00:00:00Interview with Jo Ann (Murphy) Underwood
Date of Interview: November 4, 2014
Interviewer: Damon Kinmond
Sound technician: Whitney Wright
Place of Interview: Underwood’s residence in Blacksburg, Virginia
Transcriber: David Atkins
Length: 1:14:25
Damon Kinmond: Today is Tuesday, November 4, 2014. This is Damon Kinmond with
Whitney Wright as the sound technician, and we are doing Virginia Tech's Oral
History Project. Today we are interviewing Jo Ann Underwood at her home in
Blacksburg, Virginia. Thank you for joining us. So to start things off, where
did you grow up? Jo Ann Underwood: Ohio.
KINMOND: Ohio, and when was this?
UNDERWOOD: Well, 1929 I was born [laughter] and then from then on. My father
worked for the Farm Bureau and Co-op, and he was very, very interested in that
movement, and you might have guessed that I'm a liberal. Raised by a father who
was an outstanding liberal. The kids called me a communist, but one day the
principal of the school
00:01:00was in my classroom teaching civics because the teacher
was sick. He told the kids that I was not a communist and explained to them what
the movement was that my father was into. [Laughter] I'll never forget it. He's
dead and gone too, but the fact that he did that for me was wonderful.
KINMOND: Would you say your father's political leanings affected the path of
your life,
what you chose?
UNDERWOOD: Oh my, yes! Oh my, yes. And he loved baseball, and we
had planned his funeral, so we played “Take Me Out to the Ball Game” at the end.
[laughs] We did his funeral ourselves,
00:02:00and buried him with us singing “Take Me
Out to the Ball Game.” He was a character; he was a big character. And yes, he
did have a great influence on my life. My mother did too, because they were
really open people.
KINMOND: So tell me a little more about your mother.
UNDERWOOD: She was a part-time schoolteacher and believed that we as kids should
know everybody that's possible to know of every different kind, color, and
background. She had all kinds of people moving through our house. If somebody
needed a home, first thing you know we had a new roomer. [laughs]
KINMOND: So there was always an inflow of new characters inside your home
growing up?
UNDERWOOD: Yes, yes, yes, characters are right.
KINMOND: Was this a constant
00:03:00aspect of your childhood?
UNDERWOOD: Well we moved a lot because my dad was
working with the Co-op, and they would move him, to the next place, and then we
would all have to go, but yes. One town we lived in were Amish, and my dad was a
great friend of the Amish, and they would invite him to church. I had a couple
of Amish friends. I was back not too awfully long ago, and I said, “Does anybody
here know Elva Miller?” and they said, “Yes, we don't know her, but that's her
son.” So I got to meet her son. Isn't that good! Then we moved to another town,
and they were Quakers. So I got to know lots about the Quakers, and my mom would
take me to the parties, the Quaker parties. There was a school
00:04:00down the street
from us, a private school, and it was a Quaker high school, and there's one in
the country, and that's it. We had somebody out here doing a thing, and they
said they were from a private school in that little town, and I said, “I know
where she came from.” I went up and asked her, and yes, sure enough that's where
she came from, that little, tiny town, Barnesville, Ohio.
KINMOND: When you say you moved around a lot, because of your father's work
at the Farm Bureau, was it always in Ohio?
UNDERWOOD: Yes.
KINMOND: So you went to high school in Ohio?
UNDERWOOD: Yes.
KINMOND: Can you tell me about those years?
UNDERWOOD: Yes, and nurse's training too.
KINMOND: And your nurse's training too. Was nurse's
training after high school, or during high school?
UNDERWOOD: Yes, after. I worked in the grocery store as a clerk
in this little town
00:05:00in Ohio and saved enough money for my first year
of nurse's training.
KINMOND: What led you to choose nursing training?
UNDERWOOD: My mother wanted me to go to college, and
she even invited the Methodist preacher in, and they had offered me a
scholarship. I said, “Listen, you do know that if I accept a scholarship, then I
have to get all A's or B's, and I'm not sure I can do it. Tell the preacher I'm
not going to go there.” They sent me to camp, and they had some people from the
hospital come to the camp and talk about nurse's training. So I thought, oh
that's a way to get an education. And it has been. I have worked my way through
everything my own way. I worked at Student Health Services at Tech and went
free.
00:06:00KINMOND: So did you accept the scholarship for the nursing training?
UNDERWOOD: There wasn't any.
KINMOND: There was no scholarship?
UNDERWOOD: No.
KINMOND: Okay. So you went out and did that on your own.
UNDERWOOD: I got $100 working selling socks and groceries and I
don't know what all at a quarter an hour we made. I saved $100 that first
year, tuition that was my first year's tuition. I think my dad paid the second
year, which was $60 I think, and the third year was free. It was a Methodist
hospital.
KINMOND: How many years was this nursing training?
UNDERWOOD: Three.
KINMOND: Three years. Approximately, do you know what year you finished?
UNDERWOOD: This is a funny thing.
00:07:00From my
father I just got in the mail a note that he had purchased a $5,000 bond or
something for me with my name on it, and the only thing I can figure it's
probably the year I graduated from nurse's training. So he must've thought, well
I'll just do the old girl a favor, and it came due this week. How long has that
been? Well anyway, 1950, I think I graduated.
KINMOND: Did you stay in Ohio?
UNDERWOOD: I'm trying to pull it together. I decided I wanted to go to college,
really badly wanted to go to college. That was why I went into nurse's training
so I could earn enough money to go to college.
00:08:00I got a job as a nurse at Hiram
College, which is a little college, a little liberal arts school in Ohio. Do you
know Bill White? Baseball player, really red-hot baseball player. And he was
there and sitting around the table with me. Yeah, we worked our way. [laughter]
And he was her shade.
KINMOND: All right [laughs]
UNDERWOOD: And he would say his name was White, and there was another
guy at the table whose name was Black, and he was White, and well anyway.
KINMOND: What did you study at?
