An Interview With Mae Gimbert St. Clair

by K. Paul Johnson

K. Paul Johnson is the head librarian at the Halifax County-South Boston (Virginia) Regional Library. He is the author of The Masters Revealed, Initiates of Theosophical Masters, and Edgar Cayce in Context.

Mae Gimbert St. Clair celebrated her 90th birthday in December 1998. I first met her last summer, and found her to be alert, vivacious, and eager to share her recollections. She was in near-daily contact with Edgar Cayce from 1938 through his death in 1945. Although her memory is no longer precise on details, she is an important eyewitness to the early years of the ARE and has many stories to share. We arranged an interview date, and the following conversation took place on August 15. Mae told me of walking five miles a day, and her erect carriage and high energy level were evidence of the health benefits she had found through the readings.

Elegantly dressed and with a charming demeanor, Mae seemed well known to many in the beachfront area; she was often greeted by name in the restaurant where we lunched following the interview. Mae retains the title of Research Assistant at the ARE Library. She has recently given up her oceanfront apartment and gone to live in a retirement community in Virginia Beach. During the adjustment period in her new home she has temporarily stopped coming in to work at the library, but is expected to resume limited duties there later this year.

MSC-- I know I'm going somewhere. and I don't know where I'm going, but I know full well that I won't stay here-- I've seen enough dead people for that. And to find out the meaning of the word reincarnation just opened up everything. That's forever, that's always, out there-- we're always going somewhere or coming back from somewhere and how can this possibly be?

PJ-- Had you heard about reincarnation in the readings?

MSC-- I didn't even know the definition.

PJ-- So when you got your first reading you were not looking for past lives?

MSC-- No! I was looking for health. I had made a few sharp turns and (laughs) I ran away and got married, jumped right into the fray, of doing something that I knew nothing about. I knew how to relate to my brothers and sisters, especially those I didn't get along with. (laughs)

PJ-- and how many were there?

MSC-- There were ten of us, and six of us grew to adulthood. And the passing of a sister at a very early age was the most hurtful thing for me, and much of it is gone now, because I've covered it up with a lot of other hurts ...

PJ-- Life does that.

MSC-- Life strikes me down and I get up and go again. And it was a continuous learning process. There was not a day that you couldn't learn something when you were in that house. And not because they sat around and talked, there were so many little things ... And there wasn't anything, it seemed to me, more that anybody could say-- but there was always something more that they could say which didn't fit what I had already decided on about truth-- about where I came from. Where I really came from.

PJ-- But it was health concerns that brought you initially. So you had heard about the readings helping people medically?

MSC-- Yes.

PJ-- How did you first hear about Edgar Cayce?

MSC-- Well the broken marriage sent me-- in order to get my way,through that bit of time, I ran away. I went to New York City, and my sister, who was in college at West Virginia University, was going to New York as a last step in getting her degree ... in Physical Education. So I decided that I would go to New York and live. And I got up there and of course I've got to work. I was not prepared for that, so I took a job doing waitress work, downtown near Wall Street. The place was called Tosca, and they served more Italian food than the average place. And I learned how to put the knife and fork and spoon on the right side of the plate, and put on the stiff white apron that they gave me to work in, and started out trying to write orders for food and bring it in to the people for their lunch; it was a lunchtime place. People were paying more attention to me because of my southern drawl than they were to what they ate, I think. And I was quite shapely, and there was a lot of attention that I had not ever had, nor accounted for. But I managed-- and managed to keep people coming to my table. I'd get a dime tip, every person would leave a dime. Most everybody tipped a dime in those days. Things were really rough in the first part of the century as far as money was concerned. And so I stayed there until summertime. Everybody would go on vacation, it would close down, and I would go back the next year and do the same thing. So I met quite a few people, and one-day this man, two men came in and sat at my table-- I was assigned two or three tables to take care of-- and he said "Where are you from" I said "Virginia Beach" and he asked me if I knew of Edgar Cayce. And I said "Who's he?" He said, "I'm going to write you an introductory note, and he will tell you what to do with your life."

PJ-- How could you resist?

