Linfielder Duffy Reynolds: Wildcat football fan

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.