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Washington Women’s Heritage Project records, 1900-2000 
University of Washington Libraries Special Collections 
Helen Green Ansley 
April 19, 1985 
Cassette 1, Side 2 
 
 
Debra Ryan  00:02 
Yeah, this is really interesting. Let's go on with talking about your father and the kind of work 
that he did.  
 
Helen Ansley  00:08 
Yes, my father was born in Canada, but he came to Cleveland when he was-- in 1873 and he had 
a-- he studied banking. In 1876, he was a messenger and then a clerk in a bank. He came to 
Cleveland because that's where his older brother, Arnold, lived, and my uncle Arnold's wife was 
Virginia Green, who was on the school board in Cleveland for years, and I can remember that 
her-- at her death, all of the schools were silent for five minutes at the time of her funeral, 
because she had made such an impact on education in Cleveland. 
 
Debra Ryan  01:14 
What kind-- was she some kind of a reformer?  
 
Helen Ansley  01:17 
I don't know. I don't know. I don't have much about her, and she-- I don't know. But to get back 
to my father, in 1876, he was in the Office of the Clerk of the Supreme Court in the State House 
at Columbus and the House of Representatives just across the corridor, and my mother's father 
was J.B. Hall, who was, I believe, serving in the House of Representatives at that time. Then in 
1884, he was an executive clerk and later private secretary to the governor. So he was mixed up 
in politics in Columbus, Ohio for quite a while, before moving to Cleveland, where he was in the 
city hall. So evidently, very much concerned about the whole process of government. And it was 
my father, who urged my mother to get into the women's suffrage movement. So along about 
1910 I would think maybe, she was working for Votes for Women. And I can remember, they 
formed a junior suffrage league. I think I was president of that one time. I can remember holding 
a bake sale to raise money for suffrage [laughs]. And also, I have a clear picture of one night, 
when I went with my mother, she was chairman of a speaker's bureau. They didn't call-- I don't 
know what they call it then, but she got a young college girl to talk-- to do the speaking. She got 
some wealthy woman to donate her car and her chauffeur. And it was one-- an open car, of 
course, and I can go, I remember going with her. We went down to a street corner, started in the 
middle of-- down on 55th Street in Cleveland, and there was a newspaper reporting there, and 
this college girl gave a talk in favor of Votes for Women, and I was given little buttons that said 
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Votes for Women to distribute among the crowd that had gathered, and they had a newspaper 
reporter and a policeman there, and the newspaper reporter actually went on to be very-- one of 
the leaders and owners in Scripps Howard, the Cleveland Press. He became editor of the 
Cleveland Press. And I have something that, a story that he wrote about my mother a good year 
later, when she was in her 80s, and he was talking at the church and recognized my mother in the 
audience, and spoke of how she had worked for votes and worked for peace. So, I think I had 
remarkable parents. My father was a great philosopher, and used to quote Elbert Hubbard and 
we-- I went with them to East Aurora, New York, to Roycroft Inn, which was a place where the-- 
it was, what would you call it? The intelligentsia gathered at the Roycroft Inn, and there would 
be concerts and talks, and there were the Roycroft shops. They made beautiful hand tooled 
leather, leather and copper rings, book bindings, so that I have some things from there. I have a 
little autograph album that was signed by some of the people attending there in 1910. Want to 
turn it off. 
 
Debra Ryan  06:01 
Tell me about--  
 
Helen Ansley  06:02 
--This is a-- is actually two little blank books that were-- I had bound together when I filled-- 
after I filled the first one. And the heading is simply "Essay on Silence" by Fra Elbertus. Fra 
Elbertus means mother and Elbert Hubbard. And here, here is his signature,"Elbert Hubbard, 
July, 8, 1910". I also had in here, oh, I know one-- there was a poem written about me and the 
mayor of Lockport, New York was there. Some of these people that were attending made a great-
- made a fuss over me as a little girl. I was called Kitty Green and we went on walks, hikes. Alice 
Hubbard was Elbert Hubbard's wife, and I have her autograph in here. It says, "To my dear Kitty 
Green, the first lady at the top of the hill. With love, Alice Hubbard". So this is a very nice-- oh, 
and here is one that-- who's this? Raymond [?Mott?], an artist, drew this picture of a bluebird in 
my autograph album, and painted it. It's a lovely bluebird and an orange background, and it says, 
"May the bluebird of happiness be yours". That was written on July 5, 1913 at Easter Island, 
New York.  
 
