Kathleen Cabell interview 2 (2005-11-07)

              NARRATOR: KATHLEEN BUCHANAN CABELL (Mrs. Royal E. Cabell, Jr.) 
 
 
			 
 
Counter Index	Topic of Discussion 
 
[CD 1, Second Interview 11/07/05] 
0:00:00		Introductions  
0:03:02		Experiences as a student at Agnes Scott College 
0:09:52		First job in New York 
0:11:22		Marriage to Royal Eubank Cabell, Jr. 
0:14:07		Husband’s, Royal Cabell, Jr., entry into politics 
0:16:43		Expansion of Collegiate School 
0:21:14		Service on Board of Christian Education for the Presbyterian Church United States 
0:22:35		Support for Richmond Symphony 
0:29:24		Travels to Italy 
0:35:45		Construction of new home in Richmond 
0:37:53		Membership in the Tuckahoe Woman’s Club 
0:44:02		Involvement in the Virginia League of Planned Parenthood 
[CD 2] 
0:00:00	Association with Hampden Sydney College (including College’s response to Massive Resistance in Virginia) 
0:05:49		Associations with the James Branch Cabell family 
0:11:05		Closing remarks 
[End of Compact Disk] 
 
Interview 2, track 1 
Track time:  0.12.00 
 
CD 1 
0:00:00		Introductions 
	Kathryn Colwell Hill:	Today is November 7, 2005 and this is the second interview with Kathleen Cabell at her home, Union Hill, in Goochland County.  She is the narrator.  I am Kathryn Colwell Hill and I am the interviewer.  Today is the second interview; the first was primarily about Union Hill and the reconstruction of this wonderful home.  Today we are gong to speak about Mrs. Cabell’s personal life and the passions that she has pursued during her lifetime and the causes that she has supported.  Without further introduction, I will let you take over and then I will ask questions as we go along. 
	Kathleen Cabell:     Thank you Mrs. Hill.  It is been a delight to work with you.  These interviews have brought to my mind many things that perhaps won’t interest people in the immediate future, but I think that in a few years—to look back upon life in Richmond during the nineteen hundreds, the last half of the nineteen hundreds—what we say might be helpful.   
	I heard recently a definition of opportunity and how to achieve it.  How does opportunity, good opportunities, come about?  The speaker said that it took good preparation plus luck and that when you combine those two opportunity always presents itself.  With those two—if you are well prepared and have good luck—then your opportunity will be fruitful.  That phrase was attributed to one of the early Greek philosophers, but I can’t remember which one it was.   
       Anyway, in my earliest years of education and in high school and college, I did have an excellent time with theater and stage opportunities.  It didn’t bother me a bit to be on stage and I gave music recitals.  I’ve given two piano recitals with just one other person and myself performing.  Being before people never bothered me.  It was just something that you were expected to do.   
0:03:02		Experiences as a student at Agnes Scott College 
       In my college years in Atlanta, Georgia with Agnes Scott, during the war when there weren’t any boys around to take up your spare time—Agnes Scott was quite hard and most everybody had to study all of the time—I had free time and I was able to work for the professor of English who managed the Lecture Association.  I did all of her typing and so I wrote many, many letters to the secretary of Robert Frost, who came to the college every year in the spring to get away from the New England cold.  He loved to come down and see the cardinals and he always talked about the birds that he enjoyed in the South.  He stayed at Agnes Scott around two weeks, or more, just vacationing but many times during the week he would meet a small group of students, informally.  I literally sat at his feet—we were in a living room—and heard him read his poetry and explain what he was trying to say.  Also, being in Atlanta, the Metropolitan Opera came there.  As you know, if the opera goes somewhere, it doesn’t have money enough to take everybody so they get people to carry spears; they call them spear-carriers or something.  (Laughter)  We had a special singing group—we did far more than just walk on stage—and we had to learn all of the choruses.  We had to try out for it, have auditions.  I was on the Metropolitan stage at least twice that I remember.  That was an unusual experience for me having never even been to the Met in New York.   
       Also, major national radio shows traveled around back in the forties, before the war, and in the thirties.  Everyone listened to the Telephone Hour that had Evelyn and her magic violin, or the Firestone Hour.  I know she was on one of them.  Again, when those people came to do a big show, like that with an orchestra, they often needed extra voices to be a chorus or something.  On two occasions, I was with a group on CBS and NBC.   
       I was also in a group, a special chorus.  There was a paraplegic hospital near Athens Georgia—this is where all of the soldiers came with lesser limbs than they had gone to war with—and we would be put on a bus and taken over there, always wearing our most enchanting evening dress to look glamorous.  We would go right into the wards and sing.  Here again I learned the lesson that “the show must go on,” because when ever I went in, I thought, “Who will I see” and “What will be the reaction?”  Every single boy that I had grown up with, and my brother, too, was in the war; I would have known his whereabouts.  Everyone was in the war.  At that time, early in the war, it was bad, the Battle of the Bulge and the freezing cold in France.  We knew that it was bad.   That was another thing; you just did what you had to do.  It was training.  You would never think about being timid. 
 	Fortunately, with all of that experience, right at that time I was told that I was much better at singing and being on the stage than just playing the piano.  But, the piano must have given me almost a perfect pitch because I had no problem with any of that or reading music.  Our small, very small, group was asked to get up early, early on Sundays and ride the trolley car to Druid Hills, in Atlanta, where the first—.  There was a small radio operation and recording [studio]—everything in this small building; you just walked right in off the street to it—where the first Protestant Hour was broadcast from.  I can remember being on the very first Presbyterian Hour that was on that [program].  We recorded one Sunday and then all of these big records—they looked like patent leather shoes, very shinny, black vinyl and quite large, much bigger than a dinner plate—would be mailed out to four hundred and thirty-four stations all over the United States.  On one occasion, the second year after I came to Richmond, I could actually tune in to WRVA, in the morning, and pick-up the Protestant Hour.  It was exciting to do all of those little things but it didn’t seem to mean as much to me then because you just did it.  Now as I look back on it, it was a very rich experience.   
0:09:48		First job in New York 
	My parents had moved to New York.  Actually, they lived over in Englewood, New Jersey and  I went in to New York to work at a library, in a building, that was right on the edge of Columbia [University].  It housed the Union Theological Seminary for the Northern—.  I don’t know if it was Presbyterian or what it was but it is still called the Union Theological Seminary in New York.  It was at 125 Broadway.  On the floor above, there were the German theologians who had left Germany, Reinhold Niebuhr and another one, the name has escaped me for the moment.  They were very interesting people to work with.  This specialty library concentrated on problems in the world, not in the United States.  Many theologians and missionaries came in there to find out what was really going on in China—even doctors— and what were the diseases in Africa or China or anywhere where churches wanted to send missionaries.  You never knew whom you were going to be talking to the next day.   
0:11:20		Marriage to Royal Eubank Cabell, Jr. 
	I had met my husband-to-be several years before.  Finally, I decided that the best thing I wanted, what I really wanted in life, was to make a life with him.  That meant getting married up there and then coming to Richmond to live, in the late 1940s, 1948 and 1949—.  Nineteen forty-nine was my first full year in Richmond. 
(Recording paused due to a dog barking.) 
 
