Interview with Dorothy Titchener

Interview with Dorothy Titchener

Titchener, Dorothy ; O'Neil, Dan

Titchener, Dorothy -- Interviews; Broome County (N.Y.) -- History; Binghamton (N.Y.); Broome Community College; Titchener, Paul; Girl Scouts of the United States of America; Women -- Societies and clubs; Junior League of New York; Business and Professional Women/USA; Women -- Political activity; Amahami Girl Scout Camp; Girl Scout Council; Housing Authority; Politics

Dorothy Titchener speaks about her life including her marriage to Paul Titchener, the founder of Broome Community College, and working twenty years as chairman of the Housing Authority. She mentions her affiliation with the Business and Professional Women's Club and their efforts to nominate Judge Sarah Hughes as Vice President during the Eisenhower-Taft election. She lists among her acquaintances individuals, such as, President and Mrs. Franklin D. Roosevelt and Governor Rockefeller. She also details her achievements with the Girl Scouts Council and purchasing a lake, named Amahami, as a camp for the Girl Scouts club.   She mentions her affiliation with the  Junior League and Business and Professional Women's Club, as well as other local organizations.

1978-03-15

This audio file and digital image may only be used for educational purposes. Please cite as: Broome County Oral History Project, Special Collections, Binghamton University Libraries, Binghamton University, State University of New York. For usage beyond fair use please contact the Binghamton University Libraries Special Collections for more information.

Recording 61A ; Recording 61B; Recording 61C

2016-03-27

Broome County Oral History Project

33:54 Minutes ; 11:28 Minutes ; 30:07 Minutes

Broome County Oral History Project

Interview with: Dorothy Titchener

Interviewed by: Dan O’Neil

Date of interview: 15 March 1978

[Tape #1]

Dan: Mrs. Titchener, will you tell me about your life and working experiences in the community starting with your place of birth?

Mrs. Titchener: Well I was born, I do remember that and I had to look up ah I didn’t have to look up when because I’m 80 years old and that was a shock to me—I couldn’t believe it. I was born in Washington, D.C. in 1897, Washington, D.C., and ah my father was the 2nd cousin of ah Mark Twain—Samuel Clemens and so I presume I would be 3rd cousin because his mother, Mark Twain’s mother, was a Jane Lampton and that was my maiden name was Lampton. In England, they came from England, and it was spelled Lambton but with the nasal quality of the American voice why it was translated to Lampton. I went to school in Washington, D.C., a French school, and I majored in French and Dramatics and Writing. It had started in kindergarten—marched down and informed them that I was coming to school because it was on the street where I was born and the later went to ah Bennett Junior College for 2 years and graduated from there and I studied Drama under Charles M. Kennedy and ah Edith M. Mathewson. They were old time ah artists in that field and I was offered a part in The Blue Bird ah Betrothal which was a sequel to The Blue Bird really really to offer, whereupon my mother snatched me back to Washington. I’m very glad she did because I never would have met my husband Paul, who was in the Army then and came to Washington and it was there I met him and I have 3 children—James, my son is a psychiatrist and he is attached to the University of Cincinnati and he is a research psychiatrist and also he is lately by the Government—he’s a Fellow which is supposed to be as high as he can go. I know he gets $1000.00 every time he opens his mouth and I get $1000.00 if I shut mine, I think—I guess the general feeling of my family but anyway he’s done very very well and he was a rather shy child and I’m sorry that Paul didn’t know how famous he has become. He’s traveled all over the world because he is the head member of the disaster group and what they do is to go around and try to improve people’s morale when these terrible disasters happen, such as mine disasters and this horrible fire in Kentucky nightclub and so forth, and I have a daughter, Ann, and she is head of one ah private school in Maryland and was one of the first integrated schools in Maryland—she’s just recently become—she worked there as a teacher and they have a great many, ah, both Black and white students and teachers. It’s completely integrated and they say that any child can take any kind of course. They will offer anything the child needs or wants and so she has many of the Congressional children in the school. They bus them in—it’s outside in near her home in Maryland, and then I have a second daughter, Jean, and she lives in Salt Lake City and she works considerably in civic affairs there in Salt Lake and also she teaches in a Presbyterian kindergarten school both morning and afternoon with children. She perhaps is more like me. Ann is like her father—Ann has a good business head and I should say after Jean, is more like me. Well that about wraps up my family—oh I have eleven grandchildren—mustn’t forget all those and they’re ah they’re all—I only have one married—one girl married and ah this is kind of interesting because she was ah a very independent person and I’m very fond of her and they’ve decided, she married a man in the forestry service and they are now living in Bonners Ferry, Idaho, in a summer cabin 5 miles from Bonners Ferry with no utilities whatsoever, not even water and they think it’s wonderful and they’re trying to buy 20 acres of land there and grow all their own food and then she’s going to be ah she’s studying her biology and she’s going to be a doctor and heal everybody with herbs and she grinds all her own food. Now she was a girl who was brought up on New York City—her family moved to Salt Lake and then I have another daughter in New York, granddaughter who’s trying to go on the stage and naturally that’s a very difficult field to enter. I’ve tried to persuade her to do radio or something else and creep in but No she’s decided that’s what she wanted to do so that’s about, that takes care of the family, I guess. Now ah you asked me about different clubs I belong to. I had to list them because I couldn’t remember what I did belong to—what I didn’t. Some I think I just went and some I belonged to—anyway I belong to Monday Afternoon Club, the Civic Club, Shakespeare Club—this is local, the League of Women Voters—now that I had trouble with because they study everything and I’m a person of action because if somebody tells me I can’t do it—that’s the one thing I do. In, in civic work, I can’t wait for them to mess around with the red tape and so on and so I had trouble with them because they sent me out to do some speaking for a certain proposition that they wished to have the people know about and I thought I was supposed to get them to ah pass it. So I came back jubilantly to tell them that these three places I’d been had all voted on it and agreed to do it, whereupon ah they almost invited me out of the organization, because they were supposed to study it two more years or something. I think they’re one of the best clubs in the city, I really do, and think they do a great deal of good. It simply was not my nature to go along that way—I’m not criticizing them in any way. I belong to the American Civic Association, I’m an Honorary member of Zonta, I belong to the Business and Professional Women’s Club, where I have been very active and the Junior League, the Girl’s Club, the YMCA—I was on the Board of that, then the Children’s Services Society and the Girl Scouts Council and the Housing Authority ah for 20 years and ah I’m going into detail but these are the main and I was the first, one of the first, for three years the first organizing group of Opportunities for Broome, when it was first organized, I was on that Board, so I think that takes care of that part. Well now I have something that I say, this was personal and I think I’ll take that for last because I would like to go into what I have done, special events that I have done and I have to start probably with the Junior League because that’s the first organization I joined when I came here and we were—I was never President of the Junior League but I was on the Board because I was always ah was theater chairman and I wrote ah children’s plays and acting in it and then I directed several children’s plays that we had and then I think one of the most exciting things we did was we wanted to raise some money, when we took over the ah day nursery as a project. As you know, the Junior League is an all volunteer work and we took this over as a project. We wanted to raise some money to do some good work there and really improve their facilities—so we ah I suggested we take the Binghamton Press for one evening and ah sell the papers and do all the advertising and get the money from the advertising and so forth and I was editor of it and then with other members of the League, we did and we sold the papers on the street and Jim Farley happened to be in town that day and I sold him one for $10.00 and I said, “You mean your boss isn’t worth more than that?” but anyway he gave us $10.00 and we raised about $1500.00 to $2000.00 and incidentally, we paid the newsboys their regular fee—we didn’t cut them out of the money they received that day—so we did that for two years and I went down to Washington where I—because I knew more people still in Washington—I know many of the older ones now—the new ones I don’t know very well, but I did know because my father was interested in politics and really enjoyed it—he never was a politician—he was a sort of a politician at home but he wasn’t in politics but he loved them. So I got in to see President Franklin Roosevelt and he gave me a perfectly beautiful letter congratulating the Junior League on doing this which of course made the front pages of the Binghamton Press and the second year we did it, we couldn’t go back to him again so we went to Governor Lehman, he was Governor of New York State and we had a letter similar to the one ah Franklin Roosevelt wrote and so that enhanced the sale of the papers of course. These two letters were very important and we did make around $2000.00-$2500.00 each time. $1500.00 first and then money kept coming in and we did as I said get all the money from the advertising we solicited—so that was quite successful. So that was one thing in Junior League that had not in—also I, I like to add that several plays and I went to many conferences with this Junior League and I enjoyed it thoroughly and I won the first ah Silver Cup that Esther Couper, Mrs. Edward Couper, was then President of the Club but her mother gave a Silver Bowl—not a cup, it was a bowl—and it was given to the person who had done the most for the League in that year. I think probably Esther should have had it but because it was her mother’s cup, I fortunately won it and it’s still in existence and people are still winning it year after year. I think that it has so many names on it I thought they ought to give me the old one because I was the first but they didn’t do that. They bought another bowl and they’re going on with it so that was that and then let’s see, I think the next thing that I did was Scouting—that was really coincidental with the ah Junior League because I hadn’t been in town more than a month when Paul and I were both put on the ah Council—the Girl Scout Council and ah it seems that they needed a Commissioner, they called the President a Commissioner and ah so they appointed me—elected me I guess it was, about the month after I went on the Board so that was fun because I had always—I love the out of doors. I’ve been to girl’s camp, I taught dancing and was always for the outdoor things—hiking, swimming, and I loved the out of doors, so I liked Girl Scouting and I forced my two girls to naturally to go in. But they were trying to find a camp and they had been trying for 10 years to find a site. So one Sunday, Paul and I said, “Let’s go out and buy a camp”—so without telling anyone, we went out, we took a flat iron—we heard there was a little lake off out of Deposit in the hills there and we trudged up there and ah sure enough there was a lake and so we had an old leaky rowboat sitting there by the dock—we got in it and rode out and dumped this iron in—it went down so we said, “This is a beautiful lake, just beautiful, we’ll buy it,” so we went down to Deposit, found out who owned it and put a deposit on it, personal, and then came back and told the Council that we had bought this lake and it was perfectly beautiful. We built it up to the point where they couldn’t say it wasn’t. It was a very nice camp and they since enlarged it and to name it we ah both first how, how to build the thing, we had a cocktail party and we had it 3 days before the big blowup in the ah stock market and so we told everyone if they would give us $500.00 for a cabin, their names would go on the cabin and we raised $29,000.00 at that cocktail party and it was 3 days after that, that we took all their checks to the bank and they were all broke—not really but I mean everybody lost money as you know—so that’s the way we built the camp and then later they had enlarged it and they’ve done wonders with it—it’s beautiful.

