tid-bits on linda

 ~ "Well I was the wild one in a very conservative way but in an alternative way." ~ 

I went to the local elementary school.  My father helped start North Cross which is a private school.  He was on the original board of directors so I was in the opening class of that.  I then went off to boarding school, St. Catherine’s in Richmond.  My father had died when I was young and so I felt like that was a good idea. 

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I have 3 older brothers and they were much older.  One of them was living back here and he said that he knew my mother would like it if I would come back and go to Hollins because she had gone to Hollins.  I wasn’t terribly convinced that was a good idea but he said he would make sure she would let me go on Hollins Abroad if I would come to Hollins.  In those days they only had a Paris abroad.  I guess it was the only time I have ever lived in a city and I did get desperate for the country.  So after Hollins I went  to Brown for graduate school because I didn’t like taking tests and Brown had a really fancy MAT, which is a masters in the arts of teaching.  Brown didn’t require GRE…so they let me in and I thought that was nice of them.

When I started Hollins, I went to prep school first…I went to St. Catherine’s and then I came straight here, it was 1968. When I started in 1968, I knew the President of the college personally and various other high officials.  There was a dress code at Hollins, you wore shirt-waist dresses to dinner, you could not be on Front Quad without your shoes on,  there were a few more rules. And you couldn’t get in the dining hall without a dress on…by 1970, you had bra burnings in Front Quad… No I wasn’t actually apart of the bra burnings, I was fairly conservative.  You had street demonstrations in downtown Roanoke against the war.  I was more a part of that. You had a complete change in the total philosophy of what was okay at Hollins.  We no longer had any dress code, we no longer had a curfew.  When I [first] came there was a curfew: you had to be in at 12, you had to sign in or you got into all kinds of trouble.  And then there was no curfew, boys were allowed in the dorms.  It was like…whoa: it was an entirely different shift. 

It was pretty apparent to me that the kinds of things that you would do as a young woman in South Roanoke were not the kinds of things that I was gonna do.  I was not good enough with the rules.  I was the wild one in a very conservative way, but in an alternative way.  I have done alternative education.  I chose to live on a farm instead of in town… I don’t sit with my knees crossed correctly.

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I spent a year in Europe...while John was at Princeton.  There they had demonstrations and they took over the administration building…they did that kind of stuff. So the 70’s, it’s one thing to sort of study them and say oh yeah the hippies…but many people that were in college in those years recognize there was a huge shift. In 1966 hardly anyone knew what marijuana was, in this part of the world, in little sleepy, Roanoke, Virginia.  By 1970, it was more prevalent than alcohol. 

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The thing that is  interesting is that its amazing to see the changes that have been made.  Like women’s rights don’t seem like a big deal you take it for granted.  But, if I tell my daughter that you wouldn’t have been able to work…in the 50’s, it’s like huh? You can’t realize how different it was…  So in terms for us it was just…one thing led to another.  John wanted to farm, I wanted to be a teacher.  I didn’t like the systems that were in existence, I had available to me an alternative methodology that I could then work on, grow and expand.  So all the pieces kinda fit together. 

For example, it never occurred to me that by the time I had children anyone would ever have a big wedding again.  Why would anyone squander that kind of money?  In the 70’s, the gas prices were formidable so people really did conserve, they really did recycle, they really did think it was real, so you really did think patterns of behavior wouldn’t change.  And that people would recognize that squandering money… I didn’t think there would be huge houses, people would be moderate.  I actually didn’t think that education as we know it…as we knew it then and as we still know it now would stay the same.

Actually, I am a Presbyterian by birth and I am an Episcopalian by choice.  Now we don’t go to church very often, we went a lot when the kids were little.  Our Episcopal church has changed a lot, very conservative.

I don't have many social activities…they are all work related.  You could say reading and taking hikes.  It’s a preference working on the farm, being outside, taking hikes, reading books.  I see plenty of people at work.   I made a big point that we don’t have a social life but its not that we don’t have plenty of friends and its not that I don’t have plenty to do that keeps me interested and amused.  I don’t have much sense of empty nest per se.  But I like my children you know I think they are interesting people.   

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He [John] is very good at interacting with people but he doesn’t enjoy it.  So our farm is our retreat, think of it that way.  And for John he could be retreated all the…most of the time, that’s the way it works for him. We have a sailboat on Chesapeake, so we do that every summer.  We go to St. John’s every other year.   

Suzanna Turner Pleasants, she was the headmistress at St. Catherine’s when I was there, was my mentor.  Her grandfather was Charles Lewis Cocke.  She was definitely a role model.  She gave me hope for alternative education.  I admired her so much that I named my daughter Suzanna, after Suzanna Turner. I am sure there have been lots of others, a farmer named Wendell Berry...

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