Interview with Reverend Canon Claudia Wilson

Interview with Reverend Canon Claudia Wilson

Wilson, Canon Claudia ; Gashurov, Irene

Harpur College – Sixties alumni; Harpur College – Student Associations, Students for Democratic Change; Harpur College – Alumni in the Episcopal Church; Harpur College – Alumni in Publishing; Harpur College – Alumni living in Yonkers, NY

Reverend Claudia is a semi-retired priest at St. John’s Episcopal Church in Yonkers. Before her ordination into the priesthood, she worked in publishing. At Harpur College, she was the first woman elected head of SDC (Students for Democratic Change), the progressive student government.

2018-03-19

In Copyright

Claudia Wilson.mp3

2018-03-19

Oral Histories from 60's Binghamton Alumni

60:33 minutes

Alumni Interviews
Interview with: Claudia Wilson
Interviewed by: Irene Gashurov
Transcriber: Oral History Lab
Date of interview: 19 March 2018
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(Start of Interview)

IG: 00:01
Okay [inaudible]

CW: 00:03
My name is Claudia Wilson. I graduated from Harpur College in 1965 I am going to be 74 on July 12. I am currently a retired- I am a priest in the Episcopal Diocese of New York. I retired from active ministry, but I am a priest associate on a voluntary basis at St John's Church in Yonkers.

IG: 00:26
Okay, so and we are currently interviewing you for the oral history project.

CW: 00:37
Yes.

IG: 00:37
Okay, so, tell us where you grew up.

CW: 00:42
I was born and raised in the Bronx, and was my family was still living in the Bronx when I was a student at Harpur and um, I- after-after school, Terry, then [inaudible] now sailor, who was also an alum, and I rented an apartment in Manhattan, and I went to work in the book publishing business. After two years, I took a year off and got a master's degree in English from the University of from Toronto, University of Toronto in Canada. Came back and I had essentially a 23-year career in the book publishing business, mostly in college textbooks. Finished up with 11 years at Harper and Roe, now Harper Collins. And then I decided, I think partly because I never went into the Peace Corps or any of those things, that I would do some good work. And I went became the volunteer coordinator at God's Love We Deliver, which was doing people with AIDS. And then I felt a call to the diaconate in the Episcopal Church, and I went to work for an Episcopal Church for two years as their parish administrator of St John's in the village. That was in 1990 to 1992 which was a very interesting experience. I continued to volunteer for God's Love We Deliver. And of course, this was at the height of the AIDS crisis, and village was the epicenter. And I delivered, delivered meals to at that time men with AIDS during my lunch hour. And that was quite an, quite an experience, I have to say. And then after, in 1992 I was ordained to the diaconate, and I was a deacon at my church, which was sending nations of Antioch on West End Avenue in Manhattan for two years. And then I had moved to Riverdale from Manhattan, and I came to St John's Church here in Yonkers as Deacon. I was Deacon here for 12 years. I was also as soon as I was ordained on the staff of the Episcopal Diocese of New York. And then after a while, after 10 years as a deacon, discerned a call, a change in vocation to the priesthood, and I went to Seabury, Western seminary.

IG: 01:56
When was that?

CW: 01:56
That was in 1990 to 1992 which was a very interesting experience. I continued to volunteer for God's Love We Deliver. And of course, this was at the height of the AIDS crisis, and village was the epicenter. And I delivered, delivered meals to at that time men with AIDS during my lunch hour. And that was quite a, quite an experience, I have to say. And then after, in 1992 I was ordained to the diaconate, and I was a deacon at my church, which was sending nations of Antioch on West End Avenue in Manhattan for two years. And then I had moved to Riverdale from Manhattan, and I came to St John's Church here in Yonkers as Deacon. I was Deacon here for 12 years. I was also as soon as I was ordained on the staff of the Episcopal Diocese of New York. And then after a while, after 10 years as a deacon, discerned a call, a change in vocation to the priesthood, and I went to Seabury, Western seminary.

IG: 03:03
Which is where?

CW: 03:04
Evanston. Evanston, Illinois, just outside of Chicago. I was 60 years old when I went to seminary.

IG: 03:04
Wonderful-wonderful.

CW: 03:10
Very interesting too. It is a totally different educational experience to go to college in the (19)60s and seminary in the in the 2000s let me tell you, was wonderful. Anyway, after two years, I was ordained to the priesthood. I was priest on a halftime basis in a church, church of the Holy Communion in May, a pack and continued to work.

IG: 03:31
I know where that there's a Russian Orthodox convent.

CW: 03:34
Yes, right across the street from my church.

IG: 03:36
Wonderful, what a coincidence.

CW: 03:39
Yes. Anyway, I was half time at Holy Communion, and half time working for the diocese as a camp for congregational development. And then in in 2016 I became 72 and the rules of the church said, church pension fund always say, you have to retire from the pension fund collect a pension. But if you are a priest in charge of a congregation, you must leave that congregation at 72 and I had already been working for 50 plus years by that time, and I just decided to retire. So, I retired, but I came and I lived 10 minutes from St John's Getty square, came back here. Knew the priest in charge. He was somebody I knew from the Cathedral of St John the Divine, and so I am now priest associate here. So, in a nutshell, that is my 50 years of working after school.

IG: 04:29
Thank you, thank you for that very succinct synopsis of a long career.

CW: 04:36
Yes.

IG: 04:37
A very diverse career.

CW: 04:39
Yes, I feel like I have had I have been very fortunate. Many people do not find like do not are not able to find one thing they like to do. And I had two distinct careers of things that I really loved. So, I feel very fortunate in that way,

IG: 04:53
And you are still doing it.

CW: 04:53
Yeah, I am still doing it. Yes. Right.

IG: 05:01
Engaged. So, let us return to a deeper past, which is your childhood and upbringing, and tell us a little bit about your parents and where you told us the Bronx and your upbringing and whether they went to college, if they encouraged you to pursue your education?

