VT Stories Oral History with Ida Powell, May 17, 2018 (Ms2016-015)

Ren Harman: Good morning. This is Ren Harman, the Project Director for VT

Stories. Today is Thursday, May 17, 2018 at about 9:05 AM. We are in the

Holtzman Alumni Center on the campus of Virginia Tech with a very special guest.

If you could just state in a complete sentence when you were born and where you

were born.

Ida Powell: My name is Ida Joe Berger Powell, born August 30, 1936, Johnson

City, Tennessee. And allow me to say that six weeks later I was back in Bedford

County, Virginia, so I claim Bedford County as the place from which I came.

Ren: What years did you attend Virginia Tech?

Ida: Fall of 1956 to '58, then I attended from 1975 to 00:01:00 '77.

Ren: What were your degrees and your majors during those times?

Ida: Well, let's back up and say how I got here and then I'll tell you what I received.

Ren: Okay.

Ida: I first attended Old Madison College, now James Madison University. During

my second year the light came on in my head and I thought I'm studying home

economics. There was a place that I met through 4H Club Virginia Tech and I knew

that there were professors there with doctorates. There was some research

underway, so I thought why not go for the best. I transferred to 00:02:00Virginia Tech

in the fall of '56 and my Madison department head was good enough that she took

the Tech requirements and helped during my sophomore year take the courses that

would put me on the smooth path to Virginia Tech. And I also because of the two

schools I insisted that I have a total education. Let me explain that.

Ren: Okay.

Ida: Madison College had 1,100 women, 100 men who were day students, definitely

not today's situation. So I came to Virginia Tech 4,500 in the student body of

whom 120 were women. So before I left Madison one of the 00:03:00men gave me a lecture

on being part of a minority group, so I say I've had a woman's education and a

man's education and that is a complete education, thank you very much.

Ren: [Laughs] When you graduated in '58 from Virginia Tech that was in home

economics, is that correct?

Ida: Home economics extension major, and I had always thought that I would join

the cooperative extension. However, the love bug bit while I was here at

Virginia Tech and I decided in order to take work where my future husband would

find his work teaching would be more flexible. Dean Maude Wallace of Extension

said, "A lot of people think they are going to get married and it doesn't

happen," 00:04:00and I thought Miss Wallace you don't know that man, and almost 60 years

later we are still attached.

Ren: That's wonderful. You were back here in the 70s, is that correct?

Ida: To be totally correct you need to know that Virginia Tech came to me and

let me explain. I read about a master's degree in adult and continuing education

to be offered at the site of the Community College in Lynchburg, Virginia, Tech

professors, adult and continuing education. Frankly it did not upgrade my status

as a wife and mother, but I thought this is a neat opportunity. So for three 00:05:00years I went to school for three hours every Monday night two nights a week

during the summer. So I say Virginia Tech brought that master's degree to me

which was wonderful because we then had young children and I did hope that when

mama was hard at work with her lessons maybe the little dears would take a hint

to do their lessons. But that was fortunate.

Ren: Yeah, absolutely. I want to back up just a little bit and learn a little

bit about your early life. You were born in Johnson City, Tennessee, Tri-cities

area and six weeks later you moved to Bedford County. Did you grow up in Bedford 00:06:00 County?

Ida: Yes, on a dairy farm in Bedford County. In those days you joined the 4H

Club when you were 10. Now they have Clover Buds. They have earlier programs,

but 4H Club was an important activity that introduced me to people across the

State of Virginia and I embraced that, was active in it and in the year 1955 I

was a state winner in the electric project. I went to Chicago to the National 4H

Club Congress which was tremendously exciting, received a college scholarship

from Westinghouse, and $300 paid for an entire semester's education. Thank you

very 00:07:00 much.

Ren: What did your mother and father do?