Interview 2, track 2 
Track time:  0.4.19 
 
	Life in Richmond started out in Ginter Park where we lived near Roy’s father—his mother having died very recently and his father needing care—so that we could look in on him.  We did not live with him.  My introduction to Richmond was learning Ginter Park, an older section of town that then was very highly regarded.  They had their own recreational center.  The swimming pool and everything for the community was right there and that building still exists.  Then, our own children were coming into the world—we had three—and care for children then was almost—.  I, as a young mother, and almost all of my young friends looked after our own children.  I did not hear the word babysitter for a long time.  We never took a trip without the children; never thought of going anywhere without the children.  That was part of life.  One of the earliest trips we took—.  We did get to New York when the children were still little and did the Christmas shopping at FAO Schwarz.  They had the best toys that I had ever, ever seen.  Then, staying at home and going to Gloucester where we had a summer home—teaching the children how to fish, catch crayfish, and do what you could with crabs—all  of that was just a part of our wonderful early life.  
0:01:55		Husband’s, Roy Cabell, Jr., entry into politics 
       My husband was very interested in politics and thought that—like his father who was a Republican—that Virginia could be far better served if it had a real two party system.  As a very young man, he was persuaded to run for Congress, in 1956, which required that we go to San Francisco and attend the Republican Convention that marked the second run for President Eisenhower.  I did not go into this very happily, but I put on the best face.  I just knew that I had to do it, and so we did it.  At the convention, my whole attitude about our political system changed because of the high caliber of people that we met.  I was sitting up in the big auditorium—my husband was a delegate on the floor—and all of these ladies and gentlemen couldn’t have been more high-minded thinking.  They were doing the very best that they knew how to do to guide our country.  That was a little bit of a life change for me.  (Chuckles)  We came home from that and the only thing that happened, regarding a political run for him, was that it was the first time that the democrat who sat in this seat—and certainly was expected to win in Richmond—it was the first time he had come home from Washington.  [He] found that he had better do some local politicking himself and try to win this and, of course, he did.  From that time on, Roy was very much into politics in the State of Virginia.  We met every single republican person that was running for the presidency. 
(Recording paused due to phone ringing.) 
 
