Fires of Wisdom: Mills College Alumnae Oral History Project, update for 2023

Recently, I have been asked to speak about a project near and dear to my heart, one to which I contributed many years of labor and creativity. I was able to work with excellent colleagues. Mills College is no more, but the history of the place, the lives of the women who found their way to this college are very vivid and compelling. The alumni want to keep this memory alive, just as we did in this oral history project, Fires of Wisdom.

For many years, I was active with my college’s Alumnae Association. I helped to found a group called Fires of Wisdom: the Mills College Alumnae Oral History Project. I had an internship as an undergraduate at Mills College. Our goal was to interview the eldest living alumnae and friends of the college first and to meet women who were returning to campus for their “golden” reunion of 50 years or more. We wanted to make these stories of traditions and memories available at the Mills College Library, so other researchers could have access to what we learned.

We went about doing interviews with the eldest of our college alumnae and Mills friends. We wrote curriculum and researched training methods for teaching volunteers how to conduct oral history interviews; we drew on the work of other oral history groups like the Regional Oral History Office at University of California at Berkeley. We initially found assistance from professors at Mills, like Marianne Sheldon and at other schools across the U.S. who were implementing this type of research.  Oral history methodology at that time was not in the forefront of academia. In fact, when I begun this work, there was only one book on the topic at our campus library.  All of the interviews, the teaching, the assistance for this project was done by volunteers like me, with very little funding from the Alumnae Association. Many years after we began this work, we combined forces with other scholars to archive our interviews with the Oakland Living History Project at the Mills Olin Library.

You can look up the archives of the Fires of Wisdom Mills College Alumnae Oral  History Project in the Mills Olin Library here.

Mills College differed from the many colleges in the San Francisco Bay Area in that it is was, until recently, a women’s college for the undergraduate programs. After World War II, the graduate programs were coeducational. One of the most famous graduates of Mills was musician Dave Brubeck. You may have seen an amazing interview with Mr. Brubeck, a native of California,  in Ken Burns’ jazz documentary.

Through our interviews we learned what campus and off-campus life was like in various decades before the 1990s. We heard  about past traditions at the college, student perspectives on historical events and about the formidable personality, mission and rhetorical skills which comprised the character of Aurelia Henry Reinhardt, the college president from 1916-1943. During her time at Mills, Aurelia experienced two world wars and addressed issues of these conflicts openly and with a compassion that makes her unique. Her commitment to women’s education was inspiring. We began dedicating our work to this intriguing past president of the college when our  volunteer group began doing Dramatic Readings at Mills College Reunions, complete with slide shows of our interviewees (also known as narrators) and with our group dressed in vintage dress to represent the decades of women we interviewed.

2009
2009

For this project, we made every effort to locate and interview alumnae of color and find people with diverse economic and cultural backgrounds, not just the famous folks with the most successful careers or those who already had the most written accounts or interviews of their lives. Those had already been done. We wanted to create a kind of mosaic of perspectives on life in the SF Bay Area during the tenure of President Reinhardt.

While I was at Mills College, (1992-1994) as a Resuming Student, I commuted to campus. I was a member of the the Mary Atkins resuming students’ lounge, where nontraditional-aged students could form study groups and support each other as we returned to school. Some of my classmates were over 40 years old, some were in their seventies. Many had children to support and jobs while completing their undergraduate degrees. I was 29 when I graduated with my Bachelor of Arts degree in American Studies, after many years of working and attending college part-time at other universities.  The Olin Library on Mills campus was a refuge for me as was the Reinhardt Alumnae House, where I did much of my research and met up with advisers, interviewees and volunteers for the project.

During my 11 years of volunteering for the Alumnae Association, I made a lot of friends who were alumnae. I met students and college staff members. To thank volunteers for their time, we had to find a fun way to gather. So we started having tea.

2008
2008

Through Fires of Wisdom, which we named after the college’s anthem or hymn, the core group of volunteers started some  new traditions and reclaimed some others. One is based on stories of Holiday Tea with the President Reinhardt. Several members of our group collect vintage clothing. Many of us just like hats. We all seem to like tea. So, we dress up, with our hats, gloves, shoes, purses and enjoy High Tea at Lovejoy’s Tea in San Francisco..

Although we have since archived all of the interviews we did with Mills College Alumnae and friends at the Olin Library, we still like to get together, dress up and share our stories. Here is this year’s photograph of our participants:

Fires of Wisdom 2011 Tea at Lovejoy's in San Francisco
Fires of Wisdom 2011 Tea at Lovejoy’s in San Francisco

The other members of the group in the 2011 photo are, left to right: Moya Stone, Erika Young, Betsy McCall, Beth Woolbright, Jane King, Cecille Caterson, Kathleen McCrae and on the far right, Malvena Pearl’s Emporium proprietor, Suzette Lalime Davidson.

