Oral History Transcript - Retta Murphy - February 28, 1974
Interview with Henrietta “Retta” Murphy
INTERVIEWERS: Bobbie Vaughn and Stan Siler
Transcriber: Cynthia Beeman
Editor: Kristine Toma
Date of Interview: February 28, 1974
Location: Dr. Murphy’s home [Hillside Manor]
San Marcos, Texas
___________________
Transcriber note: This recording is of poor quality and despite efforts of technical staff to clean up the background noise and improve the sound quality, there are many gaps in the transcript denoted by dashes [----] where it was impossible to decipher what was being said.
Summary: Dr. Retta Murphy talks briefly about her family, her education, and her first teaching job at Trinity where she was also Dean of Women. The focus of the interview is related to her experiences at Southwest Texas State, beginning with her arrival in San Marcos in 1919. Dr. Murphy discusses her memories and observations of the History Department, examples of discrimination she experienced as a woman on the faculty, and some memories from teaching troops on campus during WWII. She also talks about President C.E. Evans, President John G. Flowers, Professor Greene, and Lyndon Johnson.
[Begin tape 1A]
BOBBIE VAUGHN: It is February 28, 1974. I’m Bobbie Vaughn. Stan Siler is with me, and we are interviewing Retta Murphy in her home in San Marcos.
STAN SILER: Dr. Murphy, how did you become a doctor, is that a medical doctor or a doctor of education?
RETTA MURPHY: It was a Ph.D. ---- Some Ph.D. and some are just DPH if you know what that means. It’s just an abbreviation ----
I have a bachelor’s degree from a small Presbyterian college in Texas, which was at that time, see that was a long time ago, I’m 88 years old now, but a long time ago I got that degree from a little Presbyterian college - around two by four - it was so small. Of course, it was strictly liberal arts, and since that time, that little college has disappeared as such, of course, and all its records and members and whatnot were taken over by Austin College in Sherman, which is another Presbyterian college, much older and bigger than that one ever was. Austin College was for men only, until it took in that other college that was for women only. It is now co-ed. So that’s where I got the bachelor’s degree. And, of course, it had holes in it like a slice of Swiss cheese, as far as accreditation was concerned, because it was a new one and very small one. So, when I went to the University of Texas for graduate work, I had to make up a lot of undergraduate work too, but I got the master’s degree, and later on the doctor’s degree at the University of Texas.
[2:33]
SILER: What was the name of that small college?
MURPHY: Texas Presbyterian College, and that mouthful was always called it TPC, in a little town named Milford. It’s about sixty miles from Dallas, and about fifteen miles above Hillsboro, twenty miles below Waxahachie. ---- Just a little village. At that time, that was long ago, you remember, men believed that educating girls correctly you must put them somewhere in seclusion, you know, so they put their schools out from big towns, as far out in the country as possible. So, they put this in a village called Milford. M-I-L-F-O-R-D. And it’s still a village and always will be a village. It’s a little cotton raising center. And, of course, cotton is no longer king in this country, so I don’t know what it is now, probably just a collection of antiques, I don’t know what else. I’ve never been back there since I finished there.
VAUGHN: When were you born?
MURPHY: 1886, January the 28th.
VAUGHN: And were you born in Texas?
MURPHY: Yes, at Mexia, M-E-X-I-A, Limestone County.
VAUGHN: Were your parents from around there? Had they always been Texans?
MURPHY: They came from North Carolina. My father came from Fayetteville and my mother from Wilmington. They knew each other slightly before they came to Texas. There were no less than four marriages between the two families, the Murphy family and the Alderman A-L-D-E-R-M-A-N, was my mother’s name. Her name was Henrietta Alderman. They came from North Carolina. My father came with his father, and they came in 1867, and my mother came with her parents in ‘68, and I think they already had designs. But anyway, they were married in ‘69. And I was the last of their children, no doubt a surprise to them as well as the neighborhood, in 1886, January 1886.
SILER: How many brothers and sisters did you have?
[5:38]
MURPHY: Well, counting the babies that died in infancy, an enormous number of us, I was the ninth one. But four, maybe—let’s see, one, two, three—three died within a year or two after their birth. Indeed, one died on the day of his birth, and then two others died when they were about one or two years old. One, the fourth one that died, died when he was four years old, so I count him as an infant death. That left five of us to grow up, which we all did, and I’m the last one of the five. I had one sister and three brothers.
VAUGHN: How did you get to San Marcos?
MURPHY: I went to teaching, of course, as soon as I finished school, and at the time I was Dean of Women in Trinity University in Waxahachie, at that time. Trinity is now in San Antonio, you know. But I used to be in Waxahachie.
