect you?

EA: Well for one thing, I think that it wasn't gradual. I think it mushroomed. I think it was just an explosion.

DC: The veterans came back and it did--

EA: Had there been a baby explosion too?

DC: Well that came later--

EA: That came later--

DC: The veterans had all those babies. But how did that invasion of the veterans affect your department and what you were doing? Did it, was there greater 00:58:00pressure for your husband to teach because there were more students than there were teachers?

EA: Oh I think it was hard on the teachers. I think it was. Because I think a lot of these people, gee I don't know if I'm thinking this through right. It seemed to me that was the beginning of his discontent, his disenchantment with teaching. That a lot of these people were going who would never have gone before. Who particularly, who didn't particularly want these subjects. It was a case of, was it a do or die--

LS: This is, think about this carefully because what I have heard so many times is how very invigorating the period of the veterans was. They had, they were so 00:59:00eager to get back to school and they worked so hard. Many people have said that they made wonderful students because of that. They were more mature, they were really interested. I wonder if you would be thinking of a period somewhat later.

EA: Later.

LS: Could that be.

EA: I think I am.

LS: Because this would be around '49 and '50.

EA: Yes, I think you're right because that was the period, he got a lot of Canadian students then. He was very pleased with them. They were a little more mature I think. He was getting a little older group of people and liked that. He thought that was great. I'm afraid I've missed out on something here.

LS: Well you said he became disenchanted--

EA: Later on, yes. I think it must not have been that first group. We came back about the time they were coming back because then the war was over. Then later 01:00:00on these smart alecks came in. THe kids who weren't going to hand in a note book and they didn't you know, they were--

DC: Was this undergraduate or graduate students, undergraduate?

EA: I think they'd have to be undergraduates. Yes.

DC: So this would have been probably in the '50s, the early '50s.

EA: Yes, it would have to be in the '50s. Of course his own personal direction was always to graduate students. These were alway masters, and so forth. I think he only taught one undergraduate course. But you know, they were. I'm thinking of one or two instances in which he would make up a floor plan for the seating and then just have some people just sit--"You think I'm going to sit in that seat? You're crazy, I'll sit wherever I want." There were some really 01:01:00independent thinkers, to put it mildly. Some people who would do anything not to conform.

LS: Yes.

EA: Just for the sake of being different.

LS: Well this sounds like the '60s. When did he die?

EA: He died in '76.

LS: Oh, I see.

EA: Yes.

LS: And was teaching, when did he, did he retire?

EA: Yes. He had only been retired two years.

LS: I see. So he was teaching on in 1974 then?

EA: Yes.

LS: So it's the '60s that you're talking about.

EA: That's right. Yes, I'm getting mixed up with, that I was getting mixed up with the '50s, yes.

DC: All during this period, were you still working with him in the laboratory?

EA: Yes. Because we published quite extensively. At least one paper a year. In 01:02:00fact our last paper was published the year that he died. He didn't get to see it, but it's--

DC: During that period, you said when you came back here finally that there was this sense that people were not really interested in your field. The students didn't seem to have the interest in it. They were more interested in other more, with a little more romance then--

EA: Highfalutin stuff, you know. It's like the--

DC: Well there are fashions in research as there are fashions in anything else and this was not the fashion--

EA: Yes.

DC: Did this shift, did you see this shift and change again?

EA: Yes.

LS: And when did this take place?

EA: That is a very interesting thing and I'm terribly sorry that he didn't live to see it because this was the one thing that hurt him. It became old fashion and out of style and boy is it in style now. This came back when we began 01:03:00running out of fertilizer and when we began seeing the need to preserve the land. And seeing the need to, it's the conservancy era. It's very much in vogue now.

DC: When did this come back? After your husband had died or--

EA: Yes. Really with a bang.

DC: So there was really up until that time they were still talking about the chemical treatment and so forth--

EA: It wasn't until chemistry became a, chemical treatment became a bad, a dirty word. And--

DC: Sort of the silent spring kind of thing?

EA: Yes, exactly. Now this would be going into '65, '67, no no. It would be 1970.

DC: So all the way from the late '40s until 1970, this was a field that was 01:04:00interesting to you and interesting to some students--

EA: Some students.

DC: But--

EA: I would say from, it was still in vogue in the '40s. When did I graduate? Yes it was still in vogue up to about '40, '45. But between '45 and '65, close to '70 it was very outmoded. It's like space work. It's like the space age where airplanes were superceded by jets. That kind of thing.

LS: Dorothy is right, I mean this happens in all the disciplines--

EA: Yes, yes.

LS: That one field of study suddenly is, I mean--

EA: Sure.

LS: This isn't really fashion, this is a change in the world.

