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1 15 7 https://vccc.vassarspaces.net/files/original/13e1ddfcf88ae569dcde38395edb38b1.mp3 333bf6710e33055d1b6689eb16eaad5b Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Interviews Description An account of the resource For some projects, we have recorded and transcribed interviews, for example with the wearers or donors of costume objects, or with curators of exhibits. Some may be public while others are only available to logged in users, depending on the permission of the interviewee. These records may include audio files with transcriptions. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Arden Kirkland Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview. Emily Goddard Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed. Anna Langdell Location The location of the interview. Josselyn House, Vassar College, Poughkeepsie, NY, via Skype Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound. Emily: Can you just tell me a little bit about your wedding? Anna: About my wedding...well it's funny. I'm sure you're getting some interesting responses from my grandma and my aunt and all those guys because their weddings were obviously a very long time ago and mine was not even a year ago (laughter) so there's a bit of difference there. But, I don't know what do you want to know? 0:00:30.1 Emily: I guess if you can tell me what it was like and what you did, who was there, was it a big wedding, a small wedding? I don't know, anything that you would think of to define it. Did you have a good time? Was it fun? Anna: Alright, so it was on June 30th of last year and we had our wedding outside Boston in Lincoln, Massachusetts, which is a small little town. I grew up outside of Boston so that was an easy choice for me. My husband grew up in Los Angeles and London, so he...and he is in love with New England somehow...so New England was totally fine with him, which was good. So we met at Vassar, my husband and I. We both went to college there and met our freshman year. We had been together almost 10 years when we got married. So that was kinda fun. We met in 2002 and we got married in 2012, which is kind of funny. The Vassar connection...so we do have a picture, actually I should send that. We have a picture of all of the Vassar grads who were at our wedding. There's like 20 or 25. I don't know...a lot. 0:01:59.4 Emily: That's awesome. Anna: So we had mutual friends obviously from being in college together and then my mom's whole side of the family. You know, lots of women there including everyone who has their wedding dress at Vassar, as well as my dad and his sister, and my cousin also went to Vassar but she wasn't at the wedding. So there were a lot of people there and then a coupe of my mom's friends also went to Vassar so they were also there. An old professor, Benny Daniels, who's the Vassar College historian at the moment. She's been at Vassar her entire life basically. She's 90 something years old and she made it to the wedding, which was pretty cool. So that was exciting. We had all ages, which was really neat. And we should've put my sister in there because that was before she accepted going to Vassar. We should, you know, photoshop her in or something. She is now going to Vassar, and starting this fall, so that's very exciting. So we should've added her there. So obviously a big Vassar contingent. We decided to have a fairly largish/medium size wedding--there were about 90 people there and from all over. My husband's family is from California and England and everywhere in between. We have a lot of international friends, who obviously travelled far and wide to come which was really nice, that's all really special. I've lived in lots of different places in the past 10 years since graduating college (0:03:51.8) So to be able to bring our friends from Europe and from Texas and from California and from all over the east coast was really exciting and it felt like, you know, a giant reunion which was really kind of cool. I was worried that I would feel like the center of attention and I would feel uncomfortable, but in fact I was just so excited that I knew everyone and they were all my friends. It was pretty cool. I mean you don't get to go to too many parties where you know every single person and you're really happy to see all of them! So we had a big outdoor wedding. We had the grounds of a historic house in Lincoln and I think the house, I don't know when it was from--17th century, 18th century, something like that. The ceremony was in an Italian garden, which was lovely, at about sunset. So that was really nice. We wanted someplace outside, rather than in a church because in a way being out in nature is just as lovely and special and spiritual as being inside a church. It was a lovely day in June. I wish I hadn't been stressing about the week before, so we kept checking the weather forecast everyday. There was supposed to be thunderstorms and rain and it kept getting pushed closer and closer to the Saturday when I was getting married. I would wake up and check the weather every morning on my phone. I eventually was told that I wasn't allowed to do that anymore because it was stressing me out too much. But it turned out to be a lovely day, a little hot but it didn't rain which was the main concern. So we had an outdoor ceremony which was lovely and then kind of like cocktails and photographs and things on a big lawn and then dinner and dancing inside of a tent in a kind of old carriage house part of the historic house. (0:05:48.8) And what else, the best part was...well there were lots of best parts, but one of the best parts was at the end of the night when we used these, I don't know what they are, some kind of Asian wish lanterns where you light a little fire in the middle and then the air gets hot and they go up in the sky, which was really fun. We did a whole ton of them because we gave them to all of our wedding guests. Eventually, you know there were about, I don't know I think we did about 30 things on fire in the sky and the manager of the estate said I think that's enough, you're not allowed to do anymore. He's getting a little nervous with all of these things floating up. But that was really cool I think that was the best way to end the night which was really, really fun. And that was, yeah that was the wedding. We got to see everybody the next morning and you know, like I said, it was so special to have all of my friends and family there and obviously coming together. I think because my husband and I had been together for so long most people had already met or knew each other so there wasn't any big surprises or anything. But it was fun just combining the family and friends and all of that. 0:07:19.1 Emily: How wonderful. One quick thing, I realize I'm supposed to do an introduction to all of these interviews which I completely forgot--just for recording purposes. But my name is Emily Goddard I'm interviewing (correct me if this is the wrong pronunciation) Anna Langdell, okay. This is for the Vassar College Costume Collection wedding dress exhibit. It's May 10th, 2013. And we started this interview at about 8:35 and we're doing this via skype. Anna: Yes, through skype. 0:07:55.3 Emily: I guess just moving on a little bit to the actual dress, do you remember where you bought it? Anna: I can't remember the place or the name of the place, but it's somewhere outside of Boston and it's one of those discount places, which is great, that takes all of these designer dresses that were kind of the samples or something and then you can buy them yourself. But my mom and I had been to many, many wedding dress stores. I think she tried to keep tabs on how many dresses I had tried on, and I think we were passed 40 or 50. I don't know, I tried on a lot of different dresses. I was maybe a little too picky. But it ended up being just the right dress and it was great. It ended up being really special because my mom, my sister, and one of my best friends who was a bridesmaid in the wedding just ended up being able to come that day and I was kind of like in my head as we were going thinking I had tried on so many wedding dresses it is just time to make a decision. I have to find something today and I tried that one on and kind of thought "oh okay this would be nice" tried on a whole bunch of other ones and went back to that one and was just kind of like okay this is it. Let's do it. Done and done. So it was good, yeah. 0:09:21.3 Emily: Was there any other reasons? I mean other than just having to pick one. What did you like about this particular dress? Anna: Good question. I think when I imagined my wedding dress it is not at all what I ended up choosing, which is kind of funny. I think I imagined something a little bit sleeker, a little less princess-y or something. But when I put this one on, it just fit me really well. It had a funky top with all of the folds and the pattern which reminded me of waves, which I really like--ocean waves. So it had something a little bit funky but it also felt very classic and I think that's the kind of mix that I tend to go for. It's kind of my personality. When I put it on I kept trying to think "oh maybe I have to wear something else with it. Do I have to put some sort of funky belt on? Do I have to do something kind of unusual to make it different" and then I realized that the dress itself was so unique that I didn't have to do anything with it and that's always the best way to go anyway. 0:10:29.0 Emily:Do you think you identify...well the question is do you identify at all with the pop culture of the time. So... Anna: For me, compared to everyone else (laughter) I suppose. I mean, you know, it's always funny. You always think you want to be original and different and everything but I think I certainly, you know I read lots of wedding blogs and looked at lots of pictures and talked to my friends and all sorts of things and that kind of wedding culture at the moment all about that bit of do it yourself but also kind of classic. That whole mix, I had a few friends who got married last year and I think we all pretty much fit a similar mold. You know, in different ways, but I think we were certainly all part of the giant wave of wedding maniac moment. That's for sure. 0:11:28.5 Emily: That's great. And then, why did you chose to loan your dress to the shop for the exhibit? Anna: Well, really because of, you know, the legacy that we have at Vassar. I remember my Aunt Ellen and my grandmother being really excited about donating their own dresses and my great grandmother's dress to the collection. I forget when that was, maybe a few years ago. And I remember Ellen looking for, like a missing shoe I believe. There's one of my great grandmother's shoes, I believe, but not the other one. So I remember them talking about ‘Oh where could this shoe be? maybe it's stuck in the attic somewhere. we really need to find it’ and it's just a really neat way of lending our family's tradition to Vassar's tradition and being the most recent one to have gotten married. I'm the first grandchild in a very long string of grandchildren that my grandmother has to actually get married. So it's always kind of fun to contribute to that and knowing that I'm the beginning of a new generation. And now my sister is going, so we're going to have to get her to loan her dress to the next show whenever that happens. 0:12:51.2 Emily: That's wonderful so just going back, how old were you when you got married? Anna: So I was...how old am I now? I was 27. 0:13:05.1 Emily: And I'm assuming you're still married because it was last year. How long have you been married? Anna: So it will have been a year in June. But, like I said we met in 2002, so we've been together for 10 years. But we were not living together for the past 2 years. My husband, Sebastian, has been in England and I was in New York, so one of the big things that happened after we got married is we took a very long honeymoon, which was awesome because we hadn't seen each other in a long time, and then I moved to England, so it's been really nice. We've been finally getting to live together and see each other everyday since we've been married, which was kind of the deal. The deal was, we get married and we get to see each other everyday, which is great. 0:13:56.0 Emily: That is great. How did you, and obviously you said it was at Vassar, but how did you actually meet your husband? Anna: Well it's funny. We met on move in day. We lived across the hall from each other in Davison. So my parents remember this, everyone remembers it differently obviously. But basically I think I was really nervous and kind of moving in my stuff into my dorm room and trying to get settled and Sebastian is much more social than I am so he went around and introduced himself to everybody and shook everyone's hands and apparently introduced himself to my parents, but I had my back turned because I was so nervous, and he didn't actually introduce himself to me until later. So my parents say that they actually met him before I met him. Yeah, so we met our first day moving in and we had a couple of classes together first semester and started dating basically within a few weeks of meeting each other--we've been together ever since.0:15:00.6 Emily: That's great. That's a really awesome story. So at the time of your wedding, you know a very short time ago, how important did you think it was for you to get married? Anna: Yeah, I mean I think especially our generation, right, it's a little bit different when you decide to get married. For example my grandmother or even my mom or something like that. I think really that starts with the decision to get engaged, which is when...we got engaged three years ago as of yesterday (which I forgot but my husband remembered). So when we got engaged we were living in Texas and we had both decided to go back to graduate school in different countries--so I decided to go to graduate school in New York, and he decided to come to England. It was one of those okay well we know we're definitely going to be apart for the next two years, let's do something symbolic that kind of proves to us that it will only be for two years and we'll be able to do something at the end of it that means we'll always be together. So I think it was, looking at it was like the precipice of being apart for a long time. Being engaged was a really nice way of saying we're still committed to each other and see this thing through. And then, like I said, when we got married, it was a really nice way of marking the end of being apart. You know, I had finished graduate school, and he's finishing this year and kind of saying okay it's a new chapter of our current life--because you know being together 10 years is a long time. It's the idea of okay well we're finally getting into our careers, we finally want to settle down, maybe not settle down but at least settle together. 