Ida: My father as you might guess was a dairy farmer. My mother was a

schoolteacher for 18 years prior to marriage. In her day married women were not

allowed to continue teaching. That seems strange today but that was the case

when she married in 1935. So when she had three children we jokingly say that

school was the best game she knew, and I could remember as a very small child

being told, "If you are very good and take your nap I will let you have your

tablet to practice printing or your Primer reader afterwards." So when she

marked 00:08:00her children into first grade, we had no kindergarten then, she announced

to the teacher at the end of the year, "I expect these girls to be second

graders, not first graders." It worked beautifully. We had one room with first

and second grade so you only moved your desk from this corner to that one.

Ren: Right. Your mother being a schoolteacher and what you just said there, so

education was very important to her.

Ida: We knew early on that college was in our future.

Ren: What kind of things did you like to do as a young girl, with your siblings,

with your friends, what kind of activities and things did you get into?

Ida: Well you have to realize by the time we were in high school we spent three

hours a day on the school bus. You left home at 7:30. You were back at 4:30, at

which 00:09:00time you did piano practice, homework, whatever chores might need doing.

So socializing was through church activities and we definitely at the end of a

gravel road with a herd of cows and a brother and sister reading was a favorite

activity, and to this day it is.

Ren: What did you like to read back then?

Ida: Well let's say whatever is 00:10:00available. Some of the children's classics. We

were read to but we also read and that was what you could do when you had a bit

of free time. And then back then board games, families played games.

Ren: Growing up and attending church and doing all these things when did you

first start thinking about college and then how did your decision to go to

Madison play into this, and then how did all this happen? Did you also apply to

Virginia Tech or what's the story there?

Ida: Well, as I said we grew up knowing that college was in our future. Our

mother had attended Longwood. In the early days there were four state normal

schools for females -- Farmville, Harrisonburg, Radford, Fredericksburg. And we

had visited Mary Washington. We chose Madison and I think I explained 00:11:00earlier it

gradually dawned that for home economics Virginia Tech was a better place. And

it was a familiar place because we had been here for a number of years for the

summer state 4H short course, at which time we had met a number of the women

extension specialists, and also men, but met persons from across the state,

fellow 4H Club members.

Ren: When I was interviewing Ms. Herndon yesterday she talked a little bit about

the short course and 00:12:00coming here over the summer. Do you remember your first

impressions or the first time you saw Virginia Tech? Do you remember what it

looked like and how you felt? Do you remember that?

Ida: Well the gray Hokie Stone. As youngsters coming from a farm background

let's just say we were all impressed. We saw it as a very big place and when we

came in yesterday it's a much much bigger place.

Ren: And it continues to grow, right?

Ida: It does indeed.

Ren: So when you transferred here to Virginia Tech from Madison you lived in

Hillcrest, correct?

Ida: All women lived in Hillcrest and women today would be astounded to know

that we did not eat 00:13:00with the men. We had our own dining room, our own kitchen

staff, our own meals and things were a bit different. And if you wished to go to

the library in the evening you signed yourself out in a notebook and you signed

in when you came back. If you wished to leave campus for anything as uplifting

as say a statewide church retreat you had to have a note from home saying it was

all right to go. Try telling that to today's students who go across campus as

they so choose. We also had a housemother. Housemothers in the 50s tended to be

little old gray-haired ladies, and my senior year I was honored to be the

housemother's assistant, which gave me a private room which was 00:14:00fine with me.

And it also gave me a little bit of income and when she needed to be out of her

office during her regular hours then it was my duty to be there.

Ren: Can you talk a little bit about all the women that lived in Hillcrest that

was the only place that they lived on campus, a lot of close bonds were formed

between you all?

Ida: It struck me years later when I started hearing about sororities and

fraternities that we simply didn't need one. We were a sisterhood. We cared

about each other. By and large we were home economic students. We had an

architect student, a short little 00:15:00woman who had to climb up on her stool to

reach her drawing board. We had an engineering student, but we had many classes

together. Speaking of classes, I've mentioned the fact that one of the Tech men

and I became very close to each other. He joined me in auditing marriage and

family relations. It was a credit course for me and I can remember

surreptitiously handing notes across the aisle to him during class, then because

I wanted to understand his business degree. As a senior girl I trekked across

campus and signed up 00:16:00for Freshman Business Procedure, and I was in there with a

bunch of freshman cadets. They saw this to them a older woman. I was three years

older thank you very much, so those guys cried on my shoulder about what the

mean upper classmen were doing to them. But it was my attempt to understand the

world in which he was moving.

