Tom Frazier, a student of Josephina Niggli’s in the mid-1970s at Western Carolina University and who later taught photography, television, and printing before becoming the print/document services supervisor at the university's Print Shop, discusses his impressions of Niggli from his classes.

• Creator
  • Frazier, Tom
• Contributor
  • Lindler, Hilary
• Format
  • Transcripts
  • Interviews
• Type
  • Text
• Date
  • Date interview: 2009-10-02
  • Date: 1970s;
  • Date digitized: 2014-12-04
• Extent
  • Duration: 14 pages
• Subject - Topic
  • Autobiography
  • Drama teachers
  • Dramatists
  • Frazier, Tom -- Interviews
  • Mexican American authors -- 20th century
  • Niggli, Josephina, 1910-1983
  • Niggli, Josephina, 1910-1983
  • Western Carolina College -- Faculty
  • Western Carolina University -- Faculty
• Location
  • Jackson County (N.C.)
  • Cullowhee (N.C.)
• Source institution
  • Western Carolina University
• Source Collection
  • WCU Oral History Collection - HIST 474/574
• Identifier
  • HL_HIST474_Lindler_Frazier_2009-10-02_transcript
• Repository
  • Western Carolina University Hunter Library

Hilary Lindler: My name is Hilary Lindler and this is October 2"" 2009. I am speaking with Tom Frazier. How do you spell your last name? Tom Frazier: F-R-A-Z-1-E-R HL: Are you aware that this is being recorded? TF: I am aware. H L: Are you OK if we store this at the university for further research purposes. TF: Fine. Do whatever you need. HL: I have a couple of questions, but you know, you are the first person I've interviewed with so far. Feel free to tell me if something is not applicable, or honestly, if you think that no one is going to know that question feel free to say that as well. That is quite alright. TF: OK. HL: I know that you told me this before we started this, but how did you know Josefina Niggli? TF: She was an instructor of mine at Western. HL: What class did you have with her? TF: I know I had Introduction to Theater and I may have had .... At that time you had to take two classes, I don't remember what the name ofthe second one was. That would have been in '75. It's been a day or two. HL: Yes it has been a little bit. Had you heard of her before you took the classes - either in a professional capacity or a ... TF: ... from other students. Just from other students. Everybody said "you want to take her class, because, uh, because of her. She was a colorful character. She was interesting, she had ... In as much as she talked about theater, she talked about stories related to theater. She was just kinda fun to watch. The class was held in the theater that now bears her name. HL: The one in Stillwell. TF: The Niggli Theater. So, when she would come in ... and at that point I mean she was getting on in years. So she would ... the bell would ring, and then she would make an entrance. An actress never comes to class, an actress enters the classroom. And, she would say that I You know, when she was there, she wasn't sitting on the stage. She was on stage. So it was, it was that view. And I don't know. I found it interesting later. I taught for a number ofyears, so when I was teaching you would relate back to how she viewed her class, you know. She didn't just think, ''Well I've got to go talk to a bunch of stupid freshmen for an hour." Her view was, "I have a performance in an hour and I need to be ready for the performance." HL: Now when you taught, what did you teach? Did you teach theater as well? TF: No I taught photography, television, and printing. HL: Oh really? That's great. TF: She would also walk in from the back, come down to the front, and she would stand at the • bottom of the stairs. Now I don't know if you've heard this from other folks, but she would stand there until a gentleman (as she would call it) would come up and offer her his hand to assist her to get to the top of the stairs. Now when the class was over, she would walk to the end of the stage and wait for someone to help her down. And it was, I mean you don't think about it much in 2000s, but even in the 70s it was still kinda weird. She would walk over there and she would be standing .there, and then somebody would just ... I mean, people knew because they'd heard about her. And somebody would always be right there to help her up, help her over. Uh, I don't know if she had an arrangement worked out or something, but there was always a chair for her there in the middle. And so she'd walk over, sit down on her chair, and begin. You know she would ... it just depended on what part oftheater we were talking about. She didn't have a lot of notes that she would bring with her. Her mother didn't speak English if I remember correctly. She grew up ... her mother read Shakespeare to her in Spanish. So when we studied Shakespeare, and when she'd get to quotes that she felt were important, she would pause and she would say the quote out loud