Bates, David: Oral History, January 5, 1989

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The following oral history of David Bates was done January 5, 1989 by G. David Anderson for The George Washington Oral History Program:

ANDERSON: I’d like to thank you for agreeing to do this interview today. I know it’s going to be a contribution not only to the research on the history of the Glee Club, but to the permanent record of the university in connection with oral history. First of all I’d like to have you recollect about your early life back around where you grew up, family situation as they occurred there, you know, grammar school, high school. Would you reflect on this please?

BATES: Yes, I’ll interpose first and say that it’s my pleasure to be here doing this and I hope it is a contribution. Any way I can help the university and the department of music with something like this is my pleasure.

I was born in Arlington Virginia in 1925 in January. I would imagine my earliest recollections go back to 1930. It was semi-rural with a definite southern tinge, though not Deep South in every aspect. It was southern. I would say in the terminology of those days we were middle class, probably middle middle class. My father had his own printing and mailing business in Washington, D.C. There’s no doubt we were gently raised, raised in a sheltered home, shielded from many of the harsher aspects of life. My brother and sister and I have agreed on that. We were aware of things, but we never experienced them very much. The Depression hurt but we always had food, clothing and shelter and recreation money, and my mother definitely wanted us to learn the finer things of life, like music, art, ballet, drama, be exposed to them. We, there was a good mix in Arlington of various types of people so we were not completely shielded. We played with many different kinds of people and we saw things that didn’t go on in our home and we wondered about them. It was a sheltered life to some degree. I went to Arlington schools for seven years and then as the schools in those days in the District of Columbia were considered to be much better than the Virginia schools, all of us came over to Junior High and High School.

It was an excellent educational system in the District of Columbia in those days. I went to Gordon Junior High and Western High School, which was, truly aside from personal pride in ones school, it was a very fine high school, practically a prep school for West Point and Annapolis. And the standards were very high. As an illustration of that, one of my friends in the neighborhood who was last in his class at Western, when he applied at George Washington, he was told, by the registrar, “if you have a diploma from Western, there’s no problem coming to George Washington whether you were last or not.”

My brother went to the University of Virginia. I wanted to go there, but when he went to medical school at George Washington my father had to send me to George Washington because of the financial situation. My sister had gone to George Washington, and Dad simply couldn’t have someone away at school, so I had to live at home. I was not terribly unhappy, and in retrospect, I honestly think I did, it was much better for me than at U. Va. [University of Virginia] with its hyper-social scene and some of the class, societal class distinctions that were made there. Whereas at George Washington, there were a great many, in those days, a number of older people working full time and going at night, and when you are exposed to them, I think you learn more, you absorb more than you would have in a strictly campus college like U. Va. [University of Virginia] . . . not to put U. Va. down at all, but for someone like myself who was quite frankly socially retarded in some respects, that is shy, awkward. I did have a terrible speech defect when I was young although you‘d never know it now, because my wife says they can’t shut me off sometimes. But it was very difficult for me to go into groups or to speak in public when I came here, and associating with older people who were more understanding and who had seen many more things in life than I had was a great help to me.

Arlington was rural with a very limited public transportation system though it was dependable. If the train or the bus was supposed to come every two hours, it was there every two hours. It wasn’t, let’s say, it was supposed to come every 15 minutes but might miss three or four times a day. You knew when it was coming and the drivers, or the motormen knew you and knew approximately the time you caught the train and they would look for you, not just as a friendly service but because it was a few more cents in the fare box that helped pay their salary. It was an entirely different world up and through World War II, when things did change in the county, when it became more modern, was absorbed into the attitudes and life of the capital city, and I don’t think necessarily all the changes were for the good, but that’s the way it goes and you just have to accommodate yourself to them.

My background also included a great love of baseball, which I spent far too much time in my life, but I still have deep interest in it. I’ve played it managed it, coached it, and umpired in it all at a very low level. I was still trying to pitch when I was 24 although I did very poorly. But just pure love of the game, baseball and singing have been the two things, and love of the outdoors, I guess the three things that I’ve been interested in in my life. Music, singing started out as a way to help me with my speech defect which was stuttering, stammering for reasons that I don’t think are important enough to go into here, but it was a great help in curing it. I took voice lessons, I took part in my teachers’ recitals where I had to get up in front of a crowd, even few people, and sing and do solo work. I grew to love it. I never have been a great musician but I was trained in voice, sang in church choirs, in junior high glee clubs and high school choral section, which they called it at Western up until the time I was 17, and while I still couldn’t talk in front of a crowd, I had no problem at that age getting up and singing a solo in front of a crowd, which was a help to me in overcoming my problem.

George Washington was known to me because my sister had gone here and this is going way back into the 30’s. These are the red, white and blue uniforms on the football team, and Possum Jim Pixlee is the coach with the spread formation from one sideline to the other and Tufffy Leemans is the All-American who went on and played for the New York Giants for many years. My sister took me to a number of games, and I saw Leeman perform at his very best. I was aware where George Washington was and what it was. And I was not at all unhappy to come here. So when I say I preferred U. Va. [University of Virginia], it was I guess a natural preference of a young fella, but I feel like I got the better part of the bargain when I came down to George Washington.

ANDERSON: Could you describe your recollections of George Washington when you came here as a freshman, of area, of where it was, buildings, if you remember any specifics.

BATES: Well, there weren’t nearly as many buildings as there are now. You don’t trust your memory after forty some years, forty-three years past graduation. Lisner Auditorium had just been opened with the largest stage east of the Mississippi and south of New York, they said. The Government, what they call the Government building was here. That is where classes in history and political history were taught. I forget the library down on G Street, what that name was, but there was a library there.

ANDERSON: Lisner

BATES: The Lisner Library? That escaped me. The old Tin Tabernacle of the gym. I have very good memories of the trainer, George Lentz, “Doc” Lentz, who was very kind to me. He would also train for the Redskins and the Senators, and moved to Minnesota with the Senators. I thought he was a fine person. He’d been a professional boxer at one time but he had a heart just as big as any I’ve ever met and a concern for young men. The other buildings I really can’t remember the names of them. There was the Engineering School. I believe it was on 21st near G. The Law School was on 20th near G, and as I remember, not too far from the Western Presbyterian Church. I may be mistaken in my locations. Quigleys was almost as important to some of us as the buildings were. It was a meeting place, Quigley’s drugstore.

