Mary Kay Hansen Peer

Class of 1934

Mary Katherine Hansen was born near the small farming community of Allerton, Illinois. Early in her youth, she and her family moved to Champaign where her father was employed by the University of Illinois and her mother ran a boarding house for UI students. An only child, Mary Kay remembers that living in the house "was like growing up with eight brothers... I was only thirteen and I was just their little sister." During the early Depression years, Mrs. Hansen rented rooms to students for $8 per month. At times, she would make allowances for those who were in financial crisis. On one occasion, a college boarder hosted the Hansens at his family's home in Chicago so they could attend the World's Fair. In exchange, Mrs. Hansen allowed the boy to board at her home for free that semester. 

Little income and economic depression meant that Mary Kay had to work her way through high school and college. As a freshman at University High School in Urbana, she learned to type, a skill she used throughout her life. As she remembers, "some way we managed to get $100 together and bought me a little Royal Portable.... I stuck a sign out on my mother's front porch, 'Typing 10 cents a page.'" "Every summer, graduated students would come back to get their masters degree and they would bring their typing to me... One time this young man came to me and said, 'you know there's a girl down the street who types for 8 cents a page.' I said, 'why don't you go to the girl down the street.' I found out he had. He said, 'She doesn't know how to spell or punctuate [laughter].' So my 2 cents more a page was because I could spell..."

 

University of Illinois

"From the time I was born, my mother said, 'you're going to college.'"  Both "my father and mother felt that education was the most important thing for me to learn.  When I was a junior in high school they promised me that I could go out to the University of California... but as time rolled around there was no money for that."  Mary Kay enrolled at the University of Illinois in February 1931.  Attending college during the Depression required hard work inside and outside the class room.  

Employment

"One semester I didn't make very good grades.  My mother said, 'Mary Katherine, you are capable of doing far better than that.  From now on you are on your own.  We no longer pay your tuition.'  After that I worked ... I never had any trouble making my tuition." 

As an UI undergraduate, Mary Kay was employed in the Political Science Department as a student worker.  She explains, "a neighbor lady had a friend who was getting married and recommended me for the job so I went over and applied and got it... my knees shaking."  In addition, she continued her typing business and also worked in the Dean of Women's office.  Dean Maria Leonard "sort of took me under her wing... she taught me a lot about courtesies, a lot about manners, she was just an elegant lady." 

One day, "a little girl came in from West Virginia, shy, just so shy that she could barely speak above a whisper.  She said, 'Do you know anybody or a place where I could find a room?'  Of course, I said, 'I know a place where you can find a room, go to my mother's.'  And afterward, I thought, 'now, am I taking advantage of my job by doing something I shouldn't.'  I was in the Dean of Women's office and I was recommending my mother's home...  But she went over and took a room... you know, she didn't know how to type but she knit beautifully.  I didn't know how to knit.  That summer I typed all of her term papers and she knit sweaters for me.  You know, there was a give and take.  I think this is one of the important things about the years of the Depression and those early years was the give and take between students, between house mothers, and I think you lose that in the massiveness of it today." 

Social Life

Upon Mary Kay's enrollment at UI,  her mother decided to open her boarding house exclusively to women students.  Mary Kay lived at home to take advantage of free room and board.  Her fellow house mates became life long friends with whom she continues to keep in touch.  She remembers these days fondly: 

"We had a Swedish girl one year who was a student.  She wanted to name [the Hansen house] 'Vanlig' which is Swedish for 'friendly.'  The Dean of Women was really very much impressed with my mother's house.  She would send special girls there who needed special help because mother, though uneducated, was wise far beyond her years and was wonderful in helping young girls who needed help.  The Dean kept mother's house filled all the time, we never had a vacancy.  It was fun." 

"My mother thought I should join a sorority, she said, 'you don't have any sisters.'"  Well I said, 'I've got all these girls that I know.'  So I went through rushing.  It was horrible.  I just felt it was so superficial, so artificial.  And I would see these girls coming into the Dean's office weeping because they didn't get into the sorority they wanted.  And I thought, what the hell's difference does it make if I make this or not."  I came home and told my mother, 'Ok, I've got a bid to go into a sorority, but it's going to cost me $25 a month to go over and have dinner with them one night a week and I have to go to the Library with them one night a week and I have to go over on Saturday mornings and polish silverware."  I said, 'I can't afford to belong to a sorority, I much prefer studying alone.  I'm not going to go over there and answer their telephone when I could be typing.'"  

Career Choices

"My mother wanted me to be a teacher, her whole family had been teachers.  I went through all those horrible education classes that were just dead weight."  After practice teaching, Mary Kay knew it was not for her. 

"When I went into college what I wanted to do [was] to go into management.  There was no such thing.  Business administration didn't even exist.  When I told them I wanted to go into management, they just said, 'well, you'll just have to go into home economics.'  I wanted to run a hotel ... that's what I really wanted to do, but there was no place for a woman like that at that time.  So I took the course of least resistance, got a Liberal Arts major in English.  But you know, to this day, when I open a magazine like Good Housekeeping... and I see the name 'editor in chief', I think, damn it, I could have been a good editor in chief.  I'm not sorry about the life I lived, but I never lived up to a potential that I could have if I could have had the training at the time I needed it.  So now young women should be very, very grateful that anything they want to be, they can be." 

After University of Illinois

Mary Kay Hansen graduated from the University of Illinois in 1934.  She received her masters degree from UI in 1936 and married Hobart Peer, a fellow student (class of '35) the following year.  While a graduate student, she was hired as a clerk in the UI English Department.  Later, she became an administrative assistant and over the course of forty years (1936-76) served in the department under thirteen department heads. Upon her retirement in 1976, the English department named its faculty/student lounge in her honor. 

The tapes and complete transcript of this interview, conducted October 26, 2000,
are available for research use in the Student Life and Culture Archives.

 

 

 

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