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Rock Voices: The Oral History Project of Slippery Rock University
Louis Como Interview
July 9, 2008
Bailey Library, Slippery Rock University, Slippery Rock, PA
Interview by Brady Crytzer
Transcribed by Lindsay Whalen
Proofread and edited by Judy Silva and Melba Tomeo
Reviewed and approved by Louis Como
BC: Today is July 9th, I am Brady Crytzer and it is one o’clock. Introduce yourself, sir.
LC: My name is Louis Como. I was born March 5th, 1927 in Aliquippa, PA. I received
my bachelor’s degree from Penn State [University] in 1952. I was here as a Penn State
freshman in 1948 and 1949 then I went on to State College. I got my master’s degree
from the University of Pittsburgh in 1966.
BC: Could you talk about your affiliation with Slippery Rock from the beginning?
LC: I was hired here in July of 1966 as an assistant acquisitions librarian. It was in the
acquisitions department, under Mr. Louis Razzano who was the acquisitions librarian,
and Harold Helmrich who was the director of the library.
BC: Was that in this building or was that still in Maltby?
LC: No. That was in Maltby building, Maltby Library.
BC: So, you’ve worked in both buildings?
LC: Correct.
BC: Do you have any fond memories of Maltby or Bailey Library that you’d like to
share?
LC: I have memories; some I would not want to mention as being fond [laughs]. It was
the move from Maltby to Bailey Library. The decision was made to hire professional
movers to move the large collection we had at that time. It was fairly large. The
professional mover decided to hire students to help him move and that was a tragic
mistake. The students he hired were terrible, really terrible. Edna King and I, and Gene
Neff were in charge of the move. Gene Neff was in charge of putting the books into the
boxes and marking accordingly where they should go in the library in the new building.
Edna King and I were in charge of unpacking the books and making sure they were put
on the shelves properly. These students were a sad, sad situation. Believe me.
BC: Do you remember what year that was? The move?
Rock Voices: The Oral History Project of Slippery Rock University of Pennsylvania
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LC: 1972. ’72 or ’73.
BC: That time was during a transitional period between state and teacher’s college. Do
you remember any events or feeling during those changes?
LC: No, no special feelings. I remember when we went to university status the president
at the time, Dr. Reinhard, had a special celebration scheduled at midnight of the day
when the change would come about. So they had a big celebration outside in the parking
lot. I wasn’t there but I remember hearing about it. That’s the only thing I remember
about changes in the university status.
BC: Were there any changes in the library system when that change occurred?
LC: No, there was no change.
BC: How did the library change over those years in terms of staff, director and
philosophy?
LC: The biggest change, if you want to call it that, was in the funding of the library. The
president who was in charge when I came here, Dr. [Robert] Carter, he was a libraryoriented person. Every chance he got he funneled funds into the library because the
collection was sad at the time. Because of his push and emphasis and interest the library
budget increased tremendously. We really had to work hard to spend the money because
at that time, according to the accounting system that the state had, if the college did not
spend their funds at the end of the fiscal year it would go back to Harrisburg. Of course
he was against that and I don’t blame him. Why should we send money back to
Harrisburg when we’ve got money here that we can use?
So one month before the end of the fiscal year, he would gather all the funds that were
available on a certain budget and give it to the library. We had to spend it within that
three or four week period or else the funds would revert back to Harrisburg. We went
crazy trying to spend those funds. After awhile we, myself and Mr. Razzano who was the
acquisitions librarian, decided to have the library’s orders ready in case we did get those
additional funds so we could send them out right away because three or four weeks time
wasn’t enough time to spend all those funds. We had special categories: books we need,
books we’d like to have, nice but . . . , that was a third category and sometimes we got to
purchase those books because of the large amount of funds that we received. If I
remember correctly the high mark year as far as funds were concerned was a half of a
million dollars. That was a lot of money. Usually it was between two and three hundred
thousand dollars which still was a lot of money.
So in the spring it was a real rat race trying to get those funds spent. Like one colleague
mentioned at the time, the trouble is that you order all of these books and they come in!