Dan: What was the name of it?

Mrs. Titchener: We named it Amahami and this was funny too. Ah, Charles Curtis was Vice President of the United States and he was part Indian, so I wrote him a letter and asked him to sent us some Indian names—he was to come up the night we actually named it but he couldn’t make it, however we selected Amahami—much to my sorrow—because they always called it “I’M a mommy” and blamed it on me but anyway that’s just one of—it isn’t very and I, this is ah sort of an offshoot—the other night I spoke at the Business and Professional Women’s Club about past things and this very young looking girl steps up to the rostrum and she’s making a plea for the Girl Scouts and she said, “I don’t suppose any of you know much about them,” and I’m sitting next to her and I poked her and said, “Well I was Commissioner for 7 years,” then later she goes on to say, “Well at Carlisle Housing Project, sometimes the girls can’t pay their registration,” and so again I, she said, “I know none of you here probably know much about what Carlisle is—it’s a Public Housing Project.” I said, “Well I only ran it for 20 years, but that’s all—here’s 2 bucks for a kid for Carlisle,” but that has nothing to do with the work but anyway it was funny after all these years—of course she’s very young—she never heard of me. Anyway I was commissioner for 7 years and then I retired from that. Well then I guess the next thing that I did was to get into ah I didn’t from housing to that did I, Yes I guess I did. I think I was—I didn’t know there was such a thing as public housing in Binghamton—had no idea there was but all of a sudden one day the telephone rang and it was ah Mayor Kramer and he said, “Would I come on the ah Housing Authority as a member?” and I said, “What is it?” He said, “Well we have these housing projects and I’ll take you around and show them to you,” and I said, “Well I’ll come on,” so I came on and ah soon as I, again I always seem to fall under these things without anybody’s knowledge or desire but anyway all of a sudden they had no head of the housing, no commissioner there for head of the housing, so all of a sudden they had this meeting and Paul was sitting there and he said, “I don’t want Dorothy to do this”—they had both men and women on the council then. All right, all of a sudden I’m elected and I’m chairman of the Housing Authority. Well I think that was probably the greatest thing that’s ever happened to me because I loved it, I just loved it and they had just the two then—they had Saratoga Terrace which is on the south side and they had Carlisle which was at the East end.

Dan: Moeller Street?

