Interview with Sue Hackett, class of 1957
Interviewed by Julia Stringfellow
Interview took place in Lawrence University Archives
June 14, 2007
1. Could you please state your name?
My name is Sue Ann Hackett.
2. And what year did you graduate from Lawrence?
I graduated fifty years ago in 1957.
3. And what was your degree in?
I had a degree in Art and Art History, I took about the same amount in each of the disciplines, and had minors in History and English and certification in secondary education
4. How did you choose Lawrence as the college that you were going to attend?
Well I came from a small town in central Illinois, Jacksonville, Illinois, which has two liberal arts colleges. My mother thought it would probably be a good idea if I went out of town, I might mature more and so forth. So we looked at Knox, Grinnell, Beloit, Ripon, and here it was June, and we hadn't made a decision. So we came to Lawrence and I think my mother said, "Well, how about this one?" So a small college appealed to me anyway, and this seemed like the place.
5. And what was the transition going from high school to college like? Was that a smooth transition?
Well, pretty smooth, I guess, I think it was hard being away from home for the first time, being on your own, learn how to balance study time with all the social distractions, and being called on to give your opinions and insights in Freshman Studies. I was pretty quiet for a long time and didn't have any opinions! And I was more like a sponge, I was taking it all in, but I wasn't ready to talk about it yet. Several of my second year French class freshman year had gone to a two year, and they were much better prepared than I was, and so I sort of…I perhaps had to work pretty hard to kind of keep up that first year.
6. What dorms did you live in while you were at Lawrence?
Well, the tradition was Freshman year at Ormsby, Sophomores and Juniors at Sage, which was my favorite because it was across from the Beta house, which was my favorite fraternity. But we were the first girls to live in Colman Hall, that was opened up in the fall of 1956, and we had to stay there. I was an unwilling resident because it was so far from the Union, the library, and the Beta house. And my social life really suffered that year too, being stuck off in a new place. But anyway, it was a nice, new dorm, so I adjusted.
7. Okay, so you would say probably that Sage was your favorite dorm to live in?
Yes, it was. We had the most fun there. There was a riot between the frat boys, sort of like a panty raid but it didn't quite get to be a panty raid. It was just a good location I thought, socially on the campus.
8. Tell me about some of your experiences, because you were active with the sorority Delta Gamma.
That was another thing when you first got here, immediately you went to rush, and you had to impress people, you hardly had time to turn around. So I felt very fortunate to get into a good sorority and I enjoyed the comradery, the girls and all the activities we did as a group in those days, I don't know if they do now. For three years I was on the Folk Dance Troupe. We had competition among the sororities, and it was really tooth and nail about winning that folk dance thing. And one year, I think it must have been our sophomore year that the Delta Gammas won was once again a high point. There was a TV station in Madison that invited us to come down and do our fling. And we thought we had been invited to go to Hollywood or something. TV was relatively new, and we had never been inside a television studio before, so that was pretty exciting.
The Delta Gammas always had a South Sea island party as part of their entertainment where you invite boys and have a party. I was on the hula dance line for those. In face I think I suggested having a South Sea island party but I'm not sure. We did a pirate party for rush, and so I really enjoyed those dress-up things. And the Delta Gammas at that time always went Christmas caroling with the Betas and we had lots of practices at their fraternity house. Then after we caroled, we were invited in for hot cocoa, so that was a nice tradition. But the fraternities and sororities doubled up and did this.
9. Tell me about the ROTC Military Ball, were there a lot of dances and balls held while you were a student?
Oh yes, I think because no cars were allowed on campus that this was set up to keep the kids in line, give them something to do, particularly through the long winter. They were almost every weekend, there was some planned event. There were school formal dances, we all wore the long formals, and usually the thing was your date and some of his frat brothers would go out to eat first, and it might be a good restaurant depending how much money they had to spend or you might just have a hamburger downtown. And sometimes it was 9:30 or 10 before you got back to campus, the parties didn't start until 9. Sometime you never got back to campus for the parties for the dances. But there were events, it was still a time of big band music, so fast dancing, with jazz maybe, in my diary I keep talking about dancing fast with so and so, we had the greatest time.
