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File consists of a recording of Dorothy Wight. Topics of the conversation include family background in northern Canada, transfer from settlement to settlement. Father's government career, current work with North West Territories Housing Corporation. Liking for isolated settlement life, plans to live and work up north; aim to work with government Finance Dept., door to any career she chooses. Definition of northern settlement status, hamlet status: government, population, types of employment. Appalling state of formal education in NWT; subject as sole university student from her settlement, own exceptional education through Ontario correspondence courses; combined correspondence and regular school­ work. Family plans for subject's university attendance, necessary transfer to western Arctic for schooling beyond Grade 8. Poor quality of teaching. Correspondence course (Economics) from Queen's while awaiting personal readiness to move south, encounter Queen's, Kingston. NWT usual pattern of correspondence courses from Alberta, sudden transfer from settlement population (300) to U.of Alberta student population (30,000). Choice of Queen's based on smaller size, vivid praise of former students (especially geologists). Subject's Ontario correspondence-school background. Mother's New Brunswick origins, clerical training, northern marriage. Subject's social ostracization as daughter of government representative; community jealousy of father's status, authority. Self-reliance, enjoyment of north as open country; appreciation of freedom from social pressures, truly spare time. Opinion that those who set good examples in personal lives do most to stimulate positive social change; mistrust of reformist zeal. Hobbies.//Possibility of theatre company tours up north. Social structure in northern communities: established whites; transient whites; religious older generation of Eskimo; confused younger generation of Eskimo, victims of unfortunate schooling system. Influx of government schools in mid-1950s; hiring through Ottawa of unstable, reformist 'border-line crazies', unsuited to gently revolutionize a Stone Age culture. Teachers' attempts to alienate Eskimo children from parents by mocking native customs; breakdown of Eskimo nomadic lifestyle; pressure to prevent children from speaking Eskimo; helpful missionary work instructing children in syllabics. Ignorant Ottawa statement that Eskimo are largely illiterate (i.e. cannot speak English); near-total literacy rate in own language; subject's tentative desire to learn Eskimo (5 basic languages, hundreds of dialects). Influence of southern immigrants on job situation: recent reverse-discrimination system favouring Eskimo over whites, southern whites over local inhabitants; experience of two white northern males, unable to find work till they applied as southerners 'with significant northern experience'. Assurance of work in own field through scarcity of suitable applicants; plans to consider marriage, children, only after establishing career; school system as deterrent to parental aspirations. Provincial government clampdown restricting Ontario correspondence courses to Ontario residents. Need for stable middle-aged teaching population up north; strong bond between children and home settlements, boarding-school as a non-viable alternative. High proportion of drop-outs, professional high school students; monetary support for serious students. Unlikelihood of reversion to simple life, despite problems of social change: lifestyle of original Eskimo simply too grim.

File consists of a recording of Ruth Wallbridge. Topics of the conversation include subject as Queen's student c.1910. Family background: Wallbridge home, farm, tenant houses; raising hops. Parents' early deaths; adoption of subject by aunt, uncle. Education of mother, aunt (Albert College, Belleville); mother's desire for daughter's education. Influence of strong-willed grandmother. Carpenter uncle's farm inheritance, separation from wife unwilling to do farm-wife's work. Accident in family home causing fire: subject rescued by grandmother, goods saved by quick-witted schoolmaster's student rescue­team. Residence in Kingston YWCA. Uncle's offer to pay subject if she would stay home; working fruit business at home for 10 years, finishing degree with extramural courses. Uncle's death; farm rental, division of house with tenants; tenant problems. Subject's poems, literary interests; poem addressed to Flora MacDonald, 'an ideal person that I would certainly like to see as leader of our country'. Elderly people's reading difficulties. Subject's opinion of women's lib movement; personal happiness sharing single life with a female friend; importance of independent role choice; admiration for grandmother as dominant, fulfilled wife and homemaker. Pressure on women to attract men; desirability of bridal state, inability of many women to see farther. Happy inclusion of subject and friend Marie in brother's extended family. Interest in Christian Children's Fund of Canada. Dislike of urban standard-of-living pressures; sympathy for Margaret Trudeau. Interviewer's account of Flora MacDonald. Identification with rural life, rejected option of marrying city lawyer. Opinion that money should be spent on something more meaningful than attractive clothes or furniture.