Debra Ryan  07:55 
So you went back a couple of times.  
 
Helen Ansley  07:56 
Oh, yes, I think my family went there almost every Fourth of July. I was trying to find that verse, 
there's-- oh, here's one drawn by C.H. Kingsbury, a lovely picture of a lighthouse. And that was 
in 1912. Where's the one that went, She is truly a little nut brown maid. Her eyes are brown and 
brown each [?spring?]. I can remember that much of it, that whole-- my goodness, I hadn't 
thought of these things until you dig these out. I don't know [inaudible]. Oh, and here's one. This 
is the mayor, the mayor of Lockport, New York. [Inaudible.] "Oh, Kitty Green, had you had seen 
these bunnies, that they're fun, you would have said upon the bed, these folks are going south". 
That was the mayor of Lockport, and I think that was his daughter, Margaret Miller, that's right. 
So, lovely memories as a child of being exposed to a lot of new thought. There's an artist, Alex 
Fournier, with a beautiful drawing of a sheep. 
 
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Debra Ryan  09:43 
So what did people do there? Did they-- tell me what it was like when you went there? 
 
Helen Ansley  09:50 
There was-- there was broad veranda all around the place, and they would sit on the veranda. 
They would go for walks. There would be talks, concerts, lectures in the evening, and the whole 
place was-- we had, there were Navajo rugs all around and all sort of heavy furniture, Roycroft 
furniture, but they made furniture in their shops, and they found books and had-- so they would-- 
people would visit the shops and see what was being done, but also you would go there to meet 
the other people, to have a chance to visit them. I don't think as many people were going on 
cruises, and it was a little different from a mountain resort. It was where the intelligentsia 
gathered, something like Chautauqua, New York, where very famous lecturers would come. It 
would be different famous people there each time, for a certain week or something, and there 
would be people who would come back year after year to see the people they met. And they 
tossed what they called a medicine ball. It was a big thing, larger than a basketball, but heavy. 
And they would toss this-- stand in a circle out in the lawn, and toss that around, because it was 
good exercise, but gentle in a way. And they made wonderful things called pecan patties, pecans 
and some kind of something that we would chew. The best kind of candy.  
 
Debra Ryan  11:53 
Were there other children there besides yourself?  
 
Helen Ansley  11:55 
They would be a few, yes, but not very many. It would be a few people would bring their 
children. And I would skip around and do all kinds of things. But I think I must have gone there 
for, well, certainly, '10, '11, '12 or '13 on the dates. I see it here. But I finished it up later with 
some autographs from camp. Yes, I even have some autographs as late as 1920, when I was in 
college. Yes, I see one name over here. Oh, and here's where someone who was one of my 
bridesmaids, wrote a poem, you see the first letters spell "Helen Green". She was a senior when I 
was a sophomore. "Happiness//Ever//Laughter for you//Evening walks with a friend or 
two//Never a sky that isn't blue, I wish it.//Glorious//Runs on a windy day//Eager work and is 
//Eager play//Never a doubt about your way to joy and peace." I wish-- she was one of my 
bridesmaids, but who was killed soon after she died in a fire. 
 
Debra Ryan  13:48 
Let's see, what do you want to talk about now? Do you want to talk about that other book, as 
long as you have it out? 
 
Helen Ansley  14:01 
Not particularly. I don't think there's much interesting-- It's a five year diary, so. 
 
Debra Ryan  14:10 
What period of time does that cover?  
 
Helen Ansley  14:12 
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19 [inaudible]? By the day-- Oh, 1916, '17, '18, '19, and '20. So it was the last two years of high 
school and then college, off to college. 
 
Debra Ryan  14:41 
What kind of things did you write about? [?I think?] important enough to letter in your diary.  
 