Ren: Can you talk about your husband, William , correct?

Ida: Right.

Ren: Class of 1954, can you talk about how the two of you met? You mentioned it

a little bit but can you tell the story about how the two of you met?

Ida: Well all the women were up in Hillcrest, we understand that. I had my

sister and my first cousin there along with me, which is a bit unusual, but my

husband and his roommate were both 00:17:00returned from their compulsory military

service. His roommate, Bob Herndon, had an automobile which was unusual for that

day. Very few persons on campus, very few students had an automobile. Seniors

might but the rest of us did not. Bob Herndon and my husband would come to the

girls dorm and pick up a backseat stuffed full of women and take us downtown to

Blacksburg Methodist Church. That went on for quite some time.

It finally became obvious to those 00:18:00concerned that Bill and I had a special

interest. I had a nosy little roommate, a freshman from DC and she did what any

young girl would do. She would say, "Idahas he kissed you yet?" "No Gail." "Well

has he kissed you yet?" "No Gail." Well it finally happened I think January 7,

1950-something or other and I thought that little rascal I am not telling her a

word. I go back to our dorm room. It's full of women who were in there having a

good time with her. I don't say a thing but I open the door and walk in and my

roommate starts screeching, "He did it! He did it! He did it! 00:19:00Get out of here I

have to talk to my roommate."

Ren: Oh my goodness.

Ida: We both remember that.

Ren: That's a wonderful story.

Ida: But he had been before his military service thank you very much Captain of

the Highty Tighties, and I am just sorry that I missed all of that fame glory

and good-looking uniform, because poor little me was back in high school and by

the time he came back and had finished his military in order to work on a

master's degree I had arrived here. And we spent a great lot of time with 00:20:00Blacksburg Church activities. The Methodists had Wesley Singers. It was a men's

singing group. I was their accompanist, and another one of the women students

was their director. So we had Sundays and then we had Thursday nights together.

Wesley Singers are still a going group.

Ren: One thing that I want to ask you, VT Stories is interested in the role of

mentorship and advising that maybe faculty members, professors, instructors had

on students while they were here. During your time here did you have anyone that

you felt mentored you or advised you in your degree and throughout your

educational career here?

Ida: I cannot name one person specifically, but I have been influenced by any

numbers. Dr. Mildred Tate was 00:21:00head of the department of home economics which was

in the College of Agriculture. And as we were getting seriously interested in

each other I remember in essence we got some marriage counseling from Dr. Tate.

I'm recalling the Johnson Temperament Analysis in which we both did our quizzes

and then she explained to us how we were alike and how we differed. Dr. Laura

Jane Harper was a nutrition teacher at that time. Later we are proud to say the

first 00:22:00woman dean here at Virginia Tech, and she was an excellent teacher. I

remember going to her for some advice. The woman was wise. She was brilliant.

She was also imminently practical. She told the tale of a student who came back

after marriage saying, "Dr. Tate my husband just will not eat beets. I have

prepared this this way and this way and this way and what shall I do?" Well do

you know what her answer was?

Ren: Yes.

Ida: "Don't feed him beets." This was a great proponent of moderation in all things.

Ren: Right. I want to ask you only 120 or so women on the entire campus all of

who lived in Hillcrest, 00:23:00you said you were a minority on campus in a lot of ways.

What was that experience like of being just a small tightknit group of women

when all your classes were probably...a lot of men maybe in some of your classes?