ANDERSON: Was it always full of students at this point in time?

BATES: Pretty much. It was a general meeting place. The soda fountain and the lunch counter, sandwich counter, whatever, various people call it different things. But it was a central, it was a focal point. You met people there. You met people in the library and there were other places of course outside of class, walking across campus, where you’d see your friends or the girls and the fellas would meet, but Quigleys and the library I think were the two meeting places, or social centers. You went to the library to see people as much as to study, of course.

It was not a big school. It had a large student population for those days, but many of them were part time. One or two courses at night. People who couldn’t afford, their parents couldn’t afford to send them full time, or their parents had passed on, or they were even in their 40s and they wanted to better themselves. They still wanted to get a college degree. It would help them get a promotion in wherever they worked, or help them do their work better. The serious students, but not with the sharpness some of the small unkindnesses you might see among younger students who were more socially aware of petty things. I guess that’s the best way I can think of to put it. Though I didn’t experience very much of that, I saw some of it. A put down here and there, and the older students didn’t often do that. You met a great deal of tolerance and understanding. I have very fond memories of a man by the name of Joe Sullivan, who was the officer manager for Senator Wagner from Pennsylvania, who would walk with me after class in political science or international law, and say, “now look Bates, it really isn’t that way that the professor told you. It’s this way. This is how things are done in the government.” I don’t know what happened to Joe Sullivan, but he opened my eyes and gave me a lot of self-confidence.

ANDERSON: I imagine there was quite a bit of activity with ROTC and the War College at the time.

BATES: No, not that I was aware of.

ANDERSON: Not that you were aware of?

BATES: Not that I was aware of. There was a meeting . . . . I came here in September 1942, and of course the country was united as it had never been before or since. The Japanese made a terrible mistake when they attacked Pearl Harbor, in that they united the country. They made a terrible tactical mistake in that they went after the ships instead of the docks. The docks, and the power facilities and the oil tank farm, had they damaged those, why our fleet would have been just stranded out there, but the biggest thing that they did was unite the country, and they didn’t stand a chance after that, and we never would have stopped.

About the first week I was here the representatives of all three services came to give talks about finishing college, and then the draft and so forth. And the object as I remember was to get students who in their senior year to sign up for officer training, reserve officer training, that could be postponed until they got their degrees. Army, Navy and Marine Corps. The Air Force was not a separate service in those days. It was the Army, Air Force and whatever the Navy called theirs. And I went to the meetings although I never I would never be drafted because of a physical handicap. I would never fly. I was interested enough in what would happen to some of my friends that I went to the meetings and listened to the servicemen. But that was the only thing that I ever remember taking place officially on campus. They never came back again, to my knowledge. There were no other meetings that I ever attended. There was a large turnout there and my memory is that most of the football team signed up with the Marine Corps. Their representative as an officer in dress blues who told the, it turned out later on to be exposed to some fiction, a very moving story about Wake Island and its capture by the Japanese and that stirred emotions. It was stirring enough on the facts that were disclosed, so I’m not putting him down particularly, but he put on a good show when he signed up most of the football and basketball teams right there. They wanted to be Marines, no doubt about it.

ANDERSON: How was, you mentioned an interest in high school in singing to, not only interest to help yourself as far as stuttering was concerned. What, how did you get involved in glee club at George Washington? How did you first become aware of it?

BATES: Well, I believe it was April ’42, March or April. My mother took me to Constitution Hall to hear the Beethoven 9th, and George Washington Glee Club was singing there, singing the choral part of the Beethoven 9th. And I sat, I knew then that I was going to George Washington. I sat in the audience and I listened to this group of men sing. I was just totally captured. I thought, gee, if I could only belong to that group, if I could just sing with that group.

I knew of Dr. Harmon. He had been my sister’s Ob. Gyn. man for her two daughters. I knew of him. I don’t think I’d ever met him but I knew who he was. And a very imposing man, with real charisma, even at a distance. I wanted to sing for him, and I wanted to sing in that glee club, and there was no doubt in my mind that was one of the goals I hoped I was good enough to do.

I didn’t have too much self-confidence. I never really, in retrospect it’s easy to look back and you know, one of the things of old age is that, with hindsight you can get all of the answers to your problems ten, twenty, thirty, forty, fifty, sixty years later, but you don’t have them at the time. I never really realized the talents that I had, and the qualities that I had. I didn’t have too much self-confidence. Now I’m not saying that I could have done more or gone further than I have but it would have been easier for me if I had, if I’d been aware of the qualities that I had, and the talents that I had and that I could, I would have had more confidence in myself and what I did and taking things easier and maybe sometimes been a little calmer, a little less frantic person as I went through life. I always felt like I was trying to catch up with people. And I don’t think I really was. At that position, I just thought I was. That’s a little personal thing interposed here.

ANDERSON: I understand that, yes.

BATES: When I came to try out for the glee club, I guess Doc listened to me ten seconds and he said, “Well, we got another baritone.” And I was really dumbfounded that it was that easy. Now I don’t think, there was a while I thought at one point, well, it’s because of the war and he needs all the men he could get, but now I realize I could sing. While I was not a good musician, I’d studied voice. I knew voice production, and I learned quickly. I had no problem picking up music once I heard it, and he realized that, I’m sure. So I feel that I made it on my own in the glee club, but at the time I was a little bit astounded that it was that easy and I was utterly delighted, very pleased to be in this group. It meant a great deal to me, for four years. My music had brought me social life in both junior high and high school, and in church to a degree. And it certainly did at George Washington. It was a big part of my life here.

ANDERSON: What were some of the activities your freshman year in the glee club?

BATES: You mean concerts and so forth?

ANDERSON: Concerts, rehearsals, remembrances of rehearsals, other activities, parties you may have attended?

BATES: It was, we rehearsed twice a week in the basement. We had a room in the basement of Lisner auditorium . . . hour and a half rehearsal. And of course, there was some talking. Doc had good stories to tell. Sometimes he would recite some of Robert Service’s poems . . . “The Cremation of Sam McGee,” but we sang an hour and five, an hour ten minutes. Sometimes we’d go overtime a few minutes, if things were going well or if we needed extra work. If things were going well we sang because they were going well and because we were enjoying it. If we needed extra work, why, we willingly stayed and sang.