File consists of a recording of Kathleen Ryan. Topics of the conversation include interview occasioned by 55th anniversary of CFRC (Canada's First Rugby Club) radio station. CFRC as oldest continuously broadcasting station in Canada, originally run and financed by Queen's students: set-up of Prof. Jemmett's equipment on kitchen table in Fleming Hall; 'CFRC, Queen's University: 100 beautiful watts!'. CFRC as Science men's preserve: Arts men tolerated when programming began; women virtually banned. Expansion, help from Margaret Angus, Student Club, and university. Subject's honorary cutting of cable for CFRC stereo broadcasting, recently introduced. 'When the lceworms Nest Again', classic Canadian song played by CFRC during technical difficulties, also by country music band 'The Happy Wanderers' to serenade opening of Upper Canada Village. CFRC as example of Queen's tradition, 'Go ahead if you're broke, you're still going to come through'. Subject's infiltration of CFRC on arm of male student. Science students' aversion to Economics students' use of Fleming Hall. Major fight between Arts and Science men at entrance to Kingston Hall; voluntary parting of bloody sea allowing Dr. Watson to pass through; subject's belief in healthy brawling as opposed to vindictive physical violence. Children's inability to grasp the import of firearms; bearing of practical use of guns on the ethics of firearms. Subject's fascinated observation of creation of Upper Canada Village; sad fate of outhouse-style coverings for anachronistic firehydrants, removed by authorities. 'Happy Wanderers', Ryans' CFRC band, nucleus of later Family Brown Band, CJOH.CFRA beginnings 31 years ago, purchase of second farm-transmitter site necessitated by 'political skulduggery'; selection of Ottawa site, through 5-year survey, as city with poorest radio service in Canada (private license used by owner as erratic hobby). Mistrust of Ryans as outsiders, interfering with station purchase. Household moves, occasioned by husband's communications career. Subject's original choice of Medicine at Queen's, attracted by status; distressing experience of animal dissection; switch to Economics. Recognition of ambition to make money; triumph in financial deal where buyer assumed he was getting the best of an ignorant lady. Present­day retirement funds, pensions, as questionable investments because of inflation; basis of inflation is paid lack of production (UIC). Younger generation's verbal dependence on cliches. Subject's Florida farm investment (location influenced by price of fuel). Ryan horse stables; switch from saddle-horses to hackneys; 'courage, confirmation, coordination' criteria in hackneys; 'period' affair with carriages (George VI lady's phaeton, Sir Vivian Gooch mail phaeton, Viceroys for show).Subject's rugged conscience with regard to extravagant lifestyle. Forfeited option on historic Billings estate, lost through intention to erect apartment building, townhouses; opposition by city planning board, residents' association. Billings' Georgian colonial home, bought by city unable to maintain it; pioneer cemetery, now degraded for lack of care. Billings' history: Lemira as original Canadian business woman, exemplary accountant. Meeting with residents' association, seen from subject's humorous, indignant, scornful point of view. Involvement in Ontario Heritage Foundation preservation of historic buildings. Ironic preservation of ordinary local homes at expense of priceless Billings 'gem'. Subject's sports interests at Queen's; secretarial work for Prof. Gordon, convenor of immigration for lODE; proofreading work for visiting professor; tutoring work in Political Science, Shakespeare.//Virtue as no guarantee of success; unrewarded devotion of many civiI servants. Unaccountable differences in personal ambition: subject's pursuit of exciting prospects ('this margin fades forever and forever when I move'); nephew's insistence on small-scale comfort. Replacement of powerful radio tower used by Ryans since 1946 by Ryan transmitter (1968), rivalled in Canada only by CN tower but with wider applications. Sale of radio stations, retention of transmitter; foreseen subjection of rival broad­ casters, forced to lease space in Ryan transmitter (advantageous to poorer stations such as Carleton). Cablevision companies; interest in satellite broadcasting, not feasible because of competition. Subject's broadcasting experience: 'What's Your Trouble'. show, with woman psychologist Wasserman; Wassermans as German refugees, husband's excellent novels. Enjoyment of 'Farmer's Notebook' report, given something to talk about; hatred of fabricating useless copy; preference for brevity, under 12-minute broadcasting. Editorial manipulation