Oral History with Luther Brice, Interview 1, October 24, 2015 (Ms2015-007)

Luther Kennedy Brice, Jr.

Interview 1

Chemistry Professor at Virginia Tech, 1954-1986

Winner of the Wine Award and the Sporn Award

Date of Interview: October 24, 2014

Interviewer: Tamara Kennelly

Place of Interview: InnovationSpace, Virginia Tech

Transcriber: Sydney J. Vaile

Length: 1:11:19

Tamara Kennelly: Today is October 24, 2014. My name is Tamara Kennelly. I'm here with Luther Brice to do an interview. Luther would you mind beginning by saying your full name, and if you don't mind, stating your age?

Luther Brice: Luther Kennedy Brice, Jr., I'm eighty-six.

KENNELLY: Oh my goodness that's a surprise. Would you tell me about your family and how you were raised?

BRICE: I was born and raised in Spartanburg, South Carolina. I've lived in Spartanburg until I was twelve years old. During World War II, my family moved to Columbia, and I was there for four years. I returned and graduated from Spartanburg High School in 1945.

KENNELLY: Did your mother work?

BRICE: Not when I was growing up. Later she taught kindergarten. My father was a lawyer, and he was in the military. After serving in the army in World War I, he stayed in the military reserve, and he was called back to active duty in 1940, which is why he had to close down his law firm and move to Columbia where he was in the Selective Service System during World War II.

KENNELLY: Oh, I see. And do you have siblings?

BRICE: I have one brother who is still with us. He is an architect (now retired) and lives in Charlotte, North Carolina.

KENNELLY: Oh, okay. Where did you go to college?

BRICE: I was an undergraduate at Harvard, and from there I went to Dartmouth College where I got a master's degree, and from there to Duke University where I finished and got a Ph.D.

KENNELLY: How did you get your interest in chemistry?

BRICE: It came very early. I had a chemistry set when I was ten years old [laughter]. I think that I started out planning to go into medicine, but as I studied the subject, I got more interested in the fundamentals of the science and in its application in medicine.

KENNELLY: I see. And were you more interested in research or teaching?

BRICE: I think teaching, and that was true from the beginning. I had a research program during the first probably fifteen or twenty years, but I never had more than a few graduate students, so I really focused on undergraduate teaching.

KENNELLY: You had a good career. I have 1954-1986 you were teaching at Virginia Tech.

BRICE: I came to Virginia Tech a little over sixty years ago. Actually it was almost sixty years to the day when I was in Blacksburg visiting with some of my colleagues this past spring.

KENNELLY: Oh my goodness. You mean sixty years--

BRICE: Exactly sixty years ago last spring. When I first arrived in Blacksburg. And hiring back in those days was very different from today. I was recommended by faculty at Duke. I drove up to Blacksburg, was interviewed by the department 4:00head. There was an informal social that afternoon which I went to. Afterwards I went with the department head back to his office, and he made an offer that day, and I accepted. [laughter]

KENNELLY: Right there? Wow.

BRICE: [laughter] Now it takes months.

KENNELLY: Oh yeah--all kinds of negotiations, wow! So you must've liked the look of the place?

BRICE: Oh yes, I seemed to fit. [laughter]

KENNELLY: Who was it that hired you?

BRICE: The department head--it was Dr. John Watson, and he retired just a few years after I arrived. He was near retirement when I came.

KENNELLY: Were you in the military?

BRICE: No, I would get draft notices, just like everybody else. I was seventeen in 1945 when the War ended, so I was not eligible for the draft during the Second World War. After that, the draft went on for some years, and you would continue getting draft notices until you were twenty-six. Each time that I got a draft notice, one of my teachers or professors would write a recommendation that I continue as a professional, and it was accepted. Most of my contemporaries also didn't go into the military.

KENNELLY: Your contemporaries who were in academia?

BRICE: Who were my age and went to college.

KENNELLY: I see. How did you find Harvard?

BRICE: I was recommended through a Harvard graduate who lived in Spartanburg, and I think that was one of the major factors getting me into the college. But I don't know, I just liked the idea of going to Harvard. [laughter]

KENNELLY: Yeah, sure! Did you like it when you were there?

BRICE: Oh yes. It was my favorite time in life almost as a student, an undergraduate student.

