First Ladies of MIT - Catherine ‘Kay' N. Stratton (1959-1966) - 1994 Interview

[MUSIC PLAYING]

INTERVIEWER: I'm Edith Rowena. I've been around MIT for many years when my husband came in 1963. We'd arrived here and have gotten to know people in the community, and the MIT community itself, very well over the years. So it was a great honor for me to be asked to interview presidents' wives for their experiences. And I have talked with three presidents' wives whose experiences cover the period from 1957 to 1990.

They cover the administrations Jay Stratton, Paul Gray-- and Betty Johnson, I should really mention before Paul Gray because she came first in the sequence-- and Priscilla and Paul Gray. Unfortunately, Laya Wiesner, who was also a very active wife when her husband Jerry was president, was not able to participate. J. Stratton died this year at the age of 93, and Jerry Wiesner died just before our interviews at the age of 79. And Laya is in ill health and not really able to participate in this series.

The Women's League was eager to capture something of the experiences of these women in connection with the 80th anniversary of the Women's League. The Women's League itself has gone through many transitions over this period of time. And the wife of the president is always an honorary chairperson of the League. So they have particularly interesting things to say.

I personally was particularly interested because I think the role of women in the period that these women were occupying, the wife role is exceedingly interesting, as well as the whole history of the period, which included so many major pieces of American history that MIT became related to, whether it was the McCarthy era of the Vietnam War, all kinds of issues of the military role, and science, and each of the wives had experience in dealing in one way or another with some of these issues that their husbands were concerned about.

I found the talks with the wives exceedingly interesting, and each one does, I think, a marvelous job of conveying how they handled the responsibility all in admirable ways. The League, it was happy to do this as part of its own historical exploration of the League and the Institute and wants this to become part of the MIT archives and its historical record because we believe that the wives of the presidents can enhance the perspective of the whole history of the MIT community.

So it's with great pleasure that I hope you will listen to these remarks by Kay Stratton, Betty Johnson, and Priscilla Gray. It was certainly wonderful for me to talk with them and get to know them even better. Anything-- as much as I can remember.

[LAUGHTER]

Because I'm a little nervous too. You don't have a monopoly.

[LAUGHTER]

Yeah, okay. Okay, Kay, first of all, I want to say how happy I am to see you and have the chance to talk with you. And as you know, this is part of the Women's League program to record some of the history of MIT through the eyes of presidents' wives. And one of the things I did, and I expect you did too, was review your written remarks to the annual meeting. And I noticed that you started out talking about entering the new house and your new life in the role of president's wife with a little trepidation, and you described it as redefining your life. Could you tell us a little about that?

STRATTON: Well, I had a tiny bit of practice in redefining my life because when Jay was made acting president, we were asked to come in from Belmont with our three daughters-- two of whom were teenagers. And we had two years in the penthouse at 100 Memorial, and it was a good time to try to understand what the presidency was all about and what expectations they had of me. And so it was very happy.

And then in 1959, we moved down to the president's house, and that was really scary. It was, as you know, a huge house, and nothing had been done to it in heaven knows how many years. And the Corporation, in their most enormous generosity, let us redo the whole house. And I had the joy of working with Betsy Beckwith, who is an architect and designer. That was really a learning situation. So that was my beginning in the president's house.

INTERVIEWER: Now, you said that you got some idea of what was expected of you. What was expected of you?

STRATTON: Well, as I look at the role, I had been very active in what was then known as the Matrons and is now the Women's League. And there was a great deal of reorganization of that organization. And so I was deeply involved in that, but I felt that the role that I had to play was as a learner and as an advocate. And I worked with the women students.

And I did a tremendous amount of hostessing because it seemed to me that if you wanted to learn about the faculty and you wanted the faculty to know each other, then entertaining was one way that it would work. And we did a great deal of entertaining in the president's house. And we organized a number of interest groups, which went out into the far reaches of the Boston community and integrated the newcomers into the faculty who lived in those locations. And that was lots of fun.

INTERVIEWER: Now, are you're talking about the Matrons, Kay, or about the president's wife organizing these, or was this a Matrons' activity at the time?

STRATTON: The president's wife was then the chairman of the Matrons as opposed to the president. And I had done a lot of work. And so I simply carried that out with the president and the president of the Matrons. And the reorganization turned out to be a very positive thing and we had lots of good results from it.

INTERVIEWER: What were the sorts of things you did?

