Duffy
Reynolds, at 90, looking back on a life of learning, teaching
‘Stopping By’ column by Starla Pointer, McMinnville News-Register
11/13/2018
When Edith Reynolds was a teen, her younger brothers started calling her “Duffy.”
The nickname might have come from a radio comedy
popular when she was an adolescent, “Duffy’s Tavern” — a show to which the
Reynolds family, being good Baptists, did not listen.
“My brothers were big smart alecks,” the
McMinnville woman said. “They were smarting off and teased me with ‘Duffy.’ My
mother was horrified.”
Nevertheless, the nickname stuck.
Reynolds, who turned 90 on Nov. 2, still answers
to it today. It’s a term of affection used not only by her brothers, Carl of
Lincoln City and Gayle of Chico, California, but also by her friends, students
she taught at Linfield College and fellow members of the First Baptist Church.
Reynolds was born in Dalhart, Texas, on Nov. 2,
1928. A few years later, her hometown would be called “the center of the
Depression,” hit by both the Dust Bowl and, more deeply, by the bad economy.
“Dad had really good crops, but he couldn’t sell
them,” she recalled.
So, when she was about 7, her family loaded up
their Model A and headed west. She and her two younger brothers joined their
parents and grandparents on the trip.
They ended up in Southern Oregon. After several
years in the Grants Pass area, they moved to Springfield. Reynolds graduated
from Springfield High in 1947.
Since her two best friends were heading to
Linfield College, Reynolds decided to go, too. She didn’t know much about the
school, other than that it was affiliated with the American Baptist Church.
She’d been attending Baptist churches all her life.
She hadn’t considered finances: Linfield cost
more than she had available. So she worked to pay for her education, first
cleaning staff apartments in Newby Hall, then serving in the cafeteria.
In the post-World War II era, the McMinnville
campus was full of men — veterans going to school on the G.I. Bill. “I think it
was seven men to one woman,” she recalled.
Many were married, with their wives and young
children along with them, too.
The campus was much smaller than it is today.
When she arrived, Pioneer Hall, the original
college building, housed the cafeteria, as well as classrooms, offices and
dorms. Dillin Hall, the current cafeteria, was built while she was a student;
it’s named for Harry Dillin, president from 1943 to 1968, and his wife, Irene.
Several other buildings were constructed during
Dillin’s presidency, including Riley, Graf, Renshaw and dorms such as Campbell,
Hewitt and Whitman.
Reynolds was especially excited about the
construction of Memorial Hall, the combination dorm and stadium.
As she continues to be today, she was a football
fan who made sure to attend Wildcat games on Saturdays.
Sometimes it was hard to follow the plays,
though. “On rainy days, the field would turn into mud,” she recalled. “By
halftime, you couldn’t tell one team from another.”
Today’s artificial turf is a great improvement,
said Reynolds, who tries to attend all the home games. She’s enjoying
Linfield’s new marching band, too.
As a student, Reynolds lived in Failing Hall,
one of three dormitories for girls.
Her future sister-in-law — both of
Reynolds’ brothers followed her to Linfield after they finished their military
service — lived next door in Grover Hall.
She and her roommate became “senior girls” in
Failing — leaders to whom residents could come with questions or needs. They
locked the doors to keep out intruders, and during the day, they made sure boys
didn’t get farther than the lounge.
“We thought the younger girls looked up to us,”
she said, just as she and her roommate looked up to the housemother, Lula B.
Anderson.
She also participated in the Kappa Alpha Phi
sorority. “A lot of nice girls” in the group became her friends, she said.
An English major with a home economics minor,
Reynolds didn’t have to go far for some of her classes — cooking courses met in
the Failing basement.
She chose her minor, in part, because many
secondary schools were looking for people to teach that subject.
She’d taken home ec in junior high school
herself. “In Grants Pass, boys and girls in seventh grade took cooking and
shop,” she said, noting how progressive that district was in the 1940s. “I
really enjoyed both.”
Her sewing skills date from that junior high
home ec class, too. She hadn’t learned on her family’s old-fashioned treadle
machine.
Most of Reynolds’ clothes had been hand-me-downs
from other families in their church.
“When I was 14, I got my first store-bought
dress,” she recalled. “I was so thrilled.”
She saw the brown-and-white checked, ruffled
dress in the window of a store in downtown Grants Pass.