Mrs. Titchener: Yeah, Moeller Street. Anyway, I went to a meeting at the—I was taken up there and looked at the place—it looks like a college campus because it’s quite pretty—it was and so I go. I come to this meeting and I had told everyone that I was to meet them all so please, if they could get off from work, I’d like to meet the men as well as the women, well come. Well the place was jammed. So I stand up there and I said, “I’ve come to give you some news,” and from the back of the room, rose this great burly guy and he said, “Who the blank do you think you are?” and I said, “Well that’s a good question and maybe I came here to find out.” Well that sort of settled them down. What I really came to tell them was, it seems that they had a painting cycle of the apartments every 3 years and they went down the north side in yellow and the south side in green—period. And I thought that was horrible because any woman who has a home, reacts to color and it isn’t theirs unless they can have what they want. So I had arranged with the State Division of Housing, that is the State operated ah housing—the Saratoga Terrace is and I had arranged with them early to try this—of picking out the number bedrooms and the number of colors they wanted from a chart that happened to be pastel colors and they said I was crazy but finally they agreed with me I could do it. So I told them I had come to really announce that—that they could but I had 3 weeks to get in all their colors—all of their choices and they couldn’t change them once they started because I would order X number of blue, be all of this stuff you see. So they came and in less than 4 days every member there—there were 254 apartments and everybody had come and picked out in 4 days the colors they wanted and the Division, New York State Division was just astounded and the painter said it was, it was the easiest job he ever had. Once in a while he got chicken and he did change some of the colors—well because he had some but that made a great difference. Well then I, well then I found myself an interior decorator because they all came and said, “Well look, ah, Mrs. Titchener, now we don’t know, we have this and that then we put this new color on, would you help us, we can get some.” So I went to the different stores and got bolts of material—I got somebody who knew how to sew, to come up and help them and we had meetings at night and they made new curtains and they made and they covered their furniture and they went at it in a big way and the material was all donated by various stores—bolts of material, not expensive but nice and clean. So the place really did look just beautiful and they were—well, from there on I had them, you know what I mean because I had been, I had done something unusual for them.

Dan: You gained their confidence.

Mrs. Titchener: Yes and I gained their confidence, and so there I was right on top of the heap and I really loved it and it was funny because it was the first time in my life I had seen like 50 kids all the same age playing together. We did put a little fountain in the front yard in memory of one of the ah managers who had died and when we put that in—it ran water, you know—constantly over and over the same and little Catholic children all came out and blessed themselves with it. It was a real cute little fountain but they, they didn’t pull up—we planted ah flowers, we had flower boxes and they didn’t pull them up, they really didn’t and we had a baseball team and we had it in our front yard because it was the only place we had that was level enough to have a field and we couldn’t buy them uniforms or anything and, ah, it was ah, I think Rockefeller when he was Governor, Nelson Rockefeller came down and came to visit it and he played ball with them and so instead of asking for his autograph, we gave him an autographed baseball of our team, which was a switch and they were thrilled with that and they were very excited and a very nice thing happened then. He went for coffee at a house, one of the apartments, a very nice girl and she had a child who had a growth on his eye and ah Nelson Rockefeller looked at it and he said, “I think that should be attended to.” She said, “Well I don’t know who to go to,” and he said, “Well I do and I’ll arrange for you to come up to Albany and see this man.” Well the child had a malignant growth there and it was removed and he was fine. So I like to tell that because it was such a nice thing for him to do and ah he noticed things like that. Well then also ah I think that, that’s about the only time he ever visited but we did many many things for them. We had art classes, we had dances, we had teas and when Jim Gaynor was then head of New York State Housing and he came up—we had a tea—and everybody was very much dressed up and I asked them please to wear their best clothes to serve the tea in the afternoon and I took all my stuff over—I had silver and napkins and lace cloth and all of my stuff and I lugged it over there. We fixed the place all up and we have a nice recreation room there, very nice, large and really very nice, so he said to me afterwards he said, “Who are all these girls, are they Junior League girls?” so I thought that was a nice compliment. We also had people come—Tony’s Hair Parlor, they came once in a while to show them how to do their hair and improve their looks, how to wash it. We had people come it—one thing that was very difficult when they went over, became over income and had to move—they would go out and get some well I would say fly-by-night realtor, someone who wasn’t expensive and he would just take all their money and end up it wasn’t what they wanted and then they’d lose it and then by that time, the place was full and they couldn’t come back. So we did start this, ah, evening course and we asked the Real Estate Board to send different people—I couldn’t pick out one realtor but they would come and give them some advice and then where they could get someone who would not mishandle them and it would be satisfactory. We had a banker come to teach them how to ah take care of their money—in fact one ah little girl who was married very young and her mother came and she brought all her monthly money in little packages. This was for this and this was for that and I was to give them out to her. Incidentally, I want to make it crystal clear that in the 20 years that I worked for Housing, I never was paid one solitary cent except for traveling that I did at their bequest and no one would believe that because I took the role of the Executive Director at many times and most of the time and I had ah that gave me a wonderful weapon because I could go to both the State and Federal Divisions and march in and say, “Now you owe me about $15,000 now and I’d like to put storm windows on,” or I’d like to fix this up and then I really had Mr. Gaynor blow a show when ah I asked was going to put—oh we built the second edition but that was the first thing that I had anything to do with the building and that was Saratoga Heights and ah up there we have, that’s up built on a hillside and I had to first I went to all this elderly groups here in town to say whether they, that we had one small group for the elderly, whether they would like to look at the parking lot or the beautiful view down the valley of the River. Well they chose the parking lot to have their, the community. They wanted to see what’s going on so that’s the way we built it but we did put a little garden that was walled off, not walled but had a fence around it and we had a greenhouse and Jim Gaynor said to me, “Dorothy, that greenhouse will not have a window in it 3 days from the day you put it up.” Well for 6 years, it was filled with flowers—we had one broken window by the wind—and it seemed that all the tenants used it. They came down—the elderly ran it and they’d come down and bring their plants they got for Christmas and that would be nice and they would put them in there and we went to all the greenhouses around in town and they have us seeds and plants and things and they were smart enough to go to all the funeral homes, because most of them used geraniums all through the summer and they’d go and get them and cut them and have slips and they had enough geraniums to cover their place and all three places, Carlisle and Saratoga Terrace and Saratoga Heights—so that was very successful. I understand now that’s not in use but I don’t go there now. After I retired I just leave—I don’t want to talk about it at all. I mean I, I don’t feel I should say anything because people would simply comment that I was being bitter or something.

Dan: What years were you—

Mrs. Titchener: Well I was there in 1939 and 20 years, what would that be 20?

Dan: ‘59.

Mrs. Titchener: 30.

Dan: ‘39 to ‘59 would be 20 years.

Mrs. Titchener: ‘39 to, oh no no, I didn’t go in ‘39, what’s the matter with me—that’s when I ah yes it was, that’s when I was on the radio, I’m sorry. No I’m sorry that’s a mistake—I don’t know when I did go.

Dan: When did you retire? We’ll go back 20 years.