MSC-- Right, how could I resist that, you might say, having a broken marriage to deal with, which I had never figured out. I'd had it all worked out-- I was going to have six children, was going to take care of them. We were going to take care of them-- it's kind of ridiculous sounding now, but that's what I thought then. So he got my curiosity up, and he wrote me an introductory note to Mr. Cayce, saying "take this and give it to him, and he will tell you what to do with your life,"-- so I did. I have a memory of Mr. Cayce at that moment, of him opening the door. He answered the door, not Mrs. Cayce or one of the children. It looked like he was about six feet tall to me. It was a brick platform. it wasn't fancy at all, just bricks up like this, nothing to hold on to or anything. He invited me in, and I went in and I gave him the note, he looked at it and I saw a smile go over his face and I wondered what that was all about. Because I had no idea what this man was going to say to me. So he gave me a small folder, in which there were testimonials of people who had gotten well, and then there was something on the third and fourth page, about life readings, and I wondered "What's that?" But my problem was predominant enough that I let that one slip by me; I didn't try to figure that out right away. So I just went down and each day I would talk to him; made the appointment, started the treatments, and what I found myself doing was going back early so I would get a chance to talk to him. And so this was pretty much of a habit. I remember Gladys coming down the stairway any number of times; a part of her process there was to straighten the house, and get ready to give a reading. And so, double solitaire, anybody can do, it didn't take any heavy study and I just sort of fit myself in. They didn't know what else to do with me; they finally gave me some work to do. Hugh Lynn did, not Mr. Cayce.

PJ-- So this was during the summers you'd come back to Virginia Beach when you were free?

MSC-- I came back home; I was born here.

PJ-- Were you planning to go back to New York that fall?

MSC-- I went back, the second time ... so when I told my mother and father what I was going to do, they thought "What is that child going to do next? What is that all about?" because they'd never heard of Mr. Cayce. And so we started off with no answers and a lot of questions. As I went along with this, I got more and more excited because if reincarnation is a fact I had more than one life that would be confronting me. And if that was the case, this must really be a trip! And I just got more and more into it. Mr. Cayce would answer whatever question I asked him. It was so simple, that's a good word for you to find for him. To me it was "Oh? Oh?" going all through the thing, "Oh! So that's how that works"' I finally got my courage up one day, he was sitting in his favorite chair, it was midmorning, and I walked away from him so I wouldn't see his being insulted at my question. And as I walked away toward the west in that room where there was a fireplace, big room, I asked "Is there anything to this business about reincarnation?" And when he answered it in a positive, I said "OH!" I couldn't tell you how inviting that was to me.

PJ-- So you were ready.

MSC-- I was ready for the picking. Now, what interests me is he never altered his expressions, he didn't seem to be amused, turned off, turned on or anything. He was just observing, and responding. And of course what I didn't know that he with all people was psychic and that he was also having lots of thoughts of his own about who this person is. Now I know that, but for a long time I didn't have any clue to what I was getting into.

PJ-- That reminds me. As I told you I had cousins who grew up in Virginia Beach in the thirties, and they always talked about Mr. Cayce as being very unassuming, keeping his light under a bushel, not acting like he was anybody special. Just being a salt of the earth common man that you would never suspect was into all these things. Was that the way you saw him at first?

MSC-- That's right. I was a high school dropout. So that couldn't have been too hard for anybody-- the background, the knowledge, how I would take to something like this. You'd think I would turn away from it. But I didn't. There was something about the way he made his statements, they were very logical, I thought. "I didn't know that, OH"' So I went along with it. It felt like he was dressing it up or something. I was so amazed at the answers to my simple questions, which I considered very simple. Like where we came from.

PJ-- So your first reading was a medical reading.

MSC-- Yes, I got the guidance for my health, went about doing it, so one day when I was down there he said "Mae, you come down here on..." and he gave me a day, and said "We're going to get your life reading." Well, I did jump for joy, because I'd heard enough to make the [inaudible] about it. That there were answers. Somehow, I couldn't find an answer I could accept from the church approach. The Baptist Church was where we went, and back in the early part of this century anyhow they got very exuberant and did things I didn't think were very graceful. And so, I saw him, he couldn't get rid of me is what it amounted to. And they didn't lock the door (laughs), so they finally put me to work. It was on the mimeograph machine. Hugh Lynn-- I hadn't met Hugh Lynn, he was in college-- and when I did get around to meeting him, he ran things like mailing out things and what not, and I got a job. Now they insisted on paying me something, it was very minimal I assure you. Ten cents an hour or whatever, because that seems the proper thing to do. But there were many things that they gave me to do that didn't add up in this. But it was my excitement over knowing that reincarnation was a fact, and it answered to me just like (snaps fingers.) That's the answer, said I to me.

