Inter view with Elizabeth Sharpe Steinhilber, class of 1956
By Julia Stringfellow
Briggs Hall room 424
October 14, 2006
1. Could you please state your name?
Elizabeth Sharpe Steinhilber, better known as Betty.
2. What year did you graduate from Milwaukee-Downer?
1956.
3. What was your degree in?
I got a Bachelor of Science degree in Science obviously, and then I have Occupational Therapy clinical internship diplomas.
4. Why did you choose to attend Milwaukee-Downer?
Because it was one of 21 schools in the country that had Occupational Therapy. My father had taken us to New England, went to a bunch of schools on the East Coast, and I really wasn’t terribly pleased with any of them. I was touring around with my twin sister who was also looking at other colleges. And it just happened that the representative from Downer was at another school in New Jersey and had half a day and asked what high school she should go to. So she went to Chapman High School. She appeared and told me about Milwaukee-Downer and they had crew, and my father had crewed at Columbia University, and he had dragged us all over to races in the East, all men’s colleges of course.
And I went home and said to my dad, “I’m going to Milwaukee-Downer College.” And he said, “You’re not going. It’s a woman’s college, and it’s a thousand miles from home.” And I went off to play in the band for a soccer game. So that ended that. In the meantime, he called his sister-in-law who had lived in Milwaukee and gone to Downer and was a geologist. He called his other sister-in-law who lived in Kansas whose husband was William Menninger and they had students from Downer, he was an occupational therapist and they gave it great reviews. And so the representative came up to the house the next morning to talk to my parents and I went to Milwaukee-Downer College sight unseen. Because you weren’t going to go a thousand miles to see a school. So it was with my family that fall I moved to Downer and said, “Have I made the right decision?” Which was perfect, a small women’s college.
5. What was the transition like going from high school to college?
It was just one more step up for me. Ninety-five percent of our graduating class went to college, so that the preparation was excellent. It was a suburban New Jersey school, the parents in this community expected their children to go to college, and most of the teachers had Master’s degrees. So it was a nice transition.
6. What were some of the traditions at Milwaukee-Downer that you were a part of while you were there?
Everything for freshmen, I don’t know what they call it, hazing or whatever. I got involved in sports playing field hockey which a lot of Midwestern girls had never played, but it was big on the East Coast. And I was a field hockey goalie, so I also participated in tournaments at, it wasn’t University of Wisconsin, it was the college down the street, maybe it was University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee. And then of course there’s Hat Hunt, which we all had no choice but to participate in, and we thought it was great fun then though, I had always been more of in the background at high school. I was part of a great group of kids, but I was less verbal than most and not an outstanding leader. With this group of women it just was fun. My roommate was musical, she figured out some acts, we just all had a really good time because it was a very cohesive group of gals. I think the Holton Hall gals were very cohesive. And then there was crew in the spring which was really important to me and I was a Cox and I ended up in later years helping Ms. Heimbach teach some of the girls how to do what we used to do.
7. Why was the Hat Hunt held? What was the object of it? I’ve only read accounts about it; I’ve never heard the story.
I’m not sure I’m the best one to ask, but a minister at one point had visited the school and it must have been back in the 1800s. And some girls had hidden his hat as a prank. There was a big hunt for the hat and that’s how it got started, that’s just sort of a quick short story about it. And it just evolved from there I guess. At that point Downer had a wonderful back campus, wooded, a stream going through it, and so the whole campus, even though it was in the city, it was a really neat college campus. The buildings were beautiful, the quadrangle of the square between Holton Hall and McLaren and the beautiful Hawthorne trees. It was just really neat.
8. And what were some of the places the hat was hid? Were they very unusual places?
They were in the woods next to the stream. It was where we found it. It was always pretty darn well hidden; it took a while to find it. And one of the traditions of course was that you had to stir up this stream and have a big mud fight. So the pictures in the album all show us muddy. I guess that is a big thing today, they have these mud fights and stir up water. Literally it took weeks to get the mud out of every part of your body.