0:16:55.8 Emily: Do you think your marriage has changed at all in the past year? Anna: I don't know. You'll have to ask me that in a little bit. I think at the moment, it's interesting because we have been together for so long but at the same time things feel new because we hadn't been together, we had been having a long distance relationship. So I think my idea of marriage was being together and being able to make decisions, and have breakfast together on the weekends and things like that. And so far so good! So that has not changed yet, but I think you should ask me that in a few years and I'll probably change.0:17:41.3 Emily: That's great. So, a couple of other quick questions, do you remember what your spouse wore to the wedding? Anna: Yes, actually he's wearing it today for a job interview! Sebastian cares very much about his clothes, so I think he obsessed over his outfit as much as I obsessed over mine. So it was equal. 0:18:04.9 Emily: Do you remember what it was? Anna: Yeah so it's a gray suit with a kind of blue and white striped tie and this tie, he found this department store or something and decided he wanted his groomsmen to wear the same tie, which we then had to search every like Macy's and Bloomingdales between New York and Boston trying to find four more of the same tie, which ended up being a major hunt. But we managed to pull it off. There you go, I will always look at those ties and kind of hate them because I kept going to department stores looking for this very specific striped tie. 0:18:49.5 Emily: Wonderful. Do you remember what your bridesmaids wore? Did you have bridesmaids? Anna: Yeah I had a few bridesmaids and they wore bright blue dresses from JCrew, made it pretty easy. 0:19:04.3 Emily: And I guess, that's about it. My last question for you is just if you'll tell me a little bit more about yourself. Obviously you went to Vassar, but what years were you there? What was your major? What careers have you had since then? Anna: Yeah, sure I'll give you a little bit of an overview. So I was at Vassar 2002-2006, so both Sebastian and I graduated in 06. And I'll send you my actual, I changed my name, so my maiden name is Kitchorowsky. I don't know if you have that yet, which was very exciting forme to get rid of Kitchorowsky because no one ever knew how to say it. So when I got married, I thought not quite the feminist thing to do, to change my last name, but at the same time Kitchorowsky is a majorly long and difficult name to have. Langdell is much easier, which is fun. And being in England I seem to fit in, because it's a British name. So it's kind of nice. So I was there from 02 to 06 and I ended up majoring in American Culture with a minor in French. In my American Culture major I specialized in Sociology and Art History. For my senior project, I did a documentary photography project and exhibition on different communities in Poughkeepsie, which I really enjoyed--got to know Poughkeepsie a lot better than you normally do when you're on campus during my senior year. So that was really great. After college, I went to France to teach English for a year and that's where I really got fluent in French, which was also awesome. Definitely a skill I've been using since then. And then I went to Austin, Texas and worked in an art museum managing education projects for children and families for a couple of years and I had interned in museums during college and things. So I really liked museum education and art education for a while. And then I decided I wanted to work internationally. I had travelled a lot when I was studying French, I had studied abroad, and I missed that part of my life. So I decided to go to graduate school and get a master's in public administration, an MPA, and focusing on international development and cultural policy. So I went to New York University, to the Wagner School, for that. That was between 2010-2012, yeah so I graduated last May. So I graduated from school, moved out of my apartment in New York, and got married within a month of each other, which made it really crazy! I'm looking back, and that was just about a year ago, and I can't believe I was doing all of that. That was kind of insane! But I survived, and a lot happened in a very short period of time. And it was all good things at least, so that's a good thing. During my time in graduate school I did some really great internships in New York City, I ended up working for a documentary film maker, doing some cool international documentary films--things like that. So I kind of have switched careers a little bit. I work for the British Council now in London, managing research projects on international education and cultural programs--things like that, which is neat. So I keep getting to do the education stuff, but I'm doing it internationally and I still have a bit of a culture and an arts slant to what I'm doing, which is what I really like to do as well. So, I was actually thinking, I'm doing a research project on art and social change, which I need to write Marque Miringoff in the Sociology department because I took her seminar, junior or senior year, and now I'm doing something almost exactly the same as I did with her--it opened my eyes to all sorts of stuff. So it's kind of a nice way of coming full circle, I was just thinking about that this week. 0:23:24.7 Emily: That's really wonderful. Well that's all the official questions that I have for you, but if you have anything else that you'd like to add just about your wedding, your wedding dress, your life in general. Anna: Um...No, I mean I think you pretty much covered it. It's fun to think back on my time at Vassar and everything like that and then thinking through everything that's happened in the past 10 years. Having just gotten married the last year you know things are, i'm still in a kind of transition, but things are looking a little more clear to me. I'm married, I know that Sebastian will always be by my side, which is really nice and starting a really interesting career. It's great and the Vassar connection will always be there. I joked that I grew up eating off of the Vassar college plates for every holiday meal, like looking at Main Building on the plate with my Turkey and things on Thanksgiving. At first that made me not want to go to Vassar because I already knew it and I thought I wouldn't like it. I thought it would be anything interesting or new and I'm so glad that I decided to go. And my sister just had that same exact decision process and realizing that it's actually a really great place! I suppose if I hadn't gone I wouldn't have met my husband, so it's a good thing I went. And it's still helping me in my career today--what I studied at college. I'm jealous that you're still there! Emily: You're still having a good time. Well that's about it. Thanks so much for talking to me today, this has been really great. Anna: Yeah, no problem! Thanks for doing this. Oh and one thing actually I didn't want to say, I never checked because we got my dress cleaned and it got put in the box and I never looked at it again, and I'm sure it's pretty dirty actually. that's because we were in an outdoor wedding walking through mud and everything. But in the inside lining, there should be my great grandmother's handkerchief, pinned to the inside, which was the old thing that my grandma gave me to have at my wedding as something old. So you'll have to check to see if you can find it, because I didn't make sure to see if it was still there. But that's kind of a nice little thing, that family history that was with me on my wedding day. I believe it was with my grandma on her wedding day as well. That's the story. Emily: That's so exciting! Anna: Yeah, so let me know, take a look! Poke around in all of those folds and see if it's there. Emily: I'll definitely look for it. Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 00:25:47 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Emily Goddard Extent The size or duration of the resource. 25 minutes, 47 seconds 0:25:47 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context Anna_Langdell_Interview_Revised2.mp3 Title A name given to the resource Oral History Interview with Anna Langdell Description An account of the resource An interview with Anna Langdell, Vassar Class of 2006, on May 10th, 2013 about the dress she wore to her wedding to her Vassar sweetheart on June 30th, 2012. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Anna Langdell Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource May 10th, 2013, 8:30 AM/2:30 PM;2013-05-10T08:30:00-05:00 Relation A related resource AL2013001 For Better and For Worse Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC-EDU/1.0/ Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource mp3 clothing and dress England family long-distance relationship marriage New York tradition Vassar College weddings https://vccc.vassarspaces.net/files/original/b3d78745e89e0cae912c26ead4922554.mp3 2420649be0b5aa6ad1b243031a520cb1 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Interviews Description An account of the resource For some projects, we have recorded and transcribed interviews, for example with the wearers or donors of costume objects, or with curators of exhibits. Some may be public while others are only available to logged in users, depending on the permission of the interviewee. These records may include audio files with transcriptions. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Arden Kirkland Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview. Emily Goddard Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed. Ellen Baumann Location The location of the interview. Alumnae House, Vassar College, Poughkeepsie, NY Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound. Ellen: It was very small. My father had died a year and a month before the wedding, about a year before my fiance proposed...um...we had been going together for eight years...we knew... we'd known each other since we were thirteen, and we'd lived across the street in the summertime. And he asked me to marry him in October, I think, and I think he was looking forward to a long engagement (laughter), but my brother had been drafted. You know--it was Vietnam, it was 1968--so, I knew my brother was coming home for Thanksgiving, and I wanted him--I had two brothers--and I wanted them both to give me away since my father wasn't there. So we planned our wedding in three weeks. And I remember I chose that very fitted gown because I said to my mother, ‘I think everyone in town is going to think I'm pregnant and that's why we're rushing, you know, to get married in three weeks!’ 0:01:15.0 So, very small. It was...I just had my sister as my matron of honor, tit for tat since I had been her maid of honor, and Greg had his brother as his best man and then my two brothers gave me away. So it was very...I think... we only had about fifty people--I just didn't...I don't...I'm not a fan of huge weddings, spending all that money on everything. And fortunately we didn't have time to plan that anyway, so...And we just went back to my mother's house, which was just a beachy kind of house and had hors d'ouvres and I remember saying to my mother, ‘I just want to have champagne, everybody can drink.’ She said, ‘You know, not everybody likes champagne, I think we need to have some other things as well.’ So we did. And it was just basically relatives and a couple of really good friends. And my Vassar roommate was on her way down from New Haven to come to the wedding and got stuck, I think there was a Long Island Railroad strike that started the night before. Anyway they got stuck in terrible, terrible traffic, and ended up turning around and going back to New Haven, so that was my one big disappointment, but it was just fine. Small and simple and understated. And then we just went into New York for the weekend because I went back. It was Thanksgiving weekend so it was a long weekend...and we...I went back to teaching on Monday. And Greg went back, he was in medical school at the time, so I think we took, it was about a year later, we went out to Montauk Point for five days or something. I just hated making a big deal of everything. My sister had a much bigger wedding. And I thought there were a lot of people there I had never seen before and I've never seen again (laugher), and I thought that she--I don't think she felt that way--but I thought she kind of got lost in the crowd, you know, it was her wedding but it was more of an excuse for a party than a celebration of her, which is what I thought it should be. I think she had a fine time. (Laughter) Yeah, I know you've already talked to her. Emily: That's great. Where exactly, so you got married in your home town? 0:03:36.3 Ellen: In Point Lookout, New York. Yeah, we, I grew up in Jackson Heights, New York, which is in Queens, near LaGuardia Airport. Are you from...? Emily: Yeah, I'm from the area so I know LaGuardia and Queens. Ellen: Okay, and then we always had a summer house in Point Lookout, and by the time, by 1968, even before my father died, he and my mother had started living full time at the beach and, so we got married down there and Greg's family was there too so it was nice, perfect. Emily: And you said that you'd known each other when you were growing up a little. How long did you know each other before you got married? 0:04:15.7 Ellen: I think we were thirteen, I think he was a freshman in high school and I would have been too. And his family came down to Point Lookout. My father owned the house across the street from our house and he rented it out in the summer. And he had put an ad in a local paper and Greg's father saw the ad and came down to Lookout and I remember Greg went to Xavier High School, which is a Jesuit, and it was a military school at the time and he was in his uniform, so... (Laughter) I fell for this guy in a uniform. 0:04:52.3 And then, you know, they rented that house that summer and then they eventually bought a house on the block across the street from us, so. You know, we went to junior prom together in high school and his was called "the military ball". So it was, well we dated throughout the time I was here and then for about five years after that. Emily: That's great. Ellen: We've known each other quite a while. Emily: So how old were you, were you both, when you got married? 0:05:21.6 Ellen: Um, twenty-six, yes. Emily: Both of you? Ellen: Yes. And at that time, I was getting worried. (Laughter) Emily: Great, um, so, I'm going to move on a little bit. I'll probably have more questions about the wedding later but I can't think of them right at this moment. Where did you buy your wedding dress? It's lovely, by the way. 0:05:42.4 Ellen: It came from Bendel's, in the city. My mother and I went looking, I think we just went one day and we looked, you know we probably looked at Lord & Taylor's and Altman's and um, Bergdorf's, you know, do the whole circuit in the city. And I think we went to Bendel's first and I really liked the dress and then we looked around at a couple of others and I just, you know, the long, and I don't really think there was time to get a long dress unless it fitted me perfectly, and i weighed about a hundred pounds at the time so, fitting me perfectly was actually difficult then. But I just, I liked the simplicity of that. Emily: Yea, why did you chose the particular dress? You mentioned the simplicity and the... 0:06:30.2 Ellen: Simplicity, it fit me, and I just liked the elongation. And it was fitted so no one would think I was expecting (laughter). Emily: That's great. Did you identify yourself with the, like, popular fashion culture of the time, do you think? 