CW: 05:25
Yes-yes. My mother was from Louisville, Kentucky, and my mother did graduate from college. She went to Miami University in Ohio. She was a social worker before she got married. My father was in the New York City Police Department for 32 years and retired as a captain in 1968 they met because my father, early in his police career, was in the emergency squad, and my uncle by marriage, my mother's brother-in-law, was also in the same squad, and fixed my mother and my father up for a date, when my mother came to New York to visit her sister. My father did not go to college. His parents, they just could not afford it. Even-even going to City University, which would have been free, they needed his income. So, which is unfortunate, because my father was a very-very bright man, really, very intelligent man, lover, great lover of music. Great opera fan, very good with languages. When I was in high school, I took Spanish, and my father used to coach me on my on my Spanish homework he had gotten. My father went to Stuyvesant. He got the Spanish medal every year he was in Stuyvesant. And even then, 40 years later, he remembered it. Do you know, he really just had that gift, you know?

IG: 06:43
Well, he also probably had occasion to use it, living in New York.

CW: 06:45
Yes-yes, no, Bronx. I think you know; you have to understand that when I was growing up in the Bronx, the neighborhood that I, that we lived in-

IG: 06:49
It was very different.

CW: 06:55
-was product was white.

IG: 06:57
Yes.

CW: 06:58
It was predominantly Roman Catholic with a significant Jewish population. In fact, when I went to elementary school, these were the days that they did not close the schools on the Jewish holidays. And literally, I was the only girl in my fifth-grade class. And there would be a handful of us in the whole school. So it was, which was good, I think, because I kind of grew up, unlike a lot of white, Anglo-Saxon Protestants, not feeling like I ruled the world, if you know what I mean. And I had, you know, most of my friends were either Roman Catholic or Jewish, and I went to a Presbyterian Church, which was about the only time I came into contact with other students. So, you know, so it was, it was in we lived in University Heights, and at that point, NYU uptown, which is where Bronx Community College is now, it is just down the block from us. And the Presbyterian Church I went to had been founded by-by NYU faculty members back in 1901 so I was very fortunate. I mean, I went to public school in the Bronx, and I went to-to Junior, what was then Junior High in the Bronx, but I went to high school at Hunter College, high school in Manhattan, which changed my life, really. I mean, in a way, first of all, you know, I got out of the Bronx, in a sense. But also, I think Hunter, the work we did at Hunter, really prepared me for Harpur, in a way that I know I saw a lot of my classmates who came from smaller, consolidated schools in upstate New York, you know, where they wrote essays about what I did my summer vacation, and then he got, they got, you know, to Harpur, and they were asked to write an essay about Dante's Inferno. We had sort of been doing that kind of thing all the time, and I had, I had gotten some AP credits in English and history. So, I think Hunter was a very-very significant-

IG: 09:02
I know, friends who have gone.

CW: 09:04
Yes, exactly. And, of course, you know, one is proud of the fact that Supreme Court Justice went to your high school. And various other people, and also people I knew at Harpur, Deborah Tannen, who's the link.

IG: 09:04
Of course.

CW: 09:19
She-she was a year behind me at Hunter, at Hunter and Harpur, so I knew her.

IG: 09:23
How interesting.

CW: 09:25
Yes-yes. So then, you know, so I think the time that I went to Harpur, there were a lot of kids there who could have gone to an Ivy, Ivy League school, but, you know, maybe did not qualify for a scholarship, and certainly parents could not afford it. I had my best friend in high school went to Cornell, and we were shocked that it was going to cost her $2,000 a year, you know, because people did not have that kind of money, you know. So-so I think that also made Harpur a kind of unique experience at the time that, you know, there were a lot of people there. Who were very bright, very bright, you know, and could have been in other places, but you know-

IG: 10:06
How did you choose? how did you end up choosing Harpur?

CW: 10:09
My father, who did not go to college, was very firm that I should go away to school, because he said to me that if you stay home, it is just going to be like an extension of high school. And quite frankly, you know, my policemen did not make much money in those days, not that we were, I mean, I never considered us poor, but we certainly, you know, could not have afforded $2,000 a year, you know, at Cornell so Binghamton Harpur offered, you know, a really good education. And, I mean, I think my, I think, was like $500 a year or something like that. And so, it was well within, you know, our means,

IG: 10:49
and you probably got a Regents scholarship. Do you remember?

CW: 10:52
I do not remember. I do not remember, to tell you the truth, but I probably did, I do not remember, I really do not remember, you know. And of course, it was, it was away, but close enough, you know, although, of course, you know, it is thinking back on it now, you know, we did not have cell phones and we did not have the internet, and, you know, I called my parents once a week on Sunday. You know, my mother and I wrote letters to each other, letters in envelopes and stamps. Nobody does that anymore, but that was the way, you know. So, in a way, it was good, especially if I am an only child. I think it was good for me because I really had to be on my own, so to speak, you know. And I think my father was absolutely right, you know, that it was good for me to-to get away and, you know, be on my own, because I was very spoiled. But, you know, managed. Okay.

IG: 11:40
Did you have an idea of what you wanted to accomplish at Harpur? Did you know-

CW: 11:45
I think in those days, one was not quite as fixated on education as the means to a job did you know?

IG: 11:54
Yes.

CW: 11:54
I mean, I graduated with a degree in humanities, you know, with English literature, and I went, you know, and I interviewed at like, five or six publishing companies. I mean, yes, they were, you know, jobs as secretaries. That is how you started in publishing. But they were there, you know. I mean, I- it was very different time in terms of the in terms of the opportunities that were available to people, especially people with liberal arts degrees. You know, I mean, I do not know what I would do now, you know-

IG: 12:24
[crosstalk] time when you could actually aspire, you know, to any right profession, to any [crosstalk]

CW: 12:31
I mean, I went into publishing because I had been an English major, and it just seemed like the natural thing to do. And my friend, Terry, whom I roomed with, was going to library school, she became a librarian, as a matter of fact, and wound up, ultimately-

IG: 12:45
What is her last name?

