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Kenneth G. Neigh interviewed by Susan Miller, 1989-1990, tape 1, side 1.
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- speakerThis is Susan Miller.
- speakerI'm interviewing Kenneth Neigh [Neigh, Kenneth Glenn] on December seven one thousand nine hundred eighty
- speakernine in Princeton Junction
- speakerin his home.
- speakerOK I am the first thing I wanted to talk to you about. I'll start at the beginning is your family background.
- speakerYou were born in nineteen oh eight in Lisbon Ohio,
- speakeraccording to my records. In one of the pamphlets I
- speakerread it said Lisbon was the high hills of Ohio,
- speakerkind of a rural area. What was it like growing up there
- speakerin nineteen ten? What was the community?
- speakerDon't like this sound.
- speakerYou know.
- speakerI think it was the second oldest town in Ohio. Had
- speakerthirty-five hundred people when I was growing up, and it still has thirty-five hundred people. Wow!
- speakerI guess it was typically
- speakersmall town, not much of a
- speakerracial mixture, but, I was growing up the time that the Klu
- speakerKlux Klan was very strong. And, there was a lot of hostility
- speakerstill
- speakerand the Catholics
- speakerbut it didn't really reach down
- speakerto the
- speakerwhole level of boy girl friendships
- speakerMy father, my father was a Quaker and my
- speakermother was a
- speakerpart of the Horace Bushnell movement that came from the
- speakerEast, sort of a liberal group. And,
- speakerneither of them were, really church
- speakermembers or church goers. They sent me to the Disciples
- speakerChurch. Is this interesting? and yet they sent me to the Disciples Church
- speakermainly because they didn't have a creed.
- speakerWhen I was in high school,
- speakerthe
- speakerMinister of Christian Church was the chaplain of the Klan.
- speakerAnd that was a bit too much. So the
- speakerthree of us left the Christian church and went to the
- speakerPresbyterian church, mainly because of the Presbyterian minister [Macaulay, Peter W.]
- speakerwas our high school football coach. So that's how
- speakerAnd it
- speakerIt really was a great place to grow up. And I still go back there.
- speaker"Did you have any brothers and sisters?" I had a.
- speakerI had a sister, yes. She died many years
- speakerago.
- speakerAnd, I am the last of the Neighs.
- speakerWill get something to testify to the
- speakerfact that that's a good idea. "I doubt it."
- speakerTo get them. To think and
- speakerfeel.
- speaker"The K.K.K. influence in your younger years, do you think
- speakerthat that introduction to the K.K.K. had influence on you
- speakerlater in your life?" Oh sure. "Was it, was it
- speakervery strong in the community?" Well, it
- speakerWas. My father was one of two or three
- speakerbusinessmen in this town that wouldn't join the Klan.
- speakerAnd, it almost ruined his business. And,
- speakerthere was only one of the, one Jewish family in the town. I think this had some more
- speakerinfluence on me than probably any one other incident in that period that
- speakermade me the way I am.
- speakerI didn't know what a
- speakersixteenth birthday was for a Jewish girl until we moved to Scarsdale.
- speakerThen, I found out quickly. But there
- speakerwas a Jewish girl in our class. Her family had the
- speakertheaters in the town. And, on her sixteenth
- speakerbirthday,they
- speakerher mother and father had a party for her.
- speakerAnd, I
- speakersuspect that our whole high school
- speakerclass was invited to that party. And, only three of us showed up.
- speakerOh I never
- speakerwill forget the look on that mother's face.
- speakerThe persecution of ages you
- speakercould see. Well, it wasn't long until they were gone.
- speaker"Do you have any
- speakermemories of World War One and how that affected the town
- speakerat all?" Oh, sure.
- speakerThe thing that I remember. One is kind of
- speakertrivial
- speakerand the other isn't.
- speakerI delivered
- speakergroceries on a bicycle for my uncle, riding up and down the hills.
