| Chapter 1: | H’Doubler on H’Doubler |
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Her recounting has the edgy suspense of all good tales. One can almost hear her skill in storytelling in her choice of words and the ways in which she leads her audience onward. It is the only extemporaneous account that survives describing her story solely in her own words and without the prompting of a questioner. In an introductory statement, Miss H’Doubler honors the people she is about to address.
When I was a student at the University, I was a biology major myself, and I also feel that there is much that we owe and must always remember through interest and loyalty and the energy and devotion that the students have given to the work. To tell you how it all happened, I’ll tell you what happened to me. I’ll begin way back at the beginning because I hardly know myself how I got into it. When I came into the University, 1906, I had come from a small town and it was a small town that had no gymnasium, nothing at all available for any type of activity.
And when I came into the University and was put into the physical education department where we all had to take something. I loved it. I said, “I know now what I’m going to do. I’m going to be a gym teacher.” And at that time, we didn’t have Lathrop Hall. What there was of a gymnasium was the back part of Chadbourne Hall. Now, Chadbourne Hall was where it was [on the northwest corner of Park Street and University Avenue in Madison], and it was very limited in what it had to offer. We had dumbbells and Indian clubs, and I loved it and when I went home and said I was going to be a gym teacher—that’s what we called it in those days—my parents were very wise and said as there wasn’t really any major course [in Physical Education, established as a major program in 1911], I should try to get a course made out for me that would give me some background for further study. So that was how I happened to be biology major, chemistry minor, and philosophy minor.