And this was not yet rock and roll, not quite rock and roll, but just before that. But jazz was big, there was some jazz band (Salty Dogs) that came up from Purdue, and we thought that was pretty exciting. There were, according to my diary, we went to the movies a lot, sometime us girls and sometimes by myself, we went to the movies during the week, a lot of movies, ski trips in the winter. The vice-president of Senior year was of Ski Club. But that was something I learned at Lawrence. The boys in the ski club were really good about giving you lessons when we got to the slopes, and I retained a lifelong interest and changed over to cross country skiing. It really started here. I was from central Illinois and we had no hills and not that much snow!
In the sprint we'd go to Waupaca for picnics, and another sport I really enjoyed learning here at Lawrence was curling, we took curling for gym and got some real good pictures of that. Anything else…I'd like to tell a story about being from central Illinois, my Midwestern accent, they thought was Southern so the boys teased me about being a Southern belle. I even get Christmas cards from them saying, "To my Southern belle." And one time I was at a fraternity party the Betas, they stole my shoes and said, "Well, Huckleberry Finn, do you wear shoes in Jacksonville, Illinois?" And then a couple of times it was more positive, I got asked out for dates by a member of the football team, a handsome football team upper classman just to hear me talk. And I thought, "Oh, well this is okay, if that's what it takes, I'll just put it on more, you know." So anyway, well, that was funny. It shows at a time that there wasn't as much diversity as there is now at Lawrence. I wasn't all that far, I was from an adjacent state and there were a few from say the East or something, but Lawrence was not very diverse then. I don't believe there was any black students I can remember, there might have been a foreign student or two from another country but we were pretty much the same.
10. Well getting back to skiing, where did Lawrence students go when they wanted to ski?
Well, I'd forgotten the names. There was someplace nearby, we would go on Wednesday nights that had lighted hills. I can't remember the name of it. We'd go to Iron Mountain, Michigan, it was probably the farthest. And some, Shelter Valley, Rib Mountain, since I haven't been to those places in fifty years, I'm a little fuzzy on the names of places. Oh, and then there was Winter Weekend somewhere near Green Bay. I've got a program I think. Do they still have Winter Weekend?
No, I think that for a few years they had Winter Carnival, and then they just did away with it. The weather is so unreliable.
This was in between semesters for three days and some people stayed, there were kids from there and they took a few people into their homes, but there must have been some kind of camp or some place that had lodging. And we skied, it was just very different events, it was sort of organized by the college. I only went once I think, I sometime went to Chicago and met my parents for the weekend. So it was always hard to know what you wanted to do most.
11. I've seen a lot of photographs of the curling team, and it just looks like so much fun. Can you explain what happens when someone curls?
I was trying to remember what they call the place where you go. There are five people on a team. One person, it's a little like bowling in that you have this smooth rock with a handle in it, and kind of like bowling, you give it a twist at the end on the ice, the other four people have these brooms and they sweep the ice to direct where the stone is going to go and make the ice slippery. And while it looks a little silly, it's quite competitive. Then the next person on the other rink tries to either get in a better position, there's like a target under the ice, where your thing goes. Either knock you out of your position or position themselves in the high scoring place. I wouldn't have gotten to do that if I hadn't come to Wisconsin! I enjoyed watching that in the Olympics because I could identify with it.
And in the photographs, always people are still wearing their coats and gloves and hats.
Yes, it was cold.
12. When there were parties on campus and you would be getting back to campus later in the evening, were there different curfews for men and women?
Well, actually I'm not even aware it there was a curfew for the boys, there must have been something, fraternity houses or something, but I'm not aware of that. We had school nights where it was ten o'clock, weekends maybe eleven, and the parties, you had so many eleven o'clocks you could take per semester, not very many, two or something like that. And if it was something really special, you had to do it in advance, you had to arrange it, you couldn't just call up and say, "I'm going to take a late night." It was twelve for the big formals. At those times when we were supposed to be at the dorms, you and your dates all crowded to the front door and there was all this hugging and kissing at the front door, sometimes the housemother would say if it was a cold night, "Come on in to the lounge," and then she'd have to shoo the boys out.
