Georgia Dentel and Grinnell Concerts History, 1960-2001 - Interviews

Morgan Smith: All right. So thank you so much for being interviewed. We're so happy to have you interviewing with us. I'm just going to do a little bit of housekeeping. The following interview was conducted with Dr. Jim Kissane on behalf of the Georgia Dentel Project for the Grinnell Concerts, Georgia Dentel and Student Life in History and Memory Project. It took place on June 25th, 2025 via phone call. I'm Morgan Smith, the interviewer.

And before we properly start the interview, I just want to confirm for the record that the legal release form was completed and sent off to us.

James Kissane: Morgan, you've got to talk a little bit slower, I'm afraid.

Morgan Smith: I just wanted to confirm that you had sent the legal release to us, just for the record.

James Kissane: Say again?

Morgan Smith: I just wanted to confirm that the legal release form had been sent to us, just for the record.

James Kissane: Yes. Oh, yes. Perfectly.

Morgan Smith: Yes.

James Kissane: Perfectly agreeable to that.

Morgan Smith: All right. So could you please introduce yourself? What is your name, your class year, your role, your former role at the college, and where do you live now?

James Kissane: My name is James Kissane. I- What was the rest I was supposed to come up with Morgan?

Morgan Smith: Class year, you're an alum, right?

James Kissane: What did you... I'm a graduate of Grinnell College from the year 1952. I've been a member of the faculty from 1956 to, well, it's a little bit hard to count it because some of that time I was here in Athens, Georgia, but I was officially still in the employ of Grinnell College, finishing up some work that I was doing.

Morgan Smith: I see.

And then could you describe what your role in relation to, like, concerts and student life was on campus? Just briefly.

James Kissane: Well, a number of times I served on a committee that was made up largely with faculty people and helped Georgia Dentel and others with the selection and all the other responsibilities that go with bringing works, mostly musical events, concerts and the like to the college. I don't remember whether that might have included something like a theatrical production. It seems to me that was at times part of what we worked with, part of what was called public events. There were, as I recall it, there were really two branches of that. One was mostly in the hands of student members and the other was not exclusively faculty, I think. I think we had a contribution from student members, but it was known as a public events committee in the times that I served on it. And I did a number of different years.

Morgan Smith: Yeah. We're just kind of going through some kind of contextual things. Do you have any moments that you could think of that would be one of your favorite parts of your time at Grinnell, if there's any big standout you can think of?

James Kissane: [Beep] Was that somebody trying to get on?

Morgan Smith: I don't think so. I'm not sure what it was.

James Kissane: Well, I'm talking to you through my cell phone, and there may be an interruption, but we'll hope not. Now, some of my favorite memories of my service on the Public Events Committee.

Morgan Smith: Just at Grinnell, but you're certainly welcome to focus on the committee if you'd like.

James Kissane: Well, I certainly have one because it had lots of aspects. And that was the time that Georgia and the person who helped her sort of buttoned down the contract arrangements, someone whose name was Mariedi Anders, as I remember. She wasn't an employee of the college, but she worked out of, I think, someplace in the San Francisco area. But her name, Mariedi Anders, you should probably check that to make sure of how it's spelled and so on.

Morgan Smith: Yeah, I believe you mentioned in your letter to Georgia that she sent us.

James Kissane: Maybe I've got it right in that letter that I sent to Georgia years ago. But you've seen that, and I think I sent it to Sarah- Sarah Purcell.