STRATTON: Well, besides this introduction of the newcomers, we started the classes in English for the foreign speakers' wives. We started a program in which the faculty kind of adopted foreign students. That was a program that went on. And instead of being a kind of tea party organization, the women's group then became active in performing service-- a service organization. So that was, to me, a very exciting part of it.

INTERVIEWER: Were there a lot of women at that time who were involved? Was it easy to get people to participate because now, so frequently, one of the complaints is that it's so hard.

STRATTON: I know.

INTERVIEWER: Do you want to talk a little?

STRATTON: Yes, of course, in that era, there were not many women or wives of faculty and staff who had jobs. And so it was a perfectly easy thing to call a meeting at 10 o'clock and expect a quorum, q whereas you have now got to roll with the times. And evenings are the one times that are scheduled that people can come. So volunteerism really flourished in those days.

INTERVIEWER: Do you think it's a loss? If you compare those days to these days and the lives of your own daughters, for example, do you think there are some losses or has it been gains?

STRATTON: I think that there are a lot of losses. And I'm thinking of a daughter who lives in Newbury. She works all day, very hard professionally. And when she gets home and does dinner for her family, there's not a great deal of time or energy to give to volunteer work. There is Saturdays and Sundays, but that's family time too. So I don't know how Cleo and the present chairman of the league really get-- they have a harder time finding volunteer workers. That I'm sure.

INTERVIEWER: Do you think there were ways in which the MIT community was enriched by having women who weren't so dedicated to their own careers in those years?

STRATTON: I think that it made for a much more integrated faculty that knew each other and appreciated each other's talents and a smaller, but more enthusiastic group. As I look back over the years--

INTERVIEWER: More personal relationships and more informal--

STRATTON: Exactly.

INTERVIEWER: --opportunites for people to get together. And when Jay was President, did you feel that you were very involved in his career and the issues that were of great concern to him? Were there particular ways that you got involved in those?

STRATTON: I think that a great deal of Jay's work went on in Washington and in the Academies and in affairs that I really had no part in. He would come home, and we would discuss what was going on and the excitement of his work in the Academies, in the Science and in the Engineering Academies and in his work in establishing NOAA and that kind of thing. And then I would bring him up to date on what was going on, not from his office point of view, but what was going on-- I was his tech talk. (LAUGHS)

INTERVIEWER: You told him what was going. Well, do you want to talk a little bit about what-- MIT was so involved, so central to so many of the issues that were going on at a national level. Do you want-- I think many people wouldn't know what NOAA was. Do you want to talk a little bit about what some of those issues were?

STRATTON: NOAA developed-- was the law of the sea. And he was appointed by Johnson to pull together a committee that would eventually write the law of the sea. And it became NOAA and is one of his accomplishments that has been spoken of a number of times.

That period at MIT was-- well, it was quiet. But it was also very productive. I mean, the tensions were at the minimum, and everything was going forward.

And as I recall, the only incident that I can recall was a rather funny one. When we were in the President's House, and the tuition was raised from $800 to $1,700, and there was a large group of students who marched up in front and down at the President's House, saying, $1,700 is too damn much! And we all stood at the windows and looked at each other and wondered if this was the beginning of a trend, which unfortunately, it proved to be.

INTERVIEWER: But what about the whole issue of moving three teenagers into that house? What kind of impact did it have on their lives and yours?

STRATTON: Well, it had a great deal more impact on their life I think than mine. We lived in Belmont, which was a marvelous neighborhood that the kids could run up and down on their bicycles and skate. And all of their friends were within a few blocks, and there was absolutely no fear of anything. And we didn't have a TV, so fortunately, the people across the street, whose children were the same age, did have TV.

But when we came in to the President's House, we did have a TV. But the children missed very much their friends. And they stayed at Buckingham, which was where they all graduated from. And we had a student who drove them up and picked them up every day.

But they missed their friends, and later on when they weren't ashamed of the elegance of the President's House, they would bring in droves. And of course, all of their rooms were on the back of the President's House, which looks into Senior House. So that turned out to be a source of great interest and excitement as time went on. (LAUGHS)

INTERVIEWER: Did they get binoculars?

STRATTON: I don't know about the binoculars, but they certainly used their bicycles until there was a certain amount of tut-tutting. And so it was suggested that they use the sidewalks and not the lanes in the campus.