in Spanish then go back and translate it into English. Because, that is how she grew up knowing it. HL: Now I had heard that sometimes near the end of her life her mother would sometimes come and sit in the classes- especially, when they were working on performances and that kind of thing. Was that before your time? 1 TF: I don't remember her mother being here. She could have been, but I don't know. Now I didn't see him, but I know there was a buzz on campus one time when Burt Reynolds was here~ when he was here, evidently, to see her about some role he was in. And, there were other actors from time to time that came in. And then she talked to us about working on Wc1r (!I the World\· and that you know they had ... they had rehearsed it for several ... for a period of time up until the performance, did the performance, and then walked out into the street to utter chaos and couldn't figure out what was going on. 'Cause, for them they had just done a show and they walked out on the street and New York had gone somewhat crazy. !This question was suggested by WCU student Bobby Willover who has extensively examined the Josephina Niggli files in Hunter Library's Special Collections. HL: Oh, so this was the radio ... TF: ... Yeah HL: ... the radio show War l~fthe Worlds. TF: Yeah. See now last year we did the reenactment of it here ... HL: Yes. TF: ... and that was the anniversary, but part of that reason was she was the voice coach for Orson Wells for that performance. HL: I didn't know that. TF: So she was there in the studio and they had all been working on it, and she talked about it. She said you know, she said, " We got done. We went out. We were going to go out to eat. Opened up the door. People were running round, up and down the street. Uh, there were all these cries of doom and, you know. [laughs] The planet had been invaded, and we were like 'that sounds like what we were just talking about."' But you know at that time, that was the power of radio. HL: Well, I've heard about that radio transmission, but I wasn't aware that she was part of it. TF: She was right in the middle. I mean, I don't know if she was a voice of any ofthe parts of it, but again ... she was a voice coach. I mean she kidded ... I remember her saying .... What was it she said? "You practice football. You rehearse theater." I don't know why I've always remembered that, you know and when I hear somebody going off to rehearsal I thought "uh, that's how Josefina would say." She would talk about it that way. Funny lady. HL: Do you happen to have stayed in touch with her after you had class with her? TF: Not really. No. I mean, I would see her, you know, on campus. I'm one of those that went to school here and stayed in the area so I would see her occasionally, but not really. But just remember a few things just from the class. She was one of those few instructors ... you know everybody in a college environment will probably have fifty to sixty instructors. There are a few you will never forget, and she was one ofthose. It didn't matter; you know whether you were talking about some of the Greek tragedies or whatever period you were studying. She knew it by heart. She didn't have to rely on anything else. She was one of those people that ... what was odd is that she had done it with such ease and such frequency that she would almost end and it would be right ... she would walk in and once she got settled she would start, and then when she stopped it would be just about time for the bell to ring. She knew what she was going to cover in about a fifty minute period of time, and then we were ready for the next day. HL: You mentioned how she would have someone take her off the stage and lead her on the stage. How did she relate in general to her students; or do you know how she related, I guess, personality wise to the people that she worked with? TF: Well, people looked at her almost ... it was almost like you had like and audience with a star. I mean, it was a little different than ... I guess when you think about the classes that you • have as you move forward in whatever discipline you choose, at some point you get to the point that you're fairly personable with that instructor because you spend probably two or three hours a day every day with them 'til the end. But even, I mean she knew the students, knew about them. But it was always still like you were with someone that was special. So, I think people had a reverence for her that you seldom see. Because you know, wow, how to say this tactfully? So often instructors assume they're something'. She was something'. There was no make believe about ... there's always the person who talks about what they could do or where they've been or what not. This was somebody who had a record here you know? I mean you could ... she talked about the people, and the fact that some of these people showed up to see her! It made