Well, to get back to the episode of the appearance of the Academy of St. Martins in the Field string quartet, this was a chamber group that was formed out of the Academy of St. Martins in the Fields Orchestra, a London-based entity. And there were eight of these people, all men, as I recall. And they came to Grinnell on a tour of this country. And I think they also had an engagement in one of the Canadian places. But they came and gave us a fine concert. They probably had somewhere in the archives what it contained, but they almost always played the Mendelssohn octet. That's a standby, I think, of string octets. There aren't a whole lot of string octets in the world, but The Mendelssohn is a famous one, and that was sort of a standard of their repertoire. At any rate, after their concert, which they did some things that didn't include the whole composition of the group, not the whole octet, as I recall. They would play other chamber works. But the Mendelssohn was the big piece. Then after a reception that we had for them, I think at our house, but I could be wrong about that. It might have been Grinnell House. Then we said goodnight to them, and they were staying at the Motel Grinnell. And we learned the next day from somebody in the music department that one of the cellists in the octet, whose name I have to remember was Dennis Vigay, Dennis' cello had been stolen. He came back to the motel tired from a long day and an exhausting concert. and leaned his instrument, his cello, up against the wall of the motel. It was inside, it was along the hall next to his room. And then I guess he must have misremembered that he had put his cello inside. At any rate, at some point in the next morning, when he remembered that where the cello might be, it was gone. Somebody had taken it and word got out and it was to everybody's dismay. Mariedi Anders was contacted. What the octet could do to borrow a cello, they borrowed I think some Mr. Vigay had a cello borrowed from somebody in Iowa City at the music department because they had a concert the next day over at the University of Iowa. And I remember my wife Nancy and I went over to hear that and to, well, just to send some kind of sympathetic support and to see if there was anything in the world that we could do. As members of this faculty committee or public events committee. And the next thing I heard was the next morning that the cello had been found. It was brought to, I think, the Montezuma Sheriff's Office by somebody who, a farmer out in that area near Grinnell, had been working in his cornfield and found this big, as he said, a big fiddle. Yknow in a very hard, ideal traveling case, sturdy and appropriately designed, I suppose to withstand all the knocks of who knows what happens in a traveling musician's life. So, I remember going down to Montezuma with some member of the English, of the music department, I think it must have been. Oh, Terry King comes to mind, but that's... Well, anyway, we got to Montezuma and the person in the music department opened up the case and found it was still in perfect tune, of all things. So that was a word was sent to the members of the octet, wherever they were. They were continuing their tour after they played in Iowa City. And by that time they were, I think, out in Washington or perhaps Vancouver, Canada. But to make a long story a little less long, the next question was how do we get this recovered cello to Mr. Vigay? And it so happened that they were making a change of planes on their return to London. they were going to be briefly on this change of planes stop at Minneapolis, at the Minneapolis airport. And it was pretty obvious that, well, you have to pay full fare to make a cello of that value travel because it has to be treated almost like a passenger. So instead of going that route, my wife and I were happy to take on the burden of, which was really just an extension for us of the whole adventure, to drive the cello the next morning up to Minneapolis, which we did and we met the quartet. All eight of these musicians getting off the plane and looking around and glad to see us and Dennis's cello. And Dennis was a little bit nonplussed as I recall. He was not as outgoing as some of the other members of the quartet and probably embarrassed some ways by the whole episode. But one of the, I think the violist, he was a Welshman, and a little bit more outgoing than Dennis. I can still see this man dancing over to Mr. Vigay's cello and embracing it very dramatically. At any rate, we had a good time wishing them well on the rest of their journey and headed back to Grinnell. And that's really not the end of the story because it so happened that a year or so later, Nan and I were in London. I don't think it was on Grinnell in London, which we've been on twice. We were there for other purposes and we made it a point to go to a concert by the whole group of the octet. I mean that the octet was part of it. It was the orchestra of the Academy of St. Martin's in the field, but the personnel of the octet were still part of that orchestra. So we got tickets and showed up at it. And I wrote a note and sent it to the green room during the intermission of their concert to Mr. Vigay saying that we could report that as we listened and enjoyed the concert, we were happy to say that Dennis Vaigay's cello sounded perfectly fine, considering it had spent the night in an Iowa cornfield. And in the second part of the program, we could see Mr. Vigay sort of scanning the audience and to see if he could find the familiar faces or whether they were still familiar or not, just looking at who was out there and who had sent them the note. But of course, I signed it, and I suppose that the whole misadventure was fairly clear in his mind. Well, I'm making too long a story on this, but...

Morgan Smith: Great story.

James Kissane: That was... That was really the end of the story. We were very happy to meet the whole group in the green room after the concert and, you know, sort of... enjoyed seeing them again in such different circumstances and they introduced us to the the soloist of the night and who that was I don't remember nearly as well or at all really as I remember the whole incident of the stolen cello.

Morgan Smith: Yeah that's a great story. My next question, if you're done, is what was your kind of impression of Georgia? And then also, how was Georgia viewed by the faculty during your time at Grinnell?