 
Interview 2, track 3 
Track time:  0.17.59 
 
0:04:19		Expansion of Collegiate School 
	When children were getting into junior high school and getting older, we took a great deal of interest in the community.  Among the many things that we were very active in was the building of Collegiate School out on River Road.  Collegiate was a school that had been founded in-town and was owned by the Presbyterians.  My father-in-law had been on the board.  At this time, the town school needed to grow and it decided to come west.  Getting Collegiate established, building classrooms—and the whole nine-yards for it—went on for many, many years.   
	KCH:	May I ask you a question about that?  Did your children attend Collegiate? 
	KC:	All of my children graduated from Collegiate and my husband served on the board.  We built a new school building, a room every year in the beginning.  They started out with just kindergarten and up to about the third grade.  Then we had to build another building for the fourth grade, even a gym.  Today the gym that we built is the only building that is left of the original buildings.  He was able to persuade the original owner of the land to give the land, and extra land, to Collegiate and also to put the Presbyterian Church on the corner at River Road.  It kind of followed. 
	The Community Chest in Richmond raised all of the money for many—it still goes on under another name—activities that took care of those who were less fortunate.  I was asked to head the Community Chest fund drive that covered an area from Broad Street, on the north, all the way south  to River Road, and starting at Three Chopt Road—that was sort of the end of Richmond then—west as far as it could go.  Well, nobody realized how many houses had been built in Westham.  But, because of our work with the school and several other things and the Presbyterian Church, we knew people.  We knew many people who were leaders in all of those neighborhoods.  That was one more thing that we picked up.   
	Then, the retarded children’s organization was getting organized.  We had friends that had the sad experience of having a child that had a mental, or retarded  problem.  I was asked, personally, to raise money just for the retarded children.  There was a lady over on the south side that wanted to establish a summer camp and that is how that summer camp in that facility which is still going on, got going. 
	KCH:	When you were raising money, like in this instance for the retarded children, did you organize any large activities or was it primarily calling on friends and associates? 
	KC:	We didn’t have any activities other than reaching out and having a web of people in various neighborhoods.  You would ask somebody to be a captain and give them an area.  Then on a certain day, or during a certain period of time, they would see all of those neighbors, or have someone see them, and ask them to make a contribution to this.  [They would] at least educate them to what was going on. 
0:05:56		Service on Board of Christian Education for the Presbyterian Church United States 
       Then much to my surprise, in the early 1960s, I was invited to be the first lady to serve on the Board of Christian Education for the Presbyterian Church United States.  This related to my experience at a Christian, Presbyterian college in Atlanta, where I knew some very interesting ministers.  In Richmond, the Board of Christian Education was the publishing arm for the Presbyterian Church United States.  It not only published all of the Sunday School and women’s studies, and et cetera, et cetera, needed for churches, but they published for the Lutheran Church and for one other denomination, I know.  We had a bookstore here called the Presbyterian Bookstore.  All of the publishing that we did was done here—actually, the printing was done here by a firm called the John Knox Press—and it was a five- to seven-million dollar business.  To be involved in this, where we had the board meetings every three quarters or twice a year, something like that, was very interesting and expanded my knowledge of what was going on in the world with religion.   
0:12:41		Support for Richmond Symphony 
       Then, there was the Richmond Symphony.  Roy was very active in that and became the president of the symphony in the latter 1960s and into the 1970s.  I know that he and two other gentlemen—we have a picture here of the three—they raised the first million dollar gift fund from the Ford Foundation for the symphony.  And, we welcomed the first non-United States citizen to be the conductor.  His name was Jacque Houtmann from France.  He made friends very, very quickly but his handling of the English language had its very definite limits.  Sometimes Roy would get a call and it would be Jacque saying, “Please come help me and put together my bibliotech,” meaning some shelves he had ordered.  (Laughter)  He could not understand how to get them together.  But, we enjoyed that and we even took what we called the Little Symphony, which was a group of twenty-five to thirty, on a wonderful steamboat cruise—it wasn’t a steamboat, a small liner—to Bermuda!  We learned that traveling on the waves and keeping all of the stringed instruments in tune, with the dampness and the rolling of the ship, it was an interesting situation!  But we loved it and we got them all home very safely.   
       KCH:	I would like for you to elaborate on the Richmond Symphony.  We talked briefly the first time I met you about Mary Anne Rennolds— 
       KC:	Yes!	 
       KCH:	—and the role of the women in promoting the symphony and raising money.  Do you mind talking a little about that? 
       KC:	I don’t mind at all.  Mary Anne and Ned Rennolds were, and he is still, the godfather of the symphony.  Mary Anne promoted the idea of everybody having a dinner at their private residence before the symphony and inviting people to come and listen; maybe have one of the guest artists there on a Sunday evening or some time like that.  All of that had to be arranged.   
