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>> This is a living history interview with Emily born Grigsby class of 1975 conducted by Marilyn summers on February the 73 year 2004 we are at her home in Atlanta Georgia and the subject of our interview today is her life in general her experiences at Georgia Tech Emilie and you said I may call you that Liza delight to be here with you outside it's great crabby but inside is happy and colorful we're delighted to share with you this morning you would make an exhibit or Pepe thank you for saying that there's so much color everywhere you're an amazing artist and had an amazing life and ranges to hear about it so let's start with where you were born I was born in Lexington Kentucky but my father was an attorney he founded the University of Kentucky law school and he decided he wanted to go back to his small hometown in the winter in Kentucky so we had they brought me back to I went and my mother when he was still a baby when I was still an infant and my mother that time was coming down with tuberculosis at the time she gave birth to what year was so that was $22.00 in 1900 and they were already aware something was wrong they knew something was wrong so they took me away from her but.

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She then was not put to bed until I was 7 years old and she stayed in the Senate or him for 66 years and that when I was 13 of tuberculosis of tubercular we just didn't have the treatment for it at that time no drugs nothing but food and fresh air and my brother had it too and they put him on a sleeping porch and he would wake up with snow all over him but they wanted him to have fresh air that was the key Katie and my mother used to bright poetry about the potatoes that they would bring her trying to fatten our up and then when they brought us brought them both home after 3 years and my father had a Jersey cow brought.

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That our blind colored man could milk and the cream was so thick you could turn the pitcher upside down and it wouldn't pour and it was all an effort toward making your mother well yes and your brother and was he older or younger than you he was 11 years older There's quite a difference but he did recuperate and just dead recently So he was a happy ending for him that yes I did you have any other brothers and sister no one more sister before you and to you she was 9 years older and she was my surrogate mother and was yes of course had a son my report card and.

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She tended to you right well she didn't like it but she did and she was really wonderful So you were like almost an only child in that you were so much younger than your brother and sister so they don't Did I really doubt so do you have a lot of memory of your mother I wish yes and yes I can remember going to the movie and racing home so afraid that she would be dead when I got there what a happy thing to live playing but then I remember going to the circus and I wanted to bring her something and for the 1st time I saw them making cotton candy.

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Spin it on a cone so just before we left about a cone of cotton candy and raced home with it to my mother but when I got home there was nothing left but comb the awful all the jogger did evacuate but she was too sick to be so really you saw her suffering and recognize as an early age that she would not longest That's a heavy burden or just wasn't there and how did your dad cope with that well my father had a devastating stroke when I was 4 so he became unable to speak or talk and a wonderful neighbor lady kept me during the day.

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But my mother worked so hard to bring him back and she breathed and brought him to Georgia to see if they could help him in the same place that Roosevelt went so he went to Warm Springs went to Warm Springs and they said no they could never help him he would never speak again but he used to go to the front porch he would limp to the front porch and say he at 000 pulling his vocal chords together and he became again that wonderful oratorio that he was so he taught him so he taught himself to speak again and he introduced Alvin Barkley who was running for vice president all over the state of Kentucky and he was again he was an amazing man you were you to see that it was but he was so interested in the tobacco crop and the farmers because they were starving and course I came along a little after the terrible well that I was born in 22 and the Christ was in 29 right so I went through all that with him but he never let me know that things were hard so as far as you are concerned it wasn't a bad time in year as far as getting food and no shelter and everything you were brought up with in a comfortable invite I was but you had to become aware of an early age that things were tough I mean having both of your parents and health crisis is pretty amazing and we lost them both very very young no he lived to build 84 did he really and a lyric writing all that he he read me he didn't just give me up and used to say to me well now.

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You cannot go to a movie on Sunday and I would say Well Daddy I'm not working and he'd say but you're encouraging somebody else to work well but if I get that we should let me go to the movie on Sunday where will these a fun thing for you it just serves as an outlet.

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That I could I could watch Jeanette McDonald singing thinking that I was singing so I think that inspired me to marry a magic fairy met with in the movies when did you realize that you could say my mother realized it and she used to have me go in the living room and sang and.

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Never into music well she had a lady come and play she the lady was really she did her best but she was not a professional and what would you saying Were you already interest in classical No No What would you say in just any just little nothing learned that she would bring me this is not popular music or classical just little funny things and did you ever have any formal training at silence college I had a singing teacher who made the right things down instead of singing so that was a waste of time.

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Yes that was what was safe and then when I want to vent it will be choral director realized I could sing and used to have me sing solos and let's back up before we go to college and I write about where did you go to grade school I went to grade school annoyance in Kentucky until I got ready to be a senior then my father decided he didn't like a boy I was going with so he sent me to n.d. Richmond Indiana to live with my.

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Aunt and Uncle who were wonderful to me so I spent my senior year of high school in Richmond Indiana where you a good student know particularly where you and involve students acted I was everything I was in the a good student in the 1st few grades and then I there were too many other things to think about I have a feeling you were very social even other way had lots of other good things to do right well I I was not a whiz I was never 5 a look Apple or anything like that but it was a great outlet for you to have friends around him things to do because you were probably always looking for distraction from all the sadness in your life that and then I could lose myself in reading I could just read and not even hear my father calling me so you were an avid reader from early on.

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When it came time we had your senior year in a school you had just come to so it was a little bit of a trauma too isn't it it was our friends behind but they made fun of me with my southern accent and so did they That's right because you were Kentucky girl up north in the Midwest more speed but they were it was a nice experience so you graduated from high school knowing you would go to college yeah your father made that clear he did and he sent me to a girls' school called Solon's college in Bristol Virginia and it was up on a hill and we used to slide down on sleighs and so you had a garbage top what I don't know do whatever would have a handy was a fun time there did you have enjoy it yes except the teachers were pretty sure we had a dean who was I thought this the couple and he used to call us in.