KENNELLY: Had you come out at that point?

BRICE: No, no. I didn't come out until I was in my late thirties. Which was very common back in those days.

KENNELLY: How do you identify yourself?

BRICE: As a gay male.

KENNELLY: And were you aware of that?

BRICE: Oh yes, I was aware that I was attracted to boys when I was twelve, thirteen years old. I don't know think I knew a word for it, but I knew that attraction was there.

KENNELLY: And at Harvard, were there any social networks or way to get together with other people who were gay?

BRICE: They were underground, and I never found it.

KENNELLY: You didn't?

BRICE: No. I've recently met a classmate of mine who did come out. I shouldn't say come out--who found the underground gay connections at Harvard. But like I 8:00said, it was all underground. I recently read a book about an incident that happened at Harvard around 1920 where the president appointed a committee to find homosexuals who were among the student body, and when they were found, they were dismissed.

KENNELLY: Wow, oh my gosh.

BRICE: That was very common back in those days. I wasn't aware of that particular incident when I was a student. Back in those days, the subject was hardly ever discussed in public. It wasn't in newspapers, magazines, radio. It 9:00just was something people didn't talk about, which, of course, made it much more difficult for a kid like me to figure out what's going on.

KENNELLY: Right, or to know where the gathering place might be, if there was a restaurant or bar--

BRICE: I don't think that there were any back in the thirties and forties. I did later learn that there were no gay bars, but there were bars where gay people kind of recognized each other once you learned the system. The system was to have a red handkerchief in your back left pocket, and that was a signal. But I didn't know about that [laughter].

KENNELLY: And most people don't normally carry a red handkerchief around with them. So then you went from Harvard, did you say, Dartmouth?

BRICE: Yes, Dartmouth, I was there for two years and also no gay connections.

KENNELLY: And what about Duke?

BRICE: Same thing there. I didn't know anyone who was gay, and there was no openly gay activity, or anything like that. No gay student group or anything.

KENNELLY: So it would be difficult, I would imagine.

BRICE: That's the reason why people during that generation and for the previous ten thousand years [laughter] didn't have any real opportunity to come out. Now there were people in my generation, and, of course, in all past history, where they were sexually active, but it was all underground. It was the sort of thing 11:00you didn't read about or know about.

KENNELLY: Do you recall the title of that book you were mentioning? Otherwise I can ask you on a later date.

BRICE: I can email that. [Note: Dr. Brice emailed the citation: William Wright, Harvard's Secret Court: The Savage 1920 Purge of Campus Homosexuals (New York: St. Martin's Press, 2005). LD2160 .W75 2005]

KENNELLY: Would you tell me about your, and of course if any question seems inappropriate please say--you know. [laughter]. Will you talk about your earlier experiences with sexuality or gender?

BRICE: Well the first time that I met anybody was at a bar in Washington. I found out about this through an organization, and I have kind of forgotten how I found out about it. But there was an organization in Washington that I got in 12:00contact with when I found out about them, and they gave me the addresses of some gay bars. Back in those days, like in the State of Virginia, it was illegal to serve alcohol to a homosexual. That was written into the law. It was also of course in let's see 1969 when that incident took place in New York City [Stonewall Riots] where the police raided a gay bar, and there was a riot, a protest, of the gay people in the bar. Anyhow, that's how I found out about-- 13:00and that's where I met the first person that I knew to be gay.

KENNELLY: Around how old were you at that time?

BRICE: About mid-thirties.

KENNELLY: Oh my goodness, so it was probably welcome to have found some kind of network?

BRICE: Yeah. I'll tell you another incident, and this happened in 1960. My department head came in my office one day and said, "Did you hear about professor so-and-so?" I have forgotten his name, although I knew him. He was a faculty member in the College of Architecture. I said, no I hadn't heard anything. He said, "He was fired, dismissed overnight." I said, "Oh my goodness what was the problem?" He looked at me, and he said, "Homosexuality." Of course, I was so unnerved that I don't even remember the rest of that conversation. He 14:00had no idea about my sexual orientation, or anybody else's as far as I could tell back in those days. So this was another reason to stay underground, because that could have happened to me.