of hot-line shows. Family background: 4 of 8 siblings died young; notorious Canadian infant mortality rate c. 1919, connected with lack of physical confirmation between Celts and Gaels. Liking for Catholicism: Irish-Catholic mother; Catholic husband; lovely experience of convent schooling (Renfrew County). Emphasis on clothing in schools; interviewer's memory of 'Kitten sweater' Toronto snobbery; psychological implications of blue-jean trend. Positive sartorial impression made by men at current Convocation, in contrast with feminine impact. Hard prospects for today's graduates. Views on Canadian unity: no need to preserve French-English Canadian unity, which has never existed; no need to reduce a country to its weakest link. Notion of two founding races 'a damned bit of nonsense'. Goyer's 'French commonwealth'; politicians' insidious desire for French supremacy; expectation of increased difficulty, violence. Injustice of Quebec-Ontario industrial relations, Quebec licensing restrictions. Advantage taken of bulk-restricted Ontario milk shippers by infiltrating Quebec merchants. Dr. Deutsch's comment (Class of '26 Reunion) that 1926 graduates remain unsurpassed; subject's corroborating list of outstanding women (Olive Zeron, Jean Simmons, Marie Stock, Mary Rowland, Frances MacCallum, Janie Anderson, Margaret Guthrie). Reid MacCallum as outstanding Professor of Philosophy.

File consists of a recording of Jean Royce. Topics of the conversation include Queen's graduates Jessie and Dorothy Dyde, both graduates of Smith College, both librarians. Powerful Queen's woman librarian Laura Saunders, 'a pillar'; Queen's former librarian to the King of England Mr. Kite, untrained by today's standards but with very special knowledge of books, 'an air of heraldry'. Laura Saunders' sister Elsie (Hilda Laird's replacement at League of Nations Library, Geneva). Laird's appointment to Queen's as 25 year-old Dean of Women, accompanied by pleasant mother ('a very attractive pair'); Alumnae eagerness to make the appointment; exacting nature of residential Dean's work. Subject's graduation from Queen's in 1930, employment at Ontario Ladies' College, Whitby, invitation to assist ailing Queen's Registrar Alice King. Boarding house residence at Queen's, 1925; contrast with formality of residence life in Ban Righ,1927. Approval of period of employment between high school and university, to define one's interests, develop maturity. Subject's love of books, major in English and History; great interest in mediaeval period, thwarted by limitation of Queen's courses to Canadian history; appreciation of Chaucer. Responsibility for religious knowledge classes at Ontario Ladies' College; previous bible study courses at camp, attendance at Queen's Theological classes; 'meaty' lectures of Queen's Theology Principal Kent, very clear and informative, with no opportunity for questioning, discussion; limitations of early lecture methods, seen not as 'a round table for ideas' but as 'a presentation of results of thought'; similarity of Shakespeare courses under George Herbert Clarke (who sold students his lectures in printed form for a nickel each). Compulsory lecture attendance. Summer employment as Queen's student documenting material in basement of Queen's library. Undergraduate employment in Reference Department under Miss Rayson; Rayson's recommendation of subject to Registrar Alice King, 'a good worker - and she's not particularly interested in men'.//Enjoyment of Alice Chown's diary; Chown's nephew, daughter, in Toronto. Disbelief of story that Chown was paid during Depression not to stay in Kingston. Appointment of Dr. McNeill (always lamenting his surrender of teaching) by Queen's A.Y. Chown, fearful that something dreadful would befall unless he was succeeded by Dr. McNeill. Alice Chown's pseudonymous publications. Mrs. Adam Shortt (Smith), early female medical doctor, graduate of Queen's. Interviewer's reflections on Alice Chown's exploration of 'ideas of alternative marriage styles'. Advancement of women during WWI : sobering reflection on social advantages derived from war (can we avoid war?), periods of social guilt followed by periods of atonement; witness to prompt German efforts at post-war reconstruction (1947), necessity for immediate action, no time for regret, reflection. Identification of 12th century as western history's most civilized period; tremendously cultured contributions at present day of women in Switzerland, possibly a peak in history of female civilization; 'Golden Age' of Queen's during 1950s,under Dr. Mackintosh. Vindication of homosexuals as useful citizens during WWI, similar vindication of women; subject's accepting acquaintance with homosexual students at Queen's.