CW: 12:46
Now, Shorttail, she became, eventually, she went to work for the Public Library system in New York, and then eventually, when her husband worked for the New York Times in Washington, and they moved into Maryland, and she went and became, I think she, she became a librarian at University of Maryland, Baltimore campus, the one that, you know, the, I think it is the place that that just won that big, you know, NCAA title, or whatever. But anyway, she became a librarian, [crosstalk] we could do that. I mean, you know, my salary was like $85 a week. I took the job because it was $85 not $75 that everybody else was offering. And I do not know, I do not remember what she was making. She was working part time as a librarian, and but, you know, I mean, we paid $200 a month for a furnished apartment in Chelsea, which was not this fancy then as it is now. And, you know, we ate at home a lot, and we saved up enough money we gave a big party the first Christmas, we were, it was Christmas of (19)66 not (19)65, Christmas of (19)66. We had enough money saved up that we could, you know, kids cannot do that these days. You know, they are living in their parents’ basements. So we were, I think we were very fortunate.

IG: 14:00
Yeah, it is a different world. So, you know, in publishing, you worked as an um-

CW: 14:08
I work for the I started out at the McMillan company as assistant in the permissions department, and then I moved to the contracts department, and then I moved to the school book department as a kind of production editor assistant. Then I then that was, went right after that, but I took off the year and got a master's degree in at University of Toronto, came back and went to work for-for the Prentice Hall.

IG: 14:36
And as-as what?

CW: 14:38
As a production editor, you know.

IG: 14:38
As a production editor.

CW: 14:40
Yeah, right.

IG: 14:41
I know exactly what that is.

CW: 14:42
Oh, you do, okay, yes, words and I became the Prentice Hall at the time, did this series of books called spectrum books. You probably had them. You probably, well, maybe not, but they were paperbacks that were like supplement, supplementary text, you might say. So, we had like 20th century views, which was 20th century views of major authors, and [crosstalk] and we had a series on film, and a whole bunch of series, and I eventually became the sort of managing editor for the production editing department for for that. And then-

IG: 15:17
Interesting material.

CW: 15:19
Very interesting, very-very interesting and sideline. It is not really probably important for this, but many years later, when I had my church in map pack, my organist, who's actually a jazz musician, on how we got to talking about it, it turned out his father had been one of my authors, which was really weird. His father was an expert on Godard, and we had a book about a Godard [crosstalk]

IG: 15:42
[crosstalk] was interesting [crosstalk] So as a production editor, did you get to read this material?

CW: 15:51
Yes, well-

IG: 15:51
Were you just more interested in people-

CW: 15:55
Well, I mean, obviously we had, we had proof readers, and we had things like that. So, I was but I got very especially the film books. I got very interested in the film books, and I felt like I did more than just, you know, kind of shuffle traffic things around. And I had a lot of contact with the authors at that point. And then later became an editor at Prentice Hall, and what was then called their managed book division. Managed books- was a big thing in the (19)70s where you had a titular author, but you also did an enormous amount of research about what the other competing books were like, how much, how many words they how much space they gave to certain topics, and all of that. And so, I became a, became a development editor, and eventually became a development editor at at Harper and Roe, oh, I went to work very briefly for something called the Franklin Library. They did those leather-bound volumes, you know, that you see on people's shelves. And that was good because they paid a lot, which enabled me to get a job that paid more. So eventually, a man that I had known at Prentice Hall, who had gone to Harper and Roe in the College Division, hired me to be their-their development sort of head of their development department. And then-

IG: 17:16
What does the development [crosstalk]

CW: 17:17
Well, what we did was what we did was work. There was the odd quote author, and then there were also professional writers. And so, you-you arranged, you oversaw the research that was done for the book. You worked with the author, you know, on the outline and sort of work with you also arranged for, you know, professional reviews of the of the of the of the manuscript by, you know, other-other academics, and then sort of saw it through production. You were not the production editor, but you were the person in house that the production people worked with. But then eventually Harper and Roe had a terrible time with its biology editors. Two of them sort of failed quickly. At that point, they- we had a-a textbook for anatomy and physiology for two-year schools for people who are going to be eight, you know, not nurses. Well, could be for nursing, you know, could be for technicians. You know, whatever was the best-selling book in the department, and very expensive to do. Not only made a lot of money, but cost a lot of money

IG: 18:28
What were the years of doing this?

CW: 18:30
Oh, okay, I became the development, I became. So eventually, they asked me if I would be the acquisitions editor, the buyer for the biology list that was 1981 and they wanted me because I understood what it meant to do these lavishly illustrated, you know, books, and I had a good reputation for my dealings with authors, you know. And so, I did that for seven years, I guess. And then then became the Executive Editor for Sciences at Harper and Roe, and then left that in at the beginning of 1989

IG: 19:05
Did you have any science background?

CW: 19:09
But biology, unlike a lot of other sciences, you need to do these words, you know what I mean. And I had some really wonderful authors that I liked very much. And of course, I traveled around the country, you know, visiting, visiting university, you know, colleges and universities, and I really, I really enjoyed it a lot. But as I say, I eventually I had, I had my-my parents did not go to church, but they sent me to Presbyterian Sunday school. I went to Presbyterian Church all in high school, I went to Presbyterian church for the first two years I was at Harpur, and then my very best friend at Harpur, Susan Calkins. Now Susan Calkins, Ritas, was an Episcopalian, and I visited her during the summer between our sophomore and junior years, and she took me to church of the Advent in Boston, which is very famous for its high church liturgy and incense and smells and bells, as we say. And I was so swept away by the liturgy that I decided to become an Episcopalian on the spot. It was actually-actually confirmed while I was at Harpur. And uh-

IG: 20:16
So, tell us a little bit about that environment. And-

CW: 20:19
Yes, I mean, it was, it was not a lot of people went to church. I was, in some ways, sort of an oddball in the way, you know, I was president of the Student Government.

IG: 20:31
No, I did not.

CW: 20:32
Oh yes.

IG: 20:33
I did not know.

CW: 20:33
Yeah-yeah. I was the first woman elected to be President of the Student Government. That was in (19)64 and I am sorry, (19)63 and we-we had a group called Students for a Democratic community, which was a take-off on a democratic society. And this is just my opinion, check with other people. But I think one of the reasons that they, that group sort of nominated me to be President of the Student Government was because I was a good girl. Do you know what I mean, it was, I was the kind of person that the administration, if they did not like what STC was doing, they could not really fault me. Do you know what I am saying? Good, very good grades.