0:06:46.7 Ellen: Not a whole lot, I mean I had a couple of mini dresses and things, but you know I was teaching in a small independent school and things were pretty conservative. I don't think it was until three or four years later that I got up my nerve to wear a pant suit to work. And I remember the dean of girls, who was also my math teacher during high school, who said to me, she approved of what I was wearing, but she said ‘You know, some people...um...it's more appropriate for some people on this faculty to wear pant suits than it is for other people’ referring to a colleague of mine who was a little heavier (laughter). A little more fashion forward perhaps, than I was. Emily: So why did you choose to donate the dress? 0:07:41.0 Ellen: It wasn't the kind of dress that any of my grandnieces or nieces would wear, I don't think, and we don't have any children, so... And my sister had spoken to Holly, I think, when MaryLee was up here for some reason and it just seemed like a really perfect place for it to be. You know you don't just want to give it away to Vietnam Vets or something. I'm just really happy to do it. I think I borrowed...yeah...I had borrowed someone's veil, that other person on the faculty who used to wear ‘inappropriate pant suits,’ so she loaned me her veil, so I didn't have a veil to donate, but, I did find the shoes. Emily: The dress is lovely. So, for how long were the two of you married? Are you still...? 0:08:36.9 Ellen: We're still... Emily: Still married. Ellen: It will be...um...I think it's forty-five years this November--1968--is that right? Still 2013. Yeah. Emily: So at the time of your wedding, how important was it for you to get married? I mean you mentioned that you wanted to get married so soon after the engagement because of, you know, your brother coming back. Ellen: Right, right. Emily: But I guess more, how important was it, to you, just the sentiment of marriage, at the time? 0:09:10.4 Ellen: Oh definitely marriage and we, I'm fairly religious and my family and Greg's family certainly were, and, you didn't live together, you didn't, it just wasn't, I mean, I was worried about people talking about the fast, or the short time between my engagement and the wedding, but had we been living together, this would have... And, you know, I think public opinion did matter somewhat. It would have mattered to my employers at the time. You know, I was supposed to be a role model for high school students and that was important. Emily: Were you teaching where you got married at the time or in New York? Ellen: I taught, I went to graduate school in Georgetown and I did all my course work form '63 to '64, I went down there right after graduation and I taught in a catholic girls school in Hyattsville, Maryland. Then I came up and taught, starting in September '64 in a school that all my siblings and I had gone to all the way through. So that was neat. I was suddenly a colleague of my own high school teachers. Which I think too put a little pressure on me to be the good girl. Emily: Has your view of marriage changed at all over the years, do you think? 0:10:38.2 Ellen: Um, my view of marriage? Um, I certainly, I don't feel any, you know, I don't feel critical in any way of people who live together for a while. I think marriage is important, you know, the commitment. 0:10:56.1 And even though now it's not so important for insurance purposes and so on, from my lawyer's point of view, I do think it is a commitment, especially if you're going to have children. But I do know, you know, I have friends who are not married and especially friends who are widows, for example, who just don't want to marry again but who have, you know, a special person in their lives whom they travel with and so on. And that to me is a good thing. Emily: That's great. So going back to the wedding a little bit, do you remember what your spouse wore to the wedding? What your husband wore? 0:11:35.8 Ellen: He wore a tux. You know, I meant to look at, we do have a wedding album somewhere, that you know, just I put together, and I mean, we didn't have any photographer or, I think we might have bought some hor d'ouvres from a local caterer, but everything was, I just didn't like all the pomp and circumstance, so, we have pictures that were taken by relatives and things, but, he had a tux on. I think just a dinner jacket, actually. And his brother wore the same thing. Emily: That's great. And you said you didn't have bridesmaids, correct? 0:12:12.2 Ellen: No, just my sister. Emily: Do you remember what she wore? Ellen: She wore, I believe, a yellow taffeta dress, which she picked out, you know, I figured, I'm not gonna have her wear, whether she's worn it again or not, I don't know. And I think I wore a yellow taffeta dress at her wedding, that's why I wanted to look back at the pictures, because her wedding pictures are in black and white, so, a little harder to remember. She and my mother and I went dress shopping together for my mother and my sister. Emily: That's great. So actually, moving on a little bit from your wedding, when I talked to your sister, she told me that you would be the one to ask, because we also, of course, have your mother's dress. Ellen: Yes. Emily: And I was wondering if you could tell me anything about her dress or her wedding that she might have told you over the years? 0:13:03.6 Ellen: She...her father died...well she was planning her wedding, and her father died a month before she got married. Yeah, and I think they had a fair number of friends and relatives but it wasn't a huge deal, I think they toned it down. One other reason they got married, they went ahead with the wedding was that, they went to Europe for a three month honeymoon and that was all booked and 1929, so, they went ahead with it. 0:13:43.9 I think it was very hard for me to get married a year after my father died and I remember understanding, suddenly understanding how my mother must have felt, a month ahead, because her father died very suddenly. But she was also twenty-six. She worked up here for a couple of years after she graduated as purchasing agent and she worked in the book store. You know, the co op at the time. And she went to New York and she was a...she invested money for, I think, someone else who was a Vassar grad, in...uh...the French building in New York for a while. And then she and my father met through the Catholic club of New York or something. And he was quite a...he was sixteen years older than she, so he very anxious to start a family. Emily: Do you remember anything about her dress, what she...? 0:14:44.7 Ellen: Yeah...I just...growing up, her wedding portrait was always in…at the top of the...we lived... Greg and I just sold it. We bought it from my mother right after we got married but...it was an attached row-house in a landmark district in Jackson Heights, and at the top of the stairs going up to the second floor, to the first set of bedrooms, the portrait, the wedding portrait hung. I always thought she had a long dress, for years, until I actually looked at it and I... 0:15:18.9 (Interrupted by her niece) [Audio Gap] Ellen: She's my older brother's third child. He had five children. My sister had six, so that was (laughter). Emily: You have a nice family. Ellen: That was another reason I didn't have...I could have had all these children in my wedding party, but there were a lot of them (laughter). And I have a picture of Melinda and her sister who were about, I don't know, seven and eight, or eight and ten, at the time. They were allowed to come to the ceremony but I didn't want all these children at my reception especially since it was just at home, and the picture of the two of them sitting on a piano bench all dressed up, and they've told me since that they would really have liked to have been more a part of my wedding, but, that's how it goes. Emily: Anyway.. 0:16:14.1 Ellen: Oh, my mother's dress. Emily: Yeah, you were telling me about your mother, sorry. Ellen: I finally realized, I guess maybe I saw it once when my niece was getting married, Lee Hartzell, whose dress you have, in the 70's and I looked much more closely at the portrait and I thought ‘Ah, it is short.’ But that...I remember my mother always saying it was short and she always had a long veil to make it look less short. But then I looked at my dress, you think the twenties and the sixties and the short skirts were similar but her's was much more modest and longer. Emily: That's lovely though, did she tell you anything about her wedding, about the ceremony that happened? 0:16:57.9 Ellen: Um, she had a lot of very traditional...you know...she had something blue and something borrowed and orange blossoms were a very important symbol, I don't think they are so much anymore, of purity and fertility and I don't know exactly what all they represented but she had orange blossoms in her veil 0:17:23.8 and I think she had them maybe in a little vase, they were either dried or fake by the time I got to see them but she had them there. I just remember orange blossoms. Emily: That's lovely. Do you know where she got married, or what year? 0:17:39.7 Ellen: They got married in Queens, I believe, I think in Elmhurst, she was born there and my father had grown up in Manhattan, but he was working at the time as an assistant DA in the Queens County DA's office so...you know...Queens kind of became their center, but I'm pretty sure she was married in St. Bartholomew's Church in Elmhurst but I'm not... I have a copy of their wedding invitation somewhere, or it's the engraving from the plate that the printer used. I should look at that. Emily: That's great. And I guess my last question for you is if you could tell me a little more about yourself? I know you said obviously went to Vassar. Ellen: Yes (laughter). Emily: But, sorry, for what years were you there? 0:18:32.8 Ellen: I came here in 1959 and I graduated in '63 and I... my mother had always, I think she did this to MaryLee too, but my mother had many friends on the faculty and in the administration and on a pretty day like this, she would say ‘Let's just drive to Poughkeepsie,’ which was a little longer drive than it is now. And, you know, she was always introducing us to her friends and taking us around the campus and not ever saying ‘I want you to go here’ or anything, but obviously (laughter) it was clear. 0:19:13.5 She just had such a wonderful experience here. And she actually, she was, she had a great aunt, an aunt who wanted to send her to Trinity college in Washington and my mother didn't want anyone paying her way and she got herself a Region’s Scholarship and was able to come to Vassar because of that. She...I got into every school I applied to, which was a lot easier to do in those days, and my father...I got into Manhattanville College, which at the time was very similar to Vassar but Catholic and I sort of had this feeling that I'd never gone to Catholic school, maybe I should, you know, get some religious education. And my father kind of stood by me and I kept saying ‘I want to go to Manhattanville, I want to...’ because I was so afraid I wouldn't get into Vassar and then...but the day I got my acceptance letter, I knew. Emily: It was done. Ellen: And I, let's see, and then I went to Georgetown and I taught for about thirteen years and I just decided, I either was going to stay at Garden school forever or I was going to go to law school which I always thought about and so I applied to one place, just tempting the fates, and I got into Fordham. And I was married at the time, and...uh...one interesting note is that I was so afraid that I was gonna not participate in supporting my husband and myself and he got a raise that year of ten thousand dollars, which was what my salary was, so we replaced my salary, and it cost me, at the time it was like three thousand dollars a semester, for law school, so the timing was very good. Anyhow, then I practiced law for thirty years and I think it was around 2004, I was asked if I would be on the nominating committee for the AAVC board and I said ‘Yes,’ and I had a great experience and that was a three year term I think and then I got, I remember we had been in California and came home and the phone was ringing as we came in the door and it was the woman who was chairman of the nominating committee at that time and she asked me if I would be the next chair and I was, how could this be? But I thought about for a few days and I did my due diligence and I said ‘Yes’ and the eight years I spent on the AAVC board, which just last June was, I think my last, my term ended. It's just so great. There are just so many wonderful Vassar people who are so inspiring and I...it enabled me to really get..and so did the New York Vassar club, but to get to know the men of Vassar, whom, I was not big on Vassar going co ed, but meeting these great people, and now my niece married a Vassar grad and her daughter, who I think you just got her wedding dress? Emily: Yes. Ellen: She got married last June. Emily: I'm actually going to Skype with her next week. Ellen: Oh good, good, yeah, she's great. Anyway, I hope that answers your question. 0:22:28.1 But Vassar's really an important part of my life, I just, yesterday when we were walking, and somebody was saying ‘You can't go up to the Founder's Day celebration.’ And I said ‘But I'm an alum!’ And they ‘Oh, okay!’ And then I saw [Kathy Bear] and [Kathy Lun] signing people in and it was just so great, just so many great people here, I'm… you probably...you look like you've found that to be true. Emily: Yes, I love it here. It has definitely been the best, one of the best decisions I've made. Ellen: Yeah, I think my niece's daughter is coming next year, she's on the waiting list at Brown and she's been saying that was her first choice, but, she also said that Vassar was wonderful and she loved it so much, but then she looked at her mother and said ‘But all of you have already gone there and you've kind of ruined it for me.’ (laughter) ‘It's like your school, not my school.’ But I think once she gets here she'll find that. And I'm working on this other one--this little lacrosse player. It's very hard not to pressure. That was the other thing about being on the AAVC board, I had a grand-niece who was here, she graduated in...well my first one graduated in '06 so we got to see each other when I came up for meetings and then the next one graduated in '11, so I got to see them when I came up, and also to get some idea what was going on on campus and what students...So, it's been good. Emily: That's great. I'm just curious, do you remember what you majored in? 0:24:10.5 Ellen: English. I had almost as many credits in English as in Medieval and Renaissance History, but then I had to...when I had to decide what my thesis was going to be, I chose English, so. Emily: That's great. Well, that's all the questions I have, unless you have anything else that you would like to share about your... Ellen: No, I probably shared more than you really wanted to know. (laughter) Emily: No, no! It was great! [End of recorded material] Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Emily Goddard Extent The size or duration of the resource. 