All of these boxes are coming in and you had no place to put them. We didn’t have time
to unpack them because we had to spend the money. We didn’t have time to unpack them
Rock Voices: The Oral History Project of Slippery Rock University of Pennsylvania
Como, Louis
3
and then the cataloging department was way overburdened because they couldn’t handle
all these books so we had to have a special place to put these books coming in. Just the
boxes, then the books. Unpack the boxes, put them on the shelves and then after a while
when the cataloging department could finally start to catch up we had to put the books on
the floor of the library because there was no more room on the shelves. It was quite a
dramatic time for us.
BC: Do you remember where you kept those books?
LC: In the building in our department. The acquisitions department was a narrow room,
and my desk was right here [pointing] and the boxes were right here. I remember one of
the instructional [faculty] women would ask our office to go to lunch and say “what a
mess.” I would say “I heard that!” [laughing] and she was right.
BC: It seems like Maltby is so small, were you worried about all the space that you had to
fill?
LC: Sort of, but like I said by the time that we got all those books catalogued this place
started to fill up too. It was sooner than we expected but we started thinking about
enlarging the building which never happened.
BC: You mentioned that the president was pretty library-oriented, do you remember any
time when the library was kind of put on the back burner?
LC: In my last eight years I’d say, the book budget started to decline so we weren’t as
busy as we had been earlier. I remember one time I had seven non-instructional [staff]
working for me. At the end, when I retired, I had three. One was a new position, so we
actually had two as far as ordering goes.
BC: Did you work at any other buildings while you were here besides Maltby and
Bailey?
LC: No, although the library had another building where we used one large room for part
of the collection. It was Bard Hall, I think it was.
BC: What were your first impressions of the campus?
LC: Like I said I was here for one year as a student. It was a very attractive campus;
close-knit community if you want to call it that. I remember we would eat in North Hall
and our evening meal you had to dress up: suit, sports coat, whatever, with a tie; and you
were assigned seats in the dining hall for a couple of weeks, then you moved to another
table, and there was a hostess there. It was pretty neat.
BC: What changes did you witness while you were a student?
Rock Voices: The Oral History Project of Slippery Rock University of Pennsylvania
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LC: The change that I recall is when I was living in town with my brother. After the first
semester he transferred to the University of Notre Dame and I moved on campus to South
Hall. South Hall is no longer here, that’s the only change I can say.
BC: Were you involved in any campus activities while you were on campus? Any
committees when you were here?
LC: Well I was on committees—the department committees and campus committees,
faculty council.
BC: Do you have any accomplishments by those committees that you are particularly
proud of?
LC: I don’t remember any specific thing that a committee did, but I remember that
President Carter was given a “no” vote of confidence if that is what you’re talking about
or what you’re interested in. The night of the faculty meeting, which was in Miller
Auditorium, was a very anxious night for all because everybody knew what was going to
happen if they got a chance to do it. Because President Carter ran the meeting, which was
a faculty meeting but he ran it anyway, usually he allowed what he wanted discussed to
be discussed. But one faculty member got up at the meeting and [the] tension was really
something, believe me. He made a motion that a vote of [no] confidence be given and
before the president could do anything somebody else got up and seconded the motion.
So then the president said “Okay, we’ll have a hand vote,” which was terrible because
nobody’s gonna . . . most people would not have voted for the motion. So somebody
quickly got up and said they wanted a secret ballot. There was a second and that was it. A
secret ballot and the no confidence vote was overwhelming.
Then right after the vote the president reached in his suit coat and pulled out a letter and
he read it and he resigned. He was prepared, in other words somebody had told him ahead
of time that this was going to happen, so in case it happened he was prepared to say that
“I resign.” He resigned, and the tension was terrific and there were a lot of rumors going
around campus for weeks. Of course there were people that were against a no confidence
vote and there were arguments and discussions. I remember that one professor from the
philosophy department came into the acquisitions department and he started talking to me
and Mr. Razzano and the director of the library who was Dr. Carter’s friend and, in fact,
he got the job because he knew Dr. Carter and he started to argue and things got a little
bit testy. It was a very trying time.
Then the governor appointed an acting president, Dr. [Robert A.] Lowry. [Pause] one of
the things that caused the vote—the straw that broke the camel’s back—was the fact that
it was time for promotions and the campus-wide committee recommended a number of
people and the president just [pause] promoted a couple of persons and that was the straw
that broke the camel’s back. Anyway, the person who was selected by the governor to be
acting president until they got a new president was one of the persons on that promotions
list who was not promoted. The first thing that he did when he became acting president
Rock Voices: The Oral History Project of Slippery Rock University of Pennsylvania
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was to promote everybody on the list that was recommended by the campus-wide
committee and I agreed with him.