And I think the senior prom or one of the proms was held that weekend or the next weekend because I can remember people coming in and cleaning up from the Hat Hunt. It was a real mess. But we thought it was great fun. It was in May. We were trying to remember how long it took to find that hat. I think it took two weeks. To a lot of people it felt like a month. We enjoyed these crazy acts. We had three little girls from the school, from the opera, and three of us sang that, and people did all kinds of crazy things. There’s a whole thing in the scrapbook that tells what time we had to report and you had to roll your hair. So most of us rolled it the night before in these wrappers and slept in them. We had to replace a few in the morning, so you went out with your hair in all these rags and we had jeans and jean jackets. It was cold in the spring. You performed for about an hour and then you’d come back and get ready for classes. And in the afternoon, I’m on a school bus for seminary. And there’s a note in there that says I’m excused monitoring and I can make it up, and they tell me what times I can be picked up. It really took over your life for two weeks. I don’t know how the faculty appreciated it as far as studies went.
9. Were you ever a part of Lantern night?
We did that at Christmas. There’s pictures of us standing there going to Dr. Johnson’s house and serenading one of his young sons. I guess we went to nursing homes, I just don’t remember all the places we stopped.
10. Was there ever a problem with the lanterns catching on fire since it was a lit candle?
No, I think everybody was pretty careful.
11. The Christmas plays were another big part of the holiday season from what I’ve read.
Right, and I think the German teacher, who was in our dorm, she was responsible for it. The dorms were done absolutely beautifully. McLaren always had the German decorations. Nowadays you don’t have faculty members living in the dorms but we sure did then, you had to mind your p’s and q’s. You signed in and you signed out, particularly as freshmen, you don’t go anywhere for the first six weeks.
So it was either class or dorm.
Right. I think we were allowed with upperclassmen to go out off-campus. But lights were out at 10 o’clock at night the first year, and I think first semester of our sophomore year. And we had to be in on weekends by midnight. It was definitely very well supervised. I think there were a few girls that came in through the unlocked basement windows that their roommates had gone down and unlatched for them. Basically it was pretty straightforward. We usually went out in groups, particularly when you were a freshmen or sophomore.
And those wonderful mixers we would have, where they would come from Marquette, the guys would come from Marquette and I don’t remember where else. One of the members of our sister class said to us, it was our responsibility to make sure that the men had a good time. In other words, we were the hostesses, and it was up to us to make the difference. And so you couldn’t be a shy, retiring violet, because the focus was on you. That was a wonderful message she delivered to us, because it meant you had to exert yourself. So it helped someone like me who was more reticent to sort of come out of my shell because they had expectations. We had to hold doors open for teachers, anyone older than you held the doors open for; when you went down into the dining room in Holton Hall you had a faculty member or maybe a senior at one end of the table and an assigned person at the other end of the table. You were responsible for keeping the things being passed correctly and manners and conversation, it was a big thing.
But I grew up in a family where grandparents were a big part of our lives; we used to go to my grandmother’s for Thanksgiving. She had been brought up in North Dakota on a sheep farm after her father lost his arm in the Civil War, and she knew the Indians and so forth. She was a real great cook, she had finger rolls, and the whole bit. When we went into New York City, you wore heels and gloves and hats and you dressed accordingly. So this all sort of fell into line when I cam to Downer, it was not anything strange or unusual. And I think people today could well afford to have a few of those. And how to dress, you don’t go to the opera in jeans. Now I like dressing down and being able to wear comfortable shoes, but I can not imagine traipsing around anywhere in heels. Then there were the things like you wore a girdle and all those crazy things, your body structure never did good. Things have changed a bit.
12. What were some of the professors that were very influential to you, that made a difference in your life when you were at Milwaukee-Downer?
