Divided Paths, Common Ground

Angie Klink

Description

In the early 1900s, Mary Matthews and Lella Gaddis forged trails for women at Purdue University and throughout Indiana. Mary was the first dean of the School of Home Economics. Lella was Indiana's first state leader of Home Demonstration. In 1914, Mary hired Lella to organize Purdue's new Home Economics Extension Service. According to those who knew them, Lella was a "sparkler" who traveled the state instructing rural women about nutrition, hygiene, safe water, childcare, and more. "Reserved" Mary established Purdue's School of Home Economics, created Indiana's first nursery school, and authored a popular textbook. Both women used their natural talents and connections to achieve their goals in spite of a male-dominated society. As a land grant institution, Purdue University has always been very connected to the American countryside. Based on extensive oral history and archival research, this book sheds new light on the important role female staff and faculty played in improving the quality of life for rural women during the first half of the twentieth century. It is also a fascinating story, engagingly told, of two very different personalities united in a common goal.
Preface

Fork in the Road

Pivot Point

Rossville Roots

It’s Science

Between the Lines

Water under the Bridge

No Blue Monday

Practice the Art

Whirlwind for Women

Wheat will Win the War

Roaring Women

Vote of Confidence

Good of the Union

Friend Dave

Progress

On the Air

War Stories

Dying in a Light, White Blanket

Spirit of Twin Pines

Mary L. Matthews Club

Voice

Index

Sujets

• Midwest
• Histoire
• State
• United States
• History
• Local

Informations

• Publié par: Purdue University Press
• Date de parution: 20 novembre 2015
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781612491936
• Langue: English

Extrait

Divided Paths | Common Ground
The Founders Series
Divided Paths | Common Ground
The Story of Mary Matthews and Lella Gaddis, Pioneering Purdue Women Who Introduced Science into the Home

Purdue University Press, West Lafayette
Copyright 2011 by Purdue University. All rights reserved.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Klink, Angie, 1959-
Divided paths, common ground: the story of Mary Matthews and Lella Gaddis, pioneering Purdue women who introduced science into the home / Angie Klink.
p. cm. -- (Founders series)
Summary: The book is about the accomplishments for women achieved by Purdue University s first dean of the School of Home Economics, Mary Matthews, and the first state leader of Home Demonstration, Lella Gaddis -- Provided by publisher.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-55753-591-7 (pbk.)
1. Matthews, Mary Lockwood, b. 1882. 2. Gaddis, Lella. 3. Purdue University--Faculty--Biography. 4. Women deans (Education)--United States--Biography. 5. Purdue University--History--20th century. 6. Home economics--Study and teaching (Higher)--United States--History--20th century. I. Title. II. Series.
LD4672.K55 2011
378.0092 2--dc22
[B]
2011001716
Cover design by Natalie Powell.
Back cover photograph by Jack Klink.
To Steve, Jack, and Ross, my common ground

Within these pages every night, Brief memories of the day I write; A little word, a single line, Is jotted in this book of mine- Not mighty deeds, just common things, The tasks and pleasures each day brings. And yet I hope that when I look Over the pages of this book, Twill be (and, if so, I m content) The record of five years well spent.
-Eloise Wood, Ward s A Line A Day, Five Year Diary, from the collection of Kate Gaddis (1923-1927; 1928-1932; 1933-1937)
Contents
Preface
Fork in the Road
Pivot Point
Rossville Roots
It s Science
Between the Lines
Water under the Bridge
No Blue Monday
Practice the Art
Whirlwind for Women
Wheat will Win the War
Roaring Women
Vote of Confidence
Good of the Union
Friend Dave
Progress
On the Air
War Stories
Dying in a Light, White Blanket
Spirit of Twin Pines
Mary L. Matthews Club
Voice
Index
Preface
Divided Paths, Common Ground is a rare occasion. It is a whisper from the past as we are privy to the day-to-day details of a woman who lived during the first part of the twentieth century. Bertha Kate Gaddis, a teacher, wrote in her line-a-day diaries for forty years, recording the minutiae of her world while also lifting up, like a bauble to the light, the historic events in America that painted her backdrop. Divided Paths, Common Ground invites the reader to pull up a kitchen chair and sit down with Kate and her sister Lella Reed Gaddis, Indiana s first state leader of home demonstration agents in Purdue s Department of Agricultural Extension, and gather snippets of their lives that swirled amid remarkable happenings in the United States from the 1910s to the 1940s. It was a time of startling change, especially for women, and Kate s journals reveal how a small enclave of the country experienced those changes.
Ultimately, this book is about Lella Reed Gaddis and her contemporary, Mary Lockwood Matthews, the first dean of the School of Home Economics at Purdue University, but many layers of a bygone era surround their life stories. Another extraordinary woman in Divided Paths, Common Ground is Mary s adoptive mother, Virginia Claypool Meredith, the first woman to serve on the Purdue University Board of Trustees. In 1882, Virginia became a widow at age thirty-three and chose to take over the operation of her late husband s 115-acre ranch with prize shorthorn cattle and Southdown sheep. She was a woman light years ahead of her time as a lady farmer and as a late-in-life single mother.
I extend a thank you to Miriam Epple-Heath, the great-niece of Lella and Kate Gaddis, for her insights into the personalities of her aunts and entrusting me with Kate s diaries. The day Miriam handed me an old shoebox and I peered inside to see eighteen leather-bound journals, I had no idea of the historical significance and new friendship that waited within.
I also thank Eva Goble, dean emeritus of the School of Home Economics at Purdue University. Dean Goble invited me to lunch on several occasions, and her stories of the strivings of women in Indiana and at Purdue, along with her memories of Mary Matthews and Lella Gaddis, add an additional spark to Divided Paths, Common Ground . At this writing, the last time I met with Dean Goble, she told me she was one hundred and a half . We were walking down the hall of her retirement home. She stopped, peered into the exercise room, and said, Oh good. No one is in there. I ll come down later and workout.
Over a period of five months, I read Kate s diaries, sentence by sentence, day by day, year by year. The more I read, the more humbling became the experience of writing Divided Paths, Common Ground. Kate wrote her last lines in 1946 at Christmastime, and I read those final diary words sixty-four years later as the snow fell and my Christmas tree lights shimmered. Divided Paths, Common Ground depicts the lives and accomplishments of Lella Reed Gaddis, Bertha Kate Gaddis, Mary Lockwood Matthews, Virginia Claypool Meredith, and, in essence, all women of any time. Kate set this book aglow, pulling us along her timeline as we gather bits of lore along the way. I thank her, and I miss her.
-Angie Klink
There is a radiance where women move Above small household tasks if they but see Beyond the polished surface of old woods The dazzling triumph of a living tree, If they but see beyond the white, heaped flour- Beyond the red, glassed jellies on a sill- Wide joyous wheat fields laughing in the sun; God s face above an orchard on a hill.
- Printed in Lella Gaddis Portrait Presentation Program, January 16, 1941
Fork in the Road