her a little special. HL: So as a student you were, at least on some level, familiar with her work. TF: Yes. I mean she was ... well, I don't know that we really were aware of ... I mean I can't really name a movie she was ... something' that she did, but there was a buzz around campus that this was somebody special. You know, now everybody goes online and does everything. You can register. Do all the stuff that you wanna do. In the 70s you stood in line at the Grandroom with cards that were punch cards that you had written in pencil your information on a card that was pre-punched for your class. There were trays of these documents, and however many seats that were in the class there were that many card in a tray. It was almost pandemonium as you fought for the one that you needed, and you had a printed out list that told who was teaching what when. Students would kinda get together and say, "Well what have you heard about so and so" similar to what they do now before they go online. But there would always be this buzz over around the theater department that hers was the class that if you were taking the Introduction to Theater or some other ... you know certain parts about literature or set design or ... you wanted to be in her classes. HL: Just curious, since have you gone and read any of the things that she's written or any of ... TF: ... really haven't. I guess Don Conley was talking about doing The War (?(the World\· presentation. It was the first, I knew that some things when they were dedicating the theater in her name and that kind of came and went, but then I guess the next was when they were talking about doing that production. I looked back through what few college notes I kept to see if I could find anything specific, but I couldn't. HL: So you were here when they dedicated the theater. TF: mm hmm HL: What was that like or do you know how that came about? TF: Well, I mean I remember it being done. I wasn't at the actual event. There was her • colleagues decided that, here again this was a woman ... Probably the, our claim to tame as a university. You know our person who had a link to success and was so approachable. I mean I wasn't a theater major, but I had some friends that were and her critiques of their work were pretty cold blooded. But, she also was someone who was very concerned about their success. She also worked with students ... there were several of us that took; I don't even remember what the class was called but . . . . Things have changed so since then, but since that time students also had to take a ... I guess it's a public speaking class. HL: We have to do that still. TF: But at that time it was offered through the theater department. I don't know where it falls under now, but at that time you had to take a class where you had to get up and you had to do a variety of speeches about different things and come up with stuff a part of the art of doing a presentation. Toward the end of that she would be one ofthe evaluators. A lot ofthe people used to go back in the corner .... Well up until '74 when you'd come out of the corner where the theater is you would have been looking into the football stadium because the football stadium was behind the library. Went all through that valley. And so there were a couple of places where you stood and could look down into it. You would see people with their notes or their speech, their note cards or their speech, kind of standing there projecting. Occasionally you'd see her out there, you know like "I can't hear you from here." You know, she'd be a distance from them and have them in an open area; and talking about how they should look at something', how they should pronounce words, what's important, where you should look, how your hands should be, your inflections, the tone. I mean there'd be times where people would just kind a stop to watch what she had to say. Just kinda, "Well this is kinda interesting." You know, "this is what I will have to go through," so you might as well learn from the best. HL: So she definitely sounds like she was a force to be reckoned with. TF: Oh yeah. Yeah. She was. I think most people have a powerful figure in their family -an aunt, a grandmother or somebody that's one of those ... you know this kind of an equivalent. She definitely was. She was an interesting lady. It's a shame we don't have more role models like that for all of us to be around. Just in the way she presented herself, carried herself The poise that she had. The dignity. I mean she was a nice lady. She was involved in a lot of ... she was silently involved. She wasn't somebody that you would ... she wouldn't be like the chairman of the United Way, but I know that anytime students were doing any kind of event or cause or something' she would support it. I mean God at that time we used to sell hotdogs around campus for money. Doughnuts in the dorms or in the buildings