Helen Ansley  14:45 
Very, very [inaudible] things. "Sunday, breakfast and lunch at 11. Rode through the parks". I 
must have been visiting some-- no. "Went to Mac's". That's McDermott's, it's a place to get ice 
cream. "Home, station", oh and, "Bub [?Ed?] Bushnell, Dot, Gene and I at Dots'. Here for 
supper. I'm going to camp this year, and Bub may be a counselor at High. Though I've been to 
camp before". I say this was my brother, an Ebenezer Bush-- this was my brother in 1916, and 
yet, a year later, he was off, yeah. Yeah, I have this picture of him in his [?naval suit?] too, and I 
think you saw this, but that's the kind of thing I would-- I wonder why this is marked. 
[Inaudible.] Don't see anything. I'm looking for the-- my mom used to-- maybe six-- oh, 1917. 
Maybe it is. Maybe it was later [inaudible]. April 16. Oh here. It wasn't in the right place, like 
this. It ought to be right there, but I don't see it. But over here, which is just April 15, "Went to 
Sunday school. Papa brought me home. Telegram from Bub". That's my brother. "I went after 
Mama at the church. Home, read, studied, supper, studied. Bub came home. He leaves tomorrow 
night to join the Kenyon crew in a mosquito boat submarine chaser at Portsmouth, New 
Hampshire". So, here, "War declared on Germany". I wrote, evidently, written in afterwards. 
Doesn't--because I wrote it that day, because I was out at somebody's home, out in [inaudible]. 
 
Helen Ansley  14:59 
What was your reaction when war was declared?  
 
Helen Ansley  18:38 
A little excitement, but not too unexpected, because the war had been going on since 1914, and 
finally we got into it. I didn't realize that my brother left within two weeks after. A whole group 
from Kenyon College went together. I suppose I should read it, but there's so much that is just 
blah in here that I hesitate to read it. And don't ever write in green ink because the green ink 
fades. There was one year I was writing in green ink, so I lost-- that was when I was when I was 
at camp.  
 
Debra Ryan  19:24 
What kind of camp did you go to?  
 
Helen Ansley  19:25 
I went to Aloha Camp in Vermont, a girls camp when I was 14, I believe. I was there for  several 
years. Beautiful, lovely girls camp. We all wore bloomers and middy blouses in green, and I 
learned to swim. We went on mountain trips and canoe trips. We went on a canoe trip on the 
Connecticut River, and one of them was down to Hanover, New Hampshire, where the-- it was a 
Gulick family camp, and the Gulicks had a home there. And so a lot of us took our sleeping-- we 
didn't have, didn't have sleeping bags. We had ponchos and blankets, and they weren't fancy 
sleeping bags you had. We slept on the porch down there, and then we saw, saw Dartmouth 
College. And then we-- I remember in 1915, I took a mountain trip, and we climbed Mount 
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Washington, which is part of the presidential range of the White Mountains. And I think we were 
gone for three, two or three, three nights.  
 
Debra Ryan  21:00 
What do you remember about that trip?  
 
Helen Ansley  21:02 
I remember that our counselor got lost [laughs]. One of the counselors got lost, and so, it was a 
rather foggy day, and we had not-- we decided not to go along the top after climbing Mount 
Adams and sleeping up there one night, then we would not walk along the top. We would go 
down and then come up a certain ravine to get to the top of Washington. And we were to stop at 
a certain place for lunch. We had lunch with us and I think we had two men and a woman 
counselor, with us on the trip. Think there were probably about 15 of us. And the woman 
counselor loved to fish, and so she stayed behind. There was some stream, and she stayed 
behind, and she said, Yes, I'll catch up to you while you're eating. And she didn't come, and she 
didn't come, and they knew that we would have to start pretty soon to get to the top of the 
mountain before dark, and they got worried, and finally they had to go back and find her. And I 
think she left a note somewhere there was evidently a branch in the path, and she'd taken the 
wrong way. But she-- but in meantime, we had to have emergency rations and sleep in, just-- it's 
just a three sided shelter, and we slept like sardines on the pine needles. Of course, it was a great 
adventure. The next morning, we had plenty of time then to climb the mountain. The next day, 
we had the whole day, and we had-- there was a little lake on the way up. We stopped at. I don't 
know that we weren't swimming there. We got up to the top, and there's a tip-top house. We had 
wooden boats in there. And then we, the next day, I think we went swimming in one of the little 
lakes on the way up. And what they'd do-- we went swimming in the nude, and they would hold 
the blankets up, while you'd-- got out your clothes [inaudible]. And the next morning, because 
we spent the night, we also had a dip-- 
 
Debra Ryan  24:02 
Oh, wait. [Bell rings.] 
 