- speakerand there was a family,
- speakerWell, there were two unmarried sisters
- speakerand they didn't have very much money. And so, I would
- speakerread the headlines in the newspaper, and then I would ride up to this house
- speakerand tell them what was going on. But, it does sound kind of trivial. The other
- speakerisn't. I was a Boy Scout at the time.
- speakerAnd these young men
- speakerwere casualties in the War. They were brought
- speakerhome for burial. And, Boy
- speakerScouts were always sort of a color guard
- speakerat funerals and that kind of thing.
- speakerWhat are your your earliest memories, well, of the church? Was that in
- speakergrammar school then that you changed from the Disciples to the Presbyterian Church?
- speakerNo. It was in high school. In high school, I
- speakerguess, oh, sophomore,
- speakerjunior year.
- speakerDo you remember having a strong connection to the church?
- speakerAh. I had a strong, very strong, connection with the ministers.
- speakerMac McCaulay [Macaulay, Peter W.] , who was the high school football coach.
- speakerYou didn't have to be seven hundred pounds to play football in those days.
- speakerand I was the quaterback on the football team. So, my
- speakerrelationship with him was very close.
- speakerLater on, after I'd got done and went to
- speakercollege, Mac came down from Cleveland, which was a
- speakerfar piece from Delaware, Ohio,
- speakerand got the things straightened out in part.
- speakerThe other very talented
- speakerReally
- speakerVery talented guy. His name was Jarvis Cotton. [Cotton, Jarvis M.]
- speakerHe was an athlete of parts. We played on the same baseball team.
- speakerbut he was on the same baseball team and that kind of thing.
- speakerAnd the curious thing.
- speakerat the time that I was
- speakervice-president and president of McCormick Seminary,
- speakerhe was vice-president of the Western Seminary.
- speakerWhere did you go to high school? Was? There was a local public school in Lisbon?
- speakerDavid Anderson High School. David Anderson. Do you remember having a
- speakerfavorite, least favorite, subject that influenced you somehow, once
- speakeryou went off to college?
- speakerOr were you more an athlete?
- speakerSounds like you're an athlete.
- speakerWell, yeah, at one period
- speakerI held the state record for Class B high schools in Ohio.
- speakerBut. No, not really.
- speakerI graduated third
- speakerin my class, which was, I guess, around ninety-five, something like that.
- speakerI think history and literature.
- speakerAnd, I had
- speakerfour years of Latin,
- speakerwhich was helpful in college.
- speakerYou went to
- speakercollege at Ohio Wesleyan. And got your degree in nineteen thirty, right?
- speakerRight.
- speakerThe Depression hit in nineteen twenty-nine.You were
- speakertwenty-one at the time. How did the
- speakereffect of the coming Depression
- speakerthe Depression have on your college years?
- speakerWell,
- speakerI indicated that I was dumped out of college my senior year.
- speakerAnd did not
- speakergraduate with my class. My degree was deferred
- speakerfor a year. And it was at a time of
- speakerthat deferral, I went back
- speakerhome to wait it out. And, it was
- speakerthen that the Depression hit. I had
- speakerI had intended to go to law school. And, the
- speakerbanks closed with the money and that kind of thing.
- speakerAnd so, it was during that period that I
- speakerreadjusted my goals and so forth.
- speakerTo back
- speakerup just a little bit, I wanted to ask you How did you, how did you choose Ohio Wesleyan?
- speakerThis
- speakeragain is partly for the and partly serious.
- speakerAll Presbyterians went to Wooster.
- speakerAnd, I didn't want to go to Wooster
- speakerbecause all Presbyterians were at Wooster. And,
- speakerbecause they had no fraternities or sororities.
- speakerThis was a, one stage in my life. The reason I
- speakerwent to Ohio Wesleyan was because of an English teacher
- speakerwho went over there. She was a
- speakera graduate of Ohio Wesleyan. And, that really is the reason that
- speakerI landed
- speakerThere. Because you. Out of respect for her or she?
- speakerRight. What? How
- speakerdid you find college? Was it a big adjustment from home or?