KENNELLY: So that professor was fired just for --

BRICE: That's right. Of course, the same thing had been going on with the federal government during the 1950s. If you were employed by the government in any kind of position that was in any way sensitive, and it was found that you were homosexual, you were fired because of the thought that people could blackmail you. That you would be subject to blackmail if you had any kind of important information.

KENNELLY: More than anybody else. So that would make you quite nervous about 15:00coming out--

BRICE: Oh yes absolutely.

KENNELLY: There has been some, just talking about words and the words people use, and I wonder what words seem appropriate to you. You said gay and homosexual. You said both of those words. Do both of those words seem appropriate to you? I wonder about the word queer, there is a little debate about that.

BRICE: Well that's a little derogatory of course, but gay people will refer to each other as queer in the same way that a black guy will call another black guy a nigger. They make fun of it, but it's still clearly derogatory.

KENNELLY: So it would be considered derogatory?

BRICE: Oh yes.

KENNELLY: What was your experience of coming out?

BRICE: Well as I said, my first experience was in Washington, and then I found out about this gay bar in Roanoke.

KENNELLY: And that was when you were here at Virginia Tech?

BRICE: Oh yes. Like I said, I arrived in Blacksburg in 1954, and my first gay bar in Roanoke I didn't go until somewhere around late 1960s. It was there that I met for the first time people that I knew on the faculty at Virginia Tech who 17:00were gay. They didn't know I was gay either.

KENNELLY: And nobody knew, no one was--

BRICE: Yeah that's right. That's how we found out about each other was going to this bar in Roanoke.

KENNELLY: Do you recall the name of it?

BRICE: I have a record of it, I can't think of it right now.

[Brice addendum: The bar was in the basement of what was then Tradewinds Restaurant, 717 Franklin St. SW, Roanoke, VA.]

KENNELLY: Was that the one where you had to go down to the basement? And the drinks cost more downstairs?

BRICE: Oh yeah, so did you read the little article that I wrote?

KENNELLY: No! I would love to read it.

BRICE: Oh, well I have it with me. I will try to get Mark to bring it. But that's how I found out about the gay community in Blacksburg, and this would have been in the early seventies.

KENNELLY: Tell me about, if you don't mind repeating what was in the article, 18:00drinks were more expensive there, right?

BRICE: Yes. It was in the basement of a building, and I've kind of forgotten what was on the main floor. But that faced onto a major street, and the only way you could get into this bar downstairs was to go all the way around the building, down a dark alley, and go down several steps to get into this bar downstairs.

KENNELLY: So it could be dangerous just to get in there.

BRICE: Yes. [laughter]

KENNELLY: But I imagine then you go down there, and was there a good amount of people that were there?

BRICE: Always a big crowd of people

KENNELLY: It must've been a relief to find some people.

BRICE: Oh, absolutely. [laughter]

KENNELLY: Plus there were people from your own community, from Blacksburg.

BRICE: Yes, that's right. That's the way I found out that they were just like me.

KENNELLY: How did you find out about the bar? Did it just happen that someone mentioned it?

BRICE: That's a good question. I came across a book, and this again would have been in the late sixties, that listed the locations of gay bars all over the country. I can give you the name of that book also. I still have a copy of that. But this was back when these gay bars first began appearing, when the whole situation began to change, slowly. It was a major change, and it was from that 20:00book that I found out about this bar in Roanoke.

[Note: Dr. Brice emailed the citation: John Francis Hunter, The Gay Insider: USA (New York: Stonewall Publishing Company, 1972).]

KENNELLY: It must have been good to find out. Were your family and your friends back home, were they aware that you were gay?

BRICE: There is no question whatsoever that at some point all of them put two and two together, but I have never openly discussed it.

KENNELLY: Oh, it's just never been discussed.

BRICE: The only time that the subject of gay has come up between me and my family was a recent visit from my niece, who is in her late forties now and has children that are teenagers. She grew up and is still a very devout Christian, 21:00but she brought up the subject of gay marriage and made it clear that she's okay with it. [laughter]

KENNELLY: Really! Wow. Well she took a step.

BRICE: And there is no question whatsoever that my brother and his children and all of my cousins. I'm sure that they know, even though it is not--we never discussed it.

KENNELLY: Well what are your feelings about marriage yourself?