UNDERWOOD:
Yeah, I went to Hiram and got a liberal arts degree. Hiram was wonderful because
I got
00:09:00literature and history and everything, a liberal arts education. I
graduated from there, but I can't remember when. I should look that up sometime.
Anyway I really liked it, and I worked for the doctor.
KINMOND: Did you work while you studied?
UNDERWOOD: Oh my yes. I was hired as the nurse, and so they
gave me the education, books, fees, everything, for being the nurse. I lived in
the house that the doctor had his office in downstairs, and if I had a kid that
was sick from the college, they had the room next to my bedroom. I worked my way
through my bachelor's degree. I had a grand time. [laughs]
00:10:00I loved it. I really
liked the liberal arts. I really liked that.
KINMOND: While you were working as a nurse was there any...I know your time
at Virginia Tech, a lot of it was spent on sex education and contraceptives, was any
of that going on while you were a nurse?
UNDERWOOD: Well, that far back no one ever said the word sex. I just took
care of whatever came. My husband was one of my first patients, but he wasn't my
husband yet, of course, but he did become my husband later. He had been clipping
all the shrubbery and stuff around the football field so that they could see to
play football, and he got into poison ivy.
00:11:00He had the worst case of poison ivy I
ever saw. I had to shoot him in the rear end every day. [laughter] So I said,
“This guy's got clean underwear every day he must be okay.” That's terrible.
Don't write that down! [laughter] But I decided this is the one for me! He was
wonderful, but he died in his forties.
KINMOND: After you graduated, were you with your husband? When did you get
married, during your undergrad education?
UNDERWOOD: No, it was after I graduated. Then I worked his way through school
being the nurse at Northwestern University in Chicago. Well Evanston really,
it's in
00:12:00Evanston on the edge of Chicago. Yeah, I worked his way through. So I
used my nurse's training [laughter] all over the country.
KINMOND: So then you moved to Chicago to be a nurse at Northwestern,
approximately how many years was that?
UNDERWOOD: He was in the Navy when we first got married, so I went with
him to Norfolk. I lived in Norfolk for a while with him, and then he had to
decide what kind of school he wanted to go to and where I could earn a living
for him. So then we went to Chicago. Yeah, we lived in Norfolk, just down the
street from William and Mary extension, and I got some more education there.
00:13:00KINMOND: What eventually brought you to Blacksburg, Virginia?
UNDERWOOD: When we
were in Evanston, he started working for the Methodist magazine called Together,
and they weren't real forward thinking. But his magazine, when he was dying in
Sloan Kettering in New York City, he got a letter from Yale Divinity School that
his magazine did more for the Civil Rights Movement than any other Protestant
magazine. So he died knowing he - I said, “You didn't live long, but you made a
hell of a difference.”
KINMOND: Impressive.
UNDERWOOD: Yes,
00:14:00I was proud of him. Yes, he was a good guy; he was a good guy.
Besides that he looked nice too, [laughter] once he got the poison ivy out. But anyway,
now what else?
KINMOND:
So was it after your husband's death that you moved to Blacksburg, Virginia?
UNDERWOOD: No, no, he was working for the Methodist magazine and not real happy
with the Methodists. Especially, since he did so much for Civil Rights that the
whole South quit the magazine.
WRIGHT: What was his work with the Civil Rights Movement? What exactly did he do?
UNDERWOOD: He did, and I've got them all, editorials in his magazine. And his
magazine, if there was a story out there about it, he printed it.
WRIGHT: What was the name of the magazine?
00:15:00UNDERWOOD:
Together magazine. The whole South quit the magazine because most churches gave
the magazine to their congregations and paid for it. Well, doing all this civil
rights stuff, we lost the whole South.
KINMOND: Now were these mostly racial issues?
UNDERWOOD: Yes. Yes.
KINMOND: Was there any talk back then about queer issues?
UNDERWOOD: No, no, isn't that odd? It was all racial. But I just took
that up for myself after I lost him.
KINMOND: Was it because you felt it was lacking in the Civil Rights Movement?
UNDERWOOD: No, it wasn't that intentional,
but now that I'm old and look back I think, “By George, I took off where he left
off.” Yes,
00:16:00yes. Anyway, those were tough days, but we had friends that we had
known in Chicago who worked at Tech. They saw how disturbed he was and how upset
he was, and they said, “Why don't you come to Tech and work for us?” So it was
Bill Walker, and he's no longer living either, but Bill kind of ran the movement
around here about water. So Richard came here to help him--
KINMOND: About water quality or resources?
UNDERWOOD: All of the above, yes. So we moved here too,
and he did publications for Bill.
KINMOND: And was this with Virginia Tech?
UNDERWOOD: Yes, yes. I went to work for
00:17:00Virginia Tech at the Student Health
Services.
KINMOND: So you worked in the Virginia Tech's infirmary?
UNDERWOOD: Yes.
KINMOND: Can you describe your time there?
UNDERWOOD: We never called it the infirmary because that was a bad word for us,
Student Health Services.
KINMOND: Student Health Services, okay.
UNDERWOOD: Sometimes I worked just to take care of patients because we had lots of...
we'd have an outbreak of measles, and we'd have six kids with the measles.
KINMOND: When did you get involved with Planned Parenthood in Blacksburg, Virginia?
UNDERWOOD: Well since I worked for the Student Health Services, I was involved
with them a lot, because if anyone wanted help or an abortion or something
00:18:00about birth
control, we would work with Planned Parenthood on that.
KINMOND: And during this time, were those issues that weren't spoken about aloud?
UNDERWOOD: Oh no, they were talked about. Ed Spencer and his wife were in
that too, and, I was trying to remember – Torgersen and his wife
KINMOND: Dr. Torgersen?
UNDERWOOD: Yes.
KINMOND: What was Ed Spencer's role in this? And who is he?
UNDERWOOD: Well he used to be Dean of
Students, but I don't know that he works anymore. I think he's retired. I see
him at Church. Well I see him a lot, because he kind of took care of me because
he had a lot to do with that, with the award
00:19:00and that day.
