Katharin Fishbaugh Carr

Class of 1931

Katharin Fishbaugh Carr, circa 1931

Katharin "Kay" Fishbaugh was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the daughter of a piano factory manager.  Her family later moved to Oak Park, Illinois, where Kay attended high school.  In the fall of 1927, the Fishbaughs sent their daughter to the University of Illinois. As she remembers, " I didn’t choose it, my folks sent me [laughter]...  I was used to doing what my folks told me, and it never entered my mind to think of going any place else except where they sent me." 

Sorority Life

"It [rush] was very exciting because you came before school started then to go through rushing.  So there was a lot of huddling with the other rushees and discussing everything."

Social Life 

Sorority life included socials and dances.  "There were dances all the time... and movies, you could go down usually to the Virginia Theater, and sometimes they even had plays, musical presentations you know.  And a lot of times you’d  just wander around campus and you’d go to places like Prehn's, visit and have cokes." 

Rules

“There were no cars, except if you went with a student who lived in town, then he had a car, and of course that was a big plus for him.  Consequently, most of the activity took place right on campus, or on Green Street, that general area, because otherwise you walked or took a bus and there wasn’t a bus service there is now by any chance.” 

“And, you couldn’t smoke on campus.  You might cut a class and go to one of those little old Coca-Cola places like Cameron’s for a coke and a cigarette.” 

Katharin Fishbaugh Carr, October 2000

Academics and Athletics 

Kay majored in home economics, a subject for which she had little enthusiasm.  She remembers,  "I think part of my lack of academic success was due to revolting against my folks because they wanted me in home economics and I just didn’t like it, in fact I hated it.  I  wanted to be in the athletic end of it." 

Athletics were a big part of her college experience.  She was an active member of the Woman's Athletic Association (WAA), serving on the Advisory Board both her junior and senior years (see photograph below).  “It wasn’t a huge organization, it was quite small.  And, made up mainly of people who really enjoyed participating in sports.” 

“Back in those days you [women] didn’t play other schools, or at least we didn’t here, it was all intramural... 
but knowing no more than we did about it, we considered it very exciting.  Basketball and field hockey, I think, were the only games I took part in, regularly.  I did do volleyball a few times, but mainly just basketball and field hockey." 

Woman's Athletic Association (WAA) Advisory Board, circa 1931. Fishbaugh is standing in the second row, fourth from left

The Depression 

After graduating from the University in 1931, Kay had difficulty finding a job.  "I couldn’t get a job when I got out, and I waited, and there was a very fine restaurant in Chicago,  Harding’s.  And they were only employing college people as waitresses, and I worked there for a  year.  It was fun, you know, I didn’t consider it any hardship, it was fun."  Unbeknownst to her at the time, her "folks ... did have to mortgage their house” to keep their daughters in school.  "They protected us evidently from knowing how bad things were." 

After University of Illinois

In 1936, Kay married Robert Carr, a fellow student who graduated from UI in 1930.  The couple had a shared interest in athletics; Robert Carr was Big Ten champion in the high jump three times during his college career.  Robert Carr's student days memories are recorded in his book, Grandma Had Class.  Katharin Fishbaugh Carr graciously has donated her husband's varsity letter sweaters, news clippings, and track shoes to the Student Life and Culture Archives (see RS 41/20/133 in the Archives database). 

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