Mrs. Titchener: Well I went down, retired in ‘74.

Dan: ‘74.

Mrs. Titchener: Yes.

Dan: Ok, so that would be ‘54.

Mrs. Titchener: Yes, that’s better, that’s better, thank you. You can see I’m very good in arithmetic. No, 39, I, I had my profession with the very end what I did to make money—well that was really a great thing. Another thing they offered the Authority—we had 5 members—I had a marvelous Authority—there were 5 of us on it, including me and the State offered us ah, ah I think it was $1500 a year, if we wished, for traveling expenses and we turned it down every year because we felt that this was too good. People would want to come in to make that $1500. It would mean something to them and we refused it, although there were a couple of members on our authority who could well have used that money and I always felt they were so brave and fine not to take it because we felt it put us in a different category and this way we could say we are volunteering this—we were giving out time and energy. Another thing, it was a little difficult to run, in this respect, the people whom we hired could not make the going rate because we couldn’t afford to because our rentals were based on the person’s income and it wasn’t great I can tell you that, so we had to give them extra—I used to call them “bingebellet benefits” because we would let—we would close the office and all go to a party and go out for lunch and things like that and in some ways we were a very cohesive group and ah worked well together that way and it, a Bill Johnson, when he was the Master of Ceremonies when I retired and I always remember what he said—he said, “Dorothy would, her her opinion was—let’s do what we want to do, then tell them afterwards.” That’s about the way we did. We went on to, when we built the ah—the next thing we built after the Heights was the ah housing for the elderly on Exchange Street—the two high rise and I didn’t want them named because I though, I think that’s what some owner’s people know—Carlisle Hill you know instantly that’s public housing, I said, “Why shouldn’t they have an address just like I do?” Like Exchange Street and Isbell Street a number is the number of your apartment. So, after much consideration, I knew Ken McKenzie who has since died—he was on the authority and he said, “Well ah let’s call it the Senile Silo”—so we had a lot of bright ideas like that. Well we hired a man from New York because nobody had built high rise here—we had architects local for the other buildings but here no one had built high rises at that time. So ah a high rise built for ah one of the housing divisions was different from building it privately because you are, actually it is much better built than this building for instance because of the regulations and all the things that are there to help them—it’s very well built. Well anyway we had someone from and incidentally that was the day that we hired the contractor, the ah the ah architect I mean, for building of the high rise—it was a luncheon and ah that was the day my husband died that afternoon, very suddenly.

Dan: What year was that Mrs. Titchener?

Mrs. Titchener: Well when did he—don’t ask me dates like that—he died—he’s been dead 14 years.

Dan: 14 years.

Mrs. Titchener: February, 14 years this February so you can subtract that again. I flunked arithmetic, maybe you guessed that already.

Dan: Well that’s all right—

Mrs. Titchener: I’ll tell you 2 and 2 don’t make 4, especially if you have guinea pigs.

Dan: For anyone who flunked arithmetic, you’ve certainly been successful.

Mrs. Titchener: Well I ran, I often say that ah people didn’t realize what they were getting into because I ran about a 4, 5 or 6 million business you know with the total. Now I have something here that I’m going to read from because it does give you a really meaning account of what, what the public housing is and what I said about it and if you don’t mind I’m going to read it because I could go off on a tangent but this is when I went in ah took over the ah money raising for PAL and I didn’t really like that. I like PAL but I had nothing to say in that—it was all Tony Ruffo—wouldn’t—he ran it really. They used my name is what they did and any ideas they had why and unless I can—I’m not an artist but I’ve created, I have ideas and I put them through and I won’t I don’t stop until I finish them and this he didn’t like I think and so I didn’t enjoy that because and another thing I didn’t enjoy was that he went to the newspaper and he got my Obit and printed it—had it printed. It didn’t say I was dead but it did leave that off but the rest of it was pretty and this is what was taken from that really but it’s ah—I had many experiences in housing that were very exciting and very different. Incidentally ah once I ah was sitting there and ah we had an Executive Director there at that time, a woman and she was very good and I was sitting there when ah this Black man came in and he said he’d seen in the paper a Black woman had died there and he wanted that apartment and ah she very kindly told him that we had a waiting list and you had to put your name down and the gentleman that he brought in was very very inebriated—he was holding him up—so he finally looked at me and he said, “Oh I know who you are,” and I had a Cadillac at that time and he said, “I’m going to burn your Cadillac if you don’t give this gentleman this apartment,” and I called him by name and I said, I’ll say Joe but it wasn’t, I said, “Joe, go ahead,” and I flipped him some matches I said, “It’s right outside the door here and here’s the matches.” He disappeared with the gentleman immediately. That was one thing that happened and another night we had a meeting at Saratoga and I had two men there and we had tenants meetings once a month to make it—tell all their grievances and we had the various ones try and answer them and help them out and so forth and we had ah, ah, I had a word from the Society, oh, what do you call it? Ah, dope. What do you call ‘em—have names, I can’t think anyway.

Dan: Narcotics.

