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| Participants of a speech and forensics competition held at WMU in 1967. Margaret Aoki is pictured in the center of the back row. |
Margaret (Becker) Aoki’s (B.A.’71, Communication Arts and Sciences) father was a professor at WMU the entire time she was growing up. Later, like her father, Western would become her alma mater. After a recent trip to campus, Margaret took a moment to reflect on her time as the daughter of a faculty member in the ‘50s and ‘60s, to her years as a student in the early ‘70s.
The Speech Annex
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| Dr. Becker, WMU Athletic Board Chair, presents a tropy to student athlete Manny Newsome. |
My father and my alma mater both began in 1903. The whole time I was growing up, my father was a professor of speech at Western Michigan University, so WMU has always played a significant role in my life. The faculty were like another set of aunts and uncles, and on one occasion, while taking a break from cutting firewood, compared themselves to a big family. We played, picnicked, went to each other’s’ houses and cabins, and shared weddings, holidays and university events.
Certain holidays were defined by the host of that particular day; for instance, Zack and Eleanor York, along with their children Joel and Charmagne, always hosted Memorial Days at their farm. For the kids it meant a barn with a hayloft and a rope to swing on, baseball, horseshoes, walks to nowhere, sunburn, possibly poison ivy, and the best baked beans and deviled eggs of the year.
My mother eventually took Labor Day, and made a big vegetable soup with everything left in the garden, accompanied by cornbread. It was held at Lake Sixteen in Allegan County, where we owned farmland that fronted onto a small, spring-fed lake.
Christmas was a bonus of events for the college community. Residence halls would host Christmas parties with carols, cookies and gifts. It was a good time to be a kid. From the residents of Zimmerman Hall one year, I received my first assortment of scents: Rose, Jasmine, Carnation, Lilac, Iris and Lily of the Valley. The residing President often included families in invitations to Christmas receptions at the Oaklands, which seemed like a castle, decorated with fresh, fragrant greens and holly.
The first physical location I associate with WMU is the Speech Annex, which was between the East Campus theatre and the foul-ball territory of the baseball field. It was a surplus, WWII frame building and featured large, double-hung windows and hardwood floors. It did not feature much else—no heating, no air conditioning, and beaverboard walls. The sun coming through the classroom windows heightened the combined smell of floor polish, books, chalk, and mimeo fluid. Summers were grueling in those rooms. Winters saw professors bringing space heaters for their cubicles. For their communication system, they cut a hole in a wall between two offices, built and shelf and left the phone there, so faculty in both rooms had access.
In my earliest memories the department consisted of Dr. Charles Brown, Dr. DeBoer, Dr. McIntyre, Dr. Kuykendall, Mrs. Walton, Mrs. York, Dr. York, Roy, and my father, Dr. Becker. Roy was in charge of all things maintenance. Together they mustered heaters and fans and fire extinguishers and mastered the mimeograph and telephone systems. They shoveled and salted the walkways and steps when needed. They brought, planted and watered flowers for the front—tulips and daffodils in the fall, petunias in the summer—along with a small patch of lawn. One spring after they had planted they were stymied by the fact that no water was coming out of the hose. Three or four of them were discussing possible reasons, when Roy looked at the end of the hose and found a nut that a squirrel had successfully cached.
When Sprau Tower was built and the Speech Department moved into modern surroundings, there were mixed feelings about leaving the Annex. However, the building was relegated to the Psychology Department to use as a rat laboratory. To make this feasible, air conditioning was finally installed in the Annex. Somehow, that made it a little easier to break those ties.