Originally
posted 1/29/2018. Updated 1/29/2018
Edith
“Duffy” Reynolds of McMinnville is a Linfield graduate and a Linfield
Home Economics professor emeritus.
This is her story; not her entire life history, but part of
it focusing on Duffy being a Linfield Wildcat football fan.
“The Worst Hard Time: The Untold Story of Those Who Survived
the Great American Dust Bowl,” a book by Timothy Egan, calls Dalhart, Texas, in
the extreme northwest corner of the Texas Panhandle, epicenter of the Dust Bowl
disaster.
One source describes the Dust Bowl as a “period of severe
dust storms that greatly damaged the ecology and agriculture of the American
and Canadian prairies during the 1930s.”
Another source says the Depression, 1929-1939, was the
“deepest and longest-lasting economic downturn in the history of the Western
industrialized world.”
It was in Dalhart that Duffy was born on Nov. 1, 1928.
Later, two brothers, Carl and Gayle, were born there, too.
When Duffy was 6-years-old, the Reynolds family (dad Albert, mom Vio, her brothers and grandparents Jim and Mary Elizabeth) drove
in their packed family car more than 1,000 miles to Pasadena, Calif.
The Dust Bowl and the Depression caused the move because
they lost the Reynolds Farm on which had grown wheat and maize, had a few dairy
cows and a horse.
“Everybody was leaving. It was a time of hardship,” Duffy
said.
“My dad was a wonderful golfer. He and his eight brothers
were outstanding athletes. I grew up hearing a lot about athletics, she said.
“We moved from Texas to California because there were golf
tournaments in which Dad could compete and win prize money in Pasadena and in
the area. Dad competed in tournaments, even playing with famous entertainer
Bing Crosby. But, he could never earn enough money to support our family.”
She attended school in Pasadena until the third grade when
the Reynolds moved again. They made their home in southern Oregon. Duffy said, “One
of my dad’s brothers lived in Grants Pass and said it had a lot of opportunity.
Dad worked as a carpenter. He was really skilled working with wood.”
After eight years in Grants Pass, her dad was restless. In
the middle of Duffy’s sophomore year of high school, the family moved again. They
settled in Springfield, in western Oregon and her father continued working as a
carpenter.
After graduation from Springfield High School in 1947, Duffy
went to Linfield. The Reynolds attended Springfield Baptist Church. “My two
closest friends in church were going to Linfield, so I decided to join them,”
she said.
By the
way, her brothers were outstanding Springfield High School athletes. They went
on to graduate from Linfield, Carl in 1956 and Gayle in 1958. But, at Linfield -- following high school and military service -- only one competed in Wildcat athletics. SEE
POSTSCRIPTS
Duffy didn’t know the cost to attend Linfield, but she quickly
learned after moving to campus in the fall of 1947 and into Failing Hall. “It
was expensive,” she said.
“So I worked my way through Linfield. I was paid 50
cents an hour” cleaning the cafeteria (which was in Pioneer Hall at the time)
and Newby Hall, which then housed faculty members.
The first Linfield sporting event she attended was a
football game. It was the 1947 season. Wayne
Harn was the Wildcats head coach.
Maxwell Field was a “sloppy mess,” she said. “It was a mud
bowl after rain. At one game after halftime you could not tell one player from
another because of mud on uniforms covering up jersey numbers.”
Attending all home football games, all men’s basketball
games (no women’s intercollegiate sports then) and some baseball games were
something Duffy always did as a Linfield student.
Something she did not do was attend games when Linfield was
on the road. “I didn’t have a car. No one had a car,” Duffy said.
She wanted to major in history at Linfield. But, Duffy was
advised it’d be hard or next to impossible to get a job with a history degree.
She changed her major to English with a Home Economics minor and planned to use
that education to be a school teacher.
After graduating from Linfield in 1951, her first job was teaching
Gaston near Forest Grove. “Gaston High had me teaching girls’ physical education for grades seven through 12. I was not a good PE teacher,” she said.