File consists of a recording of Jean Royce. Topics of the conversation include TAPE ONE 'Historical Sketch of the Medical Education of Women', Osier Club booklet, 1916. Family photo (St. Thomas, Ontario). Sister Catherine as violinist, teacher; use of music to assist teaching; studies at McMaster University, work in St. Thomas and Toronto public libraries. Father as industrial foreman, son of farmer; removal from St. Thomas to small outlying farm (retaining job in St. Thomas), 'back to the land' impulse; perfectionist nature (compulsion to pluck every bug from every potato plant). Sister Marion as family scholar; attendance McMaster University, Ontario College of Education; eager family interest in Marion's letters, (first member to leave home); position as secretary, Girls' Work Board for Canada (CGIT). Subject's firm belief in co-education, interest in Kathleen Ryan on convent schooling (see interview 46, Ryan, Kathleen). Family decision to remove Catherine from lessons at St. Thomas convent: nuns' exploitation of Catherine's musical talent, turning her into show-off 'star'. Belief in co-education, derived from Quakers; interest in Society of Friends. Kathleen Ryan's glowing recollection of peaceful Renfrew County convent life. Former rumour of excessive punishment at Kingston convent; warmth of local Roman Catholic Regiopolis school (co-educational), fine character of nuns and mother superior at local Notre Dame convent. Role of co-education in adjusting students for society; former teaching experience at Ontario Ladies' College (Whitby, Ontario).//Diverse OLC student population (Canadian, American, Nigerian, Japanese, at least one Negro). 'Normal' upbringing; complete surprise at birth of younger sister; recollection of female school principal, unusual for the times; liking for schooling. Brother's banking career. Holiday employment as camp leader (mid-1920s) with Neighbourhood Workers (Bolton, Ontario), entertaining tired mothers and babies. Choice of library career, happy employment at St. Thomas Public Library; library work as good background for registrarial career. Mother as church­woman, deeply interested in missions; as remarkable cook, without patience to teach children; informally educated, very knowledgeable, sympathetic, supportive, generous. Attendance at library school; father's death; sister Marion's resignation of CGIT work, MA at University of Toronto, eventual employment with international YWCA, Geneva, as liaison officer with United Nations, New York. Extramural registration at Queen's, summer school attendance 1925, resident enrolment 1927; attraction to Kingston. Employment Ontario Ladies' College; invitation from Queen's Dr. McNeill to assist Registrar Alice King. Undergraduate position as secretary to Professor Min Gordon, Educational Secretary of lODE; men students' attempt to storm Candlelighting Ceremony, intimidated by Min Gordon; Gordon as 'the heart of goodwill and kindness' as subject's employer; maritime origins of Gordon's father, Queen's Principal Gordon; Min Gordon's 'tremendous pre­judices', sense of propriety.// TAPE TWO Min Gordon's inability to accept father's retirement, removal to Gordon House (later Queen's women's residence). Subject's appointment while Assistant Registrar as women's residence Warden, to supplement wretched salary; delightful acquaintance with Gordon House students; anxiety for tardy canoeists (later punished by women's Levana Society disciplinary council) as sole cause for alarm. Non-interfering role as Warden: responsible natures of house president, Levana Society president; residence houses as pleasant, relaxed places; importance of keeping house 'in good fettle' during exams. Pressures of registrarial work (death of former broken-down Registrar Alice King, exhausted by work, pressure): huge correspondence with incoming students; 'constant flow' of students in need of counselling; secretarial appointment (minute-taking, writing-up, correspondence) to Faculty of Arts, Senate, Committee of Departments, Board of Studies. Appointment of Jean Richardson (1936) as first office secretary (later Assistant to the Registrar); Richardson's exceptional competence, ability to lift much of Royce's burden. Horror at Queen's introduction of paper diplomas. Appointment as Registrar, 1933. Happy, cooperative, sociable office staff; Ralph Clench, valued staff character, man­of-all-work, lecturer in Queen's Mathematics Department. Present-day division of Registrar's former decision-making responsibility among various Faculty offices. Counselling individual incoming students on choice of programme as major part of registrarial work; responsibility for university calendar (soliciting programme descriptions from professors, checking descriptions with eagle eye for compliance with university regulations); administration of scholarships as huge workload, responsibiIity (advantage of acquaintance with Miss Gordon's system of developing Canadian Federation of University Women Scholarships). Preoccupation preceding retirement with reconstitution of Queen's Senate.//Cooperation with Senate over scholarships, degree lists. Health breakdown (1965), hospitalization, retirement. Regret she was never offered sabbatical leave. University reorganization at time of retirement, division of academic and administrative bodies; faculty desire in mid-1960s to assume some direct administration; Senate reconstitution, subject's involvement writing papers, evolving committees. Holiday travel, travel as committee convenor for Internaional Federation of University Women. Time given up to advising university staff, preparing papers as member of study group; limited outside social life. Pressure of registrarial work, unwillingness to stay so long in a job again; lack of equivalent job opportunities throughout Depression, 'it worked out very well for a long time'. Astonishment at numbers of freshmen entirely ignorant of what university is, despite Queen's long-established high school liaison programme; subject's province-wide address to high school students, participation in registrar's conferences. Contributions of faculty members George Whalley, Clint Lougheed, to success of university calendar. Academic snobbery of Queen's French Department; subject's continual 'battling' with friend P.G.C. Campbell

File consists of a recording of Jean Royce.