24 minutes, 37 seconds 0:24:37 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context Ellen_Baumann_Interview_Revised.mp3 Title A name given to the resource Oral History Interview with Ellen Baumann Description An account of the resource An interview with Ellen Baumann, Vassar Class of 1963, on May 5th, 2013 about the mini dress she wore for her wedding in November of 1968 and her relationship to Vassar College. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Ellen Baumann Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource May 5th, 2013,11:00 AM ;2013-05-05T11:00:00-05:00 Relation A related resource VC2007020 VC2007023 For Better and For Worse Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC-EDU/1.0/ Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource mp3 Bendel's clothing and dress family marriage New York Vassar College weddings work https://vccc.vassarspaces.net/files/original/ee3a3ca16cd71d5b0a3f72dbd8da52bb.mp3 7986d931627b2af83f718a67b35a65cd Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Interviews Description An account of the resource For some projects, we have recorded and transcribed interviews, for example with the wearers or donors of costume objects, or with curators of exhibits. Some may be public while others are only available to logged in users, depending on the permission of the interviewee. These records may include audio files with transcriptions. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Arden Kirkland Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview. Emily Goddard Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed. Jessie Tucker Location The location of the interview. Strong House, South Apartment, Vassar College, Poughkeepsie, NY Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound. 0:00:00.0 Emily: My name is Emily Goddard. I am here with Jessie Tucker for the Vassar College Costume Collection Wedding Dress Exhibit. It's 6:24PM on Sunday, March 31st and we are at Vassar College. So first things first, could you just tell me a little bit about your wedding? 0:00:16.3 Jessie: Bless you. It was not actually a wedding of sorts...it was...we just decided on this particular day, my husband at the time, before he was my husband...was...worked on the railroad with the Chicago Northwestern Railway Company out of Chicago and he was a porter. And they would go, some of his trips were assigned to Omaha or [Ypsilanti], Michigan or Cedar Rapids, Iowa, wherever the trains went at that particular time if they needed someone, you know he was on a roster. And so, it was not definite what day he would be in, what day he would be back, whatever. So this particular day was January 29th, that he knew he would be home. And so we decided that particular day, but I worked. I worked with Illinois Public Aid Commission and it was downtown on sixty north and south Chicago. And since my lunch hour, I guess it was from twelve to one, I asked a couple of my friends, girlfriends from Murphysboro, Illinois--I'm from Southern Illinois--and they were also working in the loop and we had agreed to meet over at the courthouse, City Hall, which was I believe on Clarke street. I was on Ragdaw and Lasalle, and Clarke street is a block over. And City Hall is a block over from where I worked. And so, we met at the lunch hour and my husband to be came and we...I guess we had already done the procedures, you know previous stuff that we'd had to do. That was kinda a long time ago. And we met at my lunch hour and went before Judge (Trafy?) and they assigned judges for particular courts. They didn't necessarily have to be located in Chicago. I think he was located somewhere down state. After we got married, my lunch hour was taken, I went back to work, since my lunch hour was taken with this ceremony, and my girlfriends went back to work too. So we didn't even take time for lunch. And my husband went to a movie, I don't know which movie he saw. And so we met after I got off from work that particular day. So that was January 29th, 1953. And I was 18. 0:03:32.8 Emily: Woah. That's a good story, so it was pretty quick. Just in and right back to work. 0:03:39.6 Jessie: Mmhmm. We had been dating for a while. I met him through one of my cousins. 0:03:47.5 Emily:Did you have any sort of ceremony? Jessie: No. We we're going to have a party afterwards, but somehow we never got around to it. Chicago in January is very cold. Emily: Mmhmm. Jessie: And so, we just never got around. I was gonna have a honeymoon sometime. We were married 59 and a half years and the honeymoon never came. We went on vacation, but never anything such as a honeymoon. It was all very, very practical. You know? Emily: That still sounds like a...it sounds so nice. 0:04:22.9 Emily: So do you remember where you bought your dress? Jessie: I remember where I bought the dress. It actually was a suit. Let's see it was in ‘53. Emily:What we have is the jacket, I believe. Jessie: You have the jacket? Emily: Yeah. Jessie: It was kinda boxy, with the sleeves cuffs come out here. And some...that's it! And it has some buttons down the back similar to the ones down the front. And I bought it at the pollyannaish shop I believe on Madison, in the loop downtown. It was a famous place for shopping. Sort of like the boutique. And I particularly liked it, the straightness...the skirt was very straight and the small houndstooth. And it lasted well. I had really forgotten about it. Shona liked my retro clothes and they fit her well. It was the pollyannaish shop, I believe it was on Madison. And I purchased it. And at the time I think it must have cost around 125 dollars, which was one of those you could have laid away and saved till you had enough money and then gone and picked it up. Cause I was making 50 dollars a week as a clerk typist for the Illinois Public Aid Commission. And there was an agency that dispensed public welfare throughout the state. It was, you know, at that time they called it aid to dependent children and indigent families. 0:06:25.3 Emily: It's amazing how much you remember about the experience. Jessie: You know, I just really had to put my memory cap on. 0:06:31.6 Emily: So you mentioned a little bit about why you chose it. But do you remember anything specific about why you chose this particular jacket? This particular outfit? Jessie: Well it really wasn't intended to be a wedding outfit. It was intended, I was at work. So it just happened to be what I wore that particular day. If I had thought about it, it might have been something fancy. But it was not, it's just because it was a working day and this was what I wore. 0:07:02.2 Emily: You know, why did you chose to donate this particular jacket? Jessie: I gave it to Shona, and she was the one who donated it. I had totally forgotten about the jacket and that I had really given it to her. It was some time ago. At the time we were the same size and she liked my retro clothes. I bought a number of things from that particular store. And she was able to wear them. And why she thought it was worthy to donate it, I don't know. But it must have been a good omen because we were married a long time. Inexpensive to the extent that we didn't have the wedding. It was just...as I said none of the family was there, just my girlfriends. 0:07:56.1 Emily: So you never had any sort of...did you ever have any sort of party with the family of anything like that? Jessie: No. Went home and told everyone we got married. 0:08:07.0 Emily: Wow. That's really great. Do you remember how you met your spouse? Jessie: I was about to tell you that. I'm from southern Illinois--Murphysboro, Illinois--if you've ever heard of Carbondale. Emily: I haven't. Jessie: It's the University--Southern Illinois University. Well it's six miles from Muphysboro and it's sort of in a final part of Illinois. Illinois comes down with a small lower part. And I, at age 16 I graduated from high school. And I had two uncles who lived in Chicago. And before I graduated I took the civil service exam and I scored rather high--I think it was a 96 on the test. I got a card from them telling me I had passed the test and when I had come for interviews at the commission and so my uncle was coming through town I suppose and took me to Chicago. Chicago's about 350 miles from Murphysboro Illinois. So I got ready to go to the interview, and I passed the interview and got the job. My uncle had a son, who was friends to this young man. I remember my cousin would tell me that ‘I have a friend, his name is Booker Tucker Junior’ and I said ‘That's the silliest name I've ever heard’ because all those rs in it, and he was saying that he was very smart and that so...my cousin brought...he had a newborn baby and he brought his friend over to see the baby and I was living in the same residence with my uncle, but I had my own room. And the rent was 8 dollars a week. And we had use of the kitchen and the bathroom on the side. It was a three story building and there was one apartment on this side, there was a hallway in the center, and then the same thing on the other side. And these places were flat, they had been apartments. But then the landlords sold single rooms, so everybody had a room although I was there with mostly families. And I was sitting at the kitchen table eating and my cousin brought this young man in and he said ‘Jessie, this is my friend Junior’ I think he called him ‘Junior.’ And I said ‘Hello’ and we spoke, and that was all that. And he came back another time...after seeing the new baby...and he came another time with my cousin. Then the next time I heard from him, this was in the summer of 52 I believe, this same young man was coming over because he had a cousin that had come back from school and was working in Chicago and he told, my husband, who was still just a friend, that he was looking for a nice girl who went to church and was kind of quiet. And he said ‘I have just the girl for you.’ Emily: Your husband said that? Jessie: My husband to be. He said ‘I have just the girl for you.’ So he brought his cousin over and we went probably to a movie or to a park or something. All three of us. And then he brought the cousin back again several times and then the cousin went away to school and then the husband, the boyfriend, kept coming back and coming back and coming back. So the next time he saw his cousin he said, my husband's name is Booker, ‘Booker what happened to that young lady you introduced me to?’ He said ‘Man, we're married!’ So cupid got caught! And then I think by that time we'd had our first child. 0:12:58.0 Emily: When was that? Jessie: It was later in the year. 0:13:09.1 Emily: That's great. So how long were you dating before you got married? Jessie: Probably six months. Emily: That's cool. Jessie: Yeah, about six months. He would come over when he was in town and we'd go to the movies or he was 4 and a half years older and our relationship was different in that girls at my age didn't talk about the same thing. He had the caliber, and the experience. He talked about the planets and you know scientific things and current advances. And to me, I think I was impressed that he was not just ‘How are you? let's go here’ He had conversation--always really good conversation. But I found out later that he wasn't as deep as I thought he was, but I was 16 at that time. (laughter) Must of met him when I was 17. Yeah. 0:14:27.2 Emily: So, did you move in together after? Jessie: Well, we moved...I continued to work. I had two children--probably lived in that area--in that building. But then we moved from there. Emily: And that was near Chicago right? Jessie: In Chicago, this was in Chicago. Then we moved to the University of Chicago area. 52nd and Hyde Park area. We stayed there for about 5 years I guess. Then my husband was studying to be a radio announcer. And he got his certificate and his papers and then he started the job search. His first job was in Chattanooga, Tennessee, and so we moved there. We stayed there 5 years and the third child was born there. From there we moved to Louisville, Kentucky. And that's where Shona was born. And so everywhere I've been married I had a child. So we ended up with four children and he was in radio and TV and had a successful career and I moved because he moved, but I became an administrative assistant, and a paralegal to an attorney--and I did that for 25 years or more and then I went to work for the Presbyterian Church USA when it moved to Louisville and from there I worked in another law office for 12 years. So I'm retired, and it's not bad. I think if he had been in good health I would not have retired. He passed October 3rd, 2012. 0:16:38.1 Emily: I'm sorry about that. Jessie: It has been a long relationship. He got Alzheimer's and dementia. Alzheimer's is a long good-bye. He left a long time before he really passed, because you can't say ‘Remember when such and such happened? Do you remember so and so?’ When the person tells you ‘No,’ you don't have anywhere to go in the discussion--that's closed. Because even if I tell him he couldn't relate to it. Emily: I'm sorry to hear that. 0:17:21.1 Jessie: Also, Alzheimer's gives you a warning long before you know the actual date...the time. You have time to get prepared. If you can get prepared...it's not like a sudden passing. 0:17:36.2 Emily: Just going back a few years--you mentioned before you even got married that you lived with your uncle. Jessie: My uncle. His name is George Hubbard. And then there was another uncle, and his name was Anderson Hill. It's all tied into the Northern migration into people of that extended family because my family--my mother and my father met and they grew up together in Mississippi and I believe my father heard about this place Murphysboro, Illinois which was a railroad town. And so he went there then he brought this family up. So when I went to Chicago, my sisters, after graduating from school, came and we lived together. So eventually all of us left the small town and went to work in Chicago, and my brother went to the service first and then he came back to Chicago and then of course he's moved back to California, but I have two sisters who live in Chicago and we're still very close. I'm 78 years old. 0:19:01.1 Emily: It seems like most of your immediate and extended family seemed to live pretty close together. Jessie: Well, we make it close because I had 2 other children who still live in Louisville and the daughter has 3 children who've all graduated from universities and they're very successful. One is getting a master's in accounting in May and one of my granddaughters, the 40 year old granddaughter, she is getting her first degree and she is so happy because I tell everybody she just majors in big wisdom and good times in college. (laughter) the first time around...but she's always been very bright and I always told her how smart she was and she decided to go back to school she was striving to get that 4.0 and I believe she made it. So it's a happy occasion for us. I have two granddaughters graduating within 2 weeks time. One of the granddaughters graduated from the University of Kentucky as a pharmacist, so she's now a doctor. She's this tall. My grandson here Barack says I have a cousin she is grown, but she is little. She can't even make 5 feet. Her father calls her doctor shorty. Emily: That's so great though, your family has always been so close. 