       Then there was Mrs. Emma Gray Trigg, who was really one of the founders of the symphony.  Her daughter still lives here and can verify these facts.  Emma Gray would go out and research other towns, particularly places in Canada that had musicians that played an unusual instrument.  Richmond, Virginia didn’t have a lot of harpists; Richmond, Virginia didn’t have a lot of people who could play the oboe; Mrs. Trigg found jobs for those people and they came here.  They moved their residence here just to be employed by the symphony.  You had to have an oboe.  Sometimes a tympani man was hard to find.  When you had not had a symphony going,  and most people here thought of music as just taking a piano lesson or a violin lesson.  We needed extra people.   
       That was a very close to the ground operation.  If you were involved with them, helped with the symphony—.  At one point, the women’s committee of the symphony painted the backdrops for the Mosque, on the stage.  These were huge pieces of canvas that were lifted up behind the orchestra.  They lasted for a long time.  One year the Mosque was done over, a so-called renovation.  When it was finally ready for us to move in, with everything done fresh and clean, my husband, who was the president, found that the ushers employed by the city wore hot pants! 
       KCH:	Oh, dear.  For the symphony? 
       KC:	The symphony.  —very high cut hot pants.  (Laughter)  He was a little bit embarrassed at that for the symphony but we just went along with the flow.  Sometimes you had to put up with it.  One night during the symphony, we had a heavy rainstorm.  The Mosque roof leaked and you could hear the rain coming in on the back wall.   
       There were many, many interesting things that happened that people did every day, door-to-door, and by word of mouth.  I do remember being one of the hostesses who planned the first after the symphony party right at the Mosque.  After the symphony, we could just have everyone come down in the basement.  That was the first time I’d ever seen and, of course, had to decorate, the basement of the Mosque.  That took up a lot of time but it was very, very worthwhile.   
       We extended, at that time, the education of music in the schools.  The symphony, having brought here these excellent musicians, would go out—take their violins and their instruments—to the schoolchildren and talk to them about how a symphony was organized, and what his instrument did, and how it did it.  Richmond had not had so much of that before then.   
       	KCH:	We continue to benefit today from those early efforts. 
       	KC:	I hope so.  I hope that after this current situation the symphony will finally have a good home.   
0:12:41		Travels to Italy 
	Then, as our children were growing older, we liked to travel and we liked to travel with them.  We only had the time and opportunity to take two major trips.  The first one I was invited to go with a friend.  She and I were going to Italy and room together until our husbands could come.  She was Marie Kilpatrick and her husband was Jack Kilpatrick, the editor of the News Leader, who had become a staunch Republican supporter in his recent years.  Marie was an artist.  She went first, had the place in Florence, and I joined her in several weeks.  I was away for my first time for six weeks. 
	KCH:	Away from your children? 
	KC:	--away from my children and studying art, religious art, and architecture.  Roy, my husband, was very interested in architecture.  My husband came next and after the election—that was the election of Mr. Goldwater that Jack had to stay here and write the editorials for, for the paper—he [Jack Kilpatrick] joined us and the four of us traveled around.  We were given a marvelous guide in Rome by Mr. Bryan of the newspaper, a kindness to us with the Kilpatricks.  At the last minute, they didn’t want to go on this tour with this guide, but we took her.  Her name was Anna Mae Laley(??).  I mention her because her father was the first archeologist to uncover the statues of the Vestal Virgins, which now line the Coliseum, around there.  Miss Laley (??) knew every stone in Rome.  She spoke well, of course, in Italian but also Latin.  My Husband knew so much Latin that when the Italian failed they would drop back into Latin.  She introduced us to interesting people and interesting places and that is how I got to study early Christian relics.  She took me to the Vatican and showed me the earliest depictions of the saints, which were in glass, at the bottom of a glass.  This has helped me, even here at Union Hill, to understand something else about the depiction of the saints.  We enjoyed that trip and learned so much, particularly about every stone in the Forum; the Roman government, which lasted for eight hundred years; and how the senators conducted themselves.  She explained to us that the Senators sat in a tier—like we would sit at a football game—but only about four or five tiers would hold the senators.  The oldest ones always were on the first and lowest tier, with their feet on the ground, because their knees were wobbly.  In order to vote, they had to stand up and go and vote, put a vote in a box.  Everyone had to stand to vote and walk to vote.  Because they were the oldest ones, they voted first.  We usually think that wisdom comes with age.  We usually think that. There were many things about that trip that I did pick-up.   
       Miss Laley(??) had been imprisoned for one hundred and sixty-seven days by Mussolini, in solitary confinement with very little food.  We found later that another Richmond family—who had used her to a large extent to help plan vacations over there and educate their children—sent her vitamins.  They sent her food when she was finally released.  She told us that.  When she knew she had to go to prison, [it was] because she had sort of gotten under the skin of Mussolini a little bit.  When he would come out on his balcony to make an address—she took us and showed us where that was—she would take her lunch and a stool.   
(Recording paused due to telephone ringing.) 
 