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Turn his back to us and say start talking and he would have given us to play ages of typewritten nothing and say start talking and we were supposed to say the whole 2 pages you mean memorize memorize that's boring and then when I want to I was in the acapella choir and I wanted to go horseback riding to a breakfast and they said you do that you'll be kicked out of the choir so they did it I went horseback riding cause that was part of my act equitation course so in a way I had some crazy affair that was that was a wild Taliban experience and it will stay there for how long one year when it was a boarding school of course you were living there too so at the end of that year did you then I went to Baghdad or going home I went back home and had not 1st date with a young wonderful man and we went to the river just and we were going to go out on a boat but if we were with an older couple on this older man started rocking the boat and my friend the young man was pitched out of the boat and so was I.

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And into the river into the river right in the middle of the river and I asked why I'm back to the boat and I head Jimmy's coat with me and I held it against me but we couldn't have a fun Jimmy but no man rescued me and took me to the shore and poured whiskey down the neck and and you then I was begging to go find Jimmy we have to fix and so they found it put me on a boat a boat and we went.

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Around calling him but to no avail and I found I found his body the next day with a very bad bruise on his head where I guess the boat had hit him and knocked him out so he can stay so I mourned all and course you did what a trauma for you down there then I went to Vanderbilt for 2 years in the did your dad approved of you going off to college and yes he did but you had more pain in your life in motion pictures do that's amazing to have to live with all of that but I had a good life I was never hungry I was beloved my mother showed me creativity because she was composing poetry she had painted She was never able to teach me the painting or the how to be a poet but she tried and she used to when I would come home and say the teacher has given me an assignment to write an essay so many words long and a point i'm so many words and a story so many words she found I wrote a point to the teacher and said What would what would you do if you were told to write so many words and you had a big long story to tell so she tried to help me and tried to help me with math and my father used to when I would come down to breakfast what 7 times 12 was 8 times for added dreaded to get up they were drilling you all the time I tried I work up to speed and thank goodness for them.

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When you went to Vanderbilt was just for general degree that serve our I was majoring in psychology but I college you know what what drew you to that and I don't know I guess it was just wanting to learn about people but not pursuing your voice or your art Well you don't know you could drive or are no pain at that now but I was in the acapella choir and.

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The my favorite course was Chaucer because the professor was so good and he made me live it but the other professors were they just accepted women sort of like Georgia Tech they only put up with this Isn't it a funny thing about what a difference a good professor makes Teacher makes all the difference and it can make anything come to life if they have a passion for it so did that the 2 years you spent at Vanderbilt go along fairly smoothly more typical for you well yes I met my husband to be and well that was pretty significant Yes And then my roommate got the kissing disease I call it infectious Manu mononucleosis and she had to leave toward the end of the year and then I got it when our at that time we were still having formal dinners in the dining room and when our house mother came I started to get up but I couldn't get up I couldn't read and I had none of those so I had to quit than to build on my fiance drove me home and I married him that summer now was home Atlanta by this time you know where was home was still I want to only take out of the husky Ok so we were stuck there so Paul you're Paul your husband was from that area too he was with record deck and which was a part of Eastman Kodak and he was inducted into the Navy so after we married he was sent to Dartmouth to become a naval officer what year was that in there that I married in 420 right in the height of everything right in the war so that's pretty scary you were only 20 years old and I was newly married and.

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And sick. Recovery he said we're going to have to marry or I'll carry you down the aisle if you can't walk said it did you manage to walk I walked and I'm up my father bless his heart walked without his cane to give me away very significant very very thin and you were wearing your mother's wedding dress and it said that her family isn't that amazing it's a beautiful dress so there was a happy occasion Hoda squad with the dogs in a small train and the lovely lovely So you look back at that day even though it was a traumatic time it was a wonderful Cajun free ride and what happened to that young couple where did they go.

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We went to Dartmouth the husband was told not to bring his wife and not to bring his car so he brought both. And I stayed in the. Old Hotel they had in. And as long as they would let me in then I met a woman who had a job over a shop and she heard I was looking for a place and she said Well come on home with me so I did for a little while but I had met at the same time this woman who was running goodies camp for girls and she needed an equitation teacher and I said well I can read and I can teach So she hired me and I had never been to camp I had never saddled my own horses and they would puff up and those so the saddle wouldn't fit and I would have to when I want to said I Yes little you taking out our horses My goodness only going to say but that was very creative to find a job when you had to keep yourself busy and and let your young husband do what he had to do was he had darkness to study he was he became a naval officer there yeah for 2 or 3 months and then he was sent to Washington for short time and became the Navy.

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First they mail officer that was victory mail people don't even know what it is anymore but the Records Act had discovered a way to put on tape checks where they could be even reversed and pictured with the endorsement on the back. So he knew how to put letters on tape which is what he wanted at the South Pacific for 3 and a half use an established the mail stations as soon as the Marines would hit these Allan's he would go in and establish a female station and and this was the way they communicated with their families right the way the letters were photographed on tape in the United States then sent a plane on a little roll of tape this big and my husband and his crew would develop these letters again and get them to the man to man they kept every man in the Navy and the green corps in the whole Pacific including Australia New Zealand.