PJ-- How would you describe the standard of living that the Cayces maintained? Was it hand to mouth, or were they comfortable but not well off?

MSC-- Up and down. It was never pointed out, never talked about. It was a question of going from hand to mouth because of depending on somebody needing help. So the thing that I did, I didn't stay for meals, well I won't sat never, but I took the lunch hour, I got on my bike, went up the beach, stretched out on the sand, took a nap; if I had a nickel or a dime I'd buy a Coca-Cola or something like that.

And thatís not exaggerating. Because we didn't have what we have now, we didn't have any way of getting things without money. If you didn't have a nickel, you couldn't buy anything that cost a nickel without it. You couldn't sign a piece of paper saying you'd pay for it next week or whatever. So I purposely left for lunch hour, and went to the beach. There was a lady that would let me change my clothes, and I would go to the beach and get a sun tan and sleep. Believe it or not, I could fall asleep.

PJ-- This started when?

MSC-- 1938.

PJ-- So you started in to work right away?

MSC-- Little by little, Hugh Lynn would give me things to do, and I would try to help in any way I could. In the meantime in my family, my sister was ill, and she had TB. And there was no known cure for that the earlier part of the century. She was six years older than I, and she had been in the sanitarium, and so, shall I say, we brought her home, got a reading for her, and she got well. Now the doctor that she was going to wasn't a first class MD, I don't think. I don't pay much attention to doctors and their identifications and so forth.He asked her "What are you doing? Did you get
religion?"which I thought was just laughable forever. And she didn't tell him, because nobody wanted the world to know that you were going to this man who did this strange thing.

PJ-- Were you living at Oceana at this point? With your family?

MSC-- Yes

PJ-- And people were suspicious of Edgar Cayce?

MSC-- Well, they were cautious. I don't think suspicious, but they were cautious because they didn't understand how any man could do this thing he was doing. My parents, when they saw my sister get well, didn't have to ... they wouldn't talk about it because they knew people wouldn't believe. So it wasn't a business of sitting around talking about it. I didn't care, if I didn't know how or not. If it works do it!

PJ-- Was your sister the first person you saw healed by using the readings?

MSC-- We can check that but I would say yes-- in the family. Now the people I kept meeting, when I was there-- I wouldn't just sit there and wait to see what they would talk about, but I would be there, I would know what appointments were made, and finally Hugh Lynn gave me a job running the mimeograph machine. I think there was a small payment for that, but they insisted.

PJ-- At what point did you start being present for other people's readings?

MSC--Whenever he'd ask me.

PJ-- So that was the first summer?

MSC-- The first time was the first encounter I had when Mr. Cayce was giving a reading. Otherwise I had no reason for going in with somebody else; it was private, a very private thing. A lot of people wanted to ask questions for different reasons, and so that was the exception to the rule. But it was not uncommon for him to walk by the typewriter (I got to where I'd answer letters and tell them about appointments being made and things like that) and when he walked by sometimes he would say "Mae, would you like to hear the reading today?" And I didn't ask who, where, what time-- "You bet!" and I would just go and sit there and listen and feel. I knew I was experiencing something very remarkable. I didn't understand it, but it worked for me and it worked for my sister. She was the first one who really had a problem; she had tuberculosis and she had it for sure, without any question. I know that when she came home to live, we got a new vacuum so the dust wouldn't be stirred up, and did things like that so that being at home would be a help for her too. "You know when I look back at this I realize how remarkable it was in any circumstance, but in the conditions of which I had any knowledge of it was incredible. It was unbelievable that a man could do this, that anyone could do this. Except, I thought the Master could do anything.

PJ-- What was the atmosphere like?

MSC-- Quiet. They were concerned that he would wake up. They didn't say so, but it was quiet and orderly. There was no slapping of the knee or exclamations or anything like that. It was a business, and his health and his life were at stake. He could have gone on. That's not mentioned very much that it was considered a possibility that he would not wake up. Which would mean he'd die. And there was always that possibility.

PJ-- And as I recall there were times in his earlier life where he did stay in a trance for a long time.

MSC-- I can't say that I've seen those documents, but the stories about it I've heard, I didn't feel like I wanted to go back into-- this is the real McCoy. So I didn't feel like I wanted to go back and read past life, and besides if it was written down I don't know where it was. They had 14 file cabinets full of material. When my dad came into the picture he built the vault. Added a room, two offices, a bath, a place Mr. Cayce could take a shower if he wanted to, before he gave the reading or whatever.