Please note that my dear friend Jane Cudlip King is at the center, in the photo, here. She graduated from Mills in 1942 and had done decades of volunteer service with the college. She prepared young people to take the S.A.T. and had the best memory for the works of Shakespeare quotations that I’ve ever encountered. She also did a great impression of President Aurelia Henry Reinhardt, with all of her vast elocutionary skills.

Two people who I meant to have in this photo were the other founders of the project: Kristen B. Caven and Penny Peak. We trained more than 30 volunteers for this project and only a handful are as enthusiastic about “dressing up” as we are.

We are grateful to Nancy MacKay, formerly of the Mills College Library, for assisting with the archive of all the interviews;  Professor Marianne Sheldon, Professor Andy Workman and Professor Sherry Katz.

Mills Oral History Project, the early years, 1996

Update on Costume Academy

On Sunday, March 19, 2017, the Greater Bay Area Costumer’s Guild will hold their annual Costume Academy in Berkeley.  Malvena Pearl’s Emporium will be there with many different wares. There will be several other vendors available there. They may include our friends from Decades of Style Pattern Company, Lynn McMasters, Renaissance Fabrics and possibly our Dickens Fair workshop friends Dorothy O’Hare of Farthingale’s Supplies and Persephone, owner of Fitting and Proper. We may have lovely beaded jewelry from Sandi Ball (morse code necklaces) and Brandi S. Mills of Many Moods Creations.

This event will be held in Berkeley, CA at Language Studies International, 2015 Center St, Berkeley, CA 94704. Drop us a line if you’d like more information!

Costume Academy 2012 MPE

Welcome to London! (inside the Cow Palace, Daly City, CA)

holly

Hello, hello. It’s that time of year when theater, dance and literature enthusiasts from all over the greater San Francisco Bay Area congregate to prepare the Great Dickens Christmas Fair, to go on beginning November 22, 2014, 10 AM – 7 PM– we are open for five weekends, including the Friday after Thanksgiving, through December 21, 2014.  Check out this Map of London!

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On behalf of the Emporium, Miss Charlotte Badger would like to Cordially Invite You to help us celebrate the holidays in the tradition of Charles Dickens! Miss Badger has agreed to step in to the hubbub of the Fair on behalf of the Emporium proprietor; she’s  been helping out at Dickens workshops by hemming pants, finding suitable hats, locating lace and caps and helping our friend Jacqueline with her hand-sewn bonnet commissions.   In just a few short weeks, Miss Badger will be singing with the Coventry Carolers  and working at the Green Man Publick House at the Great Dickens Fair.

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Would you or your loved ones would like to come see the spectacle, eat delicious foods, greet Father   Christmas, encounter various characters from the works of Charles Dickens, see Her Majesty Queen Victoria and her retinue, or dance at Fezziwigs? Yes?! Then please contact the Emporium so we may assist Miss Badger with preparing the appropriate amount of discounted tickets for you on the day you wish to attend.

 

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Bagpuss, a UK television show that parallels the life of Malvena Pearl’s Emporium

Bagpuss is a UK children’s TV show that our proprietor found out about on her 2008 trip to England with our dear pal Beth Woolbright. Wikipedia tells us, “UK children’s television series, made by Peter Firmin and Oliver Postgate. The series of 13 episodes was first broadcast from 12 February 1974 to 7 May 1974 through their company Smallfilms. The title character was “an old, saggy cloth cat, baggy, and a bit loose at the seams”. Although only 13 episodes were made, it remains fondly remembered, and was frequently repeated in the UK for 13 years. In 1999 Bagpuss topped a BBC poll for the UK’s favourite children’s TV programme.’

Beth and I had gone into Hamleys of London, an incredible toy shop that’s been open since 1981.  We went in to look for Doctor Who toys but stopped first at the aisle of  stuffed animals to find Paddington Bear. That’s where we first saw Bagpuss and several smaller dolls that were singing mice. This show is about a young girl named Emily, her stuffed cat named Bagpuss and their stuffed animal friends who help Emily repair old and broken items for her “shop” which doesn’t sell anything. In summary, it is a parallel life to that of the proprietor of Malvena Pearl’s Emporium. We haven’t sold much and we opened the place with a live Bagpuss-like cat named Roo.

In addition, we’ve recently heard of a shop in Oakland, CA that Doesn’t Sell Anything, either. Bravo!

