• 2016. Robbins, Rosemary Elbert Interview, History 150 Spring 2016, Conducted by Addie Robbins, Gender and Social Change, March 10, 2016.
• 1. This interview was conducted in person in Naples, Florida. My grandmother lives in a beautiful condo complex in a gated area next to a calming lake and fountain. We conducted the interview on my last day visiting of course to give us time to spend quality “girl” time together. The interview was conducted out on the lenai of her condo with the fountain softly in the background. I recorded the interview using my smartphone and a recording app. To my surprise the clarity of the app was impressive, SO impressive that you can hear my mom snapping and telling my grandmother to be louder in the background. My apologies.
  2. Rosemary Elbert was a very intelligent individual. Born in Duluth Minnesota, she breezed through her required schooling taking two grades at a time and graduating high school at the young age of twelve. She then attended the University of Duluth for two years and left to attend the all girls Bryn Mawr College. She graduated Bryn Mawr at 16 and then moved on to the University of Miami to get her masters. Finally, she ended up at Marquette University for Law after she married Tom Elbert, my grandfather, in 1959.
  3. Bryn Mawr college was the ideal place for Rosemary Elbert. Bryn Mawr opened its doors exclusively to women in 1885. One of Bryn Mawr’s original goals was to enable women to do research in their fields. This is right up Elbert’s alley as later in the interview I discovered she enjoyed doing research for her clients. Another thing I found interesting was in 1912 Bryn Mawr became the first school to offer a PHD in social work. This is so interesting to me because that is what Elbert’s youngest daughter, my mother, ended up doing as a profession.

 

AR: Okay so, this is(….) state your name.

 

Mrs. Elbert: Rosemary Elbert.

 

AR: What year were you married?

 

Mrs. Elbert: 1959.

 

AR: Was that before or after you finished school?

 

Mrs. Elbert: Before I finished law school.

 

AR: Okay but you finished your undergrad degree?

 

Mrs. Elbert: Yes, and a masters.

 

AR: And a masters! Right, so what was your profession exactly(…) describe your profession.

 

Mrs. Elbert: What was my profession like at the time I started it?

 

AR: No, like what was it in general?

 

Mrs. Elbert: Oh! A lawyer.

 

AR: Any specific(…)

 

Mrs. Elbert: A variety of fields. Some tax and probate, trial work, and the last fifteen years director or attorney at a legal aid organization.

 

AR: What was the last part?

 

Mrs. Elbert: Legal aid organization.

 

AR: Where’d you go to school?

 

Mrs. Elbert: Well I went to high school in Duluth Minnesota, and then I went to college(…) I started at the University of Minnesota at Duluth for the first two years, then Bryn Mawr college for the next two years, and graduate school and law school at the University of Miami, and then Marquette University for finishing law school.

 

AR: And when you were at school, you were a lot younger right?

 

Mrs. Elbert: I was.

 

AR: Than the other students, so like did they treat you any differently, the professors?

 

Mrs. Elbert: No, they did not. Actually, after I finished high school and started college I didn’t tell anybody at first what my age was.

 

AR: Oh!

 

Mrs. Elbert: For the first year no body knew, until there was a newspaper article in the school newspapers, then everybody knew and then I went to Bryn Mawr I asked(…) the last two years at Bryn Mawr hardly anybody knew about it except the Resident…RA, you call it a RA now(…) who was in charge of our dormitory(….) I didn’t tell anybody else, except I had a few friends I told.

 

AR: Yeah, close friends you only told?

 

Mrs. Elbert: Yeah.

 

AR: So the professors never like gave you any extensions or whatever maybe because they thought the work was too much?

 

Mrs. Elbert: No, no.(…) Not at all.

 

AR: That’s good! That’s definitely good, and the friends that you told, how did they treat you?

 

Mrs. Elbert: Well by the time I told them they’d known me for a year or two so they didn’t treat me any differently.

 

AR: (…) what other kinds of attention did you get? Like from the people when they like(…) How did they react when you told them?

 

Mrs. Elbert: I wouldn’t say they had a big reaction.