0:20:45.4 Jessie: Family is very very important to us and we make connections as often as we can. Barack and I just got back from Washington, DC. I have a niece who lives there in Alexandria, Virginia. She's very successful and her husband. So we stay close together and as many occasions as we can find. Or we make up occasions to get together, so it's a very close family. 0:21:19.9 Emily: That's great. So just going back to the wedding, do you remember what your spouse wore at all? Jessie: I believe he wore a sports coat and slacks and a tie. He was a very snazzy dresser or at least he thought he was. 0:21:47.3 Emily: Were you both interested in the fashion of the time? Jessie: I was. I've always been fashion conscious. I always liked, not necessarily the latest thing, but the best of what I could get for my money. Like I said, I'd put in a lay away and go in and pick it up and go in to get it. So I've always been fashion conscious and try to wear things appropriate that look well on me. You can't wear everything that comes out! So, I think if I had to do it over again, I might have had a small or medium sized wedding--just with family though. 0:22:34.2 Emily: So, just getting into a little bit of details. You said you didn't really have any bridesmaids but that all of your girlfriends were there. Jessie: Yes they were witnesses. Emily: Yeah, do you remember what they wore? Jessie: It was a regular...they worked in the loop also so it was just regular work clothes. Probably a suit, a skirt with a blouse and a sweater. So nobody was really dressed for a wedding--a wedding, wedding. 0:23:10.6 Emily: That's great. So that's about all the specific questions that I have but if you'd like to tell me anything more about your wedding, your marriage, just your life in general. Jessie: Oh bless you. We liked living in Louisville because it's a city but it has a small town feel and the neighborhood where it was good to raise the children. We did a pretty good job with raising four children. The neighborhood is one that my children could go down the street to go to church, they'd go to church before I did because church members came by, met me, and took my children to church. Louisville is really a great place. If you ever get a chance really go visit it--it's very pretty. Emily: I will. Jessie: It was a good relationship, ups and downs, but mostly ups. It all has to do with positive attitude. Emily: Yeah. Jessie: It does. Without it you're lost. And not dwell on hurts, real or imagine, because that just holds you back. You could be pretty upset at the time but you have to work through them. Because you both may decide I'm not going anywhere because nobody else wants me (laughter) so you make the best of what you have and it works. It does. I'm glad I had that relationship, but since he's passed people ask me would you want to get married again? (laughter) No. I like the freedom I have. I do. After almost 60 years I think you're entitled to some time to yourself. Because it's all about pleasing the other person, really. Of course in the process you want to be pleased yourself but you're always busy satisfying, or trying to satisfy, somebody else. There's a joy in giving. But something you like to have some return to you. You know? All in all it was a good relationship, but I never imagined it would last as long as it did because when you're 16,17,18, 60 years is forever, you know? Who lives that long?! (laughter) So it was good. If I had to do it over I probably would've dressed up--really dress up for the occasion. But things happen, and in situations you just do what you have to do. Emily: This has been fantastic! Jessie: Really? Emily: Yeah, thank you so much for talking. Jessie: Well thank you. I really hadn't thought about that jacket in a long time and I was happy to give it to Shona--she wanted it. I always liked to keep up with what the styles, but not the trends. Because some things people put on, they shouldn't wear! Emily: It's a beautiful jacket. I'm really excited. Jessie: Really? And at the time it cost about 110 dollars. It was wool blend I believe. The houndstooth was very small. It sort of has some Jackie Kennedy box style look. Emily: Yeah. This has been so great thank you so much for talking. Jessie: I hope you got something out of that. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Emily Goddard Extent The size or duration of the resource. 27 minutes, 35 seconds 0:27:35 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context Jessie_Tucker_Interview_Revised.mp3 Title A name given to the resource Oral History Interview with Jessie Tucker Description An account of the resource An interview with Jessie Tucker, mother of Vassar Assistant Professor of Drama Shona Tucker, on March 31st, 2013 about the suit jacket she wore for her wedding, which took place on her lunch hour on January 29, 1953, in Chicago, Illinois. She also discussed her life together with her husband, their children, and their various moves around the country. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Jessie Tucker Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource March 31st, 2013, 6:30 PM;2013-03-31T18:30:00-05:00 Relation A related resource VC2011002 For Better and For Worse Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC-EDU/1.0/ Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource mp3 Chicago clothing and dress family Kentucky marriage Mississippi Tennessee weddings work https://vccc.vassarspaces.net/files/original/34a88c32f0cc0e813cb728d545b78c84.mp3 6dc62d8d10110aa1dff6f72c5e22a397 https://vccc.vassarspaces.net/files/original/faacc46082b66e921a3b3540d36f837f.png 5ad511a60c7aa7c60d40456cc55e7f66 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Interviews Description An account of the resource For some projects, we have recorded and transcribed interviews, for example with the wearers or donors of costume objects, or with curators of exhibits. Some may be public while others are only available to logged in users, depending on the permission of the interviewee. These records may include audio files with transcriptions. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Arden Kirkland Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview. Emily Goddard Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed. Jim Ruff Location The location of the interview. Vogelstein Center for Drama & Film, Vassar College, Poughkeepsie, NY, via Skype Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound. 0:00:00.0 Emily: So first things first, if you could just tell me a little bit about your wedding? Jim: A little bit about it, gosh, about the ceremony itself, you mean, or..? Emily: Yeah that, or you can expand in any direction you like. Jim: Okay, well I think we kind of put it together, and wanted to pull different interests that we all had, that both of us had through our lives, so largely it followed the Episcopal matrimony service, really, which we went through word by word and kind of tweaked a little bit so it sounded good for us. And then added, of course, since we're both singers and both musicians, we had lots and lots of music. That was kind of the biggest part. We had three choirs, different choirs, that also all sang together on one big piece, which was about 80 people singing. It was really amazing. Let's see, what else...and then I also have interests in kind of Scottish things, Scottish spirituality, Scottish music also, so I had little bits of that also--a piper that piped us in and piped us out, prayers, one little prayer and Gaelic, and stuff like that, so...anyway, it was just kind of a big celebration, really, with friends and family from all different parts of our life, which was kind of amazing. 0:01:43.9 Emily: That sounds really exciting. When was it? Jim: It was almost exactly a year ago, May 12th last year. 0:01:52.9 Emily: Wow that sounds fantastic. And where was it? Jim: It was at the...our church...right here in town about a mile from our house--Christ the King Episcopal Church in Stoneridge, where I'm the director of music. 0:02:07.5 Emily: That sounds really exciting, congratulations. Jim: Thank you. 0:02:12.2 Emily: So I guess, where did you--we have both your outfit and your husband's outfit--where did you get them, do you remember? Jim: Well, let's see..mine, the kilt outfit--the highland outfit--I ordered in Obin, Scotland, on the west coast in 2009 when I was there singing in a Gaelic singing contest. And I had worn a different kilt outfit, a rented one, and I decided after I wore that for a whole day I needed my own, so I ordered it then, and had worn it a few times since. But then when the idea of the wedding came up I toyed with whether or not I should wear it and then of course I decided to. And special for the wedding I ordered the plaid that hangs over the shoulder, which I didn't have before, which was really fun and came just in time from Edinborough for me to wear it. 0:03:19.4 Emily: That's perfect. Jim: Drew's--I don't actually remember where he got his, I think he got this at Woodbury Common, but I don't know what store. 0:03:30.0 Emily: That's wonderful. And then, why did you choose--you mentioned a little bit because of your interest in Gaelic culture--why did you choose your outfits? Jim: Umm..well, I think my interest in Gaelic culture came kind of through intuition I would say, and through starting to learn the language of Scottish Gaelic, and then going into the poetry and the song and that sort of thing which just resonates really deeply for me. I guess also growing up I kind of was told we were German, but in doing family research realized we were kinda half German, and the other half was sort of the English-Scottish-Irish mixture, and I did a lot of research, and there's kind of Scottish lines on both sides of my family, so that felt kind of strong to me, that I wanted to incorporate that in the service also and in the clothes. 0:04:33.1 Emily: Do you think you identify at all with the popular culture, the fashion of the time? Jim: Of popular culture now, you mean? Emily: Well, yeah, since you only married a year ago, so pretty much present day. I use that for people who got married 50 years ago. Jim: Right. I think, gosh, for me that's not so much popular culture. For Drew I'm not exactly sure, I mean usually he just picks things that he really really likes, and I loved that. I of course wasn't allowed to go on the trip when he went and bought his, but one of his best friends went with him, and I loved that he bought the suit with the window pane, which kind of fit with my clan really well. An Italian suit...which actually..he's very interested in Italian culture, and he's been studying Italian pretty strongly and is in Italy right now, so... 0:05:35.3 Emily: Yeah, I heard. Jim: Yeah, and we'll go back again in summer to teach, so. 0:05:39.7 Emily: Oh wow. That's exciting. Why did you choose to let us borrow these--your outfits--for this exhibition? Jim: Umm....well I think it sounded like a really interesting exhibition actually--to go through history--I love historical clothing anyway, and I guess mine is kind of historical clothing. So on myself I'm kind of interested in seeing that, and I think it's a wonderful way to show the transformation of marriage, which is happening right now, actually, and we can be part of that. I think that's kind of wonderful to support. 0:06:21.5 Emily: I'm really excited about it to. So how old were both of you when you got married? Jim: Ah... Emily: If you care to tell. Jim: I think I wasn't yet 50--I was 49--so...and Drew was 56. 0:06:42.0 Emily: Cool. And so you said you've been married a year. Do you remember how you met each other? Jim: I do. We met each other in a performance of Monteverde's "Coronation of Poppea," a Baroque Opera, at BAM, the Brooklyn Academy of Music, back in...gosh...I think it was January of '96, I believe. And Drew was playing a role, Ottone, and I was in the little ensemble of singers that that were largely from Glimmer Glass Opera where I had sung twice already. And we met there. 0:07:19.9 Emily: That's so exciting. So around the time of your wedding, of course it's recent, how important was it for you to get married? Jim: I think it was pretty important because we were waiting. We talked about it when we first met, actually, and even talked about what we wanted it to be like. And through the years-- because we had been together, oh gosh, 15 years or so--sort of decided we wanted to wait at least until it was something that was valid in the church or in the government or both. So kind of the moment we found out that happened in New York state, we decided...talked quickly and kind of were ready to do it. 0:08:09.6 Emily: That's great. How important was it, do you think, to your family and friends for you to get married? Jim: That's a good question...I'm not sure as far as my family is concerned, I can't really tell you...I don't know. There was some question as to whether or not they were going to come, but my mother and one of my brothers came, which was...I was very happy for that support...and Drew's, both of his sisters and some family came also, which was quite wonderful. I mean I don't think...I think people were very happy to hear that we were doing this and were extremely happy to be there. I think one thing--one of the moments that stands out strongly in the service for me was when...was the actual pronouncement of being married legally in the state of New York. And really at that time, even a year ago, it was not valid for priests in the Episcopal church in New York to declare that. So our priest, Alison Quinn, had to go figure out a way to have this happen, and she came up with an idea where one of our members of the church who was the warden for a while was a judge--so he came up dressed in his wonderful judicial robes, and at the right point he stood up and declared that we were married, and people screamed and clapped for, gosh, three minutes straight without stopping. It was very exciting, overwhelming, really, actually. 0:09:54.6 Emily: That's really exciting. Has your view of marriage changed at all in the past year? Jim: My view of marriage...I think I'm...I guess I would say I wondered, after being together for so long, really, how much it would change me or how I would be affected by it, and I really definitely could feel a difference after the ceremony, actually, in feeling the kind of love and support and blessing from all the people who were there, as well as from the clergy and everything, and I think that's kind of a wonderful. That's really kind of a wonderful thing to sense from your community around you. And I think we both felt that, and kind of feel cradled by that, I guess I would say, which is a wonderful thing. 