Interview 2, track 4 
Track time:  0.23.57 
 
She had sat on her stool eating her lunch and listening to him making his so-called addresses to the public.  She disagreed with him and soon he had her spotted.  That was what caused her to be put in prison.  Fortunately, she was released and was the toast of Rome.  We found that, as far as tour guides go, the United States Diplomatic Corp used her exclusively.  She had guided around Mr. Johnson and J.F.K.  They were very much impressed with her too. 
	Therefore, you see if you have preparation and luck excellent opportunities do come about. 
0:01:01		Construction of new home in Richmond 
	We have passed over many years and I must mention that in 1954 my husband designed a new home for us in Richmond.  It was on the outskirts of Richmond and everyone said, “You might as well have moved to Charlottesville.”  We moved to Sleepy Hollow Road, which now parallels Parham Road.  We know there has been a lot of development to the west since.  He designed our house using a lot of architectural designs that he had seen in Europe, near Venice at Vicenza.  He put a Palladium window over the front door, in an unusual way.  By the time you had walked to the front door—were under the roof of the front porch—you were under the landing of the steps.  Now many people use that Palladian window.  I did not know at that time that his second great-grandfather had also copied Palladian architecture in his house, which was built in Nelson County on the next knoll to Union Hill.  That house is still standing and you can see the influence of Palladian architecture there.  We named our house Palomar(??) because of the Palladian window.  I think if you look around Richmond, you will find that it was one of the very earliest that was designed in that way.  
0:02:53 	Membership in the Tuckahoe Woman’s Club 
	Now that my children were all up and taking care of themselves and graduating from Collegiate, I had a lot more time on my hands.  I became the program chairman, vice president, for the Tuckahoe Woman’s Club.  If anyone is interested, they can go to the Tuckahoe Woman’s Club today and pull out every single yearbook that they wish to read, see who came to Richmond, when they were speaking, and what they were speaking about.  In the time that I did it, the Tuckahoe Woman’s Club had the very best speakers on the program of anyone in the City of Richmond.   
       They had the younger housekeepers.  The younger generation had come in—the downtown Woman’s Club had been going for much longer than the Tuckahoe—and  there were so many new, vibrant young women who wanted a very active club to go to, and to hear a good program.   
       The Tuckahoe Woman’s Club is basically an educational organization.  What they loved to hear were the memories from movie stars.  Being the program chairman all year long—we had a program every single week, almost every single week from the first of October until the first of May— I was the one who had to make all of the arrangements and meet the speakers.  We required that they come in the night before and so we personally met Ray Bolger.  He was a favorite. Olivia de Havilland wanted to go out to dinner with us.  We always had them stay either at the Jefferson or at somewhere downtown.  But, Miss de Havilland, as we called her, was married to a man from Virginia and so she had been here—her husband was from the Eastern Shore—and she knew about our state.  After that delightful experience with her, my husband said, “You have done many things for me Kathleen but to meet, and have dinner, and entertain Olivia de Havilland has to be a high point.”  Then we had people like Joan Bennett.   
       We had the top newspapermen, Walter Cronkite and men from the New York Times, too.  Locally, I was the first chairman to use Jack Kilpatrick, the editor of what we call the night paper.  It was known as the Richmond News Leader.  Jack was very much of a favorite with the men of Richmond.  He knew how to express himself very, very well.  He took on more local topics.  He knew about local government and what was going on.  Then, of course, we honored Mr. Dabney, too.  He was the editor of the morning paper.  He didn’t do speaking as much, as far as I can recall, as Jack Kilpatrick did.   
	KCH:	You mentioned that Jack Kilpatrick was a favorite of the men.  Did men sometimes attend? 
	KC:	Men could always attend.  They could come for free.  When I say free, your husband did not require a guest card.  You could invite any number of people regardless of their sex as long as you could get the guest cards, and you were limited in those.   
	We had authors of the current books; people from every walk-of-life, including the presidents of our colleges.  We learned a lot from them.  So, every week there was something to do.  
	KCH:	I must ask you though.  At times, wasn’t that an overwhelming responsibility?  A weekly program is quite a challenge. 
	KC:	It is.  But, it was all planned a year in advance, because the yearbook had to be published.  The yearbook was mailed to you in September for the following year, to open in October and then run through May.  You had the experience of the past chairman to be head of the committee to select the speakers.  You didn’t do it alone.  There was a group of four or five people who had input.  In those days, we primarily dealt with three professional lecture associations in New York.  One of them was a little lesser, a group out of Maryland that got more local—I should say Chesapeake area—speakers.  The other two in New York just had a time, a ball, getting all of these movie stars.  You see the movies were going out-of-business.  Television was coming on the way and these people had had such a marvelous experience in the making of movies early on.  The Tuckahoe Club, if you took those jobs on, you were tied to it for those months.  (Laughter)   
	KCH:	Enriching, but also somewhat tiring.   
	KC:	But, you got through and you were given great support. 
0:09:17		Involvement in the Virginia League of Planned Parenthood 
	Now, that takes us through the seventies.  I didn’t mention something that you had wanted me to talk about and that was my involvement with the Virginia League of Planned Parenthood.  We have to go back to the ‘60s for that, the 1960s, and early ‘70s, too.  At that time, I had never thought of the religious influence on medicine, or any other profession in the United States, and certainly not in my life.  Today I can tell you that the majority of cases that now reach the Supreme Court, in Washington, concern our belief in religion and how it matches up to our government, or what can we do or can the government overrule.  As you know, there is an amendment in the United States Constitution that there shall be no established religion in the United States.  Right here in Goochland we were first inhabited by the Huguenots, who were fleeing France because of their treatment by a religion, persecution.   