BC: Was that when the political party in control in Harrisburg still selected the person
that would be president?
LC: Yes, there was no faculty union then.
BC: Were the party lines still visible among faculty and staff as far as who they would
support as president?
LC: Yes there was quite a bit of discussion as far as who would be selected and who
would be interviewed and so forth. During the interviews, people would attend, the
faculty members mostly. There [were] a lot of rumors going around, who was gonna be
picked and they finally picked Dr. [Albert] Watrel. I don’t remember how many years he
was president and then he was fired. It was some funds that were used inappropriately. I
guess it had to do with the football stadium, that building there behind the stadium that
overlooks the field [Gale Rose Lodge]. Apparently Dr. Watrel used funds which were in
another area that was inappropriate but it got blown up out of proportion. You read it in
the paper you would think that he stole money or something like that when actually he
just used funds from another budget, that’s all.
BC: Do you have any memories of any other presidents?
LC: Yes, Dr. Watrel. He was fired and then the governor appointed an interim president,
not acting president, interim president, Dr. [Lawrence] Park. He was at a sister institution,
state institution in Pennsylvania. He had two years to go before he retired so the governor
appointed him interim president and in the meantime they started a search for a new
president.
BC: Do you remember any people that were important to you on campus that kind of
helped you along?
LC: The person who stands in my mind is Mr. Razzano, he helped me get the job here
because we met in graduate school at the University of Pittsburgh and then he called me
and told me that there was an assistant acquisitions position open in the library. Was I
interested? I was ready to go to another institution in Maryland but then he talked me into
getting the interview and I came here and had the interview and finally I got the position
here as his assistant.
BC: Were you originally from the area?
LC: I’m from Aliquippa.
Rock Voices: The Oral History Project of Slippery Rock University of Pennsylvania
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BC: Did you see any standoffishness from community members since you were an
outsider?
LC: Not on campus, but in the community there is that standoffishness. If you aren’t born
here then you aren’t part of the community. Even though we had lived here thirty years,
our children went through the school system, we shopped in the area, we paid our taxes,
we kept up our property, we never got into any kind of trouble and so on and so forth. We
went to church and still people . . . it’s amazing how some people are. Because you
weren’t born here, you are an outsider.
BC: Can you think of any major events that happened here?
LC: Yes, I remember the Chapel. It was a beautiful building next to North Hall. When the
decision was to tear that building down it was a sad day. I realize that it would’ve cost a
lot of money to refurbish it and they weren’t sure what to do with it after they did spend
that money. But, I remember we lived across the street there and you could see them
tearing the building down. The day that they brought that ball and started hitting the
building, that was a sad day because that was a beautiful building and it would’ve been
nice if they could’ve saved it.
BC: We’ve had others tell us that there just wasn’t enough alumni support to save it.
LC: Yes, it was a sad decision.
BC: Were you upset when it was planned to just be a parking lot?
LC: Well, I don’t know if there was anything that eased the tension but people were
unhappy.
BC: Do you remember any other building projects that you were for or against?
LC: Well, I remember the Vincent Science Hall that was being built when I came here.
And the library was being built, too. But the Vincent Science Hall was more advanced. It
was an attractive building at the time. When Dr. Watrel came—he toured the building
and he was a science major, so science was his strong background. Someone told me that
the president almost cried when he saw the building because it was outdated. It was just
opening up and it was already outdated.
BC: Any other memorable events that happened that we haven’t touched on yet?
LC: I have a few things written down here. Well I have President Carter, moving to
Bailey Library, tearing down the Chapel. We hired a new director. Mr. Helmrich was the
director when I came here and he retired so there was a little bit of concern about hiring a
new director. We wanted to be involved, the library staff, and we interviewed the
candidates and we recommended Mr. Garton and he was hired. It was a good thing
Rock Voices: The Oral History Project of Slippery Rock University of Pennsylvania
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because he came in and did a great job. He got along with everybody and I was the
chairperson at the time and I had to go see him often and discuss problems and moves
and whatever he wanted to do. We got along very well. Because of all this everybody, in
fact the whole staff got along very well and it was a very happy environment and we got
a lot of things done.
BC: Do you think that the library has gone in the general direction that everybody has
wanted to see it go in?