(A bright side to Gaston: There were Pacific University
graduates in Gaston. They gave her a ride to and from the 1951 Linfield at
Pacific football game in Forest Grove. There she saw Ad Rutschman, freshman Linfield football player, a standout running
and defensive back, help lead the Linfield Wildcats, coached by Paul Durham, to a 6-0 victory over the
Pacific Badgers.)
After the 1951-1952 school year at Gaston, she took a job at
Griswold High School in Helix, located in eastern Oregon’s Umatilla County near
Pendleton. She learned about a teaching opening there from a Linfield grad
teaching at Griswold High. “I taught seventh and eighth grade English, Junior
English and Home Ec.,” Duffy said.
She might have stayed in Helix beyond the 1952-1953 school
year, except for a letter from Margaret
Fisher, head of Linfield Home Ec. “The college needed a teacher in the Home
Ec. Department. Margaret said I’d been a good student at Linfield and that I
could do the job. I accepted the offer,” Duffy said.
When Duffy was a student and in her early years teaching,
Linfield Home Ec. was in the basement of Failing Hall. Later it moved to Potter
which, in an earlier life served as the Linfield President’s residence. Linfield’s
Home Ec. program was popular. As a result, an addition was built on Potter to
handle the numbers of students and department needs.
After teaching at Linfield for four years with her Linfield
bachelor’s degree, Duffy knew if she “wanted to stay at the college I’d have to
get a master’s or doctoral degree.”
In her research about where to earn an advanced degree she learned
that the University of Tennessee (UT) in Knoxville had received a grant to fund
a research project to develop a blue dye which would not fade on cotton. Blue
is the least stable of all dyes. She applied and was accepted to work on the
project. In preparation for her UT studies, she took a year’s worth of chemistry
during the summer at Linfield. After her academic year (1957-1958) of research
and studies at the University of Tennessee, she earned a UT Master of Science
degree in Textile chemistry in 1958.
Living in Knoxville in the South was eye opening. “This was
before the Civil Rights movement. I would see what conditions were for African
Americans. It bothered me.” Duffy said.
She returned to Linfield in 1958 and, counting her earlier
years before UT, she taught at the college in home economics for 36 years until
retiring in 1990. During many of those years she was head of the Home Ec. Dept.
Why retire in 1990? In that year Linfield eliminated the Home
Economics major because the administration said it was “not academic enough,: Duffy said. "Because my department (Home Ec.) was being closed and I was tenured, I could have continued
on the faculty by moving to any academic department I wanted. I visited several
department. But, every department head said ‘If you take a job here, I’ll have
to let a faculty member go.’ So, I retired,” she said. She’s now Linfield Professor Emeritus, Consumer and Family
Studies, also known as Home Economics.
Duffy has been a Linfield football season ticket holder
since her teaching days. Also a faculty member she also attended many men’s basketball games and some
baseball games, too. These days she sees Wildcat football home games
exclusively.
As a Linfield faculty member some on the faculty had cars.
Duffy got one, too, but not until she got her driver’s license at age 24.
The cars gave “wheels” for Duffy and friends Sybil Seward, Dayton school teacher; Patricia Jones, Linfield faculty
member, and Lilah Reed, Linfield
staff member, transportation to/from Linfield road football games at Pacific in
Forest Grove, Lewis & Clark in Portland and Willamette in Salem.
They’d attend Linfield football games in person.
A photo in a 1992 edition of the McMinnville N-R/News-Register showed Duffy and Sybil buying tickets
for an opening-round National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics Division II football playoff game on Linfield’s Maxwell Field. They were first
in line to purchase tickets for the event from Linfield Athletics.
When Duffy, Sybil, Patricia and Lilah didn’t travel to road football games, they would gather and listen to play-by-play of them on the radio.
Over the years Duffy had hundreds of students in the Home Ec.
program. Two of them had an interesting connection to Linfield and Major League
baseball. They were Scott Brosius and Jennifer Moore, who would later marry.