and stuff You know, you could always count on her if there was a something' going' on she would support it. HL: You mentioned that she would talk about some of the things that she had been a part of. What kind of impression did you get about, maybe, how she felt about her accomplishments or things that she did? I guess I'm not saying that very well but ... TF: I think she was pleased with the lot she had. I think she felt that she'd been successful. don't really know, but it appeared that she was from some ... she was wealthy. lrregardless of what she did theatrically, her family had left her wealthy. So, she was somebody that never had a sense of needing money. Financial security was never something that seemed to trouble her. So you know it's kinda like Jimmy Buffet says. If you take money out of the equation, then you can start to do things that are of interest and are fun. Where for all of us, for most of the rest of us ... at the end of the day, as they say, "money matters." But, all of a sudden when it doesn't, then you can pursue your passion with a little more enthusiasm than most of us can and I think that's what she did. You know when you take money out ofthe equation, didn't need to be in New York with fast paced the life. All that. Why not be in Cullowhee? We are not as much known now as we once were, but when you look back into the 50s through the 70s (I think it started to end late-60s early 70s) a significant number of influential people in the entertainment industry lived, or had summer homes, from the Highlands/Cashiers/Brevard/Hendersonville area. Some of them ... it's not the thing that it once was, but from Sinatra to people like ... there's a singer Perry Como. They're all a lot of folks that summered in that area. And so there were people that she knew from places up there. That was some of that region that drew those people here anyway. That whole area is reclusive enough that they can go there, enjoy a beautiful morning. You know it's cooler. You go to Highlands at anytime it's 10 degrees cooler than it is here just from the 2000 foot elevation difference. So it's a place that people still continue to go to that want to be away from it all. So I think that she could see the people she wanted to when she wanted to. Some of them would slide down here and see her. Folks that would have known her better probably would've known what celebrities entered and exited campus without the average student even knowing what was going on. And you know I think she worked with the folks in Hendersonville, maybe at the Flat Rock Playhouse. I'm not sure, but I would venture to guess that she was a part of that. HL: I understand that when she was at Chapel Hill she was part of a group called the Playmakers. You remember anything about that? I think I do remember reading something that tied her in some way to Flat Rock. 2 2Bad connection. Josephina Niggli was one of WCU Professor Luther Jones' instructors, and Luther Jones was once a props master for Flat Rock Playhouse. TF: We weren't doing a lot theatrically here other than our performances in the little theater in Hoey. Of course Hoey was a whole different ... Hoey was a two story building then. Let's see, in the middle 80s they gutted Hoey and started over. HL: It wasn't still where it is now? TF: It's where ... it's always been there, but there used to be a balcony and there used to be a lot more seating in Hoey. They went in and added the . . . . Changed the whole thing. Changed everything about it. · HL: Even outside? Or is the lower part [unintelligible] ... TF: ... The outside stayed about the same and some of the downstairs stayed similar, but the whole stage configuration and the seating's changed. So at that time most of what was produced was done in Little Theater'. Very little was done elsewhere. HL: You said earlier that you weren't as familiar with some of her written works, but it has come to my attention that there's been some kind of debate about how she should be classified nationality wise. Lots of times her work is classified as Latino1 or Mexican­American. I understand that she was at one time from Mexico, but her actual nationality might not actually be Mexican.5 TF: I think her mother was ... I think she was born in the United States of a Hispanic mother. But she was up front about her Hispanic heritage. HL: So she definitely classified herself as ... TF: ... Yeah, she did. HL: ... as Hispanic then. 3Now called Niggli TI1eater -I Latina 5This >vas the first time that I had asked anyone about her nationality and in hindsight realize that I was leading on the interviewee. despite the fact that he had previously mentioned her knowledge of Spanish as a child. TI1e idea to ask about how interviewees perceived Josephina's nationality came from Bobby Willover. TF: ... she did and .... I mean that's what I was talking about when she read Shakespeare