Ida: By the time I got here with my basic coursework done back at Madison

College I was primarily in home economics classes, although I did have just a

few with men. But I remember sitting in the library working hard late

afternoons, the cadets are drilling. "I've got a girl at VPI. One glass eye and

one wooden leg, sound off -- 1, 2, 3, 4." They did that better, but I thought

you little rascals. Well at least you are 00:24:00recognizing our presence.

00:24:23 But I'm remembering getting a letter from a Student Affairs Director

telling me Dear Miss Berger please come to Burruss Auditorium. It was an awards

ceremony and because it was a generic letter it advised me to wear a coat and

tie, and I thought I'm tempted to do that, but no -- I think I will just dress

as a lady as I always did.

Ren: Right. Wow.

Ida: But that told me this was directed toward the guys.

Ren: I was talking to Dorothy about this yesterday, do you think that a lot of

women that lived in Hillcrest were 00:25:00they trying to like move the ball forward a

little bit in terms of being more recognized on campus or was it just kind of

the era of the times? What's your impression of that?

Ida: We were mainly focused on obtaining a good education, and I don't think the

wider societal issues were quite as pronounced. Back then in the 1950s home

economics was a going concern. Our national professional organization had 56,000

members. Every high school had a home economics teacher. Every county had their

home demonstration agent, and the utility companies 00:26:00hired home economists to

help homemakers bluntly to use more electricity. Here's how to use all of your

new appliances. So we were going into a wide open field and at that time we were

told that you will work for maybe five years, stay home for 15 years, rear a

family. You may or may not go back to work.

It was almost a given that being a wife and mother was down the road someplace,

although we certainly know better that was not the plan for everyone. But I

think we were 00:27:00not quite so focused on societal change, but because we learned

some good values and work ethics and learned to work together we have managed to

go with the flow over the years, and now we see things differently.

Ren: What are some of your favorite memories or experiences? Is there some that

you can really remember that stick out in your mind?

Ida: The pastor to Methodist students has one that he never fails to share. He

needed to find Bill for some reason and one of the persons he quizzed said, "Why

don't you go look by the Duck Pond?" So we are down there in his roommate's

automobile 00:28:00and all of a sudden the pastor's face comes through the open window

and 50 years later that man is still remembering, "I knew where to find you,

down by the Duck Pond." But I said this is the guy who married us. I made my

wedding dress in class here. We had a course called Flat Pattern Design. You had

to design a garment, make the pattern and then make the garment. I needed a

wedding dress so I thought why not do that? We were on the quarter system and

that's the time I had in which to work. So I 00:29:00designed it and it's going to be a

lace, all-over lace, lots of tucks, etc., and obviously lace has to go over

something, otherwise you are creating a spectacle. So I get my pattern made. I

have the lace and our very fine clothing and textiles teacher, Oris Glisson was

the instructor. I realized that white fabric did not come in a length or a width

sufficient to go with this pattern.

So I say, "Ms. Glisson what am I going to do?" Here's another practical woman.

She said, "Go down to Roanoke. Buy the finest percale bedsheet you can find and

use that as the lace underlay." So to this day our children love to say, "Mama

was married in a bedsheet," literally true, but that dress is in the Oris

Glisson 00:30:00Historic Costume Collection here on the Tech campus.

Ren: Oh that's wonderful. Wow.

Ida: And at the wedding we used our department chair's big silver punch bowl and

we had flowers picked from Dean Dietrich's garden. My cousin and I had had one

horticulture course. She knew how to fabricate a bride's bouquet and flowers for

the attendants, so it was truly a Virginia Tech wedding.

Ren: Where were you married exactly?

Ida: Blacksburg United Methodist Church where we had spent quite a bit of time

together, and we have been in church ever 00:31:00 since.

Ren: Wonderful. On the reverse side of that question do you remember any

difficult memories or experiences that you had? Any struggles or anything like that?