EA: It's trends. Sure it is.

LS: The world. You actually finished a book that you started. I mean it isn't 01:05:00just an article. Didn't you finish up the book?

EA: Yes. Would you like to see it?

LS: You said it was your idea pretty much.

EA: It was because of the botanical interest that I had in this great wealth of legumes in Hawaii. And I felt that since nobody had ever worked on them before that we ought to find out whether this symbiosis took place under tropical conditions as well as under temperate conditions because nobody really had done that. So we methodically started out and because he head an association with the pineapple plantation plots and their vast holdings of land and also had them with the sugar station, we had access to their areas, you see. The sugar station 01:06:00had pioneered in the introduction of exotic plants from all over the world, Philippines, South Sea Islands, Australia and so forth. And had imported them. They had arboreta, they had some lovely arboreta in various areas in the island in which they had plants and had very carefully labeled everything. So it was very easy, it was a made to order situation where we could go and we would have labels on the plants. We had botanists who would accompany us and verify that these were the right plants to work with. Couldn't have found this anywhere. It was just absolutely perfectly made to order. So then we began methodically, we would take field trips. This is the way we would spend weekends. We would go out to these lovely mountain areas and dig and collect. We would collect these 01:07:00root-nodules and then we weould go to the lab and then we would slice them and then we weould take the, they are full of millions of bacteria. Then take them and culture them, purify them. Then we would go to the greenhouses and make experiments with them, you see, to make sure that the organism that we isolated would again produce these nodules as they're called. And we did that for well, from the year we arrived, when did we go out there? In 1930 to 1945, 15 years. So it's a 15-year study. Then when we went to Europe we did the same thing in the, in Kew Gardens in England. We were in England for almost a year. We had access with going to London to do this. We did it in Germany and so forth. When we traveled we went to the Philippines and Tokyo and around and we did the same 01:08:00thing there.

LS: And when did you start writing the book?

EA: That was a whole bunch of notes and cards and organisms that we collected. We didn't start it until he retired. The we gathered all these notes together and we started. We figured the best way to do would be A to Z. So we've arranged it alphabetically according to the plants, not the name of the plants, but the name of the genera that the plants belong in. And the genera then are arranged according to subfamilies. It was organized.

LS: Did you ever disagree about anything?

EA: Sure. Of course we did. I think it would be better to do it this way. No, I think you're wrong, I think you'd better do it that way. But this thing had only 01:09:00been organized in a typewritten form that needed a lot of correction and reorganization. And I spent nearly five years writing it after he died and getting it. Do you know Betty Steinberg?

LS: Of course I know her, she is a dear friend of mine and she is a wonderful woman.

EA: Betty is wonderful.

LS: Yes.

EA: And Betty is really responsible for getting this whipped up right.

LS: Is she?

EA: Yes. I'm glad we have that association yes, yes. Betty gave me a lot of leeway and Betty was, my she's bright.

LS: Yes.

EA: She caught on. She didn't know beans about this. She knows as much as I do now.

LS: A hundred other subjects as well because she does the same thing with other authors.

EA: Yes. She is remarkable.

LS: So you put your husband's name first because--

EA: Always, sure. That's the way to do it, wouldn't you?

LS: Well, I suppose if you would, yes I suppose so.

EA: Well I--

LS: Yes obviously--

EA: No. I, obviously this is more than 50 percent my book. It has to be.

LS: But it's in memory of him in a way?

EA: Yes, sure. But you see we started out together so why not end together? The idea that I had that was completely my own idea was that we had to break down all these names from the Greek, and we had to-- So I spent years as it were trying to find out why it was named that way. And I'm responsible for all the tabulation in the back and most of the, there are over a thousand references. They bound it so beautifully, look at this. I'm real pleased with it.

LS: Are you writing anything now?

EA: No.

LS: This was the end?

EA: This is the end. This is the end. There is no more.

LS: You got an honorary degree?

EA: Yes. THanks to somebody, I don't know.

LS: It must have pleased you very much.

EA: Well, I'm sorry it didn't come while he was alive. I think that maybe it should have been a shared degree. But I was pleased because I don't have a Doctors degree, otherwise. As I told Betty, I've never wanted one because I don't think you have to have degrees. Some of the smartest people I know didn't have degrees. The head of our department, Hastings when I was going to school didn't have a degree and he could outshone anybody in that department with degrees. That's my feeling of the subject.

LS: Did you think that it would be possible fore someone today without a degree to do the extensive research that you did?