Mrs. Titchener: Narcotics—that’s what I’m trying, that’s the word I’m trying to think of, anyway the head of the Narcotics Division here called me and said he understood there was an apartment there that they were dispensing it and they didn’t know exactly where it was and asked me to try and find out. Well I had a suspicion so I did find out and they later proclaimed that that was right and the sister of this woman who lived in this apartment knew that I had found out and she came blazing in and her eyes were very red. She pulled a switchblade on me but fortunately it was across a card table—it was like that (referring to table in apartment) and it just got within about 3 inches and everybody ran out, we had elderly there, they all moved out when I said, “Please leave, just leave and be quiet,” and I turned to this woman, whom I liked very much and still do—I like her very much but she was really high on something, what, I do not know—could have been alcohol, could have been drugs—I don’t know that but she was high anyway so I got out of that all right but when I walked out of that room, she was still behind me and I can tell you right now, I felt that blade between my shoulder blades all the way to the door but the men, they disappeared, everybody disappeared but I’ve seen her lately and she’s a very fine woman and she’s completely all right and I, she’s a very pretty—she’s a Black woman but very nice woman and has done a great deal for the community. So it was, those were some of the incidents. Oh and one other, back at Carlisle which is similar. Ah, I put a woman out who had lived there and they had been trying to get her out and nobody had the courage enough to do it and I did put her out. So she had some of her relatives and her friends call me and say that if I came to this meeting, she would shoot me—that she had a gun, so I said to my husband, “What will I do?” and he said, “Well you either go or give up your job, you can’t let them do that to you. You have to accept it—now you do one or the other, that’s all.” Well I was furious, because I thought well that’s a fine thing so I got in my car and all the way up, I tried to decide what how I’ll leave Paul, you know, because he’s so mean and I got up there and get in the meeting and everything and the rest of the tenants cheered because they had wanted her out for a long time and nothing happened, so when I came out, this gentleman, police car came up to me and said, “Mrs. Titchener, we have been here all along—your husband called me,” so you see that spared me getting a divorce. (laughter) It was really funny though because I thought, well, dear me, what, what is going on? Well now I better get down to this because this I think does say something about—it says, “Dorothy Titchener is color blind, sympathetic and empathetic to be administrator of 612 housing units for which the Housing Authority has responsibility. She dislikes the term ‘Housing Units’ as a merciless, bureaucratic phrase which does not reflect the essential human factors which exist in 612 families from lonely old oldsters to 14 member households. She has the reputation among most of her tenants of being warm hearted, hard headed, fair and tough. Her principal problem is—there is always some 300 families seeking apartments which are not available. Mrs. Titchener feels that she administers a society of microcosms, a society embracing any society’s proportion of success, failure, love, hate, happiness, despondent, culture, and delinquency. She considers law enforcement of prominent importance in any society. She feels that many otherwise astute citizens do not understand the so-called housing under the edicts under the Housing Authority. A highly paid executive with 12 children, she said, can readily be considered a poor man but richer or poorer than the Viet, the Vietnam veterans with no skills, a wife and child. The State sets the income limits which must be instituted by an applicant’s payroll deduction forms. The authority counts the dependents. Mrs. Titchener and her colleagues must then measure all other human factors relating to their interest.” So that gives you a rather hard line view of what it is and I do feel that people misunderstand it because they used to say and this is why we didn’t name the other place and another thing we did when they moved in, we gave them one sheet of paper with their address in an envelope—it was in their apartment when they moved in a we moved in all the families in 2 days, who were eligible.

Dan: That is for Isbell and—

Mrs. Titchener: Yes, Isbell and Exchange Street.

Dan: 45.

Mrs. Titchener: Well then we made our Central Office there—that’s what it became and in a sense that was in a way more difficult because I saw less of the other 2 places because my office was down there and that seemed to be much more and I knew them all and when I retired, they gave me in dimes, nickels and dollars and quarters $375.00 from the elderly tenants down there and I didn’t know what to do with it. I could think of nothing I could buy that would be meaningful so I asked if anyone else wished to contribute to it, though I didn’t do it myself, but Mr. Johnson said if anyone wanted to. I came up with almost $1000.00 of additional money that was given and I gave that to the Fairview Home for fun parties. They were not to buy equipment—they were to bring movies in that were real, have sherry parties, they were to entertain with it and have fun because my life has been one of great enjoyment and fun. I just really love it. Well now to get to ah to go back on some of the things that I didn’t leave you—different awards that I’ve had ah some are in this room. I’ve had 18 scrolls or plaques or something in my life which I consider quite something because I don’t deserve hardly any of them but anyway I, I thoroughly enjoy them. I had a War Certificate for raising, this was when I had—well my profession was radio and television, as I told you and I was on radio then and I sold War Bonds.

Dan: This was for WWI?

Mrs. Titchener: Yes—no it must have been II, I think it was II—yes because I had moved. WWI I was still in school and I came here. This was in WWII. But we wanted to get—buy a bomber. They needed bombers and so ah we raised $310,000.00 in one night and ah Thomas Watson paid for a program for us so we didn’t have to pay for that and so and he gave me a check for $1000.00 because we had 20—this friend of mine, who was a public relations director later of Housing, but she helped ah she had 10 or 20 phones coming in with money coming in and she would bring out the money and Dottie Baker who was then, had been on WNBF as a commentator and she did the commentary for this program and then it was coming in so slowly that he had a fit because anything he was connected with, you know, must be successful, you know he had that feeling of success and that was it—so what was I doing and I kept sending back why, why get it—well the phones were clogged—it took us until the next day really so he gave me a check for $100,000.00—he had already purchased a $10,000 bond, so had Mrs. Watson and I took the check and tore it in pieces and dropped it in his hand, which was the biggest thrill of my life to do that and we did raise $310,000. We bought the bomber and we called it “Broome Sweeps the Air,” something like that. Well that was an award that I got from the Government, then I got the Girl Scout National Thanks Badge, which is a pin and I got a certificate for founding the Camp at a later date. Then the thing I liked the best is the American Legion Award, Post 80, because my husband got it just 10 years before I did and then after he was gone, why I received it and I and Dr. Mary Ross is the only other woman to ever receive this award and I’m the second women and of course she is not alive so I’m the only woman now who has received it and I—it was in 1967 that I got that and then I got a Senior Homes Plaque when we built the—from the Housing Authority—I got a plaque for that and then I got a certificate for that from the tenants themselves with giving them a home and so forth at Exchange Street and both of them I got in 1968, that was. Then Sertoma Club gave me an International Award for exceptional service to mankind—that sounds kind of big—I don’t know who mankind are but anyway this was in 1969 and then the Local Sertoma also gave me an award the same year and the Ladies of Charity for Exceptional Community Service in 1969, the New York State President of Housing and Urban Renewal in 1970. I got into that, I was State President of that and ah that was ah for outstanding work and then I got this one which pleases me greatly for outstanding management of Public Housing from the Management Association—I thought that was pretty good because I never considered myself a manager—I’ve managed but I always did it so, you know, iffy—I thought so, anyway that pleased me, that was in 1971 and a 20 year award for Housing and Renewal accomplishments in ‘72 and a New York State award of Good Management from the State Public Housing in New York in 1968 and then just recently in 1977 I was the Woman of Achievement award and that isn’t a plaque, that’s a I don’t know, it’s a scroll and then ah I told you about the newspaper and I got an award for that—doing the newspaper for the Junior League. Now in business and Professional Women, I have several offices. I was local Vice President—I never was President of my Club because they always said I didn’t fool around with little things so I went on—I was Regional Director and then I was State President, then I was National Radio Chairman and then I was International Radio and Television Chairman and as International Chairman of that, I broadcast from Canada on BBC to welcome a new club in England—welcome them into the Federation and incidentally along with that, the founder of the Business and Professional Women’s Club was a Lena Madison Phillips and she was going away and she asked me to take her place on the Security Council in ah United Nations Security Council in New York for one day so I had the thrill of doing that for her and she incidentally died on that trip so I never saw her again. She was a great friend of mine. Another great friend of mine among a woman who I admired greatly was Eleanor Roosevelt. I knew her very well and I, and she was very, very good to me and gave me a great deal of good advice—fine advice. I knew her in her late years after the President died. Then ah, I told you International—oh I opened, when I was State President of Business and Professional Women’s Club, I opened the first State Office here in Binghamton in my house of Riverside Drive and the first Secretary worked for me—we called her the Secretary of State, so we had a lot of fun with that. I was ah I told you TV and International Chairman, I opened office. I, also the first State magazine. I like to write and so ah a lot of my work has been done in writing—I’ve never done anything—I’ve never tried to publish anything because I don’t, I never wanted anyone to see it but I write a lot and I oh did write a pageant that we gave at the State Convention and that was I have that several other places too and ah then our big thing was when we put up Margaret Chase Smith as for Vice President and I didn’t know her then but I just called her and got her. Well, on the phone, I was astounded—it was like calling the White House, you know, sometimes you get ‘em, mostly don’t but I did get her and then Judge Hughes was, has been National President of BPW and she was in Texas and Margaret of course came from Maine. All right, we went to this Convention and it was a wow, because, I told you about taking the handkerchief back, there was just three of us, this is the Democratic Convention.