INTERVIEWER: You mentioned the elegance and they're having to feel comfortable enough to have their friends come into this elegant house. Was the house elegant, and were your family quarters? Was that a--

STRATTON: It was elegant, and we used the entire house as a home. When Jay came home, we had drinks in the living room, and the living room served as a beautiful library. I found a whole lot of pictures of our first Christmas there. And it's really quite fun to see what we had, all the decorations and so forth.

But it was family too. There were books around, and it wasn't used always ceremonially. We lived in that house.

INTERVIEWER: Yeah, because when I think of my teenagers, it would have been a problem having a formal house with a bunch of teenagers.

STRATTON: Well, I must say they didn't throw things around, but they felt perfectly at home. And Laurie had adopted a pet raccoon, which she brought down to all of the cocktail parties. We tried to get them to serve hors d'oeuvres, but they were a little-- they weren't terribly good at that. But Laurie was very good with the raccoon, and that--

INTERVIEWER: And the conversation.

STRATTON: And the conversation, so that worked,

INTERVIEWER: And you mentioned in the course of your talk, I know that you had so many very famous people who came into the house. Who were some of those?

STRATTON: Well, there were the early astronauts. And that was really a sensational afternoon. They came, and a lot of the faculty were invited. And of course, the girls went around collecting all of the signatures and so forth, and that was lots of fun.

And then we had Morris Graves, and we had Fiedler, and we had CBS top reporters. And it was really a marvelously kind of international place that everyone felt rather comfortable in. And we shared it with the faculty and with students whenever we could. And it turned out to be a lovely, full life.

INTERVIEWER: Well, you've described yourself prior to this as a rather shy person. Was it easy for you to be in the role of the hostess at those events?

STRATTON: Well, I tell you, I had done quite a lot of theater. So when I knew that there was a party, I said to myself, now, you know what your role is, and go down and do it. And so finally, after playing a role, it became me.

INTERVIEWER: What had you done in the theater?

STRATTON: Oh, I did a lot of-- I'm trying to think what the group was, but there were several groups. And I started out when the theater part was over on Boylston Street. And I worked as a total nonprofessional, simply because I adored theater.

And then we did Theater in the Round in Walker, and--

INTERVIEWER: Was this an MIT activity?

STRATTON: Oh, yes, all MIT. And Bill Green was always the director. And that was fun.

INTERVIEWER: And what did you do? What was your--

STRATTON: Oh, I just played whatever role they--

INTERVIEWER: Oh, so you actually acted?

STRATTON: Oh, yeah.

INTERVIEWER: You weren't just-- yes. Right, right. Did you have a favorite part?

STRATTON: No. I did two or three Shakespeare things, which was fun. And I did them with Kay Bold, who was a very close friend and very active in the Matrons-- and that was fun-- and a number of the MIT professors.

INTERVIEWER: Now, did the theater group have anything to do with the Matrons? Was that a Matron--

STRATTON: Well, the Matrons took the female roles, and the faculty men took the others. And during the Radiation Lab we always put on a marvelous musical written by Kay Bold, and Arthur Roberts did the music. So it was a very lively place.

INTERVIEWER: So there was really, it sounds like, a great deal more social interaction than one would--

STRATTON: Oh, yes. Absolutely.

INTERVIEWER: --imagine these days.

STRATTON: And never a dull moment, just like there isn't now.

INTERVIEWER: But for other, in other--

STRATTON: Yes. It was the centennial.

INTERVIEWER: Right, okay. You tell us about that.

STRATTON: The centennial was perhaps the most exciting point in our life, and it came in 1961. And it was a three-day, maybe a three and a half-day symposium. And it started with the uses of atomic energy. And then we had representatives from all of the disciplines, arts and medicine and philosophy and, of course, science and technology.

And it all culminated in a marvelous dinner at the Statler Hilton. And it was the first banquet I'd ever had to design. And this was a real challenge. And fortunately, John Burchard was always looking over my shoulder.

But we designed a wonderful dinner, which started with the lobster and then spring lamb and wonderful little-- what are they called? The little things that are made of ferns, and it was the first time I'd ever used those, and so they were flown in from Canada. And then we had a lovely salad and then dessert. And then we went up into another section for coffee. And they involved steps going up, and we led on.

And I had gotten a lovely brown taffeta dress with bright, really quite a long-- not a train, but it hung down in back. And as I was going up the stairs-- and this was my first strapless gown, so I thought this was really something-- and someone stepped on the back of my dress.