File consists of a recording of Mabel Roberts. Topics of the conversation include confusion of subject's sense of time, living in old age home: lack of significant events to mark passage of time; dull, merely routine nature of daily activities. Attendance at Queen's, 1914-17; Hen Coop residence, Clergy St. at Earl. Brockville childhood; father's position as railroad yard foreman. Glass candlestick, brought from Ireland by immigrant grandmother. Family photograph; younger sister's 8-year employment with Mayo Clinic. Mother's frailty. Subject's ambition to teach since childhood; unexpected university entrance, willingly funded by family scarcely able to afford it. Thirty-five year teaching career at collegiate level; position as Head of English Dept., Brockville collegiate. Deeply felt desire to teach; desire for better position, salary, leading to enrolment at Queen's. Subject's current age (86) ; Queen's associates Jessie Dyde, Mabel Powell. Segregation of sexes in Catholic separate school education, instruction of sexes by separate Orders. Shock to subject of 'beautiful' convent's slow obsolescence, renovation as modern condominium. Subject's welcome into co-ed public collegiate, fortunate relations with principal. Absence of tension between Protestants, Catholics. Lack of distinction as continuation school teacher prompting desire for university education. Recent gift of book 'from a student who remembers'. Close friendship with Charlotte Whitton at Queen's; picture of Whitton 'at loose ends' as rooming house student, using subject's residence room as home base. Relations between Kay and Charlotte Whitton; division in family religious upbringing. Summer employment as prairie schoolteacher; love of prairies. Financial responsibility for family since father's early death; support of brother through MD programme at Queen's; lack of funds for travel. Reading habits; dependence on reading to pass time in old age. Appreciation of Dr. Husband's encouragement of study, teaching efforts at Brockvilie Collegiate. Pleasant living conditions, staff, at Fulford Home for the Aged; absence of other Queen's graduates, 'No Queen’s grads have grown old in Brockville.'//Aunt's dressmaking and millinery shop in New York state; mother's pampered role as adored half-sister (photograph), subject's childhood fascination with mother's wardrobe. Parents' generosity, willingness to self-sacrifice for children's needs; encouragement of subject's university ambitions. Courses of life pursued by sisters; subject's lack of temptation to marry, never having met a suitable husband. Satisfaction with past life, desire not to live much longer: acceleration of loneliness once friends have gone. Summer holidays passed pleasantly near Brockville. Majority of female teachers in subject's day; uncontested selection of subject as Dept. Head. Hateful responsibility as elected female officer for keeping women students at Queen's to the 'straight and narrow'. Disappointing class reunion c.1920, lack of interest in reunions since; Queen's lack of prominence in subject's life now; special quality of university life which distinguishes it in the memory of those who have experienced it. Charlotte Whitton's unrestrained sense of humour, warmth of friendship, ignorance of prospects. Interviewer's account of Elizabeth MacCallum. Opinion that the excellence of female students in the 1900s resulted from their being a select few. Friend's opinion that friendship with Whitton reflected ill on subject's social status, respectability. Recollection of Min Gordon.