LC: It’s hard for me to say but I would say that it probably has. It seems to be [pause]
still be an attractive building even though it is thirty or thirty-five, forty years old or
whatever.
BC: What do you miss about being here at SRU?
LC: My colleagues. Sadly to say, one of my closest colleagues just passed away last
week, Edna King.
BC: Is anyone still working in the library that you have worked with?
LC: Yes, my former secretary Mary Purdy. She worked with me for about four years
before I retired. Mary Lou [Toth] and Melba [Tomeo]. She just retired? She was a noninstructional person. She left and then she went to I think Slippery Rock to get her
bachelor’s degree and she got a job at the [middle] school. Then she finally got her
master’s degree and she was hired here right after I retired . . . and she worked for me as
a [non-]instructional for a while, too. Then there was Del [Oehms Hamilton]. She was
hired a year before I retired. So I knew her for one year. She just retired.
BC: Any words of wisdom for future or current Rock community members to know?
LC: Keep up the good work; I guess that’s all I can say.
BC: Do you like the way that the campus has expanded?
LC: Yes, the two new buildings across the way are beautiful buildings [the Physical
Therapy Building and the Advanced Technology and Science Hall]. When I was here
most of the buildings were not attractive; they just skimped on the budget. When I went
over to our sister campuses like IUP [Indiana University of Pennsylvania] and Clarion
[University of Pennsylvania] I thought their buildings were beautiful; I said “Look at
those buildings!” Our buildings were so poorly looking, bad looking buildings in
comparison. Now I see these two buildings and they’re beautiful. That’s the way it should
be on a college campus.
BC: How would you like to be remembered?
Rock Voices: The Oral History Project of Slippery Rock University of Pennsylvania
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LC: As a hard working person interested in the students, in the staff and in building the
collection for the faculty and students which we did. We had one of the higher, better
rated libraries in the state because of our collection.
BC: What are your thoughts on libraries now that everything is digital?
LC: I’m not too familiar with that because I’m not a computer-oriented person. But, if it
helps the library and all the persons working, great.
BC: Anything else that you would like to add?
LC: I’d like to thank everybody for inviting me and I was happy to be of service.
Rock Voices: The Oral History Project of Slippery Rock University of Pennsylvania
Louis Como Interview
July 9, 2008
Bailey Library, Slippery Rock University, Slippery Rock, PA
Interview by Brady Crytzer
Transcribed by Lindsay Whalen
Proofread and edited by Judy Silva and Melba Tomeo
Reviewed and approved by Louis Como
BC: Today is July 9th, I am Brady Crytzer and it is one o’clock. Introduce yourself, sir.
LC: My name is Louis Como. I was born March 5th, 1927 in Aliquippa, PA. I received
my bachelor’s degree from Penn State [University] in 1952. I was here as a Penn State
freshman in 1948 and 1949 then I went on to State College. I got my master’s degree
from the University of Pittsburgh in 1966.
BC: Could you talk about your affiliation with Slippery Rock from the beginning?
LC: I was hired here in July of 1966 as an assistant acquisitions librarian. It was in the
acquisitions department, under Mr. Louis Razzano who was the acquisitions librarian,
and Harold Helmrich who was the director of the library.
BC: Was that in this building or was that still in Maltby?
LC: No. That was in Maltby building, Maltby Library.
BC: So, you’ve worked in both buildings?
LC: Correct.
BC: Do you have any fond memories of Maltby or Bailey Library that you’d like to
share?
LC: I have memories; some I would not want to mention as being fond [laughs]. It was
the move from Maltby to Bailey Library. The decision was made to hire professional
movers to move the large collection we had at that time. It was fairly large. The
professional mover decided to hire students to help him move and that was a tragic
mistake. The students he hired were terrible, really terrible. Edna King and I, and Gene
Neff were in charge of the move. Gene Neff was in charge of putting the books into the
boxes and marking accordingly where they should go in the library in the new building.
Edna King and I were in charge of unpacking the books and making sure they were put
on the shelves properly. These students were a sad, sad situation. Believe me.
BC: Do you remember what year that was? The move?
Rock Voices: The Oral History Project of Slippery Rock University of Pennsylvania
Como, Louis
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LC: 1972. ’72 or ’73.
BC: That time was during a transitional period between state and teacher’s college. Do
you remember any events or feeling during those changes?