BRICE: I'm in favor of gay marriage.

KENNELLY: Are you married?

BRICE: No. I never married, and in fact, even when I was in high school, I didn't date girls.

KENNELLY: And you didn't marry a man, either?

BRICE: No, no I have not gone through that procedure. I had a partner for about fifteen years. So I had a long-term relationship. Marriage wasn't even possible 22:00back then anyway.

KENNELLY: So it wasn't even anything that would be discussed or anything?

BRICE: No, no.

KENNELLY: Are you in D.C. now?

BRICE: I am in Washington, D.C.; that's right.

KENNELLY: But when you were living in Blacksburg, you didn't have a partner at that point, did you?

BRICE: Yes, the last ten years I was at Blacksburg, I had a partner.

KENNELLY: So by then, things had opened up or changed?

BRICE: By the mid-seventies or eighties there were still homophobic people on the faculty and the administration. But I was perfectly comfortable with people knowing that I was gay. I didn't advertise it or make a deal of it. In fact, 23:00with my colleagues, with one exception, the subject was never discussed, just like with my family. But it was no question whatsoever that many or most of them knew, and had no problem. [laughter]

KENNELLY: Oh, good. What were the things that in your first years at Virginia Tech when you were meeting people in Roanoke and everything, were there issues that stand out that you all would be discussing or debating or talking about? Any particular issues?

BRICE: You mean relating to gay?

KENNELLY: Yes.

BRICE: No, that subject never came up. It was just never discussed. And it was only in the sixties when I think I recall seeing the first article in Time 24:00Magazine that had a cover story on homosexuals.

KENNELLY: And so that must have been sort of revolutionary.

BRICE: Oh yeah, oh yes. That was one of the steps leading to where we are now. But prior to that, I can remember when I was a kid, I ran across the term homosexual in the dictionary. I think I had heard the word, "What is that? What is that word?" So I looked it up in the dictionary; that's how I found out. Because like I said, today it's all over the news. The younger generation now, all of them know about gay people. The word gay didn't exist in 1930 or 1940 or 1950.

KENNELLY: So when you saw that word in the dictionary, did you think, "Oh well, that's what I am?"

BRICE: Well when I saw the word homosexual, I said, "Yes, that's me."

KENNELLY: So then you identified with that. There must have been a bit of a feeling of--

BRICE: Isolation, yes absolutely, because I didn't know anybody else who was like me. Ultimately, I would read about people who throughout history have been known to be homosexual. I don't recall any public figures that were out as being gay even back in those days.

KENNELLY: Oscar Wilde, but that's--Yes, it was just a whole different time. It seems like it would be quite difficult though to feel that you are different, or 26:00isolated, and what are you going to do? And now you hear that there is 6 percent or 10 percent or whatever the population is, but --

BRICE: Now I do know people who are my generation and earlier generations who developed gay relationships early in their life. But it was again kept underground. They weren't out as homosexual or gay. But they did somehow manage to get into this underworld, and then they lived in two different worlds. One world doesn't know about the other one. The big world doesn't know about--

KENNELLY: Right, so you have this kind of different identity, and then you have the face that you put on in the other one. You probably get invited to dinner, and they bring a lady--

BRICE: But I know many of my other gay contemporaries who were like me, came out, or had their first contact with the gay world at a much older age. And I know people even who didn't work their way into the gay world until they were in their fifties.

KENNELLY: I guess it depends on the circumstances and helps to be a reader. [laughter] So was that bar in Roanoke homosexuals and lesbians? Was it men and women both who went to it or was it primarily male?

BRICE: I think both. Both the male and female I think pretty much developed 28:00along the same line.

KENNELLY: As time went on, was there any place in Blacksburg that was a gathering place in that way?

BRICE: There were social groups, and they would meet at people's houses and places like that. I don't know. I don't think there was any --there was no gay bar in Blacksburg. There are bars now, and in fact when I was in Blacksburg several months ago, I went to a kind of a nightclub. There were girls dancing with girls, boys dancing with boys, boys dancing with girls.

KENNELLY: Here in Blacksburg?

BRICE: Oh yes. [laughter] So it is a brave new world.

KENNELLY: Where was that? Do you remember which one that was?

BRICE: It's on that street, what's the street with the Lyric Theater?