IG: 21:19
And maybe you were [crosstalk]

CW: 21:21
Yes, exactly. I mean, I believed in what stood for, but I was not personally a radical kind of person, you know what I mean? [crosstalk] So I was, I was kind of difficult to be sidelined because I was, you know, a rebel or, right, what you know, whatever. So anyway, but so, yeah, well, you know, at Harpur at that point, I think I can tell you a story that will give you an example that will kind of illustrate something of what it was like. I was thinking about this as I was thinking about coming here today. I had a friend. This is freshman year, I guess, or maybe sophomore year, I do not remember who lived in I lived in O'Connor. She lived in Johnson, and I used to go over there occasionally to visit her. And every time I went over there, one of the girls who lived on the floor was playing Johnny Mathis', Wonderful! Wonderful! 24 hours a day next door to me in O'Connor was living a girl who played Joan Baez, is House of the Rising Sun, 24 hours a day. And that was sort of what it was like. You know what I mean, we had very distinct groups. We did not call them hippies. We call them sickies, so, you know. And it was, you know, graduating in (19)65 the Vietnam War, we had, like, I think, one protest toward the very-very end of the time that we were there. So, we actually went to class. Do you know, do not, I am saying we did not? And you also have to remember, if you entered Harpur, I was like, 17, okay, in 1961 well, I had spent most of my formative years in the (19)50s, you know, we were kind of on a we were, in a way, a transition, I think, to what came later. And our thing was, really civil rights was a very big thing, civil rights club. We had a civil rights club. We also went to Buffalo to protest the hearings. HUAC had hearings about the State University. I think in Buffalo, we went to protest that.

IG: 23:27
What was thought about?

CW: 23:28
Well, you know, HUAC House, on American Activities Committee was looking into, I guess, what they thought were communists in the state universities.

IG: 23:35
Meaning the faculty[crosstalk]

CW: 23:36
Yeah, I would assume Buffalo, this is Buffalo. Buffalo, well-well, I think it was in our sophomore year that Buffalo joined the State University, you know, because originally Harpur was the only liberal arts school, and then buffalo joined, Stony Brook joined, and they converted Albany into from being a strictly teachers’ college into even what they call the university center that was also a liberal arts school. So, there were four of them liberal arts schools by the time we-we left. So anyway, we, you know, we protested about that. I think the only thing-

IG: 24:11
So, you were politicized?

CW: 24:12
Oh yes, we were, we were, but when you talk to people who graduated later, Vietnam was, there was a very big thing. It was not for us. No, it was. I mean, although I certainly had friends who-who you know when you know we were in the draft and you know or not and all that, but I think for us, civil rights was probably the biggest thing, because you have to understand that we were in in school during the height of the Civil Rights Movement. I mean, Martin Luther King's, you know, the speech in Washington, the Civil Rights Act, the voting right wrote Rights Act, all of that was and we did have people who went south in the summer, you know, to teach and demonstrate and-and whatever. So that was very important. The only thing that really stopped classes for us was Kennedy's death. Of course, Kennedy died while we were there. And-and, of course, the Cuban Missile Crisis was in the fall of our son is in the fall of our sophomore.

IG: 25:13
What did you think about that?

CW: 25:14
Well, we actually watched it on television, and we did not have to understand, in the dorms, you know. So, they had, they had it, yeah, they brought in the TV. They brought in a TV for The Beatles too, [laughs]

IG: 25:29
On the Ed Sullivan Show.

CW: 25:30
On The Ed Sullivan Show, yes, we watched it. And, of course, for Kennedy's funeral. I mean, you know. So no, I think people you know, thought that conceivably, that for the Cuban Missile Crisis, that this could have been World War three, you know. And who knows what would have happened, especially being in New York. I mean, we all grew up, you know, with the duck and cover drills when it was just so ridiculous, [crosstalk] especially in New York, come on.

IG: 26:01
But this was the thing the past at Harpur College. None of, none of the drills [crosstalk]

CW: 26:07
We had grown up-

IG: 26:08
I understand.

CW: 26:08
-you know, we had grown up with the idea that the Russians were going to come and bomb us, do you know? And I mean, blow us up.

IG: 26:14
But did you believe that?

CW: 26:16
I think as a child, I remember we went on a summer vacation, and we went to Gettysburg. We saw the, you know, the battlefield at Gettysburg and the ray caverns. And we were coming back, and we're staying overnight in this motel someplace in Pennsylvania, I guess. And in the middle of the night, a siren went off, and I thought it was an atomic attack. Of course, it was the volunteer fire department. You know, so, you know, we grew up with the notion that the siren was going to go off and, you know, the bomb was going to come down. Of course, my father, when I was in junior high school, we had early dismissal drills. Instead of the duck and cover, we had an early dismissal drill so you could go home and die with your family. And I always thought, Well, my father's a cop. He was not going to be home. No, so anyway. But it was, I think, you know, things that would seem petty. Now, like, you know, we had a demonstration against the rule against wearing shorts in the dining but it was, it was very much a part of that development of the 60s mentality.

IG: 27:29
Right. And yet, and yet, you know, you, you participated in the duck and cover. I know that everyone did. And you believe that, you know, the Soviets were possibly a threat [crosstalk] And you were also, well, my protesting at Buffalo against you are, yes, so how does that? How does that kind of there? There must have been some kind of transition in awareness and political awareness.

CW: 27:52
Yeah, I think, I think also now I grew up my father, who was not he was a cop, but we are not Irish, and we were not Catholic. And he was a Republican, very unusual. So- but, you know, as, of course, you know, Kennedy was elected when I was in high school. And I think, you know, that was sort of the beginning of-of more of a political, you know, awareness, and I never voted for Republican in my life. I voted for a Democrat. I voted the first vote I ever cast was in 1965 in New York City for John Lindsay as the mayor my father hated and so, you know, I voted for Lindsay. I got my mother to vote for Lindsay, you know, so, I mean, I was, I was more of a, I was a Democrat, you know, fairly early on right now. And I think at Harpur, you know, there were a lot of people who were very politically aware and very politically active. And of course, you know, I fell in with that group.

IG: 29:01
Do you think that you're thinking altered about the world and how you perceive politics in the world at Harpur College? Or did it occur before?