It is the heart of the night. The stars and moon illuminate the dusty roads. Few gaslights burn at this hour. The Purdue Ag Boys hook up the team to the wagon and climb aboard. Time to take what they deem is rightfully theirs. The clop-clop of the horses and rumbling of the wagon break the silence of the campus as they make their way across State Street to Ladies Hall where, by day, the women students attend their home economics classes.
Once in the building, the Ag Boys find the woman s desk and files. To the wagon they carry the office furniture and each paper and record they believe should belong on their side. They hurry aboard the wagon, give a yank to the reins, and the horses move the office of Miss Lella Gaddis, the new state leader of home demonstration, to the Ag side.
The next day, Miss Gaddis reports to the Department of Agricultural Extension at Purdue University. She no longer works for the Department of Household Economics headed by Miss Mary Matthews. When Miss Matthews discovers her Home Demonstration Agent has been stolen from her, she is incensed. She believes the new position of state leader of home demonstration should be in her realm. The men in the Agricultural Department believe Lella Gaddis should work in the newly forming Extension Service.
It is then, in 1914, that the paths of Lella Reed Gaddis and Mary Lockwood Matthews are divided. Yet in the years to come, they will politely walk the same direction, intersect in the same circles, and forge new trails for women at Purdue and throughout Indiana, but always with watchful eyes upon one another.

So weaves the story, the mythology, told in 2010 by Dean Emeritus of the School of Home Economics Eva Goble, age one hundred. (Upon retirement, Lella Gaddis hired Dean Goble as her successor.) Did Lella know her office would be moved that clandestine night in 1914? I m sure she knew, Goble said. She knew what was going on. The men controlled the money. Dean Matthews said, If I m going to train these people (home economics leaders and students), it seems I should have the money in my budget. Which was reasonable. The men didn t think so. It caused these two women to be full of animosity. They were always nice to each other, but they never missed an opportunity to give a little punch now and then.
That story is repeated around the state in every college I ve attended, said Goble. I attended Central Normal for two or three semesters. Guess what? The men came with horse and wagon and moved some of the college from some other county to Hendricks County.
The story really began when President Abraham Lincoln signed the first Land-Grant Act (originally the Morrill Act) on July 2, 1862. The creation of land-grant colleges such as Purdue University had a momentous bearing on the achievements of America, the start (slow as it was) of higher education, and the betterment of women and families.
The Land-Grant Act gave each state public lands that they could sell and use as an endowment to start a university to teach agriculture and mechanic arts. The purpose of these colleges was to educate more people in academic as well as practical pursuits. Home economics was included as part of agriculture.
Indiana s land-grant college had trouble finding a place to call home, as if no one wanted it. It was offered to several institutions that already existed, but they declined the proposal. Many people could not see how the teaching of agriculture and mechanical arts would be of interest to people or have much application.
To the rescue came the Lafayette merchant and banker John Purdue. He saw the great possibilities in such an institution. He offered Indiana $150,000 and ei