Kathryn G. Hansen

Class of 1934

Kathryn Gertrude Hansen was born in the small community of Gardner, Grundy County, Illinois.  After graduating first in her class at Gardner South Wilmington Township High School, Kathryn intended to accept a full scholarship to Illinois Wesleyan University.  However, her father, on the advice of the county superintendent of schools, insisted that Kathryn compete for an academic scholarship at the University of Illinois.  Kathryn took the necessary seven examinations and won the scholarship with a score of 94 5/7th on five examinations.  “I came to the University of Illinois,” she remembers, “very frightened.”  It was “big to me; it seemed enormous.” 

Sorority Life 

Kathryn spent her first year in West Residence Hall before pledging the Alpha Delta Theta sorority.  “There were over 100 girls in West Hall," she recalls.  The sorority "was a much smaller group, that just appealed to me.”  Sorority life included social events, fellowship, and instruction.  “We were taught table manners, how to be a hostess, how to be a gracious lady, all part of the sorority life at that time…  Miss Carter [the housemother] had disciplinary authority, and I remember my mother saying, “’Miss Carter, anytime Kathryn needs correcting, you just correct her.’” 

Kathryn's sorority friendships have been long lasting.  She explains, “I  think because we attended the University during the Depression, and we didn’t know if we had enough money for even the next semester, we became a very, very close group and we have remained so until the present.” 

“Thursday was I Men’s Day.  So you wore your I Men’s sweater every Thursday.  So you’d see the I Men … That used to be the I Men’s Association, now it’s changed, it’s the Varsity I Association, cause we got women in it now....  There was a good intramural program.  They had water polo in Huff Gym.  The water in Huff Gym is all seven foot deep, all built primarily for water polo." 

Rules and the Dean of Women

"I don’t remember that we did anything but respect [Dean of Women Maria Leonard].  I don’t remember that we resented her in any way.  We just knew that she laid down the rules of conduct.  It was an entirely different time to be sure.  You didn’t question authority; you accepted authority.  The Dean of Men and Women were not persons you wanted to be called in to see." 

Freshman Cap Burnings

One of Kathryn’s memories concerns freshman cap burnings.  As she explains, “the freshman fraternity boys all wore caps.  Depending on the fraternity, determined the color of the cap.  They wore them to classes.  All during the year they hauled branches of trees out to an area around the Stadium.  By May, they would have a huge pile of brush assembled.  On some early May night, the fraternity boys would congregate at the brush pile and throw their caps into a huge bonfire while they danced around the configuration." 

"As time went on, these affairs got a bit out of hand.  The boys would run through the streets shouting.  I can remember them getting all around our house one night and our house mother getting us all down into the living room, pulling the draperies closed as we hovered in the darkness while the cap burners were dancing around the house.  Finally, in later years, there began to be damage to property with the event and it was discontinued.” 

Depression's Effect on Student Life

Closure of Alpha Delta Theta

Because Alpha Delta Theta did not own its house, Dean of Women Maria Leonard decided that its members should move into another sorority which was in financial difficulty and was partially lacking in membership."I remember we went through "rushing parties" at several houses and we were permitted to choose the one we liked best.  We chose Phi Mu.  We had rooms on the first floor. 

Mrs. Hale, the house mother, occupied a suite across from us.  She really became closer to us than she did to her own girls.  We kept our identity.  We had our own area in the dining room, and we stayed together.  It was a sad time for us.  We were operating well financially but Dean Leonard wanted to save the sororities who were about to lose their new houses."

Entertainment

“Things were very simple.  One of our big events was to buy hamburgers and cokes and get on the Interurban and ride to Monticello getting off at the park at the edge of Monticello where we’d have a picnic.  The fellows didn’t have much money, so on a date, you might go to the corner of Prehn's on Oregon, get on the bus and ride to the end of the Interurban line where Market Place is located now which was the limit of Champaign.  The motorman would say, 'boys, you’ve got to step up now and pay for the return trip.'  Well, some of them had the money and some of them didn’t.  But we’d all come back and we’d ride to the Court House in Urbana and walk back to campus.  If we were lucky, we were taken to Prehn's on Oregon for a hot fudge sundae."  "Robeson's Roof Garden was considered the epitome for a dance date.  And house dances were house dances.  We had to keep hours.  The house was locked at 10:30 on week nights, 12:00 on Saturday nights, and 1:00 on prom nights.  Woe to any girl who stayed out after hours or to any girl who helped to smuggle her in." 

"We made our own entertainment.  I do not remember that we felt deprived.  I had a raccoon coat and I thought that was very special.  My college days were special.” 

Religious groups fulfilled a spiritual and social need.  Kathryn recalls that Wesley Foundation became very important to her.  "That’s where I went with a friend and dates for our recreation.  There were parties, picnics, and other events.  There was Wesley, McKinley, and the Lutheran and Newman foundations among others.” 

Students and the University President

"President [David] Kinley was wonderful.  [In the years after he left the UI presidency], he would come and walk along the Broadwalk as the classes were changing.  He would stop and talk to us; we all knew him.  The President's House was under construction during President Chase's administration.  It came under much criticism regarding the amount of money that was being spent on it.  There were many stories in the media regarding the gold umbrella stands.  When [Arthur C.] Willard became President, he began a series of Sunday open houses.  Betsy Ross, in her book I Fly the Flag, describes these events.  Practically everybody in Champaign-Urbana got to walk through the house from the first floor through every bedroom upstairs..." 

Academics:  Journalism 

"I thought I was going to be a high school teacher and that I was going to teach history and English; I would have the school newspaper and yearbook but that was not what I most wanted to do.  What I wanted to do was enter the College of Law, but at that time women were not admitted to the College.  I could take a listeners course, but I couldn’t take a course for credit.  Since I always enjoyed writing, I enrolled in the School of Journalism." 

"When my career took me into the University Civil Service System in 1952, I found much of my work was related to law.  After I retired in 1972, I worked as an assistant for two years in the law office of Webber, Balbach, Thies and Foellmer in Urbana.  So I did get to be associated with law." 

After University of Illinois:

Kathryn Hansen graduated from the University of Illinois in February 1934.  Unable to find a position due to the deepening Depression, she returned in 1935 to pursue a masters degree in education which she obtained in 1936.   Her career has included positions at the University of North Carolina, 1936-37; University High School, 1937-44; Office of Nonacademic Personnel, 1944-52; and the University Civil Service System of Illinois, 1952-72, where she served as director from 1968-72.  She retired in 1972. 

Ms. Hansen has graciously donated her Alpha Delta Theta sorority pin and sorority publications to the Student Life and Culture Archives. 

The tapes and complete transcript of this interview, conducted December 5, 2000,
are available for research use in the Student Life and Culture Archives.

 

 

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