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And get the mail out to them without having to lug the sacks and sacks of mail so this was a really wonderful way to expedite communicate and love them but they had no computers so they had to keep the whole fleet fleet records but with 2 by 4 cards that his men typed My so it was an amazing it was labor intensive but very effective right Mary affect us and all that time that he was gone over there where were you were you still taking equitation No I was I was living in Salmon Cisco and how did you wind up out there well I followed him because he was going overseas so I followed him to Sam Cisco Ok knowing I had one or you of college and I thought I would go to Stanford but they were in the middle of a term and they suggested Mills College which I had never heard of but it was the most wonderful **** up ever been to I learned more in one year they are than I did and all of that and built Sol and now you were ready to learn yet your husband was away you were more more more mature and you were ready to settle down that was your job to learn that was right and to get your degree and so I had their act again I majored in psychology and they offered me a fellowship but I did not accept it which was a very silly thing to do but anyway you can never 2nd guess something like that you know but something happened that you developed a passion for music Well I thought it would be great to go have a ballet lessons so I went to the Christianson School of Ballet and I heard this glorious group of voices singing and I said What is that and I said that's hurt her but up close group that meant nothing to me but as I left and somebody said there.

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He is there skirt her but I look so like a brazen nut I went up to him and I said I think your group is wonderful and I'd like to join that if possible and he said what voice are you and I said I'm a soprano. He said will come to the opera house to the stage door Monday night and I'll hear you just like that you could I like this and I have went to the stage door and met him and he said what Arias didn't you know I don't know any Well what can you sing via So I sang Vallely of for him and then he had me read the score put ya she had never seen a tie in before so I'm sure a murdered but he said well I have all my Sopranos but I'm going to get you in so I was with I was the baby of the 7 disco opera company in the chorus sang 3 years and without any formal training in our you just really were acclimated into that group that's an amazing thing right there and we traveled to Los Angeles for a week and Sacramento and places and so it was a wonderful experience big s'posed all these divas and opera singers that were the greatest It was I think better than the Met and you were actually learning every minute you were with them yes you had to learn all these scores and write or not this music and 7th heaven for you it was it was a wonderful experience and the 1st opera sang in was.

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Hence Felicity again even the 1st opera was. Something that I was sated on the stage and knelt at the feet of these wonderful singers and when this stage opened there was a scramble tween us in the audience and we couldn't see till they finally opened the scrim and it was a sold out house.

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Samson and Delilah was the name of the opera I'd never seen on grand opera until I was in one but I had a vacancy but I had then to many a lot operas and low level and sensing that up so I had been exposed to some music so this was a wonderful experience to me to turns and looked and saw what you had for an audience and were floored from.

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What you read natural you took to it where you Skinner excited No well I was and I did yes but not scared not really scared of does a lot I would as a stupid question a lot of rehearsal may let me make a statement goes into something like that we had to rehearse all summer long for the opera season and those seasons are sort of reversed in San Francisco so my husband came back after a year and I was having to take the comprehensive exams at MIL's college 4 years of comprehensive exams I had about 18 balls under my arm I was singing with the same Osisko opera company I had plantar warts on my feet for a rest at the same time after a very peak and he came in and it couldn't have been at a worse attack so I've finished singing at that midnight then we went over to the officers club in the Fairmont Hotel.

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And then when we went back to the hotel I was in such pain with the balls under my arm that he got a solid ring iron and used wet towels under my arm and held that sucker. And it felt wonderful My well he was about the age of on that but he surprised to come home to an opera star wife I think so that a star would anyway a performance Yes but he didn't know that that's what he had in you so and then he came back that one time and one more other time and I said don't come back until you can study and family he did come back after the war and and you had been performing that whole time yes so it is really that was still in the middle in that toward the end of the opera season and I told the maestro that I would like to get out of my contract because my husband was returned and he said you leave us and I will back blackball you for every opera company in the world because our last hour and your hand out so of course I didn't leave but I came back to Atlanta no opera company no.

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Symphony and people were so smug and they would say I have I don't care to meet new people I have all the friends I won't know if somebody said that several people my but anyway they had to live were supposed to be hospitality here it was intoxicated Bless your heart well why did you come to Atlanta it was that when I was closed I had a job with record deck and they when he came back he thought he would stay with them but they want to send him to sense and idea and he said as far north as I'm going so he resent it and formed southeastern radio parts company with his nephew and they had about 16 outlets but anyway so it was settled down here make the best of it ride and and you did well I got me what you did to create your your world act got into the moonlight opera company and singing small roles than the heavens let loose every night and we would get drenched our costumes were drenched now we shouted line that that was performed at chest a test I am theatre.

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And this would have been what year the late forty's early fifty's was about $4050.00 just after the war then and so it was that time they didn't have those shows that we know of now a chest pain you know that it was after company previous to this did you get good audiences Well yes we had good audiences but the rain would drowned us and you know it would be and we had to they gave up because really Ryan and Atlanta.

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Then we had the we did form opera arts which was a good little opera company got good reviews but people wouldn't come because I said it isn't them that course they poured millions of dollars into them that bring it here. And form no opera company of their own until that time recently and so it was really my heart break but survived yes if you turned your attention to something else that was a typical Emily thing to do is that what happened when the Afrikaans pany folded and you weren't singing anymore what were you doing to entertain yourself well I was still singing but people expected you to get your own accompanist and sing free of charge.

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So it was it was not very good not not the professionalism that you had experience in this so then I decided I would go back to school and Platt at Georgia Tech when I was a senior in high school and they wrote wrote me they weren't accepting women now what made you think of doing that when you were in Kentucky I had a few 1000 who was from Atlanta and somehow Atlanta just seemed like a great place you applied by and I was always interested in sounds and so they wrote me back they wouldn't have female women.