James Kissane: Georgia was, I understand, I can't really vouch for this officially, But I think it's pretty close to the accurate story that she was brought to Grinnell in the first instance to be the replacement for the Dean of Women. These were the days when Grinnell had a Dean of Women. And this was Evelyn Gardner who had been an important figure in Grinnell, not only in the administration but on the faculty. She was a very memorable iconotist from personal experience of the English department. I took an English novel course from Evelyn Gardner. And the thing I remember, well, two things. Her assignments were staggeringly heavy, and she put a great deal of emphasis on paper writing. And I got a lot out of that in the long run. But at any rate, it was time for her to retire. And I think Georgia had been brought in from someplace like the University of Wisconsin to eventually take over her responsibilities. But that didn't work out. I don't really know the story. Georgia became increasingly reclusive, really. She was still very effective, but more by telephone than face to face. That's how she did most of her business. And in that role, she made, as it's obvious from the article in the Grinnell magazine that's just out, she was enormously successful and effective. And in my dealings with her, which were almost always by phone, she was similarly effective. And in the case of this stolen cello that I've been going on about, I think it was largely through her connection with this Mariedi Anders that Mariedi Anders sent my wife and me a little gift for our small part in getting the cello and Dennis Vigay united. So it's certainly true that Georgia played a significant part in that incident and any of the others that came up, both in the years when I happened to be on the committee, the public events committee, and in the years when I just got word of what was going on by word of mouth from other people who were kind of regulars on that committee here and one year after another. Like, oh, Arnold Adelberg comes to mind, somebody who was always interested in the affairs and the music department. Arnold was in the math department. Well, I don't know what more I can say on that particular part of the committee. part of the story.

Morgan Smith: Other than her originally being brought in as the Dean of Women, do you know of any other ways that Georgia's role on campus kind of evolved while you were at the college? Like I know in, I believe it was the late 80s, there was kind of some tension between Georgia and SGA that changed how her position worked. Do you know anything about any of that?

James Kissane: Oh, I think you can find out. Somebody would speak more authoritatively than I would on that. I don't mean to dodge this. I just don't have a lot of information about that. It had to do with, I think, the then-President Turner's concern that the faculty was, I don't know how Georgia's case fit into this, to be frank, but in my long memory it seemed to have to do with his feeling that the faculty was perhaps over tenured or tenure could come to be a problem. But Georgia, I don't think it was, that she was, would be, you know, I don't think it would be a question of tenure in her case. That's an academic status, and she never had an academic appointment. But you'll just have to ferret that out from the archives somebody with a sounder memory. Maybe somebody like Sandy Moffat. He's within reach.

Morgan Smith: Yeah. In that case, kind of moving on, I'd love to hear if you have any more details about Georgia's role and involvement on the public events committee, and then we'll move on more into a little bit more information about what the public events committee did and such. But I'd love to hear if you have any more details about kind of- her role.

James Kissane: If you don't mind I'd like to say something about the music activities.

Morgan Smith: Yeah.

James Kissane: My own preference and experience has to do with an interest in classical music more than in well other categories but nothing- nothing against those either.

Morgan Smith: Yeah.

James Kissane: One of the, in my memory of the 1960s and early 70s, that's the period that we're really talking about, isn't it? It wasn't only the concerts that were brought in from outside through the good offices of Georgia Dentel, largely, but also the in-house participation. It had to do mostly, and I think really wonderfully, with the chamber music, the position that was made available or the music department was able to persuade President Bowen that this would be a very sound idea to hire a chamber orchestra, sorry, a chamber group in residence and perhaps, you know, as such a group would evolve and perhaps change its personnel, they would be eventually replaced by a different kind of chamber group. So the first one that the college hired was the Lennox Quartet and then they were followed by the Francesco Trio and I don't know, three or four, a series of three or four chamber groups of different composition. And all of them were, I think, in their obviously different ways with different repertoires and like, made a very important contribution to music in Grinnell. But my memories focus on the Lennox Quartet. Well, just because they were the first, and this is a new thing for Grinnell in a way. Although we'd had music in my days as a student coming from outside, but we didn't ever have a music chamber group in residence before, and the Lennox were the first. And one thing that made the Lennox so outstanding was their versatility, And I think, well, that maybe I've covered that in my earlier conversations with both with you and Sarah?

