Willard Hall
The whole winter in Parkersburg, before I went to Northwestern, I did a lot of research and writing, trying to figure out how I was going to pay for my Master’s Degree. I figured out that I could get it in one year. I quit my job and in June of 1955 I drove up to Evanston, Illinois. I had prearranged a “job” as counselor at Willard Hall Dormitory. That would pay for my room and board. I had a small closet like room at the end of the hallway, just as wide as a hallway, with a desk and a bed. That was about it. I could look down the hallway and see every room. That’s where I lived for a whole year until I graduated.
Willard hall is on the campus of Northwestern, across the street from Lake Michigan. I would study at the end of the wharf/dock on Lake Michigan. It is a good memory.
There were various stories about Willard Hall because Charleton Heston’s girlfriend (later wife) lived there and they spent a lot of time downstairs in the living room. Men were not allowed on the upper floors, so Charleton and his girlfriend spent a lot of time on the couches in the living room.
The only real negative to the job was that I had to keep the same hours as a freshman and could never stay out late. Actually, I could once in a while stay out later, like to go to a play in Chicago, but it was a big deal.
Maria Callas
One very special night that I did stay out late, was in January 1956. I drove to Chicago to see Maria Callas. She was starring in Madame Butterfly at the Chicago Civic Opera. She was all the rage at the time. Butterfly’s first song in the opera starts off stage in at least a high C. Our seats were in the top balcony in the last row, against the back wall. Any higher and we’d have been on top of the roof. When Callas sang Butterfly’s first note off stage, in a high c or above, the sound cut through my spine like a knife through soft butter. It was absolutely stunningly electric. The entire performance was equally electric and stunning. A true magical moment in theater I will never forget.
At the end of the performance, Callas came out with her full cast curtain call when each character comes out and does an individual bow. When it came time for Callas to take her bow, she was not there. Nobody ever knew why at the time. Years later, when Callas wrote her biography, she spoke of this performance. At the time Callas – born in New York and therefore a US Citizen – had not paid her American income taxes, so she had it all set up that after the performance she would skip town. She had a limo whisk her away to Midway airport, where a plane was waiting to take her back to Italy. When I read this story I realized that it was the night I was there. I thought that it must be why her performance was so electric – she had a little extra drama going on. It was a wonderful, wonderful moment and when I read it, it was like Ahha! I was there.
I also saw Maria Tallchief perform in Ravinia, IL in 1956. They had a thing in the 50s called “Sol Hurok Presents”. He brought various Broadway tours to college towns. Maria Tallchief was one of those tours.
2022.04.04.3:30—1955 The thing about lakeshore drive, the more I drove on it, the more I loved driving on it because of the way the chicago people drove on it. It was so different than driving in the small towns I was used to. every time I drove to chicago, I would try to go down Lakeshore Drive. not that much police intervention. Crazy.
Teaching and Learning
In addition to counseling at Willard hall for room and board, when I arrived at Northwestern, I taught Voice and Articulation at the Northwestern School of Speech, National High School Institute for five weeks during the summer. I had never taught before in my life, always avoiding “education courses”. But I figured if I could do speech, of course I could do teaching in a classroom. I got the book and made my lesson plan for the first whole week. I got up in front of the classroom and uh oh, the class was one hour and I had finished everything I had prepared for the week in one class hour. Oops. There was more to this teaching than I thought. So I had to buckle down and somehow I got thorough the week and through the five weeks and learned the hard way, on-the-job. That was my first teaching experience. Thinking I had the first week’s lesson’s planned out, I thought, now what do I do? Somehow I got through it.
The Speech Program’s section of the National High School Institute program is the largest division in the High School Institute at Northwestern. High school students who participate in the summer institute spend five weeks at Northwestern. The Institute was established at Northwestern in 1930 and is the oldest in the country.
Northwestern University
The summer after I graduated, I remained in Evanston so that I could teach another summer at the National High School Institute. I moved into an apartment with Mim (Miriam Baker) who was from Dayton, Ohio and was getting her masters degree in Violin. I came back to teach each summer for 3 more years after that, roommates again with Mim for year three. I kept in touch with Mim over the years though it was difficult. She became a gypsy of sorts, playing in orchestras all over the country. For the fourth or fifth year I taught at the National High School, my roommate was Al Capone’s bodygaurd’s daughter.
