Dossier f71 - Penwarden, May B., nee Hiscock

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