[Note: Edward Spencer
was Vice President for Student Affairs and Associate Professor of Higher
Education Administration at Virginia Tech after serving first as Assistant Vice
President for Student Affairs and then Associate Vice President for Student
Affairs.]
KINMOND: With the Ally Award?
UNDERWOOD: Yes. We had a black woman who
took his place. I'm trying to remember her name, and isn't that embarrassing? I
really liked her, and we were good friends. She invited me over when they had
the student opening of the room in Squires that's considered the cultural,
all-cultural room whatever you call that.
WRIGHT: The Multicultural Center?
UNDERWOOD: The Multicultural Center. But anyway, Barbara Pendergrass that was
her name! Barbara Pendergrass, did you know her? I loved her. She comes back
every once in a while.
00:20:00She was Dean of Students and lived in my neighborhood.
WRIGHT: During what time period was she, this black African American woman Dean
of Students, what year at Tech was this?
UNDERWOOD: I don't know. I'd have to
[Note: Barbara Pendergrass was dean of students from 1998-2003.]
WRIGHT: 60s, 50s?
UNDERWOOD: When did I retire for gosh sakes, do you know? [Laughter]
KINMOND: I don't know the date I'm sorry.
UNDERWOOD: What year? But she had an opening for
that center, and we could find that out from Squires. They had this big plate of
cheese, I remember, cheese and crackers and I don't know what all they had in
there and a lot of gay kids and all kinds of kids. Well it was a
00:21:00wonderful time
because all of a sudden they stopped and presented me with a plaque for being
open to all kinds.
KINMOND: So to lead into this, can you tell us about Tom Brobson?
UNDERWOOD: Oh, well he worked in Squires, no, no, the big hall...
KINMOND: Burruss?
UNDERWOOD: Burruss. He worked at Burruss. Now when I started
dealing with all these people, these different kinds of people, I had a big
party once and asked all the gay people around that wanted to come, to come to
my house. And he came.
KINMOND: Now prior to this, was there a place where the
gay community at Virginia Tech could get together?
UNDERWOOD: NO! They wouldn't
let them meet on
00:22:00campus, which was really infuriating. My husband was on the
board at the Presbyterian Fellowship Hall over on Washington Street.
KINMOND: Okay, so downtown Blacksburg?
UNDERWOOD: Yes. They decided, he and the preacher
decided, that those kids could meet over there. And so they did.
KINMOND: And so you met at a Presbyterian Church?
UNDERWOOD: No, it was the campus. You know
where the, words have escaped me since I've been sick.
KINMOND: The old home on Washington Street it's...
UNDERWOOD: Baptist Student Union is right next door to
Cooper House, which is the Presbyterian. And
00:23:00R.B. lives out here, and he was
there at the Baptist Student Union.
KINMOND: Were these largely unofficial
meetings that were taking place, there was no name on them at the time?
UNDERWOOD: Oh I think they were Lambda. Lambda met at the Presbyterian.
KINMOND: Lambda Horizons?
UNDERWOOD: Yes, met at the Presbyterian.
KINMOND: And what was your role with Lambda Horizons?
UNDERWOOD: Nothing. I went to every meeting they
had because I was in charge of worrying about AIDS.
WRIGHT: How did you get to
that point? How did you get involved? I know you felt this was taking over your
husband's work and continuing his work, but how did you position yourself, how
did you get involved with that community?
UNDERWOOD: Because of AIDS. I was supposed to be in charge of sexually
transmitted diseases and pregnancy, etc., etc., etc.
00:24:00KINMOND: So you were a nurse at Virginia Tech?
UNDERWOOD: Yeah.
KINMOND: While the AIDS epidemic had started?
UNDERWOOD: But one of the kids, I think I can tell you this, but don't write it down.
KINMOND: We can omit anything that you want afterwards.
UNDERWOOD: Okay. The first student that had
AIDS I still keep in touch with. He's doing well. Can you imagine this long? How
long...I've been retired since I was 65. Whenever he comes to town, I see him.
There are a couple of professors that are gay, and they've died, so they have a
big funeral, and we all go to that, and I see these people coming back to be
with those, yeah, to be with the service.
00:25:00KINMOND: That's nice.
UNDERWOOD: Yes, it's good to see them all. And to know they're still around.
Yes, gosh, and he was one that's still around.
WRIGHT: I have to ask because you did not mention
their name would it be okay if we leave this section in? This was actually very
interesting and very important moment. Could we?
UNDERWOOD: You can leave it in. I don't think they'd care. Do you?
KINMOND: We'd like to find out everything we can.
UNDERWOOD: I don't think so, but you know they had that ceremony for me.
And that was just this year. [Laughter] I do remember that.
KINMOND: Were these people at the ceremony?
UNDERWOOD: Some. Yes.
KINMOND: Some were, okay. So going
back to your education work at the school, educating the community about
HIV/AIDS, How did you initially go about that?
00:26:00Did you have a forum?
Discussions?
UNDERWOOD: I ran around all the time talking, whenever I was asked,
anywhere. I got asked everywhere. The kids all wanted to know about sex. Funny
thing, the Lyric was rehabbing...
KINMOND: The Lyric Theatre.
UNDERWOOD: They had classes in there, and people would come in off the
street to hear me talk. That was one. I just talked all over the place wherever.
And Jerry Via, do you know him?
KINMOND: I do not know him, no.
UNDERWOOD: He's a very important
professor to me, and he helped me a great deal.
00:27:00He comes out here now because
he's president of the Bird Club. But he's retired. [Note: Jerry Via was hired by
the Department of Biology in 1979 to teach introductory classes in biology to
first-year students. In 2015 he served as assistant dean of undergraduate
instruction.]
KINMOND: When you say he helped you a great deal was that with the
awareness campaigns?
UNDERWOOD: He'd invite me to talk about, because he had a
class called Human Sexuality, and he would invite me. I would go and talk, and
he would talk with me.