PJ-- I should know this but I don't. What was the difference between the responsibilities that Gertrude and Gladys had in dealing with the people who came to get their readings in person?

MSC-- Many didn't come in person. But they wrote the letters, answered the letters, made the appointments, he didn't get involved in that at all.

PJ-- Gertrude did some of that too, then?

MSC-- Not really, no. She was not a stenographer. Gladys had to keep a record so that was her job. I'm trying to picture... way back, they didn't have a complete set of cards of the names of people who had had readings at that point. That was something that was done later. I remember first looking at the set of cards to put numbers on them, because when Mr. Cayce said "Mae, go into the vault" (after that was done) "and make a copy of everything you can find on Palestine when the Master was in the earth." So I started at the A drawer. THey were alphabetically arranged, by name, and I started with the first drawer, and made copies. I had the numerical listing, the alphabetical listing, and I had the individual listing of type, so I made something we could go to quickly to get at a subject, at a given number or a given person's reading. That was a pretty big assignment. That made it possible for me to look at a lot of the variations, of types of people or letters and yet, I wanted to get it done, so I didn't try to absorb it, I just did the mechanical part. Now this was not a salaried job, but sooner or later, Hugh Lynn would slip me 25 cents or a dollar or something, I think because his Dad-- I don't know, they just decided I should receive something for the time. And I couldn't care less.

PJ-- You were enjoying it.

MSC-- I was enjoying it. And I'm the one that set that up. Gladys didn't have this done. I'm not saying she was neglectful. But we just reached a time where it was getting bigger and bigger and bigger and there was a need to get at it alphabetically. Simple filing, if nothing else.

PJ-- You eventually edited one at least of the library series. Did that come directly from this project? I can't remember which volumes you did, but I know there are some.

MSC-- The one on the Master. Let me show it to you right now ... it wasn't any big deal, I had another person working with me, who got some credit on that one, and she is still living ... Irma Cook. She is taking care of her husband now, who is close to being bedridden, not totally.

[tape change caused loss of some words]

... Maybe so. Back in those days, flying was unheard of, for a person just taking a trip. And there wasn't that much of it being done-- personal. Travel was entirely different than now. The roads and all the rest. You can picture what a village was like. They'd have maybe three or four major roads in it, or streets or something. Otherwise, it'd just be a clutter of houses. That's what Oceana was.

PJ-- And Virginia Beach wasn't a whole lot bigger.

MSC-- We lived on the wrong side of the track.

PJ-- I can remember when that drive from Norfolk to Virginia Beach was nothing but woods and the Pine Tree Inn in the middle of it all-- it just seemed like an oasis.

MSC-- That's right. That was a good place to eat.

PJ-- So there weren't many people from around here who came to visit [the Cayces].

MSC-- I didn't see that many come. Most people got their readings without being present. And that is indicated, whether or not the person was present. There's a list of those present...[including] Mr. Cayce and Gladys, of course, and case numbers.

PJ-- Numbers.

MSC-- Not names. One of the things I did was to number every reading ... Going back like this is really quite interesting for me because I realize how much I don't remember. I have to dig for, have to stop and think, and so if we're going to get into the time situation, we'll have to go to the readings.

PJ-- Something you said earlier, when we first met, was that there were things about the readings, things that happened during the readings, that we would never know from the written record, that you would like to share.

MSC-- I have a whole lecture on that; an outline I should say. [Inaudible] body he was was aware of, and I think that's an unusual point. He could hear, he could smell, "Pretty tree on the corner, beautiful flowers ... it's snowing" -- all the five senses that he had, when he was out of the body. He had no memory of it when he came back.

PJ-- Were there instances where something went wrong and he couldn't find the person or wouldn't give the reading?

MSC-- Like "he hasn't arrived yet, he's coming from across town"-- but that one's been used. That was one where while he was waiting he commented ...

PJ-- More a general question. Given that over the years you've watched Edgar Cayce go from an almost unknown person to being internationally known, and you've seen all the books come out; if there's something you think that's missing, that people don't quite understand now, even with all these books and ARE growing as an organization; something that you know about Edgar Cayce that you think fills in a blank, that you'd like to stress?

MSC-- Well, the fact that the sensory system was active. I think, is a point.

PJ-- The most important?

