Correspondence

              COPY
Miss Elizabeth Storms,
Ames, Iowa
My dear Miss Storms:-
1138 West 29th Street,
Los Angeles, California
April 2n,1920
Your note asking me for a few words regarding theearly days
of the Home Econooics Department brings to my mind the picture
of the two small roQ~s first set aside for its use.
They were in the basement of the old "Main "n~xt to the Dining
Room. They were, I should judge about ~welve by sixteen !eot
hal:t' way under ground, and lighted each by two small window~
In ono of them we had cupboards and tables and utensils for mix•
!ng and baking and a very few very common dishes for serving. In the
other e. charter Qak wood -Cove, and, the pride .11..i. t..h..e.. DJP_.art-me:
t1t, half a dozen or so of copper cooking utensils. Also a
couple of wooden stationary tubs where laundry work was done.
Altogether, I should say, this equiument was what would be found
in the ordinary comfortable home, for a family of six or eight.
I had• received, at that time no es ecial training for the work
I had undertaken to do, aside from my years of housekeeping on
the Campus, and indeed there were at that time no schools ot
Domestic Science where I could have received such training.
The idea, as a member o! the Board expressed it, when asking me
to undertake the work, was to teach the girls to cook and keep
house!
No vioion then of the wide scope of the modern prafeasion of
Home Economics came to the eyes of the pioneers in the Science.
There wns very little method of formality in my manner o! con•
ductinB those early classes. !U:._lectures were intimate talks on
the ways and means I had found useful in my own home.
I think I had about a dozen girls at first, the members of the
class of 1 78 or was it 1 7?! My memory is not as clear as it
should be as to that.
One thing we did to make our work practical was to cook a dinner
for a table of eight in the College Dining Room, ~hree days in
each weELJt. We were given the samo materials from the kitchen
that wore used for all the tables, but allowed to cook and serve
them as we pleased, and I can assure you each table awaited its