INTERVIEWER: Your train was derailed?

STRATTON: I recovered in time, both dress and myself, and went on to coffee. But that was what I remember most about that dinner party, the trauma.

INTERVIEWER: Of your strapless--

STRATTON: Of my strapless gown. But it all turned out very well. And that was really the beginning of the 20th Century Fund. And that ought to be mentioned, because we were aiming for $66 million, and in the end, in two and a half years, we made $88 million. And from that rose many, many of the new buildings around the campus.

It was a very exciting time of building, And McCormick Hall went up then, and the Center for Engineering and Life Sciences and the Boathouse. It was just a time of real excitement from an architectural point of view.

And of course, with McCormick Hall, the number of women-- I had been a very serious advocate for women and their place at MIT, as Laya Wiesner had-- carried forward. And we only had 268 women when McCormick Hall was started, and now we have 40% of our students as women, which is a real triumph for MIT I think.

INTERVIEWER: Kay, you are very oriented to women, both I think for ideological reasons and maybe for personal reasons from having grown up with a lot of women. How many were there in your--

STRATTON: Well, I had three sisters, all of whom were supposed to be boys, and three daughters.

INTERVIEWER: Whether you wanted to or not, you had to--

STRATTON: Whether I wanted to or not.

INTERVIEWER: --pursue women's issues. Now, did your children ever think about participating in schooling at MIT, your daughters?

STRATTON: No. Alas, they inherited my genes. And our eldest went to Stanford and took political science, and our middle child went to Radcliffe, and our youngest went to Vassar. And they are all professional women, but none of them, none of them took science and engineering or technology, unfortunately.

INTERVIEWER: Now, as you look at your daughters, do you think you might have enjoyed having their experiences rather than yours, if you had your life to live over?

STRATTON: No, I think I've had just as interesting life and possibly more so than they have. I think that if you are a professional-- our eldest is a professional planner for youth employment in London. And our youngest works for the brother-in-law of the King of Saudi Arabia, and she's a kind of controller of finances, which wouldn't interest me at all.

And Carrie is very involved in technical and computer work with her husband. And I've just gotten my first word processor, and I look at the book, and it frightens the wits out of me.

INTERVIEWER: You have to get an MIT freshman.

STRATTON: I know, or even my grandchild to tune me in, I think.

INTERVIEWER: Do you think that Jay regarded you as participating in his career, or so much of it was in Washington that that wasn't an issue?

STRATTON: I think it was really a partnership in which I was doing my thing here, and he was doing his thing here and there, and that our communication put together a total kind of scene. And we have done a great deal of traveling together. And even then, he had the things that he was to do, which usually had to do with government and education. And I would do the arts and the health situation. And that is how, roughly, we divided.

INTERVIEWER: Could you tell me about one or two of your trips, specific trips, and what they were all about?

STRATTON: Well, the trips here involved going out with and meeting all the alumni. And that was very exciting, because I saw a lot of that. And we also went to South America and Mexico and so forth, and in Europe we saw alumni also. And I always got involved in the Alumni Wives, so that was exciting. And I saw a great deal more of the country than he did.

But then when we left MIT, we went to the Ford Foundation. And in those five years, we traveled all over the world, because the Foundation at that time had projects all over the world. And that was terribly exciting.

INTERVIEWER: Was your role in relation to Jay at the Ford Foundation similar to what it had been when he was president of MIT?

STRATTON: Very much so. It was the first time that, in a way, I'd been off duty and had a chance to really develop what I was interested in. And at that time, I joined the Bank Street College Board and did their art and education program.

And then I joined the National Board of the YWCA. And I headed an art project for Mayor Lindsay. And it was all very exciting, very new, and again, an exciting learning situation.

INTERVIEWER: You mentioned that at MIT, this major architectural program had developed while Jay was still in the President's Office. Was that what really started you on getting involved with the arts?

STRATTON: Actually, what started me in getting involved in the arts was when we moved into the President's House, and those vast walls had absolutely nothing on them. And I thought, well, the thing to do is to get art in here. And the best way of doing it was to borrow it. And I had the help of a marvelous committee on the arts.

INTERVIEWER: MIT people?