[Tape #2]

Mrs. Titchener: …but on the floor there it had been tried. I had to bull my way on the Democratic (fly) so I had a very good one. She called me, I didn’t go to the Republican Convention and she called me at home and it was all on TV, I could look at it and she said, “I think we have a winner here,” and we had ah, Clare Booth Luce to nominate and Margaret Chase Smith. Senator Smith couldn’t come because her mother was dying in a Maine Hospital and at the last minute she had to decline coming. So it was all set though that Clare Booth Luce was to nominate and she got up and she stood there when someone came up and handed her a small piece of paper, whereupon, she read, “Oh this is a great surprise, Senator Smith has withdrawn her name.” Well we all could have flopped—well you can imagine what her real manager did to me—he called me up and said, “What are you doing, she did not withdraw her name.” Now they, they’ve made an investigation of it and they know the two people who did it—I won’t tell them it’s none of my business but he really gave me Goddy because what was I doing to take her name and smear it all over. We ran it—we sold bricks at the National Convention—we called them bricks—a buck for a brick and we raised $1010.00—

Dan: Wonderful.

Mrs. Titchener: —for that, and ah we divided that equally between, ah, between Senator Smith and Judge Hughes and so we ran that whole campaign and we had about 4 million dollars worth of publicity because it was such a unique thing for women to do then, you see, you couldn’t do it that way not of course but we were very naive about it and I happened to know Drew Pearson through my work in radio—I was a member of the American Women in radio and TV, I forgot that—I used to go with them once in a while—the men would come to that and we’d go to theirs, their convention—the men—so I knew him and he was going to run, they had 8 people running for Vice President of the Democratic ticket, among them F.D.R. Jr. and a lot of people were running. So I went down to see him and he said he was going to run a contest Sunday night and ask people to phone in their choice because he, he thought that would be [an] interesting feature. So ah, Leona Wallace, this friend of mine, ran a, a small advertising agency and she was running the publicity for our group so I called her and I said, “Get every State President and send to them this notice,” and said that to for them to get every club in their State to send in votes for Judge Hughes. So the whole thing ended with Judge Hughes getting 390 votes and the rest of them got 10, 11 and 12 and 14, like that and I went down the next day and poor Drew Pearson was all slumped over and he says, “Hey Dot what’s going on?” and I said, he says, “Who in blank is Sarah Hughes?” So that was quite an event anyway and she was nominated and the two reporters from ah it was Woody Fischette and ah who later wrote a very fine column about me which was in the Congressional Record—I’ve been in that twice—through Senator Smith’s efforts and anyway he was one and ah McManus who later worked with Rockefeller was the other one and they were furious because they were required to stay over the next morning and see Judge Hughes nominated for Vice President and we only had—they kept asking me how many votes I had. I said, “Oh a block.” Well we called, we called 12 a block see—anyway we ah—she withdrew her name, she just wanted to be nominated.

Dan: What Presidential election was this, Mrs. Titchener?

Mrs. Titchener: Ah when Eisenhower was running against Taft.

Dan: All right.

Mrs. Titchener: That was the reason we got all these things.

Dan: I see.

Mrs. Titchener: That’s the reason the Republican people worked to embarrass them—the Taft people wanted to embarrass ah Eisenhower—they wanted to get someone in there to embarrass him if Taft was not going to win so that’s why we had such success there and we really, really got in on that. We had one funny incident because ah the Democrats put up that woman who had been a party worker for many years—I can’t think of her name now, but it doesn’t matter, anyway she had a big dinner and she didn’t invited Sarah Hughes as a candidate, so I went to her and said, “What are you doing? She’s a candidate.” “Oh,” she said, “I don’t think she is going to get anywhere,” and I said, “Well whether she gets anywhere or not, you invite her.” So she went but she was seated way down nowhere near the, the head table. So we went to a cocktail party, a huge one the Pennsylvania group were giving and the reporters, some of them were in there and this reporter said, “I hear some dame’s running,” another dame besides this one who was really well known and I said, “Yes,” I said, “She’s going to win, I’M telling ya so you want to meet her?” So I, we march in and so there’s one seat left at the head table—at the end of the head table so we march in—this girl with me was a reporter and we see Sarah. “Come on, Sarah, you have been invited up to the head table.” So she gets up to the head table, so he’s taking pictures of her and this other woman is raging and Vickie Levene, incidentally, Victoria Levene, was running this other woman’s candidate, was helping with it. She was furious too of course, because here I was with, just sashaying up there with, with Sarah. Well it all ended all right because Sarah finally gave up and didn’t do anything about it. So I told you about selling the bricks and ah I told you about the different things that we did for the tenants and all the places we had dances and teas and then finally I retired from Housing in 1974 and I worked briefly at Roberson Memorial Christmas Shop for a while and then I was on the ah lay Board of the State Hospital and there they didn’t care much for volunteers because they were, they felt that ah volunteers didn’t know anything and so I, I, I stayed on about a year and then I retired from that and then I was on the lay board of the Board of Education—that was even worse (laughter). NO, no they wouldn’t they didn’t want us—all they wanted us to do was to—they made me publicity chairman and all they didn’t want me to do any publicity unless it was saying how great they were. When I told the truth of things that I saw, they blacked it out—so that was useless. So now I have retired in grace and am having a wonderful time and I love my life and I do what I please now for a change.

Dan: Wonderful.

Mrs. Titchener: And I think I told you about my profession was, and oh I acted as a Persia Campbell—was head of the consumer’s department for New York State under Harriman and I worked as a consultant for her. Now these are things where I had made money and I got $25.00 a day to go around to ah clubs in this county—nearby clubs and consult with them about consumer problems, knowing nothing about them. I, I’ve never been very good at that but anyway I can, I can falsify.

Dan: Well most of your life has been volunteer work, Mrs. Titchener.