KENNELLY: College Avenue.

BRICE: Yeah it is street off of that, I think.

KENNELLY: Oh, did you go downstairs?

BRICE: No, it's not down the stairs. It was just off of the street.

KENNELLY: Things are changing. Were there any underground publications that you were aware of?

BRICE: Those began again in the late sixties that I first became aware. Let's see, it would've been the late sixties or early seventies where there were 30:00underground publications.

KENNELLY: Any that were local?

BRICE: No. The one I subscribed to was centered in Chicago, and it was just a place where gay people could give their name and some way of contacting them just to meet other gay people.

KENNELLY: Did you experience during your time at Virginia Tech, well I guess you knew about that one professor, so that in a way is scary. But did you ever experience any discrimination because of your sexuality?

BRICE: Well of course because there couldn't have been any discrimination because nobody knew about it until the 1970s. After that, I was not aware of any personal discrimination or feelings toward me. There were people on the Board of 31:00Visitors, who were homophobic, and there probably people on the faculty who are too, but I just never came aware of it personally myself. So, I never had anybody in Blacksburg or anywhere else for that matter who expressed any homophobic statements of feelings or anything like that.

KENNELLY: When you mention the Board of Visitors, are you referring to the incident when Shelli Fowler came? Or is there another--

BRICE: Yes, that's how I knew about the homophobia on the Board.

KENNELLY: Yeah, well, that was pretty blatant. I think that was a shock.

BRICE: Yeah, I even wrote the rector, John Rocovich. I wrote him a letter expressing my outrage. I met John when he was about twenty. His mother was in administration--admissions office. And I knew her; she was in that position when I first came to Blacksburg. Her son happened to be with her one day when they were in Davidson Hall, and I think that's the only time I remember seeing him or meeting him. Then of course, I knew who this John Rocovich was [laughter] when his name appeared on the Board of Visitors forty years later.

KENNELLY: Do you have a copy of that letter? Because we would love to get a copy. Maybe we could scan the letter and give it back to you or something?

BRICE: Yes. Okay. Well I actually brought a copy of that letter and also my statement I gave you about when the department head came in one day. I have both of those and I will give you a copy.

KENNELLY: Oh, great. I appreciate that.

Was there anyone who was a mentor to you?

BRICE: No, I wouldn't say so.

KENNELLY: Or anyone who was especially influential or a major ally?

BRICE: No, no. Now you're talking about coming out as gay?

KENNELLY: Or in your career.

BRICE: Well yeah, I had teachers who were influential, and I'm sure when I was much younger that I had mentors that guided me along in my profession. But I don't think anything in the way of guidance that had anything to do with sexual orientation.

KENNELLY: I'm just wondering looking at your life if there was somebody who was really important in that way. As you did your work, someone in your work who had served in that way.

When you were at Virginia Tech, did you participate in any organizations?

BRICE: Well, of course there were professional chemistry organizations, but I got to know a good many gay students who-- In fact, Mark Weber was one of the early organizers of the gay student group. I went to some of their socials and affairs, and I had a place out at Claytor Lake where a lot of students would come out and visit over the weekend. Sometimes a pretty big crowd-- So I was 36:00socially involved.

KENNELLY: So you were hosting gatherings? How did you meet those students? Was that from going to Roanoke?

BRICE: No, I think I met most of them through the Lambda Horizon group, which Mark Weber was an early organizer of.

KENNELLY: So that would be the eighties?

BRICE: Yes, in the eighties. I met a number of gay students even in the mid-seventies, or maybe a little earlier. But I would meet them at socials and people's houses around town--other gay people. I would have gay socials in my apartment.

KENNELLY: I guess once you figured out who the network was, then you could have your own--

BRICE: Oh yes, it was very active. It began to be a very active social group of faculty and students. Again, starting in the sixties.

KENNELLY: I think the Gay Alliance drafted its constitution in 1971, and of course it had to struggle to get recognition. I don't think it got recognition until -- the university was trying to -- We've got some documentation about how the university was trying to not recognize it, but allow it to meet. It was kind of weird.

BRICE: Yes, there was a problem.

KENNELLY: The fact that it was at least trying to have an organization, did that 38:00seem really important at the time?