Here’s Zasu, Roo and some other Emporium animals, assisting the Proprietor in testing the merchandise, supervising the projects and generally being helpful:

stuffed animals on dog bed
stuffed animals test a newly made dog bed

Zasu
Zasu holds down the skirt of the White Queen Dress for the Beeper Egg Hunt ALICE IN WONDERLAND Tea Party

Roo tries on the finished bustle
Roo tries on the finished bustle

July 23, 2014

Garnier Palace d'Opera

Things are quiet at the Emporium as our proprietor is in a new role in support of her household. Her recent work assignment involves database management. This temporary post is in an old Victorian building for a wonderful, small arts and cultural organization. The other offices in the building are rented by lawyers. Each office is tiny, so the place is a rabbit’s warren of independent attorneys going about their work, quietly, with an occasional visit by couriers who bring boxes of files in and out.

She likes to think of database management work as following in the footsteps of Nathaniel Hawthorne and Herman Melville, who each worked at the Customs House in Boston. These posts inspired their work, clearly, and made it possible for them to support themselves. She especially thinks of the characters at their tasks in Melville’s story Bartleby, the Scrivener.  (download a copy of this wonderful story here.) However, in the twenty-first century, our proprietor is not required to use a quill pen to copy names and addresses into the tomes and correspondence files.  All the same, those names inspire stories in one’s mind, as one works through the changes and confirms zip codes and street addresses. Another phenomenon she has noticed is that after doing this kind of list maintenance in various forms, for multiple employers for 27+ years, the same names seem to come up, which is good. Or at least, they look Familiar. But there are always new ones, in many languages. It isn’t boring and it’s a great cause.

We’d also like to let readers know about another great cause: The East Bay Children’s Book Project, created by Anne Katz, our dear friend. The proprietor has also been volunteering there. They give away donated books to children, teachers, classrooms and anyone who needs children’s books. They have a new home. Go over to their site and see the goings-on! It is quite inspiring.

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Basic Hand Sewing class at 2013 Workshop Weekend

We are happy to report that our proprietor will be teaching a workshop at Tech Liminal in Oakland on Sunday, June 23, 2013.

Basics of Hand Sewing

Are you interested in repairing your own clothing? Not quite certain what to do with that torn shirt? Never known how to sew on a button? How about patching a torn pant leg?

In this workshop, we’ll cover the basics of sewing by hand. You’ll also learn how to repair and care for worn-out and vintage clothing. By the end of this workshop, you’ll have all the knowledge necessary to confidently sew by hand!

Needles, thread and patch fabric will be provided. If you’d like to bring a garment to repair or transform, please do!

Entrance to Workshop Weekend costs $30; the hand sewing workshop materials cost $5.00.

V-Day 2013

 

2011 Vagina Monologues show in San Francisco

2012 V-Day show at the Uptown Lounge, Oakland

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here’s a guest post from our visiting dignitary, Lady Vagina, aka Lady V-Jay Jay:

“Well my lovelies, it’s here again! A fantastic opportunity for you to support the women in our communities who may need a little help, a little, shall we say, attention. Aherm. We’re talking about domestic and sexual violence that has to stop. And WE ARE THE ONES WE HAVE BEEN WAITING FOR!

As the ONE BILLION RISING Oakland group showed us: we can all show up for our communities, women, children, men, and say Enough! No More Violence! and dance, rise, celebrate the growth we have experienced.

For this Vagina Monologues show, being performed on Wednesday, April 10 and Thursday April 11, 2013,at the New Parish in Oakland, CA all proceeds apart from direct production costs will go to Communities United Against Violence.

Please join us in supporting our fundraising on Wed.  APRIL 10 & Thurs. APRIL 11, 2013 at the NEW PARISH by attending The Vagina Monologues show in Oakland.  Order tickets here.

Here are our generous sponsors and donors from last year’s show and the silent auction we held.

All the profits from the 2012 event went to Bay Area Women Against Rape:

Get Goes Mobile Cafe

Fiftyseven-Thirtythree

Book Zoo

Ruth M. Freeman

Tech Liminal

Kristen Caven

The Sacred Well

Blisses B

CupKates Bakery

Good Vibrations

Now some photos from the 2012 show. Rumor has it that Lady V-Jay Jay’s handler performed the role of The Flood in that show. But that’s just a rumor.

Gratitude

Skull A Day quilt square donation

Halloween and Day of the Dead celebrations are part of our calendar year. They are different traditions; the the Day of the Dead in early November is a time for us show gratitude for our ancestors. Halloween falls on a number of birthdays for our friends. We celebrate the moment and the passing of the year with them.

Both holidays can be an inspiration to create something unique and share it with others: costumes, headdresses, toys, masks or drawings. The possibilities are endless. Today we show gratitude with this quilt square made for a charity quilt.