Anita Crites Crawford

Class of 1935

Anita Margaret Crites was born in Barnsville, Ohio but spent her formative years in Gallespie, Illinois. The daughter of a school teacher and gasoline broker, Anita entered Lindenwood College, a women's liberal arts school in St. Charles, Missouri, in 1931 at her mother's encouragement. After two years at the private school, she transferred to the University of Illinois largely for financial reasons. "My tuition at Lindenwood was $900 for two semesters," she remembers. "When I moved [to UI], it was $35 a semester."

Physicals and registration were part of the new school year ritual: The Health Center was located on the corner of Wright and Green, across the street from what is now Follett's book store. "A big rambling wood frame building... you had to go over there to take your physical. And, of course on that first week in September, everyone was over there parading around with no clothes on except those white things they'd slip over on you while you had to take your physical. And they took your physical right there too, boy. Everybody had to know how to swim, so that you could get in. If you didn't know how to swim you had to take swimming."

"Registration was always a big item.  You got a big long list... you had the cards... there were ten or eleven of them in one string, and they were fastened.  You had to take those around to ... tables that were set up in the Armory and there was a horrible crowd.  Had to go there and then you had to go to the offices where the classes were.  I remember how hysterical I thought it was that you had to have your name, address, and sex, and one of the fellas said, "occasionally."  I thought that was funny [laughter].  Boys were a new experience for me, I was here straight from a girls school, you see.  So, well anyway, we got through registration." 

Housing

During her two years at Illinois, Anita roomed in a private residence operated by her mother's friend, Mrs. Henley: 

"I'm not sure [other students] lived as frugally as I did, but the folks in my house did.  There was a crowd of us there; twelve or fourteen people living in that one house.  Course we didn't have supervision by the city as to say how many people could live in the house and they didn't examine...  As I remember, there were only three bathrooms in the whole place, but that didn't seem to matter." 

"With the boys upstairs and the girls downstairs, it was a coed house.  And there was no problem.  We didn't consort at all.  If the boys took us to lunch or to the theater, they were upstairs and we had been in our quarters." 

Social Life

"There were lots of fraternities and sororities.  I was never much involved in that.  I worked with Arepo and helped put on the operettas.  The musical things, I got extracurricular points for that.  We had wonderful, big social events.  There was always the Armory Ball and then the Seniors Ball, big dance bands came.  The tickets were rather expensive, $5 or $6.  Lots of people played bridge.  I never played bridge, I just went dancing."

"Poppy [a friend] and I were on the intercollegiate rifle team.  Every evening, five days a week, we had to walk five miles to [lower breathing/heart rate].  I fired but she stood.  I don't know if you've ever fired a gun ... you lay on your stomach and you hoist this up here and the gun butt is here.  Well, they had to be sure that when the gun butt banged, you'd be still.  And so it was breathing [conditioning]... we walked the five miles that whole semester... every night about 8:30, 9:00 we walked ... so there wasn't much of Champaign-Urbana I didn't see at night." 

The Depression's Impact on Student Life

"You know, [you had to be] very careful with your money and pennies, pennies were important.  We had our shoes half soled, you were very careful with your shoes.  We all polished our shoes, and we were very careful not to get them wet.  And of course, we had our hose remended.  In those days, I had rarely ever had things purchased new.  I made most of my clothing.  When there were sales of course we all went downtown-- Lewis' and Willis'.  Mrs. Weaver [Virginia Weaver, Asst. Professor Home Economics] who taught some of the home economics classes sold gloves down there.  I guess nearly all of the staff had extra jobs around. " 

Many of students had jobs.  "They had jobs waiting tables in the fraternities and the sororities, especially the boys had that.  My first year, I had a scholarship with Dr. Adams [Roger Adams, Professor Organic Chemistry, Department Head] and of course he had expected me to have some knowledge of chemistry.  Well, ... the chemistry that he was talking about was way over my head, so he was very pleasant and said that he thought it probably wouldn't work out.  So that year I worked down at Prehn's on Oregon and sold cosmetics, and took the cleaning in for Garvers; I did that for two semesters.  Then the last year, I didn't work any place.  That was '34, my folks had recovered slightly so that I had just a little bit more money and I didn't have to work." 

Anita's parents assisted their daughter by sending her food and doing her laundry: 

"My mother sent me $5 a week for my food and if I shopped carefully I could get a meal ticket for $3.65 to $3.75 which gave me a dollar and quarter extra.  I had lunch and dinner on the meal ticket with some boarding house... 
You always looked forward to Sundays because some fella would take you out for a movie in the afternoon and a hamburger on the way home, so that took care of supper [laughter]." 

"I still sent my laundry home in one of those laundry cases... it was only 18, 19 cents or so to send that home.  When mother would send that back to me, she'd send me cake, or cookies, or brownies, or popcorn, or fudge, those things that she had made at home that we couldn't afford to buy here.  So I always looked forward to sending day laundry home." 

Academics:

"The second year [at Illinois] I really had to hustle to get enough credits to graduate because I knew I couldn't go another year for anything.  I had high hopes when I first started the home ec courses because we shared most of the home ec courses, especially the foods and chemistry courses that were required ... with the pre-med students.  The courses were fascinating and I would have loved to have gone on as a medical student...  Mother said I best get something I could do and that was easier in the college of education [where] I could get a teacher's certificate which I did.  Over the course of the years, I was a high school principal, I was a grade school principal, I was a home economist.  You did everything after you got out of school, just like you knew what you were doing.  So it wasn't much later, of course, that I went to law school." 

"When I was a freshman in high school we had to write a thing on what I want to be, and I said that I wanted to be an attorney.  [William Jennings] Bryan had written across the globe and was involved in the Scopes Trial down in Tennessee.  I thought he was marvelous.  I didn't know what an attorney did but that's what I wanted to be.  So, got to college, of course, there was no money or anything so that was just out of the question."  Anita later went to law school in 1941, after a career in teaching.

After University of Illinois

After graduating from the University of Illinois in 1935, Anita Crites secured a teaching job in Raymond, Illinois.  In 1938, she accepted another teaching position in Murphysboro, Illinois where she married her first husband, Walter Smith, in 1940.   During WWII, she and her husband moved back to Illinois to assist her mother with the family business which they eventually sold.  In 1948, the Smiths earned law degrees from Lincoln College of Law in Springfield, Illinois.  After Walter Smith death, Anita worked in the home economics extension at UI, married W.L. Crawford (UI Class of '34), and served as a lawyer in the Attorney General's Office in Springfield.  Anita retired in 1986. 

The tapes and complete transcript of this interview, conducted October 27, 2000,
are available for research use in the Student Life and Culture Archives.

 

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