Morgan Smith: Yeah.

James Kissane: Well, and, sure,

Sarah Purcell.

But it so happened that the Lennox, before they came to Grinnell, they needed to replace the violist in their string quartet. And the man that they were interested in offering the position to told them that although it was an interesting possibility, he was himself, he played in the Philadelphia Orchestra and couldn't get himself away from his commitments in Philadelphia. But then he said something like, well, but I'll tell you what. My son Paul, he's not a violist, but he plays a very good viola. But he's really a viol- But he's really a pianist. And that was this Paul Hirsch, a remarkable musician. He was a super piano player and equally good at the viola. But he couldn't pursue a career in piano because he couldn't memorize, which is a big, I'm told, it's a big kind of an obvious handicap for a concertizing pianist with that kind of career in mind. But at any rate, Paul was a great addition to the Lennox Quartet because he was so versatile. And it so happened that the second violinist of the Lennox could play the viola. And this made them, this opened up their whole repertoire of string quartets in a way that, you know, or a piano quartet that's a piano and a string trio combined. So we really enjoyed a feast of that particular repertoire. Let's see. I had something to add to that, of all things. And what was it? Well, just that that was kind of a high point, I think. But the thing of it was, it was local. Yes, I wanted to say that the first year that the Lennox Quartet was in Grinnell, one of the things that they treated us to was a series of recitals or concerts in which they played, as it turned out, in a series of programs, all 16 of Beethoven string quartets. And these, I'm proud to say, were extremely well attended by the Grinnell student body as well as anyone who was invited. And Grinnell's events of that kind in those days were free to anybody who had an interest and wanted to attend. Not that they didn't cost anything, but, well, the salaries of the, in the case of the quartet in residence, with their salaries rather than in the case of the fee charged by an outside visiting group. Well, that piece of 16 Binkhoven quartets sticks in my mind because in the middle of the week. I think they tend to be Friday concerts. And in the middle of the week, they invited anybody who was interested to come to a rehearsal, and they'd talk about the piece, the particular pieces that they were playing, or at least the big item, which was always the Beethoven Quartet that they were doing for that time. I don't remember how many recital concerts it took to get through all 16 of the Beethoven's. The program, you know, each individual evening's program would include typically, I think, one of the Beethoven Quartets and then another piece, maybe two Beethoven's. But at any rate, my point is how astonishingly full Robert's Theater was at those concerts. And, you know, concert after concert students would turn out because they were, well, the quartet had the, and they had the tickets, as we say, but they were also popular just around campus. They taught, I remember, one of the faculty children who was interested in one of those instruments and so on. I'm getting far too gabby, but anyway, that's my stock and trade this age.

Morgan Smith: Yeah, you had mentioned that these were super well attended, not just by students, but it sounded like maybe community members as well. I'd love to hear more about how common that was for community members to attend concerts and shows and stuff, if you remember anything on that.

James Kissane: You mean townspeople rather than people from the college, either faculty or students?

Morgan Smith: Or even-

James Kissane: In general town interest? I wouldn't want to over-characterize that. There are townspeople who like, you know, they were free to come. And, well, it so happened that Robert's Theater was just new, and it was used a lot for events of that kind. Events that had, prior to this, often been held in Herrick Chapel. And I must say that after time, the Lennox Quartet, and I think some of the other instrumental groups that played, tended to prefer the acoustics of Herrick Chapel to the acoustics of Robert's Theater. But that's just my impression. Some musicians are pretty picky about what the acoustics offer. And Roberts was a good facility for lots of things, but maybe chamber groups wasn't the... And there were lots of musical events that were held there involving, oh, I remember one time a visiting conductor who conducted the Grinnell Choir, and that was held in Roberts. That was a big show that they did, Charmina Varana. So, and now there are, well, you know better than I do what the, where the musical events tend to be- tend to be scheduled.

Morgan Smith: Yeah, they've certainly evolved.

James Kissane: What's the one... Oh, I'm so out of touch with Grinnell in some ways.

