When I graduated from Marshall I wanted to move to Charleston, WV and get an apartment and a job and see what I wanted to do with my life. I had had enough of schooling and I needed to get out on my own. I had decided the year before that I was not going to have a career in the church and so I didn’t know what I wanted to do. I felt like I needed a “gap year” (or two, or three) to figure it out, but in 1952 there was no such thing as a “gap year”. My father said he would pay the whole ride for my masters degree – room, board, and tuition – if I would continue on with my schooling the year I graduated from Marshall. But, if you want to get a master’s degree, you first have to know what you want to do for a career.
But Daddy said that Good Girls don’t do that – move to the city. He was not going to let me go out in the world and that made me very angry. I was never rebellious. I was always a Good Girl. And he and Mother used everything in the book to convince me to stay at home. I reluctantly gave in and went back home to Parkersburg.
Daddy did all the woodworking to create a room for me in the attic of their house and I did the painting and got to choose the color. Our neighbor across the street, Mr. Montoya, came over when I started painting it and said “oh my god! Shit green!” I thought it was beautiful and sunny. I liked it! At that time, it was the only rebellion outlet I felt like I had.
So that summer of ’52 I started looking for a job, but college taught you how to be a newscaster, but they didn’t teach you how to get a job selling advertising to work your way up the ladder. And I wasn’t very good at interviewing. I never had the confidence. When I got in a structured group like the church, I had a lot of confidence. It always took me a while to get my sea legs. I interviewed at the radio stations and each time was a learning experience.
While I was looking for a job, I joined the Methodist church, sang in the choir, worked with the youth group, became the children’s choir director, and started playing tennis. The tennis courts were 3 or 4 blocks from the house, so I got dad’s old tennis racket and I played tennis every summer, 52-54 and got to be pretty good at it. Good enough so that by 1954 I entered the Parkersburg Women’s Championship and won runner up.
Everything I did that summer and beyond, I got older and wiser, but it still took me a long time to do everything.
So that fall I finally got a job at Midland Finance, a small loan company and I interviewed people that wanted to get a loan. I was there for about 4 months when Dad told me to go upstairs in his building to interview with Harriet Stalder at the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company. For a nice pay raise I went there to work as a clerk. The agents would be in one room with their cigars and their cigarettes and the smoke. Harriet Stalder and I had our own office and a window for the people coming up to pay their $5 a month or whatever they were paying so they have insurance. When I could, I’d go talk to the agents and try to find out all I could about selling insurance. When I suggested that maybe I could do it, they’d say, OH NO! Women can’t sell insurance! Well, Heaven forbid that a woman should sell insurance. There were a couple of other places too where I suggested that I could do something and OH! Women can’t do that! That’s what I encountered from 1952 to 1955 in getting jobs and teaching college. You really had to prove yourself. Well, I was kind of at the beginning of the feminist movement, and I said Hell Yes! Women can do that!
I worked at Met Life for three years – living in my parents attic, doing all of my activities with the church, and playing tennis – until I went back to college, to Northwestern University, to get my master’s degree.
In June of 1952, Mary Kay Kelso, Curtis Barber, John Bowyer, and I drove to Ames, Iowa for Bill Cox’ Graduation from divinity school and his wedding. We drove home by way of Chicago and went to a night club starring Jimmy Durante. Getting to go to a Chicago night club to see Jimmy Durante was a BIG DEAL.
1952 – Buying My First Car
As I was driving across the country I suddenly realized that I had driven miles and miles and no one had yelled at me about my driving. It was Curtis’ car and I asked him, “Am I driving okay?” And he said, “yeah, of course. Why are you asking?” And I said “I’ve been driving for miles and you haven’t made one comment about my driving.” He said “Why would I? It’s fine. You’re a good driver.” I realized then that I had always driven my father’s car with him in it and he always made comments and criticized my driving. I had been driving for 6 years and never knew I was a good driver. I was feeling little bits of rebellion again. It had never occurred to me to get my own car before because I could always use dad’s car and I didn’t know I was a good driver. So when Curtis told me I was a good driver, I decided then that I was going to get my own car. When I got home I told my father that I wanted to buy a car.
Of course Dad worked for GMAC so he got to buy the car with his employee discount and he chose the car for me. He got the loan for me, but it was in my name, and that helped me get credit. But I had to take the car he picked. Ugh! At 21! Anyway, he chose a brand new 1953 Chevrolet 4 door Belle Aire with a gorgeous, beautiful light beige top and dark brown bottom. But it was MY car and it was brand new, so I didn’t complain about the color. I was happy to get back and forth to work on my own and be independent.
1953 – College Hall Crowd Reunion*
The girls had been teaching for a year, they all had cars and they drove down to my house in Parkersburg. They visited for the weekend. In the fall of 52 I had the homecoming activities with Bill and the winter in Parkersburg was boring, but then we had the reunion.
Childrens Choir Director and that whole aspect of church life and I performed programs around the city and in the church where I sang folk songs with the autoharp as a community service. Oh Shenandoah, Down in the Valley, I loved playing it. I didn’t have a good ear, so I had to tune it to the piano all the time.
I indulged in during my three years in Parkersburg was playing tennis at the city park courts about 4 blocks from the house.
1954 – New York City
I knew by the middle of 1953-54, while I was living with my parents in Parkersburg, WV, that I was going to go to Northwestern University School of Speech. Since Dad was not going to pay for my Master’s Degree because I didn’t pursue it straight after Marshall, I had to save the money to go. So I saved up for Northwestern and at the same time, for a trip to New York City. I had always wanted to go to NYC for the theater, so in 1954 I went with a tour group to New York City for my fist time there. We went to all of the tourist stops in the city like the Empire State Building, the Statue of Liberty, and the Staten Island Ferry. We stayed at one of the tourist hotels Off-Broadway and we took double-decker bus tours uptown and downtown. And of course, we saw a couple of Broadway shows.