CW: 29:11
Probably it became- yeah, I would, I would say yes. I would say that I met more people in at Harpur who were politically active than I had certainly ever met at Hunter High School. I do not think, I do not remember people being especially politically active, although, you know, at Hunter especially, and probably also at Harpur. At Hunter, there were a number of girls whose families had been--two of two of my best friends at Harpur were from Latvia and had been displaced persons after the war, and whose parents had been whose-whose father stayed behind in order to get his wife and children out and other--we had a girl from the Ukraine. We had girl. We had people, you know, who were whose lives, families' lives, certainly if not their own. Because I am most of my classmates were born in (19)43 or (19)44 so we're talking about people who were born during the war, especially if you were born of European parents, either your parents were refugees or, you know, or you were yourself, I mean, in some way, as an infant, anyway. So, I think that I was certainly conscious of political developments. We had a course at Hunter I remember in my senior year about the developing nations of Africa, do you know? And so, you know, I think one was aware, but I was not, I was not really an adult at that point. I think, you know, at Harpur, you became an adult, and I think that made a difference also.

IG: 30:53
And you gravitated to political activity because of the seeds that were planted early on-

CW: 31:00
Yeah, I think so. And just because of the friends that I made at Harpur. You know, my friend Susan Calkins, it was, I said it was my very best friend. Was very politically active, and still is, for that matter. So, you know, I-

IG: 31:15
What kind of, do you remember the kind of conversations that you would have?

CW: 31:18
I am sorry, I do not.

IG: 31:20
You do not of course. I know, I know [crosstalk] You know what you know a question I thought of you went you mentioned that you went to seminary at age 60.

CW: 31:33
Yes.

IG: 31:34
How was that experience different from attending college at 17?

CW: 31:39
Yeah, well, last time before I went to before I went to seminary in 2004. I had not been in a formal classroom since 1968 when I got my master's degree at Toronto. So I was, just, say, a little bit apprehensive about how this was going to go. And of course, the technology was entirely different, you know. So anyway, got into class. Now a lot of a lot of people were also people who had had other careers. So, although I was among the oldest in the group that I was in, you know, a lot of people were in their 40s and 50s, but we had some people who were in their 20s, you know, and 30s, and we had a lot of good laughs, I have to say, because our life experiences had been so-so different. I remember in my Old Testament class, my Old Testament professor, who was probably in his 40s at that point, was very big on bringing in examples from current culture, especially music. And he was into the discussion. And he was very big on multicultural interpretations in the Bible. He was originally his family was Korean, I think yes. So anyway, he would bring in these references to these groups that I must confess I had never heard because, you know, music is the great divider.

IG: 32:57
Of course.

CW: 32:58
Until one day in class, he said something about Simon and Garfunkel and all of us of a certain age, clap. [laughter] But I really, I really enjoyed seminary. I enjoy, I always enjoyed school. I mean, you know, class and all of that, and it was nice. It was like using a different part of my brain and taking a rest from all the other things that I had ever done. And as I said, you know, we, especially some of the younger kids in the in the class, we really appreciated each other, I think, you know, so it was, it was, it was good. I was I was really because it was funny when I, when I was accepted into the ordination process for the priesthood. I never expected that the bishop would say to me, you have to leave New York. But he was right, because I had been working for the diocese for so long, and I never would have gotten away from it, you know. And he had been the dean at Seabury Western before he became the Bishop of New York. So, he said to me, "How about Seabury?" And I had, I had promised myself that whatever he said, whatever it took, I would do it. And so, I picked up all my stuff and the cats, and I moved out to Evanston for two years. So.

IG: 34:10
You mentioned attending Presbyterian Church in Binghamton.

CW: 34:15
Yes.

IG: 34:15
What was that like? Were there students, or was it-

CW: 34:18
There were few students. I mean, the problem was, if you look at our yearbook, there was a group called Young Americans for Freedom, which was sort of the Goldwater type. And I was not like them at all, you know, just not like them at all. [crosstalk] No, not particularly my church. But I just meant being-being known as a Protestant that went to church, you know, right, a little right chance I always thought. But then, when I went, when I be, when I decided to go to the Episcopal Church, my friend Susan was there. And so it was, you know, I felt more-more comfortable.

IG: 34:54
And where was the church?

CW: 34:56
And it was in John, actually, the church I went to that I was confirmed at was in Johnson City. There was also a church in Binghamton that we went to occasionally. So, in fact, I went because when I was confirmed, my family was not there. The rector of the church invited me to come to dinner, and I had dinner with his family and the bishop, Bishop Higley, his name was, who was the Bishop of Central New York, who confirmed me, so, yeah.

IG: 35:22
Was there a great division between town and gown, between the student community and Binghamton [inaudible]

CW: 35:32
Yeah, probably, I think, you know, do not forget, we did not have cars.

IG: 35:38
So how did you get around?

CW: 35:39
Well, eventually a bus. I mean, some people did, right, very-very few, eventually they ran a bus line that came up into the campus. So, you know, you did not, I mean, except, you know, to go to, you know, to go out on a Friday night or something like that. You really did not get into town, into town, per se. I mean, I was not, I did not feel very aware of Binghamton. Do you know what I mean, as a town, and there were, there were some people who lived, I mean, other than students who lived in Binghamton, but I mean people who were from Binghamton, who were in in school, but there were not that many. I did not, I do not think I could be wrong about that, but I do not think there were that many. And do not forget how small Harpur was also at that point, when I graduated, there were 900 people there.

IG: 36:24
Oh, my God, so I did not, yes, I did not realize that small. Because-

CW: 36:29
Yes, absolutely, in fact, our last year there was the first year that that they had graduate, any kind of graduate enrollment. But yes, oh, 100 students, roughly when we graduated. So, I mean, like, for example, I went to all of the reunion, all the 10-year reunions, you know, and when we had the 40th, the place had changed, but they were still, think I still recognized it when we went back and, you know, in 2005 for the for the 50th, or 2015 I should say, for the 50th, we could not find our way. We could not find our way around. It was just totally different.

IG: 36:29
And now there are three campuses.

CW: 36:31
Oh, really?

IG: 36:31
In Johnson City, there is the schools of pharmacology and nursing.

