Initially, I was troubled by the task of having to “Find
My Place in the History of the University,” as I was unsure as to where
(and exactly how) to begin. I took into account a variety of suggested starting
points, such as beginning by finding someone from my hometown (or if not my
hometown, then perhaps a town demographically similar). However, I was concerned
that even if I pursued a number of different “search paths,” I
would not be able to find anyone quite like me. I thought, although I might
be able to find someone from my hometown, or someone who went to my high school,
or even someone who was involved in the same campus and/or non-campus organizations,
would holding any of these kinds of “life dimensions” in common
actually result in finding someone like me? I was interested in discovering
a person similar to me on the basis of values, interests, principles, and other
such personal qualities, qualities that more so reflect a similar way of being.
Following our class “field trip” to the
Archives Research Center, I continued my research by accessing the online archival
materials, beginning with the following website: HYPERLINK "http://web.library.uiuc.edu/ahx/slc/" http://web.library.uiuc.edu/ahx/slc/.
After browsing the UI Student Collections link, I returned to the Student Life
and Culture Archival Program homepage and investigated the link entitled New
Projects in the Archives. I first encountered the UI Fraternity Chapter History
Project. However, as I am not a member of the Greek system, I continued to
scroll down the page until I reached the Oral History Project. Within the Oral
History Project section, there was a box titled Meet Some of the Participants.
I began “meeting the participants” by clicking on a member’s
name and reading about his or her University of Illinois narrative. Many of
the narratives I came across were not congruent to my own University story.
A number of women spoke of their Sorority experiences, including Rush and dances.
However, such experiences are far removed from my own, as I never participated
in Rush and was never a Sorority member. After reading seven people’s
narratives, I was beginning to worry that, again, I would not be able to find
someone that I felt I could relate to, someone who presented a narrative more
akin to my own. However, on the eighth participant entry, I discovered such
a person, Mary Kay Hansen Peer, Class of 1934.
Although in reading about Mary Kay’s experiences
at and perspectives on the University of Illinois I found many parallels to
my own life experiences and views, our narratives as well differed in particular
regards. The remainder of my essay aims to illuminate both the similarities
and differences between our university (and life) (hi)stories. Mary Kay was
born in a small farming community of Illinois1. The image of a small farming
community sharply contrasts with the image of the metropolitan environment in
which I was born. At 8:02 a.m. on April 28, 1982, I was born in St. Joseph’s
hospital located in Chicago. Just before I turned three years old, my family
and I moved to Elmhurst, a western suburb of Chicago. Despite our geographical
agricultural/urban-suburban divide, Mary Kay and I are united in the fact that
we are both only children.
However, I do not imagine that our childhood experiences
as only children are at all comparable, as Mary Kay grew up in a house that
also served as a boarding house for UI students. In an interview conducted on
October 26, 2000, Mary Kay recounted how living in such a house, “was
like growing up with eight brothers… I was only thirteen and I was just
their little sister.” By
contrast, not only was I my parents’ only child, but also I was practically
the only child on our neighborhood block. When my parents, grandma, and I first
moved to Elmhurst, many of the residents were senior citizens, and therefore
there were not many children who lived nearby. I grew up in a house of adults.
Consequently, it was initially difficult for me to interact with other children
in daycare programs or at school.
While Mary Kay and I may have had remarkably dissimilar
experiences as only children, our parents shared a similar dream for our future
ambitions, a dream centering on education. As Mary Kay relays, “From the
time I was born, my mother said, ‘you’re going to college.’ …My
father and mother felt that education was the most important thing for me to
learn.” Similarly,
my parents, from the time I was a little girl to now, stressed the importance
of attaining an academic education. Even as early as grade school, I knew I
had to do my best in school. In high school, I enrolled in pre-ACT courses,
working to increase my chances of earning a higher score so that I might be
accepted into a reputable university.
Though I applied
to a number of colleges and universities, my parents were particularly excited
about my applying to the University of Illinois, as it was an excellent university
and close to home. Even as I am about to earn my bachelor’s degree, my
father encourages me to continue to pursue an academic path by attending graduate
school. My dad’s first job was as a sign-hanger. He now works for the
Chicago Transit Authority as a carpenter. Having worked as a manual laborer
his entire life (and suffered physical consequences for it with back injuries,
cuts, and burns), my father always tells me how he wants a different future
for his daughter, “one
that won’t break the back.”