EA: Well I was very lucky in that I lived in that area that was the inspiration 01:12:00for it all or the reason it got a push. The second is that my husband was very well known and was invited to a number of countries. See I didn't go with him to Brazil and I didn't go with him to Ethiopia. But we had this wonderful trip in which we started out in the Arctic in Alaska and made collections in the Arctic and in Alaska and went to Japan for three weeks. And were favored by being taken to forestry areas and collected. Then went to the Philippines for three weeks and collected in rice paddies and in mountainous areas. Then we went to Australia and Fiji and New Zealand, back to what, I mean this was, but without 01:13:00him I couldn't have done it. I wouldn't have done it.

LS: Yes, I can believe that.

EA: See. And I think without me he probably wouldn't have persisted in it. Probably wouldn't have done it. When we lived in Europe, we had this wonderful association at Kew Gardens and they permitted us to uproot anything that we wanted. Which is, you know this is essentially how we got a lot of the species that are very rare because they have this great collection from Africa and from Asia, from all over the world. And we were priviliged to, nobody had done it. Curiosity.

DC: When you were moving around as you did with him and, what was your acceptance by the other scientists in other countries--

EA: Oh, completely.

DC: As a team?

EA: Oh yes, completely. Sure, there was no discrimination at all.

DC: Was there more of a feeling in some of these countries that you were acceptable as part of the team than there might be in others? Or was there--

EA: In Asia I think it's considered, they are very curious about it because women don't team up that way.

DC: I think that's what I was--

EA: Yes, yes I think so. And I think they were very perplexed that we didn't have a family. Something was greatly missing there you see. This was a strange situation. But I think otherwise it was accepted. And I think in Germany it was, I don't know, some man in Holland said you know, this would never work in Holland. I didn't know what he meant.

DC: Well there was never a sense of your feeling that you were sort of immersed 01:15:00in him--

EA: No. No.

DC: That, there was never a sense of need to find your own identity--

EA: Never.

DC: That seems to--

EA: Never. Ruth Dickie does not understand this. She insists that I must at some time have felt discriminated against and she just--she persists in thinking--I'm not that kind of a feminist I'm afraid. I've never experienced discrimination. Why is this that, was I insensitive to it. That it was there and I just--

LS: You know what women are saying about the women's role at work and how--

EA: Yes.

LS: They are underpaid and--

EA: Yes and I don't understand it.

LS: Well you know that that was a fact for many women--Ruth Glassow, Helen White.

EA: Of course.

LS: And do you mind on their behalves or do you think that they complained unnecessarily, not that they actually did complain, but later people did. Do you feel that, what it your view of the new women's outlook on women in the working world and their disturbance about not being sufficiently well paid or honored?

EA: Gosh that's hard to answer. I've always felt that, maybe I shouldn't use names here but I felt that with Ruth Dickie for instance, that she had never experienced a rich association with a man and that that was probably part of her lack of understanding. Isn't that an awful thing to say? But I can't answer 01:17:00that. I sometimes feel that they are making more of it than need be made of it that they--they're reading something into it that isn't there and yet I know that isn't right because there are, there must be a vast batch of evidence where they have been discriminated against, where men have gotten much higher salary and men have loaded them up with their work and then taken the credit for it. This sort of thing.

DC: What you had then was basically a sense of real partnership--

EA: Exactly.

DC: You didn't feel as though you weren't part of this team just because you weren't paid for it. You sense of personal reward from the work that you did 01:18:00was, you had a great sense of that.

EA: Yes.

DC: Did you ever have a situation where they, if you were discussing your work and your research with people, other than your husband, that they took what you had to say very seriously. Did they really give you credit or did they sometimes--

EA: I think I see what you're trying to say. I don't think I ever came across that.

DC: One of the things that women have been saying recently is that there is a sense that when they are in a one-to-one situation and people ask for their suggestions and so forth, that if they are in a group of both male and female that the women will get, will put forward ideas and suggestions and they're really not taken seriously. That 24 hours later the same group will meet and having rejected those ideas when they were put forward by the women, if they are 01:19:00put forward by a man then they take them seriously.

EA: No--

DC: Now this is the kind of thing that I'm driving at. Did you ever have that that--

EA: I don't think I was ever in that experience, no.

DC: You've never had that happen to you?

EA: No.

DC: That may explain why you have this real sense of partnership.

LS: Elizabeth McCoy would be, and I don't know enough about her, but do you feel that she was rewarded adequately for her merit?

EA: Sure she was. I think that, yes I really do. She was rewarded adequately, she was acknowledged. She was duly honored.

LS: Because I've seen E. B. Fred's interview and he speaks, he I think might be called rather a sexist.

EA: Yes.

LS: He speaks rather disparagingly and he speaks of women and their beautiful 01:20:00legs and that sort of thing.

EA: Oh yes. Well you know, he was a dirty old man.

LS: Yes that's right. But when it came to a colleague, there was nothing, he was completely in, he completely respected her and you also.