she read it in Spanish. Or when she quoted it. I can't quote anything and I can hardly do English. But, she would be talking about something and all of a sudden she would just pause, and you would just kind of see her eyes lift up and she would start speaking in Spanish. Then she'd go back and she'd say "now this is what I just said." And then she would tell you. And sometimes she talked about her mother. She said" you know my mom ... " She said "these were the stories I listened to in the crib." You know I was saying, I wasn't even [nothing?] I heard but ... So that evidently she was from a well-to-do family. That's where I... this didn't seem like money was ever a problem for this gal, and from some type of family that gave her mother the means to have been well educated. Would've had to been because how many of us our mom would read Shakespeare to us as we're growing up. I mean just when you think ofthe things that we've all heard, the only person I've ever encountered on the planet that's told me they listened to Shakespeare growing up. "These were the tales that my mother told me." Or even ... of course I don't know what .... She would have been sort of probably ... She would have been a kid in the 20s. This would have been during the Depression, what would you .... She was reading the documents of the day. Any Bible. Any time she quotes scripture it was always in Spanish and she'd translate it back to English. She would talk about different, I can't remember 'em but, plays that ... things in theater that mirrored parts of the life of Christ or things to do with pieces of the Bible or even .... Gosh, ifl'm not mistaken I think she talked about Charlton Heston. I'm almost sure she talked about working with him or talking about the movie The len ( 'ommandments. And she'd talk about ... and again she'd be switching back and forth between Spanish and English. But, talked about how you breathe, how you hold yourself, where words come from, and a lot of the same stuff you hear people talk about when they're training a musician­someone to sing. This is where these sounds come from, and this is where, you know, from your stomach. From the range of how we make sounds and present how you carry. Even the importance of a pause. I don't think I ever forgot that. She was in the middle of something one day and then she just stopped. She just kind of stopped. You got a room with ... the theater probably would seat sixty ofus I guess. Put sixty eighteen-year- olds in there and there's always something going on. Somebody's in the back reading the paper, doing something, you know whatever, half asleep. But, she just stopped and for an unusually long period of time. Then when she started she said "Now you noticed that I stopped and the importance of a pause." And then sometimes in the middle of something it was important ... just the importance of a moment of silence. Something I've kept in a couple of speeches. From times when I was doing something, maybe in a transition or something I thought this ·would be a good time for one of her pauses. She was just one of those people that you wish .... There's a funny line in the movie, I was watching it again the other night; Field cif Dreams. There's a line in the movie says that sometimes the most significant moments in our lives brush by us like a hand in the dark and we don't know 'em 'til they've passed6 Sitting in that room with here was one ofthose moments where looking back, everything she was giving us was extremely important, and when you're eighteen you're awake for half of it. Te fact that you carry anything away when you're eighteen in a college classroom is a miracle to begin with, but she had enough effect on people I can't imagine those who were around her a lot. HL: So even in the short time that you had her as a professor, you definitely feel that what she taught has affected you ... TF: ... Sure HL: ... in some way. TF: I've used ... from the importance of .... If you're an instructor, you're on stage. Don't ever just walk in. Be prepared. The whole methodology about it is that this is your performance. You may not be on Broadway, but you're in front ofa group of students that are expecting you to perform and rise .... She was very up front. If you are making a business proposal, you're on stage. It was just interesting that she put it in real life, and we miss her. HL: You said that you stayed in the area. Were you around when she passed away? TF: Ah ... no. Well I've lived within ten miles of here the whole time, but I was working in Asheville then. I mean I knew that she was gone. HL: It seems like she had an enormous impact on the campus in general when she worked here. I guess I was just wondering if you recall anything about how her passing may have affected the university or the general area. TF: Well she would have been out of instruction for so long, and a university's