VAUGHN: Could you tell me a year on that, or approximate one?
MURPHY: Yes, I can in a minute. Let’s see, 1918 and ‘19. I was there just one year. I wanted to be nothing but a teacher. I wanted to do there nothing but teach history but I just was drafted into being Dean of Women. And I’d much rather be a janitor just any time than Dean of Women, that’s the last job on earth on a campus. And I had to live in the main dormitory, too. I didn’t mind that, because the girls were all friendly as well as the men. Of course, ---- I had to be asked every time one of them wanted to have a date out. She had to ---- sign up, but they asked me and they’d tell me about when she’d be back in. I didn’t care who went with her, or where she went, or when she was coming back. Of course, I couldn’t tell her that. [unintelligible]
[8:06]
So, when the year drew to a close, I told the president that I would stay on there. I didn’t want to come there in the first place, he just drafted me into it. I said I’d stay on there if I didn’t have to be Dean of Women. I just couldn’t stand this - I called it raising the girls. I wasn’t about to raise anybody’s kids. I didn’t want to. Teach them a little bit about what to read and how to think. Also, what they needed to know about the past, if I could. Some of the past – not THE past. So, at first he said no, couldn’t help me ---- and then finally he yielded a little bit. He said, “Well, if you come back next year, I’ll let you live outside of the dormitory and you won’t have to keep up with all that folderol, granting permission every time a girl wanted to take a breath of fresh air. So, I didn’t turn it down exactly, but I didn’t have anything else in view then. That was in the spring of 1919, the year was 1918-19. I think I said it wrong while ago, but anyway it was 1918 and ’19.
And ---- commencement. I heard this vacancy here, the History Department here at San Marcos [tape recorder stops and restarts]. --- married and settled down, washing dishes and ---[loud cough] --- I thought she had ---- but I applied for the position. And the president of this college here at that time was named Evans, C.E. Evans, and so he told me to meet him at the bus station in Waxahachie. He was going to come up there on a bus and get off, and that we would confer there in the bus station, and that he would take the next bus when he was heading off to Dallas, and then he wouldn’t have to come up to the college to see me, and I wouldn’t have to find a place to entertain him up there, and I was glad of it ---- So, I went down to the bus station, and we sat there and ----, and he gave me the job. So, I came down here, and he wanted me to start with summer school, so I came down in the first week in June of 1919.
[11:09]
VAUGHN: What was the name of the college at that time?
MURPHY: This college? Let me see, Texas, Southwest Texas State Normal College, I believe. That word “normal” I never did know why, there wasn’t anything particularly normal about it, except just general ---- You should have seen them, all the normals, for the training of teachers you know. ---- educational ideas and were not in particular educational at all, just strange, some of them. But it was interesting, just the same. And then I was here ---- oh, I got ---- the year before. I was hazy about my dates. And it had become a college, it had taken on the word “college,” and dropped that funny word “normal.” It was Southwest Texas State College.
One reason I wanted to come was because I figured that in the future, state schools would probably increase in number, and therefore in total enrollment, and therefore teachers in church colleges were going to go hungry. ---- I wanted to get out of a church school, let the church school belong to what we called [normal?] Presbyterian Church, which is still the U.S.A. Presbyterian Church, and I didn’t want to be in a church school the rest of my life. ---- I did not want to teach high school. By the way, I taught that spring in Dallas, also, just ---- for a position in one of the Dallas high schools, and I got it by a contract, which I still have [chuckle]. I had a contract for the next year in Waxahachie at Trinity and a contract for that high school down in Dallas, and then ---- came down here instead. And I’ve stayed here in this school, part of this school, until the end of July 1956. I think that was thirty-seven years.
Of course, I saw a lot of changes. When I came here, and we registered students at the beginnings of terms, ---- went by requirements as listed in the catalog, and the catalog did not require foreign languages for a bachelor’s degree. Wasn’t that silly? Of course, they recovered from that ailment a few years later, and it does require them now.
At that time, President Evans told me, he said, “Now, you’re likely to teach one kind of history one hour, another kind the next hour.” He didn’t want to deal with history, we just had to hop, skip, and jump around. So, I taught and you might really know how skimming it was. So superficial it was. I’d teach one class in Texas history, and another one in ancient history, and another one in medieval history, and so on, and so on, and so on. But that had to be worked that out in the course of years.
[15:27]
VAUGHN: How big was the department when you first came here?