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A little redundant but they let you know in no uncertain terms you were I would not want it yet and I would not be welcome so here we are now it's such almost well many years later you already had a degree what did you do after you gave up singing on a regular basis while I was president of the Atlanta Music Club and we had 3 big series that was a multi-million dollar group but anyway I quit singing when I was president didn't want to present myself I see you felt like a conflict of interest yes so but you help encourage the arts in Atlanta time hopefully and these events that they had 3 times a year they would have raised money for we have an all star series a fellow series and a theater series all of which were.

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Pretty big at the time where would the performance be held at the Civic Center with a Greek e. floors where about everybody who tried to sneak in and couldn't sleep because the court floors just accrete But what a time what a time it was but and so you were focused on these kinds of things and when did you actually start modeling to was at about the same time yes modeled for richest Davison's and how did that 1st come about Emilie how did somebody notice you when asked there was a lady who made gorgeous hats and she asked me to model for her so it started with them after I started out with hats then that went on and I just went down to riches to see if they could use me and they did even though I would appear in fashion shows and in advertisements yes they would take photographs for advertising and then yes but you know and that turned into a go a little thing for you there for a while that was fun fun and.

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Made good friends and we we opened a Davison's we opened we in the Hilton in and at Hilton Head so I sang on models there and where you went to the cloister and stayed there and had shows at the cloister So it was quite it was quite a fun life that it was we're doing fun things and even though you were singing but not not that opera not a serious thing right allowing yourself to enjoy it more or less.

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This went along well into the fifty's What was that Lana like in the fifty's smug was that small towns like small towns bug's smug souls so proud of what they had in their old families didn't want newcomers. This and that just as I'm a thing has it isn't like of course now we're such in France in society or bees going everywhere but this was the old Atlanta that closed and what I was looking for new they had all the friends they needed right shame on them.

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Emilie the music club was a lot of fun did you make friends there and get more involved in Atlanta yes I had lots of friends but we had a manager who go ahead use the music club funds as his own. Home angle even you know these sister's funeral You know you're kidding so I finally went to the board and Fed should we cut our.

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Relationship and life they agreed to but then when I did I had to go tell him and all hell broke loose. And all in Atlanta and the headlines on the newspaper the next morning was music club hit sour note no but we had to sue him for the all star name and I had to go through that court case and my it was not a very plain you were dabbling in the law before you were the law.

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A lot of people sided with him he's if he did that that's all right we want to use musical advantages known as our right how could you possibly rationalize that well it might be crazy thing thing is closed society one of the people you came across during your those days was Albert Coleman Yes who was always involved in the arts also your pass did cross yes we and I sang with his orchestra and with him conducting at the Fox One evening sang Carano May from Rigoletto My and he was.

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I can remember our going to lunch a he loved to eat and he could eat to Jack get excited for the Lee. But he worked hard he was a hard worker and he had a wife who was lovely she was a ballerina. And I knew her pretty well but there I like them both many people attribute the the continuance of Arts in Atlanta to Mr Coleman because he was persistent in keeping the Atlanta pops going and making sure that we did have opportunities and interestingly enough when you interview people from the fifty's and.

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Forty's and fifty's music in even you go back into the twenty's and thirty's the apparat music were very important to Atlantans as part of their culture of their mind the map was everything one of the men at the Met with the Met was like more than one way that it was just a social phenomenon a fad Yeah definitely passed the people there didn't even this into the music they were going to be seen right it was it was kind of just a social phenomenon that was one of those things it was interesting because the Georgia Tech boys got hired to be the super us so they have they're always in that water looking after did so and when I.

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Was Prez on the music club I used to have to go out to the audience and announce what we were going to have and one night the folkloric 0 from Mexico didn't show up so I had to go out and try to calm the audience down we were waiting for them to come so they family went on stage with no costumes but anyway and I got letters from students at Georgia Tech.

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So that was fun I bet it was I bet it was performing at the fact must be a pretty awesome experience it's a big place when you stand on that stage and look up the audience looks very close to yeah I remember from doing tours there it seems like they're right in front of you you know most reach out and you're right to help say that because it's a monumental wonderful theater and we it would have been such a loss to it would and it is certainly a boon to us now I mean it does a trainer a much I think getting the message across to the common folks that the arts really brings cash into the economy is a message that needs to be given definite arts are very important so when not so let's all family backtrack a little bit let's talk about the house the house we're in right now when did you and Paul moved to this house we moved here about 50 years ago and the house was barely started so I got to one day I went to an take place in them and said you don't want to buy a marble columns the universe said well I just might.

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So he took me out so they didn't know who he was so I think. We went out to. A home it was a Coca-Cola home on pasta Lynn where the Mel Kiper Catholic Church is now Yeah and they were taking out marble columns have fallen in the rotunda and so I bought 6 of them in their own poor on the front 2 on the side of our how neat they have another story they have a hit have a little rhythm that's very So you really could put your magic fingers yet all over this face in the mating house it just sprawls into the side of this terrain here and was this studio was added it used to be a porch that was too hot in the summer and too cold in the winter so we added it and at that time it cost more than the House did isn't that but we lived on paved street for 47 years.

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And the ruts were at least 6 feet deep some of the time we couldn't get out of the driveway Anderson dust was horrible so finally we had a wonderful man move across the street who decided he was going to get it paved and so 3 families pay the whole block paid for it but he paid for most of it so we're very grateful to him but you're right in the city but it was like living in the country that right this dirt road terrible but one of our neighbors didn't want it paved of course there's always somebody that doesn't want to handle so you should called up and just bolt him out and I called her up and said that look if you want to blame somebody blame me because I started this years ago and she said well I don't want it paid in us so well I'm sorry but we are I think you'll like it once it's paid you'll be able to get out of your driveway all year round.