I can’t specifically remember too many of the concerts. We gave one at the Stage Door Canteen. We gave one at the USO, various places. Some of it runs together. It’s hard to separate. Those two concerts I remember distinctly. It’s hard to separate all the years at this point, the things we did. We went to a couple of War Bond rallies, one at the Mayflower, another I believe at the Shoreham, or it might have been the Woodley Park, way out Connecticut Avenue, what was way out Connecticut Avenue then. I have memories of specific concerts, but I don’t think they were all in the freshman year. Sometime along the line we went to Chevy Chase Girls Junior College. I think that was in 1944 or ’45. We sang at what was a brand new hospital then, Doctor’s Hospital. We sang a Christmas concert there for the patients and we caroled on all of the floors. As I remember they were very pleased, obviously pleased to have someone come down and sing to them. There were concerts at churches. My memory is we would sing an average of seven or eight places a year, maybe more, but beyond those few specifics, and some of them I can’t remember the years specifically there were in. I just can’t really tell you.

ANDERSON: Had you decided on a major when you came to GW?

BATES: No, I was . . . .

ANDERSON: Was this an evolving thing?

BATES: Yes, I didn’t have any real special talents or real special interests other than the ones I mentioned at which I would never be good enough, I’m sure, to make a living. I was interested in history. Church meant a great deal to me then, and I’m still a churchgoer, though I can see many faults in the churches. I still think it’s a force for good, and my wife and I still attend church. I did think for a long time, or for a year or more, that I wanted to be a minister. I was raised, we were raised in the Episcopal Church. But I realized that I couldn’t be myself and be a minister. I was mature enough to realize that, and independent enough to realize that I couldn’t really be my full self and be a minister. So I gave that up, and I’m just as glad I did, because it’s a terribly difficult job if you honestly try to pastor a church, and represent God to people.

I did think about singing when I got into solo work. I honestly thought I had a possibility of making some money at it, and I did make some money at it later on, but it was pocket money as a paid singer and so forth around town as a professional choir singer. I sensed there that I didn’t have the nervous system to undergo the terrible grind of singing every day, rehearsing, practicing four hours every day, maybe singing three or four services in a church on Sunday, singing in a synagogue on Saturday, working your work up the ladder, sometimes performances every night. I knew my nervous system wouldn’t stand it. And the competition . . . There’s always, it seemed like 250 people for every even minor slot. So I didn’t consider that very long.

I did finally settle that I would like very much to be a professor of history in a university. When I settled on that, I went into American history in my junior year as a major, and I got pretty good grades in that, worked at it hard, liked it, and that was my goal when I came out. I never fulfilled it, but at least it was a great pleasure and a great help in getting me through the university and made my life more enjoyable here, to have a goal in something that I did well in . . . A’s and B’s and that sort of thing.

ANDERSON: Did you take any courses from Dr. Kayser?

BATES: Oh yes, oh yes. Yes, I remember Elmer Louis Kayser, with a great deal of warmth. Three years after I graduated in the summer of 1949 I was sitting on a bench in Lafayette Park during my lunch and Dr. Kayser walked by and greeted me by name. “Good afternoon, Mr. Bates,” and I answered him back, of course, very pleased that this great gentleman would remember my name after three years of the thousands of students he had seen and taught and knew, he remembered my name. And I don’t believe he’d ever seen me off campus before. And that’s a definite factor. You recognize people where you see them ever day, but when you see them elsewhere, maybe you know you know them but you just can’t think of who they are. I have great fondness for him.

I remember Dr. Charles Cole with a great deal of pleasure. One or two I don’t remember with very much warmth and I won’t mention their names. They were rather abrupt I think and not too considerate of students… cold men, very capable in their fields but without very much personal warmth. Two of them like that I remember. There was a Dr. Purcell who taught a seminar in American history who was every bit as fine a person, I’m sure, as Dr. Kayser was. I didn’t know him as well, but he was a much older man, a very fine gentleman. Doc Harmon, of course. Ray Hanken, who was assistant football coach. Mr. Hanken was a gentleman. He was not your, maybe I shouldn’t say this, but he was not your ordinary . . . .

ANDERSON: If we could, let’s pick up for a few minutes on Ray Hanken that you were discussing before the tape ran out on side one.

BATES: Well, briefly, Ray Hanken had been here when my sister was here, in the middle 30s. He stayed on as a, he did play professional football in the New York Giants but he came back to George Washington as an assistant football coach, went in the Navy as an officer, came back to George Washington, and stayed here in one capacity or another in the Physical Ed department until he passed away. He got, I know he got a Masters degree and I think he got a Ph.D., though I couldn’t tell you what it was in. So he was not, I don’t believe he would qualify as just your ordinary athlete. He went on in one capacity or another here and he was a gentleman. He had had a hard time when he was young, as I remember reading in his obituary, late entering college in his age, mostly because of the Depression, but he was a considerate, kind, thoughtful person with a great memory.

You always think someone has a great memory when they remember you specifically. He never could remember my name, but I was “Slim” to him. He called me “Slim,” because I was 6’ 3” and weighed about 155. Five years after I graduated, I was teaching school over at Baileys Crossroads Elementary School, and he showed up one day to pick up his daughter, and he said, “Hey, Slim, I haven’t seen you for years. How are you . . . came over, he spotted me from way across the playground, came over and shook my hand and chatted with me, and of course this made a great personal impression, but it topped off the good impression that I already had of him as a very fine person. I know he must he have been an asset to the University. Someone like that couldn’t help but be an asset.

ANDERSON: If we could turn specifically to the Glee Club activities. Obviously, your involvement was heavy for all four years with the Glee Club and Dr. Harmon and music at George Washington. Could you recollect on, speaking on, basically for the four years, on your impressions of Dr. Harmon and Mrs. Harmon in their style of conducting, their style of management with the student, the interaction with the students, things on this nature?

BATES: Well, I can’t say it’s a mature criticism or critique of the man, I mean criticism in the best sense of the word, because he was a much beloved, looked up to, much liked director. I thought the world of him. He had relationships with my family through my sister. My brother was in medical school and Doc always spoke highly of him, and I thought a lot of my brother, so I had a personal feeling for him and I think he did for me.