BRICE: Yes, it did. The student groups became more and more active. They were more active back in the eighties than in the early seventies. I know students who-- this would've been maybe back in the mid-seventies-- who had part-time jobs in Blacksburg. They lost their job because they were gay.

KENNELLY: Really?

BRICE: That was very common back in those days.

KENNELLY: Wow, in the seventies?

BRICE: Yes. Absolutely. Though, the seventies was a period of slow transition. The year that is cited as the beginning of the Gay Revolution was 1969, when 39:00that riot in the New York bar took place.

KENNELLY: Because people--

BRICE: That made big news.

KENNELLY: And people responded to it.

BRICE: They responded to it. That's right.

KENNELLY: And then there was-- I'm trying to think of the name of that--the New York situation [Stonewall Riots]. But the fact that people were losing a job in Blacksburg because of-- I guess it was very--

BRICE: Yes, in fact, I just talked to this friend of mine who now lives in Washington who told me the story of what happened to him when he was a student. I have forgotten the job that he had, but he told me they found out that he was 40:00gay. Then he was fired, but the reasons that they gave for firing him, had nothing to do with his being gay. They didn't want it to appear that he was being fired because he was gay. So they just made up things, reasons that made no sense for the reasons for dismissing him from his job.

KENNELLY: Was that from a private business in town?

BRICE: Yes.

KENNELLY: At that one meeting we had, someone was talking about how the gay students for a while were getting together around a soap opera. Because there was something about how you couldn't meet? You know, gay people weren't allowed to even have a meeting. They would have to call the police first?

BRICE: Well, I don't recall that.

KENNELLY: Maybe I've got it mixed up.

BRICE: The earliest incident which is similar to what you just said, was a couple of students that I met-- I think this would have been in the early seventies-- and they told me that there was a group of gay students who met in an apartment over on Progress Street. They were very careful at night. They pulled the shades all the way down so that nobody could look in and just see that there were just boys there. [laughter]

KENNELLY: Did they think that someone might call the police or something?

BRICE: Yeah! But they were that concerned that something might happen.

KENNELLY: Yeah, maybe it was something that Mark had said about they had to call 42:00the police before they met so that they could have a meeting? That it was so hard to even just get together if you wanted to have a meeting. Does that sound familiar?

BRICE: I don't recall that.

KENNELLY: Yeah, I will have to check. But wow, they had to pull the shades. That's very difficult. What, for you, are the sources of your personal strength as a person?

BRICE: [laughter] That's a hard question. I don't know quite how to answer that.

KENNELLY: Does church or religion play a part in your life?

BRICE: No, it never has, even though when I was a kid, I went to Sunday school and church every Sunday. Somehow it just didn't stick or sink in. Both of my 43:00parents were raised in very strict Christian households. I remember my mother told me that on Sunday they'd go to Sunday school and church, and then they'd come home. They couldn't go out and play, and they couldn't read the newspapers, the funnies. They would sit around and talk and read the Bible and stuff like that. When my mother and her siblings escaped from that, they didn't pursue that system themselves.

I remember when I was a kid, we'd go to church and Sunday school and all that, and my father would say grace at meals, and I would say a prayer going to bed. 44:00But that was it. The subject of religion, God, and all of that never came up in the daily activities or conversation or any of that. The way it did in some other very deeply religious households.

KENNELLY: I guess the way they had experienced it, maybe because of their own experiences-- What are your thoughts on parenting? You don't have any children or you didn't ever adopt children or anything, did you?

BRICE: No. What was the question?

KENNELLY: Well I just wondered what your thoughts are on parenting were?

BRICE: Well, I thought that my parents were perfect parents from the point of view that I just described. That is, they let me do what I wanted to do. They didn't try to guide me professionally. They let me develop my own interests.

KENNELLY: They must have been proud of you too! Going to Harvard, getting a Ph.D. Have you been involved in any political or social movements associated with LGBT or gay issues or anything like that?

BRICE: Nothing-- not really active. My involvement when I was in Blacksburg, my 46:00last twenty years in Blacksburg would have been social. I was never active or got into any kind of political activity. I'm probably kind of that way now. I still don't really get involved. I have some friends who are, and on occasion invited me to attend political functions. I'll go, but that's not one of my driving interests.