- speakerI think a lot of students find it a big change
- speakernowadays, but I don't know
- speakerwhat is was like then.
- speakerWell, it was
- speakera big adjustment in a lot of respects. Growing
- speakerup in the small town was
- speakersort of like being in the womb. And
- speakerFeel.
- speakerI was homesick.
- speakerI think I lost fifteen pounds the first month I was there.
- speakerBut after that, I
- speakeradjusted perhaps too well.
- speakerIt was
- speakerthe
- speakerIn our home we never
- speakerwe never
- speakerWe had strict
- speakerstandards, but
- speakerthey were not related to ethical
- speakermorality as
- speakercomes from faith, you know.
- speakerMy reactions to good and evil were largely based upon
- speakerwhether or not it pleased or displeased my parents.
- speakerAnd, when I got to, got to college
- speakerI was completely removed from those,
- speakerthose strictures. In that respect
- speakerTo the
- speakerit was a serious adjustment. And, as it
- speakerturned out later in my life when I did
- speakerget mixed up in some problems.
- speakerDo you remember having any mentors in college or particular
- speakerprofessors?
- speakerNot really.
- speakerI had one.
- speakerprofessor from whom I took
- speakerinternational law, but he's the only one. As a matter of
- speakerfact, as I look back on it, I got a lousy education at Ohio Wesleyan.
- speakerI've supported the college for a long time
- speakeruntil they called the other day
- speakerAnd I said to the person,
- speakerI can't really think of any good reason why I should support Ohio Wesleyan.
- speakerWell, You were being honest.
- speakerDid the church play any part of
- speakerin your college years? Did you continue going
- speakerto the Presbyterian Church?
- speakerYou know, minimally.
- speakerWe had
- speakerWe had compulsory chapel
- speakerfive days a week.
- speakerIt was a good excuse not to go to church.
- speakerSo then you
- speakerwent home when the Depression hit, and you had wanted to go to law school.
- speakerCorrect, is that?
- speakerBut, the Depression kept you from doing that? So
- speakerthen, what led to your decision to go to> Well, you
- speakerwent to McCormick. But, that was a little bit later. What happened in
- speakerbetween that time?
- speakerWell,
- speakerone of the people
- speakerthat
- speakergotten me back into college, was
- speakertraveling secretary of our fraternity. And,
- speakerhe was a Presbyterian minister from Cincinnati
- speakerIndependently wealthy.
- speakerBut
- speakerI went back home and
- speakerthe behavior and the morals in a small town
- speakerare frequently worse than the
- speakercity, believe me. The only difference is that everybody knows
- speakerabout it.
- speakerSo
- speakerI remember writing to him
- speakersaying that I didn't think that my life
- speakerwas taking the right direction.
- speakerAnd, I haven't talked
- speakerabout this in years. The right
- speakerdirection. And, I got a letter back. He said that he thought
- speakerthat I was. about ready to go to seminary.
- speakerWell, I thought that that was the stupidest thing that I ever heard.
- speakerBut I
- speakercouldn't get it out of my mind.
- speakerI wrote to the
- speakerpresidents of Union, Princeton,
- speakerand McCormick. And,
- speakerso one Saturday afternoon, on a day about like this,
- speakerI took a walk out over the hills and back to our house.
- speakerAnd, I promised someone. I would say God now,
- speakerif it was made financially possible for me to go
- speakerto seminary, I would give it a whirl.
- speakerGot home
- speakerAnd I'm not sure that this is accurate, but
- speakerin my memory, it was the only time that there was ever a
- speakerSaturday afternoon mail delivery in that little town.
- speakerAnd, there was a letter from John Timothy Stone, who was the
- speakerPresident of McCormick, saying that if I came to McCormick, he would
- speakerprovide. The seminary would provide for room,
- speakertuition, and books. Well, after having made that
- speakerpromise. The coincidence of it, you know,
- speakerwas, I guess, about as
- speakerstrong a motivation as anyone could get.