KINMOND: Was the HIV/AIDS issues covered in his Human
Sexuality class?
UNDERWOOD: Yes. We talked about that some.
KINMOND: Was this a novel concept at the time, to speak publicly in an academic
setting?
UNDERWOOD:
I don't know. I always thought that I was pretty run of the mill, you know, but
maybe not. Maybe I was a crazy person always. But I was good friends with Jerry
Via, and he had an
00:28:00important job. I know something else that's funny I'll tell
you. I would talk, because a lot of actors and actresses are gay, so there was a
wonderful kid over in the School of Performing Arts that was gay, black kid, and
he called me mom. He would yell across the Drill field, “MOM!”
KINMOND: What led him? Can you go more in-depth with your relationship
with this kid?
UNDERWOOD:
Then he decided while he went off to the war, because the Iraq War was beginning
way back,
KINMOND: So early 90s.
UNDERWOOD: Probably before that even. I don't know. It was way back.
WRIGHT: Reagan era, probably?
UNDERWOOD: Yeah, and he sent me a note to
00:29:00Burruss Hall:
To the Condom Queen of Virginia Tech. [Laughter]
And they knew it was me. That's the bad part! They knew it was me.
KINMOND: So what did you do to earn this title as the Condom Queen of Virginia Tech?
UNDERWOOD: Because everywhere I went I had them because that was the one thing
you could do to prevent that from going through the school.
KINMOND: So a lot, a large part of your outreach education was providing
contraceptives to the students?
UNDERWOOD: Well, not contraception so much as condoms, and that was a
contraception as well. It was mainly because that was the way you keep the virus
from passing from one person to the other. And so yes, I talked a lot about
that.
WRIGHT: Was AIDS like an issue on
00:30:00Virginia Tech's campus? Was it running
rampant with the student population, or was it just trying to prevent that from
happening?
UNDERWOOD: Trying to prevent it. He was the only kid, I only had one
kid, and I see him still. Of course, he still has AIDS, well HIV positive, and
he married his buddy so he could have the insurance because he has taken so much
of the drugs, and they're very expensive, so this saved his life. I see him all
the time. He comes back. He comes back. I see him a lot. We've become good
friends over the years.
KINMOND: So your HIV/AIDS education it was recognized by
the American College Health Association?
00:31:00UNDERWOOD: I have to tell you the truth
about that. When I was in Chicago and working at Northwestern University, the
secretary and I were buddies, and he became the president of the American
College Health Association. So I came in the backdoor. He knew me from that job,
and he's a good guy. So we got invited to...oh, and one of the doctor's sons had
AIDS and
KINMOND: One of the doctors at Virginia Tech?
UNDERWOOD: Yeah. And he
helped us. He went with us to...what's the town in Louisiana that's red hot?
00:32:00KINMOND: Baton Rouge?
UNDERWOOD: No.
WRIGHT: Birmingham?
UNDERWOOD: No. I'll
think of it...Anyway, the American College Health Association met there. Well I
sent these two boys, gay characters, down with the display because I wanted to
have a display at this thing, and they set us up next to...California, what's
the big university out there that everybody knows about?
KINMOND: Berkeley, UCLA
UNDERWOOD: Berkeley, we were next to Berkeley.
KINMOND: Was this a conference that you were in?
UNDERWOOD: Yes. The American College Health Association had a
conference, and they invited the doctor to speak. Because this kid when I knew
him when he was a kid, well anyway, we got invited.
00:33:00 Whatever.
KINMOND: What was in your, what display did you bring?
UNDERWOOD: So they worked up the display
themselves, the kids did. We didn't have any way of, so we called ours
“Education on a Shoestring,” I think we called it. So we did a lot of stuff by
just pulling you know...
KINMOND: Does this have to do with a...did you have a shoestring budget?
UNDERWOOD: Budget.
KINMOND: So how did Virginia Tech
institution support your sex education at the school?
UNDERWOOD: They did well;
they did support it. They supported it. We did get mileage. I sent the kids down
with the carload of stuff, and then I flew because the university gave me money
enough to fly.
00:34:00Isn't that funny I can't think of that town.
WRIGHT: Which state?
UNDERWOOD: I want to say Louisiana. Wright and
KINMOND: New Orleans?
UNDERWOOD:
Did we go to New Orleans...I don't know; I can't remember. This is awful.
Anyway, they told me, “You know our exhibit is more visited than Berkeley's.”
But they said, “Besides, we're cuter.” Because they had some gay kids too. Well
these kids just tickle me to death. [Note: Underwood is referring to the
American College Health Association annual meeting in New Orleans in 1986]
KINMOND: And was this conference, around what year was this?
UNDERWOOD: Gosh, I
don't know.
00:35:00I'd have to look it all up. But, Tech might know because they had to
pay for it. Dr. Vomlehn was the doctor whose son had AIDS. And so he was very
interested in it, and he gave this big speech to the whole conference, and it
was a wonderful speech. I've got it on tape somewhere in this house.
KINMOND: If possible we would like to come back and
UNDERWOOD: I'll see if I can get it out of the drawer and hand it to you.
KINMOND: Because that would be a valuable resource for us to have.
UNDERWOOD: Before you go away. He was sweet doctor, and
he supported me, of course, and the kids loved him.
KINMOND: Did you run into any obstacles?
00:36:00UNDERWOOD: Not very many, and I went to one of the vice
presidents and said, “Can I be the person that takes care of the gays kids and
be their sponsor?” He said, “By all means, Jo Ann!”
KINMOND: But you were the
first faculty advisor to a gay group here at Virginia Tech.
UNDERWOOD: I think so.
KINMOND: And this was Lambda Horizons?
UNDERWOOD: Yeah.
KINMOND: Can you describe your role in that?
UNDERWOOD: Oh I just showed up at all the meetings,
and I went every time they had a meeting. I got to know them that way. And then
the girls tell me that when they saw that a woman was showing up, they began to
come too.