Ida: Well, hoping and praying that I would learn Dr. Harper's nutrition course

work. No, I can't recall any particular struggles, but let's flip that. When I

graduated I was first among the women students that year grade-wise, but to the

horror of the agriculture students I was first in the College of Agriculture

where home economics was 00:32:00lodged. They had a couple of gripes, one was I was a

woman. The other was I had transferred in but the numbers held so they got over

it, and the guy who fussed the most had his revenge in that he became a PhD

agriculture professor and he had his career and I had mine.

Ren: Right. So when you graduated in 1958 where did life take you after that?

Ida: Well let's back up. One of the big things that happened that I remember

fondly while I was here was the mock United Nations seminar. I was a 00:33:00 secretary

general of the mock United Nations seminar, worked with a faculty advisor former

military person Professor Logan Ostendorf who brought a speaker from the Russian

Embassy down. Frankly I worked very hard over that. And speaking of struggles,

this was a shock but I overcame it, the day that we were to kick this thing off,

bringing 30 colleges from all over Virginia I get word that a delegation is on

its way from Virginia State College, now University, obviously African

Americans. Everyone else was being lodged on 00:34:00campus and I thought what am I

going to do? These people will not be allowed into the dorms in spare space. So

I made haste back up to Hillcrest, went into the kitchen and talked to some of

the African American persons in the kitchen and said, "I have a big problem

here. Can you contact your churches and find someone who will keep half a dozen

or so people overnight," and those good people did it. But I remember being --

the sudden shock of thinking they are coming. They cannot stay on campus other

than for the program. What am I going to do? And the Hillcrest kitchen 00:35:00 staff

took care of them. We had a marvelous busy weekend, but I've often said planning

for that mock UN seminar was much tougher than planning a year later for a

simple wedding here in Blacksburg, but I'm glad I did it.

Ren: Do you know if those students from Virginia State do you know if they ever

knew of your efforts to find them a place to stay?

Ida: Back then we simply didn't talk about such things. We came together in our

statewide student conferences but life was different, 00:36:00and Brown vs. Board of

Education happened the year I was a freshman or it had just happened, so things

were changing, but as we well know Virginia did not speed up change.

Ren: Once you graduated where did you go? Did you go to the workforce? You were

getting married around that time, where did life take you after you graduated?

Ida: I wanted to be in a position to be flexible with my employment. Bill was

still on campus winding up his master's degree so I lived at home in Bedford

County 00:37:00and taught home economics in a Bedford County high school and that was

one year prior to marriage. And then fortunately he was hired as a CPA in

Lynchburg and so I taught in the same school for three years and that too has

its own stories. Think of a little country high school prior to consolidation,

total faculty of five for the high school, total student body of 120. I had all

of the home economics, all of the girls physical education, 8th grade history,

advanced typing. My 00:38:00only ability there was based on beginning typing in high

school. I had the junior senior prom to oversee and the junior homeroom to take

care of. I had the Future Homemakers of America. I had the Glee Club. I had the

student newspaper. I had an 11-month contract and my top salary ever was $4,000.

But it was a relief frankly to begin as I say producing raw materials for the

public schools of Lynchburg. That was two daughters and a son.

So in the 60s instead of being out demonstrating or whatever have 00:39:00you, I

referred to it as my nesting period. The diaper bucket was wet for six years

with three babies, but I was using the skills that I had acquired here at

Virginia Tech. Lab school with little children, infant and child nutrition, all

of these things. I was very competent in breastfeeding before the public picked

that up as a good thing, simply because I had learned here at Virginia Tech what

was a good thing. But, I needed some activities beyond just staying 00:40:00home and

taking care of children, so for 15 years I was exclusively a homemaker, but I

started Lynchburg's chapter of Home Economists and Homemaking, which was a

branch of the American Home Economics Association. I became their state

president and years later I went on to become a national officer and attended

the national conventions and ended up as chair of the homemaker branch of the

American Home Economics Association.