- speaker"What was McCormick like? Specially with the war, the Second War?"
- speakerThe War coming on?
- speakerCome to.
- speakerFeel.
- speakerWell. But
- speakerIt was kind of a kaleidoscope thing and
- speakerI made it a kaleidoscopic
- speakerthing because I was in a period of growth.
- speakerI remember the first
- speakernight I was there.
- speakerPerfectly awful dormitory room.
- speakerSomeone came
- speakeralong, knocked on the door and said, "We're having
- speakerfloor prayer meetings. Well, that was just about the last thing that I
- speakerwanted at that particular stage
- speakerBut one of the other people, who was on, in that
- speakerdormitory didn't go to the floor prayer meeting either.
- speakerBob Crothers [Robert R. Crothers]
- speakerbecame my closest friend and still is.
- speakerHis father, his father
- speakerhad been and was at the time, a clergyman
- speakerand was part of the staff of the Board of Christian Education.
- speakerIt was the
- speakerrelationship that Bob and I had that
- speakerbrought me into a different stage.
- speakerIt was, it was a
- speakerwarm and a. I don'
- speakerget excited easily. I was about to say exciting experience
- speakerThe
- speakerfaculty was
- speakerin marked contrast to the one at
- speakerOhio
- speakerWesleyan. And, it was in the beginning of
- speakerstruggle period with. I went
- speakerinto Robert Worth Frank's
- speakerphilosophy class one day.
- speakerThere was always a prayer before the class. And
- speakerthe Cubs and the Cardinals were fighting, ready for the National League pennant.
- speakerSo, the opening prayer, Worth
- speakerprayed, "Oh, God put
- speakerPower in the bats of our Cubs this day." And, I thought,
- speakermaybe I'm not the wrong place after all.
- speakerYour
- speakerfirst pastorate was at Allen Park Presbyterian Church in nineteen
- speakerthirty-seven. What was the
- speakertransition like going from seminary to
- speakera pastorate? or Allen Park, particularly?
- speakerHi
- speakerFi
- speakerWell there was no great shock because
- speakerthere was no church there, you see. Jane and I
- speakerset our own rules.
- speakerSo, this is not to say that we didn't have problems, but
- speakerwe had we had
- speakerno traditions to deal with. We created our own traditions, our own programs and our own patterns, and so forth.
- speakerAnd between the part of the community, we really became a part of the church.
- speakerWhat was that community like? What was the townlike?
- speakerWell, it was. It was and
- speakerstill is a suburb of about twelve hundred
- speakerpeople.
- speakerThey worked in. Most of them in one of two places,
- speakerthe Ford Motor Company or Great Lakes Steel
- speakerCorporation. They
- speakerwere people that were just
- speakermoving out of the blue collar class
- speakerinto white collar or white collar
- speakerpeople themselves.
- speakerDid you find them
- speakeropen to the idea of a church? Did you have many members when
- speakeryou started out?
- speakerWell, I was there. One of the first time I was there
- speakertwelve people meeting in an upstairs school room.
- speakerWhen I left,
- speakerI've forgotten how many we used to have.
- speakerOn average attendance, of around eight hundred when we left.
- speakerI guess the church was, oh, somewhere near a thousand when we left
- speakerThere
- speakerfeel for.
- speakerThe nature of that community as still
- speakermuch the same
- speakerin terms of the
- speakerreligio-civic attitudes. There were people in the church who
- speakerFeel
- speakerreally work in, work in the government.
- speakerI was the first police commissioner.
- speakerI wrote the first police handbook
- speakerand all that sort of stuff.
- speakerThe. The
- speakerchurch really was the community, the community
- speakerwas the church. The Protestant church, our
- speakerchurch and the Roman Catholic Church.
- speakerBill Tracy, who was the Catholic priest, and I
- speakerwhenever we'd have a mixed marriage, we'd get together and
- speakerdecide which would be best for the family.
- speakerWhether they should be married in a Catholic church or in our church.
- speakerAnd, it is still pretty much that way in that community.