KINMOND: Going back to your work at Virginia Tech, what circumstances
did you find when you arrived at Virginia Tech that led you to have such an
active role in the peer education?
UNDERWOOD: I don't know.
00:37:00I was one of the
nurses downstairs, and when I first started out, I just took care of sick kids.
WRIGHT: And so it's just by circumstance being the nurse on Tech's campus...
UNDERWOOD: One of.
WRIGHT: One of the nurses on Tech's campus
UNDERWOOD: And we still have lunch together.
In fact one of their husbands started the School of
Osteopathy over here.
KINMOND: Was this, your work at Virginia Tech, was this
prior to you receiving your master's degrees, your master's degree in Health
Promotion.
UNDERWOOD: Yes.
KINMOND: Was this degree taken at Virginia Tech?
UNDERWOOD: Yes. I
00:38:00marched on the Drillfield, by George.
KINMOND: Tell us about that when was it?
UNDERWOOD: I don't know.
KINMOND: What happened? What did you march for? Who were you with?
UNDERWOOD: Oh I can find that out real quick
because my son graduated from Virginia Tech at the same time.
[Note: Jo Ann Underwood was awarded her Master of Science in Education in 1984.]
KINMOND: So you were marching at Virginia Tech while your son was a student?
UNDERWOOD: And while he was graduating too.
KINMOND: Was he a student in the march?
UNDERWOOD:
The School of Architecture, and we were on the Drillfield. They had the whole
thing on the Drillfield.
KINMOND: What occasion was, not occasion, what were you marching for?
UNDERWOOD: Graduation.
KINMOND: Oh, for graduation.
UNDERWOOD: Yeah.
KINMOND: Were you a part of any protest of sorts at Virginia Tech?
UNDERWOOD: No, no.
KINMOND: No, were there any protests for LGBT rights while
you were at Virginia Tech?
UNDERWOOD: I don't remember that. I don't remember
any.
00:39:00I tried to be funny, and so people appreciated my being funny.
KINMOND: Was that a way to...
UNDERWOOD: Yes, to win the old birds, yes.
KINMOND: So there was a gap in peoples...
UNDERWOOD: I don't know.
KINMOND: Did you feel there was
a disconnect between people's attitudes towards the LGBT community? Or even just
doing sex education in general?
UNDERWOOD: Who knows? I got invited to the
Methodist Church in Christiansburg to speak. I thought that was really a first.
They were surprisingly open to me.
KINMOND: What did you do at the church? In
what ways...do you know why you were invited there?
UNDERWOOD: And I only went once.
00:40:00KINMOND: Can you describe any of the challenges of being a health educator
in the university?
UNDERWOOD: They graduate. Your friends all graduate.
KINMOND:
So you did become very close to...
UNDERWOOD: I really liked those kids, and by
the way, I have a book that a professor wrote for those students. He came to the
meeting, Lambda meeting. Now I learned more at the Lambda meetings than I ever
thought I would learn about gaydom. He was a gay professor, and I don't know
whether anybody knew that or not, but I think they did because people usually
know. He wrote a book, and he gave me the book, and it's in there somewhere on
that bookshelf, about why people are gay.
00:41:00His opinion was that in the olden
days, in the caveman days, the women worked the shores because their skeletons
show that they had big shoulders and they must have swam a lot, and gathered
stuff for the tribes to eat, and the gay men, well the men were all out here on
the edge protecting the women who were working the beaches. He thinks that's how
gay people started, which I thought was an interesting theory.
WRIGHT: What do you think?
UNDERWOOD: I don't know. I don't care. [laughter] I really don't
care. They are so good to me. They are some of the best kids
00:42:00that I have.
KINMOND: Would you say you had a mentor? Were you a mentor to these kids in
Lambda Horizons?
UNDERWOOD: Oh yes, they came to see me. A couple of them got
married, and I gave them that one down there, they always liked that thing, so
Ramson.
KINMOND: The sheer, the sheers?
UNDERWOOD: Sheep sheers. Antique sheep
sheers, and I called that shorn again. What I did was put ribbons on it and
called it the gay blades. [laughter] And they'd think, they got it at their
house, and they live in Christiansburg. She writes the biggest stories about
Virginia Tech in the Roanoke Times, one of them.
KINMOND: What sort of advice did these students in Lambda Horizons come
to you with? Or questions, concerns?
UNDERWOOD: I can't remember.
00:43:00You know I was just a friend. I can't remember that
they did bring me anything. But I was glad that when I was going with all the
men that the women then began to come. I was glad about that.
WRIGHT: Why wasn't
it initially both men and women? Why do you think it took some time for the
women to start coming around and being more involved? Do you have any guess?
UNDERWOOD: They said it was because I showed up.
WRIGHT: But why weren't they doing it beforehand?
UNDERWOOD: I don't know. The gay men and the gay women are
very separate. But they weren't when we all got together, that I could notice.
But you know
00:44:00I don't always see everything that happens.
KINMOND: Did you notice
different issues between the gay men and the gay women?
UNDERWOOD: No.
KINMOND:
At Lambda Horizons? Did they have different issues with the gay community at
Virginia Tech or was it all under one umbrella?
UNDERWOOD: It was pretty much
under one umbrella, and they were very upset about not being able to meet on
campus. So when they finally got them
KINMOND: And this is to clarify the
lesbians. The gay women did not have a
UNDERWOOD: Nobody. Lambda couldn't meet
on campus. They wouldn't let them.
KINMOND: What changed that allowed Lambda to
finally be able to meet on campus?
UNDERWOOD: Well because they met at the
Presbyterian campus house, and I think the university was ashamed of
00:45:00 themselves.
That's just my opinion.
KINMOND: So the university eventually after they were
meeting off campus allowed them on campus.
UNDERWOOD: Allowed them on, because
it's the biggest fraternity on campus. What are they going to do?
KINMOND: So it was a large community.
UNDERWOOD: Large.
WRIGHT: Do you have an approximate
number of how many students were involved during your time?
UNDERWOOD: I don't know.