0:11:01.5 Emily: Yeah. So I guess my last question is just if you could tell me a little more about yourself. Where did you go to school? What careers have you had over the years? Jim: Sure, let's see...I did my undergrad work in music, a performance degree in voice at the University of Southern California, and well, my family had moved out there when I was 10 or so. So I was not originally from there, I was originally from Chicago, and was there in LA for a while at school and realized that's not where I wanted to live, so I moved East as soon as I could after I graduated. I went to Tanglewood to study there in the summer and loved Massachusetts and moved to Boston right after that and lived there for about 10 years, and did my...after a couple years of working...I went back to school and did my grad work at Boston University in voice performance also, a Master's degree there, and stayed on for a few years in their Opera Institute, which is kind of a professional--preprofessional--opera program, which was quite wonderful, and still going on there. And I lived in Boston for a few years after that, performing there, then moved to New York, really, to be with Drew, and did the wonderful New York singer life of temping in banks and things like that during the day, and auditioning and singing at night, and churches, and etc etc. And got into teaching after that--singing, performing, and also teaching voice. And then since we've moved up here, gosh, 10 years ago. I've been working as, as I said, as director of music at the church, which was...I'd always sung in the church, but never really directed a choir, so that was an experiment, and I enjoyed it. 0:13:07.5 Emily: That's fantastic. I'm really really happy that we got this chance to talk for a little bit because it's been great. That's all the questions that I have unless you have anything else that you would like to add that you- wedding, marriage, life, anything. Jim: I don't think I have much to add; I do think it's a wonderful thing how marriage is changing now and allowing more of us to take part in it, because it is a...it really is a wonderful blessing, I would say, for us and for a community. 0:13:49.1 Emily: I agree. Well thank you so much for talking with me, this has been great and I hope that you get to see the exhibit. Jim: I do too. 0:13:58.0 Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 00:13:58 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Emily Goddard Extent The size or duration of the resource. 13 minutes, 58 seconds 0:13:58 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context Jim_Ruff_Interview_Revised2.mp3 Title A name given to the resource Oral History Interview with Jim Ruff Description An account of the resource An interview with Jim Ruff on May 15th, 2013 about the outfits he and his husband, Drew Minter (Vassar Lecturer of Music), wore during their wedding on May 12th, 2012, as well as their relationship, and his views on marriage. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Jim Ruff Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource May 15th, 2013, 2:00 PM;2013-05-15T14:00:00-05:00 Relation A related resource JR2013001 DM2013001 For Better and For Worse Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC-EDU/1.0/ Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource mp3 clothing and dress Episcopal church marriage music same-sex marriage Scotland weddings https://vccc.vassarspaces.net/files/original/efb257a2ee8650bc5f00f5c1d00d0f44.mp3 e862f292595e7bd0cbd6659e4bc4c7ea Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Interviews Description An account of the resource For some projects, we have recorded and transcribed interviews, for example with the wearers or donors of costume objects, or with curators of exhibits. Some may be public while others are only available to logged in users, depending on the permission of the interviewee. These records may include audio files with transcriptions. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Arden Kirkland Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview. Emily Goddard Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed. Leontine Hartzell Location The location of the interview. Vogelstein Center for Drama & Film, Vassar College, Poughkeepsie, NY, via Skype Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 00:21:46 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Emily Goddard Extent The size or duration of the resource. 21 minutes, 46 seconds 0:21:46 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context Leontine_Hartzell_Interview_Revised2.mp3 Title A name given to the resource Oral History Interview with Leontine Hartzell Description An account of the resource An interview with Leontine Hartzell, Vassar Class of 1979, on May 16th, 2013 about the dress she wore to her wedding, as well as her marriage and subsequent divorce. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Leontine Hartzell Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource May 16th 2013, 5:00 PM;2013-05-16T17:00:00-05:00 Relation A related resource VC2007021 For Better and For Worse Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC-EDU/1.0/ Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource mp3 clothing and dress marriage Vassar College weddings https://vccc.vassarspaces.net/files/original/68ae5416ce6778bfecf3904ae1e1f3ca.mp3 6a043dde07063135f24e7f37714c801a Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Interviews Description An account of the resource For some projects, we have recorded and transcribed interviews, for example with the wearers or donors of costume objects, or with curators of exhibits. Some may be public while others are only available to logged in users, depending on the permission of the interviewee. These records may include audio files with transcriptions. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Arden Kirkland Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview. Emily Goddard Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed. MaryLee Hartzell Location The location of the interview. Vogelstein Center for Drama & Film, Vassar College, Poughkeepsie, NY, via Skype Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound. [0:00:07.1 Beginning of interview] MaryLee: Emily! Emily: Hello! MaryLee: Well hello. Nice to meet you! Emily: It's nice to meet you too! MaryLee: I told my husband who's in the other room if I holler come on in so Emily can meet you too. Emily: That would be so exciting. MaryLee: I'm ready. I'm ready for all of your questions. 0:00:25.8 Emily: My name is Emily Goddard I'm interviewing Mary Lee Hartzell. This is for the Vassar College costume collection wedding dress exhibit. It is 5:53 PM on April 25th, 2013 and we are doing this interview via skype. So I guess just to start, could you just tell me about your wedding? MaryLee: Well, first I'm excited to tell you how I met my husband at Vassar, because in my year there were only women at Vassar except for very few WWII veterans--I think there were 5 or 6 of them. They were the only men students. But anyway, a whole bunch of us friends lived in Main, which is where they put the seniors in those days. And we had the greatest time, it was fabulous. Across the hall, I think you could call her the social director of our class, but she arranged a lot of events. Christie Gordon was her name. She's no longer alive. And she was organizing a dance between Yale Law School seniors and the Vassar seniors and she was looking for women to come to the dance and she came over and she said ‘You gotta come, I don't have enough women,’ and I said ‘I hate those things, I just don't wanna go.’ She said ‘Well you gotta go, you might meet the man you're gonna marry.’And I said ‘Uhhh...’ I was very reluctant to go, but I went because she was a good friend. And up to that point I'd had a lot of blind dates--that's what people did in those days. We all had blind dates with Princeton and West Point guys...all kinds of guys. And anyway, I went to the dance and there was a pre-cocktail thing at Alumnae House. And we were mingling around and I was with a group of guys and I excused myself and said I'm going to get a drink although I'd already had one and I went up to the bar, which was in the foyer of Alumnae House, and I think her name is Mrs. Gernzy. She was a big director of Alumni Affairs or something, but she was a Vassar lady and she was the bartender. (0:02:52.0) And there was Andy and he said ‘Can I buy you a drink?’ and I put my drink behind my back and said ‘Sure’ was the meeting (laughing) and we just clicked and started to date. He was still finishing law school and so he went back. We dated back and forth till I graduated. He graduated and I went to law school in that fall. I went to Fordham law school and he clercked for a federal judge called Irving Kaufman who was the one who prosecuted the Rosenbergs. I don't know if you know the history of all that. 0:03:39.0 Emily: Yeah I do know a little bit of the history. MaryLee: Yeah and actually he'd done that before Andy started to work for him. So all that year I was at Fordham law school and he was working down in the federal court for the judge. And we used to meet for lunch at a delicatessen and have cream cheese and jelly on toast (laughing) We can still remember that. And toasted short bread with vanilla ice cream and chocolate sauce. That was all we could afford. We had that every time we met, which wasn't everyday but frequent. Anyway, we got married in 1954 and I wore that dress on a very hot day--July 31st was like 98 degrees, people are still talking about how hot it was because there wasn't any air conditioning at the Forest Hills Inn where we had the reception. And we went on a long honeymoon because he was taking a job with a law firm in Cleveland, Ohio and it was great we had a month long honeymoon--went to Canada, did all kinds of things as we worked our way out West. And we lived there in Cleveland and we had four children there. He always wanted to come back to New York and he did--he came. He worked for Thompson, Hine, and Flory, which was a law firm there. And then he came back to New York as a partner in a law firm Debevoise, Plimpton, Lyons, and Gates it was called then. Now it's called Debevoise Plimpton. And we moved to Scarsedale, New York. We had two more children and I have family in the East. His family was in Baltimore, so we were all kind of Eastern people. And actually we've lived in this house for 50 years (laughing) and that's sort of the story. We have fourteen living grandchildren. One died in an accident about seventeen or eighteen years ago. Emily: I'm sorry MaryLee: A little boy, my daughter's little boy, four years old, which if you interview her, you know, she may tell you about that. 0:06:03.9 Emily: Yeah. MaryLee: I can't think of...that's my story. 0:06:14.9 Emily: That's a great story. So just getting even a little bit more focused, could you tell me a little bit more of what your wedding was like? You mention it was in July, it was warm. What do you remember from it? MaryLee: Let's see. What did I have. I didn't think to get it. It's downstairs. A picture, of...I had four or five bridesmaids and when we celebrated our 50th wedding anniversary most everybody who was in the wedding came. Although one of my roommates had since died, but they all wore blue bridemaids dresses. Both our parents were alive at that time, so we had our parents and I had had two brothers and a sister. One of my brothers has died. And Andy had a brother and a sister, both of whom are still alive. In fact his brother just celebrated his 80th birthday and we all went up to Rochester and had a big family celebration for that. Emily: That's great. 0:07:29.2 MaryLee: Um...Let's see. Emily: Well, you were dating for how long before you got married exactly? A couple years? MaryLee: We met in the Spring of my senior year and were married the following Summer. So about a year, a little over a year. Would you like to meet to groom? Emily: Oh, if he's around I'd love to. MaryLee: ANDY! Could you come and say hello to Emily? He studies French. Emily: Oh wow, that's so interesting. MaryLee: In his very little spare time. Emily: What made you want to get married? What made you choose the date and the time and all that? MaryLee: Because he finished law school and then he didn't have to be in Clevelend, Ohio until September I believe. So we knew we'd have...This is Emily. He doesn't have a groom outfit on. Emily: Oh no! 08:36:.0 MaryLee: Can you see him? Here, get in front of the camera which is there. Andy: Oh yeah. Hi! Emily: Hello. So nice to see you. Andy: Nice to see you too. MaryLee: She wants to know why we got married when we did. Andy: I was finishing a courtship with a judge. MaryLee: I told her. Andy: In New York and starting a job at a law firm in Cleveland. MaryLee: Yeah, I told her that. Andy: And so, that's why. That was the time. I finished the one job and we had a month, six weeks, before I had to start another. Emily: Sounds like perfect timing. Andy: We--yeah--made it then. 0:09:26.0 Emily: Oh that's so great. So I guess I have a couple of other specific questions specifically about your dress. So how old were both of you when you got married? MaryLee: 22 I would say. Andy: Yes you were 23. MaryLee: I was 23, yeah. Andy: And I was 26, I think. MaryLee: Yeah he's four years older than I am. a: So I was 26. Yes. 0:09:57.9 Emily: Great. And obviously you're still married today, so how long has it been? If you can remember. Andy: I worked out. It'll be 59 years this July 31st. Emily: Aw, congrats. (breaks up a bit) MaryLee:...graduated in 2011 and another granddaughter just got accepted to go there. So we'll see. Emily: That's so exciting. You have the most fantastic family of Vassar. MaryLee: We do have a legacy. Andy: That's all because I happened to go up there that one time. Emily: All thanks to that one fantastic story. That is really an amazing story. MaryLee: Those things don't happen anymore because I guess they don't import men from elsewhere. Emily: No, we've got them right here. 0:10:56.6 MaryLee: Do you have anymore questions? It's hard to remember the wedding that much. Emily: Yeah, I understand. I just...a couple specifically about the dress, do you remember where you bought it? And why you decided that that was the right dress for you? MaryLee: I wanted something simple. DIdn't want to spend a whole lot of money. We must've, my mother and I, we must've gone into New York somewhere and bought it. Emily: Mmhmm. It's really beautiful. MaryLee: Well thanks, I don't fit into it anymore! But it's just plain silk dress. (to Andy) Could you bring the picture from our room with me in the wedding dress? a: Yeah. MaryLee: I didn't know if you wanted photographs of it. Emily: No, actually. I have. We've taken some photographs of it since it's in the collection. MaryLee: Of me in it. Emily: Not of you in it, just of the dress. MaryLee: Okay, Andy's bringing the photograph that we have in the bedroom. Emily: Oh wow. MaryLee: So just to show you what we looked like. We didn't have gray hair then. (laughing) 0:12:08.6 Emily: Would you say that you identified yourself with any sort of like popular culture or like fashion of the time? MaryLee: No. I wore my brothers clothes a lot when I was in college. Sort of looked kind of grungy. Because we didn't care what we looked like because there were only women around! No just...That's me in the dress. Can you see? Emily: Oh I can, that's so beautiful! MaryLee: Yeah. It was such a hot day, that we remember. Emily: Yeah. It's lovely. MaryLee: Here, we have kids pictures on the bottom here. But there is Andy and I. Emily: Oh, that's so fantastic. You both look so happy. MaryLee: I think this is a great idea. 0:13:05.0 Emily: I'm excited about it. Just a couple of last questions. Why did you choose to donate the dress? MaryLee: Well my sister was cleaning out the family home in which she and her husband have lived after my mother died in Jackson Heights in Queens. Or maybe I had the dress in my attic here. And my sister was very involved in the Alumni Association. She was head of the nominating committee for many years. So she was up at Vassar a lot. Plus she used to see our granddaughter who graduated in 2011. She must have been talking to people, because she decided...she donated some furniture which actually is in the Alumnae House..that she would donate my mother's dress and some other shoes and funny looking dresses because my mother was a flapper. She got married in 1929. So the dress was a flapper dress. So she gave my mother's dress and that at some point we all said: ‘Why don’t we give our dresses? We're not gonna wear them again.’ So I guess that's what we did. 0:14:18.3 Emily: That's great. Can you tell me a little bit more about your mother and her dress and her wedding if you know anything about that. MaryLee: Well my sister really is the one to talk to. She has...she remembers everything about everything. I just know my mother. Well my father was a good bit older than she, like seventeen or eighteen years older. My mother loved Vassar. She worked up at the bookstore after she graduated. She talked about Vassar all the time. She was, my sister will tell you, she was the one that bought the books for the bookstore. So all the time when we were growing up we always had books at Christmas time that she bought from the Vassar bookstore. Piles of them. Just piles of books wrapped in red paper. I remember that distinctly. Let's see. What else, of course we weren't around when my mother got married. I think I might have a picture of her up in the attic somewhere. 0:15:36:1 Emily: I actually think I'm hopefully going to talk to your sister sometime. MaryLee: She'll know all the details about the little flowers that were on the dress or on the shoes. Emily: Yeah. It's lovely. MaryLee: Little wax flowers I think they're still there or something. 0:15:57.0 Emily: So I guess, my last question I just have one more thing is just to tell me a little bit more about yourself. Obviously you went to college at Vassar and you said you went to Fordham law school after that, but a little bit more about the jobs and careers that you've had. MaryLee: Then we got married and I started to go to my second year of law school at Pace Western Reserve in Ohio. But I very much wanted to have a family and so I became pregnant with our oldest son Neil and it was very difficult to...I was the only one in the class and there I was pregnant. A lot of made fun of. It was...talk about discrimination. There definitely was discrimination. So I stopped going and then had all those children. And then when we came back here I didn't work because I had those children close together and was just a very busy stay at home mom. When we moved back to New York and I had two more children and my father was not in good shape and he died and went through all that family stuff. My mother was gone 20 years after he died. But when my youngest son was in highschool I decided that I should finish my education so I went back to school at Iona, which is a local college, and got a masters of science and family therapy, which took me about four years to do because I still had kids at home and busy working husband. I worked for a couple years doing family therapy, but most of the time that has to work at night because that's when the families come. And things started happening in the family where they needed me. People were having miscarriages, people were having babies, so I was needed and I thought you know this is crazy. So I stopped. But then I taught family parenting at our church for many many years I did that, so I carried on. And also, in the middle of all that, I started to take art lessons and I know, I guess you could call me an artist, but I still take art lessons and I do watercolors. I've sold things and I've been in shows. I'm not sensational or anything. I'm sort of a pedestrian watercolor artist, but I love it. Just had a class today, so that's what I do. 0:18:51.5 Emily: That's fantastic. Just, I'm sure you mentioned this but I'm terrible. How many children do you have? MaryLee: 6. Emily: 6--wow! 0:19:01.1 Emily: And how long were you married before you had your first child? MaryLee: A year...soon. Well let's see. I started school and he was born 1955 and we were married 1954 so there it began. In fact, here they all are grown up. Emily: No way! MaryLee: That was just recently. They all came to the house without their spouses. That was special. Emily: That's great. MaryLee: So there's five sons and one daughter we have. 0:19:45.5 Emily: That's fantastic. Is there anything else that you would like to share with me about you, your husband, your wedding, your marriage, your life, anything? MaryLee: Well, I would like to say it's been a glorious life. It really has. I'm 81 now, he's 85. And we still have a lot of fun together and we've taken fantastic trips with our kids, and they're all mountain climbers and hikers which I'm not, but I've always gone on all of them. We've done all the national parks out West. They've climbed mountains and we've been to Switzerland and Ireland and England and France and even Africa all the Matterhorn and Kilimanjaro. We had quite an adventure where I got deathly ill and his guide died on the mountain and he's written a book about it, but that was back in the 80s. Emily: Wow. 0:20:47.3 MaryLee: So we don't to that anymore. Emily: Yeah. MaryLee: But lots of wonderful memories and just recently, the summer before last, we took twelve of us out West to one of the national parks. So we like to do that. I don't know how much longer we can continue doing that because it takes a lot of planning and effort but we have fun with the family so that's a great thing. And now that we have grandchildren who are older and teenagers, they like doing all that stuff too. So, that's it. Emily: That's spectacular. MaryLee: Very happy life, very happy that we met at Vassar. I feel very blessed. Hope the same happens to you, my dear. Emily: Oh, thank you! It's been really wonderful talking to you. Thank you so much for sharing your story and your dress and just sharing the whole experience. Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 00:21:44 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Emily Goddard Extent The size or duration of the resource. 21 minutes, 44 seconds 0:21:44 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context Mary_Lee_Hartzell_Interview_Revised2.mp3 Title A name given to the resource Oral History Interview with MaryLee Hartzell Description An account of the resource An interview with MaryLee Hartzell, Vassar Class of 1953, on April 25th, 2013 about the dress she wore for her wedding on July 31st, 1954 in Forest Hills, as well as her life since with her husband of 59 years. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource MaryLee Hartzell Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource April 25, 2013, 6:00 PM;2013-04-25T18:00:00-05:00 Relation A related resource VC2007022 VC2007023 For Better and For Worse Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC-EDU/1.0/ Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource mp3 clothing and dress family marriage New York Ohio Queens Vassar College weddings https://vccc.vassarspaces.net/files/original/aeda7aaf90dd2cbff9ec14c911b040da.mp3 c52846c902feba360b30b93dd51b7af0 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Interviews Description An account of the resource For some projects, we have recorded and transcribed interviews, for example with the wearers or donors of costume objects, or with curators of exhibits. Some may be public while others are only available to logged in users, depending on the permission of the interviewee. These records may include audio files with transcriptions. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Arden Kirkland Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview. Emily Goddard Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed. Willa McCarthy Location The location of the interview. Alumnae House, Vassar College, Poughkeepsie, NY Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound. Emily: My name is Emily Goddard, I'm interviewing Willa McCarthy- correct pronunciation? Willa: Yep. Emily: Ok, it's for the Vassar College Costume Collection wedding dress exhibit, it's May 3rd, 2013, and it is 10:57 am, and we're at Alumnae House. 0:00:19.4 Emily: So I guess to start--can you tell me about your wedding? Willa: Tell you about my wedding? Well, it was here at the Alumnae House. I got married in front of the library next to the living room fireplace, it was a very small group, and it was on December 29th, 1997, and about 55 people were here. It was a winter night, and it was a very bizarre night, because I remember there was thunder and lightning and snow, which should have been sort of a sign from above of things to come. But we had the whole house to ourselves, and it felt very much like a big family slumber party affair. It was just a beautiful evening, and I married to someone that I had met through the music community locally, where I am very actively involved, but it was a marriage that was not meant to be, even though it lasted ten years and produced two children. So, what other things do you want to know about the wedding itself? 0:01:37.6 Emily: Do you remember what your bridesmaids wore? I didn't have any bridesmaids--I did not have a traditional wedding. It was just the groom and I, we each had...I had my best friend as a sort of matron of honor (she was pregnant at the time with her second child, and she was my best friend in high school), and the groom's brother was his best man, although he was completely unengaged in the process. So there was not a big wedding party or any kind of normal traditional ecoutrement beyond the...I think perhaps the most traditional part of the wedding was the dress. It was sort of very much a facade, a fantasy, an idea, not based in any kind of real understanding of what we were getting into or whether we were really right for eachother. 0:02:46.8 Emily: Moving on to the actual dress, do you remember where you bought it? Willa: I do! I bought it at the Town Shop, which is one of the few--that I'm aware of--wedding dress shops in Poughkeepsie, and it's over near the Price Chopper on route 9, where the TJ Maxx home goods store is. I went over there because somebody locally told me about it, and it's a small little store but they have lots of different absolutely grotesque little things. I was over there actually recently, and I went in just for fun, just to see, and I was so horrified by all the things in there and I thought ‘God, is this what the people are wearing!’ Then I thought ‘Well yeah, that's what I wore, too.’ 0:03:43.4 Emily: Do you remember why you chose the particular dress that you wore? Willa: I think this dress embodied a childhood cinderella-esque fantasy. I just thought it was pretty and blingy and I felt very princessy in it. And I think that at the time that was something that really appealed to me, sort of a culmination of a little girl's dream. But now I look back at the pictures of the dress and I'm just like horrified that I ever thought that that was something that was pretty. I find it gaudy and overdone and completely not who I am at all, or who I've grown to be, but at the time I remember it being a very powerful emotional response. Which I think is probably true for a lot of women as they're trying on wedding dresses, that they have all of this fantasy over years that comes into play that is embodied as they're standing there looking at these 3- 4-way surrounding mirrors, in this very sort of princessy big fluffy thing in my case, with lots of beads all over it. But it was a total facade. 0:05:15.8 Emily: Do you think you identified at all with the popular culture and fashion of the time? Willa: No, I think actually the dress was not at all what a lot of brides were wearing in that time. It was much more childhood fantasy like for me. It was winter too, so I wanted something with long-sleeves and so forth...but I have recollection of my friends who were getting married before and after me having much more sleek, sexy, body form fitting dresses, and I didn't feel confident about my body in that way, so the dress I selected had very much how I would look in it in mind. But it was a little over the top compared to what my friends were wearing; they had much more simple, sexy. Mine was much more cinderella. 0:06:25.3 Emily: Also, why did you choose to donate the dress? Willa: I chose to donate the dress because it was taking up a huge amount of space in my closet. I had very negative feelings about it and I wanted it out of my life. I knew that it was something I would never want my daughter to wear or that would ever really be appropriate, not to mention that she's a beanpole so it would never even fit her, and I just thought, you know, the dress doesn't have to be a negative thing--the dress can go on to serve some sort of purpose that could be useful for someone, and of course I grew up in a family of actors and performers, and the very first thing that popped into my head was the Costume Shop. I just thought there may be some time when a Vassar production has a need for this ridiculousness, or that it could be disassembled and somehow used in some fashion by the costume shop to produce something that they need that has all this frill and bling. So I didn't even hesitate. I was doing a purge of all kinds of things in my life, and that was one of the things that went. 0:07:43.7 Emily: Great. This is actually going back a little bit, a question I just thought of--why did you choose to get married in the winter? And the date and time and place and everything, do you remember? Willa: You know, I'm trying to remember now why, I think it had to do with sort of the logistics of when people were available, and it seemed to do it around the holidays was a time when just logistic. My mom was a broadway actress, and she was in production and she only had a few days off, and it was right around Christmas, and we got married--it was a Monday night, which was really weird. But theaters are dark on Mondays, and so I in part picked it because I wanted my mom to be there...and I'm pretty sure--I'd have to go back and look at the calendar--but I swear to god it was a monday night. So it was very tactical in nature and had nothing to do with any romance about the season or any particular desire to have a winter wedding opposed to another time in the year. It was much more pragmatic--when could I get the people who we felt were important to us in the same place at the same time, and two days after christmas, or however many--4 days after christmas--seemed to be the time. 0:09:08.2 Emily: Was Alumnae House sort of the same--picking this location--sort of the same thing? Willa: Well you know, I've worked in this building for twenty years, and as you know I'm an alum, and this building has always held a very special place in my heart, but it was also a pragmatic decision. The space was right here--it was beautiful, I could afford the rental because my ex-husband and I paid for everything ourselves. This was not...we were both older. I was 30 or 29 and he was 33, and it just wasn't something being financed by parents and all of that, so it just made sense. Though it was a little incestuous to get married in the building where I worked and then I spend a huge amount of my time here because of alumni events. So we got married in the living room. We had dinner in the dining room, then we had dancing back in the living room, and so it felt almost very much like all of the events I had ever staffed, except this time it was just my party. But the thing that made it extra special was that we really did have the entire building to ourselves. Tthere were no other guests here, and so I remember my neice--my ex-husband's neice--was two years old at the time, and she came running across the living room in her little party dress and she said ‘I want to live in a big house!’ So she was very enamored with it, and it's just a beautiful space, and it was all adorned for the holidays, so it had all the decorations...there was very little that I had to do to make it feel like home. 0:10:52.2 Emily: That's great. If you're comfortable talking about this--because you totally don't have to be-- how did you meet the groom? Willa: We met through the local Blues Jam- there's been a very active community of blues musicians through the Hudson Valley for many decades. We happen to live in a place where there's extraordinary talent, and he was a drummer, and had been part of the house band at the local blues jam, and actually a member of the Vassar faculty in the math department, and said to me ‘There's this jam’ and he knew that I was a singer, and he said ‘You should go check it out,’ because I was looking for an outlet, and I really didn't know of anything locally at the time. So I performed onstage with my ex-husband for three months before we were ever introduced, because the nature of the jam is that there's a house band, and players get up and go down, and somebody runs it. So they pick you know, the singer-- ‘You get up here, bass player, you come up, this one.’ So, but the drummer was always pretty stable, so he was in the background. so after about three months, this professor in the math department, who doesn't work here anymore, introduced me to Sean, and said ‘Willa this is Sean, Sean this is Willa,’ and we started talking, and we just became friends, and it was a very fast sort of acceleration. We met, 6 months later we moved in together, 6 months later we were engaged, 6 months later we were married. And ten years later we were divorced. 0:12:36.4 Emily: Do you remember around the time of your wedding how important was it to you to get married--was there pressure to be married? Willa: You know, that's an interesting question. I think that there was internal fantasy associated with a time clock that so many of my...I watched this happen with so many young women, and I went through it myself, of not having the confidence or the sense of self to determine who you are or who you want to be in your life and instead basing some sort of fantasy trajectory on needing to be married by a certain time, needing to produce children by a certain time, needing to own a home or have the sort of material goods that the American cultural standards set. I grew up as the child of baby-boomers who were war babies and there was always this sort of barbie generation, cinderella generation, of girls. I was born in the late 60s and I grew up and came of age in the 70s and 80s, and there was very much this feeling of...I was the last of all of my friends to get married, and I had kids way later than all of them, and I just had a very different trajectory. My trajectory to Vassar was different. I was not here as a traditional age student, I came in three years older than the seniors when I got here, and so I felt behind, and I felt that my life hadn't gone the way that I thought it was going to, and I put some pressure on myself that... you know...here was this person and he was a decent guy, and he asked, so I said yes. And it wasn't because it was right, or because I was in love with him, or because of anything other than ‘This is what I'm supposed to do now’ and here's this person and he said ‘Hey you want to?’ and I said ‘Okay’ and then we just went into logistics mode. It was like event planning mode for ten years: now we're gonna get married; now we're gonna buy our house; now we're gonna have kids; now we're gonna do this...and we just...after checking everything off the to-do list of life, found that I was terribly unhappy. 0:15:07.7 Emily: Has your view of marriage changed since then, I'm guessing? Willa: Yes. I don't know, I definitely having been through what I would say was a marriage to the wrong person, though he's not a bad person. We just were not the right people for each other--that marriage was much more of a business transaction than I thought. I had been stuck in a lot of fantasy about love equaling marriage, and I think for the rare married couple that's true, because they were self aware enough about their needs and wants and that they actually really found their life partners and soul mates and friends and whatever and made the decisions to get married for the right reasons, not out of some sort of fantasy or sense of timing or biological clock ticking or any of the rest of that. But now I definitely see marriage as much more of a legal relationship and I hope there will be a time in my life again when I might view it differently, that I might meet or be with someone who made it more about wanting to make a commitment to be with someone because you love them and because they're the right person to be with, not because they asked and you said yes. So I would tell you: Don't rush to do anything! Know who you are, stand by yourself! (laughing) 0:16:57.9 Emily: Good advice. Completely different topic: do you remember what the groom wore to the wedding? Willa: Yes! My ex-husband and I were the greatest sight-gag known to man. I'm 5'9", and I'm not a small woman, and my ex-husband was 5'2" and weighed about 100 pounds. So there were no tuxedos that fit him. Nonetheless, he went and he rented a grey tux, and it hung off of him like a sack, and it was kind of hilarious actually. But you know he looked good, and he cleaned up as well as he could, but he was not tailored by any stretch of the imagination. So it was sort of funny...I look at the wedding pictures now, we took a wonderful photograph actually, the photographer stood on the stairs downstairs and the entire wedding party, everybody who was here, crowded in front of the fireplace in the lobby (and if you have any interest in seeing the picture I could show you) and everybody was just packed together, and seated, and so the whole of the experience was captured in this photograph...and it was really fun, actually, I like the picture. But the tux..this ridiculous sort of senior prom level awful gray tux that was way too big, is what he was wearing. 0:18:50.1 Emily: I guess my last question is if you could tell me a little more about yourself- obviously you went to Vassar, but you said you went there later..? Willa: I, well, I was--very condensed history--I was born in New York, both of my parents are from New York, and as a baby my family moved out to Colorado so I grew up in Denver. But after high school, my parents had divorced, and my mother returned to New York as an actress, that's where she really wanted to be, and my father and his wife stayed out in Colorado. But I chose to come out to New York after I graduated from high school, and I began working full time as a secretary in New York City for a non profit association. I was going to music school at night at a commercial music school learning how to be a jingle singer, because I thought perhaps that's what I wanted to do. I was a singer, and I wanted to use that school to make a profession, but I was a big chicken and I did not have courage to really put myself out there in that way. So my mom one day said to me ‘You know, you need to go to college. There's a community college down the road, so go, get out of here.’ So I went to LaGuardia community college in Queens, and I began my part-time evening coursework there, and over the course of 5 years from age 18 to 23 I was in the city working full time during the day and going to school at night. In 1989, one of my faculty members at LaGuardia told me about a program at Vassar called 'Exploring Transfer', and I had never heard of Vassar, which was sort of the irony. I later went back to visit my father in Denver and right across the street from the road we lived on was Vassar Road and it intersected with Yale Drive which was down the street from Harvard Way. And I just...it was not part of my consciousness. As a kid, colleges were...I had certainly heard of Yale and Harvard, but it had never occurred to me that this whole neighborhood was structured around you know Bowdoin Path and Bates Circle, and none of that was on my radar at all. So it sort of cracked me up years later... So this professor said, you know ‘You're doing really well here at LaGuardia, and we've been asked to select our best students to be applicants to this program up at Vassar, which is...’ he didn't really know much about Vassar either, because he said it was some Ivy League school in New England, which was sort of funny. But anyway, I applied to the Exploring Transfer program, and I was not accepted, and I was pretty depressed about that because I got really excited about the possibility of going away to a college and having an experience that I never thought would be in my lexicon of experiences. So I went back to work, and I was kinda bummed out about it and thought ‘Well, I'll just finish college at community college and go be a secretary and do my thing.’ So one day the phone rang and it was Vassar, and they said somebody couldn't come to the program, and I was the first person on the waiting list, and did I want to come? And I was like, ‘Oh my god, yeah, totally.’ I had no idea how I was gonna do it, but I said yes, and hung up the phone, and went ‘Oh my god, I have a job, I have an apartment, how am I going to do this?’ Because the Exploring Transfer program is a 5 week intensive study residential program over the summer that happens here at the college, so it was not a commuter situation. I had to commit to being here. So I went to my boss, and I said ‘I have this opportunity, and I'd really love to have a leave of absence where I can come back to my job, but if you're not willing to let me do that I'm gonna quit, because this is important enough to me to have this opportunity that I was to do it.’ He said ‘Yes,’ which was wonderful, and my father agreed to pay my rent for one month in my apartment in the city so I could come here, and it changed my life. I was here with 65 students aged 18-60ish who were...actually it was 59 students now I think of it...who were a variety of walks of life, and I don't know if you know anything about the Exploring Transfer program, but it's targeted to nontraditional populations who are talented at the community college level, but who might not otherwise be considering a four year educational--certainly not a residential four year experience. It was just extraordinary. At that point I decided I had to come to Vassar. I didn't apply anywhere else. I applied to Vassar, and Vassar was far less selective back in those days. It used to admit more than 50% of its applicant pool, and because the Exploring Transfer program was very early--I was in the fourth year of the program, it started in 1985--more Exploring Transfer (or ET as we call ourselves) students were admitted, so I got in and I never looked back. I finished my degree here in '92, and left for about six months after graduation, and the job market was really bad and there was a job at the magazine as a photographer or writer and editor, and I fought and I got it and I've been here ever since. 0:24:35.8 Emily: That's great, that's a fantastic Vassar story. So is there anything else you'd like to tell me about your life, your wedding, your marriage, anything, your dress? Willa: You know, when I look at pictures of the dress, and when the exhibit goes up I suspect I'm gonna want to come and stand in front of it and touch it and look at it, or at least look at it because you don't want people touching these things now, I'm not sure how I'm gonna feel about it, to be honest. I feel like that dress represents a chapter of my life that is long behind me, because even though the marriage isn't that long behind me--The dress is decades ago. I was in such a different place in my life at that time...it wasn't authentic, and I guess that is, more than anything else, what that dress represents to me. It's a time in my life that was not authentic. I wasn't true to myself. I didn't yet know who I was, and that dress was trying on something that I wasn't. So there's a little bit of sadness that's associated with it, and yet there's also satisfaction at knowing that somehow it is preserved and useful in some other way, that it's not in vain, if you will, that the dress exists. It had a part of my life and now it can go on and have a life of its own that might be useful in some way. 0:26:44.4 Emily: That's all the questions I have, thank you so much for talking with me. Willa: You're welcome, thank you. 0:26:49.3 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Emily Goddard Extent The size or duration of the resource. 26 minutes, 49 seconds 0:26:49 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context Willa_McCarthy_Interview_Revised.mp3 Title A name given to the resource Oral History Interview with Willa McCarthy Description An account of the resource An interview with Willa McCarthy, Vassar Class of 1992, on May 3rd, 2013 about the dress she wore to her wedding on December 29th, 1997, her later divorce, and her views on marriage. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Willa McCarthy Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource May 3rd, 2013, 11:00 AM;2013-05-03T11:00:00-05:00 Relation A related resource VC2003008 For Better and For Worse Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC-EDU/1.0/ Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource mp3 clothing and dress divorce marriage Vassar weddings