And as society has changed 00:41:00and the term home economics has fallen out of favor

it is now Family and Consumer Sciences, so we can refer to the American

Association of Family and Consumer Sciences. And after chairing my professional

section I was elected a director, a board member, which was pretty exciting for

me because I was sitting at the table with deans, with women from across the

country and the occasional male member of the profession, and feeling a tad

intimidated until one smart woman took me aside and said, "You have as much

right as any of us to be here." And I have remembered what a little

encouragement will 00:42:00do and from that day forward I have made it my business to

encourage others.

Then I became a trustee of the old [AHEA] Foundation and some years later

received a distinguished service award which was not simply for sitting at board

meetings, but in '76 I was hired by the state association to be their one-fourth

time executive assistant. So I had a desk in the file cabinet in our terrace

level of our home and when I said I worked out of the home office it was

literally and figuratively true. I was in the home office and I had my eye on 00:43:00our three children and occasionally I traveled around the state. And because I

had been at 4H Congress all of the various counties and cities etc. were

familiar, but I had a marvelous 25 years serving as first Virginia Home

Economics Association and now Virginia Association of Family and Consumer

Sciences, serving them and learning from different presidents and officers. So I

was continuity and my mental image was for our association's leaders I need to

be thinking out front and 00:44:00ahead of them but walking three steps behind them. I

still cherish the associations. When I finally gave it up after 25 years I had a

lot of other irons in the fire in the volunteer sector. I'm pleased that they

named a graduate scholarship for me and that's ongoing.

Ren: I was getting ready to ask you about that. The Virginia Association of

Family and Consumer Sciences if the IdaB. Graduate Scholarship, and the awards

that you mentioned was the YWCA Academy of Women of Award and the Jefferson

Award as well?

Ida: Those are different. The one through the Professional Association was

Distinguished Service Award and it was the first time one of 00:45:00the Association's

executives had been so honored. Since then at least one other woman has been

honored, but that came a little later.

Ren: Wonderful. This is a question that we ask, if someone simply says the words

Virginia Tech what's the first thing that you think of?

Ida: My school. We have had to learn tolerance when our second daughter Mary

fell in love with a UVA graduate.

Ren: Oh goodness.

Ida: But this young man was a DC attorney and so at the 00:46:00wedding, the dinner the

night before the wedding my husband and I decided to hold a legal hearing and

Mary is marrying an attorney. So we did and my husband took my master's degree

black robe. I innocently carried this tote bag into the dinner and I had a

wooden meat, not cleaver, but the black on a handle that's used for tenderizing

meat, he used that for a gavel. And after the dinner when the bride and groom is

thanking everyone for attending we said, "Hold on just a minute." Bill puts on

his black robe. He goes up front and he 00:47:00spins a yarn about DC authorities asking

him to conduct a hearing as to whether there should be a wedding the next day.

And we entered letters of evidence. One was from Virginia Tech President James

McComas stating that he approved of the offspring of two Tech graduates marrying

a UVA graduate. We had many other letters. But for some time thereafter whenever

I was here with advisory committees and all the things the University finds to

occupy their graduates, he would look at me and say, "So how are the newlyweds?"

But it was good fun to have a letter from the President of Virginia 00:48:00Tech saying

it was all right to have our offspring marry a UVA grad.

Ren: That's wonderful. You just mentioned something I wanted to ask you about

being involved with Virginia Tech after you graduate. What ways have you been

involved and maybe contributed in some way, served on some boards and some

societies and things? Can you talk a little bit about that part of your post

Virginia Tech life?

Ida: Virginia Tech has demanded less of me in terms of length of service than

some other groups, but as home economics evolved from a department in

agriculture we became a college of home economics. Been a college of human

resources and education was added 00:49:00at one point, which had some controversy

associated with it. But there's always been need for advisory committees and

things like that, and in more recent years and currently there is what Dorothy

Herndon may have told you about, the Peacock Harper special collection in the

library. If I say cookbooks it sounds too simplistic, even silly, and yet if you

read some of the earliest even 1700 cookbooks you learn something about the

culture. You learn something about human nutrition, changes therein. You learn

something about certainly during the war time how people were called on to 00:50:00economize, stretch what food resources you had. It's a rare glimpse into history

and it's an important one and that collection is in the thousands now.