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Now once you are settled into the house you still were not painting yet when did you get the idea that you wanted to become a painter. I sort of bumbled into it Sylvia Hensel a good friend of mine said come on and join our art class so I did and that teacher always said you do everything wrong but you come out smelling like a rose because you did your own technique brought up that you fell in love with it and then I guess it was I was starving to paint and I painted fast and I could really you approach with a mouse and I've sold them from $150.00 to $10500.00 wow what a range that is and there I have 4 paintings with the Fidelity Bank some watercolors what used to be say on this bank and then many friends but I used Ben with several.

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Companies but it's just better to keep them on my own I've had 161 person art shows but it is a chore terrible chore to move my paintings to a place and show them have a show and people don't buy much every everything has his downside you like the creation part but you don't like the marketing pride I'm not a terrible marketer that's not really why you do it now you do it to to feed your soul to Fiji's that's true I can tell and when I was young a family had the chance to paint my room to get it painted so I chose a rose color dark at the bottom fading up into a light at the top and then up put Stubbles a blue on the ceiling and slice marks of gold all over the wall it became a monstrosity my brother had it painted over found.

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But it was fun whether it was great and you were happy and. I could tell that would be the case but I've when we 1st built this house everything had to be green in it because Paul thinks anything is great that's green so that for about 30 years my words then I said I'm going to paint what I want so I started painting the living room red and he said it's no easy a thing it is and then family he's gotten so he likes it he likes it well it's a wonderful foil for the for the work that you hang on the walls it's funny paintings look good on this sort of ran under full you to tapping it gallery style everything where there's it's a feast for the eyes and do what I've tried to dabble in all kinds.

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Of used pastel even wax called and caustic and painted in Mexico with all. On the square people walking by and stopping and looking what a great memory that is that was but now let's go back to we are established here in Atlanta you've got this home you're doing a lot of modeling work occasional singing working with organizations civic organizations Whatever possessed you in 1972 to think you wanted to go back to school what were you thinking I was just my husband who's 11 years older than I He was not interested in anything I was doing and I had spent my 1st year in Atlanta playing bridge at this past every minute of it because you couldn't stop if you were winning and you couldn't stop if you were losing it that's terrible if you went No not then you had to go through every game and I would get glazed as would glaze over and as Paul said I would trump is a nice.

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What's not a good thing. So I found I said I'm not going to play bridge and emo or and I just needed some place to pull my brains together so I went down to Georgia State and the president said well why would a woman like you want to come back to school and so he he was quite receptive to that end of that was Ok I want to.

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To a Georgia Tech and they were a little nicer to did you apply in person rather than by mail Ok you live in person and I recall yes that was in 1972. The hippie Well not that the campus was ever really affected by his beer very much there but it was just the tail end of the sign of age and such and I was an outcast because I was so much older than the rest but didn't why did you choose city planning what was on your mind about that I was taking psychology and the head of the sac ology department said you out to get into labor arbitration and we have a good arbitrator at Georgia Tech who taught he was very good that was the best thing about Georgia Tech Well that was very serendipitous that you didn't go there thinking you were going to do that somebody actually directed you to do that all of it I went to the to that professor and he and turn do you never say.

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These colleges Loveland Dr Loveland Ok so he was a positive inside yes and then he suggested I. Get into labor arbitration and also to go into city planning but that head of that department was the pits and if you want is one and I don't mind telling you tell me is name is probably not around it's not a say it Malcolm little ole but he lived up to his name he was so little he didn't he would have me write a paper and he said Choose your subject so I chose airport and I was trying to write about the center g. of airports how they bring in business how they're good and bad parts they're all from the plane does percolate into the ground water.

[00:43:37]
But yet it brings in a lot of employees and but the noise was terrible there was a both sides so I a both sides he just glanced at it over to pick up 11 subject so I chose noise at airports and I got in to Georgia Tech a lot because I wanted to study Noah's And because I'm very sensitive to know what he was not a receptive ever ever he and he found I said.

[00:44:13]
You use that center g word and you'll flunk the course and I said You're joking and he said you try me he said I don't even know what it means and it said what it means sort of gestalt Well I don't know what that means either and I said You mean you don't know what the start maybe well from then on I got C's under him no matter what I didn't know you and I even did a ground testing of they were thinking about putting in airports in politician county so I didn't know is study a day or he didn't support and he was impossible now let's let's talk about when you 1st started school there did you go during the day or did you go to evening day day school Ok so you were just a regular coed now this was a time when there were not a lot of women on the campus right there were some but not there were some but they only tolerated us and if if a woman was asked a question she would be rushed while the boys could take his task police brain together and do anything he wanted to the top but the.

[00:45:25]
Professors just maybe rushed women you really could feel God was definitely at that at tech and at law school both that you so you felt like you're merely tolerated rather than the barest for what you were offering. This did the sitting plenty other than Dr little or Professor little other than he did it seem like a good fit to you Are you comfortable for instance I went with the Georgia Tech students to Russia on out that's of interest and we were introduced as engineers because we were in the Civil Engineering Department at that time and now they call us in the architectural department but all that at the time we were there city planning with any plan was under civil engineering so we went to about 11 of those students went to Russia we were introduced to engineers they are who were wonderful to us and but it was so tough in Russia that they confiscated our diaries any books we had and they were they had 2 of our students who couldn't prove that they had converted their money correctly and I believe if I hadn't surreptitiously given them money not know a.

[00:46:42]
Chit that I had that showed I had converted money they might have been jailed still so it really it was a tough environment to then I was still part of the Cold War times up there in much and we've stayed in hostels and you can take in a hostile with a bunch of kids anda while they were fat women.