LC: No, no special feelings. I remember when we went to university status the president
at the time, Dr. Reinhard, had a special celebration scheduled at midnight of the day
when the change would come about. So they had a big celebration outside in the parking
lot. I wasn’t there but I remember hearing about it. That’s the only thing I remember
about changes in the university status.
BC: Were there any changes in the library system when that change occurred?
LC: No, there was no change.
BC: How did the library change over those years in terms of staff, director and
philosophy?
LC: The biggest change, if you want to call it that, was in the funding of the library. The
president who was in charge when I came here, Dr. [Robert] Carter, he was a libraryoriented person. Every chance he got he funneled funds into the library because the
collection was sad at the time. Because of his push and emphasis and interest the library
budget increased tremendously. We really had to work hard to spend the money because
at that time, according to the accounting system that the state had, if the college did not
spend their funds at the end of the fiscal year it would go back to Harrisburg. Of course
he was against that and I don’t blame him. Why should we send money back to
Harrisburg when we’ve got money here that we can use?
So one month before the end of the fiscal year, he would gather all the funds that were
available on a certain budget and give it to the library. We had to spend it within that
three or four week period or else the funds would revert back to Harrisburg. We went
crazy trying to spend those funds. After awhile we, myself and Mr. Razzano who was the
acquisitions librarian, decided to have the library’s orders ready in case we did get those
additional funds so we could send them out right away because three or four weeks time
wasn’t enough time to spend all those funds. We had special categories: books we need,
books we’d like to have, nice but . . . , that was a third category and sometimes we got to
purchase those books because of the large amount of funds that we received. If I
remember correctly the high mark year as far as funds were concerned was a half of a
million dollars. That was a lot of money. Usually it was between two and three hundred
thousand dollars which still was a lot of money.
So in the spring it was a real rat race trying to get those funds spent. Like one colleague
mentioned at the time, the trouble is that you order all of these books and they come in!
All of these boxes are coming in and you had no place to put them. We didn’t have time
to unpack them because we had to spend the money. We didn’t have time to unpack them
Rock Voices: The Oral History Project of Slippery Rock University of Pennsylvania
Como, Louis
3
and then the cataloging department was way overburdened because they couldn’t handle
all these books so we had to have a special place to put these books coming in. Just the
boxes, then the books. Unpack the boxes, put them on the shelves and then after a while
when the cataloging department could finally start to catch up we had to put the books on
the floor of the library because there was no more room on the shelves. It was quite a
dramatic time for us.
BC: Do you remember where you kept those books?
LC: In the building in our department. The acquisitions department was a narrow room,
and my desk was right here [pointing] and the boxes were right here. I remember one of
the instructional [faculty] women would ask our office to go to lunch and say “what a
mess.” I would say “I heard that!” [laughing] and she was right.
BC: It seems like Maltby is so small, were you worried about all the space that you had to
fill?
LC: Sort of, but like I said by the time that we got all those books catalogued this place
started to fill up too. It was sooner than we expected but we started thinking about
enlarging the building which never happened.
BC: You mentioned that the president was pretty library-oriented, do you remember any
time when the library was kind of put on the back burner?
LC: In my last eight years I’d say, the book budget started to decline so we weren’t as
busy as we had been earlier. I remember one time I had seven non-instructional [staff]
working for me. At the end, when I retired, I had three. One was a new position, so we
actually had two as far as ordering goes.
BC: Did you work at any other buildings while you were here besides Maltby and
Bailey?
LC: No, although the library had another building where we used one large room for part
of the collection. It was Bard Hall, I think it was.
BC: What were your first impressions of the campus?
LC: Like I said I was here for one year as a student. It was a very attractive campus;
close-knit community if you want to call it that. I remember we would eat in North Hall
and our evening meal you had to dress up: suit, sports coat, whatever, with a tie; and you
were assigned seats in the dining hall for a couple of weeks, then you moved to another
table, and there was a hostess there. It was pretty neat.
BC: What changes did you witness while you were a student?
Rock Voices: The Oral History Project of Slippery Rock University of Pennsylvania
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LC: The change that I recall is when I was living in town with my brother. After the first
semester he transferred to the University of Notre Dame and I moved on campus to South
Hall. South Hall is no longer here, that’s the only change I can say.