- speakerI read somewhere that you were called the father of the church and the city, that it
- speakerwas a growing place. It went from a small town even
- speakerinto a suburb of Detroit, that the town grew while you were there as well?
- speakerYou said that you were involved in the police commissioner, commission.
- speakerI also heard or read somewhere you were involved in getting the Boy Scouts together,
- speakerIs that true? Well, there was
- speakernothing there. There was nothing there. There was nothing there.
- speakerFeel feel you know
- speakerYeah, we.
- speakerFeel
- speakerbought a boy scout, boy scout camp, up in North central Michigan.
- speakerNorth central Michigan.
- speakerStill a part of the church program. A funny part of
- speakerit was that they discovered oil and gas on it.
- speakerIt was, I guess it was about three years ago.
- speakerFeel feel
- speakerThe estimate was that they were going to get about twenty million dollars. And,
- speakerthen the market got clobbered. So much for that.
- speakerand
- speakerfeel
- speakerfeel
- speakerI don't I don't even know your wife's name. I
- speakerdidn't come across in anywhere. So, when were you married?
- speakerand what was her name? Her name was Jane Baldwin.
- speakerShe was a part of the Firestone family.
- speakerI'm five years older than she, and I can
- speakerremember when she was born. And she was my sister's best friend.
- speakerSo that, I can't really
- speakerremember that part of life
- speakerwhen she wasn't there.
- speakerHowever
- speakerPerfectly beautiful woman.
- speakerand
- speakershe went to Mount Union College
- speakerWhere where? It is in another one of those God-
- speakerfearing colleges in Alliance, Ohio.
- speakerOh, okay.
- speakerVery very
- speakerstrong
- speakerfine line
- speakerand together that with
- speakerher
- speakerpersonality and the personal appearance made it very
- speakereasy me wherever I was.
- speakerfor the choir.
- speakerAnd, she made it easy for me.
- speakerI didn't always
- speakermake it easy for her because of the nature
- speakerof the thing that I was doing.
- speakerYou
- speakerWe
- speakerhad two children
- speakerOne of them, the elder
- speakerour daughter,
- speakerwent to Scarsdale High School, which was then
- speakerstill is a good a
- speakerpublic school as you will find
- speakerin the east.
- speakerLater on, went to Alma College, which
- speakeris in Michigan. She been there for the
- speakerbetter part of twenty-two years.
- speakerAnd, she is a teacher
- speakeris alleged to be teaching English.
- speakerLast spring got
- speakerthe distinguished teaching award from Blackburn College out in Iowa.
- speakerShe's married
- speakerto another teacher.
- speakerOur son
- speakerwas. He had
- speakerthe best or the worst, both of his parents
- speakerHe was all
- speakercounty in three sports in Westchester
- speakerand was in the Mets farm system.
- speakerBaseball.
- speakerAll became involved
- speakerin the multi-media
- speakerWent to Europe to reorganize his company's European operations
- speakerCame back to this country
- speakerwith his girl friend.
- speakerare old.
- speakerThey were about to get married.
- speakerAnd, to me, he was the chief
- speakeroperating officer of the company.
- speakerAnd,
- speakersix years ago next week, they both died in an
- speakerautomobile accident. That's why I am the last of the Neighs.
- speakerand
- speakerJane is now in
- speakera nursing
- speakerhome. She has Alzheimers.
- speakerWhen?
- speakerWere you married before you went to seminary or after?
- speakerAfter.
- speakerAfter. There were very few people that were students that were
- speakermarried. Really in seminary.
- speakerOK. You went back to McCormick in nineteen forty-six, according to what I
- speakerhave, and became the Vice President for Development? Is that right?
- speakerNo, that's not exactly right. You
- speakerread that in one of those blurbs. Yeah.
- speakerI went back there to be Executive Vice President.
- speakerWhat brought about this change? To leave Allen Park
- speakerfor McCormick?
- speakerBelieve and.
- speakerWell, there were two things.