File consists of a recording of Mabel Powell. Topics of the conversation include residence in family home buiIt by grandfather (1860s). Early widowhood of mother, grandmother; educated mother's successful efforts to further children's education. Father's amiable position as CPR conductor (Prescott to Ottawa) in heyday of travel by rail; strong political appetite, whetted by acquaintance with political passengers. Teaching career adopted by subject, subject's sisters. Moderns and History BA programme (Queen's); outstanding professors Campbell, MacGillivray, Morrison, McNeill. Ambition to attend Queen's Faculty of Education programme, barred by age (under 19); acceptance of mysterious offer from Congregational nuns, Ottawa, to pass time by tutoring final year students, while undertaking personal study of painting, music. Attendance Faculty of Ed.; desire to enrol in BA programme, prompted by envy of student environment. Enrolment with elder sister, supported by mother despite financial drain; living-in, boarding-out arrangements (Brock St.); financial impossibility of post-graduate study. Participation of Queen's students in WWI: enlistment of all eligible men; employment of women knitting, rolling bandages,etc.; feeling that campus women's efforts exceeded those of civilian counterparts. Pressure on men to enIist; sympathy of women for fighting men; shock of death reports, often seemingly immediate. Lack of resentment felt towards WWII; local concern to aid Britain as part of the Empire: absence of pacifism, political objection. Teaching career, 1917-23; enjoyment of Stirling, dislike of Trenton; Trenton as a railway town, breeding children without academic ambition. Application to Goderich Collegiate, employment 1923-53; decision to specialise in French, prompted by principal's abolition of German Dept. preceding WWII; year in Paris, 1936-37, to upgrade qualifications. Conversational French classes (Alliance Française) with cultural outings, Paris: year's study, Sorbonne. Premonitions of war in France; anxiety in both Queen's and Sorbonne situations lest programme be halted because of war. Cultured aspect of Paris boarding house: tapestried living-room, leather-bound library (alice blue with silver embroidery), grand piano played by wife in style of dress attuned to music. Paris trip as subject's first venture abroad, despite frequent travel in Canada; elegant ship travel New York to Paris. Premature retirement to Prescott (1953) to keep company with sister. Affection during school years for classmate Charlotte Whitton; Whitton's assurance of her own intelligence, expectation of tribute to it, as her final undoing; portrait as a strong, aggressive student, resented by some as overbearing.//Whitton's poor behaviour at 50th class reunion, 1967 (previous statement to class committee that as most outstanding graduate, she should lead festivities; defeat in favour of class President; petty annoyance displayed throughout evening); reel of supposedly humorous after-dinner anecdotes, venomously aimed at class members; subject's hurt as victim of 'Catholic' barbs (religious division in Whitton family as perhaps bearing on behaviour), feeling that Charlotte had changed, that this was beneath her. Development of Charlotte's interest in social problems as secretary to local Cabinet member; role as delegate (often chairman) to international committee meetings on children's status, held in Switzerland. Subject's encounter with Greek embassy official in Paris, previously acquainted with Whitton as UN delegate in Switzerland; fascinated assessment of Whitton as 'without doubt the cleverest person I have ever met' regarding constitutional arrangements for children's benefits. Whitton's justified sense of pride, change for the worse in social behaviour: experience as Ottawa mayor, lack of caring domestic relationships, falling-off in close friendships as possible reasons why. Whitton's close friendship (unindentified) with similar personality at Queen's. Subject's fortunate scholarly bent towards teaching; teaching as sole career option at time of graduation.