STRATTON: MIT people, MIT alumni, some from New York, a lot of gallery connections. And so we filled up the walls quite quickly, all on loan, except a few things. And from that, we branched out and started an art project for students in which every Christmas we filled the gallery, which was then next door here, with all kinds of prints.

INTERVIEWER: Building 14, right, in Building 14?

STRATTON: Yeah. Usually under $100, but very good prints and posters and small sculptures, and they would come in in droves and buy them. And we did that for two or three years. And then when we left, the Art Committee went on in a very quiet way, though nothing much happened. But when Jerry became president, he saw the possibility and pulled together the Council for the Arts, which is now going for 23 years. And that has really changed the whole atmosphere I think at MIT.

INTERVIEWER: Did you remain involved in that when you were at the Forum Foundation?

STRATTON: I'm afraid so. I still chair the annual Meeting Committee, and I have the fun of sitting on the Executive Committee and working very closely with the Council.

INTERVIEWER: Do you want to talk about some of the art on the campus and what the involvement of the Council has been in that?

STRATTON: I think Jerry and--

INTERVIEWER: Jerry Wiesner?

STRATTON: Jerry Wiesner, and also-- oh dear, I can't think what his first name is-- Johnson.

INTERVIEWER: Howard.

STRATTON: Howard Johnson had gotten the feeling that this was a great improvement to the campus. And because we had so many buildings, Howard went to work and really developed the whole plan of architecture, which decorated these rather stark buildings. And if you look around, there's hardly a view that doesn't have beautiful trees and flowers and bushes.

And Howard was the one who really went ahead on that. Under Jerry we started the whole sculpture, and MIT has the second largest sculpture collection on the West Coast, on the East Coast. It's a very, very distinguished one. And then, of course, our gallery, which is now in the Wiesner Building, is world renowned. I think it is almost a secret at MIT, but in the Boston community and in the national community and international, we're extremely well known.

INTERVIEWER: How do you explain its lack of popularity within the MIT environment?

STRATTON: I think there is a slight weakness in communication. And I think that a lot more has to be done to develop more communication and more interest in the students and in the faculty. Ellen Harris has done an absolutely superb job in her five years as Associate Provost for the Arts. She has turned the Institute around. But we still have a long way to go.

INTERVIEWER: Well, to what extent is the MIT Art Gallery related to the educational activities at MIT?

STRATTON: It isn't very much. That's what we need to work on. One of the committees of the Council is the Grants Committee. And that has been the most successful I think of all the committees, which we give away $75,000 in seed money to students and staff and faculty for projects. And the seed money is given so that with instruction on how to raise more money by themselves, they have produced a-- we've given out over $1 million in the last 10 years.

INTERVIEWER: And what sorts of things have come out of that?

STRATTON: Well, one of the projects last year was the young painter, Chinese painter, and I can't think what his name is, who came to the Council and asked for $300 to do some paintings of around MIT. And we looked at the sample of his work, and we said $300 isn't going to get you anywhere. Here's five. Go out and do another. And he came back with another, and they were so superb that we said, we are now--

INTERVIEWER: This was a student?

STRATTON: He's a graduate student in architecture, a young Chinese doctor who escaped and came over and is a painter. And we said, go back and do 12 more, and we'll buy the whole thing. And we did. And they have now appeared on postcards.

They are absolutely gorgeous paintings, watercolors. And so that's one example of being a little proactive in doing grants.

INTERVIEWER: But you were saying there isn't an intimate relationship between the gallery and any educational part of the Institute?

STRATTON: Right.

INTERVIEWER: Will that come about, do you think?

STRATTON: I think so. We're working very hard on it.

INTERVIEWER: Or is there something in the two-culture problem that everyone--

STRATTON: I don't think so, because Ellen, who is head of the Office for the Arts, has in her council of heads from all of the departments so that she's working from the top down, and we're trying to work from the bottom up, and surely we'll meet.

INTERVIEWER: Now, in the course of all of this, you met some of the artists who have made some of the sculptures and the major pieces on this campus?

STRATTON: Yes. Of course, every time they change a show, there is an opening. I try to avoid openings, because you have to bounce up and down and not really see what's going on. And there are talks by the gallery director, Katie Klein, who is absolutely first rate. And so that's what--

INTERVIEWER: She recently did a wonderful tour for the Matrons.

STRATTON: I know. She's an extraordinary woman.

INTERVIEWER: Women's League, I should say.

STRATTON: Yes, right.

