Interview with Kay Pierick Williams, class of 1933
By Julia Stringfellow
August 2006 (Interview was done prior to reunion weekend)
1. Could you please state your name?
I’m Kay Pierick Williams, and of course I wasn’t Williams at that point. That came later.
2. What year did you graduate from Milwaukee-Downer?
I graduated in 1933 with a B.S. as an art major. One of my favorite teachers was Miss Logan, Marjorie Logan, who took a special interest in me I think.
3. Tell me about the Hat Hunt, what you did in the Hat Hunt.
Well that was a big deal at the time. I don’t know if you know the story of how the hat turned up. Actually what was being hidden at that point was a little leather case about six inches long and two inches across, so you see it could be hidden in a lot of places. We’d have to hunt, I don’t remember how many hours, but at six o’clock in the morning and four o’clock after school and all day Saturday. I don’t remember Sunday, we must have skipped that. But at any rate, it was a big deal to be a hat hunter, never having been late or absent. The point, we had 3 hunches, and the point of the first two hunches were really to throw you off the track, send you off in the wrong direction. The third hunch they’d want you to find it on a certain day and we usually did that. The trick is, it had to be hidden in a place that was obscure enough that nobody would find it too soon! One time they had a rock that they had excavated enough to put the hat into it and cover it up and put it in the little stream that was on the back of the campus. As it happened, that was my junior year and my freshman was the one who found it. Of course it was a muddy business. Then everybody goes wild.
4. What time of year was the Hat Hunt held?
It was in the spring, I think. Or was it all year? I can hardly remember. We didn’t actively look until spring. One year it was in one of the posts that was part of the fence that went around the back campus. One time it was in a book end on a teacher’s desk all year. It was kind of fun you know.
5. Were there any organizations at Milwaukee-Downer that you were a part of?
I was an art major, I was in most of the art activities, training to be an art teacher, that was what I was later. They always had two sports every season, so we had a boat, I can’t remember how many girls were in rowing, but a half a dozen at least, maybe more than that. There’s a river close by and we’d do that in the afternoons. They had a change of the sport routine three times a year and one season we’d do Archery and one season we’d take horseback riding lessons and that’s the way it was.
6. Now you came back to Milwaukee-Downer and taught after you had graduated?
Oh, sure, sure.
7. What years did you teach there?
It’s hard to remember. I got married in 1941 and then Allen (Kay’s husband) went into the service 2 years later when I had a nine month old baby. That’s when I went back to teach at Downer, it was all very convenient in that the nursery school was a State Teacher’s College, which is now UW-Milwaukee. And Downer being next door, it worked out theoretically. Actually they would take the child’s temperature and if it was 99, bad news, she couldn’t stay. So I had to dash her down to my mother’s, dash to my class and give a lecture on Art History! And I had to have two lecture hours a day and after I was through with work, timing all worked fine, but she always seemed to have a 99 temperature so that was a little complication.
8. What was life like on campus during World War II, how did the war affect Downer College?
Well you see I was married at that point. Coming back everything was fine except trying to make time in going to my mother’s and home. But otherwise there was really no evidence of the war, except the war news and of course correspondence.
9. What was the relation like between the faculty and the students when you were a student at Milwaukee-Downer?
They were darling, Miss Logan especially. She seemed to have a special interest in me, in seeing me on my way. Who was another one, the one that taught Biology, I can’t remember her name. It was a long time ago.
10. Were you ever involved in, I think it was Emily Brown, who did all the plays at Milwaukee-Downer?
Yes, I was in the plays. I was Sir Walter Raleigh once. I was in some others too. You know we had a beautiful campus, I don’t know if that would be forty acres or what, but it was really big with beautiful trees. And we had a May Pole dance out on the back campus. I think there were four themes that she (Emily Brown) had. And one was always Elizabethan, one was Dickens, she had a different theme for each year. And so the cast would change each year.
11. Are there any other stories you would like to share about Milwaukee-Downer, either when you were there as a student or when you taught? Anything that sticks out in your mind about your whole experience with the school?
I wondered what happened to the mural I made on one of the walls in the Science building. It can’t still be there. It was of Elizabethan leagues, life-size, taking up one whole wall in the library. Merrill is the main building, right?
12. What were some of the traditions at Milwaukee-Downer, like the Hat Hunt, caroling every Christmas season?
We made our own lanterns for that. They were actually black cardboard boxes that we cut holes in and put a light inside. Allen left when she (Kay’s daughter) was nine months and he was gone two years. She did start nursery school when she was two. She’d come over to the campus and wait until I was ready to go home. She was intrigued by the Science department, the frogs. I had a deal in which I had a sufficiently large container that I could take care of goldfish and I was the custodian of the goldfish in the summertime. We had a little pool in our backyard where the fish stayed, and they had to come back in the fall.
13. How did attending Milwaukee-Downer influence the rest of your life? Were there any ways that it made an impact, going to an all-women’s college?
I think it was a big plus, and I think it would be better if some of the other girls would do it which I think was the reason Downer faded because there was a period there when nobody wanted to go to a girls’ school. I think I gained a lot from it in that when you go to another school, the boys are the ones that get the club presidencies. And we had to do it on our own so that I think it gave you opportunities to lead rather than always being a follower. Had quite a few member of the faculty that I think were outstanding personalities.
14. The faculty lived on campus with the students, right, the Milwaukee-Downer faculty?
Yes. I lived within walking distance, two blocks north of the campus, so that I was doing a lot of walking. Most people didn’t have cars. One of my friends did, you had to climb up over the fender into the seat. We though she was wonderful. I think that I made some very worthwhile friendships there and they continued, some of them just until lately.
15. Were there any popular hangouts that the girls would go to that were off-campus?
Yes, there was a drugstore on Downer Avenue a little further south. We went there occasionally for banana splits. We played hockey when it was that season, and we had bloomers and a mini skirt and top and ran around on the back campus. The sports were really part of the fun.
16. And it was probably good because all the women were active in it since there weren’t any men?
Right, either you do it or you have nothing.
17. Were there any special events or any other type of activity that you can think of that was significant while you were a student at Milwaukee-Downer?
I can’t think of anything. I know there were occasions when they would import some boys for a dance or something, but mostly, no boys.
18. We are almost done with the interview. Is there anything that you would like to add?
You can subtract whatever you want. I went on to be an art teacher and got married and did a little more teaching and then I worked with my husband who was a photographer.
Thank you very much for doing the interview. This will conclude the interview.