MURPHY: Well, let’s see. Four or five teachers. Doesn’t look like today does it? Well, it didn’t stay that way, it grew steadily. I don’t know how many were in it when it I left, but ------ more than that. They didn’t have any women in it, though. They didn’t have anybody but me in it for a number of years. I mean, I was the only woman in it for a number of years, I don’t know how long. But we have several now. But first, women have always been discriminated against in the schools and colleges, both in position and pay. I don’t know why they put more credit in a man, they just seemed more ideally superior, but I think he gathered it gradually and honestly. I think he got it because most of the women of his acquaintance, they lived in the four walls of the home, cooked and washed dishes, cleaned house, sewed clothes and washed clothes, and did errands, and if they had any time left, they ran around socially. Course, they had to take some more time to have children and then to train them, if they got any home training. So, naturally the woman had less contact with the public than the man. That sharpened his wits and didn’t sharpen hers. You could cook and keep house forty years and not be any smarter than you were when you started. But you couldn’t go downtown and compete with others for a living downtown, and see all the people that you see downtown, and be as dumb as you were when you started ----. So, of course, the man was ---- gradual ---- just like rolling on a mental log for a certain number a thousand times. -----. Nowadays, when a woman does get out and mingle with a crowd and with the public, and make a living among the public, she’s no better than the man, but she’s as good. But you couldn’t tell any of those men in that department or in that college that, and expect them to believe in it. It was ruining their feelings too much to believe it. Consequently, my salary didn’t compare, really, with theirs, but the number of students I had did, and the kinds of courses I had did.
[18:55]
VAUGHN: Where did you live in San Marcos?
MURPHY: Well, the first summer I rented a room in a house, in a physician’s house on Comanche Street. Up there on the slope of that hill, I don’t remember the house number. And then beginning in the next fall, I lived in a house where a teacher in Home Economics lived with her mother, and they rented out several rooms, and I rented one of them, on Hopkins Street where that little Sac-n-Pac store on Hopkins Street is now, on the corner of Hopkins and Moore Street. I lived there two years, I believe, during which time my father died in in Mexia and my mother sold the home there and came down to San Marcos to live with me because the boys were all married and away and so on. Naturally the daughter was expected to do more for Mama than the sons are, though Mama loves the sons more, did you ever notice that? She loves the sons more, but they were not expected to do much for her. So, she came to live with me one year in that rooming house, and then she bought a home on this street, just two blocks from over here, at 414 San Antonio Street. And we moved in, she and I, into that home in 1921, January of 1921. And I lived there until 1963.
After my mother’s death, Miss Mary [Cardman?] and I continued to live together. She was a teacher, too, but not in that school. She was in the public school. We had known each other in that little Presbyterian college up there at Milford, and so we were and still are close friends. She’s here now, but she’s asleep. She said she didn’t want to ---- and she wasn’t going to inquire about ancient history. And I don’t recall a bunch of it, because I didn’t expect ---- So that’s where I’ve been all the time. And then, of course, in the summertime, we’d go east, or west, or wherever we wanted to go, to see the country. Actually, I didn’t get a car until 1922 or ’23, something like that, I got one of those T-model Fords. [Laughs.] That’s the only Ford I ever had.
Nothing exciting about that, except observations of the people here. In that, I found that, much like other small towns, San Marcos was a small town then, when I came here, and I found that in an amusing way, variegated, self-variegated in social rank, so to speak, the top being occupied by the old families. You know that term? I suspect Kentucky had that same ailment, and Temple has too, or used to have, long before you were born.
SILER: Temple was founded in 1881. ----
MURPHY: San Marcos is older than that. I think it was in the 1850s, you can follow ---- 1850s. Well before it was founded there were rural areas of settlement around here. One of those was Stringtown. I’m sure you’ve heard of Stringtown. And the people who came to Stringtown seemed to me to have been in need if coming somewhere to get something. And why not? I think that’s honorable, don’t you, to go somewhere to get something? By the time I got here in 1920s, and circulated among them I found that they were considered the aristocrats in the country, just as the descendants of the people who came to Plymouth in 1620 considered that those passengers on that Mayflower were all aristocrats. [Laughs.] Have you ever noticed that? People that claim descent from the passengers of the Mayflower think that they ---- ---- they had day laborers ancestry. And why not? It’s as good as any other. It’s honest. I wouldn’t mind being a descendant from the Mayflower folk but I wouldn’t claim they were a higher rank, wouldn’t you? [Laughs.] And not all our ranked people have good characters, anyway. But anyway, I didn’t have any, meet any, hostility on that score, I just experienced a lot of amusement.
[25:00]
VAUGHN: Just as a newcomer?
MURPHY: Yes, and so many people belonging to the old families were socially patronizing, and I never could stand to be patronized, could you? One of them, with arched eyebrows and manufactured a gracious look, asked me one day, at a party, I think it was, “Are you glad to be in San Marcos?” And I said, “Yes, I’m glad to be in San Marcos. I have a good job here and the scenery is very pretty, and people are pleasant, why shouldn’t I be glad to be here? But I do thank the Lord that I was not born here.” And she bridled at that. She wondered what—but she didn’t ask me and I didn’t tell her.
