Part 2
Part 2
By LarVern Keys
Believe it or not —we had a graduate at the close of our first year. John ("Jack") Shanly. He was graduated in agriculture.
We had a large room with a stage on the upper floor. It was used for mechanical drawing
and assemblies. For the graduation, we had to send Outside for the caps and gowns.
All well and good, but it proved to be a very hot day—all windows were open and mosquitoes
-- well, 'nuff said.
The members of the staff were seated on the platform at one end of the room. It was
hot, and the caps and gowns didn't help. There were oodles of mosquitoes. Need I say
more! There was a door at the back of the stage, and suddenly, through that door came
lighted smudge pots. The janitor shoved them near our individual chairs and the smoke
curled ceilingward. It was anything but dignified, but far more comfortable.
And so our first graduate received his diploma. The diploma was handmade and the printing
beautifully done by hand by a resident of Fairbanks.
And so closed that first year of the Alaska Agricultural College and School of Mines.
The Women's Room was always a sore spot with me. I would have liked a pleasant, restful
room. The president thought the "essentials" was all that was necessary; that the
"girls" and "boys" should spend any extra time in the library, studying.
So I managed a cot with a mattress and cover, one straight chair (not even a student
chair), and that was all. Even in 1935, when I left Alaska, that women's room still
just had the cot and (I believe) two straight chairs. I sincerely hope it is a nicer
room now. I have not seen it on my several trips north. I remember "borrowing" the
one and only chair in order to sit down beside a very sick student stretched out on
the cot.
The president put in long hours, regularly 8 to 5 and then usually 7 to 10 in the
evening. In the evening, he usually made notes for me to carry out the next day.
This having a secretary living in Fairbanks was not to his liking. Until the trolley
service got running better, it was hard for me to be back at work by 8 sharp and work
until at least 5. I worked "overtime" many times on Saturday and Sunday and, since
the jitney service on the railroad wasn't adjusted to the college schedule, it often
meant the three-mile walk along the railroad. I didn't mind the walk so much, except
I had to get out to the college by 8:00 a.m.!
The prex. finally came up with a solution. In the summer of '23, he blossomed out
in work clothes, laid out on paper what would be a possible street for faculty homes,
and selected a "lot" for the first "cabin." With some help from a student, he dug
the basement and then hired a carpenter to construct a three-room cabin—9x12 living
room, a bedroom just large enough for a double bed, small dresser, and tiny clothes
space, no water, no conveniences but a woodshed on behind. One hot day while he was
digging away, I received a call that an Austrian count was on the way out from Fairbanks
to see him. I hurried out to tell him. And the instructions given me—"Tell him I am
digging a basement! I would be pleased to have him come out here!!" So I tried to
be courteous and told the count where we would find the president. The count gasped,
"The president of a college digging a basement! You would never hear of such a thing
in my country." I tried to cover by telling the Count that the president just wanted
to get some exercise. When we arrived at the excavation, the president wiped his brow,
his hands, and proceeded to engage in a conversation as though there wasn't anything
unusual about the situation.
That cabin, when finished, was to be my quarters. It was the first living quarters
for faculty and staff—besides the President's home—on the campus. It turned out to
look quite respectable. I furnished it mostly from Sears Roebuck and paid the owner—the
president —$25 a month rent. I carried water from the College. I bought wood from
the students and electricity from the College. The real reason for the cottage was
to have me living on the campus so I would be closer to my "job" and more available.
I enjoyed my little house, and, in time, several others built or moved into houses
built by Jack Shanly at the foot of the hill.
Dress was no problem in those days. In fact, general attire for men students was usually
overalls, corduroy, or khaki pants, suspenders, any kind of shirt—no coat, informal
garb to say the least, suspenders in evidence everywhere.
The president decided we should have a museum. On the top floor, at the head of the
stairs, was quite a space. We bought a flat glass-topped cake display cabinet from
the bakery in Fairbanks and some of the boys wrestled it up the stairs. The President
placed a few artifacts from his private collection in the cabinet, and so the museum
was born.
The cabinet was not locked, and strange things had a way of appearing therein.
