1 Transcript of Ruby Lee Norris, Class of 1936 Interviewed by Roxanne M. Ibinson on February 18 th, 2008 Roxanne: You really, I thought there s no way that you wrote these articles, because there was so many of them I don t know how many magazine s were you writing for at one time? Ruby Lee : I m writing for three right now Roxanne: ok, and do you still live in your family home? Ruby Lee : yes. Roxanne: pre Civil War? Ruby Lee : right Roxanne: oh and the backyard habitat? Ruby Lee : yes, well for you. Roxanne: I was so impressed by you, this is truly an honor. Ruby Lee : Well this, I was thrilled when they did that story because a former student of mine in high school interviews me for that article that you read for pleasant living, and he s, well anyway. Roxanne: It was a beautiful article. Ruby Lee : yeah. Roxanne: Well let s get started. What year did you arrive at Mary Washington? Ruby Lee : 32, 1932. Roxanne: And what made you decide to come here? Ruby Lee : Well in those days, you didn t think you had a lot of choices. And so it was obvious that I had to be a teacher because there were two things a girl could do, she could either be a teacher or a nurse or a secretary. And we had three sisters and one became a teacher one became a nurse and one became a secretary. And I wanted to be a teacher because I had two people two generation ahead of me and my mother and two of them were college professors and I just thought, you know, I was born to teach and it never occurred to me that I would do anything except go to a teaching school. And of course Mary Washington was the closest one from Middlesex County, which is right were the Rappahannock goes into the bay between the valley and Deltaville, so we could just ride up to 17 and be here. Roxanne: And be here, so how old were you when you came here?
2 Ruby Lee : Sixteen years old. Roxanne: You were sixteen years old? Ruby Lee : Yeah, can you believe? Roxanne: No I can t imagine. Ruby Lee : In those days, we only had eleven grades, you didn t have an eighth grade, and we all went to a school where you went to that same school from the first grade until you graduated. And then on top of that my mother was a teacher, and she said I pestered her so and she had to teach me the first grade and practically the second grade by I was even five years old. So when I was five or six years old I went to the second grade because my mother had taught me. Roxanne: Well let me ask this, this is just a couple of years after the Depression, was there ever a thought for you not to go to school. Ruby Lee : Well it was very difficult for me to go to school, and scholarships weren t available like today there weren t any. Many of us had working scholarships, which I had all four years, I did something to earn a third of my tuition. I remember well because we had three semesters and each semester cost a hundred dollars and I earned a hundred dollars every year and I remember I was so proud, and I guess I couldn t have done it, I know I couldn t have done it if I didn t. And by the time there was a question if I would stay all four years because my family had a very difficult time when I was junior and they didn t tell me and I didn t know it til I came home, and then I was ready to quit and go to work and everybody said you owe it to your family, they put this much investment in you, you ve got to finish, so I did. Roxanne: You did. Ruby Lee : But you know, I think back, none of us had lots of money. If you had a dollar, you could buy a banana split for 45 cents! Roxanne: Wow, well speaking of that, in 1933 the college, from the research I did, had some works project administration guys come in, do you remember that? Ruby Lee : I don t remember anything about that. Roxanne: You don t remember? Ruby Lee : No. Roxanne: Ok, well let me ask this, do you remember Alstater s resignation when that happened? Ruby Lee : I remember, no I don t remember, I remember what you re saying, but I guess it didn t have any affect on me that I Roxanne: a big impact?
3 Ruby Lee : a big impact, yeah. Roxanne: How about Dr. Alvey? Ruby Lee : Oh my word. You know Dr. Alvey, he was not the giant when he first came here that he became. He came from University of Virginia, great credentials, but he was so low key that you really had to, you really had to stretch to get to know him. He really knew what he was doing, knew what he was doing. His classes were not great by the way, I hate to put a shadow over this saint, his class, it was a course in education, and it was just not dynamite. But he was a great dean, and as time came, as it went along, he became more and more influential, and he actually grew with being in the job, he and I became great friends. Roxanne: Well when I was looking at your Ruby Lee : let me just finish saying this about Dr. Alvey: in 1986 I was Distinguished Alumnus of the Year, and I had this wonderful picture of me and Dr. Alvey standing in front of the clock, a student took it, so when I got the picture I got a copy made and I sent it to Dr. Alvey and said, I want you to have this picture and he sent me back a note that said, thank you for sending me a picture of two happy people. That s the kind of spirit he had that endeared him to us. Roxanne: Wow, I am amazed. During your second year here there were new rules about girls going into town. Do you remember any of that? Ruby Lee : I certainly do. Roxanne: Ok, could you explain a little bit about that. Ruby Lee : Well there was only certain part of town you could go in, there were actually streets that were, we were not allowed to walk on, and when you went into town, you wore high heels, can you imagine, going down this hill, you dressed up, you did not go down there in your socks and saddle oxfords, but they weren t saddle oxfords, they were loafers or whatever. And then you went to church, you put your hat and gloves on, you walked down the street in your high heels and you went to church, I have pictures, I practically wore high heels the whole time I was here. Roxanne: I would love to see some of those pictures. Ruby Lee : Yeah I got some, I m about to show you in a minute. Roxanne: Ok, I would absolutely Ruby Lee : And the style was long dresses, long flowing dresses, and there s no reason why I remember this detail, but the length of the skirt was supposed to be 11 inches from the floor, 11 inches is down around your ankles. I have a picture of my roommate and I dressed like that. Roxanne: Oh my goodness and you went into town dressed like this, oh my goodness.