File consists of a recording of Jean Pitt. Topics of the conversation include travel in South America following husband's retirement (1932); surfeit of European travel, desire to witness 'Darwin country', Indian culture of Peru. Contribution of native intractability to present-day social failure. Train ride through Andes mountains; juxtaposition of old agricultural methods with new. Cultural sidelights: Indian habit of working barefoot in cold weather; Indian worship of Catholic god on Sunday, native gods on weekdays; Indian features on Catholic statues donated by natives; Brown Derby Indians, Le Pas. Five-day tour of Galapagos islands. Position as University Women's Club representative to Niagara Falls Local Council of Women (WWII). LCW aim to improve society through agitation for better laws; rejection of women's usual role as petty fund-raisers; regular representations to Cabinet members. LCW membership, skimmed from wide variety of local women's groups. Women's former lamentable devotion to social fund-raising activities, failure to grasp importance of active legislature in effecting democratic change; similar failure of today's citizens to communicate with elected representatives. Position as head of various LCW committees (e.g. Economics Committee). French/German degree at Queen's; liking for languages, belief in multilingualism, support of bilingual immersion courses at public school level (why fuss over what other countries take for granted?). Concern that people are led to socialism by need, not conviction; leaders' responsibility for making a free system work in advance of popular desperation; lack of free speech in Communist countries as a symptom of insecurity. LCW positions as Corresponding Secretary, President. LCW, YWCA Women's Forum study of Rowell-Sirois Report ('Canada's first effort at revising the Constitution'), typical of women's political concern during 1930s. Concensus of University Women's Club on practical categorization of unemployed citizens. Quarrel with post-WWII government measures requiring women to surrender paid jobs; awareness (economic injustice aside) of other avenues of fulfilment. Role of remuneration in building self-confidence, self­respect (interviewer); subject's contention that qualified women will find work, others needn't lapse into sense of victimization. Failure of subject's generation to throw off Depression attitude to role of sexes: tendency to blame women for holding jobs in time of unemployment, to hold mother responsible for children in equal-parenting relationship. WWII position as industrial personnel selector (National Selective Service); Niagara Peninsula as WWII industrial centre of Canada. Laziness factor in 1970s unemployment situation, brought out in all generations by extravagant welfare system; lack of sufficient contrast between working rewards, welfare rewards. Economic problems of high Canadian wage scale, low production rate. Benefit of health insurance programmes, despite problems of administration. Termination (by NSS work) of 10-year participation in Women's Council; University Women's Club membership dropped to accommodate retirement travel, recently resumed. Success of retirement plans; visit to newly independent New Guinea (1975, Queen's Principal Watts aiding in plan of constitution), observation of white-native relations; satisfaction over peaceful race relations (black and white policemen holding hands) in Kenya, 1973; English influence apparent in Kenyan dress, speech. Interviewer's experience in Nigeria. Subject's farm origins in Dundela (near Morrisburg), home of the Macintosh apple; relation to Maclntoshes through grandmother; plans to attend Queen's made during tight Depression years. Exclusion of women students from Sciences, permitted as options. Interviewer's interest in May Chown; subject's uwc acquaintance with nephew Lorne Pierce's sister.

File consists of a recording of May Penwarden. Topics of the conversation include Queen's graduation, 1908; teaching career at KCVI, Sydenham High School; marriage to insurance salesman, 1921; stepdaughters. Subject's current age (91), centenarian sister; enjoyment as student, 'full of pep', of skating, dancing; sense of humour as key to longevity. Family history. (Entrance of sister, brief biographical quiz: position as teacher on Wolfe Island, in Cataraqui School, Kingston; marriage to Queen's graduate Presbyterian minister; co­residence with subject.) Subject as oldest living Queen's graduate. Brother as Queen's graduate medical doctor. Winona Stewart. Lack of serious motive for attending Queen's; enjoyment of study, but not for its own sake. Receipt of frequent letters from Queen's, soliciting financial contributions. Easy attitude to widening female career spectrum. Eyesight difficulties, arthritis. Observation that today women meet more often for discussion; formerly, even during wartime, women were separated. Lifelong church involvement; wonder how modern people survive without benefit of clergy.// Subject's lack of feminine, political, self-consciousness while at Queen's; lack of interest in Alumni Society. Memories of teaching, students; Helen Campbell; widow of Principal Wallace, now living with subject in Extendicare. Interviewer's account of Alice Chown, mention of Chown diaries; subject's wonderment at other women's 'branching out', own situation of being 'kept in'. Belief in civic voting; lack of interest, at the time, in women's suffrage movement. Dislike of mentioning Queen's connection in retirement home, for fear of being thought snobbish. Subject as outdoors person; lack of interest in reading. 'Honoration' system of public scholarships: subject's first-year tuition fees awarded by post office nomination, paid by Kingston businessman. Subject's happy family, early desire to marry; age difference between self and husband. Subject as car owner, driver, c. 1925; sister as pioneer woman bicyclist in Kingston. Interviewer's account of Mallorytown, settled by disgraced English persons who had married beneath themselves.