memory is so short that I don't really think that people . . . . We had kind of changed focus then in direction, and again, once you leave it doesn't take but a couple of years. Once the students that you're in contact with, after a four year span, the university has no point of reference to remember. Also about the time that she arrived, in the early 60s late 70s, we also had a significant group of faculty that arrived then. And so in about the last ten to fifteen years, we have probably had as large a turnover as the institution has seen in a long time. I mean we prepped the employee, the EPA, the retiree stuff when they have their luncheons7 We've seen those events be as high as forty-five, fifty people. Now we've kind of gone through that cycle now and so the retiree list GThe character Dr. Archibald '"Moonlight" Graham in Field of Dreams(l989) says "You know we just don't recognize the most significant moments of our lives while they're happening. Back then I thoughL welL there'll be other days. I didn't realize that that was the only day.'' 7Tom Frazier is the Print/Document Services Supervisor at the WCU Print Shop. may be down to twelve or fifteen a year, which is not too uncommon. But, we went through a huge range of people that kind of stuck together for a while, and then as they retired with new administrations, new deans, new vice chancellors, no one even remember ... [Unrelated conversation with Print Shop student worker] You know they just didn't remember at all. It doesn't take long for it to fade. I think that's probably one of the sadder things at an institution. Because really, it's one of the reasons here at Western, all of the denominations here, the campus ministers, wind up staying a long time, • because they say every four years your audience changes. · So in those churches, every four years, if you're Methodist the preacher changes. You know, they say that after four years they've said all they got to say so they move them around or whatnot. But here your audience changes, so about the time she was retiring a lot of folks changed. A lot of different people moved in. They did a lot of restructuring of that whole organization over there. You know now it's ... and she saw it coming, I mean she didn't . . . . Television is as much an industry to be taught how you operate the technology as it is how you perform in front of it. She didn't mind performing in front of it, but I don't think she wanted anything to do with how you operate a camera or this is a microphone or .... She didn't care anything about that. HL: She was more interested in the artistic ... ? TF: You know she'd seen that with radio. How it had changed. And you can't blame somebody. At some point you say "I've changed technologically all I'm gonna change. This is it. I'm done." And I think we' II all see that at some point. How many ... what version of software are we finally gonna say "this is where I'm at." We keep changing. HL: Well I bet you've run into some of that with your own job here at the Print Shop. TF: We're sitting in a room that fourteen years ago, when I came here, was a darkroom. HL:(whisper) Oh I love darkrooms. TF: We are sitting in a room that had a process camera that we shot negatives on against a wall where we'd hand develop giant sheets offilm in a tray. Now, from this desk, I can send a job to any of [counts] four devices in this shop and actually start them running from here which would have been inconceivable when I first got here. To the point that I can set up a ... I not only can send a job here, but can turn it into a finished bound book from here, so that by the time we can physically get to the device in another room, it would be a finished book coming off on it. It would be ready to go in a box. So, it's changed a lot. HL: Technology certainly does change. TF: Yeah, it's a little strange. The price ... And we're seeing, as an institution we're seeing one of the things we're seeing is change we haven't embraced and it's great. That's why I'm delighted to see us look at our history, because one of the things that no one seems to be addressing, as an institution and as a region, is how quickly our history is disappearing as we move into a digital age. We do a lot of stuff with the alumni association, so when they have alumni events this summer and people come back, and you know that might also be an opportunity ... I would talk to Marty Ramsey from the alumni office. Because, he bring back groups from the 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s and 70s and they're here for a weekend. Each group has a weekend in the summer. Might even be good for somebody to sit down with those folks just to ... I go as a tour guide and help give the campus tour. You know, what the campus looks like now, and two years ago we were taking some folks around on the older part of campus that were here, that graduated