BC: Were you involved in any campus activities while you were on campus? Any
committees when you were here?
LC: Well I was on committees—the department committees and campus committees,
faculty council.
BC: Do you have any accomplishments by those committees that you are particularly
proud of?
LC: I don’t remember any specific thing that a committee did, but I remember that
President Carter was given a “no” vote of confidence if that is what you’re talking about
or what you’re interested in. The night of the faculty meeting, which was in Miller
Auditorium, was a very anxious night for all because everybody knew what was going to
happen if they got a chance to do it. Because President Carter ran the meeting, which was
a faculty meeting but he ran it anyway, usually he allowed what he wanted discussed to
be discussed. But one faculty member got up at the meeting and [the] tension was really
something, believe me. He made a motion that a vote of [no] confidence be given and
before the president could do anything somebody else got up and seconded the motion.
So then the president said “Okay, we’ll have a hand vote,” which was terrible because
nobody’s gonna . . . most people would not have voted for the motion. So somebody
quickly got up and said they wanted a secret ballot. There was a second and that was it. A
secret ballot and the no confidence vote was overwhelming.
Then right after the vote the president reached in his suit coat and pulled out a letter and
he read it and he resigned. He was prepared, in other words somebody had told him ahead
of time that this was going to happen, so in case it happened he was prepared to say that
“I resign.” He resigned, and the tension was terrific and there were a lot of rumors going
around campus for weeks. Of course there were people that were against a no confidence
vote and there were arguments and discussions. I remember that one professor from the
philosophy department came into the acquisitions department and he started talking to me
and Mr. Razzano and the director of the library who was Dr. Carter’s friend and, in fact,
he got the job because he knew Dr. Carter and he started to argue and things got a little
bit testy. It was a very trying time.
Then the governor appointed an acting president, Dr. [Robert A.] Lowry. [Pause] one of
the things that caused the vote—the straw that broke the camel’s back—was the fact that
it was time for promotions and the campus-wide committee recommended a number of
people and the president just [pause] promoted a couple of persons and that was the straw
that broke the camel’s back. Anyway, the person who was selected by the governor to be
acting president until they got a new president was one of the persons on that promotions
list who was not promoted. The first thing that he did when he became acting president
Rock Voices: The Oral History Project of Slippery Rock University of Pennsylvania
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5
was to promote everybody on the list that was recommended by the campus-wide
committee and I agreed with him.
BC: Was that when the political party in control in Harrisburg still selected the person
that would be president?
LC: Yes, there was no faculty union then.
BC: Were the party lines still visible among faculty and staff as far as who they would
support as president?
LC: Yes there was quite a bit of discussion as far as who would be selected and who
would be interviewed and so forth. During the interviews, people would attend, the
faculty members mostly. There [were] a lot of rumors going around, who was gonna be
picked and they finally picked Dr. [Albert] Watrel. I don’t remember how many years he
was president and then he was fired. It was some funds that were used inappropriately. I
guess it had to do with the football stadium, that building there behind the stadium that
overlooks the field [Gale Rose Lodge]. Apparently Dr. Watrel used funds which were in
another area that was inappropriate but it got blown up out of proportion. You read it in
the paper you would think that he stole money or something like that when actually he
just used funds from another budget, that’s all.
BC: Do you have any memories of any other presidents?
LC: Yes, Dr. Watrel. He was fired and then the governor appointed an interim president,
not acting president, interim president, Dr. [Lawrence] Park. He was at a sister institution,
state institution in Pennsylvania. He had two years to go before he retired so the governor
appointed him interim president and in the meantime they started a search for a new
president.
BC: Do you remember any people that were important to you on campus that kind of
helped you along?
LC: The person who stands in my mind is Mr. Razzano, he helped me get the job here
because we met in graduate school at the University of Pittsburgh and then he called me
and told me that there was an assistant acquisitions position open in the library. Was I
interested? I was ready to go to another institution in Maryland but then he talked me into
getting the interview and I came here and had the interview and finally I got the position
here as his assistant.
BC: Were you originally from the area?
LC: I’m from Aliquippa.
Rock Voices: The Oral History Project of Slippery Rock University of Pennsylvania
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BC: Did you see any standoffishness from community members since you were an
outsider?