It was very structured, but we accepted that. We were some of the last years before the 60s, and all hell broke loose, and things were entirely different. We were very accepting of rules, fairly accepting of rules, that was just the way it was. And because it was rumored that if you break any of the rules, you were out of here.
Pretty tight structure it sounds like.
Right, you're out of here. "We want people who obey the rules."
13. The photographs I've seen of the dances from the 1950s, the girls are wearing these beautiful gowns and there were dance cards. Were there specific dress codes that had to be abided by for the dances?
Yes, in my write-up of the Military ball I wrote to my mother that we had to wear our long formals to that, that was the instructions you got because the Military ball was supposed to be very dressy. And the other ones you could wear were called cocktail dresses which were full with stiff petticoats underneath, but they were calf length, now we call them pretty dressy. On your pledge formal for your sorority, those were long formals pretty much. But some of the other in between dances were not quite as dressy.
14. Usually per semester, how many dances were held?
Per semester, I would say maybe 4 or 5, fancy ones, you had the in-between that were the costume parties. An interesting fact, our closets were not big enough to hold these formals, so in my letters home I would say, "Mom, please send up my such and such formal." And she had a box, and she would mail it to me, and then I'd mail it back home. Particularly Ormsby, the closets were small. But then the dresses have gotten smaller. And I don't remember how we did our laundry, I don't think they had washing machines that we could use, I don't remember. I remember shipping some home, like blouses that needed to be ironed, they would be ironed and sent back. Maybe we hand-washed our underwear or something, I've forgotten that completely.
15. Where there any campus traditions that you participated in? I know the May Day celebration or the ROCK, or traditions that were popular at the time?
Well, the ROCK was mainly boys, it was mainly a fraternity thing, they were always moving that around. And it was moved several times, at least once a year. Something was put up on the top of Main Hall. I don't know whether they dismantled a Model T Ford, they were always up to things like that. But as far as the traditional things that I guess went out in the 60s, the Best Loved for the girls, we always went to the events, participated in those. That was just what you did, it was a part of schedule.
16. Who were some of the professors you had that really significantly influenced your life, and made a big impact while you were here at Lawrence?
Now when I look at the Lawrence Today, I marvel at how young all the professors look and more informal. The men all wore suits and the ladies of course wore dresses, heels, so they looked older. I would say that I didn't have a real close relationship with any of the professors, if they had it more with boys or maybe my major was just informal, I don't know. My freshman year I took Ancient History from Dr. Chaney, and he was a young Ph. D., he hadn't been teaching but a year or two. One time when I talked to him on campus, he said he could remember all the names of his students from his first two or three years, and he remembered my name. I was an A student of his! It was the first time that history was really fun. He told the risqué stories about the Greeks and the Romans and for the first time, it was really interesting. And I think that set me on my course of being, working in the history field and everything. I think that was the first time he had us research from primary sources, and while we had bought some texts, a lot of them were set aside for us on reserve in the library. And you just came and read as you could from Herodotus and Beowulf and all those primary sources. It showed that's what real history is, primary sources and not what you've been used to in high school, secondary textbooks you know. So I really think that was, well, this goes back to a smaller Lawrence College where you had intimate contact and small classes, particularly in your upper class, you were right there with the source of information. You weren't part of 300 people in a lecture class. I think that's one of the benefits of a smaller Lawrence College.
17. Tell me about the occasion when you wore the hat and gloves and attended Senator Joseph McCarthy's funeral?
That really was sort of a special happening and just before we graduated, May of 1957, somebody came into the dorm and said, "Got to go down to the Catholic church because Joseph McCarthy, Senator McCarthy, has died and he's on view at the Catholic church."
Oh, it was open casket?
Open casket. Because I didn't read newspapers or watch TV, there was only one TV in the Union, and there was not this 24 hour news casts like there are now. I thought, "I don't really have an idea about how notorious he was," but they said, "You'd better go," so it was a historical moment I guess, I'd better go. So we girls put on our hats, our gloves, it must have been white gloves because it was May, and dress shoes, and trecked down, I didn't know the name of the street, but we went by Brokaw, I think the church was down that way, it was a number of blocks. And went through the line and took a look at Senator McCarthy. It was only in retrospect that I found out what I was doing! So that was just kind of a tidbit of Appleton history that we got involved with.