VAUGHN: Well, I can’t resist it: [laughing] why are you glad you weren’t born here?
MURPHY: Because I might be guilty of the same thing everywhere. They think that all outsiders were just, outsiders. You might have to live here a hundred years and still be an outsider. And I thought, I don’t want to be any party to that. You know, something came along and just washed out, that is called it out, competition and new population. And that was the World War II, when Camp Gary out here, full of trainees. They trained the airmen, and then trained Army men, and trained Navy men by turns. It was a big training camp during World War II, and then came some young men and their wives and little children, came from every state in the union to San Marcos, and crowded it to the walls ---- and everybody in town was required, practically, by not only by common consent but I think by ordinance, to rent out any available space to these people. So, out there in our house at 414 West San Antonio, we rented two rooms to two couples. They were always full. We still correspond with some of those young people. They’re not young any longer, but they were then with us. And they were from every state in the union. Some of them remained here, or came back here after their service was ended, because they liked the climate and the scenery and so on. But it did away with that old family stuff, you know. You never heard it any more after World War II.
[28:12]
VAUGHN: I’m smiling because I’ve heard this from someone else, a similar story.
MURPHY: Sure enough? Well good. You know I’m not lying, then.
VAUGHN: Right. [Laughter.] I heard something similar to this, that it was after World War II, after all these people came in, some of the small-time attitude left San Marcos.
MURPHY: And another thing I noticed here, when I first came and lived for some years thereafter, and then ---- but I’m sure it was true everywhere, probably true in Mexia where I came from, but I never noticed it there because I left as soon as I finished high school, you see, went off to college, then went off to teach, went off to do other things and was back in Mexia only on visits to my parents and thereafter. So, I didn’t notice it when I was growing up. But in San Marcos I did notice it because I walked all over town, of course, every day, and what I noticed was the presence on the streets, unrestrained, of affected children, people who were, well, they call it retarded now, you know, perfectly blank in their expressions and so on. Harmless, of course, if they had been wild or harmful, they wouldn’t have allowed it, but as it was, they were running around just doing the best they could for themselves. Not making their own living, of course, they had parents here, but they were allowed to get out and go, and had no training whatsoever. They didn’t go to school, public school, none of it. They didn’t have any employment of course, no one would employ a retarded person, so they were just hopeless but making the best of it themselves. I later learned that that was true all over the country. It was true in San Marcos. When I first saw it, I thought, well, ---- town ---- Nowadays I would say retardation, but I don’t know what word was used then; I don’t know what they called it. ---- But you know, we didn’t have the institutions or organizations for the care of those people then, nor the attempt to educate them and train them. And now, you don’t see them running around loose at all, they are in school or in some institution that’s training them. And isn’t that an improvement? And that’s not just particular San Marcos history.
[31:10]
SILER: You were around Southwest Texas for such a long time, I imagine you’ve seen some definite changes. You’ve probably also seen some trying times. You talked a little bit about World War II. But talk with us, what was Southwest Texas liked in the big Depression of the 1930s. Was it very ---- the change?
MURPHY: It was a hard-working place, I know that. Of course, salaries were small, but I didn’t think the enrollment was small for that day. Of course, it would be considered tiny in comparison with today. But the enrollment was about the same as it had been in the 1920s. The living quarters - most of them lived out in town, they had very few dormitories - were of course, not the best, and everybody dressed very cleanly, it never was a dressy school, even though the presence of -- style of --- it was always a plainly-dressed student body. So, they didn’t dress expensive there. There was a good deal of student employment insofar as was possible, so it enabled students to stay in school, they swept out rooms and did a lot of things like that. ---- farm [?] ---- got rid of a lot of ideas that they were perhaps ---- ---- I think we all felt that in common, and I don’t recall any personal difficulties at the time. Of course, nobody had any money much, but since nobody else had any you didn’t mind not having any yourself. Isn’t that true? I think there was a much more marked difference as far as World War II than there was for the Depression, insofar as my memory serves. Now you may have heard others say something different from that.
VAUGHN: No, most people that I’ve come in contact haven’t had really had that much of an impression about the Depression, except that no one had any money, and everybody kind of helped everybody.
MURPHY: ---- everybody just kept on going, and ---- what they know ---- ---- We’re doing the same thing nowadays ---- Depression ---- ----
[unintelligible – ambient noise and loud voices talking over each other]
VAUGHN: ---- ---- all right.