Debra Ryan  24:05 
So then-- 
 
Helen Ansley  24:05 
So the next morning, we had another dip in the Lake of the Clouds, and boy, was it cold up there. 
So we just dipped in and out so we could say we had and then walked down, down the mountain, 
and got on the train and rode back to Fairlee, Vermont, and of course, we had to hike around the 
lake to camp to where we-- tents were on the railroad station. We were a bit tired when we got 
home, but I can remember they have a song, Welcome from the mountains, back home again, 
back to Aloha, through the [inaudible]. Something about your time on Washington.  
 
Debra Ryan  24:10 
That was quite an adventure. 
 
Helen Ansley  24:57 
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Yes. But when I was at camp, I get got to hear about Smith College, and there were counselors 
there from Smith College. I decided that I very much wanted to attend Smith College.  
 
Debra Ryan  25:18 
What was it that made it sound attractive to you?  
 
Helen Ansley  25:20 
The people that we're talking about it. And Aloha was very-- uh, what do I say? We talked you 
see, Aloha means in Hawaii, it's a greeting. And so there were a lot of the-- sort of that other 
influence of Hawaii, and of friendliness, and of reaching out to the world. And we were there 
during the time of the war. So we sang the war songs. Over there they were singing, And there's 
a long, long trail a-winding. I can remember the songs of the first, first World War. Some of 
those were before we went into the war because I was there in '15,' 16, '17. We just learned how 
to sleep outdoors, overnight trips and good hiking trips, something about nature. Made a lot of 
new friends. So from there, I went to Smith. I remember. Of course, this was when, at that time, 
you didn't fly around, you went on the train. And from Cleveland, Ohio, it was overnight to go 
on the train to Springfield, Ohio--Springfield, Massachusetts, and then up to Northampton. There 
was a little-- there were three forums that went together. I think, the first time, I think it was a 
chaperone. One of the counselors was going with us. Couldn't have been counselor. I don't know. 
I don't know who was with us. Maybe there's just [inaudible]. What do I say about Smith? The 
most wonderful college. We had a new president that year, William Allen Nielsen was the new 
president of the college, and so he felt he was a member of our class, which was fine. Both at 
Laurel School and at Smith, I learned to sing hymns because we had, we had chapel at Laurel 
every morning. At Smith, there was always chapel. You didn't have to go, but I went most of the 
time, and we'd have date books, and it'd make a date to go to chapel with somebody, which was a 
way of keeping up and keeping in with your friends. But also I learned the good old hymns, and 
we did a lot of singing at Smith. We had step sings. The classes would sing to each other. I don't 
know, it was every night or once-- I guess it was once a week. Maybe, maybe it was every other-
- down on the steps of students building the-- oh, I'll jump to my senior year because in my-- oh, 
no, I won't. I did a lot of writing, and I majored in English, and one of the exciting things for me 
was they had an anonymous publication called the Campus Cat. And the-- there were nine, 
always nine people who were editors of the Campus Cat. And those were called the nine lives, 
they called themselves. The cat has nine lives. But nobody knew who they were, but they had to 
have somebody that was sort of a business manager, and I became the business manager so that I 
had the charge of taking them and then these things were sold all around, in certain places around 
campus. And I think I paid the printer and copied some of those things. I wrote things for it too. 
But here you see our pictures of the campus.  
 
Debra Ryan  30:22 
Why was it important to maintain that anonymity of the people who wrote on it? 
 
Helen Ansley  30:26 
Because this was a humorous thing. 
 
Debra Ryan  30:29 
So they poked fun at people? 
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Helen Ansley  30:30 
Yes. "Little Miss Bluffet sat on a tuffet, smiling a satisfied smirk. Along came her written and lo, 
she was smitten with longing to know her back work". [Laughs.] Yes. 
 
Debra Ryan  30:49 
They have artwork? I see a cartoon on the back. 
 
Helen Ansley  30:53 
And I know the girl, that was a girl in our house that did that. I've written names, but I knew who 
wrote it.  
 
Debra Ryan  31:02 
See what's going on this part here? [Laughs.] 
 
Helen Ansley  31:12 
Oh, this. Does it say something underneath about it? This one does. "When a grass cop meets a 
hack top coming across the grass, then lets the grass-- then the grass--". 
 