18. Now, what was the general attitude toward Senator McCarthy by the Lawrence students and faculty?
I can't really answer that because we were so out of it as far as the real world. We were sort of isolated from the real world, we were in this academic cocoon. I'm not sure at that time, my Junior year I took American foreign policy, that would be about the only political thing and that was history, not what was happening right then. We weren't thinking about contemporary history.
19. How did being a student at Lawrence and graduating from Lawrence influence your life after you graduated and went on?
I think the independence, this doesn't sound academic but, while the academic part I guess was to be a Renaissance person, to be interested in many subjects and have the ability to analyze and synthesize information, how to do good research, and have good writing skills. I worked with hiring people much later on with the National Park Service and I read people's applications, and many of them didn't have any writing skills, they hadn't taken any classes that required writing. I think I was able to do better what they call now multi-tasking, and Lawrence instills the love of learning, curiosity, and the campus activities gave me confidence to be a leader later on and to always try new things. I worked in the Park Service early on when I was on a lower level, people said, "Ask Sue, she'll do anything."
Outside of academics, I think it taught me life skills to meet and deal with all sorts of people, you're on your own. Particularly because you're away from home, you couldn't rely on your family connections anymore. You had to impress people on your own and get along with people. When I worked with the National Park Service I had to move from park to park in order to climb the ladder and you had to go to a new community, you had to connect with your staff and local leaders, and so that skill was important. I think I valued my education here, it wasn't until I took my Master's at a large university that I realized what a quality education Lawrence has.
20. Well, we're almost out of time. Is there anything else you want to talk about or share?
Well, this is more of a social thing, I was considered somewhat square by the girls in the dorm because I didn't smoke. Fifty years later I was talking to a friend, trying to get him to come to the reunion, and the one thing she could recall about me, and we had a lot of contact during those four years, but the only thing she could recall is that I stood in the hallway at their room to keep from breathing smoke, because all of them smoked.
And they allowed smoking in the dormitories.
Yes, it was terrible. That was one good thing I did, I decided to do, I never liked the smoke. And some of my dates considered me square because I didn't drink the state beverage of beer, and they thought it was sort of a slap in the face because I didn't like Wisconsin beer. Sometime I didn't get invited out a second time. That's all right.
It was their loss.
Their loss. One thing that was important in our time, our class arrived at Lawrence in September in the interim between Dr. Pusey who had just left for Harvard, and Dr. Knight. I have and I'll be giving to you the words of the songs we sang when we welcomed him to campus. We were Dr. Knight's first class. It was a special time, and I'm happy I came.
21. Is there anything else you can think of?
I think we've covered it pretty well.
(Recorder was turned off, but as Sue was leaving she began talking about women at Lawrence and the recorder was turned back on.)
You're talking about opportunities for women while you were a student.
Looking back, I realize I should have been more aggressive but I wasn't at that time. Probably in our late Junior or early Senior years I talked to Mr. Brooks, I don't know if he was a professor, his specialty was Architecture, he was in the Art department. I think he was maybe my counselor or something. And I said, "Well, I'd really be interested in working in the museum." And he said, "Well, there really aren't careers for women in museums. The only thing you could do would be sell postcards at the front desk or be a clerk or something." So I immediately thought, "Oh, that's not a good idea." So my expectations were limited to teaching Art in public school, not that that's not a good career, but...
If I'd been a more adventurous person, looking back on it, I would have gone off to New York and found something, but I was a little shy and that seemed intimidating to me. And there was sort of no one, particularly for women, that I think professors didn't kind of help have contacts. I asked them if they had contacts, this was in Junior year and I wanted to work in the summer or take art lessons in Colorado or do something, and they said there wasn't anything they could think of. You know I think they just didn't go out of their way to help. But I think they felt that women were just going to get married. There was still that thought, it was still in that time period. Contemporaries of mine have done interesting things, but generally women were teachers, nurses, or secretaries. We had to wait until the 60s to get liberated!
And I thought a lot about that when I was a federal law enforcement officer for the National Park Service, and I was chasing hunters through the woods with a 35 caliber pistol on my hip. I was doing something outside the expectations of the 50s! That's about all that I had on that.