He was a good man to sing for. He made you want to sing. He knew music, but he didn’t show off his knowledge other than through his very capable directorship. He didn’t try to impress you with his knowledge of music, the technical part of it, his knowledge of various pieces. He would say something was great, or he didn’t like something, but he wouldn’t go into detail, to show his own great amount of information that he had about music, how good he was. He just directed you, and you liked him. You responded to the man. He was such a warm person. I would say he was inspirational. He probably was not absolutely the greatest musician I’ve ever sung for. Probably R. Dean Shore at Mt. Vernon Place Methodist was the greatest choir director I’ve ever sung for. A great man and a very fine composer, but Dr. Harmon was a good musician with a high knowledge of music, very inspirational, very likeable, great deal of charisma.

Mrs. Harmon was an accomplished accompanist, possibly in some ways a better musician than he was. But she was in the background to a degree, and yet how can an accompanist be in the background? Of course he was the director and he was the warm person who was an extrovert. I think she was a little bit of an introvert, in a way, but one on one she could be a very close person to you. She could be very warm and very helpful. Both of them helped me become a soloist in choirs around town. They didn’t put me forward or speak for me, but they taught me. She would work with me after I’d graduated. I could come down and she would work with me. She would clue me in on things, and she would go over things with me, over and over and over. And she did this with other people. She helped other young singers. So, she was, in her own quiet way, she was just as likeable as Doc was, just as loveable, just as much help.

I guess I would qualify him as a very inspirational person. You wanted to sing for him. He could cut someone down to size. I’ve seen him do it. He got rid of somebody one night, a chronic complainer who had been fussing about how we sang this and why didn’t we sing that piece in the way we sang something else, and so forth and so on. This had been going on for a couple of years, and this fellow got up one night after about an hour of rehearsal that night, and he said he just had to go that night, and Doc says “alright, if you have to leave, we can get along without you,” and there was utter silence. And this fellow never came back. He never came back. He knew he’d gone too far in his complaints. But that was the only person I ever knew of Doc to be nasty to, and it was overdue in my opinion. The fellow was a good singer and a good musician but just an unhappy chronic crank who was always interposing himself, and really interfered with rehearsal at times.

Doc made . . . by his kindness and his consideration his jokes. I mean he could sense when you’d worked enough and you needed a break and he would tell a joke or tell a little story, an anecdote maybe of his medical practice, without names mentioned, of course. Or he would recite some Robert Service poetry as I’ve said. One of his favorites was The Cremation of Sam McGee which is probably, to the younger generation is unknown, but Robert Service was one of the better known more or less modern poets in those days . . . mostly stuff about Alaska and the Gold Rush. Doc seemed to know when you needed a break. He seemed to know when you needed more work. He seemed to know about individuals without even trying to know. He would come up with a little personal question that showed he knew something about you, encouragement, little personal encouragements. Not just a physical pat on the back or something, but “oh I know you can do that” to somebody, or “don’t worry about it…I know you can do that. That isn’t going to be any problem for you.” This was to various people about various things.

He enjoyed life and you enjoyed it because you were with him. I’m sure many people will mention if they haven’t already of the trips to Chiles Restaurant and the Hot Shoppe Restaurant after concerts. Now we had things going after concerts. There were many times I remember . . . not every time of course. But many times there was a band playing and food and drink present and we were invited to stay and dance and whatever was available. My memory is that there was not very much alcohol available in those days. Doc didn’t approve of it. I don’t think he would take us any place where there was a lot of drinking if he knew about it. But there was beer available from time to time. He didn’t want you getting in any state of, even close to intoxication. He didn’t care for that. But if nothing else is going on, there were many times he would take us down to Chiles Restaurant for hotcakes and coffee or out to the Connecticut Avenue Hot Shoppe for the same thing.

And he would, of course there was only one car, it was a big what they used to call a coupe, but I have a wonderful memory of sitting in the open trunk one cold night with snow coming down. My memory is that Dale Davis, one of the basses, was sitting in there with me. Mrs. Harmon was in. There were two other girls in the front seat and about five girls in the back seat. I don’t know where we were going. It was cold, it was snowing. I was having a great time. I was going somewhere to sing. There were girls in the car. There were more girls coming behind, and more fellas coming. We were going to have a good time. And late at night when concerts were over, he’d take you to K Street. He took me to K Street many a time where the bus was. If I’d missed the last one 35 bus, he’d drive me out home to Arlington. And he did this for other people. I would say you could wait on K Street or anywhere in the city in those days for the bus at that hour of night with not even a thought of fear of being mugged. It was a safe city. That was another thing that we had. You were not afraid of street crime. There was no fear. It didn’t bother . . . the girls would wait by themselves. It was more fun if there was someone to talk to. But the hours made no difference. He would see you got where you could catch a bus or he would take you home, or he would see that someone in the group that had a car would take you home if all the busses had stopped running. So this was why people liked the man. I’ve often speculated . . . how much budget did he have from the university?

ANDERSON: Probably not a very lot. I don’t have an exact figure.

BATES: No, this is more or less a rhetorical question. I’m not specifically asking you, but I’ve asked some of my colleagues from those years, who footed the bills? Who bought the music? We had a room in Lisner. We had a good piano. Who bought the music? Did Doc pay for it? Certainly, he paid for those pancakes and coffee at the various restaurants we went to. That came out of his pocket. Who rented the ballrooms that we sang in for our concerts at the Willard and at the Mayflower? I mean, when we gave our spring concert, not when we were singing for some other group, but when we gave our annual spring concert and dance. Who paid for the ballroom? Did Doc pay for it? I don’t know, but I wouldn’t be surprised if he hadn’t footed himself a good many of the bills. And I just don’t know what the budget showed for the university, and I’m not trying to put the university down at all, but there was no department of music, and while I’m sure Dr. Marvin, the president of the university got along very well with Dr. Harmon, as I understand. But there wasn’t a whole lot of money around. There was no department of music, and I’ve often wondered who paid the bills, and in what percentage.

And I don’t say that to cast any aspersions on the university or anyone involved with it, because it was a situation that existed. I don’t think it was deliberate, but it’s a personal question of where did we get our funds from for these various things, and I think probably a good many of them came from Doc, and while we never thought of it, I think we sort of accepted it and understood it to be that way. And of course, this added to the amount of regard that we had for the man.