Morgan Smith: I know- Sebring is frequently used. Sebring... I'm forgetting the full name, but yeah. Is there anything else that you'd like to say on that otherwise I'm happy to move on to the next question

James Kissane: Sure, your next question or mine?

what's on your list

Morgan Smith: Just curious like if you, remember kind of how decisions on which artists and concerts to book was made within the public events committee. You had mentioned that sometimes there were students on it as well. That'd be really interesting to hear about, as well as just kind of how that whole process worked.

James Kissane: Well, it's my recollection that the more popular concer-, I don't know what the right, the pop concerts or the big name celebrity concerts. And, well, the ones that would, well, the Bruce Springsteen, which was a great coup. Georgia was able to pull that off something like the week before Bruce Springsteen's face was on the cover of Time magazine, something like that. I think somebody on your MAP committee is in charge, isn't he, of putting together a kind of, out of the archives, sort of the list of big names who gave concerts. And of course, at one of these, Herbie Hancock, when he was a student, was invited to participate in one part of the concert. And then later, of course, Herbie came back as himself a very popular figure in the world of jazz. There was, looking back and say the difference between the role of music as part of the campus culture in my day as a student, as distinct from the way things evolved after I came back on the faculty, there was so much emphasis in those early days, I mean, my student days, particularly in participation, local participation on things like sings. Well every- Well, that might have had to do too with the separation in those days between the men's campus and the women's. There was something called the Fetzer Sing. Fetzer was somebody who endowed the whole tradition. And this was a competition between all the men's halls. They would form a musical vocal body. Somebody would, I think, play the piano accompaniment, and each hall would enter this contest. the contest was very competitive. And the hall, the men's hall that won it made quite a thing out of that distinction. The organization of men's halls and women's halls was well different in those days from the way things became when halls got integrated largely. It was virtually a sort of a two-campus environment. There were date dinners, both individual. You could take an individual date to one of these dinners, or there would be a dinner that one hall would invite en masse over to the men's dining hall would invite the women from one of the women's halls. But the uh- Well, that's a feature of the way a college involves, how its development, yknow, evolves. That is neat and drink to anybody who's interested in the history of te academy. And I'm sure it's well covered by your archives.

Morgan Smith: Yeah, that's really interesting. I'd actually love to hear more about the, was it a musical competition that you mentioned that happened during your days as a student?

James Kissane: The Fetzer Sing is the name I recall. It was a thing for the men's hall to do. Now, women's halls were not organized in the same way. I think I'm right in this. There were freshman halls, and it was Evelyn Gardner's idea, for example, that it was important for women students in their first year to become very well acquainted with one another. That was very desirable from the standpoint of alumni activities and contributions and the loyalty of women alums to the college through these residential arrangements, from where there were freshman halls. Two or three of the women's halls were set aside, or they were designated for freshman. They would have a sort of a governing or advising group of upperclassmen, but they were essentially first-year student residents in these halls. And then after one year, I think the residents of this one hall would disperse and find an upper-class hall to belong to. But I don't think that, at least it's my impression, and my wife bears this out, who is also a Grinnellian, as you know, and did spend one, that Nan spent one semester in a women's hall. Which, well, I think, you know, this was before, well, women were not as, well, there were certain advantages, I suppose. A certain, at least it was a custom. For example, there was a pretty active intramural program for men's students. Intramural sports, you know, that was participated in by hall members at large, not those who were of varsity caliber, but who could take part in sports on an intramural basis. Every hall had its own softball team, basketball team, wrestling team, in fact. But the women were sort of left in those days out of the picture, out of that picture. And, you know, things are much, much improved in that particular respect over the years. But another thing that was all part of my undergraduate experience at Grinnell, in those days, it happened be, happened to coincide with the large number of veterans who came to college under the GI Bill of Rights. So that in my freshman year, or well, in my first year, they don't say freshman, sophomore, junior, and senior anymore, do they?

Morgan Smith: I think they say it more first year, second year. But it's understood.