“During the time Scott and Jennifer were Linfield students
while I taught, every student at the college had to take a one-hour credit
pass-fail course -- three hours a day for three weeks -- in a department not in
their major area. They both took a weaving class in Home Ec.,” she said. “Part
of the weaving class work was to bring their project and talk about it.”
One of the class days she was told Scott was not able to
attend because he was meeting with the Oakland Athletics of Major League Baseball
(MLB). Scott went on to play minor league professional baseball and MLB for
Oakland and the New York Yankees. Among his professional baseball
accomplishments was being a World Series MVP for the Yankees. “Scott is a real
nice guy,” says Duffy.
Scott was
not the only Linfield athlete to take Home Ec. courses at Linfield. SEE
POSTSCRIPTS
Looking back on her years as a Linfield sports fan, Duffy
says, “Linfield teams are very well coached and the players are dedicated.
Linfield never gives up. I’ve seen some amazing Linfield wins and look forward
to seeing more.”
POSTSCRIPTS
==Duffy’s brothers, Carl (Linfield Class of 1956) and Gayle
(Linfield Class of 1958) Reynolds, were, because of the Korean War, drafted
into the military after graduating from Springfield, Ore., High School. After
each served two years – Carl in Japan and Gayle in Germany -- they both
attended Linfield on the GI Bill. Gayle competed in Linfield track & field
for Coach Hal Smith. “When I
entered Linfield in the fall of 1947 there were many former GIs who came to
Linfield. They were anxious to earn their degrees and start their careers,”
said Duffy.
==Linfield baseball player Scott Brosius was not the only
Wildcat athlete to take Home Ec. courses at Linfield, Duffy said.
“Drake Conti (a member of the LinfieldAthletics Hall of Fame) took all of my courses. He was outstanding in the
courses and outstanding as a football player.”
Conti’s success with Linfield football was covered by
newspapers and news media when he was an outstanding running back played for
Coach Ad Rutschman in the 1973, 1974, 1975 and 1976 seasons.
The Oregon Statesman in Salem, detailed his
success in fashion design. Its April 23, 1976, edition, says Conti, a Los
Angeles city all-city football star, came to Linfield intending to be a pre-med
major. His mother was a physical therapist and he’d worked part time three
years in a VA Hospital. But, his mother was an artist and excellent seamstress.
“With this background and Linfield’s excellent home
economics department, Conti found himself yielding to an interest in interior
design. Courses dealing with design, color and fabrics soon led him to clothing
design and construction as a home economics (minor)” at Linfield, the Statesman
story said.
Drake graduated from Linfield with a business degree says his Linfield
Athletics Hall of Fame biography.
Duffy recalls that Conti made and sold clothing and bags,
including one called the “Conti Bag” while he was a Linfield student. “He made
more selling clothing and things he designed in a year than what I was paid in
an academc year as a Linfield faculty member,” she said.
Drake sold his work to Linfield students, faculty and staff and
people off campus. “Once he learned there was a fair of some sort in Salem. He
got a table at it and sold his work there, too,” Duffy said.
Drake did a lot of work with denim. So, faded blue jeans
were a good denim source. Used jeans from an out of state source filled his
need. According to the Statesman story, “Seven hundred pounds of used faded
denim purchased in California is now on its way to Conti.” Divided into 100-pound boxes, the jeans arrived in McMinnville. But, Drake was moving to a new
place to live. So, the shipment was made to Potter Hall. “I remember those boxes
in a hallway. Drake had football player friends get the boxes and deliver them
to his new place,” she said.
::::
PHOTO WITH THIS STORY
In 1983, Duffy assists a Linfield College student at the
sewing machine. Basic clothes design and maintenance were typically part of
Linfield Home Ec. curriculum. Photo from Linfield Archives.
Below is story which appeared in the Oregon Statesman
(Salem, Ore.) daily newspaper on April 23, 1976. Click on image below to see entire article in larger, easier to read, size.
:::::::::::::::::::::
Duffy Reynolds 2/19/2018 outside McMinnville First Baptist Church. Wildcatville photos.