Though I cannot compare Mary Kay’s or her parents’ financial
dilemmas to mine or my parents’, as my family and I did not have to directly
confront and endure the hardships of the Great Depression, based on Mary Kay’s
personal statements, as well as her biographical data, it appears as though
she and I (and our families) possess similar “economic philosophies.” Mary
Kay worked not only during college, but also throughout high school. She began
working as early as her freshman year in high school, typing people’s
documents for ten cents a page. I also began working in high school but in
my sophomore year because that’s when I turned sixteen and could work
without having to first acquire a work permit. I worked at a local movie theatre
as a concession and box office salesperson, making $5.15 per hour. I remained
with the movie theatre job all throughout high school. At one point, I worked
a restaurant position as a preparatory cook and bakery assistant concurrently
with the cinema position.
As a University of Illinois undergraduate, Mary Kay
worked in the Political Science Department as well as in the Dean of Women’s
office. In my third year of attendance at the University of Illinois (as an
undergraduate), I too started work as a student/University employee. I began
tutoring Anthropology courses for the Office of Minority Student Affairs in
October of 2002 and currently remain an OMSA tutor.
Mary Kay’s parents’ “economic philosophies” are
perhaps exemplified by the following quotation: “One semester I didn’t
make very good grades. My mother said, ‘Mary Katherine, you are capable
of doing far better than that. From now on you are on your own. We no longer
pay your tuition.’” My parents pay my tuition, just as Mary Kay’s
parents did. However, my tuition and boarding is paid for, provided that I
continue to put forth my best effort in all of my academic endeavors. If I
were to perform poorly in school, my parents would perhaps, also like Mary
Kay’s parents, no longer consider paying my tuition to be a wise investment.
Attending again to the particularities of the time
period in which Mary Kay attended University, she states:…you know, she
didn’t
know how to type but she knit beautifully. I didn’t know how to knit.
That summer I typed all of her term papers and she knit sweaters for me. You
know, there was a give and take. I think this is one of the important things
about the years of the Depression and those early years was the give and take
between students, between house mothers, and I think you lose that in the massiveness
of it today.
Though Mary Kay relates her and her fellow community
member’s “give
and take” mentality to their having had to experience life in the time
of the Great Depression, the value placed on notions of reciprocity is what
remains most prominent and poignant in my mind. I consider reciprocity to be
one of my foundational and primary values. My family raised me to live my life
according to the golden rule, “Treat others as you would like to be treated.” However,
my parents and grandma have always encouraged a kind of “altruistic generosity,” if
you will, and a basic kindness towards all fellow human beings. While such
values perhaps sound, or have become, clichéd, I nevertheless do attempt
to live my life according to such principles.
Although as previously discussed, my childhood living
experience as an only child differed radically from Mary Kay’s, our university
residency experiences appear to have held more in common. Mary Kay lived in
her mother’s
all female boarding house. In her biographical entry it states, “Her fellow
house mates became life long friends with whom she continues to keep in touch.” As
a freshman, I lived in the Florida Avenue Residence Halls. At the time, FAR
consisted of two main buildings joined by a central hallway, lounge, and dining
room area. On the left hand side of the building was Trelease hall, and on
the right hand side was Oglesby (if facing the building from across the street
at PAR). Only females were permitted to live in Trelease, while males had to
live in Oglesby. (A girl could not even go to the “boy floors” unless
accompanied by a male escort and vice versa). Though my roommate and I were
at first strangers, we ended up becoming best friends, and the two of us later
became best friends with another girl who lived down the hall. Like Mary Kay,
I built lasting friendships with the girls I shared residency with. The good
friends I made my freshman year have remained my good friends through today.
Also, I was yet again able to relate to Mary Kay, as
I sympathized with her story of how her mother encouraged her to join a sorority
but Mary Kay resisted the idea by telling her mom, “I can’t afford
to belong to a sorority, I much prefer studying alone.” Though I was never
pressured by my mother to join a sorority, I did feel pressure from some of
my fellow students. People would say, “Everyone here is Greek.” However,
the social opportunities, activities, and obligations of a sorority life never
appealed to me. I am more of a solitary person and, as such, can appreciate
Mary Kay’s
preference for studying alone and etcetera.
I’d like to close my discussion about the convergences
and divergences of mine and Mary Kay’s university and life narratives
by reflecting on a statement Mary Kay made in the October 2000 interview: “…now
young women should be very, very grateful that anything they want to be, they
can be.” The idea of no limits, of no restrictions on the possibilities
of what one can become in his or her lifetime, which resonates throughout Mary
Kay’s declaration, is a belief that enables me to continue moving forward
everyday of my life, a belief that provides me with hope and ambition to pursue
and conquer my life aspirations.
1 All bibliographic information on Mary Kay Hansen Peer, as well as her personal commentary, was taken from the following University of Illinois archival website: HYPERLINK "http://web.library.uiuc.edu/ahx/slc/oralhist/oralhist1.html" http://web.library.uiuc.edu/ahx/slc/oralhist/oralhist1.html.