4 Ruby Lee : And Dr. Combs and Mrs. Bushnell worked hand in hand to make sure we were grown up as proper Virginia ladies. And along that line, remember to tell you is two girls were caught in this off zone, this particular area, and they weren t dressed properly, they had on their socks and their saddle shoes. Next morning, because this happened on the weekend, we didn t leave campus on the weekend like kids do now, we didn t have cars. Next Monday morning, classes were cancelled; we had a convocation, the whole campus. And Dr. Combs gave us a lecture about the image the Mary Washington woman has in town, and I remember he concluded his talk with, and it behooves every woman to be as beautiful as she can be What a burden, what a burden he put on us. Roxanne: No, I think it s absolutely beautiful. Well let me ask you this, I had read when you guys went home for Christmas your senior year, you came home to new gates at the front entrance, do you remember when they put up the big wrought iron gates? Ruby Lee : You know, I m not sure that happened while I was here because the only entrance I recall was the old one on that side of the road, so they came later, Beth probably remembers that. Roxanne: How about the cabin? Ruby Lee : Well the cabin was just a wonderful getaway place, I was looking at some pictures here. You had to belong to archery or horseback riding or some of the phys ed club, you had to belong to those to be able to have meetings and spend weekends and everything at the cabin, and it was really fun. Roxanne: So from what I was reading, you would have marshmallow roasts or hot dog roasts, and that was really kind of a retreat for all of you, you enjoyed that. Ruby Lee : Yep. Roxanne: Another thing, tell me about the swimming pool, where was it? Ruby Lee : The swimming pool was in the basement of where the bookstore is, where is that, Lee? Roxanne: Yeah. Ruby Lee : Ok, that was the big terrace that s up on top, the swimming was up on top, Roxanne: Yeah so it was under Ruby Lee : Believe it or not that s where I learned how to swim, here I am from the Rappahannock River and the Chesapeake Bay, and I didn t, first thing I did was take swimming lessons, I could swim but I didn t know the strokes, ok. Roxanne: Was it required? Was it part of the curriculum? Ruby Lee : Yes, yes everybody had to take swimming, it was part of the state law, we used to have the department of education in the high schools and the college had strict rules about what you had to do and some girls almost flunked because they couldn t pass that swimming.
5 Roxanne: Well let me ask you this, a couple years after you left the name was actually changed. I want to talk about some name changes and what you think about them. Ruby Lee : Oh I was happy it was called Fredericksburg State Teacher s College and you know there was Longwood State Teacher s College and Radford State Teacher s College, we were all in the same system and then we changed it to Mary Washington, yeah, no it became Mary Washington College of the University of Virginia. Well I was happy with that Roxanne: How about the latest name change? Rub: Oh I m okay with it now I ve gotten used to it, I wrote three pages contesting it. Roxanne: Actually I read the letter. Ruby Lee : Right. Roxanne: I absolutely did, but let me ask you this what do you think about the Centennial Celebration this year? Ruby Lee : Oh I m thrilled with that, I m just thrilled with all the things that are going to happen. Roxanne: What do you think about the college expanding and the direction it s going in? Ruby Lee : Just coming from the meeting and I m amazed every single meeting at the vision of our leaders, I am just really amazed. The more we grow and the more we expand it seems more opportunities present themselves. And I thing this acquisition of the Park n Shop is just pure genius. Roxanne: I tend to agree with you. Ruby Lee : And they have it worked out physically sound, they can do it because they figured out how to pay for it. The current construction going on is just adding to the buildings that they have and we don t have that space, we need that space. Roxanne: We re all very excited as you are as well. You got here right before Dr. Chandler passed away. Ruby Lee : No, Dr. Combs was here. Roxanne: Ok, so you got here when Combs was here, yeah Ruby Lee : Dr. Combs was always here. Roxanne: So you came right after Chandler passed away. Ruby Lee : Yeah. Roxanne: How about C.L.Goolrick
6 Ruby Lee : That s Roxanne: Mr. Goolrick s, From Goolrick s, downtown. Ruby Lee : All I remember is that I don t remember him. Roxanne: OK, I was just wondering, he had given a lot of money towards the college and he tried to get Mary Washington to come here. And at the time many students didn t know this.. Ruby Lee : Yeah, see I guess I didn t. Roxanne: I always think of Goolrick s as.. Ruby Lee : It s a pharmacy now Roxanne: The pharmacy, yeah, ok oh what I was going to say is, from the first you were here to the last year you were here what would you say your greatest experience was at the college. Ruby Lee : I d have the say it s the friends I made, we were one of the closest knit classes that they ever had, we, I don t know whether it was the experiences we had because we were all Depression kids and we all had to fall back on our resources you know for entertainment for doing things together in retrospect during that time we weren t aware, but when we finally knew we were going to graduate, we just couldn t stand it that we couldn t come back to see each other next year, and we decided that after the graduation ceremony, we weren