in the 50s. We got up between Reynolds and Robinson and they said ... in the back of the bus they were laughing. I said, "What's so funny?'' They said, "Well there's no beer hanging out the window." I said, "What are you talking about?" They said, ''Well, when we were in school we couldn't have beer in your room, but if it was hanging out of a window it wasn't technically in your room. " So every room had beer hanging out of the window. So then you would see a little box that had their cigarettes in it. You couldn't smoke in your room, and you couldn't have cigarettes in your room, but you could have them hanging outside. Wasn't in the room. If you stuck your head out the window and smoked your cigarette you weren't smoking in your room because your head was outside. HL: The things people do to circumvent rules. TF: Yeah, and that was in the 50s. We were ok with that, and if you look at our yearbooks from the 50s it's not uncommon to see somebody in those photographs with a beer and a cigarette in their hand. Why they'd go off the wall ... you couldn't begin to have an image like that. [Shows HL brochure just offthe press] This is an Open House brochure. Ifit had a picture of a beer and a cigarette, why it would be my last day on the job. We have changed so. But now that we have all this digitally, no one knows where anything is. When everything eventually wound up in print eventually it was stored, a copy of it or a portion of it, got to the university archives. And so you had something- maybe a photograph, a yearbook. We haven't done a yearbook in twenty years. So we not only don't do a yearbook, but our other publications ... The Carolinian used to be a couple times a week. Now it's ... whenever. I'm trying to think. [Break in recording- unrelated conversation with Print Shop student worker] We're losing our records of even current past. No one knows where the digital images are. No one knows where the pictures are. I don't know what we're gonna do in another ten years. HL: You're right, the technology has just been changing really fast, and 'round the last few years she was teaching you mentioned that there was a definite shift in focus, or a beginning of a shift in focus. Did she ever mention in class how she felt about that? Did she feel any sense of loss or was she excited about the upcoming changes in technology? How did she feel about that kind of thing? TF: A little bit exhausted. You know ... another change. Just like this is just one more thing we've gotta learn. One more thing that's going on. And also to the point... I guess a little suspicious because that's the generation that ... she's one of the lucky . . . . There are not many people left. I draw parallels between her and my own mother. My mother just turned ninety­five, so they would have been probably fairly close in age. So these are folks that remember as a child not having electricity, and so you go from everything that came with .... If you didn't have electricity, you didn't have indoor plumbing, you didn't have .... You go into the Great Depression where everybody has nothing, and then suddenly you start to see a change and how quickly we were promised ... You know, once we got the ability as air travel became more prominent it was almost as though it wouldn't be long until we all had an apparatus that we could fly, and we'd be doing ... some of those claims (you see some of it in the old LIFE magazines or the ads or even some of the things I the Disney view of how life was going to be tomorrow) we didn't quite get there. So I think some of these folks were maybe even ... You know, we haven't seen, haven't experienced anything to parallel that. Our point of reference doesn't know a time without electricity. We don't know, we don't remember a time without a microwave. HL: No we don't. TF: So, imagine those folks. She talked about her mother baking bread in a .... Things moved slower. The time that you would spend in the preparation of a meal or how your day went, and it's the pace that things are. Well we have kinda leveled off a little. We're almost trying to go backwards. We're saying ... well you look at it. People are starting to grow a garden again. People are saying you've gotta slow back down. We all know that. I think her [unintelligible] ... I mean we're ready for the next thing. They were a little more suspicious of it. Bill Stall[?] made a wonderful comment, look how quietly, without much fan fare, the cell phone revolution moved through the planet. Ten years ago, when you think of a cell phone, it looked like something out of a World War IT movie or it was in a bag that you put in a car. And, if someone used it, it was for an emergency. HL: My grandpa had one of those. TF: and now, I'm not confident that the people living in Norton can walk from the Bookstore to Norton without the cell phone that props their head up as they're going down through there. 