“I fell in love, and my mother decided I should
have it,” she said. “To see something in the window, then buy it ... I was
really thrilled.”
After Reynolds completed Linfield in 1951, she
earned a graduate degree in textile science from the University of Tennessee.
Her first teaching job was at Gaston High. Two
weeks before classes started, her new boss called and told her he’d given her
an additional duty: girls’ P.E.
Reynolds laughed as she told the story. She had
neither experience with nor interest in teaching that subject. “But I did my
best,” she said.
The next year, she took a home ec teaching job
in Helix, near Bend. Then she changed jobs again, this time because one of her
Linfield professors was calling.
“Margaret Fisher, the head of the home ec
department, said Linfield needed another teacher,” Reynolds said. “She knew me
and thought I could handle it.”
She returned to Linfield, and to Failing Hall.
“College home ec was more advanced,” compared to the high school classes she’d
been teaching, she said. “I had to learn a lot.”
She taught cooking for four years, then switched
to teaching clothing construction. In both subjects, she said, “I had really great
students.”
Many were interested in becoming home ec
teachers themselves. Most were women, but she had a fair number of men, as
well.
She recalled one young man who loved to sew,
Drake Conti. He had a knack for making clothing, even if he sometimes fell
asleep in class. He always apologized, saying, “I didn’t manage my time well.”
One Saturday, she found out what he did with his
time outside class. His name was announced at a football game, and it turned
out he was a star player.
As Linfield’s overall enrollment, and its number
of home ec majors, grew, Reynolds’ department expanded. Potter Hall, the former
president’s house, was remodeled to hold home ec classrooms as well as a
women’s dorm.
Reynolds was the dorm mother in Potter for a
couple years. That was a pleasure, she said. “Most of the women were my
students, anyway,” she said.
The best thing about teaching, she said, was
developing relationships with students. “Really good kids,” she recalled.
The college closed its clothing department in
1990. Then-president Charles Walker told Reynolds she could switch to another
department, but she decided to retire instead. She had taught for nearly 40
years, most of them at Linfield.
Retirement gave her more time for another of her
interests, travel.
She went on several excursions with other
members of the Linfield community — to England, Scotland, New Zealand and
various other countries.
Her favorite destination was Scotland. Reynolds,
whose hair was naturally red, joked, “I felt at home with all the redheads.”
Walker, who had by then retired himself,
arranged some of the trips. “He liked water,” she said.
One voyage took Linfielders from the Atlantic
Ocean to the Pacific via the tip of South America. “We were told where the two
oceans meet, it would be very rough, so I asked Dr. Gibson to give me seasick
medication,” she said. She didn’t get sick — although some of her companions
weren’t as well off.
She traveled to other places with fellow retired
educator Sybil Seward, who had taught sixth-grade in Dayton.
In retirement, Reynolds also had a chance to
take up watercolor painting.
Her home is decorated with some of her work,
including an impressionistic willow tree and realistic depictions of barns.
Some of the pieces were painted when she was taking classes with Evonne Cramer.
And, as a retiree, she has plenty of time for
volunteering.
Reynolds spends much of her time at the First
Baptist Church, the same church she attended in college. She’s been a member
there since 1954, when she returned to McMinnville to teach at Linfield.
“My mom told me, ‘Always go to church,’ so I
feel guilty when I don’t go,” she said.
In addition to attending services regularly, she
volunteers in the church office once a week. Among her duties is replacing the
candles in the sanctuary.
She has served on the church board and social
team, as well.
The church hosted her 90th birthday party
earlier this month. For Reynolds, it was a nice chance to see not only friends
from church, but also her brothers and former students.
Many of those students live nearby, anyway, she
said.
“A lot of Linfield grads come back here,” she
said. “McMinnville is a nice place to live.”
:::::::::::::::
Story includes two photos by Marcus
Larson/News-Register:
One photo cutline: Edith “Duffy” Reynolds spends
one day a week in the church office, in addition to her other volunteer work. A
Linfield College graduate, she’s been a member of the McMinnville First Baptist
Church since 1954, when she returned to town to teach at her alma mater.
Other photo cutline: Edith Reynolds replaces the
tealight candles in a rack in the First Baptist Church sanctuary. It’s one of
her regular volunteer duties. She said people like to light candles in memory
of others or as a form of worship.
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