Ren: There is a gallop survey conducted a few years ago that talked about

Virginia Tech alumni having this love and appreciation for the University much

higher than other universities. That doesn't necessarily translate to them

giving to the University in a way that maybe they should if they could, but what

do you think might be the reason that people who graduate from Virginia Tech

really love their University? What is it about Virginia Tech do you think?

Ida: 00:51:00I love the fact that the education that we receive is not just for

ourselves. I think of the land grant imperative. There is education, there is

research and then there is outreach and my philosophy is if you have it you need

to share it, whether it's knowledge, time, resources, the whole nine yards. So I

have built a career in what some might call the volunteer sector, and I heard a

lecture once that you need to be able to describe yourself in your elevator

speech which is a few seconds what do you do. So instead of 00:52:00volunteer I now term

myself a pro bono community resource, and I've had a jolly good time in some

challenging but good experiences.

The 60s I mentioned as a nesting period, but at the end of that time, well of

course you get into PTA and all of those things. A friend and I started a Sunday

Christian Education class, multi-denominational for persons with what was then

called mental retardation. Now it's intellectual disability, children and youth.

We worked for 00:53:00almost a year in teacher training and those Sunday School classes

if you will gradually diminished and yet the remnants of it 40 years later are

still in place in Lynchburg in one place. It was marvelous. It was

multi-denominational and I did not realize that I would have an opportunity to

go beyond that later on.

So 70s I worked on the master's degree which Tech fortunately brought to my

hometown because that was not a time to leave home and be on campus. The 80s the 00:54:00American Home Economics Association, another group. The 90s I became the first

woman lay leader of the Lynchburg District of United Methodism. That term the

lay leader in a congregation would be considered president if you need that

terminology. I was overseeing or liaison with, we have district superintendents

who make the decisions but work hand in hand with the lay leaders. Lynchburg

District had its first African American district superintendent, a marvelous man

who not only 00:55:00was rooted spiritually, but he had an uncanny ability to assess

people and know where they were coming from. So our district had if you will a

double whammy. They had my good friend the late Ken Jackson as their

superintendent and they had a woman lay leader. We had 90 churches and we had

about 52 clergy, and I made it my business to worship in each one of those

churches, some so remote that I had to go to the Department of Transportation

and get county maps because they just did not exist on a state map. That was 00:56:00 interesting.

Ren: I would say.

Ida: I not only worshiped with them, I went back when they had their annual

consultations with the superintendent. That was challenging but it was a good

time. At the end of the 90s I applied to the City for a position on what's

called Community Services Boards. In Lynchburg now it's Horizon Behavioral Health.

This is the body that dealt with mental health, intellectual disability and

substance abuse for four counties, the town of Bedford and the City of

Lynchburg, and in the nine years I served four of those were as 00:57:00chair of the

board. And whenever there were open houses and events in any of these locations

I made it my business to be there and to affirm the staff, because their

clientele are not easy to work with. Some literally have inability to

communicate, and I remember saying at one of their staff functions, "You know if

you want instant results you should have been a barber or a beautician. You

chose a harder career and you are making a difference but you may never hear

about it, so let me thank you." So that was a good time.

Ren: Yeah.

Ida: And then in the year 00:58:002000 I was elected to our churches' it's a worldwide

body, General Commission on Christian Unity and Interreligious Concerns. And a

few years later the churches' Global Aides Fund Committee trying to combat the

biggest pandemic in the world in 700 years. But that ecumenical commission

brought people from across this country and a few representatives from abroad

and we met as a body twice a year but then we had subcommittees. And when

working with that group I not only visited places 00:59:00for meetings across this

country, but got as far as Oslo, Geneva, and Rome and I cherish that.

Ren: Absolutely.

Ida: Through the modern technology of Facebook if you will I'm still in touch

with some of those folks.