CW: 37:12
Oh, yes. And of course, there were no professional schools at that point.

IG: 37:20
[inaudible] professional it was a liberal arts. So let us talk about your education.

CW: 37:26
Oh, yes.

IG: 37:26
Did you remember any outstanding classes faculty made a particular [crosstalk]

CW: 37:33
Yeah, well, as you know, but when we were there, there was still a number of faculty who had been part of the sort of University of Chicago group you know that-

IG: 37:42
Yes, I heard about that.

CW: 37:44
-because, you know, Bartle had hired all these people from, more or less from the University of Chicago, and the curriculum was really more or less based on this model of the great books, you know. So, for example, we had, you know, two years of what they call lit and comp literature and composition, where you read something and you wrote about it. Essentially, I had, I had placed out of the first year for my AP course, so I started in the second year. And it is interesting because I had also placed out of a year of history, and I was not sure at that point whether I was going to be a history major or an English major. And I just, I remember Mario DiCesare taught the comp course that I took, and I thought he was so wonderful. And unfortunately, the history teacher that I had was not as good, so I sort of opted into English. And, you know, we had Dr. Huppe [Bernard Huppe], who taught, who taught Chaucer, I mean, who was a legend. And I do not know the I thought the English faculty was especially strong at that point. So, and then I also took German and for three years, and the German faculty was good. So, you know, that is, those are the things I remember the most.

IG: 38:57
Did you have anything similar to an immersion? Did you speak program in German? Did you speak German outside of the class?

CW: 39:05
No, I did not. I did not. I have a girl, woman that I roomed with at the very beginning. She and I had both gone to Hunter. She became a German major, and I am sure she had more, you know, than that. But I really liked German. I have to say,

IG: 39:20
It was a language lab.

CW: 39:23
We had a language lab. We listened and we spoke, yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, we spoke in class. But it was more it was not. It was, I mean, conversation was not the sort of main thing of the course. The more it was a literature it was really reading, you know,

IG: 39:24
Reading and discussing.

CW: 39:29
Yes.

IG: 39:31
English?

CW: 39:41
Right-right. You know, well, I remember very distinctly what the Hunger Artist by Franz Kafka, which is strange enough, when you read it in English, but when you are a student and you are reading it in German, you are saying that cannot be what it is you know-know, so, and, of course, poetry Heine and, I mean, German poetry is really beautiful. Yeah, I still have, I still have my German poetry book at home, you know. So, yeah, so it was more literature based than actually, than conversation, you know, at least what I what I did. I mean, there may have been a conversational German, course, I do not remember if it was.

IG: 40:23
How did you spend your free time? You were part of the student-

CW: 40:27
So, well, the senior, but my, you know, junior, senior year, being in, being involved with-with student government, that took up a lot of time. I do not, I do not really. Now, you know, when we first moved in the dorms were not finished all of them, and so we tripled up. So, I was in with two senior girls my for the first, like, first semester. But I do not remember what we did other than, I mean, you know, the curriculum was, was, you know, was strenuous. It was not, you know, you could not just sort of look at something the night before a test. And, you know, and that was it. And we wrote a lot of papers, I mean, a lot of papers. And, oh yes, actually, in my junior-junior year, yes, junior year, we started a magazine called The Humanities Review, and I was- Bob Posick was the editor, I think, and Francis Newman was the faculty advisor. His sister was in my class, by the way, Frances new or the class after us. I cannot remember. Francis Newman was the faculty advisor, and I-I was something. Maybe I typed it. I cannot remember, but I remember, yes-yes, the humanities review I was involved with that.

IG: 41:54
I wonder if it still exists. I heard of it.

CW: 41:57
Oh yeah, I do not know what happened after we graduated to tell you the truth.

IG: 42:02
But, and what kind of, what kind of articles did it run? Do you remember?

CW: 42:07
I do not. I do not really remember [crosstalk]

IG: 42:07
Was student writing?

CW: 42:07
Well, there was student writing, yeah, I think mostly, I think it was mostly student writing. I cannot honestly remember to tell you the truth, right? And, you know, we had a lot of creative people, you know, Andy Bergman. And Bergman, who was the movie person was, and his best friend, Richie Walter, became the head of the UCLA Film-Film School. So, they were and another guy in the class, Alan Goldsmith, he was the he was the editor of the yearbook. I got in terrible trouble. If you look at the (19)64 yearbook, you can see why it was very different, very different from anything that that had been and then, you know, you know, we have what it was also interesting was that, for example, Mike Tillis, who was part of the STC, you know, sort of what you would call hippie group. Also played basketball, which, you know, we do not think of that, but he did. He is now a rabbi, by the way, in Israel, Orthodox rabbi in Israel changed his name, yeah, I have not he wrote in Israel. He is in Israel. He is an orthodox rabbi. Now you would never have guessed. Never in 1 million years, have guessed. Everybody went to the basketball games. I mean, everybody that was the big sport. We also interesting enough had soccer because [inaudible], I think was his name-

IG: 43:36
Did girls play?

CW: 43:37
I do not remember. I know the boys played. But I do not remember the girls played. But we had a soccer team because we had a kid from Norway who had played soccer in nor you know, at home, and you know, he played. So.

IG: 43:52
Were there any other international students?

CW: 43:54
I was just about to say, yes, there was one poor boy from Africa who came.

IG: 43:59
I think I have heard about this poor boy from any [crosstalk]

CW: 44:01
He thought it was going to be close to New York City. [crosstalk] Yes, I cannot, I cannot remember his name now, but I felt so sorry for him because, I mean, he was all we were all white. I mean, you know, almost, almost all white. But you know, it is like, [crosstalk] like when I was, I say, when I was in, when I was in public school in the Bronx, my entire public school-school was white. There were no black kids when I was in junior high school in the same basic neighborhood, there was like two black girls now, Hunter was more it was more diverse because we had girls from all over the city. Do you know what I mean? So, we had, we had, you know, black girls, we had Asian girls, we had girls, you know, whose families, you know, were refugees. You know. I mean, it was we and we had girls. It was not only diverse, although the majority were white, but there was enough. Significant number of non-whites that you-you know, it was diverse. But the other thing that was really diverse about-about Hunter was the economic background of students, because we had girls who lived on Park Avenue, girls were on welfare. And then a girl who's who lived on Park Avenue, because her father was the superintendent of the building, you know, on Park Avenue. So, it was and everything in between.

