Mary Kay Kasang Allen '72
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- Alenka FigaAlenka: Whenever you're ready.
- Mary Kay Kasang Allen & Alenka FigaMary Kay: Okay. My name is Mary Kay Kasang Allen, and I currently live in Cyprus, California. I’m a member of Grinnell College class 1972, and I’m gonna talk about some answers to questions that were given as a prompt, but I may kind of go on and talk about other things at some point in time.Alenka: Yep. That's good.
- Mary Kay Kasang AllenMary Kay: First is why did I come to Grinnell? Well, the main reason, and I’ve heard this from other students, is it had no fraternities or sororities, and I was a real active high school student and I was one of those kids that, I don’t know if they were revered or vilified, but you look in the yearbook for their senior year and I had all kinds of activities next to my name. One of those kids that had, you know, lines and lines of activities. But, I wasn’t a member of a sorority and I felt excluded. I didn’t even want to be involved, but I felt that it wasn’t right to have almost like a certain class of kids that got to do certain things and others didn’t so, that’s why Grinnell was so important to me.
- Mary Kay Kasang AllenMary Kay: What was my first memory of the campus? Smith Hall. I was 19; ’68 was the first year that North Campus was- had women on it and South Campus had men on it, and this was a really big deal. Now, I grew up in Chicago and Chicago is pretty urban so it really didn’t make any difference to me but I could tell that, some of the students that had been there in prior years, it was a big, big deal, so that’s my first memory.
- Mary Kay Kasang AllenMary Kay: The staff member that had a particularly strong influence on my life was Anna Ramsey, and she was the Fine Arts secretary. She was just great. She lived to be- I think she lived to be 100. She passed away not very many years ago, and this is 2012, and she was fantastic. She- I re-catalogued the entire music library myself, and it took me, I think, a year and a half to do it but she was there by my side and guided me and she was great. That’s the old card catalog days where, I think, I was typing away on typewriters with no corrections. So, I had to be as correct as I could be otherwise I was using white-out or something. I don’t exactly remember.
- Mary Kay Kasang AllenMary Kay: I also got, this is so funny, I got a three bean salad recipe from her that I have used all my life and every time I make the three bean salad I get these huge raves about it. And it’s like, that was from Anna Ramsey in Grinnell, Iowa.
- Mary Kay Kasang AllenMary Kay: Some of my best memories of my time at Grinnell? Well, I met my first husband here. That was pretty cool. There were activities on campus all the time, and that was just great. I loved that. I sang in Herrick Chapel. I was a Music major, and that was lots of fun. Dancing in the Forum. There were always things happening in the Forum, so I remember dancing there and just being around other students and having activities all the time.
- Mary Kay Kasang AllenMary Kay: What did my dorm room look like? Well, I was super into comfort and into familiarity so I had made a brick and board coffee table and a brick and board bookcase. I had a rocking chair. I brought a floor lamp from home. And my poor father, every year, he would come and bring all this- these cinderblocks and help me build it, and then at the end of the year he’d have to pack our van up and bring everything back and it’s a miracle he survived all of that but my room was one of the places where everyone wanted to gather ‘cause it was really homey feeling and that was really good for me.
- Mary Kay Kasang AllenMary Kay: And what are some of my best memories of Grinnell? We had an ice storm in Grinnell when I was here. I don’t remember what year it was but I remember, after the ice storm, walking through town and it was just.. It was like being in a wonderland, because the sun was... All the trees were covered in ice and the sun was just glinting off all the ice and that was just... It was like twinkling trees without lights on them. It was very very cool.
- Mary Kay Kasang Allen & Alenka FigaMary Kay: So, I think those are.. You know, and also having been there during the time where the Playboy incident took place; Kent State took place; these are all amazing things that happened in our country, but in- also at Grinnell. Well, Playboy was just at Grinnell but it was just, it was a great time to be in college and I feel very fortunate I was there at that time.Alenka: Thank you. Are- Do you wanna add anything else?Mary Kay: No.Alenka: Okay.
Alumni oral history interview with Mary Kay Kasang Allen '72. Recorded June 2, 2012.