My parents met at Berea College in Berea, Kentucky in 1941 and were married on August 21, 1941 in the front yard of the home in Lakewood, Ohio, where my mother lived during her growing up years.
My father was born and raised in Dalton, Ohio until he was ten. He then went with his family to the mountain community of Frenchburg, Kentucky where his father managed a Presbyterian Mission School.
At Berea my mom majored in sociology and my dad in agriculture. My mom wrote in diaries which later influenced me to do so, too. My dad had a professor, "Prof Stewart," whom he greatly admired.
After my parents' wedding they went to Frenchburg where my father taught math for a year. I somewhat recently "did the math" and determined that I was conceived in Frenchburg and born in Washington, Iowa, on November 5, 1942. By then my grandfather had followed his second wife (his first wife died from childbirth complications) to her parents' farm in Iowa. After one year of teaching my father had decided he would rather help farm than teach and went with my mother from Frenchburg to Iowa as well.
Prof Stewart and his wife had a daughter, Almita Stewart, who had graduated from Park. My parents reasoned that since Almita had liked it, it would also be a good college for me to attend. My mom and dad also liked the fact that, like Berea, Park had an obligatory work program.
On Saturday, September 9, 1961, I wrote in my diary "Park College really looks nice! On top of that the family next door to us in our motel has a girl who will be a freshman at Park! I invited her (Judy Percival from St. Louis) over to watch the Miss America pageant tonight...." I remember my parents' facial expressions when Judy told us Park was no longer going to have a required work program - but would have a voluntary one.
On September 10 I wrote "We got to Hawley about 9:30 to unload my stuff. We went out for dinner in Kansas City, Kansas, after looking over the campus. Vivienne is so nice. She got here about 4:00. We really have a beautiful dorm and room and everyone seems so nice. We had a supper with our advisors (Vivienne and I have the same one - Dr. Hampl - French). We also had vespers, introduction-to-faculty meeting, and a mixer tonight. Viv and I got acquainted with an African boy, Naman, from Kenya who's a freshman at Park...."
About the diary writer
- Barbara McDowell Whitt
- Kansas City, Missouri, Alexandria, Virginia, United States
- ~ About: A 1961-65 Park College Diary ~ As a high school girl and then a college coed in the first half of the 1960s, I wrote nightly entries on the pages of one-year diaries. In January 2010 I began transcribing the entries into a blog and gave each one a title. I grew up on three farms within 30 miles of Iowa City and the University of Iowa with its Iowa Writers' Workshop. As the oldest of four daughters, in my diaries I sometimes referred to my sisters as "the kids" or "the girls." We helped our parents, but we also had good, wholesome fun - a characteristic I took with me to Park. Park is 300 miles southwest of West Chester, Iowa, in Parkville, Missouri, on the Missouri River 10 miles northwest of Kansas City, Missouri, and across the river from Kansas City, Kansas. In 2000 Park College became Park University. Today Park's flagship campus is in Parkville and there are an additional 41 campus centers across the nation. Park was one of the first educational institutions in the United States to offer online learning. My last post was on May 22, 2018. I may be followed on Twitter @BarbaraMcDWhitt.
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