       Here in Richmond, there was a very small group of ladies who were interested in taking education about birth control, new methods of birth control, to poor women who did not want five, six, or multiple births; who had no husband to help her raise these children.  There was an organization in the state that had been formed by very distinguished citizens.  It was called the Virginia League for Planned Parenthood and that organization dealt with all of the maternal health clinics run by the State of Virginia.  It was thought that this information should be commonly known and available through any state clinic.  But in Richmond, something was going on that we had no control over.  There was a law in Richmond called the Comstock Law that had been passed by the City Council—and in many, many other cities in the United States—that said no person other than a medical doctor, with a degree, could do any education with anyone about birth control.  When this became known—.  It was actually MCV [Medical College of Virginia] that wanted some help with this and Mary Anne Rennolds was one of the leaders.  She had a comical name that people called her down there [the Jelly Lady]1 when they saw her coming.  But, she went on the maternal wards and talked to the patients, in their beds having given birth to children, to know if they wanted any help on further planning their family.  At that point, all that we wanted was that every child should be a wanted child and have parents that could care for them.   
       That was such an interesting and very enriching thing to do.  You thought if when you had done that, you had done a lot for your fellow man, or your fellow lady people who bear children and bear the whole training of children.  So suddenly, a group said that if we can do it at MCV, why don’t we start earlier and go into the city clinics.  The city ran maternal—.  Every county and every city that had health care had maternal and child health clinics.  There weren’t more than about twenty-five ladies that were in the least bit interested in doing this.  But, they were all intelligent and they were well known.  They were supporters of art, and symphony, and libraries, and all of these good causes that make Richmond such an interesting place to live.  They started to work in the clinics.  They were to take the actual products and demonstrate the use of them.  They had good little films, slide films, to show and educational helps.  The way those supplies got there was also through a private person, who did this because, for some reason or other due to this Comstock Law, the city clinic wouldn’t do it.   
       Things grew from not so rosy to feeling the brunt of this restrictive law.  It was determined that the local Richmond group would change the law.  I must confess that I took a large lead in this because I thought that this law was rather ridiculous.  I got the lawyer to handle it—he is now deceased—and he wanted to do it and did it pro-bono.  He had the help of a Dr. Oliver Thompson from the Presbyterian Seminary, who handled family matters and was a minister.  He got the strong help of Dr. Hudnall Ware at the Medical College of Virginia, Head of Ob/Gyn.  The night came that we had to go to court, or go to the city council, not to court just to the council, to get this law changed.  Times leading up to this turned out to be, what was to me, probably the lowest, most difficult time I ever had in Richmond doing anything on a civic scale.  Our phone at home had ugly messages from those who were opposed.  There was never any name used.  I had never experienced anything like that before.  That just made us a little stronger, feel stronger, about doing this.  We went before the city council.  The lawyer handled it; none of us ladies said a single word.  The professional gentlemen handled it and when the vote came down we won by one vote.  That was considered a great victory for the local work.   
       Now at that time, the organization of Planned Parenthood had not expanded into the new fields and areas.  It is a different organization today because family life has gotten more difficult, as we know.  Since then, we had Dr. Kinsey doing his studies on sex.  I think that was his name. 
	KCH:	Yes, it was. 
	KC:	He was on television the other night.  We also had Dr. John Rock, who was a member of the Roman Catholic Church, and his research with what we now call “the pill.”  He was not looking for birth control at all.  He was trying to help fertility, but stumbled onto this.  If you used a little more, it would promote something that was a form of birth control.  Dr. Rock, I remember, published a big article and was on the cover of Time magazine, or one of those news magazines—I had it for a long time and somehow it got misplaced—and he became a household word at that time.  We went through what they now call the sexual revolution.   
	My work in it was on a very humble scale.  I visited people out in Henrico County who were in great need.  I would take them to the clinics.  They were in need of medical help, real medical help.  I would drive them down to the Henrico County clinic, which was at Twenty-Third Street and Main Street, right in the center of the City of Richmond.  You know the original Henrico Courthouse was down there too.  That was the center of things.   
       The work in the clinics continued very successfully.  So successful in the Henrico County clinics that the nurses came to us one day and said “You know, we think we can now handle this ourselves.”  We disbanded the small group that I had in the county working on this.  I thought that that was the end of that.   
       I’m still interested in family matters.  I could see through my work with the Presbyterian Church that the home is really the hearth for bringing up children, whatever religion you have.  If it is not expressed by the mother at home, our life and our religion really looses a great deal.  Nationally, I got interested in people who were in support of family education and educating mothers.  At one time, I was asked to go with a research doctor from Johns Hopkins in Baltimore, head of Ob/Gyn up there.  I cannot recall his name right now.  It started with a G, but he had a magnificent reputation.  His interest was helping improve the status of living of the migrant workers, who had no running water, no warm stove to be with, to cook with.  Their living was pretty on the rough and rugged side.  We went over there and he saw how the migrant worker lived.  It was an amazing experience to see a research medical person, for me to see them, actually visiting the site of those that needed it the most. 
       KCH:	These were migrant workers in Virginia. 
       KC:	Yes, migrant workers.  I learned then that they come right up from Florida; follow the crops from Florida.  In the wintertime and springtime, as the crops become ripe, they would come right on up there and either catch crabs, or pick apples, or whatever was around for them to attend to and harvest. 
       KCH:	Could we back up just a little bit? 
       KC:	Yes, ma’am. 
       KCH:	Who were some of the other women who were involved with Planned Parenthood? 
       KC:	Well, Mary Tyler Cheek was the main instigator because her father—who was editor of the night paper, the News Leader—had been successful in talking to people regarding the state clinics, getting this out.  At that time, we were beginning to learn—all  of us were reading more about the early settlers and patriots in our country—and you have no idea how many women died from maternal health problems.  I have to say this about George Washington and Thomas Jefferson; both of them married widows who had children.  Their husbands had died from some other reason.  Health reasons were abundant at that time.  Patrick Henry had something like eighteen children and buried a child every two years in his late life.  The children were subject to getting consumption from the nursing mother.  No one ever thought about the nursing mother but that is why they had wet nurses in the early days.  The whole field of health and motherhood kind of blossomed, I guess, with medical research after 1960. 
(0:23:52)   Recording paused when telephone rings.  Off record, narrator and interview discuss propriety of citing names of women involved with family planning in the city’s maternal health clinics.) 
 
