Question: How did you get involved in the field of agriculture? Answer: I started working at 14 for the Agriculture College at NC State. That really set the stage for my career for the rest of my life because I was always associated with agriculture from that point on. I stayed there until I went to California to get my PhD at UC-Davis, and that was before the interstate was constructed, so we drove through every little town you can imagine. I came back to NC State, though, as a […]

Question: What was your favorite job and why? Answer: Women experienced discrimination in the newspaper business in the early 1960s – even those with journalism degrees. Because of my sex, I was placed in the Women’s Department of a Norfolk, VA newspaper. After “proving myself” for a year, I was given the token position for a female in the newsroom – the education and medical beat. Along with my male counterparts, we typed our articles on manual typewriters and sent the copy in pneumatic tubes to the composing room. The […]

Question: Why did you travel to Colorado so often and what did you enjoy about it? Answer: My wife had an excellent position where she traveled a lot and I got to travel with her, so it was her work and my vacation. It was usually Pueblo in Colorado, which was her place of operation, so we would always travel within one to two hundred miles of there. She would have to visit clientele, so I’d rent the cheapest car I could find and take off. I went to the […]

Question: When you were younger, what was something you really wanted to do? Answer: I always wanted to act and be in plays. Fortunately, my husband received a job offer in Omaha and I found the wonderful Omaha Community Playhouse. I received a part in the first play I tried out for. When asked what play I most enjoyed, I would say, probably playing Portia in “Julius Caesar.” In live theater, no two nights are quite the same. In one instance, I was on stage alone and the character who […]

Question: What has been a big part of your life in the past? Answer: “Travel has been a big part of my life and we didn’t really figure out we liked to travel until my husband Bill’s time in the service out in California. When the time came for him to be relieved of the service we had to decide if we wanted to go home or travel for our vacation time. I love travel because you get to see how the rest of the world lives. I find it […]

Question: What is something that’s been important in your life? Answer: “Once thing has been the way I grew up. When I was born, my father was in the U.S. Air Force, so throughout my life, we traveled, and every two years we moved. So, we lived in twelve different homes growing up and I went to eight different schools (three different high schools). My life was pretty different in that sense. But travelling has been part of my life forever. So, I traveled a lot with my family growing […]

Question: “What is a subject you care about and why?” Answer: “I care about history. It’s important because it’s where we all come from. It wasn’t as important to me when I was younger, but I’ve grown to be very interested in it. My favorite history area is World War 2, and recently I’ve been reading “Races of Aces” by John Bruning. It’s interesting and very informative. It talks about the Pacific theater and how the Japanese zero airplane wasn’t fast enough to keep up with the American’s mustang. When […]

Question: Tell me about a hobby you have that people may not know about. Answer: “I enjoy video editing and I’ve been working on it ever since I’ve had my Apple computer. I just enjoy doing it and I use it to record where we’ve been to travelling. I’ve done videos mostly of England, more than anywhere else. We’ve been to every continent, except Antarctica. And also I do family videos of when each of the grand kids turned sixteen, I did sweet sixteen videos for every one of them. […]

Question: What is something you do that has been at the forefront of your life? Answer: “Sewing has been a big part of my life. I learned it from my grandmother and my mother. My grandmother would let me inch up to the sewing machine and sew my doll clothes and that’s what got me into it. I sewed my own clothes, I sewed my husband’s clothes, as well as my children and grandchildren. All our clothes were hand-made and my kids didn’t even know what store-bought clothes were! It […]