IG: 45:25
And you have, you did not have that economic diversity at Harpur?

CW: 45:29
I do not think so. I do not, I do not think so.

IG: 45:31
What about the Upstate students versus the New York City, or they were all from kind of a [crosstalk]

CW: 45:38
Well, there was a, yeah, I mean, the mid there was probably what, 60 percent of the students were from New York City, I think. I mean, it was an overwhelming number. And I remember meeting a girl who had gone, who was from upstate somewhere, who had never met a Jew before in her life, you know, so it was, you know what it was. And as I say, there was another girl who was, who was on, came to Harpur, probably had been, you know, in the honor roll in her high school started was getting D's because she had never done the same kind of work. You know, it was not that she was stupid. She was not she transferred to Fredonia; I think it was--got on the Dean's list. So, you know, it was very different. You know, Harpur was really different than because everything else was a State Teachers College. And I do not mean to say that all the Upstate kids were like that, but there were a number of people who, just because of the kinds of schools they went to, did not have the opportunities that, like, say, I had, you know, and of course, we had kids from city, kids who were from Hunter, who were from Bronx Science, who were from Stuyvesant, who were from Brooklyn Tech, you know. I mean, you know, it was a there were some people from elite kind of high schools that public, you know, very few private school people, I think, but public.

IG: 45:38
What were some of your best experiences at Harpur College? What do you remember with the most fondness?

CW: 46:11
I do not know that I remember any individual experiences, but you know, there are people that I met there, like Terry and like Susan and like Bob Freeston and Ryan Goldsmith and Andy Bergman and people, just people who were really interesting and really creative, and we had fun. Do you know what I mean? We had; we had a good time. We worked hard, but we had a good time. I do not, I do not remember anything, you know, a particular occasion, but I was very happy at Harpur. Do you know what I mean? I was really, really glad that I went there. Now, not everybody was. I had a couple of people. One girl who, you know, transferred out after her freshman year, went back to the city because she just missed New York, you know, more than anything else. And I think she was also very young. And I think that was also hard being away from home, and you know, all of that.

IG: 48:04
So, do you think that, you know, maybe Hunter College kind of set the level of your political engagement at Harpur College?

CW: 48:20
I do not know; I really would not say that. I think what it did set was the level of my ability to take advantage of the of the of the education that was there, you know that really and truly, even if I had to choose, I would have to say that Hunter changed my academic life more than more than Harpur did, just because it, it was sort of like I went to Hunter for three years, 10th grade to 12th grade. It was like three additional years of Harpur educationally, you know, I mean the level of what you, what you, you know, the kind of education you got.

IG: 48:59
Did you notice that there were different expectations for men than there were for women at Harpur College? I think maybe not for you, because you have a Hunter College experience.

CW: 49:10
Yeah-yeah. I never felt that. For me personally, there was any difference. And of course, at Hunter, almost all the teachers were women. I mean, we had a couple of men, but three or four, I guess at Harpur, they were mostly men. I am, in fact, I think, actually, in my entire four years there, I do not think I had a single woman as a teacher. I think all of my teachers were men. I do not remember any woman, and I think I would, because they should have stood out, and there were women there, certainly, but-but I, you know, it is funny, I do not think we were aware of it, do you know, because that is just the way. It is just the way things were. But I do not, I never felt at all that I was, you know, discriminated against, or-or somehow, you know, not appreciate. Educated or whatever, being a woman, I really did not you know it was interesting, because when I got out of school and I went, I remember this one very distinctly, interview for a job, $75 a week, a publishing company, which name I have forgotten now. And I went, and it was an assistant kind of job, which they all were. And so, I said to the person that I interviewed with, and "Could you tell me what the you know, what are the opportunities, you know, for advancement?" They said, "Oh, do not worry about it all. The girls get married and have babies." Well, nobody would say that today. And I did not go there, not because of that. Well, that was part of it, not because of what he said about women, but just because he more or less said, there is no opportunity for advancement. I mean, you know, but also because, as I said, they were paying $75 a week, and I found a job for 85 you know, so in a department run by a woman, by the way, which was interesting now that I think of it. But anyway, no-no, I did not feel it. Now, you might get an entirely different, you know, experience from somebody else. But I-I was, I was never shy. Let us put it that way, in class, ever.

IG: 49:11
How do you think your classmates would remember you me [inaudible] period?

CW: 49:11
Me?

IG: 49:11
Yes,

CW: 50:28
Probably as a good girl. I think probably somebody intelligent and, you know, and to a certain extent, I was, I was a leader, but I do not, I did not feel and being the first woman elected as the president of the Student Government, which I suppose, was a big deal, but it did not seem all that big at the time, you know. So, I enjoyed our 50th reunion, I have to say.

IG: 50:47
Were they astonished to learn that you had become a priest?

CW: 50:52
No, because I had been, I was, I was ordained 25 years ago to the diaconate. 26 years ago, to the diaconate. So, I had already been to reunions where I was in an ordained life. So, it was not that, it was not that strange. But the funny thing was, when we did our 50th reunion, Jeanette Mayer Luzasky put together this video, you know, for our and she asked me if I would be the narrator, because they figured I was not afraid about getting up in front of people and talking. Since I did that all the time, you know, and I have never been afraid of public speaking. We had, I remember when we were when we had the race for the USG president, it was Richie Walter and Jesse, something or other, and myself, and I have always been good on my feet, do you know? And so, I think I kind of surprised people and maybe surprise myself at, you know, being able to sort of hold my own, you know. And Richie was very, very bright, you know, very smart and very quick. So. And then, of course, when I was in publishing, when I was when I was in the acquisitions part, I had to do sales meeting presentations, which I have always said was one of the best [crosstalk]

IG: 53:03
What do you think owes to that ability to speak?