[34:30]
MURPHY: ---- I suppose, in San Marcos. I know she grew up here. ----
We said the Depression didn’t make much difference to us except we were all poor together. Perhaps it created a closer feeling among us than had we remained prosperous. And then when World War II came along, why most of the men in college went to the war. True of faculty men as well as students. And a few of the women went into WACS and things like that, you know, but very few relatively. And the enrollment, of course, suffered tremendously. But, the government sent the young troops down here, and going to college before sending them overseas. So, we had troops from Maine, and California, and Oregon, and Washington, and Minnesota, and Iowa, and what have you, just everywhere, and they’d come in by the hundreds. So, we really made up in the enrollment by teaching young servicemen who had just been drafted. Most of them had been drafted ---- . I don’t remember just when the draft went in but I think they were already in ---- .
So, we taught a lot of students that we haven’t seen since then. Most of them were very nice, though. They didn’t give any trouble. They marched into the classroom, and seated themselves only when their corporal or whoever was leading them ordered them to sit down and be at ease, or be at ease and then sit [laugh]. And they were all nice young men. I enjoyed them a lot. There was just one crowd that were rough and disagreeable, and they were from Wisconsin, and I’ll never know why. I guess they were angry in themselves, because they were sent here to fill a vacancy, you know, that they weren’t interested in, and I don’t blame them for disliking that. A lot of boys were, they were kind of rude and inclined to be unruly in the classroom, you know. They brought to mind that old rule from school teaching called discipline, that hadn’t occurred to us – to me—in years because college students as a rule don’t create that problem ----. I had a room full of them, a little over one hundred in that room one day, and a young man on the front row—a front row, there were two front rows— [tape shuts off, then starts again] came in and ---- disturb him, and ---- the room, it was a large room, bound to be a little over a hundred students in it. So, I tried hard looks at him, and that didn’t work very long. Fortunately for me, he was on a front seat, so that I wouldn’t have to go to him, I just had to reach out my hand. So, finally, when it became unbearable, I reached out my hand to take hold of his collar right in the back. And I said, “Now, let me tell you something. I’m perfectly willing and perfectly able to mop up this floor with you. And I’ll do it if you’re not going to keep order in here. Now, which is it to be? You can decide right now to take that medicine, or be ordered it, or get out.” Well, that just insulted his manly dignity ---- got into a fight with me. Oh, he was so insulted. So, he just sat there and pouted the rest of the hour and didn’t make a sound. Had to take all my disciplinary action I ever took in this whole 37 years. Never needed it. And I remembered it ever since, because he was one of that Wisconsin crowd.
[39:10]
And you know [laughs] one of the men teachers that was maybe too old, or too sick, or too something to go to the war, he didn’t go he stayed on and taught. Of course, President Evans named him director of the Army School, Army students in school, you know. So, he came to the president one day after this Wisconsin bunch arrived. Of course, all the teachers had them, you know, some of them. And told the president and said there was disorder in the classrooms now, and the women teachers couldn’t control those boys. He specified the women teachers, he didn’t name them, he just said women. So, the president, of course, believed him, he was a ---- school boy himself, you know. So, he yanked me in his office the next day and said, “I hear you women can’t control the students.” And I said, “You’re mistaken.” I said, “All the teachers are having trouble with those, and I fixed mine. I’m not going to have any more. And whoever told you that has as much trouble as anybody else.” And, you know, I never had the same regard for that same man teacher, because I know he couldn’t be ---- ---- . But he was not going to take any blame, he was going to let the women get it. And I thank of it every time I see him or hear of him. He is retired now. But he’s not dead though. He still lives in San Marcos. Did you ever have anybody talk like that about you?
VAUGHN: I’m sure I have.
[41:23]
MURPHY: And try to get you ---- false? You have to take care of that whatever job you get in - teaching, or merchandising, or lawyer in a law firm, whatnot. Somebody that’s having trouble themselves will try to make the boss think that you had it. Might as well be ready to answer it. That was a funny president anyway. He’d --- you up in his office, so to speak, and just lay you out for the dogs for not doing this, or for doing that, you know. No! Wait a minute, I got that scene wrong. He never told you in his office, he’d accost you out on the quadrangle there, or in a teacher’s meeting, or wherever groups of people were present, some of them students, some of them teachers. He’d accuse you of doing something wrong, or failing to do something that you should have done. Right there before everybody. He did that to every one of us at times. He did that to me several times.
SILER: Was this President Evans?
MURPHY: Evans. And then, then next day, he’d be sure to call you in his office and, where nobody but you was there to hear it. No witness at all. And then apologize to you for what he said yesterday, he didn’t mean to accuse you of all that. But he never apologized before the people before whom he had made the accusations. Never did.