 

AR: (…) Wait so did they think you were their age?

 

Mrs. Elbert: My good friends they were used to…

 

AR: Oh! They were used to you. (…) But before that how old did they think you were?

 

Mrs. Elbert: Well I suppose the same age as anybody else who was in my class.

 

AR: So they thought you were their age?

 

Mrs. Elbert: Yeah.

 

AR: And they weren’t like wow you’re actually like younger than us?

 

Mrs. Elbert: No.

 

AR: (….) So they didn’t treat you any (…) Did they treat you any differently once they found out(…) how did(….) everything was mostly the same.(…) What about from men? Did any men know about the age difference?

 

Mrs. Elbert: Well my husband did(…) I don’t remember any conversations that I had with anybody else.

 

AR: Yeah, what about at like Bryn Mawr, did like any men know that you were younger?

 

Mrs. Elbert: No, I don’t think so.

 

AR: No? what kind of(…) What was it like to be a female in college at Bryn Mawr? What year were you at Bryn Mawr?

Mrs. Elbert: I graduated in 55’ I was there from 53 to 55.

 

AR: So what was the college scene like, because women were new to college right?

 

Mrs. Elbert: No women weren’t really new to college, Bryn Mawr was founded in 1890’s early 1900s so at Bryn Mawr it was not very different than, they had always had a tradition of a woman can do anything she wanted to and so it was kind of a surprise when you got out to other schools and they felt that(…) it was different.

 

AR: Oh wow, what was it like at the other schools vs. Bryn Mawr?

 

Mrs. Elbert: Well, there wasn’t so much a difference as  what you heard people or overheard people say.

 

AR: Does anything stick out that you remember?

 

Mrs. Elbert: No I don’t…I do remember that, well I remember as a lawyer being introduced by my boss, the head of our office, to another lawyer who was supposedly very prominent in the bar associations so this was an attorney that started with us and the lawyer said didn’t you there’s a supreme court opinion saying that women are not fit to practice law. Which left us both stunned.(…) and my employer who didn’t feel that way at all said well you gotta expect some things like that but neither one of us were very happy about that.

 

AR: Yeah, so where was that again? Were you at college then?

 

Mrs. Elbert: No I was working in a law firm (….)

 

AR: So why’d you wanna be a lawyer? What drew you to law?

 

Mrs. Elbert: Well I was interested in it because of various situations I had seen with people needing assistance. And legal associate was about the best I could do.

 

AR: So you wanted to help people. (…) And who did you mostly like represent? (…) You said you did tax and probate and trial work, can you tell me a little bit about that? Like, what that is?

 

Mrs. Ebert: Okay well they’re kind of separate, I actually started with a company that did Title insurance, they did real state law, and then I spent three or four years at a firm where we had we did taxes for people who(…) mainly people who had died, and probate and some  securities law and then I went to the county of Milwaukee to be an assistant in the corporation council. And there I did some trial work and some child support and I did some work for an environmental committee. And then I went, I moved with my husband and I moved to a Wausau Wisconsin and then I worked for two lawyers briefly then I started my own practice. It was a general practice of almost everything including criminal law(…)

 

AR: Criminal law that’s fun.

 

Mrs. Elbert: Yeah, criminal law and(…)

 

AR: So which one did you prefer?

 

Mrs. Elbert: Well I would say(…) I did criminal law, I did divorce law, I think the divorce and family law I liked best

 

AR: Any reason?

 

Mrs. Elbert: Well cause you really are helping people, you’re just helping them survive. And once in a while there’s a big mistake and you can rectify that. A lot of the time you’re just trying to get the best for the client that you can do.

 

I would like to end by saying that overall I feel like this interview just scratched the surface of Rosemary Elbert. A major distraction was the recording device, I think it made both of us a little bit nervous and kept questions and responses short. Listening back to this interview there are a few things I would like to go back and talk more about. For example, I was really interested in the news article written about her being younger than most college students. I tried to find the article but could not. Overall I’ve always thought my grandmother was a brilliant and inspirational woman but, today my admiration for her is even bigger.