Dossier f19 - David, Olive, nee Zeron

File consists of a recording of Olive David. Topics of the conversation include TAPE ONE Lasting friendships made in Queen's women's residences. English and French at Queen's; attendance Ontario College of Education; surplus of teachers in job market, fortunate extension of Brockville Collegiate temporary teaching appointment to fifteen years. Specialist qualification in Phys. Ed at Queen's summer school. Entrance into teaching as part of 'drift' (for want of options) of female graduates into OCE; continuation through utter happiness of Brockville years. Splendid Brockville friendships; community role as co-founder of local Girl Guides. Restless ambition during WWII; resignation from teaching; enrolment in Columbia Univ. summer school (French, Spanish, Abnormal Psychology). Wonderful experience of New York: residence in International House, 'a broadening experience'; cheap daily theatre attendance; discovery of vocational interest through conversation with social worker, Columbia Univ. aptitude test. Enrolment in Univ. of Toronto School of Social Work, 1943-45; position as head of student body, representative on U. of T. students' executive counciI. Former position as editor of apolitical Levana Society section, Queen's Journal; position on Ban Righ Council; non-existence of campus women's movement (1923-25). Warm memories of Prof. Macdonald's Sunday night open houses; student friendships, acquaintance with everyone; successful years of Queen's football team. Student attendance at Morrisburg High School; near certainty of proceeding to university if one entered upper school; farm parents' anxiety that children should be educated; brother's previous attendance at Queen's. Three brilliant male contemporaries sent up to Queen's from Morrisburg High (including Dr. B.W. Sargent of Queen's Physics Dept., member of Chalk River nuclear energy team). Continuing love of family farm. Summer courses in Trois Pistoles, Guelph, Toronto; visit to desolate part of Alaska, opportunity to see how people managed their lives; terrific visit with Queen's grad Margaret White's family in Jamaica. Salary of $2100 per year at time of resignation from teaching, sense of having and enjoying everything. Happy supervision of five YWCA day camps (employed by Queen's grad Eva Coombe, head of Toronto YWCA) during summers at School of Social Work.//Quebec conference on community planning, 1944: insight into fermenting Quebecois problem of cultural self-preservation, liberation from English Canadian and Roman Catholic domination. Executive directorship of Ottawa YWCA (six and a half years); introduction of rotating board memberships, fund-raising cafeteria; inability to maintain managerial aloofness, compulsion to pitch in to activities at all levels. Splendid staff; enjoyment of being integral part of Ottawa community, actively connected with network of social service agencies. Executive directorship of Windsor YW - YMCA (four and a half years) as first female director of joint Association, resignation of three male members in protest (two of whom returned); acceptance, co-operation from male/female board, absence of sexist discrimination. YM - YWCA programmes, staff, counselling and residence services; travellers’ aid department in Ottawa, boardinghouse inspection services in Windsor. Windsor service clubs the Ysmen, Ysmenettes; close connection with Detroit YMCA, YWCA. Resignation, 1956; postponement of European travelling plans, renewal of Ottawa friendships; explanation of Zonta service club organisation. Membership in Red Cross Austrian mission, directing camp for Hungarian refugees en route to Canada; campsite in former army training camp, badly bombed because of proximity to Messerschmidt factory (of 3500 member community, 18 houses remained intact); responsibility for entertaining refugees, largely by encouraging their own exceptional artistic talents.//TAPE TWO Details of refugee camp: flow of money and goods from League of Red Cross; purchase of musical instruments for camp orchestra; kindergarten, wonderfully decorated with mural paintings by camp artists, 'so willing to beautify the place'; absence of language problems, discovery that man communicates in many more ways than by speech alone. Feeling of brotherhood (despite inconvenient lack of privacy, dormitory life); moving expressions of cultural solidarity: heartfelt renditions of Hungarian national anthem, camp-member's valuable poem on valise of Hungarian memories packed to come to Canada. Close of camp; European holiday tour with Red Cross associates. Summer employment in similar camp for unwanted Hungarian refugees denied access to adoptive countries. Year's travel in Europe; unusual fortune in linking up with old friends and new acquaintances. Mistaken identification as Red Cross nurse, receipt of Red Crescent (Red Cross) hospitality, Istanbul; voluntary instruction of much-desired English language instruction classes in return. Stimulating stay in Athens YWCA (active career-training centre for Greek women: 5000 members learning typing, shorthand, embroidery, etc.), acquaintance with fascinating woman historian later visited in Salzburg; chance meeting with old friend in Florence; three­month stay with new friends in Vienna; tour of France and Spain with former Brockville acquaintance encountered in Geneva; Scandinavian tour with American acquaintance, visiting Viennese friend's relations; departure to England, received by family (Margaret White) formerly visited in Jamaica. Return to Canada, 1958. Refusal of job offer to direct Montreal YWCA; executive appointment to Toronto Social Planning Council (Area Councils section) as investigator of community services. //Ten-year employment with Social Planning Council: joint battle with Margaret Campbell to establish children's daycare centres; initiation with church organisations of 'Meals on Wheels' programme; pioneer research into early identification of children's learning problems; study of recreational needs and existing facilities; fruitful cooperation with Public Health nurses (a mine of community information); eye-opening investigation into lives of Toronto's senior citizens. Good staff relations on SPC; retirement just as Toronto citizens were beginning to participate (previous difficulty getting people involved). Unsatisfactory attempt to combine teaching and social work experience as teacher at Richmond Hill school for the emotionally disturbed; resignation after one term, frustrated by inability to reach many violently disturbed children. Blissful appointment as first director of Summer Centre for Seniors (1 000 participants in 1970), exercising SPC contacts and experience; never-failing supply of volunteer-workers; regretful resignation after two years on account of bad knee condition. Support of women's movement objective of equal pay for equal work; recognition of sexual discrimination in society, despite personal experience of complete equality in terms of pay, acceptance by working associates. Personal inability to function unless on equal working terms with superiors and subordinates alike. Tendency of women's lib speakers to hog discussion time in male-and-female public debates; Laura Sabia's humorous control of one man's attempt to make public fun of her. Doubtful success of Royal Commission on the Status of Women in changing men's attitudes to women. Belief in supporting individuals as people, not in their roles as men or women.