We had two brothers, Frosh from Quebec, John and Robert McCombe, and they were always
up to something. We had one senior —Jack Shanly. He had had three years at Cornell
and came to the Alaska Agricultural College and School of Mines for his fourth year.
One day, I discovered his suspenders in the "museum." The McCombes had swiped his
suspenders and placed them in the "museum." There was always something "different"
happening.
Shanly homesteaded an area at the foot of College Hill. He built two houses—California
style. Toward spring, he decided to invite the faculty down for dinner. He asked Elizabeth
Kirkpatrick and me to come down and help him. When we arrived, we found he hadn't
even started the dinner! Elizabeth went back up the hill and got the necessary utensils.
We worked like beavers and finally had some kind of a dinner ready—an hour late. Shanly
was no help at all. The principal thing I remember was he wanted to string decorative
lanterns out to the road. We got him to peeling potatoes. We were about ready and
he disappeared. Suddenly, he called from the bedroom, "Bring me my pants. They are
in the bedding on the cot." (The cot was to be part of the seating arrangement for
the guests). I found the "pants" in the bedding nicely laid out to retain the crease.
I handed the trousers in and pretty soon, he blossomed out, looking like a million
dollars. As for Elizabeth and I, we would have liked a leisurely hot bath and nap.
I don't remember just how the faculty guests got back to Fairbanks that night. None
of them had cars. I think some of them piled into a car in which they had come out
from Fairbanks. Elizabeth stayed with me. We never helped on another "Shanly" dinner!
One day, George Keys burst into the office. There was a "weakness" in the entrance
stairway. He had been investigating and found a box stored underneath. It was a case
of dynamite which was badly decomposed -- the nitroglycerin had melted and run out
into the box. Hard to tell how long the box had been there -- at least ten or twelve
years. Think what might have happened if it had been found by someone who was smoking.
George offered to dispose of it. He carried it out of the building and away from everything.
He put a lot of paper under the box, then attached the paper to a long pole, lighted
it, extended it to the box, and then ran! The box exploded and burned vigorously.
The prex. had a habit of taking off for Washington D.C. during the winter. He usually
went in November and would be gone perhaps five or six weeks. During his absence,
everything went through my office; even in later years when a dean had been appointed.
How I dreaded to have him go! Seems like something was always happening.
This article is just a "this and that" of things and experiences in those very first
years.
Just why, I am not too sure, but the president had a rigid rule that there would be
no pets on campus—and so that is the way it was. After I moved into my little house
on the "campus," I would have given a lot to have a kitten, but --. Along in the early
1930s, my husband and I did have a squirrel for a little while. He had the run of
the apartment, and it was fun. He had a wheel in the kitchen, but one day someone
left the outside door ajar and out he went! He "moved" into the college store house.
It was a small building behind the college kitchen and contained supplies much to
his delight. He amused himself stacking supplies along the walls until the caretaker
was successful in catching him and taking him back to the woods.
One winter, a cat was found in a vent pipe to the power plant. He had crawled into
the pipe to get warm. So he was kept in the power plant until it warmed sufficiently
to put him outdoors and let him rustle his own food. Another time. we found a woodpecker
curled up in a vent pipe. So screens were installed over the vent pipes!
I was always fussing about there being no trees or shrubs. It was so barren on that
hill top. Just why the president was opposed to even a few trees and shrubs, I will
never know. George Keys and I were married on January 3, 1925. The new power plant had been built with a nice apartment on the second floor, so that was our "home"
until we left in July of 1935. There was a bathroom! The only bathtub on the campus
except the one in the president's residence.
Early in 1926, we asked permission to plant three trees in a cluster at once side
of the power plant. Permission granted! We planted three native birch trees and they
remained there at least until 1977, I believe. Anyway, the space was needed for buildings.
George Keys and I were married on January 3, 1925, and I doubt if there has ever been
a wedding quite like it. I arrived in Seward from Seattle at 10 A.M. January 3rd.