James Kissane: It's comprehensible. In my freshman year, there were lots of upperclassmen who were vets and so older. Some of them even, in some cases, as old or even in a case or two older than the instructors that they had. And they were, it was a real benefit to, you know, be part of a hall structure with those people who knew a thing or two besides, you know, high school. who had, you know, some of them done some really serious service in the war. If not in actual action, you know, at least in training camps and so on. But at any rate, their take, their appreciation for the opportunity of a college education was exemplary. You know, they got a chance. It was an opportunity. And by and large, they understood that and appreciated it and made the most of it. And that was a, you know, that was a good example to, and, you know, they, this thing called prepping had pretty much, this was a kind of phenomenon of what I think of as the raccoon coat era of the 30s. Where a men's college would have some fairly ridiculous initiation processes, ceremonies for initiating the new students to the, this was all on a male, on the male side of campus. That was a thing that was fading out or completely gone. But whole life, whole organization, whole activities were a strong part of, I think, The GI Bill isn't the only element in that particular feature of college life in my era.

Morgan Smith: Yeah. Sorry, did you have more?

James Kissane: Sorry?

Morgan Smith: I was going to say, did you have more? I just didn't want to interrupt you.

James Kissane: Well I guess I'm at the end of a long day and I'm kind of talked out.

Morgan Smith: No worries- We can continue going or start wrapping up the interview here whatever works best for you

James Kissane: Say again?

Morgan Smith: I said we can continue going or wrap up the interview here depending on what works for you I have a couple more questions that I could ask but you've honestly actually already answered a couple before I got to ask them which is great.

James Kissane: Let's see I've got a few things jotted down on my notepad here. Hold on just a minute.

Morgan Smith: No worries. Take your time.

James Kissane: And then I'll see what my notes reveal. Well, I think I mentioned in my talk with you and Sarah that one of my elder colleagues, he wasn't really old, but he was certainly older than I, in the French department, John Kleinschmidt, a memorable member of the language division. John, I always associate with the term officers of the college. That was John Kleinschmidt's designation for the faculty role in a kind of extracurricular sense. We were not just members of a particular academic designation. We were, in a sense, those of us at least who had the time and the interest to take on some sort of quasi-administrative responsibilities were included, really, in certain kinds or levels of organization and administration. There was, for example, what was called the Executive Council. This would be a committee of faculty that met with the president and I think his assistant weekly. And to be one of the divisions or departments had elections to the executive council and had a fairly substantial, significant weekly meeting of what concerns the cause that this council should be aware of and weigh in on. That sort of thing was, I suppose, gave a kind of substance to John Kleinschmidt's idea that faculty members were not just, not simply people who taught the classes, but they were, well, in his words, they were... officers of the college. They had a stake in establishing the curriculum and the requirements and we had a thumb in all the pies. And that of course didn't exclude the importance of of scholarly work either. But it was, and it varied, of course, from individual to individual. And some people were much busier in this area of sort of college administration than some others were. That without respect, you too. You know, certain departments being more administratively conscious than others. I don't know. I'm rambling on here. I don't know whether it's coming together.

Morgan Smith: Yeah, that's great. I had a question about something that you said earlier. You were talking about kind of campus culture during your time as a student at Grinnell, and I was curious if you had any memories or thoughts about kind of music on campus while you were a student, whether that was, you know, concerts or dances or anything of the sort?

James Kissane: Well, there were lots of dances. There hadn't always been, I think, in the history of Grinnell. That came into college life, didn't it, about sometime in the 20s. They were pretty cloistered places in the early days. And, well, there were, but, you know, as I've often told people, we all married each other. That is to say, there are any, you know, so many of my classmates, you know, are married to other classmates. So, there was a lot of socializing, though it was limited. The women had hours. That is- They were the so-called women's side of the campus, South Campus, was the loggia was not open. It was screened in. And if you were out with your girlfriend and you took her back to her dorm, You know, there was a time when it was, well, good night, I'll see you later, or I'll see you tomorrow. And hours were strictly, you know, they were adhered to. You could get in all kinds of trouble if you were, you know, not within the bounds of the women's hall. If a woman, you know, she was in for trouble if she was not accounted for.

Morgan Smith: Yeah.

James Kissane: I hope I'm not making it sound too cloistered. But it seemed to be part of the scene.

Morgan Smith: Yeah, that sounds reminiscent of things that I've heard about that time at Grinnell. I remember- sorry go ahead

James Kissane: One book you might take a look at. There's a whole lot of stuff that make Grinnell's history lively and fascinating. And one of these is a book by James Norman Hall.

Morgan Smith: Yeah.

James Kissane: You know who I'm talking about.