Now, I have, necessarily you get into something like this, you remember individuals that you sang with and people you sang with and how he treated them and your relations with them. You can’t remember all of them, by any means. Everybody’s memory is selective, so the ones you don’t remember or that leave out just has to be selective. Good friends I remember from the men’s glee club that I was at that time thrilled to be with and still am very happy to see . . . John McAdams, Stan Russell, Dale Davis, Merv Martin, Chuck Dougherty, who I think it’s safe to say was almost a favorite of everybody. Lee Page and Jeff Abercrombie, I sang four years with those fellas. Maybe it was only three years with Merv Martin, certainly four years with the rest of them. Ollie Smith, in my freshman year, who was a great person and never came back after he went in the service. Al Brock, for one year, who was, as far as I know, the only glee clubber who was killed in the War, and every time we sing “Lo, How a Rose,” I think of Al, because it was his favorite song.

The girls, first let me say, I was shy and awkward. I didn’t have any great romances. There were no great college romances. There were a lot of girls. There were a lot of good times. You’d walk one to glee club practice one day. You’d have lunch with another one the next day. I don’t’ mean, take her to lunch, but have lunch with her. You’d walk another one between certain classes, because you were going to those classes together. You might date one for one concert and another one for one concert. And there was a lot of that going on. We weren’t, it was a different time. The fellas didn’t have the money. You didn’t think about marriage. Many of the fellas were going in the service. Our careers were delayed. It was just a good time for all of us.

Betty Lou Trowbridge (??) was, Betty Lou Trowbridge (??) Williams was and still is a good friend, Dotty Bains Ballou, Margaret Truman . . . . Let me say Margaret was the same girl she was after her father became President, as she was before he became President. If she knew you before he was President, she knew you after he was President. If she talked to you before, she talked to you after. There was no difference that I could ever tell. I was a friend. I was not a good friend, but we had talked together at the library before Vice-President Truman became President, and we talked together in the library after he became President. And that’s a rare thing to find among people sometimes. I liked her. I thought she was a fine person.

Pauline Gish, Marian Choicer. I think her married name is Hill now. She was a wonderful person, very kind to me when I was a young, awkward freshman. We were a good team on the dance floor. We stopped to dance one night, jitterbugging down at the old Roger Smith Hotel, a fraternity dance. We ran everybody else off the floor. It’s one of my fond memories. And it was mostly her doing. She was a perfect partner. I could jitterbug, but she was in charge, let’s say. We understood each other. I thought she was a great person.

Therese Nye, an alto, lovely person, Mary Louise Vlee, Ann Thayer, who married Harry Dawsel, and after Harry died from a heart attack I don’t know who she married, but I’d love to see Ann again. We were good friends. We never had a date, but we were good friends. Maybe that’s incomprehensible in the younger generation, but that’s the way it was. Many good memories of individuals. Johnny Mitchell was a tenor I sang with for four years, mostly the tenor soloist. He did most of the tenor solo work. A sweet, light tenor voice, a great person. Johnny Brit was another tenor. I wish I could remember all of them, I’ll tell you. Memory goes. I don’t want to look at the list that you’ve got here, Mr. Anderson, because I want this to come from my memories. It distresses me that I can’t think of everybody, because I had such a good time.

ANDERSON: There were separate men’s glee clubs and the woman’s glee club. Were the Troubadours around at this point?

BATES: When I graduated, there was a thought, I think Doc had in mind, something about a traveling group, and they were called the Traveling Troubadours. I’m not sure when that started, after I graduated. He did ask me twice if I’d like to go with them. I was in my school teaching days then and I knew I couldn’t get the time off. I’d like to think it was not just a courtesy on his part, that I really could have sung with them.

Now I’m confident to know that I could have sung with them. I think he was looking for another tenor. Tenors are always hard to find, and if you can learn your music and stay on pitch and don’t rock the boat, a tenor can always find a spot. I never sang with them. I sang with fellows like John Parker, who was in them. John and I were freshman together, and then he came back from the war and was in the glee club in my senior year. I didn’t know him really well then and that was my loss. I wish I had known him better. Dick Hedges and some of the current group that are with Harmon Choral Associates came along after I did. Bill Reed and some of those.

But the Troubadours hadn’t been born. I think ’48 or ’49 was when they were formed and started to travel. I missed it. Let me interpose one thing here and say that I know they had wonderful times and they went to places we never dreamed of going to during the war, and what we did, the good times we had may not seem like very much, but if you’d never done anything before, it’s a new experience and if you have a great time doing it, it sticks in your memory, and I think we had as good a time as they did, because it’s what we did. It was the fun we got out of it. If you’ve never been certain places or done certain things before, and you enjoy doing them, that’s what counts. I had a great time going to Chile’s Restaurant or Chevy Chase Girl’s College, or just going to glee club practice, or as I recounted the trip in Doc’s car.

Those were good times, maybe not flying to Greenland or Alaska or something. No, they don’t compare really, but in my memory they were great times, being with people like Jeff Abercrombie and Jackie Weber was another one of the girls, from Annapolis, an Admiral’s daughter, lovely girl. You remember these things. They stick in your memory, and as far as I’m concerned, personally, I had just as good a time as I could have had later on, because it was all new to me and they were great people to be with, all of them, and I really enjoyed it.

ANDERSON: Travel was restricted mainly to the Washington metro area.

BATES: Yes. This is why Margaret Truman was here at college, because it was united and the high government officials were not going to send their, with their sons in the services, they weren’t going to send their daughters off to colleges some place else. We met senators’ daughters, representatives’ daughters, and they were all class people as far as I’m concerned. We met people here at George Washington that I never would have met at any other school at any other time. That’s why I think it was so good in those years, for me personally. I couldn’t have had a better time anywhere. I was living at home and my parents were, we were still, they were still trying to protect all of us. Yeh, that was a little bit of a hassle sometimes. When you meet, well, as far as the quality and the type of people that I met at George Washington among the student body, and mostly among the faculty, I couldn’t have done any better any place else. I sincerely mean that. I know it was a certain time and place, and the senators’ daughters, congressmens’ daughters, the children of government officials wouldn’t have been here at any other time. But those of us who were not in that category met these people and associated with them. And I felt that I was better for it.

ANDERSON: To conclude this side of the tape, could you speak a little bit about, is it, Chamouni Ostro (??) And the activities after graduation, of coming back and singing with the group? Did you participate in this very much . . . that particular song to be sung by the, I think the last song during the spring concert, for the alumni as well?