[00:47:02]
We were supposedly going to be given our just desserts toward the end we were sent to Sophia They put 5 women in a closet says room home lined with bunk beds and you couldn't even put on your socks because you couldn't get your knee up. But then we had one black girl who was with us and she was our star because people used to go up to her and do this to say if her black would come out because she was incensed and I said Now look you are a star you are they have never seen a black person before so you do you just remember that you are the most represented here you know and she finally got over being mad about it.

[00:47:51]
Was the point to sightsee to learn about City listen to what was the point point was to learn about city planning and we went to a model city. In Norway and so it was a big experience joy that's quite a trip you did Russia and the Scandinavian countries to this and then we went to it was back to Stan and they put us on a plane in Russia and then they gassed the plane in a 125 degree weather and loaded us and then gas the plane then they loaded them the luggage and our young man who was head of our tour literally passed out from the heat my Then when the family took off we were all wringing wet and they went up to 30000 feet and of course we were shivering and I kept saying like it nyet they wouldn't give us an f.n. abscess like it.

[00:49:00]
And net yes family got stood up and said Bring us a blanket and Fatma she brought us this fan and I. That was much shivering news back to Stan lighted and we shivered under the blanket that's what a remembrance that you have but it was quite a trip but we learned a lot how many days where you go we were gone least 3 weeks leave us 3 weeks that's that's an amazing trip and we all had to pay your own way yes but it was a very reasonable but the school made all the arrangement the area and everything but we stayed and did that did the your nemesis professor go to No I don't know this but anyway I had the pleasure of rooming with our gargantuan white woman from Russia who was supposedly our God and I would say would you like to come to United States yet would you like for me to tell you about it yet but anyway we roomed together and we had a day at it to have when we got to spec a stan they said the bathroom work would be closed and there was no water.

[00:50:11]
So we got in our room couldn't go to the bathroom but we were sweating so nobody cared and the next morning we got up and that's out there Lord please let the bathroom be open and it was so finally but then we I looked around and was trying to find a place to brush my teeth and wash my face and these men blackened us and the women too in the same room so we did our evolution within the it but.

[00:50:40]
It was an experience how some of the people of the World live. So u.k. back to Georgia Tech wiser and a little more warm probably all about that very appreciative that for the trip that's a nice experience there and I had they've quit doing that at Tech and I wish they could have continued a lot of exchange programs a lot of stuff yeah broadband and Apple specific after when you came back and forth on the campus every day did you take part in any of the social life or had any observations of what was going on over there well I had a terrible time even though I had a parking sticker hope I couldn't find parking and would get tickets and it was you know what some things never change I think it was just unbelievable today referred to the parking Office's the Gestapo or the center you know I think they are a body fights all the time so even in the seventy's it was a problem and you know where to put the car and yet there you are you have to get to a class right so primarily where were your classes held in the civil engineering building Ok now I'm trying to think how the campus was by set up by the seventy's when you were there the west campus had opened so you were in that old Sylvan what we call the old civil engineering you know building over there as I recall it was and if you were facing the library it would be to the right of that right and over across campus they opened up the student athletic complex in the student services that's in services but student center so they actually the campus has expanded considerably at times so you went to the same place a civil engineer for all your classes and we well know not always but we ate lunch at the student union and that was a new install rather new to them you know put in but the tech might start all over it with they wouldn't accept my Vanderbilt credits or my MIL's college credit so you were taking core classes so I was going back.

[00:52:39]
And taking all these Trigon geometry and I hated them all my word that's what it was very difficult but in a way I found like you managed to get through that pets just amazing and you earned a master's degree. And when you got it it was a master's degree in science you for you it was master's degree in city planning Yes but their records indicate it was architecture correct so they didn't have switch things around and truthfully you were an engineer and so the whole thing is just amazing isn't it did you go for a graduation No I didn't even go you didn't bother walking with that if I had to have the diploma after a few years I have that diploma if you want to say I actually was sure do want to see it you earned it yeah it was a lot of I'm still working on my memoir so I ran across that and I just got it out that really took a lot of stick to it if this persevere it.

[00:53:35]
Was a grind for you that wasn't always fun no but some of it was fun some of it was good some of it was yes. While you were there did you make up your mind then that you were going to take it a step father to go into this labor negotiations and get it well yes I like that and they said in the city planning department that I was too liberal that I couldn't be used as a city planner I was too liberal but I was trying to use participative.

[00:54:04]
City planning where you could meet with the people and see what they wanted and how they would like to do but no that didn't suit them so you were thinking of the building the bridges that need to be built make people understand that due process and they didn't that took conservatives for that I was I was too liberal for them which ever way did you know Mr supporta I did and I liked him very much you guys wife he was quite a character he was and he was a fine artist he was a very fine he could draw and I have I have something that he did that's and then his wife taught friendship alley Asra says and I went there a little bit I understand that if you had lunch with Ike It wouldn't be unusual for him to turn a napkin over make a little drawing for you and pass it on they did their treasures that people yes now did you were having for class no I didn't you didn't you forgot about Liane Athlon No I never did you never had no for class either no and the time flew by well probably didn't fly by for you it does for us we were talking about it but it and actually you were on campus almost 5 years yet to acquire that very right and then what did you do with it what you got from there was I think I was I said I was too liberal so then I decided to go to law school to find out just how liberal you were so that you chose a local law school you would to this Woodrow Wilson which is really just up the street well it was across the street from the Biltmore but it's no longer in existence because Georgia State had took them over and then their great was that our class would be the 1st graduating class but they reneged yet they took our library our money our building.