[43:05]
VAUGHN: Did you happen to have Lyndon Johnson as a student?
MURPHY: No, I had his brother, Sam Houston Johnson. You’ll never guess what his grade was.
VAUGHN: I think I probably can.
MURPHY: Poor thing, he just didn’t have what it took. At the beginning of that term, the very first day, the registration day, Lyndon signed up for a course of mine, along with his brother Sam Houston. But, the next day before the class had met, he dropped that course and took another one instead in the same subject with a man teacher named Greene, Prof Greene we called him. And it was Prof Greene who taught him government and politics and debate and some history the rest of the time he was in school. And at ----
“Come in, honey. I’m so glad you’re ---- I want you to meet these young folks.”
[loud noises, voices, sound of furniture/chairs scraping on the floor] ---- across the street ---- “you come back in, honey,” ---- ---- [laughs] --- slabs on each side of it that looked like tombstones in a country cemetery. ---- I think if they just tear those slabs off, and even put nothing there so you can fall ---- or else put something that’s pretty ---- that whole area there is pretty, isn’t it? [more voices, sound of furniture/chairs scraping on the floor]
We were talking abut the atmosphere during the Depression ---- during World War II ----
Overall I think we came through both of them pretty safely. And the enrollment picked up immediately right after the war, because the veterans all came in and ---- expansion ----
The last thing we talked about was Lyndon Johnson. President Evans had admired Lyndon a great deal, and his admiration was returned, so Lyndon worked for him in his office a good deal, and also lived in his garage a while, had an apartment over his garage in return for errands and things there at the house, he lived there. So he owed a great deal to Evans, and Evans admired him and thought he was going to have a great future. But, unfortunately, he admired Evans a hundred percent instead of selecting the true ignoble things that Evans had in his character. And one of them was that bad habit I was telling you about, condemn you in public and then absolve you in private. Evans did that to his teachers. Well, Lyndon Johnson would do that to his friends sometimes when he was President, and he acquired some personal unpopularity, just that very thing. He was so much like Dr. Evans in his mannerisms, except that he was more cheerful looking than Evans, and more attractive [short break in recording] than Evans was. But other than that, he was very much like Evans in his personal mannerisms and handling of individuals. And that ---- President Lyndon Johnson acquired his unpopularity.
[47:30]
SILER: That’s the first time I’ve heard that comparison.
MURPHY: He copied a great deal from his favorite professor, too, from Professor Greene. And Greene was a great talker and Lyndon was, too. And Greene was a great [short break in recording] and Lyndon was, too. Greene was not overly thorough or anything like that. He’d give a lot of evidence and then couldn’t prove it, you know, and Lyndon went straight off on that path too, in later life. But Greene always entertaining, and so was Lyndon.
SILER: When did Lyndon go to school here?
[48:27]
MURPHY: I think he finished during the Depression, the early Depression, ’30 or ’31. I don’t know whether he finished before FDR was elected President or not. Before FDR was up there in office, for twelve years I believe, around about that, and during that time Lyndon went to Congress. He first got the office of Youth Director—what is that, some initials, some youth training thing, he secured through Congressman McCannon [?], his department for that. He became director of that—I’m sorry I can’t think of the name of that youth program. [National Youth Administration - NYA]. It was government policy and a part of the cure for [the] Depression, you know. And he made his name in that and then when the congressional seat became vacant, why, Lyndon had a good chance to run for it, and just ---- he never failed after that and went into office. And just like Nixon had later done, he started in the lower house then in the Senate, and then he became Vice President, as you remember, with John Kennedy, and then President. But he lost his popularity, deeply, on account of some of his personal mannerisms, but ostensibly on account of letting the war run along, so many hand-wringers wanted him to pick and walk out of Vietnam and acknowledge defeat. Most people didn’t want that to happen. You heard of that hand-wringing ---- during the war, during the Vietnamese War. Did you hear all those ---- saying ---- fighting?
VAUGHN: Yes, I did, because of some personal ---- knew some people who were killed.
MURPHY: Oh, I see. Well, had I been around at the time I’d have tried to comfort you for the loss of your dear ones, of course, but I’ve a feeling I ---- on that other score.
Let’s see, what else were we talking about?
SILER: What courses in history did you teach here?