BATES: Yeah, that was the gathering point after we’d given the concert, Doc would stand and say “we’re going to do the Chamouni Ostro (??)”, or something like that. “All alumni come.” Or, “it’s time for the Chamouni Ostro (??)” or some remark he would make and the alumni would come and get up and gather in their sections where they had sang. And it was so moving. Now, 1945, I think, particularly was moving. We knew Al Brock had been killed and yet we had gotten back, some wonderful people had come back, Nic Lakas, one of my close friends, I forgot to mention that, I don’t know how I could forget Nic, Don Balfour, some of the servicemen had come back. Some of them were still in uniform. They got up and came up. Nic had done one of his old solos that night. Very emotional night. We dedicated “Lo How a Rose E’er Blooming” to Al Brock. Very moving night and when Doc wanted him to come up to sing the Chamouni Ostro (??). We had a big crowd come up. A lot of them I think had come back because they knew some of these fellas would be back from the service.

Now, I never thought it was a particularly difficult song. I’ve heard people say it was difficult, but maybe that’s because there were so many people that knew it, and you just learned it singing with them. I never had too much of a problem learning music. I was not a quick read. I can’t sight read, but go over it two or three times with me in the chorus and I’ve got it, and I’ve never considered it a difficult song, though some people have said so. Very moving piece and it was the gathering point. It was the song that we sang and then we always closed of course with a Lutkin benediction. We always closed concerts then. After the war, ’45 or ’46, I graduated in ’46, we had more men back. Tom Montaur came back, or came in, Jerry Schatenstein, Dave Lum. It’s sad that they’ve all passed away. John Parker was here. We had people come back from the service who hadn’t been in the glee club. I sang also in ’46. Are we through?

ANDERSON: No, I just wanted to, I didn’t want to cut you off. If you’d like, we could continue on. I’d like to continue on for a few minutes if you want, but I want to conclude this tape so that we would have an ending point on tape 1.

BATES: Well, I can conclude it by saying it was good. It was all good for me. I enjoyed it. The whole thing was very enjoyable. Good memories. It meant a lot to me then and it means a lot to me to be in on this now.

ANDERSON: Thank you very much.

BATES: I was very glad to get a degree and be free of the necessity of going to school after sixteen years of it, but I regretted leaving the Glee Cub. I really was kind of lost of something to do. Although I was singing in a choir, it was different. I floundered for a while out in the world. I had a job in the government and that didn’t suit me. There wasn’t anything wrong with the job or the people I worked with. It just wasn’t for me. And I came down once and saw Doc on the street one day, and he said “come sing with us if you’re not too busy to.

So I started coming to some rehearsals. I knew he had ringers in from time to time, though some of the ringers that he had were some of the greatest singers in the town here. Justin Lowery, the choir director at Foundry Methodist in those days, and his son David Lowery and the Buckingham brothers Hugh and John, who had sung for Doc at the University, and others, good singers, Harold Stepler, one of the radio announcers who was a friend of my sisters, who was a marvelous bass. Nobody could ever go down lower in notes than Step could, Harold Stepler. They called him Step. And he, these people came in and sang at concerts. Not too many of them came to rehearsals, but I had some time on my hands floundering around, and I came to some rehearsals and I certainly sang in a number of concerts in the fall of ’46, including a memorable trip to Forest Glen in the back of Allie Thurmon’s jeep on a cold night and back. Allie was a lovely girl to be with. Again, no romance, just a nice girl in the club, but I would up in her jeep or a couple of jeeps, and it was fun, though it was kind of uncomfortable in a way, but I didn’t think of it in those terms. There was no seat. I was sitting on a platform. It seemed like it was below freezing, the wind whistling through the jeep, but I was having a great time. And with the Glee Cub again, singing at various places. There were other ringers, even after the fellas came back from the war. If you examine some of the photographs very closely, you’ll see in there that, I can see people in there that were not members of the Glee Cub, but that’s alright. They helped out. And as a graduate student, I was, as many of them were, I didn’t feel like it was the wrong thing to do.

The one thing that I did like was what, and I thought was absolutely proper, I had had some solo work, not a lot, when I was a student. I didn’t get any after I graduated, and I felt that that was the way it should be. The students ought to get the solo work. There were times when Doc had to use some of his ringers for some of the more difficult solos, and I understood that. But in a way, I didn’t really like it, because, I thought the students are there. They should be doing this work, even if it’s not done as well as some of these real polished, what, semi-pros or pros paid singers could do it. I thought the students should have it. I’d had my share when I was a student and it was not a personal matter with me, but there were fellas and girls that were cut out of it sometimes, more fellas, because we had a great many fine, fine young women singers that were students. I went on with this ’46 and into ’47.

By that time I was teaching school in Fairfax County. In the fall of ’47, I was made a Principal in a little country town down near Manassas. It’s called Clifton. It’s not so obscure now as it was then. I was the right man in the right place at the right time, and I, for a while, I guess, I was like the rookie of the year or something in Fairfax County, but it was all a false start, and I wasn’t cut out to be a school teacher. But I didn’t sing very much after ’47. It was difficult to come in from Clifton in those days. I had an old car. The principalship was a very demanding job, and I don’t think I sang with them more than three or four times that year, and I never sang again with the Glee Cub, or any group from George Washington University, until the spring of 1986 when Cathy Pickar and Julie Mangis got us together for a reunion, and it was a great great reunion to see some of these people for the first time in forty some years. After you’d sung with them four to five years, a lot of emotion. So I was not a real ringer in the sense of going on for years and years. But it’s something that tided me over in a period when I was having a difficult time, and I saw people, had something to do. I was in the music, which was part of my life by that time anyway.

Now perhaps the one thing I left out I should mention was that back in the fall of ’44, Doc asked some of us to stay after a rehearsal, and he said, “you know, it’s up to you all,” and he said, “Sparky” (that’s Floyd Sparks, the director of Cue and Curtain, who taught drama classes), he said “Sparky needs a few singers for his new show, and I thought you all might be interested. You’re full time students, you’re down here taking night classes, and I thought you all were the logical ones.” I can’t remember who all of them were, other than Betty Lou Trowbridge (??), but there were about eight or nine of us, maybe ten, that went up to Sparks, and he needed some people to do a little choral work and a couple of solos and so forth, and a lot of us stayed in Cue and Curtain. I went on. It was a help to me in being before the public, overcoming what was still a lingering speech problem, even if I only had one word to say in a show, it was a help and I worked up more than that to say before I was through, and Betty Lou was always, she moved up to be a star. She was always a star anyway, lovely person. There were a number of us went over and stayed. So we were both Glee Clubbers and Cue and Curtain. And this was a good time thing too. Doc would come to the shows, I think mostly because we were in them. Doc and Mrs. Harmon would come.