Morgan Smith: I do.

James Kissane: Jimmy Hall was, well, for some he was Norman, for some he, well, you know, he fought in the First World War. He was, and he has this book that was not quite finished when he died. It's called My Island Home. But it's other things besides James Norman Hall's reminiscences about his life in the South Pacific when he was, you know, writing books about that. It also deals with his years growing up in Colfax, Iowa, thinking of himself as, what did he say, what did he call himself, the woodpile poet. And Jimmy Hall or Norman Hall writes in his early chapters of the book that's titled My Island Home, writes about how he and friends would sometimes get on the, grab the cow catcher of the railroad train and ride it into Grinnell and hop off and just poke around the town in the evening and sometimes they could hear the men's glee club singing or a group of boys from students from one hall just prancing through the streets of the town singing college songs. That was young Jimmy Hall's impression of Grinnell. And the houses in Grinnell were a bit larger because they were, this was before the days of residence halls. Students, many of them, most of them, rented, lived in the rented rooms in these houses. That's why Grinnell houses are the size that so many of them are, the older ones. But Hall writes very nostalgically about the impression that these little trips from Colfax into Grinnell, the impressions they would give him about the place, which he eventually ended up attending and graduating from in, I think, 1910. And coming back to, I remember seeing him in a commencement in the last years of his life. An interesting figure, Paul. And, you know, not an unimportant writer. He wasn't, well, even his, he wrote some comic poems. They were really not bad. But he was mostly known for, you know, beyond the bounty novels of that hill. But he did write about his experiences in the war. He went to England after he graduated from Grinnell, and he just wanted to see if he had the makings of being a writer. Then the war broke out, and Paul found himself lined up in a line of people who were enlisting. And he ended up in, as the term was, Kitchener's Mob, the first British soldiers who went over to France. Paul was one of those. He was a machine gunner in the British Army. And then he got sent home and his father was sick. He was allowed to return to Colfax, I guess. But on the way, he got to know somebody from one of the New England magazines and signed on to write a book about that, about his experiences in the war. and so on. Then he went back into the... But not to... Well, then he learned to fly, and he was in their Bafayette escadrille and flew a plane and got shot down and was for a short time a prisoner of war. James Norman Hall. Interesting life.

Morgan Smith: Yeah, definitely. Is there anything else that you would like to share with us that we haven't covered so far in the interview?

James Kissane: Oh, I don't know if you can take any more. I'm well into my anecdotage, aren't I? Well, one thing I'd like to point I'd like to touch on, just about the role of these private, small liberal arts colleges that populate our part of the country, but not only our part of the country, but, you know, the, oh, one book that you should certainly take advantage of is Al Jones's Professor Jones' book called Pioneering. Do you know that book?

Morgan Smith: I do know that book, yeah. I've read it a couple of times. I've read through it a couple of times.

James Kissane: You've read Pioneering?

Morgan Smith: Yeah.

James Kissane: Great, that speaks well for you. Well, I knew that- Oh, God. Well, this is Sarah Purcell. I think Al Jones was her major advisor.

Morgan Smith: Yeah.

James Kissane: So she would certainly be more than familiar with what he has to say in pioneering.

Speaker 1: Right

James Kissane: so maybe that's that's enough for now what do you think?

Morgan Smith: Yeah. This has been great. Thank you so much for chatting with me today, I really appreciate it. You've been great and it's all been really really interesting, thank you so much.

James Kissane: You're entirely welcome. Morgan I hope the the MAP project is followed through. Are you spending the summer in Grinnell?

Morgan Smith: I am, yeah.

James Kissane: But you have one more year.

Morgan Smith: Yes, I've got my...

James Kissane: Well, the whole MAP arrangement sounds very like a very good

Morgan Smith: Yeah it's cool. Um yeah thank you so much for talking to me today I greatly appreciated it and as long as there's nothing else we can wrap up here.

James Kissane: Well get in touch with me if there's something that you think I might have a have a line on or a slant on or some, some recollections of that are of use to you.

Morgan Smith: Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely will shoot you a message if there's more.

James Kissane: I'm easy to reach.

Morgan Smith: That you are.

Speaker 1: Yeah.

So, fine.

Thank you.

It's been fun.

Thank you, too.

Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.