MURPHY: Well, as I said, Dr. Evans would assign just anything to you. He said if you’re a college teacher you can just teach anything in college. And, of course, that theory was silly but it was his. Fortunately, he never gave me anything out of the History Department to teach, except one time he decided he wanted some geography taught at the college, on the college level. Well, I hadn’t had any geography as such since the physical geography, I had one semester in it in high school, and political geography - natural geography, I guess it’s called - anyway where places are in the world, and mostly locational. I had that in the sixth grade, I believe it was, fifth or sixth, somewhere along in there. And hadn’t had any since, I had no education in geography as such. I had that small amount, so I got busy and organized a geography course. I’m sure it was ---- [laughs.] And, of course, I had to teach it the first year, and I didn’t know any more about geography than a jaybird. But I studied it every night and pored over it ------. If you ever teach, you’ll do the same durn thing, ----- I’m not ashamed to say that I did it. And then you would have some geography teachers that were trained, so I got out of that mess. ---- no harm was done either to me or the students. But outside of that experience, I taught history courses only. But anywhere on the face of earth: as I said, ancient, medieval, modern. Finally, I secured a ---- modern European history. And I thought, I’m safe now I’ll do some extra studying in this field. And all that was before I finished my doctorate, you know, I mean I just did graduate work without knowing where I was going. But before I was too far in that field, he wanted Latin American course, and picked some of that in gradate work in the university. So, I proceeded to follow Mexican history and South American history. And then finally, it was given to understand that if I would take that over and finish my degree in that, my doctor’s degree in that, I could have both of my favorites. So, I ----
VAUGHN: What year did you get your doctorate?
[54:17]
MURPHY: ’38; it was delayed a long time because of family problems before my father died, and then I got the master’s degree way back in 1916. During that time various and sundry problems that had to be met, including a disease that was threatening me and for which I had to have years of treatment in Austin, commuting to there, you know, and San Antonio, now, ---- I couldn’t do anything until the doctors [cleared me?] except a few summer school sessions, so I went to some of them: University of Colorado, and the University of Chicago, and the University of Texas. But I didn’t really get going on it until my mother died in 1933 here in San Marcos. Then I could spend more time on that, and I did, and I finished in 1938 without ever losing a day here teaching, I finished it all in summer school.
Now, another thing that used to make me mad as anything, whenever a man here teaching, decided to finish his doctor’s degree, Evans would promptly assign all of his classes – that man’s classes reduce his load – to some other teacher. So that man could be free to finish his last year on his doctorate. They didn’t offer me anything of the sort and I wouldn’t have accepted it if they had, because I think that’s humiliating to do that, if you couldn’t do that extra ---- . And by the way, teaching load then was five full courses, classes, you met your classes fifteen hours a week. Five classes. Now, I don’t suppose you know anybody up there that has more than four, and a lot of them just three.
SILER: I think most of them have four. I know, I think Dr. Pohl has five.
MURPHY: Five? I didn’t know anybody up there had five anymore. Doctor who?
SILER: Pohl. P-O-H-L.
MURPHY: What does he teach?
SILER: He teaches mainly military history. He has the most students of everybody else.
MURPHY: More students than anybody else? What does he think about ---- [laughs].
SILER: He teaches Civil War and Reconstruction, that’s one of his courses. And he has two graduate courses, one on military history and one on Civil War military history. ----
Did you ever happen to know Walter Prescott Webb?
MURPHY: Yes, loved him dearly. I didn’t have any courses with him, but I knew him personally.
SILER: I’ve read The Great Plains. I wish I had known him.
MURPHY: Oh, he was a dear. I was privileged to know him. [Laughs.] When I retired, some enthusiast, it might have been Emmie Craddock, it would have been just like her to have done that, ---- but somebody, unknown to me, stirred up a celebration for me, and it was a big place at an assembly room, they had assembly in those days on certain days in the Evans Auditorium, so it was to be an assembly on a certain day and Dr. Webb was to come down and speak on a certain subject connected with his Great Plains, and we were all looking forward to it. And it was supposed to be a celebration for me, because I was going to get out that fall and summer, but I didn’t know that part, you know. So, I went there, and low and behold Dr. Webb was speaking to honor me, he said. He didn’t speak about me, oh mercy, he had better ---- than that, but he went on topic about the Plains. But he was there on my account, and I didn’t know it. And after it was over, he said, “Did you know this was going to be for you?” And I said, “No, if I had, I wouldn’t have threatened to kill my students if they didn’t come.” But I laid the law down and told all my students, “Be sure to be there,” you know. And don’t you know I felt silly when I got there, I found out all that, had me sitting up on the platform. I was certainly embarrassed.
