International House Berkeley

62 Marian O'Regan 1946 - 1947 I went to college during the war – out at Texas Tech – and it was almost like going to a girls' school then. After that, I worked, and one of the girls with whom I was working was going back to Oakland. I was looking into going to graduate school and living at an I-House in either New York or Madison – my cousin had lived in I-House in New York and said it was the place for me. But my friend suggested, "What about UC Berkeley?" I said, "Where's that?" I really thought that I would go to Madison, but that one friend changed my life in a way in which I will never regret. I arrived on the doorstep of I-House on a warm September day and was not prepared – someone had told me that it was going to be quite cold in Berkeley! Well, it was quite warm and the first thing, I was invited to go swimming in Lake Anza. So I borrowed someone's swimsuit, and we took a bus that goes up there. It was 1946, and people were so, so open to activities. There was a group that had been in the fraternity houses during the war, and they were all ready to go back and tell the rest of us what to do! Joan Obidine [Rush] was one of those. Everyone took me in hand and educated me: "You must go to this lecture, read this book," get me up to snuff. Peggy [Post Grunland] was just incredibly helpful and Marion Ross and Ingrid Borland. Ingrid was very shy, but she was so attractive – she was certainly a popular person! We certainly were talkative! You would wander through the Great Hall, see who was there and say, "Let's go get a cup of coffee." That's how you got to know people, just casually. It's such a shame that they've closed it off now – the door from the Great Hall to the cafe. Yes, it was certainly good for me. I hadn't met many people from other countries in Texas, just a few Dutch people, from Shell Oil. It was very segregated in Houston. At the I-House, you could talk to everyone. There were Africans, a lot of Egyptians, later we had Israelis, but that was later because there wasn't even an Israel then. Yes, there were Germans. I don't believe anybody held anyone accountable for what their country did. We were young. It wasn't our doing what was going on in our country. If you were here, it was because you wanted to see what this country was like. Whom did I know? I knew Victor Shick and his gang, and Ted Taylor and his gang. But I didn't know too many of the men. Meeting the women was easier – we were all together on that hall on the 4th floor, while the men had all the rest of the building. It was certainly nice, after being at a practically all-girls' school, to be in a place Marian O'Regan Application to I-House, 1946

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