[00:55:48]
And then refused to honor their agreement so I don't have much use for George just that all of that's kind of an interesting thing that just then changed history there now. You actually started a law school what year after you got a text so it had been made about 1980 Ok but 1980 how many years it take you to get through well it took 3 years and then it took me a while to pass the bar because I would come home and say to Paul why am I doing this this is bad Say would you like about hear about an interesting case no I'm not interested so I had nobody to talk to about a while the students weren't interested in my joining them to study so it was just that rolling that was great that's really what the word is it was just torture you had people saying our personal lives people say Did you enjoy Law School No I didn't.

[00:56:43]
We can count on you for an honest answer but it was taking you toward something that you really did enjoy doing and I was a I learned a lot and I do enjoy arbitration and mediation and soon as a pass the bar I got into New York Stock Exchange arbitration which is banding But if you do in other words securities arbitration is banding unless the arbitrator has committed fraud or something like that now you do you advertise no you don't but they did so someone contacted you remember your 1st case I mean like how did somebody I know you tagging them about 1st case with the New York Stock Exchange and I was with 2 old gentleman as arbitrators we had a woman who had been taken back.

[00:57:34]
A broker for $3000000.00. And they said plus she acted like Marilyn Monroe I said look we're arbitrating We're not here to tell what she did or didn't do except for the case that she arbiter of Achieve bought stocks from and how she was treated but they they voted just to.

[00:58:02]
Go the other way and rule against her so and that's one of the few times of dissent and so how does this work and I betrayed her studies both sides of the issue and then brings an opinion to the court just like a judge just Ok and they don't have to honor that they can take it or they don't take no they and and securities they it it is binding which means they have to honor and Ok but if for instance arbitrated father Cobb County arbitration and that was not bending which meant they could go back to court as if it were in case the noble as if it were a new case so in the so people have to come look for you you have hired but you don't advertise I don't advertise those word of mouth somebody has to yes and.

[00:58:53]
You take the case on a case by case basis if you feel like being involved with it well I have to say if there are any. If I haven't a thing that of Francis if I know one of the attorneys that would be Can I have to divulge that Ok so so you have to really somebody can present something to you when you have a period of time then to oversee it decide whether or not that's something you want to get involved correct Ok how many cases a year doesn't mediation person do or is that now that is arbitration Ok that arbitration mediation is something different again I do mainly Asian with the Justice Center and that is a mediator acts as a go between as a facilitator he just brings the 2 parties together and tries to get them to come to their own agreement the mediator does not make any decisions again it is making an assessment telling both sides of the story and well you know I have got a bridge you give them.

[00:59:54]
You can be a devil's advocate and say well now what if this happens or what if that happens and start to make them think and then I've done mediation for divorce and custody who and I've had one pompous judge come in to mediation with his little wife and he sat her down and he said I'm not going to give her one cent and I said Come on let's sit down there and talk and he listened for one minute and then he got up he slammed down the table and said I'm leaving and I said you come back here and sit down and I had no right to do that.

[01:00:38]
But he came back in and he sat down he just needed that. And we came to an agreement that they made so those are 2 very separate things are very different in mediation so someone can hire you for either one of the wrecks but you always have the option because you're an Independent of turning anything down you know obligated to pay for any things you want to exact and you can recreate yourself if you get offered and you feel like there's conflict Yes So if I if there is a conflict I have to divulge that.

[01:01:08]
And you continue to find that interesting I do very interesting and a.s.d. is larger than New York Stock Exchange so I do a lot of cases for them and I've had some now what does any at these National Association of Securities Dealers Ok again for that arbitration stuff that's arbitration and locally you do you're more actively involved in mediation locally well all the cases that I've had for a New York Stock Exchange and then I guess the have been local of the have been Ok but just dissenters.

[01:01:41]
The one where I do the most mediation now. It's kind of it's kind of like one of the hats you wear you're not that's not your only outlet it's one of the hats you wear but you still continue to find that interesting I do when you have to put on a different hat if you're arbitrating So there's good things for that the good thing about being an artist and then there's bad it's almost like your old report at the airport right the good news and here's the bad idea you love the outlet of the art but it's a lot of work the business end of it well the art I could just fly out of pieces and use all the color I want to do anything I'm off and you're totally a free spirit yet it doesn't matter people don't come to you in a commission something and tell you what color you're going to pay well I've had them do that but it has never worked out and I've heard that I'm artist beef and the 2 times I've taken a commission they've walked in well that's not I want it like a photograph and I said but I paint I don't I'm not a photographer so I've I've sold them but not to the people but commissions them isn't that interesting and the right of refusal after commissioning.

[01:02:54]
That dictating art just is that it's an oxymoron that just doesn't work that it's supposed to be totally free spirit I guess I get the feeling that gives you the most pleasure of all I think so and I can be a free spirit. When I painted and also when I flew an airplane to fly an airplane will call came home one day and said well I bought an airplane and I said well I guess you expect me to learn and he said yes because if I have a heart attack I expect you to know how to get down both to earth Dear so we've we learned together so you went to classes took lessons and than family are soloed and I thought boy this is great although I must self up here with nobody but God with me and so I go to say stay with me so it would end for a fun very and fun and then he bought a twin engine but he never did get checked out and that he used his hands were fidgeting over everything and I had a tendency to go by.

[01:03:58]
Then stream and so much teachers from the instructors would had the estimates from the whole make me flab of the see them up and I see and then one time I was going and I was doing my 1st cross country and. We got into terrible smog and I had a woman with me who knew nothing about flying but we found I got where we were trying to go and the.

[01:04:30]
Man said turned switch to another channel I said I have you and I'm not going to switch and he said Ok lady come old man. He's got a mind of your own Now how do you keep track of a flight is it by hours or by my hours I don't I have about 700 hours in the mostly multi engine and where did you take your winning lesson darted at Park air which had a very short runway and we had to learn to land on a dime because otherwise we'd go into the river my word so when I started landing at places like El Paso I would land on the 1st few feet and I'd say expedite 6 for papa x. but.