WRIGHT: Thirty would meet at a time or okay?
UNDERWOOD: Anyway, and one of
the priests came all the time. He's gone now too, and I think, “Is that why he's
gone? Did they move him?” No. I don't want to say, and I don't know. I don't
know anything about that.
KINMOND: Can you tell us about the opposite side of
the spectrum, the straight community at Virginia Tech who stood up for the LGBT
rights?
00:46:00UNDERWOOD: You know, I was trying to think, but if I would go to talk in
the residence halls everybody came, both kinds.
KINMOND: So it was at that time
a very open environment?
UNDERWOOD: It seemed like it to me, but I know that it
wasn't at the beginning.
KINMOND: When you say beginning was this before you arrived or?
UNDERWOOD: No, when I first started in working they met off campus.
My husband was on the board at that time and said that they shall meet at the,
he and another person that ran the Presbyterian - preacher, he was a preacher,
said they shall meet at Cooper House, which is where they met next door to the
Baptist. So I was glad about that.
00:47:00KINMOND: So at that time the straight
community, the allies, they were largely off campus?
UNDERWOOD: The kids were
off campus. The gay kids were off campus meeting, and probably, and I don't know
about it, but the first gay kid that invited me to his house for dinner, that
was wonderful. Anyway, He told me the way you tell who was gay, they have
Levelor blinds, and I forget what else the lights were, some kind of different
kind of lights. He said that's how you tell, Jo Ann. He tried to teach me
everything he understood,
00:48:00and I still keep in touch with him. He was at that
meeting when they gave me that award. He was there. So I've known him forever,
and he's one that went to...oh gosh, I want to say New Orleans.
KINMOND: To the conference?
UNDERWOOD: Yeah. He went down with the exhibit, and said they were
cuter than, they were cuter, and he is an attractive character. He probably
wouldn't care if you knew his name.
KINMOND: Can you tell us his name?
UNDERWOOD: I'm sitting here thinking...Weber.
KINMOND: Mark Weber?
UNDERWOOD: You know Mark?
KINMOND: Not personally. We did receive your contact information
from him.
UNDERWOOD: Okay. Mark, he was the first one that had me for dinner and
tried to explain to me what gay people were like. Yes, yes, Levelor blinds and
00:49:00KINMOND: So at the time he was student?
UNDERWOOD: Yes.
KINMOND: And he was a member of Lambda Horizons?
UNDERWOOD: Yes, yes, yes. Oh gosh, he was a, still
is, a good friend to me. I've got all kinds of stuff in there. He went off then
to work for the Department of Health for the United States...what do you call
that? Anyway, he was good friends with those people, and he got me their
autographs for my graduation from Tech. I've got pictures in there of the snappy
people from his day and mine. Anyway, he and I have been good buddies ever
since. He's the first kid that took me in and tried to explain to me what was
going on.
00:50:00KINMOND: Did he introduce you to other members of the gay community?
UNDERWOOD: Yes, and when I would go to the meetings, he was a big shot in the
meetings, and the person that you said worked for Tech, Ranson?
KINMOND: Brobson, Tom Brobson?
UNDERWOOD: Brobson, now I didn't have anything to do with
them, and they didn't have anything to do with me. Because, probably because, of
their situation.
KINMOND: Which was?
UNDERWOOD: Tenuous if you were gay, you know.
KINMOND: Can you, can you go a little more into that?
UNDERWOOD: Because some people are so prejudiced about those
people that they wouldn't even want them working.
KINMOND: Would you say this was an issue on Virginia Tech's campus
at the time?
UNDERWOOD: I don't know, but ask him what he thinks. I
00:51:00had him and
a bunch of them over to my house for dinner.
KINMOND: Recently?
UNDERWOOD: Oh
no, waaaaay back. I had an armoire. I don't know what you call them, but a
cupboard that they were absolutely in love with my antiques. That's when I had a
house and more stuff, when I had them all over, and they liked my antiques.
KINMOND: How long were you around and involved with Lambda Horizons? Once you
became the faculty advisor, was it your entirety of the rest of your time at
Virginia Tech?
UNDERWOOD: Yeah, I was mixed up with them always.
KINMOND: Did you notice
00:52:00any...did the group change in size while they were there?
UNDERWOOD:
I don't know. I think probably, but I don't know for sure. I just remember
snatches of things. I think that what they gave me when they opened the party at
Squires, is behind that creature that's...let's see if it is. [Underwood gets up
to check]
KINMOND: Okay, we can grab it.
UNDERWOOD: [Laughs from a distance] Here it is. And it was 2001.
00:53:00KINMOND: This is great.
UNDERWOOD: They presented
that to me when they opened that particular office, and Barbara Pendergrass was
the chief.
KINMOND: So this certificate from Virginia Tech's Safe Zone can you
describe that, Virginia Tech's Safe Zone, what its mission was, what it did?
UNDERWOOD: Well, this is the symbol for gay...that's the flag for the gays, and
Barbara was always sympathetic to my work them, with the gay kids.
KINMOND: So back to this party at Squires that you mentioned, where
you received this, what was that for?
UNDERWOOD: Opening of the multicultural room.
KINMOND: OK
UNDERWOOD: And Barbara was there and invited me. And these crazy kids, I was
eating cheese and here they presented me with this! [laughs]
00:54:00I just was standing
around, talking and eating cheese [laughs] I didn't know it was for me. But
anyway.
KINMOND: I'll just set this down. So did you, yourself, have a labeled
safe zone at Virginia Tech or was it just through your reputation that these
students came through...
UNDERWOOD: No, I had kids come for all reasons. The
students came to me, and they knew I would talk. Well what I did was go around
to the residence halls, as I was invited. They said to me from Burruss Hall, you
can't go unless you are invited, so I got invited to every one. The first year I
went to every dormitory on the campus. So everybody that came was different. It
was a motley crew. It was not just one group or another.
00:55:00It was everybody came.
KINMOND: What did you do in the residence halls?
UNDERWOOD: Just give the speech.