Ren: Someone who was here in the mid to late 1950s and who came, did you come

back to campus a lot? Did you see Virginia Tech a lot between the time you

graduated and then today?

Ida: Primarily when I was needed for a particular function. I remember years ago

Dean 01:00:00Ritchey I guess he was dean of the College of Home Economics or I forget

when the name changed, someone told him without a fee he could get a pianist for

his commencement department or college ceremony. And I remember so well the

first year it was in Squires Activity Building and the second year it was on the

Burruss Hall stage. I chuckled to myself remembering that in Squires there was

no amplifier for the piano, but when I got to Burruss Hall stage and he had

heard me play 01:01:00acceptably the first time it was amplified. Thank you very much.

Ren: How have you seen Virginia Tech change all of these years with its growth

and students and campus landscape, and what do you think about some of those

changes and how Virginia Tech or VPI in your day and how it is today in 2018?

Ida: Women are no longer a minority. The skin color is no longer let's say 99%

white. Your origins could be from anyplace on the globe. When I was here I'm

sure it was heavily Virginians, not totally, but it's changing as the world is 01:02:00changing. And I love the fact that it's flexible and picking up on societal

needs and moving ahead, still with the marvelous motto That I May Serve. And

parallel or similar to that I had eight years as a college trustee, obviously

not Virginia Tech's Board of Rectors, but a United Methodist school Ferrum

College, and their motto is Not I But Others, and I see it the same way.

Ren: When you look across campus and the University what inspires 01:03:00you and what

concerns you if you have any of either?

Ida: I'm inspired by the... Well what I read President Sands, I remember seeing

a video of his very first -

Ren: Press conference?

Ida: Thank you, press conference, the three points he wrote on a napkin as he

was sitting at a table and then got up and spoke beautifully about what was in

his mind for the University. I think we've had good leadership. What concerns me

is if you wish to know the state legislature and whether we will continue to get

funding that 01:04:00public education needs.

Ren: Right.

Ida: Because the needs are there, and nationally at this particular moment

persons coming in to this country from other countries I don't believe they are

as welcomed as they were some while back and that bothers me.

Ren: Thank you for being so generous with your time. I just have a couple more

questions and I will let you be free. I always preface this question with a

little background. We like to ask this question not because we think anything is

going to happen or you are going anywhere any time soon, 01:05:00but what would you like

people to know about you and what would you like to be remembered for?

Ida: Well I am still active and involved in what I consider good causes to this

day. I'm definitely remembered for being a slow talker with a southern accent.

Some would remember some sense of humor. I would like to be remembered as a good

wife and mother but beyond that for a concern for the larger society and 01:06:00remembered for if you will going the second mile to get things done.

I would like to think that our motto here That I May Serve that that would be an

appropriate one, because we serve not to be recognized or in my case Heaven

knows not to get compensated for it, but there are other compensations that are priceless.

Ren: Absolutely. What does Virginia Tech mean to you?

Ida: Well I've said before my school and now that I am the grandmother of 4H

members I 01:07:00will never forget the time spent here on campus as a youngster before

I was old enough to actually be a school, then I would have to admit that that's

where I found a good husband. We are closing in on 59 years of matrimony just a

short time away, and if you add a two-year engagement and then you add a year of

acquaintance let's just round it off to say 60 years. And he has supported me in

my endeavors many times when traveling or doing extra work.

Ren: Is there anything else you would like to add or anything I didn't ask you

that you would like to say before we 01:08:00finish up?

Ida: Like everyone else it will come to me later, but this is a good school. I

had uncles who were here in the early 1900s, and so even though their father was

a UVA graduate we don't emphasis that part, but he sent his boys here.

Ren: Thank you so much for talking with us and with VT Stories and sharing a

little bit about yourself and your story. Thank you for your service to this

state, to this University. It was a real pleasure to meet you and get to know a

little bit about you, so Ms. IdaBerger class of 1958 thank you so much. I really

appreciate it. Thank you.

End