EA: Yes.

LS: I see. Well that's perfectly possible.

EA: Yes, I think so. I think that as I said in the beginning, she was his righthand man. I think he could not have begun to accomplish what he did when she and he were working directly if she hadn't been the one who did the--she was the scullery maid. She did--

LS: That's what we were just, that's what I'm wondering.

EA: Yes, she was. She really and truly. But she got credit for it. It wasn't as though in the end, her name was left out. See what I mean?

LS: Yes. But still one would like to have one's name there and also not perhaps 01:21:00have to do the dirty work.

EA: That's right. That's right. He was so busy and she was so honored. Elizabeth was, in some ways, Elizabeth was a little--it went to her head. She just adored him. She would do anything for Dr. Fred. So it was nothing she would turn around and say there he made me do it again. She loved doing it.

DC: Did you ever had a sense, you were in the School of Agriculture?

EA: Yes.

DC: Were there generally, there seems to be an interest--

EA: Cow college.

DC: Yes, it was a cow college, but was there as much encouragement there for the girls to go into the sciences--

EA: Home ec!

DC: Or primarily, so, you were unusual in that you were--

EA: But I was not in the Ag College until I got my fellowship. See I was in 01:22:00Letters and Science. I must admit we looked down on the Ag College. Just a bunch of country bumpkins. The men had manure on their heels. I was an absolute snob about that when I was an undergraduate.

DC: But then you were offered this fellowship--

EA: Yes.

LS: Was it a WARF fellowship by the way?

EA: No it wasn't. It was--

LS: Well there is a name there--

EA: Thresh or

LS: Okay.

EA: I tell ya, Thresh was a multi-millionaire as a result of his inventing a process for cracking by electricity nitrogen out of the air and turning it into nitrate fertilizer. It's almost like Nobel having invented whatever he invented--dynamite.

LS: Yes.

EA: And so his widow, Mrs. Thresh was very generous on donating to research that had anything to do with nitrogen fixation. Because this was a biological process 01:23:00as opposed to a chemical process. His was an electrical chemical process you see.

LS: Yes, I see.

EA: The University of Wisconsin was given a tremendous sum of money. I think they were given ten thousand dollars. Something like that. It was the biggest thing. It made headlines. It was this vast award that was given. It would be peanuts nowadays. And Fred got it. Then Fred awarded this--it was called a Thresh Laboratory and there were three of us in it to begin with. I am the only one left who is living. Perry Wilson died. Hopkins died. It isn't in existence anymore.

DC: And this was the fellowship as basically a graduate student. You were working on your master's degree.

EA: Yes. And it was in nitrogen fixation. And that's how this university got its toe in nitrogen fixation and it all revolved around Dr. Fred from the 01:24:00bacteriological end and Professor Peterson in Chemistry and then this nubbin of students. And then this has continued. There is nobody in it now. Dr. Burris, do you know him?

LS: I've heard his name yes--

EA: See Dr. Burris is in it and his splendid work. He's world renowned and he's over in the Biochemistry Department.

DC: Was there sort of a camraderie among the students in that particular field that was unusual for that time?

EA: No, I don't think so. There was when we went to meetings. If we went to national meetings, then there would be a section on nitrogen fixation. And then we would have lunches together and argue and this kind of thing.

DC: And always during this period you never, you were always a part of it--

EA: Oh yes, sure.

DC: A partner to it and--

EA: The thing of it, I've always worked very comfortable with men. So I mean, I might be the only woman at a luncheon table or something like that. But this, there was nothing sexist about it, it was just, this thing was a--

LS: I've just realized that we made a big mistake in interviewing you because you're clearly not a faculty wife.

DC: I think it's an interesting role of a faculty wife that is very rare.

LS: It's very unusual.

EA: Is it really?

LS: Of course the Millers are another example aren't they?

EA: Oh yes.

LS: But we were thinking of faculty wives who were left at home sitting, tending the babies and the house. Making everything quiet, and you never had to cope with that ever?

EA: Never had to cope with that, that was completely out of the picture.

DC: And there never seemed to be a sense from those traditional faculty wives, did they ever seem to appear to resent what you--

EA: I don't think so. The women in the department, I'm sincere on this and I want to emphasize it, they thought I helped my husband. I don't know what they thought I did. I think maybe they thought I washed dishes in the lab.

DC: They, they. Did you mind that?

EA: No I didn't. I just, why bother to explain? Sure.

DC: It's sort of, you found that amusing?

EA: I disregarded it. You know, I considered the sources.

LS: You certainly would have, 30 years or 20 years later gone ahead and gotten a Ph.D. wouldn't you?

EA: I never cared about it.

LS: But I mean if it would--