CW: 53:06
I have never. I have I do not know why, but I have never been shy about it. When I was in the sixth grade for our graduation, I had to recite Emma Lazarus poem, you know, in front of the whole auditorium, and I was fine with it. Just never was afraid of it. I do not know why. Maybe because my parents, my parents were very encouraging. Do you know what I mean? They always sort of thought I could do anything. And I think you feel that when you know, when you are a kid, if you are you know, if you get that kind of support,

IG: 53:37
Right. If you get that kind of support, I, for one, have acted on the stage. I have no fear, all right about and yet, public speaking is a very different matter.

CW: 53:50
Yeah, what was good, was good training for preaching. [laughs]

IG: 53:53
It was very [inaudible] Do you ever look back on your years in college to draw lessons that you want to impart to your children today. Do you ever look back at yourself during those years and draw material for your service?

CW: 54:12
I do not know. Not-not necessarily. No, I do not, I do not remember. I do not think I do that, but I do. I do look back and I think how fortunate I was to be able to get a first-class education without bankrupting the family. Of course, no debt. I mean, we did not have debt. Then thank you. You know, I have, I tried to take out, I took out a loan when I went to seminary, and, you know, so I now paying off a student loan, but I never had any of that before. My entire education was practically free. I mean, up until seminary and University of Toronto, I got a I got a scholarship there, so that also helped, and it was not that expensive either. I think I just, I was glad for the people that I met. I was glad for the good, very good, you know, teachers. That I had, and just forgetting, frankly, for having a liberal arts education, I really, I find it, you know, kind of sad that children, practically in preschool, have to choose a career, you know, and all they are doing is being trained like, pardon me, seals, to do something. And you know that to me, that that was not what education was for. I mean, it was, you know, when we were, you know, young kids, young adults, it was kind of the last time that you could just do something because you wanted to do it. Do, you know, they did not, you did not have to do it because it meant you could get a promotion, or you did not have to do it, because this was part of the job, whether you liked it or not. I mean, you know, and-and you had a chance to maybe explore and learn things that you did not even know, you did not know, [laughs] which-

IG: 54:13
Small college community yes were given that opportunity.

CW: 54:13
Yes. And, of course, the other thing is, and I asked this question when we went to the 50th reunion, because now that Harpur has, what, 16,000 students, or something like that, that is everybody. It is not just the undergraduate. But, you know, the classes that we took were taught by full professors. We did not have TAs you know what I mean, we did not. I mean, yes, they were large lectures, but even the discussion classes were led by real faculty members, you know, and I always felt that. And I asked the president of they had a question-and-answer thing. I said, you know, that was one of the great things. In fact, both Susan Calkins had gone to Purdue for the first year, I think, and-and-and Terry Shortell had gone to Penn State, they both transferred in. And one of the reasons they transferred in was they said we were in these huge rooms, but the professor was way down there, and all we saw were teaching assistants, you know. So, I mean, in that one-on-one interaction, and I always thought that that was one of the best features of the Harpur that I knew was that you really got the benefit of up-close work with somebody, you know, and-

IG: 54:13
Probably after class extracurricularly-

CW: 54:49
Yeah, to a certain extent, but yes to a certain extent. But I think that was important. I really do. I think that, you know, it was a, it was a really good liberal arts education, and I was very glad that I had it.

IG: 55:31
What-what are, what were some, you know, life lessons that you can share with I know that that the educational experience now is very different than when it was in your time. But what advice can you give to-

CW: 55:31
Oh my God, you are going to miss your train.

IG: 56:56
Oh-oh.

CW: 56:56
What time, what time is your train, 4:57?

IG: 57:25
4:57.

CW: 57:25
We are not going to make it.

IG: 57:25
We are not going to. I will take the next [inaudible]

CW: 57:25
What-what time is it, you know?

IG: 57:25
I will have to [inaudible]

CW: 57:25
I guess, I guess, the thing I would say is, you know, and obviously we, most people, especially these days, start out with an idea of where they are going, you know. And I would just say, be open to the possibility that you may change your mind and to not just you know, not just to take you know, courses that you think fit in with this career that you have chosen for yourself, but maybe take something that is a bit of a more of a challenge, or just that might interest you for some reason that you know, you know, because, as I say, it is probably the last opportunity to kind of just do something because you want to right now, and not because it is necessarily prescribed. I mean, I have no idea what the you know, how much, how many required courses there are these days and how they you know, because we had sort of two years basic education, and then from then on, it was kind of what you want, you know, what you chose to do, you know, with distribution requirements and that sort of thing. But I would, you know, I think that would be my major advice is to, you know, try things out while you are there. You know, while you have the chance to do it before. You know, you have to support yourself, and you have to support a family or something like that. You know.

IG: 57:25
Do you have any concluding remarks?

CW: 59:22
No, as I, as I said, I am very I am very grateful for the for the experience, the education and the experience that I had at Harpur, and for the people that I met and the faculty members that I met, and, you know, to be able to have a first-class education within the means of someone, you know, who's not well and does not have to come out with this. There were no, there were no debts then. But I mean, in other words, that the opportunity was there and you were not constrained by, oh, I cannot afford that. You know, that was, I think that I felt that that was really. Really important that it was a really first-class education that did not, you know, bankrupt my parents so and, you know, again, having the residential experience, I think, was also very important to, you know, really sort of be, you know, with people, and also you know, you know, as an only child, I sort of had to learn to take care of myself, and you know, and I did, basically.

IG: 1:00:31
Thank you very much.

CW: 1:00:32
You are very welcome. Thank you.

(End of Interview)

2018-03-19

Irene Gashurov

1965

Reverend Canon Claudia Wilson

Reverend Claudia is a semi-retired priest at St. John’s Episcopal Church in Yonkers. Before her ordination into the priesthood, she worked in publishing. At Harpur College, she was the first woman elected head of SDC (Students for Democratic Change), the progressive student government.

Audio

Harpur College – Sixties alumni; Harpur College – Student Associations, Students for Democratic Change; Harpur College – Alumni in the Episcopal Church; Harpur College – Alumni in Publishing; Harpur College – Alumni living in Yonkers, NY

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Harpur College – Sixties alumni; Harpur College – Student Associations, Students for Democratic Change; Harpur College – Alumni in the Episcopal Church; Harpur College – Alumni in Publishing; Harpur College – Alumni living in Yonkers, NY