On a level of drama, they were anywhere from, I guess, medium college shows to a couple that were very good, because there were some fine, fine performers in that group, Warner Shriner and Kay Nocky, among others, who were in theater practically their whole lives. Dick Lathrop, Bob Holmes, who had a beautiful voice and should have been singing in the Glee Cub. Bob was a great singer, but this was a little crossover back and forth. At times, some others would come over for some choral work, but they didn’t stay. Maybe they wouldn’t come to all the rehearsals of a show. They would come in, maybe the last two weeks to do the choral work. My memory is a little vague, but I know it was a part of the Glee Cub’s life. There was a connection, not an official connection, but there were people in both, and it was a help, I think. We were exposed before the public, even if in rehearsal. If you had a big show, you could have 50 people out there in the auditorium, watching you perform, and it was a help to all of us who were really interested in this, and who were going before the public.

And Sparks was a fine, he was a very fine person. He had an understanding of people and their problems. I think he had some problems himself, which made him even more understanding. I thought he was a superb person in handling people. If you had a fault, he was just too easy with people. He would put up with a lot of fooling around when he shouldn’t have, but he was a very understanding person, very warm. I know I was very shocked by the atomic bomb, what it meant for the future of the world, and he said “well, you’ve got to put it in perspective.” He said “all of us leave here one way or another” He said “you can’t take the whole of humanity on your shoulders.” He said, “they’re not going to use that thing again, maybe never, because it’s so terrible,” So he said, “what you’re doing is just wasting your time worrying about it.” I know what it meant to end the war, and it saved the lives of many of my friends, but it was still, you know, who would have had to go over and invade Japan. From that standpoint it was a plus, but I knew what it meant, in this terrible force, and he with just a few brief words, he thought it out, and he said “you can’t take all of humanity on your shoulders.” He said” I doubt if they ever use it again, anybody, anywhere, anytime, simply because it is terrible.” And I’d never thought in those terms, and here was a man who, I don’t think Sparky had a masters degree, but there wasn’t anything wrong with his mind. So far as native intelligence went, he could take a set of fact and draw conclusions from them as well as anyone else could.

So that was a little part of my work in the Glee Cub and the work of some of the others. I wish I could remember all of those people who came over with me and sang. Terese Nie was there, some, I think Dotty Bains came over, Dotty Blue, now, she and John Blue. John was another contemporary. I think he came in the last year or so, but he’s a good friend. There was a shuttle back and forth, a crossover between the drama group and the Glee Cub, and it was good for everybody. It was good for both sides. We added something and we gained something from the dramatic group.

I have just, in closing, I have heard very very little criticism anywhere along the line of Doc and Mrs. Harmon. There was that one incident about the chronic complainer. I personally saw no other instance of any problem. Yes, there was unhappiness sometimes when somebody didn’t get a solo, but this is always true among ambitious people. He was a fair as anyone could be, passing the solos around. And he didn’t make a great deal of it. I don’t think there were, if there was anyone who didn’t like Doc, or who was unhappy, I can’t remember, except for the one case I mentioned. There was harmony among the group.

I ran into somebody a year or so ago, one of the functions of my wife’s woman’s club out in Arlington. This lady walked up. “I remember you. You sang in the Glee Cub at GW.” I looked at her and said, “You were dancing there.” There was a group of women over 60 who do beautiful tap dancing routines, and I said, “you’re Shelly Jackson, aren’t you, you’re Shelly McCoy now, but you were Shelly Jackson then.” “Yeh, sure, I remember you.” And I told her about the reunion they had in ’86, and she said “I’m sorry I missed that. I wished I’d known about it.” I said “well, would you like to be on the list for the next one?” I said, “I’m in the group that’s going to be handling the next reunion. We’re going to try to work it up. We have an organization.” I didn’t go into detail. I said “I can put you on a mailing list.” “Oh, please do,” she says. “Sure, I remember Doc and the Glee Cub, and if I can come, I will.”

You know, forty some years, and she hadn’t seen anybody, she hadn’t kept up with it, but the good times, the fun, and it made an impression. You’ve heard this, I know, Mr. Anderson, what people think of Doc and Mrs. Harmon. So, I don’t recall any unpleasantness, any unhappiness, any real politicking, undercutting, other than the natural feeling among young singers trying to get started sometimes….”gee, I wish I had that solo instead of so and so.” And I think there was a minimum of that, because next year you might get that, and you knew it. So, he was a very considerate man. I don’t know how he did it with the medical practice that he had and the other things that he did. He was a Redskin fan. I think he knew most of the Redskins in those days…completely different game, smaller squad, twenty-seven of twenty-eight people on the squad, ten teams in the league. He was active. He sang in quartets. He was one of the early television stars in the Washington area with the Fort Lincoln Quartet on Friday nights, singing sacred music, quartet work.

I think Gene Bordman was another one in that. I can’t remember all their names. He was a baritone. He got started in the Society for the Preservation and Encouragement of Barbershop Quartet Singing in America. That was just coming in as I was graduating. We were doing a few barbershop numbers. He got into that and sang, along with Jimmy Ewing, who was an alumnus, and Gene Bordman and some others. And he was a very active person, and how he found time and patience and humor to do all the things he did, and to treat people with the consideration that he did. I was not the only one that he gave a hand to. I won’t go into one or two incidents where I met him, because they’re not really a part of this, but he would help you if he could. He would even go out of his way. This was after I graduated. Encouragement, encouraging little things he would do.

And she was the same way. She worked with me on the opening tenor solo to the Messiah, and I remember her saying, “Bates,” she said, “you’ve got to know this when you get up to sing it. You want to know this so well that if you’re in an airplane that goes into a tailspin, and you’re singing it, you’re going to go right on singing it,” she said. “You don’t want to have to think about it. You want to concentrate on the singing part, and not the entrances and the timing and all of that, and the breath control.” She said that, “I’m going to work you until it’s automatic, so that when you get up to do that, technically, it will be perfect, and the rest will be up to you.” And she pounded me and pounded me and pounded me with that on her own time. I must have sung the Comfort Me in the Every Valley (??), fifty times with her. In other ways with other people with other pieces of music, she did the same thing. If she knew you and she could help you, she’d do it. So, I hope nobody ever comes around me and tries to say anything bad about the Harmons. They’re not going to get away with it. That’s for sure. It’s all good memories as far as I’m concerned.