t going to just run, we were going to meet, at the amphitheater, that s where we graduated, we all did what we were supposed to do, we all had a special place, and about twenty of us came and we were just like love sisters you know, we were never going to leave each other we were always going to keep in touch, and we really have, and my closest friends are my Mary Washington friends, fortunately, I had a roommate and my little sister who lived right near me, we had all been up and grown and came back, and here we are living right and left of each other, and the other thing of course is how it broadened my horizons and I found out about the world. Roxanne: Well let me ask you this, going back to what you said earlier, that you couldn t imagine not teaching, tell me a little bit more about that, how did that go throughout your life? Ruby Lee : Oh I turned out to be, I was born to teach, as some students said the other day I was born to serve, I said well, I was born to teach. I love teaching. I taught high school, I knew I wanted to teach teenagers. And we just got along fine, I never had any trouble, Thoroughly enjoyed it, very successful at times because I had to keep myself interested and keep myself from getting bored. I didn t teach the whole time I became a writing consultant, for several counties, and that put me in touch with writers and novelists and probably teach the teachers some things as the students. I thoroughly enjoyed it. But when It was all over I wanted to do something else. Roxanne: That s when you? Ruby Lee : That s when I decided to go write. That s when I got into all this writing.
7 Roxanne: I realize that you wrote a lot of articles about gardening. Are you just an avid gardener yourself, or? Ruby Lee : I was, I can t do it anymore, physically. I still am, I had about forty rose bushes cut back yesterday, I had somebody help me, and I sat back in my chair to supervise me. I grew a vegetable garden, because my son married a city girl, and she s bringing these children up and they don t know a thing about the country, so I decided I m going to take these kids and we re going to go out and we re going to raise vegetables. And my husband was worse than that, he said as far as he was concerned the vegetables just were raised on the grocery shelf, that s where they came from. But I have pictures of the wheelbarrows, the kids raising butter beans. So that s how I got into it. But then raising vegetables gets to be a burden, you have all these things go take care of whether you re ready or not and I recall driving home after Richmond with a whole backseat of vegetables and I thought this is the last time so I changed it to a garden, a flower garden, a perennial flower garden that s when I started writing about it. Roxanne: That s when you started writing Ok I have just one last question, what was the food like during your time at Mary Washington? Ruby Lee : It was just awful. Roxanne: Things haven t changed. Ruby Lee : But you ate it because you were hungry. In fact, I learned how to eat scrambled eggs, but I learned how to eat them here because I needed some energy to get to lunch time. But you know we really didn t fuss about it because in those days we were seated and we were served. And we had one person who was head of the table and we had the usual waitress and it was done that way in those days. Well you know, I gained about 15 pounds when I first came here, because you know you were on a schedule and you were hungry and you visit and you have to eat. So, I had to do something about that by my sophomore year. Roxanne: Well along with everything else, they probably kept on you to be presenting and look nice and physically fit. Ruby Lee : Oh they sure did. We had, you ve heard the stories, we all went in, we all sat down, and Mrs. Bushnell hit on the glass and we said the blessing and if there was anything she wanted to call to our attention, she d hit on the glass again and she s show us the proper way, Ladies we have pea soup tonight, now this is how we eat soup, you take your spoon and you do it this way, make a complete circle away from yourself., and she d give us little lessons like that during, every time we heard that tinkle we d stop. Roxanne: Thank you very much, can Jessica take some pictures of you now. Ruby Lee : Yes. Ruby Lee : Here let me tell you about the daisy chain because everyone did that for a number of years. The daisy chain was something that the seniors, walked in to get your diploma, and the daisy chain
8 rested on your left shoulder I recall and we had to have a towel or a napkin or something to keep it from staining our dress, we went to the amphitheater, and can you imagine anything more romantic. We would leave somewhere, I guess they took us in school vehicle, and it was May and the daisies were blooming and we just picked tubs of daisies. I remember we took three or four daisies and plaited the stems together, to make a little rosette, and tie that on to the rope that was the daisy chain. And then we took the chain and hung it over Virginia Hall, And I have a picture of it. Wonderful tradition. Roxanne: She s going to try to take a picture of that. Can she try to take a picture of your other pictures as well. Ruby Lee : Sure. And this is a picture of the bridge across the ravine from Virginal Hall to Saddle back. But we loved it, it was a place like the amphitheater, it was a treat, a place you could get way. Roxanne: It was beautiful, it was woods, because today, you assume its trees, and its just an assumption. Ruby Lee : Yeah.
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