- speakerOne was that I discovered that the people were
- speakernot joining the church.
- speakerThey were joining Jane and me.
- speakerWhen we got ready to leave, the fellow man, who
- speakerowned the local theater, who was Roman
- speakerCatholic
- speakerwanted to put petitions in the
- speakerlobby of the theater to keep us in town. That. That was the
- speakerclimate. And it
- speakerwasn't good. The other thing was that it
- speakerWorth Frank,
- speakerwho later became the president of the seminary,
- speakerwho had married Jane and me,
- speakerand some of the other faculty people
- speakerout there
- speakerpersuaded me that someone needed to get hold of
- speakerthe administration of the seminary.
- speakerAnd.
- speakerwith those two things were responsible. He had you in mind for the job then?
- speakerWorth [Frank, Robert Worth] wasn't the president then.
- speakerHarry Cotton was the president.
- speakerHe was
- speakerfeet
- speakertemperamentally
- speakernot suited to be an administrator.
- speakerWhat did you find at McCormick when you
- speakercame back? Did you find it much, much different?
- speakerYeah, it was a great deal different.
- speakerMainly because of the nature of the student body
- speakerhad changed.
- speakerI went back just in time. At the time that
- speakerthe
- speakermen and women were coming back from World War
- speakerTwo.
- speakerInstead of being a place of single
- speakerpeople, it was a place of married people.
- speakerThere were some single people around, but
- speakerthe vast majority were married.
- speakerAnd.
- speakeruh.
- speakerThere was kind of a seriousness about the whole thing.
- speakerA number of them had made up, decided
- speakerto go into the church in battle situations
- speakeryou see.
- speakerThe calm and the peace of my student days
- speakerwas gone.
- speakerWhat
- speakerwas. What were your responsibilities as the Executive
- speakerVice-
- speakerPresident?
- speakerHmm.
- speakerHave
- speakerI have to word this very carefully.
- speakerUh.
- speakerI
- speakerexecuted the needs of the administration of the seminary.
- speakerAs distinct from
- speakerfrom the responsibilities of the dean of the seminary, who dealt with the faculty.
- speakerIt was only after I became the president that
- speakerI was involved in both sides.
- speakerAlthough when I went out
- speakerI was a full
- speakerprofessor on the faculty. I have in nineteen
- speakerforty-seven you became Acting President? How did that
- speakerchange come about? That was only a year after
- speakeryou became? That is blinking.
- speakerWe still have a little bit of tape left, thank you.
- speakerAgain, I have to choose my words. Well, if you would rather not
- speakertalk about it, that is okay, too?
- speakerUh
- speakerThe president
- speakergot fired. All right.
- speakerAnd, you were next in line then?
- speakerYou said you were also
- speakera professor. Full professor, of? What classes did you teach?
- speakerWhat role was that?
- speakerWell.
- speakerYou see
- speakerI'm
- speakerleaving gaps here, which makes it sound garbled.
- speakerI was only there for about
- speakerthree months when the president went on a sabbatical.
- speakerAnd, I had to take over the adminstration then.
- speakerHe was back
- speakerfor. Gee,
- speakernoy more than two months when he got fired.
- speakerSo all the time I was. I was out there. I was involved in the
- speakeradministration, which took up most of my
- speakermy time.
- speakerI did teach courses in homoletics.
- speakerDid you enjoy teaching?
- speakerNo, not really.
- speakerI didn't really enjoy
- speakerbeing at the seminary. There was not enough
- speakeractivity and.
- speakerSo when
- speakerthe people
- speakerneeded someone in Detroit Presbytery,
- speakerthe client came out to see me. Well,
- speakerdidn't come to see me, they wanted to see Jane
- speakerbecause
- speakershe was bored stiff. Oh,
- speakerreally! She was used to the activity and organizing
- speakerthings?
- speakerWell. At Allen Park? Academe is still
- speakerstratified, you know.
- speakerAnd
- speakershe
- speakerThis might be a good time to flip over.