MSC-- That you could know ... That all five senses he was aware of when giving a reading.

PJ-- You've mentioned to me before that your family relationships and what you learned about them through the readings was very important to you.

MSC-- Well, it's something that should be important to everybody, because that's ... the family is the workshop. And the family and how it functions with each other determines how we are using this opportunity to bring peace and harmony and correction where needed. That's what the family is all about; it's a workshop.

PJ-- So how did your family take to the readings?

MSC-- One brother said, "Well, there's no harm; he won't harm anybody." I had another brother who wanted more information than he got, and ... (laughs) They were tolerant and accepting, but not necessarily believing. "What's Mae up to now?" (laughs) And of course, my mother was so grateful. She saw her family shape up in a different way because of this encounter. Just this very fact that my sister had TB; she got well.

PJ-- David Bell, in his forthcoming book, has quotes from the Memoirs that Mr. Cayce typed himself. And the grammar and the spelling in that is more primitive than anything that Gladys wrote. That makes me wonder if, when they were speaking, she seemed more educated or sophisticated than Mr. Cayce in the way they talked?

MSC-- I don't know how long he went to school ...

PJ-- Eighth grade.

MSC-- Well, that should give you an idea; eighth grade is just opening up history, at least it was at that time. Now, he taught Sunday School, and I never heard him say anything that was incorrect grammatically. It was Gladys's chore to write, but I didn't see anything wrong with his English.

PJ-- So she didn't fix anything?

MSC-- If it wasn't the correct verb, it was plural and needed to be singular, she might change that. But she didn't rewrite.

PJ-- She was a better speller, apparently.

MSC-- She liked spelling. I was a terrible speller-- it wouldn't come, wouldn't stay.

PJ-- In Bob Smith's biography of Hugh Lynn, when it talks about the period after Mr. Cayce died, you had this mountain of information and nobody really knew what to do with it or what the future would bring. Can you just describe your feelings at that time, your hopes and fears, and how you all got through that period?

MSC-- Well, I remember Gladys in particular was looking forward to Hugh Lynn coming home from the war. Because she felt that he would know where to plug in, how to set it up, and keep the ball rolling. That was very obvious.

PJ-- By the time Hugh Lynn came home, things were pretty much on track?

MSC-- On hold. He was the one who came home and began to get study group going and more popular, get the show on the road so we could get the material out and give people to share it.

PJ-- When the hospital was purchased back in 1956, were you on the scene then?

MSC-- Yes, I was on the scene. I don't feel like I ever quit them. Take a break now and then; got married ...

PJ-- DId you have other jobs?

MSC-- No. You see back in those days things were so different than now. Everything was different, phones, communications, newspapers we have jumped so far ahead of ourselves we don't know whether we're swimming or cooking.

PJ-- To be born near the beginning of this century and live through it, you've seen more changes in your life than anybody who has ever lived any 90 year period in the past.

MSC-- That's right. I was born in 1908, December.

PJ-- You're a Sagittarius?

MSC-- I'm a Sag.

I don't really know the full meaning of what all that is really all about. It's a clue to the ongoing existence of souls through the universe, is the way I look at it.

PJ-- To me, this is totally unprovable, one of the most fascinating teachings of the readings is the planetary sojourns because somewhere deep within I know that that's true. I don't know how I know it, but it just has a ring to it that's convincing.

MSC-- Yes. Well, the idea of not dying is enough to make one look up-- but it's not taught. I think it will someday receive the importance it should in books.

PJ-- Speaking of things receiving recognition, I just learned on the Internet of something very interesting. There are new studies that find that a substance in the skin of the blueberry has promise as a cancer treatment. And the woman who posted this said that in the readings Mr. Cayce predicted that such a thing would be found. So I looked up "blueberry" on the CD-ROM and found that he listed it in a number of items recommended for a person's diet. And when he got to the blueberry, he stopped and said that someday the proper use would be discovered.

MSC-- "The lowly blueberry will someday come into its own."

PJ-- So we're about to see that, perhaps.

I see Harmon here [in a picture on the wall] and I wanted to tell you that he strongly encouraged me to talk to you. I interviewed him a few months before he died, and so I'm glad I finally got around to it.

MSC-- He and I ... he was my child in another lifetime. And he had one of the most brilliant minds, I think. How do I know? I don't know, but I just heard this said. And I don't know what to compare it with, whether to add in this lifetime, or down through the ages ... no that would be too much. But certainly in this life. His mind was like a trap. He would catch on to ideas....

