Dossier f20 - Dodd, M. Kathleen, nee Hewitt

File consists of a recording of Kathleen Dodd. Topics of the conversation include Queen's extramural course work compared with regular study: difficulty settling down to books while teaching and enjoying Orillia social life. Farmer parents' view that higher education for marriageable women was a waste; willingness to send sons (who didn't wish to go) to university, not daughter (who did). Decision to teach; enrolment Peterborough Normal School. Teacher surplus, posting to one-room school near Burkes Falls; poverty of English-speaking community (dependence on one employer throughout Depression) compared with nearby Finns. Independence of Finnish, English communities: Finns' enjoyment of sauna, baths, skiing, Finnish dance hall; good health, clothing of Finnish children; periodic failure of some English children to attend school for want of shoes, winter clothing. Subject's happy participation in Finnish activities. Finns' progressive quality, ability to invent a living, exploit tourism trade; Finnish intellectual capacity, willingness to learn English from children's primers; lack of jealous tension between Finnish, English communities. Residence with local schoolmaster's family; subject's anaemia, low blood pressure brought on by poor diet (no meat, few eggs; some cow's milk before cow went dry). School board's difficulty retaining a teacher even for a year; subject's liking for community, ability to overcome drawbacks of isolation, decision to finish year despite concerned father's offer to pay her to stay home. Stove-heated log schoolhouse: 'I wore a ski suit all winter because it was so cold in there.' Economic security throughout Depression, as teenager living with family near Orillia; progression of most high school friends to university; parents' refusal, de­ spite affluence and phone call from high school principal, to support subject through university. Freshman year at Queen's (1938-9) on self-earned funds; student intimations of impending war; inhuman attitude of Meds date, thinking war would provide him with good training opportunities. Enjoyable summer job at Manoir Richelieu (CPR hotel on St. Lawrence); inabiIity to return to Queen's for lack of funds; scruples about pressuring parents for funds in view of younger siblings' needs. Teaching position in Muskoka; marriage; husband's enIistment, absence at training camps; army transfer to BC. Rejection by BC school board of subject's permanent Ontario 1st-class teaching certificate; working position with Royal Bank (1941-2). BC fear of Japanese invasion; city blackouts, ferry travel without lights; evacuated buildings in Vancouver's east Hastings area owned by Japanese people sent to internment camps; effect on lumber industry of loss of Japanese labour; energy crisis of homes adapted to sawdust fuel, now dependent on trickling supply of coal. Greater awareness of scarcity of goods during WWII than during Depression (probably because of increased awareness as adult consumer); lack of political awareness. Eastern Canadian origins of many BC acquaintances; sense of mountains as barrier between self and Ontario 'home'; geography as an explanation of BC sense of separate identity. Armistice Day celebration in local Ontario dance pavilion. Lack of involvement in women's war-support activities (Red Cross, etc.) because of regular employment, frequent transfers. Changeover to female staff in Vancouver bank during WWII; continuation of enlisted male employees' pay, regular promotions; 'transient' nature of female employees, many in tow of enlisted husbands. Sense of women's growing independence, emergence to the social forefront; subject as university graduate, independent wage-earner, despite parental efforts at repressive role-dictation. Changes in subject's domestic role: teaching work, combined with full domestic responsibilities after husband's army discharge; period raising family; domestic chores as shared family responsibility following re-entry into teaching workforce. Reasons for re­-entry into workforce; teaching work as a social alternative to narrow-minded local women's institute. Difficulty of separation from newlywed husband during WWII years; kindness shown by parents' generation to young wives. Acquaintance with Jewish student at Queen's; unawareness of campus anti-Semitism. Enjoyment of both academic and social life at Queen's; academic success, due to organisational abilities rather than diligence; participation in sports (swimming, skating, badminton). //Childhood connection with Chalmers United Church, CGIT fellowship; affiliation with husband's Presbyterian church after marriage. Decision not to return to Queen's after freshman year : feeling that nothing would be the same during war years. 'Rather brilliant' Prof. Humphrey, sensationalist performer of risky psychological experiments; insight gained from enthusiastic History Prof. Harrison, early prophet of Quebec's Silent Revolution.