[1:00:25]
Now, let’s see, Dr. Flowers succeeded Dr. Evans in 1942, I believe, and in some ways he did not have the authority of Dr. Evans, but in one way he greatly exceeded him. He had a personal charm that Dr. Evans tried to have, and achieved with great effort sometimes, but most of the time lacked. I often thought that if Lyndon Johnson had been along generation or two later than he was, and had had Dr. Flowers to patronize him and help him in the way Evans helped Lyndon, and had patterned after Flowers, he might not have had as much writing power as he had, but he would have got along with his associates and [sound fades out]
[End tape 1A]
[Begin tape 1B]
---- I don’t know about that, but that’s none of my business. ---- But anyway, Dr. Flowers was very kind and considerate. But he had funny ideas and we all made fun of him all the time, but I loved him just the same. [Laughs.] You run across people like that, whose power you didn’t think much of, but whose personality you admired greatly. He was good for us, he taught us some manners. ---- One summer [break in recording]
---- now they never wanted ---- down there to investigate ---- and so, sure enough, one day she accosted me, of course I didn’t know her from Adam, ---- we got together and been good friends ever since. ---- She went back to Austin ---- finished her work up there ---- a year or two later. But that was when I first met ---- She came to see me about some departmental matter that she needed to know, and ---- Have you met her mother?
VAUGHN: No, I haven’t.
SILER: I have.
MURPHY: She’s a sweet somebody, isn’t she? Very sweet. She’s from Louisiana originally, I believe the ---- was born in Shreveport, but came to Texas when she was very young, I heard around Houston, close to Houston.
VAUGHN: [too faint to hear; away from recorder]
SILER: I want to ask you more . . .
MURPHY: Well, I don’t think you got a nickel’s worth of information.
VAUGHN: I’ve got a lot of ----
SILER: ---- historians have to study important history, try to find ---- ---- it’s just as important ----
VAUGHN: Do you feel ---- ?
MURPHY: Well, I don’t know that I knew any significant items, I don’t recall any that I mentioned, what you’d call really important, because I think of history as something that affected more than one or two people at a time. ---- You know, San Marcos is just filled right now with people who all of a sudden, having ignored this subject of history in their school days, in younger days, have grown up in old age, in which they’re very historical-minded. And they want to get the history of this, that, and the other. And they can tell you more than I can think. Have you ever consulted a woman here by the name of Wyatt? Did you ever get anything out of her besides who built this house, and who was whose grandfather, and so on?
SILER: I don’t know.
[4:01]
MURPHY: She’s the one that wants these medallions placed on the front door of this house, that house, and the other house, and there’s nothing in the world to distinguish those houses aside from the fact that they’re old. --- And you know, that’s true of millions of houses in the world. She asked me one day downtown, not long ago---- ---- “I’m very very old, but I don’t want you coming around hanging any medallion around my neck.” [Laughs.] She said, “I won’t.” [Laughs.] ---- . She thinks I’m disrespectful. We’re just friends, we belong to the same church. But I make fun of her all the time. I just wondered if you have asked her anything, she can tell you all the things about who lived in San Marcos when.
SILER: We need to ask you one more question. This material will be placed in the Southwest Texas library, and it will be open to public discretion, the public will be able to use this for any purpose they want. Do you have any objections to our placing this information in the Southwest Texas library?
MURPHY: Have I said anything that would subject me to a libel suit?
SILER: No, I don’t think so.
MURPHY: I don’t think anybody is going to read it in the first place. [Laughs.]
SILER: -----
MURPHY: Where are you going to---are you going to write it up in the form of papers, or what?
VAUGHN: We’re turning it over to the library to take care of the transcription of the tapes, at some time in the future. We don’t know when.
MURPHY: Oh, my goodness.
VAUGHN: But we just don’t have the people or the time to do it right now.
MURPHY: Well, I don’t think they’ll do it either, so I wouldn’t worry about that.
I don’t recall having said anything that I’d mind defending if somebody wanted to challenge me on it.
I’ve always made fun of the education teachers here and they know it, and they don’t mind it. They’re used to it. [Laughs.] Because they have one fad one decade, or half of a decade, and another fad ----. Do you remember ---- of course you’re too young to go back very far in it. I remember as far back as that fellow John Dewey that made the word “progressive” so important in education, progressive education. And all that’s old stuff now. Oh, I’m trying to think of some other since. The last one I heard talk, was --- year before last, was on the word “modular,” everything had to be modular, remember that? When they ----- this year.
VAUGHN: I don’t know, all I remember my education courses were behavioral objectives. I had those things coming out of my ears. -----
MURPHY: And another thing they [tape stops and restarts]
--- and that was learning how, right away ---- learn how to do this and how to do that, and I think learning what should precede it, ---- and you should learn what before you learn how.
A lot of them believe in going through school and learning to be a wonderful programmer for a computer, but not knowing anything about how to ---- ---- ---- ---- [several unintelligible sentences]
SILER: ---- ---- seriously ---- ---- Fireside talks.
MURPHY: ---- [several unintelligible sentences] I just had a ball with you two. -----
VAUGHN: Thank you.
[End of tape]