[01:05:16]
It's obvious to come down right but do it the way you learn and one then we had a St Bernard and he wanted to go anyplace I went even in the air place so I said I'm taking flying and Paul says I'm not going to go so anyway I got in the plane and he followed me up the wing got in the back seat was himself against one when done is know it was was I guess the other one and a minute took off he started snoozing he was snoring he was a constable fly He loved just the motion he loved to ride and he loved to fly how amazing is that a lot of people want to barf when he didn't care no but when I'd get out that St Bernard would get up them in the ground.

[01:06:03]
Who are you would be a conversation if you took them away yeah. Tidy little you and a great big old I had that I was probably bigger than you were 1650 yeah outweighed you by that some my word that has the Larry s. and he always was a fine companion for you well not always but I came up on that's great it was fun and you don't fly in war you know Paul sold the plane and it was a relief because we would have these knocked down drag out arguments about the making of flight plan or finding about the weather you never wanted to check on any of those things you were much more cautious than he was a good thing that he invested in you learning how to find did it would he fly with you but yeah i let us have fluency he wrote navigated the idea was for his business an initially that's why yes we would go to his different he had stores in Alabama South Carolina and Georgia it's a so much time ago to be except the weather always closed in always yes it's fraught with danger but you were never there always we would fly over the days the Derby and my home town was 60 miles from Lowell So we'd go to the Derby and coming out one day the man said you're the last plane out and the minute we got up with iced over her own and there was just about a quarter size hole to look out the windshield so I had to go on instruments than book so that we had subsidiary 10 I guess it's better to think about the good times rusty hurried sorites it's better to think I know we've got a little over the Grand Canyon one time and it just seemed like a little tiny thing then all of a sudden it opened up and we solve them.

[01:07:50]
How big it was and we had up and how little you were and we had the Emily the flying went on for several years did it not at least 1515 years did you ever belong to any groups I belong to the $99.00 er's which is a group of women Flyers and the 1st president was Amelia Earhart told that part of a chap could have known her but of course I did and that was pretty fast company though but I've met her greatly and then I still belong to a group called the Aero Club the women's Aero Club and we used to give scholarships to Georgia Tech for aeronautics and we gave several scholarships to women there but the group has gotten older and they don't do as much now.

[01:08:35]
Like so many groups if you don't keep bringing young blood in they go away don't they it's a control and has to be an evolving process and when I was in the 99 er's we used to fly to different Georgia towns and over into Alabama and we had.

[01:08:57]
Go ahead those of a tornado watch out and that's Ok. So you if we had one time we flew off and gave them flights over Atlanta joy rides just to have father that was on you've always been interested in the community and done a lot of volunteer work specifically I'm thinking of reading about your work with the Florence Creighton center and there's been other charitable things that you've done yes is that rewarding to you Well I was president of Florence Crittenden board and that was rewarding and we had we educated them mothers to be and then because they were couldn't go to school high schools a lot of schools would let them attend and then at that time it was sort of a blackball to have a baby out of wedlock but.

[01:09:50]
So we did a birth birth of those babies did they did most of the women in that time keep the babies or do they often put up for adults and they while they were given a choice whatever they wanted to do so was it was very emotional there and bother them.

[01:10:06]
And it you liked the nurturing that was involved in giving to that community yes and I have for a while I was giving them batteries of tests using my psychology to see if what what they were seeing quip to do everything has an application. You also were involved with the what we call now partnerships for domestic relations in those days that domestic violence in our example against domestic violence in the early days of that organization was called the bet for battered women or how they found salon battered women I was on that board did they set up shelters for better women in those days yes we had a shelter and we never did want to know where we were taking you said women secret even to this day they did yes but sometimes the man finds out and you know but we and then we end up reading about it in the paper don't you know it's a terrible thing and people say well why don't they just leave and with the children and they have no means of of making money to eat much less feed their children says that people don't understand that's right that means.

[01:11:20]
Your sister had a family she had a wonderful husband and a daughter and so that's my only niece and then you have so you have just one nice one these and then do you have any great new great or nephew 3 great nieces one of whom is a doctor in San Francisco.

[01:11:42]
And the others have children I don't see any of them much live other places yet. Well when we look back at all the things that you have accomplished you have many many memories and you're writing this you're putting this all together you said I'm trying to put my life and then I have my mother's poetry When you do have that and I have some of my father's editorials and I have a song that my mother composed and so and pictures of the singing and modeling so you put this all together into when you publish it will it become a boy I don't know whether I ever can publish it not tell me what you call it a hole and must go and tell me why because I grew up with such a hole in my soul and of had a hard time getting over it you filled your soul in lots of other souls to I think well.

[01:12:44]
Maybe the whole was a good thing maybe it it made your energy and your spirit could come from you to all the people who touch Well I've tried to fill the hole and think of the good things but it's hard for me not to think of the bad things I've gone through been anyway but the color and the life that you create compensates for is right that at least for those of us lucky enough to be on the outside looking in I see it as a cup there e full thank you but have a full life and and I would never want to go back and do it again but you did what you did in the right time in the right place for every every step of the way somehow Well it's it's been interesting but I've spliced splattered and set of honing in on things but I don't regret it because I enjoyed splattering.

[01:13:39]
I can see that I can see that we're very very pleased that somewhere in that whole pattern it occurred to you to come to Georgia Tech and you splashed us with a little bit of your person thank you all of my life to me every bit of mutual admiration right thank you so very much for giving us your time today thank you.