KINMOND: On?
UNDERWOOD: Sex.
KINMOND: Okay. And at the time were you the only person on campus doing this?
UNDERWOOD: That I know about.
KINMOND: Can you tell us some things you covered in these speeches?
UNDERWOOD: Well, I was over
at the fraternity house that's behind McDonald's. Now it's a bar, do you know
what I mean?
KINMOND: Oh Taphouse, yes.
UNDERWOOD: Yeah, okay. I was in the
basement, and all these boys were sitting around in the dark. They had me over
to talk sex, and I was telling them about being safe, and if you're going to
fool around, you better know what you're doing. I said,
00:56:00“Now Vaseline will
destroy a condom” and this kid says, “WHAT!” and then he says, “Does anybody
have a pencil?” And then the other kids said, “You mean you can't remember
that?!” It was the funniest night I gave speeches, was in their basement, but
don't tell them I said that. What group is that? I don't even remember, but it
was a bunch of boys. One time I had this beautiful athlete come running up the
stairs coming into a room where I was working, behind a door and said, “Look,
I'm the result of a mother who had an affair,
00:57:00and it's not going to happen to my
girlfriend and me. What can I do?” Can you believe that? That's the most clear
shot that I remember of that kid coming to me to ask me what to do. I
appreciated it. All by himself he had the courage to come in there, come up
those stairs, and find me in this great big room of an offices, and get behind
the door and say, “Now look, it's not going to happen to me, so I've got to have
all the advice you can give me.” So I did, yes. But I've often wondered how he
did.
KINMOND: You don't keep in touch?
UNDERWOOD: No, he's not one that kept in
00:58:00touch with me. But I don't know that it was anything to do with anything, you
know.
WRIGHT: Do you have any other memorable stories or interactions with
students like that where they opened up and just shared their personal lives?
Could you share any of those?
UNDERWOOD: I'm thinking. I can't. You know I
erased them as fast as I heard them because it's not good to talk about. In case
I would let somebody's privacy, I don't know whether that's the reason or
whether I'm just getting old and can't remember. But I don't think I ever
remembered very much that anybody said to me on a private basis. I was close
with the counseling service
00:59:00and friends with some of the counselors, good
friends. I would send a kid to them if I was worried at all.
KINMOND: So you worked along side...
UNDERWOOD: Yeah, I worked with the counseling service very
closely. I also had a clientele of people who were binge eaters and vomiters.
You know, that kind of stuff. I had that group kind of followed me around too.
Well it was an interesting job to end your career with, yes.
KINMOND: So you found the job very rewarding?
UNDERWOOD: Oh my yes. Oh my yes. And just look
around. I've got constant reminders of them. But I do wonder what happened to
that Catholic priest.
01:00:00Now that we have a new pope that seems to be more
accepting I wonder if that has helped him. I liked him a lot, and the fact that
he came to every meeting just like I did, that I thought that was a good thing
that he did that. I never hear from him, of course. I don't hear from Brobson
either. What's his name?
KINMOND: Tom
UNDERWOOD: Yes, I don't hear from him
either. But you know the grown-ups didn't keep in close touch with me. Except a
preacher, I've got a good preacher friend. When she moved to another
01:01:00 church
where they were more open about this, I appreciated that she did that. We still
keep in touch.
KINMOND: Approximately how long did you have this role for? Until
around what year did you officially leave the faculty side of Virginia Tech, not
the community but just the faculty?
UNDERWOOD: Well I retired when I was 65, and now I'm 85, so it's 20 years ago.
KINMOND: So mid-90s okay.
UNDERWOOD: 20 years ago.
KINMOND: And you stayed in the Blacksburg area?
UNDERWOOD: Well I'm still here.
KINMOND: So you've been here since the mid-90s. You say
01:02:00you've kept in
touch with certain people that you mentored at certain times, but have you kept
in touch with the organization itself, do you still have an active role?
UNDERWOOD: No. I decided because I was kind of notorious that the next person
should have a cleaner slate. You know what I mean? And so when I gave it up I
gave it up because I felt like the next person shouldn't have me shadowing, and
besides it was another person...of her race.
KINMOND: You can say another black person, African American.
UNDERWOOD: It's okay?
WRIGHT: Yeah, yes.
UNDERWOOD:
Yeah, and I liked her a lot. I felt like if I showed up all the time, you know,
it just wouldn't be good for her.
KINMOND: So you kind of passed
01:03:00the torch, so to speak.
UNDERWOOD: Yes.
KINMOND: You gave them full control.
UNDERWOOD: Yes,
and I don't know how she feels, but by then too, by the end of my career I had
kind of blended it all together every...all my work. With people who vomited,
with people who... you know - everything. And just handed her...but the
interesting thing is a young man came to me when he was 19 and said, “Can I work
for you?” and I said, “Well, I'll think about it.” So I said, “Okay.” I let him
volunteer and be a volunteer, and he was the first male that I had that was a
volunteer. And now he's married and has two kids and he took me to the pumpkin
patch with the kids this past week, two weeks ago. Anyway,
01:04:00I really like him.
And he has my job.
KINMOND: So he currently has your job?
UNDERWOOD: He and his wife have my job.
KINMOND: Do you know the title of the job nowadays?
UNDERWOOD: Health educator.
KINMOND: Health educator. Okay.
UNDERWOOD: Student Health services.
KINMOND: Okay.
UNDERWOOD: He and his wife, I haven't talked to them
about work because there again you don't want to mess in somebody else's box,
but I have a good time with him and his kids. He called me today. I forget what
for, something I'm supposed to be looking for...
KINMOND: So recently this year you were at the 6th Annual Lavender Ceremony.
UNDERWOOD: Yes!
KINMOND: Can you tell us
01:05:00what it's about, who was present?
UNDERWOOD: Well he spoke, the person I was just telling you about.
KINMOND: Okay.
UNDERWOOD: And Mark did too.
KINMOND: Mark Weber?