Interview 2, track 5 
Track time:  0.14.48 
 
	KCH:	I have turned the recorder on.  You have said that there are records at the Virginia Planned Parenthood if somebody wanted to research it further. 
	KC:	Yes, if somebody was interested in all of this past history, or who did it, I am sure the records would be there.  They would show the Board of the Virginia League for Planned Parenthood.  In fact, I just learned last year by meeting Dr. Jack Spiro, who teaches history and religion at VCU, that he is on the board today.  But, as I say, it has taken a lot of different directions because times have changed. 
	KCH:	As you look back, what is your overall feeling when you think of your involvement?   
	KC:	Number one, it is one of gratitude for the medical profession for, at least, recognizing that they bore a responsibility in this.  Now one thing that Mary Anne Rennolds and I did do—we were the first women ever to do it—we were asked, as guests, to address all of the local Ob/Gyn doctors.  They had dinner at the Commonwealth Club.  They get together and chat about what is going on here, hither, and yon.   
       At that time, the IUD was on the horizon.  I had heard about that because I had been to Singapore.  Everywhere I went, I went to maternal health clinics.  Even in Rome, I sought out the best maternal health clinic.  The best clinic in Italy is right on the side of the Vatican.  I was told that.  I heard about that in Rome.  Then in Singapore, I just went.  They are open twenty-four hours a day, because of the population problem.   
       Another entity that I learned about was the Rockefeller sponsored World Population Council.  This was one of their major organizations for helping the world, in their opinion.  They knew what was happening to the world population problem.  All you have to do is look at the population of Africa today, the population of China, and the fact that they, the Chinese, won’t let you have but one or two children; certainly not more than one girl.  They murder their female babies.   
       In Singapore, being an island, where population and living was so restricted, they had clinics open twenty-four hours and they had already started using the IUD.  It was unfortunate for the local group to use an IUD that had not proved satisfactory out there, after thousands and thousands.  A local drug company got into big trouble over this particular one.  Just last week I heard that there is an IUD that doctors consider to be the very best form of birth control today; the very best.  That method was used on camels early, years ago.  In order for the poor lady camel to get across the dessert and not get pregnant, they would put a small stone in her uterus. 
	KCH:	So that it would reject— 
	KC:	It would reject.  We learned about all of the history of this.  I had a couple of very good friends who were Ob/Gyn.  They would call me up and tell me the latest things or talk to me about this, that, and the other.  In many cases, the support was quite reciprocal. 
	KCH:	Did you feel that Richmond was as progressive or aggressive about taking on this matter as some other towns?  I am just trying to put Richmond in a national perspective. 
	KC:	Richmond has a very strong, now, very strong Catholic make-up.  Wherever you found that—.  They had been successful in every city, particularly of Irish Catholics, to get this Comstock Law in.  Richmond was not the only city that had this law; it was all over.  As every city dealt with it, they passed the news on to others.  Now, I think, the sexual revolution has just gone overboard.  We used to not be able to say the word anywhere.  Now it is said everywhere and done everywhere, it seems to me.  I can’t embrace the way the world has gone with this.  It isn’t my standard. 
	KCH:	Did you find that you wanted to seek out your pastor, or you mentioned a theologian at the Union Theologian Seminary?  Birth control was a fairly new concept. 
	KC:	It was and it was something that ministers were going to have to face.  One thing in this that I had totally forgotten, until you asked me that question, I think that I am the only lady in Richmond—I know that I was the first lady—ever to be invited to address a class at the local Presbyterian Seminary.  It was on population.  That is what they wanted to talk about, but what they really wanted to talk about was what products were available and how available were they out in the world.   
       The Rockefeller Foundation would only cooperate with governments that backed population control.  Any nation that didn’t back it—.  Later, they got a little bit turned-off because of the report, the Kinsey Report.  It took a few years for it to happen, but that turned them off.  They didn’t like questions of a personal sexual nature being asked of people.  If the governments of any country wouldn’t support their population efforts, they just closed. 
	KCH:	I think that we have covered so many of the foundations.  The only thing that I can think of that you didn’t mention is the Virginia Museum.  I know that you were a tour guide. 
	KC:	Oh, yes. 
	KCH:	Would you like to talk about that? 
	KC:	I would just be delighted and I also must say something about our involvement with Hampden Sydney College.  How can I leave that out? 
	Having studied music for all of my life, I had never had a course in art.  Never.  When the Virginia Museum started offering courses in art and wanted tour guides—this was under Dr. Cheek, Mr. Cheek—I was the first one on the step to get to do it.  The way he had it organized was just like he organized the museum: early architecture, medieval architecture and art, working on up through the French Renaissance, and finally coming up to the Virginia antiquities and architecture.  I went every time I could and learned what all I could.  I learned to be a tour guide and became chairman of tour guides.  When I did that, we found that there was nothing in writing at the Virginia Museum to train a novice.  We ladies put our heads together.  One of my lady friends was married to a very smart lawyer and she made her husband’s secretary available.  When a man at the Virginia Museum was going to give a lecture on art, we all went and sat on the floor of the museum—there wasn’t anywhere else to sit—and the secretary took down everything that the curator said.  That was the first time that a publication—even if it was xeroxed or carbon copied—was available for people to do tours.  Then, linking this in with our trips to Italy, where I saw so much, and Mr. Cheek’s building the Renaissance wing and bringing out more Renaissance art, the stores in Richmond participated.  Thalhimers would have all Italian goods there: gold jewelry, Italian clothes, and Italian shoes.  We could buy Italian made shoes from Ferragamo, in Florence.  The whole town was swept up in this movement too.   
       We started doing the tour guiding.  At first, it was very much restricted and I was not in it.  They just used people from the Junior League and I am not a member of the Junior League.  I didn’t let that stop me from learning though.  I went on and learned whatever I could learn.  Then they found that they needed more people and the Junior League people didn’t really want to put in all of those hours.  We published our little booklets and papers, on this, that, and the other.   
       At one time, I had been given three tours to do in a day.  Three tours is a lot in those marble halls, where your voice just echoes, with young children.  Then, I guess I got used to it.  I had so much to give due to my travels abroad and my own private study with Italian art and English art—I wanted to learn about any art—that groups would make reservations for lunch, to come there, if they could get me to do the tour.  I would agree to do that one and then I’d say, “As long as I’m going to be down there I’ll do the next schoolchildren.”  I’ll never forget one boy.  He happened to be an African American student.  I was describing a table that came from a monastery.  It was quite a long table where the monks had sat opposite each other.  You can imagine it.  All of a sudden, this boy took his hand and held it about six inches above the table and his hand just shook, like this.  (holds hand parallel to a table and shakes as if from a tremor)  I said, “Young man does the table interest you that much?”  He said, “Oh, yes ma’am.  I’ve just finished reading a book about a monastery and I never thought that I would ever get this close to any piece that came from a monastery.”   
	Mr. Cheek had then set up, with each of his primary galleries, a little twelve to fifteen seat photo showing [area], to show slides of what you were going to see later.  Whether it was French or Early Medieval or whatever, you could go in there, start the slide program, and hear this yourself, if you wanted to learn.  We all knew that Mr. Leslie Cheek educated more people in Richmond—and then tried to reach out in the State of Virginia—on art than any other person who has ever lived here.  
	KCH:	That is quite a legacy. 
	KC:	He was not a student of art himself.  He hired the best curator he could find and that man was there for a long time.  Mr. Cheek was an architect and that is why he knew about buildings.  He created that museum to grow into what it has grown into now.  I think that their legacy will live here forever, especially with Mary Tyler writing her book that we have all enjoyed. 
	KCH:	Yes definitely.  Let’s stop this tape if we could.     
1:13:41		End of first CD 
 