PJ-- And he wrote a book about Mr. Cayce that certainly is a great record of working with him on a daily basis. One of the things he says that really strikes me was that when people were present for a reading, what their reaction was when they came out. He said, and I want to see what you think about this, that the main theme was "We are known, deeply, and not just by Cayce." So the sense was that they became aware that God knew and love them, through whatever they felt as that reading was occurring. Would you agree with Harmon that that was a common feeling that people would have?

MSC-- Oh, yes! Well, I don't know that people would comprehend that. They would be shocked by it, a lot of the time. Seeing, being in as many cases of Mr. Cayce giving a reading ... happened many more times than I ever had any record of. I didn't know there would be any reason for keeping a record and Gladys wouldn't put it in the reading because the person having the reading would say "Who? What is she doing there?" This is private, we thought, and things would come up ... because much of the information was private and some of it very graphic. Those little things that he would add, like "it's raining." Or telling Gladys to go out and get Thomas Jefferson [Davis, her nephew, who was on a dock] that child could walk right in that water, you know, a youngster playing around. They lived right on the water there by the Catholic Church. It is amazing to me also ... Gladys knew much of the range of what he was experiencing because of these little things he would say. When she could, she would use them. Sometimes not use them because the person might be offended or wonder; make them disbelieve; this wasn't what they had come for. Her discretion was always there. Hugh Lynn knew a lot of this range because of having been present so many times and studied the readings, looked at the background and know the people who came for the readings.

PJ-- So when these things were checked, and these people were asked "Is there such and such tree on the corner?"-- How often did that happen, that Hugh Lynn or Gladys asked the person to confirm the details?

MSC-- That would be a wild guess because it may have been left off when typed. It didn't have anything to do with the reading directly, you see. I would have liked to have seen it just exactly personally. But when we fix it so that the computer can get at it and everybody in the world is going to get at it, you have to have the simplest format. For it to be effective.

PJ-- The readings always seem to have a loving, supportive tone. Sometimes he can be stern and warn people strongly to change their ways, but he never seems to be harsh or unkind. I wonder what you can say about the sort of feeling towards people that comes through.

MSC-- Personally, I see that for the most part he put that aside. His personal observations where David Kahn was concerned were more realistic because they grew up together and knew each other and so forth. I don't know how to get at that question ...

PJ-- I don't mean Cayce's personal attitude toward that individual but more the attitude of the source of the information to people. Was there ever anything in the tone [that was less than supportive] ... You sometimes get that warning tone in the Study Group readings.

MSC-- Because they were getting into areas that were not relevant, or more negative, more faultfinding in the approach, because people in the Study Group readings were all family people, and to keep that impersonal was very important. The reading itself shouldn't be personal, but factual. And his degree of using that, I thought, was very natural ... that's not the right word; very much in order.

Now I know that there were times that some of the people listening would pick up something like that because of their own question, or their own feeling about somebody else in the group. It was presumably very impersonal. But if you were in the group and knew some things about other members of the group it could have been more direct as to concept.

PJ-- The readings do say that if someone present, I guess Gertrude or Gladys usually, had some negative attitude toward the person, or if there was some conflict in the air, that it inhibited his ability to give a proper reading.

MSC-- I don't think it inhibited it. It just reflected the attitude of the person that was there ... It would become reflected. I don't think I'd play around with that one because it doesn't have anything to do with the subject, actually.

PJ-- We've all read that it was that huge volume of demand for readings after the book came out that really caused Mr. Cayce's death. Did you feel like he was overworking?

MSC-- Well, when you're sick and you work at all you're overworking. If you've got TB or a cold or your appendix is about to burst and work and it bursts, it's a broken law-- to rain on somebody already wet.


One factual error in the above interview is noteworthy: Hugh Lynn Cayce was 31 years old when he met Mae, and thus not away at college as she recalled.

I feel a need to explain the rather abrupt end of the transcribed interview. As may be apparent, I am a novice at interviewing. At the point where the transcript ends, Mae and I left her office for lunch at a nearby restaurant. I continued to tape the conversation, but it became quite informal and personal in nature, touching on subjects Mae indicated she would prefer to remain private. And I started doing a lot of the talking, often diverting the conversation into tangents of little interest to readers, which adds to the reasons for ending the transcript at the end of our formal interview in the Library.