Number one is Miss Heimbach who was in charge of physical education, she was a real leader and in one of these albums. She was, I guess, the key person for starting having a group of us go skiing not too far away; I don’t remember what hill it was. We went for a weekend, and I think she did the cooking. And her assistant was with her and we skied and someone had an ice boat out on the lake, and we got to go ice boating. It was my introduction to skiing, and eventually I became an avid skier. So that was a whole new world for me. Her expectations, physical education with her were really important, and fortunately I have a body that says I must be active. And it was great, really and truly it was a great program, you need the physical activity mentally. Physical education goes way back in Downer history. Right from the beginning, it was part of the curriculum. And she would give us certain amounts of responsibilities and began with a list of expectations for crew and what you do in the albums and telling you what she expects. It was an honor to be selected by her to help out teaching the freshman crew the proper techniques and so forth.
And then I would say, I’m trying to think of her name, she was amazing. And you didn’t go to any of her classes, biology, anatomy, physiology, neurology, anything, without preparation. All of the Occupational Therapy students had her science classes. You go to a class with that few people, you go well prepared. I should have a list of names here; because you ask me and they just totally escape my mind.
She was the biology and anatomy…
And physiology teacher. Then the psychology teacher, she had come from missionary parents in China, I believe. And in experimental psychology she had us use chopsticks. We had a test on how to do it, pick them carry them here, and do something else with them. She made a circle, it was an experimental kind of thing, and I thank her to this day for teaching me how to use chopsticks, because whenever I go to an Oriental restaurant, I have to have the chopsticks. I would say all the teachers were amazing. The English teacher I had, and music appreciation, just I would have to say they were all in their own right excellent teachers. But I would say Miss Heimbach was definitely my favorite.
13. What were the benefits of attending an all-women’s college while you were a student, and how did it continue to benefit you after you graduated?
I think for me it gave me a chance to assume leadership roles, which I finally had to put a sign on my mirror that said, “Say no,” because the stress was unbelievable. I don’t know how it happened, but it just sort of evolved. I ended up being editor of the yearbook and president of the college government association. The thing that was most important to me was the athletics, and I got my triple A pin, which I guess I was one of three seniors to get. I could be wrong on that, there could have been more. It really brought me into a leadership role, and I do come from a very strong line of women. But I didn’t really realize it or appreciated it at that point. And my father had always told me I could be a good administrator. So I think when I left them I had a lot more self-confidence, more assurance, thought that I could do things and really do well.
And I think ultimately when I think back on it, I had ended up as head of an occupational therapy department, I ended up sort of by default and through a series of crazy circumstances being head of a Board of Trustees for a small private school, three year olds through third grade, ended up in a merger with a third grade through eighth grade girls’ school. And that was a year, a forty hour volunteer job, and workweeks. None of my kids at that point were in private school; they were all in public school because I’d been brought up in public school, believed in public school. I kept saying when my oldest son needed a transition year, when he’s ready, we want him in public school. It turned out he had a learning disability and needed the extra time and it paid off really, really well. And I believe particularly in early childhood education because if you have a strong grounding, it’s like building blocks. If you don’t have the good grounding, you’re not ever going to get where you need to go. That was a painful year in many ways, but the end result is this school that merged. It’s incredible, they’ve done a wonderful job. They wrote a book about it, and I was really pleased to see the end result. And I still get literature.
And I think just in raising a family, being a role model for my one daughter out of three sons, but it’s great because she is a very strong woman and very assertive, and a wonderful mother. And I think it’s exciting to think those things, you are unaware of it, but they really do in subtle ways come out. So I think over the years when you’re in various situations you look back and say, “You know what? For me, a small woman’s college was perfect.” My daughter would never have gone to Downer, that would not have been a good thing for her. But you have to look at individuals and see who’s the city person, who would rather be at a small school, who could function well at a larger school, and so forth. So Downer for me was absolutely the best thing to have ever happened. My father totally agreed with that.
14. We are out of time. But is there anything else you would like to add before the interview ends?
I think we’ve pretty well covered it. I’m sure I will think of a dozen things I should have thought of before, like the names of professors, and so forth. That’s the way it goes.
That will conclude the interview.