 
Interview 2, track 6 
Track time:  0.12.37 
 
Begin CD number 2 
0:00:00	Association with Hampden Sydney College (including College’s response to Massive Resistance) 
       KCH:	We are going to start again.  I have just turned on the recorder.  This is CD number two of this interview on November 7th.  Mrs. Cabell and I have just briefly visited off-tape discussing which other topics to cover.  We are going to talk about Hampden Sydney College and her family’s relationship to the college, and then their relationship with James Branch Cabell’s family, particularly with his second wife Margaret Freeman Cabell and son Ballard.  Where would you like to begin? 
	KC:	Let us start with Hampden Sydney because that will be the shortest.  The college was formed before the Revolution.  The builder of Union Hill was on its original board of trustees, or the board of directors, to get the college going.  He, as a member of that board, was asked to invite his friend Patrick Henry to please join.  They wanted everyone who was for the Revolution—that could help build the college and give it great stature—to be represented on the board.  They put Patrick Henry and James Madison on the board, but both of those men were so busy building the early stages and factions of the young United States that they didn’t have as much time to go over and attend to the college in the many ways that William Cabell did.  One of his quotes is, “No one will ever know how much time I have spent trying to get this college built and running.”  It was forty-five miles on horseback from his house Union Hill, across the James River, and down to near Farmville where Hampden Sydney was established.   
       One of the Cabell brothers, Joseph, was a founding member of Phi Beta Kappa at William and Mary.  There are people at Hampden Sydney, through all these years, who have been so hopeful that, in all of the Cabell papers, we will turn up something that says, “Yes, they established an early chapter of Phi Beta Kappa at Hampden Sydney.”  That has not happened, but there is a great hope that it might be. 
       During the trying times of Massive Resistance in the State of Virginia, Hampden Sydney faculty wives, the ladies up there, wanted to help.  They opened a kindergarten for the black students, Afro students, in the county that had nowhere to go to learn anything.  They could only handle about thirty.  There was a little building on the campus that they got the use of and they ran that kindergarten.  It was devastating to see young people not getting an education.   
       My husband’s interest in and opposition to Massive Resistance was that if we expected to have a lawfully run United States government or government in Virginia that all of its people needed to know how to read.  All of its people needed to know what the laws were and to abide by them.  He had a real passion for this.  That was the headline that he received at his death in the newspaper; his very active resistance to this program that said, “We will close the schools rather than have integrated schools.”  Now it has brought on a number of problems.   
       I have recently attended the sixtieth reunion of his class.  He graduated from Thomas Jefferson High School and everyone there said that it was by far the best high school anywhere in the United States.  But with the coming of teachers having to accept so many people who had very little or no education, a number of the schools that were great in one day, a few years later—it was just so difficult—their greatness had slacked a little bit.  I think that it is something that we just must continue to address.   
       Roy continued being interested in Hampden Sydney and served for the longest term of anyone on its board.  He dearly loved that college.  This is the first time that no Cabell offspring have been at Hampden Sydney.  Our only male grandchild is now at William and Mary.  That is their choice and we don’t need to attend to that.   
0:05:46		Associations with the James Branch Cabell family 
	Let us turn our attention to James Branch Cabell, his second wife Margaret, and his son Ballard.  I did not know Mr. James Branch Cabell but I was in their home for a Christmas party once, their home on Monument Avenue.  Margaret was then his wife.  I did not know the first wife whatsoever.  I had heard about Ballard and I want to state that Margaret Cabell, his second wife, did so much for Ballard’s life to enrich it and lengthen it; giving him dancing lessons, seeing that he went places.  He was cognizant of art and music and we saw him at the symphony.  It was a shame that his life had to be hindered with an illness that he could not control nor did he cause.  She did him wonders, did him wonders.  As I say, I did not know Mr. James Branch Cabell and was in his house only once, but I am delighted that VCU has seen to it that his biography has been written.  My husband did take care—.  After his death, my husband did take care of the legal problems for his wife Margaret.  He advised her and worked with her to get the personal items in the room that is dedicated to him.  Since I have never been in the room, I don’t know exactly what is there.  
       KCH:	We must take you. 
       KC:	I hope to go one of these days.  He had a beautiful silver punch bowl, heavily embossed—repousee pattern like—and she wanted Roy to have that.  We have that here.  She gave Roy a table that couldn’t go anywhere else.  That is in my living room.  It is a drop-leaf table, an old one too.  We had none of his books until a lady that I had helped in Goochland do some research out here, when she heard my name she said, “Would you be interested in having any of Mr. James Branch Cabell’s books?  My father collected them.”  Out-of-the-blue, they came.  They are still packed away over here; some of them are first editions, some are signed.  I must confess that I haven’t had time to read them and I don’t think I am intellectually prepared to read James’ books.  They are somewhat above my grasp in facts.  I am a very factual person.  I like to handle what is real and he was a master at making up good stories.   
	KCH:	Mythological images are throughout his books. 
	KC:	Images and this, that, and the other.  Roy used to tell me that his books were very, very popular in France and also in England, far more so than here.  I think that it is great that Richmond produced him, and that he liked to write so very much, and that he was such a good friend of the lady writer from here. 
	KCH:	Ellen Glasgow. 
	KC:	Ellen Glasgow.  Her father or brother, Arthur Glasgow, was a member of Second Presbyterian Church, and we were just there yesterday.  He was a leading citizen in Richmond.  The Glasgow Fund is a major fund that has enriched the Virginia Museum to a great deal, a great deal. 
	Now beyond that, there isn’t much that I can say about Cousin James.  He was not close kin to my husband.  You would have to go back four generations to the original Cabell to find a common ancestor.  My husband’s family stayed up in Nelson [County] until his father came to Richmond. 
0:11:05		Closing remarks 
	I want to thank Mrs. Hill for her patience in dealing with me and her kindness in preparing herself so very well to do these lectures. 
	KCH:	Well, it has been very humbling for me and just a privilege, very much a privilege.  Today you highlighted what many of us have suspected all along.  So often, the wives of the business leaders in Richmond are very active in many areas and they impact our community, but their names are not in the forefront as having been leaders in the community when in fact— 
	KC:	They were. 
	KCH:	—their education and perseverance.  That is what impressed me today as you talked; how well you prepared yourself for these activities and the time you devoted, the time you devoted to the different causes.  We are indebted to you. 
	KC:	That is very kind of you to say that, but there came a time that I couldn’t play golf anymore so doing all of those things, I thought was fun.  I really enjoyed meeting everybody and every type of person in Richmond.  We are blessed to have such a variety of people and individuals in this town.  We welcome you here especially, and thank you for attending to this.  You have made a friend. 
	KCH:	Likewise.  Thank you. 
End of Second Interview 
1 Mrs. Rennolds was called the Jelly Lady because she carried the new birth control products in a fruit basket. 
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Kathleen Buchanan Cabell		  
 
 
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