UNDERWOOD: Yeah. He came back and gave a speech. The two of them
spoke about me.
KINMOND: What sort of things did they mention? What was the
theme of the ceremony?
UNDERWOOD: Well...it was more about me being more
accepting of everything and everybody. And a mother came up at the end with
tears running down her face and said that she wanted to thank me because she
didn't think her kid would've been safe at Virginia Tech if it hadn't been for
me. That meant more to me than all the speeches they gave. For this woman to say
that, and he was one of those up on the stage with the Lavender around
01:06:00 his...you
know
KINMOND: Sash?
UNDERWOOD: Yeah.
KINMOND: So at the ceremony you were
presented with the Ally of the Year Award?
UNDERWOOD: Yeah.
KINMOND: Which we have over here.
UNDERWOOD: Yes.
KINMOND: And it's now named after you?
UNDERWOOD: Yes, and I say my kid graduated from here, too, and I told him,
“Listen, if you don't like it being called the Underwood Award you've got to
speak up.” [laughter] But I'd kill him if he did. [More laughter] Yes, he was
here, and my sister was here, and her husband. Well and the family are tickled
to death.
KINMOND: They were all at the ceremony or...?
UNDERWOOD: Those few
that I named, but I got lots more out there. And everybody's glad, and you know
they did an
01:07:00article, Tonia did an article about it.
KINMOND: The Roanoke Times?
UNDERWOOD: Yeah. And she was one of the first women that came to the Lambda
meetings, and I really like her. And her partner, they're the ones I painted
that picture with the ribbons on it and called it the gay blades. They live over
in Christiansburg, but they have been very good friends to me. When I was sick,
and I was sick a month over here in rehab after surgery and all kinds of stuff,
she came, one of them came, the partner, every day took care of me every day for
one half of the day that whole month. That's really something. Came every day
and stayed half of the day. Then my other friend, who
01:08:00took me this morning to
the grocery, came the other half of the day. So I had special duty nurses every
day. Well they weren't nurses, but they took care of me, kept me cheered up,
made me drink water.
KINMOND: So you obviously left a big impression on these
people you worked with.
UNDERWOOD: Well I like to think that. They certainly
made an impression on me. As you can tell, I certainly care a great deal for
these people. Yes.
KINMOND: Was there anything else you'd like to add as far
as...what was...whether there were challenges? Was it rewarding through the
years?
UNDERWOOD: The funny thing is that I saw the doctor today in the grocery
store that was my boss when I was doing all that.
KINMOND: While you were the registered nurse?
UNDERWOOD: Yeah.
01:09:00The doctor that was - yes, he was over at
Kroger's today with me. It was good to see him. Although, he put the kibosh on
me sometimes. He would say, “Now you're getting a little too wild.” So he would
cool me down a little bit now and then. And one thing I wanted to do really
badly that I didn't get to do was I wanted to do with the counseling service, to
talk about violence in dating.
KINMOND: This is...okay...this was an issue while
you were working as a registered nurse?
UNDERWOOD: Yeah, but it still is.
KINMOND: Still?
UNDERWOOD: A big one now. I wanted to start that, and they
wouldn't let me.
KINMOND: They prevented...
UNDERWOOD: They said, “Don't do it.”
01:10:00They supported me in almost everything else, so I didn't want to cross them.
KINMOND: So because you were allowed to do your work with the gay community,
sex, health education...
UNDERWOOD: Yes, and I thought well that...okay.
KINMOND: Was this topic spoken about at any of the Lambda Horizon meetings?
UNDERWOOD: Violence?
KINMOND: Relationship violence.
UNDERWOOD: No, no. But I was beginning to be worried about that.
KINMOND: And were there any groups on campus at the time?
UNDERWOOD: No, that were interested in the subject? No, not
that I knew of. But it just began to gnaw on me a little bit. Maybe, maybe I was
always thinking of the next step that I would take. That would've been it. That
would've been the next thing I tackled,
01:11:00but I was about ready to retire anyway
so...
KINMOND: Are you aware if this void has been filled on campus?
UNDERWOOD:
I don't know, and I haven't talked to John about it. Now John is the kid I took
in when he was 20, and now he's 42, and he took me to the pumpkin patch with his
little girls the other day. And I haven't asked him about that, whether they're
into that, he and his wife. They would be the perfect ones to do it though - a
married couple...with two little girls. I think they would be good at that. I'll
have to ask him next time I see him. You've jogged my memory.
KINMOND: Well we can take his contact information
01:12:00afterwards and find out where he is.
UNDERWOOD:
Go see John. I'm supposed to call him up. His mother wants to go somewhere I
want to go, anyway. I've never met her, but she's my age.
KINMOND: So my last question is, I know we just spoke to you about this over the
weekend, what made you want to do this interview?
UNDERWOOD: Do this interview?
KINMOND: Do you feel that this part of Virginia Tech has been recorded?
Is there written down history of this or...?
UNDERWOOD: I don't think so, but I don't care. That
doesn't bother me any. The people that know, know. That's okay. And John
01:13:00has my
job, so he knows for sure.
KINMOND: So it's being passed down?
UNDERWOOD: And he
and I, well the pumpkin that you see around here, well anyway. He took me to the
pumpkin farm with his little girls and his wife. She works with him, the two of
them work together over there, and I think that's a good thing to have as a
couple.
KINMOND: A working relationship.
UNDERWOOD: A couple...probably reach more people that way.
KINMOND: Were there any couples in Lambda Horizons? Was
there a lot of dating going on?
UNDERWOOD: Yes, but I never messed in that.
KINMOND: Okay, so you weren't so much of a relationship counselor in your role.
UNDERWOOD: No. No. I was just trying to keep them from having terrible diseases.
KINMOND: So all about safety?
UNDERWOOD: Yes.
01:14:00KINMOND: All right, well I think
this covers a good spectrum of your time at Virginia Tech, and thank you for
speaking with us today.
UNDERWOOD: Oh, you're welcome. You can tell I love to talk.
01:15:00