INTERVIEWER: And what about some of the sculptors who have done some of the large pieces on the campus, like "The Big Sale," for example?

STRATTON: Well, "The Big Sale" I know pretty well, because Margaret and Gene McDermott, who wanted to give a great gift to Cecil Green-- Cecil Green and Eugene McDermott were partners in Texas Instruments. And when Cecil gave the Earth Science Building, the McDermotts wanted to do something very special. And they gave "The Court."

And the weekend that Margaret and Eugene and Ida Rubin and Jerry Rubin all came up to our farm in Vermont-- it was a lovely fall weekend, and they were discussing with Jay and with the rest of us sitting out on the terrace with drinks, what would be exciting. And we came up with the idea of a sculpture. And then the question was, who to do it and what scale and so forth.

And so we went through a couple of sculptors who did their maquettes, and then we--

INTERVIEWER: You actually commissioned maquettes?

STRATTON: Well, we went to their galleries, and we looked at the maquettes. And we brought the maquettes up and had various people look at them. And then we decided that Calder would really be marvelous. And so Ida and I were asked to go down to Roxbury, Connecticut, where Calder had his house and a huge barn. He spent half of his time in Paris and half of his time in Roxbury, Connecticut.

And so he came in, and this huge barn was covered with all of the working models of his sculptures. And we went up and down the aisles and up and down the aisles. And then Ida and I looked around and thought about this space and said, wouldn't that be marvelous? And Sandy came and said, you like it? You know, Sandy always wore red shirts.

INTERVIEWER: Sandy?

STRATTON: Sandy Calder always wore his red shirt, and he had a bush of white hair.

INTERVIEWER: Who was he? I don't know who he--

STRATTON: Sandy Calder is the--

INTERVIEWER: Oh, Calder. I'm sorry, yes. I didn't know the "Sandy" part.

STRATTON: Right And so we said, how do you think it would look? And he said, I think it's got great possibilities. And so we went home and brought the news back, and he said-- and Margaret, Margaret McDermott is a great art collector and has a gorgeous collection in her house in Texas. And she liked the idea, so Sandy sent up a maquette.

And the maquette was different from this one. And we said, it looks a little skinny. It ought to have a little bit more width. And so he went back and did another maquette, and it was just what we wanted.

And so then he went back to France. And he worked with a steel manufacturer who also worked in the shipyards. And so he drew the model for it, and that was approved, and then he went to work on the big pieces.

INTERVIEWER: How long did this take? What was that gestation period?

STRATTON: It took a year. But it was very exciting when he brought it over and put it all together there on the campus. And then it was dedicated in '66 by the McDermotts. And that was a very exciting moment.

INTERVIEWER: Were you involved at all with the Louise Nevelson sculpture?

STRATTON: No, I wasn't. I've been very fond of her work, but I would never have chosen that. I thought it was very spiky and not typical of her work, and I didn't like it. I don't like it.

INTERVIEWER: That's an affirmative statement. And could you talk a little bit about some of the other things that you have that you like, particularly on the campus in the way of art and aesthetics?

STRATTON: Well, I think that most of the pieces after we left were chosen by the Johnsons. He became the Chairman of the Board of the MFA, the Museum of Fine Arts, and has a marvelous taste for sculpture. And so he went to work, and it was through him that the sculpture really developed.

Jerry Wiesner was influential in getting a number of sculptures in the Wiesner plot there out in front of the plaza. The first sculpture that the Arts Committee commissioned was that little one outside of the library, the Hadzi. And we were terribly pleased with ourselves.

And John Burchard was very supportive in this early Art Committee. And he said, you know, we have a little money that has been put aside, and I think we could afford something that was-

INTERVIEWER: When you say "we," is this MIT?

STRATTON: The MIT Art Committee. And I think that we could afford something. And he said, you look around and see what you like. And well, for $20,000, there wasn't a great deal that you saw and could like. But Hadzi was doing a whole series. And he came to MIT, and he liked what he saw, and he said he would do that for us.

And if you look at it now, the scale is much too small. And so we've been agitating to have it moved someplace and something a little bit more exciting--

INTERVIEWER: Put in your environment.

STRATTON: --put there in its place.

INTERVIEWER: Right. Could you talk a little bit about the Greens and some of the people who have been such great MIT benefactors in the time you have been here?