LC: Not on campus, but in the community there is that standoffishness. If you aren’t born
here then you aren’t part of the community. Even though we had lived here thirty years,
our children went through the school system, we shopped in the area, we paid our taxes,
we kept up our property, we never got into any kind of trouble and so on and so forth. We
went to church and still people . . . it’s amazing how some people are. Because you
weren’t born here, you are an outsider.
BC: Can you think of any major events that happened here?
LC: Yes, I remember the Chapel. It was a beautiful building next to North Hall. When the
decision was to tear that building down it was a sad day. I realize that it would’ve cost a
lot of money to refurbish it and they weren’t sure what to do with it after they did spend
that money. But, I remember we lived across the street there and you could see them
tearing the building down. The day that they brought that ball and started hitting the
building, that was a sad day because that was a beautiful building and it would’ve been
nice if they could’ve saved it.
BC: We’ve had others tell us that there just wasn’t enough alumni support to save it.
LC: Yes, it was a sad decision.
BC: Were you upset when it was planned to just be a parking lot?
LC: Well, I don’t know if there was anything that eased the tension but people were
unhappy.
BC: Do you remember any other building projects that you were for or against?
LC: Well, I remember the Vincent Science Hall that was being built when I came here.
And the library was being built, too. But the Vincent Science Hall was more advanced. It
was an attractive building at the time. When Dr. Watrel came—he toured the building
and he was a science major, so science was his strong background. Someone told me that
the president almost cried when he saw the building because it was outdated. It was just
opening up and it was already outdated.
BC: Any other memorable events that happened that we haven’t touched on yet?
LC: I have a few things written down here. Well I have President Carter, moving to
Bailey Library, tearing down the Chapel. We hired a new director. Mr. Helmrich was the
director when I came here and he retired so there was a little bit of concern about hiring a
new director. We wanted to be involved, the library staff, and we interviewed the
candidates and we recommended Mr. Garton and he was hired. It was a good thing
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because he came in and did a great job. He got along with everybody and I was the
chairperson at the time and I had to go see him often and discuss problems and moves
and whatever he wanted to do. We got along very well. Because of all this everybody, in
fact the whole staff got along very well and it was a very happy environment and we got
a lot of things done.
BC: Do you think that the library has gone in the general direction that everybody has
wanted to see it go in?
LC: It’s hard for me to say but I would say that it probably has. It seems to be [pause]
still be an attractive building even though it is thirty or thirty-five, forty years old or
whatever.
BC: What do you miss about being here at SRU?
LC: My colleagues. Sadly to say, one of my closest colleagues just passed away last
week, Edna King.
BC: Is anyone still working in the library that you have worked with?
LC: Yes, my former secretary Mary Purdy. She worked with me for about four years
before I retired. Mary Lou [Toth] and Melba [Tomeo]. She just retired? She was a noninstructional person. She left and then she went to I think Slippery Rock to get her
bachelor’s degree and she got a job at the [middle] school. Then she finally got her
master’s degree and she was hired here right after I retired . . . and she worked for me as
a [non-]instructional for a while, too. Then there was Del [Oehms Hamilton]. She was
hired a year before I retired. So I knew her for one year. She just retired.
BC: Any words of wisdom for future or current Rock community members to know?
LC: Keep up the good work; I guess that’s all I can say.
BC: Do you like the way that the campus has expanded?
LC: Yes, the two new buildings across the way are beautiful buildings [the Physical
Therapy Building and the Advanced Technology and Science Hall]. When I was here
most of the buildings were not attractive; they just skimped on the budget. When I went
over to our sister campuses like IUP [Indiana University of Pennsylvania] and Clarion
[University of Pennsylvania] I thought their buildings were beautiful; I said “Look at
those buildings!” Our buildings were so poorly looking, bad looking buildings in
comparison. Now I see these two buildings and they’re beautiful. That’s the way it should
be on a college campus.
BC: How would you like to be remembered?
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LC: As a hard working person interested in the students, in the staff and in building the
collection for the faculty and students which we did. We had one of the higher, better
rated libraries in the state because of our collection.
BC: What are your thoughts on libraries now that everything is digital?
LC: I’m not too familiar with that because I’m not a computer-oriented person. But, if it
helps the library and all the persons working, great.
BC: Anything else that you would like to add?
LC: I’d like to thank everybody for inviting me and I was happy to be of service.
Rock Voices: The Oral History Project of Slippery Rock University of Pennsylvania
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