Mrs. Titchener: It’s been entirely volunteer work except I did make money. I did teach dancing once—I did write a column for the Press once for which I received money and I got money for this and of course I had that radio program and I had very good money when i worked for—I worked for 8 years for McLean’s—I ran a contest there and I worked there 8 years and then I went to ah down to WENE and there I would not—I persuaded ah Tom Watson, Mr. Watson that he needed me very badly and that I didn’t want to go under the name of IBM because I would have to be so, you know, so strict about what I said so he just gave me a little note to Charlie Curtin and he says, “Give Dorothy what she wants for money,” and we put it under the Endicott Chamber of Commerce and I worked there almost 9 years and I made very good money there and I was sent all over doing things and ah then I told you about oh and I was also on this Empire State Housing and Renewal Board for 3 years that ah Rockefeller started and they built Ely Park, they were—I was on that Board for a while and I guess that’s all that I did and—

Dan: Now when you ah took over ah the ah—you were Chairman of the ah Housing Board, is that right?

Mrs. Titchener: Yes.

Dan: Was that your title?

Mrs. Titchener: Chairman of Housing Authority.

Dan: Of Housing Authority. Now Carlisle and ah Saratoga Heights had already been built but you were instrumental in building 25 Exchange Street and Isbell?

Mrs. Titchener: Yes, yes it’s 45 Exchange.

Dan: 45 Exchange, yes. Now the funding of the housing units, is that ah on a percentage basis—so much by City, so much by the State?

Mrs. Titchener: Well the State, the State furnishes ah moving for the State problems, the State division and the State ones are Saratoga Terrace and Saratoga Heights are both State—

Dan: Funded.

Mrs. Titchener: Funded, but the funding is in this matter—you are the first year because you hadn’t made anything yet and you’ve got very low income and you can’t possibly pay all your debts so you were given a subsidy but then you cut that down every year.

Dan: I see.

Mrs. Titchener: And finally at the end we weren’t getting any subsidy—we were self-sufficient and when I left the Housing Authority, we owed $13.00 and I understand now from the papers that they owe some 37 or 47 thousand.

Dan: You better get back in it.

Mrs. Titchener: Yeah, any day.

Dan: Now the same thing is applied with Isbell and Exchange Street.

Mrs. Titchener: Yes.

Dan: So that was subsidized—

Mrs. Titchener: And we cut it down every year and we do pay taxes to the City of Binghamton.

Dan: In other words diminished ah diminishing subsidization.

Mrs. Titchener: Yes, right and we do pay taxes but because we pay ah 10% of our rent with the utilities subtracted, because we give them utilities. We take the total cost of utilities at the end of the year, the telephone is not provided but their gas and their heat, electricity—that’s all provided. We take the cost of that and then what is left from that we take 10% of the balance and pay to the City in the form of a tax.

Dan: I see.

Mrs. Titchener: And I argued with ah always had my picture taken presenting them with a check for the newspapers because everyone said, “Oh we’re paying for all this.” Well now that is not necessary if you have good management.

Dan: Right.

Mrs. Titchener: And I had such a marvelous board—it was not—I was the one who sparked them—who did things because I just can’t wait to unfurl about 20 yards of red tape—that annoys me so I just do it and tell them afterwards. That was really true, but the Board was so good.

Dan: Isbell Street and Exchange Streets went so smoothly.

Mrs. Titchener: Yes.

Dan: Ah is so much so that in contrast with Woodburn Court—now everything has been torn down and—

Mrs. Titchener: Now Woodburn Court, I really was against doing that. What I wanted in Woodburn Court and tried very hard to get it—in fact I had a personal check from a large industry in this community of $100,000 as seed money and I tried very hard to get them to make it—if you say Halfway House, you think of something alcoholic—I wanted an intermediary place where some of the elderly people who live in Exchange, who can no longer care for their apartments, could move with some care ah have ah have their meals prepared and have a dining room and have their meals prepared and have it a transition from that to going into some home which they ultimately have to go to or else a hospital or something of that nature. So that’s what I tried very hard to have Woodburn Court and they turned me down and of course I had to fight with City Council for everything we got. We had to put on a floor show and just ram it down their throats.

Dan: Do you think the delay has been the lack of communication between the Mayor and City Council?

Mrs. Titchener: I really don’t know that I have a—I did not fight for Woodburn Court because when I lost interest I had, I gave the check back to the organization because it was nearing the end of my time and I worked very hard and I’ve had fights and fights and fights with the City Council and I was expecting my paper, my picture in the paper upside down or something.

Dan: There seems to be so much of wasted land there on Susquehanna Street with no provisions made for the future.

Mrs. Titchener: I think that Woodburn Court probably will be successful but I think the Exchange Street is going to suffer by it because everybody from there who can go into Woodburn Court is going to move there.

Dan: Yeah, will the tenants of Woodburn Court, ah, have to meet the same qualifications?

Mrs. Titchener: No they have—that’s on another Federal program—that’s a Federal project and that’s on another program—I can’t tell you the number ah they’re always talking numbers to me and then I would have to go to my little Bible and look it up because I was too old something you know but they are being subsidized partially—their rent is being subsidized by the Federal people and they are paid for the for the ah the person who is building it—the builder can’t afford of course—things have gone up so now.

Dan: Sure.

Mrs. Titchener: If that had been built 7 years ago it would have been better but it wasn’t and I really don’t know why. I know there were all sorts of reasons probably but I never pushed it. I never, I had nothing to do with Woodburn Court, in fact I hoped it wouldn’t be built because i thought, I think that ah Exchange Street is having trouble enough now.

Dan: Yeah.