At the same time I was trying to teach that class, I was also taking two or three content courses toward my master’s. The major of my master’s degree was in the field of The Oral Interpretation of Literature. I got to study the subject in depth with two of the people who wrote the textbooks that were used throughout colleges across the county, Charlotte Lee and Robert Breen. She wrote the college textbook and also wrote one of the top high school textbooks in the country. Robert Breen had developed a new concept called “Reader’s Theater”. Reader’s Theater was the ensemble presentation of dramatic literature. That was really fun to do. Usually, you are required to write a thesis for a master’s degree, but Northwestern required a one hour oral interpretation recital performance. I had to analyze the literature in order to do the cutting and created the performance. For that I chose Alan Paton’s “Cry the Beloved Country “. The original writing of the novel was in the form of prose and poetry and drama (like a play). So I did a one hour cutting of the novel. Lee, Breen, and Robinson were all seated in the classroom with their little notebooks staring up at me while doing this performance. Errrgh! That was scary!
When I was in Cincinnati in the late 60’s or early 70s, I used what I had learned from Robert Breen to create a Chamber Theater production of Eudora Welty’s “Why I Live at the PO”. I wrote to her to ask her for permission. Either the day before or the day of the performance, I got her letter back that said No, she did not give me permission. Sorry, Ms. Welty, you waited too long to write so I couldn’t substitute another play. We went on with the show knowing that she would never know if the refusal came a day late. The show must go on.
I also took two quarters course in teaching speech with Karl Robinson. I wrote the syllabus for undergraduates to get their degree as my class project. He – the prolific author of articles and books on speech and speech education and the premier teacher of Speech in the United States – offered to write me a recommendation. I said no. I look back on it now and want to kick myself in the butt. In the spring, I applied for a job at Converse College. They flew me down there and plied me with many cups of tea, my pinky poking out for hours with this group of southern ladies. I used this syllabus for my job at Converse.
Famous Person Encounters
Eduardo Mondlane
Evanston was “dry” as they call it. You couldn’t buy alcohol thanks to the WCTU (Women’s Christian Temperance Union). If we wanted to go hang out in a bar serving alcohol, we had to go to West Campus in Skokie, Illinois. But Evanston did have interesting “bars” with places to sit with wonderful wood benches. I met many interesting people. One afternoon in 1955, I sat in a booth in one of these no-alcohol bars with a wonderful, eclectic group of older graduate students, about 8 of us, drinking cokes and talking about all sorts of world events at the time. It was a wonderful afternoon. One of the men at the bar revealed that he was a prince of sorts, the son of the Chief of the Tsonga clan in the Province of Mozambique. His name was Eduardo Mondlane. He was at Northwestern getting an advanced degree in relevant to governing. His country was overrun by Portuguese communists at the time and he was trying, with a couple of other tribes, to create a democracy. He told us that he was going to go back to Mozambique, but knew he would probably be killed. We wondered why he would go back. He said “I must be with my people”. Years later in1969 I read that the President of the Mozambican Liberation Front…had been killed by a bomb. That was the “prince” that I had met.
Eduardo Mondlane [the Prince] continued his studies at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois. Mondlane earned an MA (1955), and then a PhD (1960) under the supervision of Melville J. Herskovits on the subject of “Role conflict, reference group, and race”. In 1956 he married Janet Rae Johnson, a white American woman from Indiana whom he met at a Methodist Youth conference.”[5]
Mondlane became the first president of the Mozambican Liberation Front (FRELIMO) in 1962 which began a guerrilla war in 1964 to obtain Mozambique’s independence from Portugal.
Wikipedia
Charlton Heston
In June of 1956 I had one more class test to take before I finished my Master’s Degree requirement. I was on my way to take the test and there was a crowd on the steps of the School of Speech building. I was making my way up the stairs, “excuse me, excuse me, excuse me”. When I got to the room everyone was asking “did you see him…Did you see him?”
“Did I see who?”
“Charlton Heston!”
“Oh! So that’s who I ran down on the front steps!”
Al Capone’s Bodygaurd’s Daughter
For the fourth or fifth year I taught at the National High School, my roommate was Al Capone’s bodygaurd’s daughter.