'Cause you never see anybody walking through there without a phone stuck to their head. It must be something that you have to have to get you through the pine trees or get around there because they're all on it. It's amazing how, like I say, without a lot of fan fair it's become the tool of choice. Even the youngest of kids are ... everybody's ... A student would come nearer or come on this campus without a toothbrush than they would without their cell phone. I'm certain when they're packing up to come to college that they wouldn't have a clue where that toothbrush is, but they know where that cell phone is. Odds are, they're probably on it while they're packing their toothbrush, as opposed to brushing their teeth while holding their cell phone. So, we are seeing a change with technology. Like I say, I think she was kinda tired ofthe changes. I don't know. Who knows what's next. HL: Who knows. Well, I appreciate you meeting with me and I don't want to take up too much more of your time, cause I know ... TF: ... There's not much more I can tell you about her. HL: Is there anything else that we haven't touched on that you want to share?8 • TF: There's not much else 1 would know. I mean professionally, I worked here but I didn't really work with her. I wasn't a faculty member so it wouldn't be like she was a colleague that I worked with. Always [unintelligible] to you. Never called you by ... It would always be like "Mr. Frazier." She would never, even she'd be "How are you Mr. Frazier?" "How are you Miss So-and-so?" She would never call a student by their first name that I knew of Now again those she ... ones that she really worked with became her children. She probably did talk to them differently. HL: Now, just curious. I know that in the Art Department, now when you have professors, you just call them by their first name. It's like "Kevin" or "Cathy" or that kind of thing. I've been reading some of her personal letters that are in Special Collections and I noticed that she called some of her professors by their first names and didn't refer to them as Mr., Mrs., Prof., Dr. How did y'all address her? Was it Ms. Niggli? TF: Ms. Niggli. mmhmm HL: It was never ... TF: noooooooooo HL: never never never? TF: uh huh. There was never any question about that! She would call the role. She would call it Mister or Missus our last name. Never, never mentioned the tirst name. She would always be intrigued by certain last names. She would want to know ... She'd maybe take one or two last names a class period and maybe pick out that person to ask them something like "are your descendants from ... " She knew enough, she had enough knowledge that she would embarrass us all. Frazier is that German, Irish, I don't know. But you know, after she'd done the 8There is an increase in my volume here and it sounds like I'm shouting. but I'm not. At this moment another person walked into the room where we were intervieloving. She started opening and closing drawers. and making loud noises. I was afraid that it would interfere with the recording and thus leaned closer into the microphone. first one or two, you knew enough that you'd better be figuring out something 'cause at some point you're day was coming. HL: ... and she'd ask you about that. TF: It wasn't ... It was a matter when, not a matter of if You just wanted to be ready for the question. [Unintelligible] H L: It sounds like she was quite a woman. • TF: Yeah. So how many more folks have you got to do? HL: Urn ... [End Recording] Date: 2 October 2009 Begin Time: 1: II PM EST Length: 49 minutes 12 seconds Location: Tom Frazier's office- WCU Print Shop- Cullowhee, NC Equipment: Olympus Digital Voice Recorder VN-41 OOPC

Tom Frazier, a student of Josephina Niggli’s in the mid-1970s at Western Carolina University and who later taught photography, television, and printing before becoming the print/document services supervisor at the university's Print Shop, discusses his impressions of Niggli from his classes.

• Creator
  • Frazier, Tom
• Contributor
  • Lindler, Hilary
• Format
  • Sound recordings
  • Interviews
• Type
  • Sound
• Date
  • Date interview: 2009-10-02
  • Date: 1970s;
  • Date digitized: 2014-12-04
• Extent
  • Duration: 0:42:12 (sound recording)
  • Duration: 14 pages (transcript)
• Subject - Topic
  • Autobiography
  • Drama teachers
  • Dramatists
  • Frazier, Tom -- Interviews
  • Mexican American authors -- 20th century
  • Niggli, Josephina, 1910-1983
  • Niggli, Josephina, 1910-1983
  • Western Carolina College -- Faculty
  • Western Carolina University -- Faculty
• Location
  • Jackson County (N.C.)
  • Cullowhee (N.C.)
• Source institution
  • Western Carolina University
• Source Collection
  • WCU Oral History Collection - HIST 474/574
• Identifier
  • HL_HIST474_Lindler_Frazier_2009-10-02_audio
• Repository
  • Western Carolina University Hunter Library