Mrs. Titchener: They’re always advertising for apartments and we had a waiting list of 300 people and they were so jealous of that waiting list, they’d call, you know, ask where they were on it and we really, we really stuck to that but I don’t know I, I really don’t know as I say I don’t go down there. I thought that I would have a lot of fun because I had many friends there and I would visit them but I was told to stay out and I have stayed out and I don’t know I think there may have been some sort of personal jealousy, I don’t know, but I know everything with my name on it, even little things that said, “Please don’t put your garbage in the hall,” even little notices like that have been destroyed—anything that had my name attached to it. That, I don’t know why but I guess I’m that controversial type of person and they didn’t want any part of it—that’s it—but I did love it and it gave me the greatest satisfaction next to my own children and then the last thing I have done is my book. I have to get that in because I’ve had so many, so many honors and so one day my daughter called me up one night and she said, “You know, Mother, you’re gonna die.” I said, “Are you figuring on tonight or something like that?” She said, “No, I thought you’re always writing poetry and you stick it around and we’re going to drop it all down the incinerator,” so that made me mad so I decided to do this and I’ve been trying to think of some way to repay this community for the wonderful things they have done for me so I dedicated my book—I call it Seasoning and dedicated it to Jim, Ann and Jean and their families who have seasoned my life with joy and then I said Foreword: “This small book is a gift. It is my way to say Thank You to the many agencies for whom I have worked, who have so graciously honored me in the past and hopefully will bring some pleasure to my countless acquaintances and warm personal friends.” So I didn’t sell the book—I had it printed at my expense and then gave it to these organizations to sell for their own charities and Sertoma took some and BPW and Zonta and the church had some and various other organizations asked for them and I ordered a hundred and I thought I could never get rid of a hundred and the printer said to me, “I have to do the whole thing alone”—my children were going to help me and they all left and so I had to pick out the design and I had to do the printing and the paper and you know, pick the whole thing out and put it all in and I had my children all in here—they had all done something—they’re all here in the back. Anyway I had a lot of fun doing it and then I have it and they had made enough money, lots of them, to do really fine things because they were selling them for $5.00 and I was not, at my age, going to start out selling books. So anyway this is the way I did it and I feel in a way that I had paid back some of the wonderful things that really I, I just can’t say enough about how much has been done for me.

Dan: Well everything has been deserved, Mrs. Titchener.

Mrs. Titchener: I don’t know, I don’t know.

Dan: On one last note—the naming of Titchener Hall?

Mrs. Titchener: Oh yes.

Dan: At Broome Community College.

Mrs. Titchener: That was wonderful. Ah Paul, of course, was the organizer, he was the founder and went to ah Governor Dewey and persuaded him that this would be necessary and that was fine and then he was the first Chairman of the Board there and he was Chairman for many years. So when he retired ah he asked to be able to name a successor—to name a couple of people and that’s when Darwin Wales went on as Chairman because he was a great friend of Paul and is a great friend of mine. So they gave this dinner and in the meantime they had a painting painted of Paul by ah ah, next door—what’s his name ah you know the man next door—the artist—his wife Mae, he runs Roberson?

Dan: Martin.

Mrs. Titchener: Martin, anyway he painted this portrait of Paul and he painted without Paul knowing it and they showed it at this dinner. Well it was very stern and ah Paul wasn’t too pleased with it nor I because—but he did allow us to make some changes and we did make changes and now it is very fine and so they named Titchener Hall for him and that was in January, that this party was in January. They had a big party and Paul was very happy but we were going around the world. We had our way paid all the way around and I like to tell this because of the kindness of people. We had reservations in almost every country we went to in several places because Paul liked very much—he was a very man who wanted everything right and he always had to just get it right.

Dan: Uh huh—very methodical.

Mrs. Titchener: Excuse me, the point was that ah I wrote to all of them when he died very suddenly, without any warning whatsoever on the Wednesday before we were to leave on Friday. So I wrote all these places and I received every cent of money back even from—the last ones to give it back were the fares from the who was here right in this country but Cooks was the last ones to pay back. They said, they called me said, “It’d have to be something final,” and I said, “Well if death isn’t final, would you kindly tell me what is?” and they sent the money and so I got—

Dan: Isn’t that a shame? 3 days before you were ready to leave.

Mrs. Titchener: Yeah, we were all packed and everything else all ready to go but in a way he would have been miserable because he was a very active man. He had a job—he was going to run Housing for the City and he had a job in City Hall and when he came back he was looking forward to doing this—that’s one reason I went into this so wholeheartedly after he died because I thought maybe I’m left to do the things that he never had the opportunity to do.

Dan: Right.

Mrs. Titchener: Because he really was, he was a very—some people were afraid of him because he had a rather severe, austere appearance but he had a great sense of humor and from, when I became President, nominated President of the State, I asked him if he wanted me to do it because it meant I would have to be away nights quite a lot to travel around to the various clubs for dinners and he said, “Well Dot, I’d rather have dust under my bed than dust in your head”—just was a cute remark.

Dan: It ah it was a blessing in disguise that it didn’t happen while you were—

Mrs. Titchener: Oh yes, not only that but he would have been, he had ah really a hemorrhage very similar to what ah Franklin Roosevelt had—it was completely devastating and he would have been a vegetable had he survived and that would have not been for such. Now this book is a very personal book—it’s simply about my family and about the things I love out of doors. It’s not anything that anyone although people have been very kind to say they like it but and I have ah something from Karen Schmitt—I have one from each family—something that they have written.

Dan: Uh huh.

Mrs. Titchener: And ah that’s very nice. I have my own self portrait here and then I have something, mostly written to my family and ah things of that kind and that’s what I did with it and the BPW on my 80th birthday gave me a birthday party and they told me they had given all the money they have received from this book to the ah New York State Scholarship Fund which pleased me a great deal.

Dan: From what was that?

Mrs. Titchener: Received from this book—the Business and Professional Women’s Club. So they sent that, sent the money that they received from selling their books. So I thought that I had accomplished something for both of us that I have the pleasure of having done it and this is purely personal—I have my children, none of them live here, none of them so I’m always alone holidays. So I decided on my 80th birthday, I’d have it at Thanksgiving, which would be better weather and I brought them all here and I brought them from 7 states and they were here 4 days and I had to put some up in motels because obviously haven’t room here and I had them for 4 days and we had breakfast and lunch here and then dinners we went out.

Dan: Uh huh.

Mrs. Titchener: And it happened to be my youngest grandson’s birthday on Thanksgiving, so we had his birthday party and mine at the ah restaurant and had a marvelous time. I don’t think I went to bed for 4 nights because we stayed up and talked and laughed and I have, I have a controversial family I say they have inherited more of me than their more conservative father and we just ripped the roof off—completely (laughter). So will that simple note unless you have something more to ask me.

Dan: Well you’re a very remarkable woman Mrs. Titchener, I certainly appreciate your consenting to this interview.

Mrs. Titchener: Well I’ve enjoyed it. I like to do things if it, it will be helpful.

Dan: It certainly will be.

Mrs. Titchener: And thanks loads. I’ve enjoyed, I’ve enjoyed doing it very much and I want to thank the Action for Elderly for thinking this up.

Dan: Thank you.

1978-03-15

O'Neil, Dan

Titchner, Dorothy

33:54 Minutes ; 11: 28 Minutes ; 30:07 Minutes

2016-03-27

Broome County Oral History Project

Titchener, Dorothy -- Interviews; Broome County (N.Y.) -- History; Binghamton (N.Y.); Broome Community College; Titchener, Paul; Girl Scouts of the United States of America; Women -- Societies and clubs; Junior League of New York; Business and Professional Women/USA; Women -- Political activity

Amahami Girl Scout Camp; Girl Scout Council; Housing Authority; Politics

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