ANDERSON: Was there anything else you’d like to add to your experience?

BATES: I wish I could remember all of the people I sang with. I’ve named some. I just, after forty some years, it’s just, I don’t want to look at a list again, but I just can’t come up with any more. Um, Mary Jane Klipple, um, Joe Bill Stevens, they come back very slowly. It’s been a long time. I was able, one way or another, to keep in touch with many of them, some of them on purpose, some of them live in the area. I would come across them, talk to them. I knew where a lot of people were, generally speaking, even if I didn’t know their specific address and phone number. When we got the reunion going four years ago, I got out the telephone book and started looking up names and calling people, and I knew even the middle initial … John P. McAdams, William Lee Page, we never called him Bill. He was always Lee Page. Leland Arthur Leet. We called him Arthur, but he was L. A. Leet in the phone book. I knew where I could find these people if I was able to get back in touch and get some of them to come down. It isn’t Stanley Russell, it’s Stanton Russell. We called him Stan. That’s one of the good things about staying in an area all your life, staying where you were born and grow up.

The minus side is you don’t want to look at the obituary page too often. You just don’t want to. But I stayed in touch. Merv Martin was a very good friend. Still is. I talked to Mervin just a few days ago on the phone. Betty Lou Trollbridge (??) Williams sang at my wedding 11 years after we graduated together. I don’t see her or Owen Williams, her husband anymore, but we still exchange Christmas letters and are on good terms. I shouldn’t have left out Nick Lakus in the original listing. I mentioned him later. Nick was a good friend when I was a freshman, fine person. Judy Conklin, the three Conklin sisters. Judy, Ann, and Barrow. I was very to find out that’s she’s still living, because I’d honestly she passed on. And I was very happy I wrote her a note when our first Harmon Associates mailing. I didn’t expect her to answer. I just dropped her a little note. She was a great performer and a great person. All of the Conklin sisters were. It’s just all good memories. It’s all good memories. No unhappiness, no unpleasantness. I’ll say, I think I missed, I missed very very little. It meant a great deal to me I don’t think I missed only two or three rehearsals a year. I had a final exam a couple of times, I was sick once. I think I missed two concerts in four years. One was a final exam and another time I was so sick I was running a high fever and I couldn’t sing. Wouldn’t miss one for anything. I had to be unable to get out of bed or have a final exam to miss anything.

It meant that much to me. It was my social life. It’s where the girls were. I don’t think I dated very many outside of the Glee Club. When I say that, I can think of some more names - Betty Lloyd, Dana Arnold. I think I mentioned Jackie Weber. Most of my social life was right around the Glee Club. You didn’t need anymore. There was enough to do. Why go any place else? It was a different moral age, different moral attitude. I don’t suppose we were as sophisticated as “liberated” as the youngsters are now. Many of them have coped with it very well, although I know it’s brought a lot of grief to some of them too, to have been liberated, as they say, as early as they were, and to have their whole moral structure fall down. I don’t think it was of any help to anyone, but we had a different attitude, and we still had good times. We respected each other and there’s still a closeness among the Glee Clubbers. And there is now, I’m sure when I see these young people now. If you sing together, you remember. It’s like anything else you do together. You know, hike together, play ball together. There’s a bond between you. You’ve shared the same experience. You know what it is to do a certain solo. You know what it is to sing a certain choral piece, how hard it is, and how good it sounded that time at the Shoreham, or something like that.

One anecdote, at the Mayflower. The spring of ’45. The war was coming to an end. Everybody was happy. Still a war bond rally. Big crowd. Temporary stand for us on. They were not raisers, but whatever you call them. Flat boards laid on a framework. I don’t think there was enough framework. There wasn’t enough support. We did a number called the “Czechoslovak folk song. “ (David Bates sings this on the tape) – “Come one, come all, la da da la da da na na…”. and the basses were going “um pa um pa um pa” in counterpoint, you know “Um pa Um pa Um pa Um pa,” maybe not counterpoint, but you get to patting your feet, very rhythmic piece, can’t help patting your feet. There wasn’t enough support on those boards. Pretty soon the bass section was going up while the soprano section was going down. Physically! The boards were moving. The altos in between, the tenors on the way up. It was a visual spectacle. The Glee Club, it was like the modern wave in a way. Only nothing was in sequence. We were going up and down off beat. It threw everybody off. The piece came apart. We got laughing so much so hard we couldn’t sing. It broke the whole place up. Just uproarious laughter. Of course we had to stop. Got our act together again. Doc glared at us in mock ferocity and says “don’t pat your feet. I’ll fire anybody that pats their feet.. Start out softly,” he says. “Maybe that will help.” We got through it the second time. Of course we’d gotten applause the first time because it was such a comical spectacle, and they knew we’d tried so hard and we hadn’t intended anything to end that way, and we got great applause the second time.

I wish someone had had a camera there, a movie camera. That was really a spectacle event. I recall rippling up and down, physically, the boards moving. It’s a wonder some of them didn’t break. We knew, we could feel them sag when we got on, because as I say there weren’t enough of, I don’t know what you call them, but the frame risers, you know what I mean, the thing that they laid them on, they needed 2 or 3 more of those. Maybe they didn’t expect so many people or something. I don’t know. It was not a good support. I thought the whole thing was going to come crashing down at one point, and he stopped us. But it was just about the funniest thing that ever happened. And I think they probably sold bonds because it put everybody in a good mood. But the war with Germany was just about over. It was coming to an end, and it was a festive occasion, and that added to it. So, you see, it was all, I’m sure if my memory was better I could remember more incidents. But this was to me, it’s the one that stuck in my mind. One of the funniest things that ever happened with us. It had a good ending, and I guess maybe I’ll close with that.

ANDERSON: Thank you very much.

BATES: Well, thank you.

(End of interview)

See also David Bates papers: [1]

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Author or Source: MS0371/Oral History Collection
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Date Added to Encyclopedia: April 3, 2007
Prepared by: Lyle Slovick, Assistant University Archivist

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