I had come north on the steamship Alaska. At 8 p.m., George arrived in Seward from
the College. It was thirty-five degrees below zero. I met him at the train. We contacted
the justice of the peace and he agreed to marry us at 10 P.M., but said we would have
to have two witnesses. We didn't know anyone in Seward, so George went out (not many
on the street at that time of night and in that kind of weather) and brought in two
strange men. We were married at 10 P.M. by the justice of the peace with two strangers
as witnesses and in a large room with large windows fronting out on the street and
the whole place ablaze with lights. Anyway, we were declared properly married and
have the certificate. We celebrated our 59th wedding anniversary on January 3rd, 1984.
On the morning of January 4th, we left for the College and arrived there two days
later. We were met at College Station by a group of students banging on dish pans
and what have you. They carried our bags to our temporary quarters in the college
building. The next morning, the student body came down and chivaried us. Some cut
a beginners' law class taught by the president! He was so angry, he locked the classroom
door and gave them all zero for cutting class.
It was just one of his quirks. If any one of the staff married, he grumbled. George
offered him a cigar. He refused it. George said, "Come on, the one you have is so
short it will burn your fingers." The Prex grumbled and took the cigar.
The Prex, like all the rest of us, had his quirks, but he was a fine, honest, sincere,
noble, friendly man. I was in the office some seven years and in contact with him
from 1922-1935. In those first years, I learned a considerable amount about the political
side of the picture. The funny part was, he was a ardent Democrat and I was just as
ardent a Republican!
I am very glad he was chosen to be the new college's first President. It became his
life. It was not unusual for him to begin working at 7 a.m.. and, with his shirt sleeves
rolled up, cigar smoke curling up from an ashtray, he would work until midnight. Very
often at 8 a.m., I would find a stack of written material—letters to be transcribed,
bills to be paid, and instructions to be followed.
I was very much for upgrading the scholarship. The president, although an excellent
scholar at Bucknell, was very much for numbers. I was long on increasing scholarship.
We used to have great discussions on these subjects, especially between 1930 and 1935.
In 1931, hoping to help build up the scholarship side, George and I gave a bronze
plaque on which was to be inscribed the name of the freshman girl student who had
accomplished certain specifications.
My hope was that perhaps it would help girls to come forward more and accomplish more.
I guess I was sot of a suffragette without knowing it. Anyway, that is the history
of the first plaque. The Board—or somebody—reduced the scholastic requirements in
later years. I did not fully approve, but anyway, an award was made each year, and
the plaque award spaces were filled, I think, around 1955. We used to keep a fossil
ivory brooch in the safe in the President's office to be given to an award winner
as a small prize remembrance. After the plaque was filled with names, I decided to
"call it a day" and allow someone else to carry on in whatever way they felt best.
You see, I felt that to lower the average so someone could win each year, had lowered
the honor or achievement, and so had lost some of its purpose—namely, higher scholarship.
Perhaps I was too idealistic. I was the second in my class at my own graduation from
the University of Idaho in 1921 and I am still proud of that (forgive me).
A classmate and I, in our senior year, went to the president of the university and
asked about Phi Beta Kappa. Why didn't the U. of I. have it? That started the ball
rolling, and a few years later, there was a chapter there. I still was not a Phi Beta
Kappa. According to some rule, they did not take in former graduates. Then, in 1930,
by special decree, I was finally made a Phi Beta Kappa!
President Bunnell also received his Phi Beta Kappa key shortly after I did and then
he received his doctorate, which he should have had a long time before that time.
Back in '22, one of the first things I asked was, "What am I to call you? You are
no longer an active Judge and Mr. is not definitive enough." -- So I decided on "president"
-- and that is the origin of "president." In 1930, at long last, we could correctly
address him as Dr. Bunnell!
I am glad I had the opportunity to be at the College during its formative years. It
was hard work, but it was fun, exciting, fulfilling, and wonderful to be a part of
seeing and helping in its development.
I believed then -- and I believe now -- some 60 odd years later that the present University
of Alaska owes a very great deal of its present status of accomplishment to the foresight,
statesmanship, energy, ability, and constant upgrading management of its first president—Dr.
Charles E. Bunnell.