Mary Jane Roach Masters Memoir - University of Illinois Springfield

A. Almost two years.
Q. What made you leave?
A. I felt I was getting nowhere. I was really being exploited earlier by Washington University
because I was a woman. I was not getting anywhere. I was not being even encouraged to go on
beyond my Masters degree.
Q. Now wait. How did you get to New York in the first place?
A. Got on the train and went.
Q. You were through with school?
A. It was August. Late August. I always had moonlighting jobs in the summer. Taught summer
school a couple of times and then I got jobs with the American Express Co. and took groups
abroad in the '30's.
Q. When did you begin to paint?
A. After I came to Springfield. I never had time before that. I was completely wrapped up in
teaching and in the theater and having fun and I began to paint when I came to Springfield. Went
out to the Springfield Art Association and worked with Lillian Scalzo who was a very special
person.
Q. How old were you?
A. I was thirty-one.
Q. When did you realize you had some talent?
A. Oh, I knew I had some talent. When I was in Chicago, I won a Tribune city-wide contest for
a poster and the topic was the High Cost of Living. (Chuckle) And I remember I did a sunrise of
some sort but in any event I had a wonderful History and Art Teacher who had a water color class
in the summer which I joined, and I loved it. This was an occasion of a funny experience I had at
Washington University many years later when I went back to a reunion. I went up to the new
Dean of the Medical School and I said, "Hello Oliver Lowry, you and I were in fifth grade
together in Rogers Park in Chicago. Do you remember Miss Devine?" And he said, "Yes, a
History and Art teacher," and I said, "Well I remember it very well because I was the sort of child
who always had her hand up to answer the questions and she finally said, "Mary Jane, let's hear
what OLIVER has to say." I was rebuked. And he said, "Do you know why she did that? My
father was Superintendent of Schools." (Chuckle) It was a funny encounter and very pleasant.