STRATTON: Well, Cecil and Jay were both the class of '23 and have been very close friends. And Cecil comes back once or twice a year, and he and Ida, his wife, were marvelous partners in philanthropy. And she was very much interested in education and in women and did a great deal for setting up scholarships and fellowships.

And he has been just enormously interested and generous in everything he's given. They've given millions and millions, and so have the McDermotts and all of their scholars from the Southwest. And Margaret came east this year to meet with her scholars.

INTERVIEWER: Now, could you talk about that, the McDermott scholars?

STRATTON: Well, the McDermott scholars were set up for people who had not the advantages. They're very often Mexican-Americans and very often Indians.

INTERVIEWER: This is exclusively an MIT program?

STRATTON: Yes, at least the one I'm talking about is. And they now have well over 100, and they're very, very bright people. And very often they're brought here at the beginning of the summer so that they have an intense kind of orientation, of planning.

INTERVIEWER: These are undergraduates?

STRATTON: Undergraduates yes. All of them are undergraduates. And they have done very well. And I was sitting next to one this fall when Margaret came up and gave a luncheon for all of them. And this girl is a senior and is going into medicine and was so excited about it.

And she said, they've done such marvelous work here. I'm in biology and in that field, but I'm going back to medical school, and I'm going back to that region, because I feel that's where the need is. But if you could see the stars in her eyes, that's what is so exciting to Margaret.

INTERVIEWER: Well, Kay, this brings me to your own interest and activities related to serving people and the development of richer lives. And I know you've been very involved in issues of the aged and maybe some things that you have done since in subsequent years, long after your president's wife role.

STRATTON: Well, when I got to be about 74, '3 or '4, there were so many decisions to be made. Should we go into a life care community? Should we stay at MIT? Should we move into a house? Should we stay across the street from the infirmary, which was, oh, a great advantage?

And so I thought, well, if I'm having these problems, maybe the rest of my age group is having the same. And so we started out with doing two seminars a year on the problems of aging and aging successfully so that you-- we started out with housing, because that was selfishly my interest.

And then we started out on all the medical problems that one faces and what the proportion is of our aging group who has these problems so that they are universal enough so that they would attract enough attention. And then, what are the problems, and what are the solutions, and what is the cutting edge that's going on in solving these medical problems?

And we do two a year, and they've been very successful so far. We've handled things like the brain. We've handled nutrition. We've handled the breaking of limbs and home care and artificial limbs. And we've always drawn on top people in both MIT and in the whole medical community, Harvard and the U Medical.

INTERVIEWER: And these have been under the sponsorship of the League?

STRATTON: Of the League and the Medical Department.

INTERVIEWER: So they've been a boon to the entire MIT community.

STRATTON: Yes.

INTERVIEWER: Have you had good participation at these?

STRATTON: I think so. It is built up every year. And Cleo and I are about to meet--

INTERVIEWER: Cleo Schimmel, who was the past president of the--

STRATTON: Schimmel, who was the past president, and who has been so enormously supportive in all the programs, to decide what we should offer for this spring.

INTERVIEWER: Do you want to talk about the celebration of your 80th birthday? I was thinking about that and thinking that there-- I have the feeling that there are two times in life when women are candid about their birth dates, when they're 20 and when they're 80.

STRATTON: Well, I was lucky enough to have my 80th birthday coincide with the 80th birthday of the Women's League. And Cleo Schimmel, who is the most creative character I know, thought it would be fun to have a birthday party. And it was indeed the most elegant birthday party and the most fun that I've ever had. My kids flew in and did a real roasting.

INTERVIEWER: Can you share some of the candor?

STRATTON: They were so naughty. They told all of my weaknesses.

INTERVIEWER: To wit?

STRATTON: To wit that I taught them mathematics by playing blackjack, that we had always a contest in the summer when the watermelons were ripe as to who could win the spitting contest. They brought up the fact that I love to hunt and skin and eat animals, and they dwelled on that too long. Well, they just-- I don't know how I'm ever going to live it down.

INTERVIEWER: And do you want to talk a little bit about your birthday present?

STRATTON: My birthday present was the most exciting thing. It was the fact that we could now, in my name, put together two seminars in the fall on critical issues and envelop in that the aging successfully. So we will have four seminars and/or lectures a year.

And it was most-- I had no idea of this. And it absolutely took my breath away. It has been a very exciting time. And I also got a briefcase, carry all my bits and pieces around, and a gorgeous, gorgeous bag to take me traveling.