KENNELLY: But you were a host to these gatherings. I think there's even in Mark's collection there is an invitation to a gathering that was at your Claytor Lake place.

BRICE: Oh yeah, I have done a lot of social stuff like that. In fact, just a 47:00couple of weeks ago there were some gay students from Virginia Tech who came to Washington, and I had a social for them. Mark Weber and I did.

KENNELLY: That's really nice.

BRICE: You know John Gray?

KENNELLY: I know the name.

BRICE: He had organized this, and he brought this group to Washington. Mark and I had sponsored this social for them.

KENNELLY: I suppose because in your background where you didn't really have until finally you found this place in Roanoke or you found a place in D.C., not having had those opportunities, you can recognize how meaningful it is for people to be able to meet other people.

I think after talking a little bit, I think I understand more about the Gay Alliance and the trouble of having a faculty sponsor for that group. I mean that was part of the problem. I don't know if Lambda Horizon had trouble finding a faculty sponsor--

BRICE: I think they did. I had actually forgotten this. A friend of mine who was a student here at the time, said that he approached me and wanted to know if I would consider being a faculty sponsor. He said that I told him that I thought that the faculty sponsor should be a straight faculty member. I don't remember that conversation at all, but at any rate, the first faculty sponsor was a 49:00straight guy, who was perfectly open, obviously, and was supportive of the gay community.

KENNELLY: But it made it easier maybe. If we're still finding bias at the university as late as 2003, then I could see that would make--

BRICE: I think that it wasn't that I was worried about the bias. It's just that I am not a politically oriented person. It's just not my thing. I don't think I would've done a good job at it. Like I said, the first faculty sponsor was an openly straight supporter of the gay community.

KENNELLY: Do you recall Denim Day? In 1979 they had something they called Denim Day, and I think people wore denim who were gay or who supported?

BRICE: I have a vague recollection of that.

KENNELLY: I think there was some harassment at that by some Corps members. I was just wondering if you had any recollection of that.

BRICE: No, not really.

KENNELLY: What was the impact of the AIDS epidemic on your life?

BRICE: Only that some of my very close friends were victims of it. So that's the most serious impact on me personally.

KENNELLY: It really impressed me how it seemed that Lambda Horizon formed, and then they jumped into AIDS education. It was formed, and by its charter it seemed like a group to get a positive image and a social group. Then I guess because the AIDS situation was so serious, and they just felt that they had to-- They did this strong work in advocacy, I guess because of that.

Were you a mentor to other people, younger people?

BRICE: A mentor to other gay students?

KENNELLY: Yeah, or to straight students?

BRICE: Oh yes, oh yes. I got a number of undergraduate and graduate students, 52:00and a fairly good number of them have gotten in touch with me ten, twenty, thirty, forty years after they graduated.

KENNELLY: Have they been telling you what happened and--

BRICE: I have really kept in touch with a fair number of former students.

KENNELLY: That must be gratifying to hear.

BRICE: Oh it is! It is wonderful to know that you had that kind of influence.

KENNELLY: On someone's life, yeah. That's a big thing.

BRICE: And this is both gay and straight.

KENNELLY: Oh yeah, that's what I meant. I meant just professionally, or 53:00personally too. I just wondered professionally because you mentioned that your focus was on education, doing some research, but especially on education. It's great when you feel like you really made a difference on people.

Are there any other events that you recall of significance as far as the gay history of the community?

BRICE: I can't think of any specific event at the moment.

KENNELLY: Once you retired, was that when you decided to leave Blacksburg?

BRICE: Yes, I was in Virginia Tech from 1954 to 1986, so thirty-two years. When I retired at Virginia Tech and moved to Washington, I taught at American University for another eight years.

KENNELLY: How was that experience?

BRICE: It was fine. It worked fine. I was an adjunct professor, which means they don't pay you very much. [laughter]

KENNELLY: Right, you don't get the same benefits

BRICE: But your only responsibilities are to teach the class. You don't have any committees or any other kind of activity. By that time in my career, that fit it 55:00and worked okay.

KENNELLY: You felt better to live in D.C. than to be in Blacksburg?

BRICE: Well, I had a very fine life and a lot of friends and stuff to do in Blacksburg, but there was a point where I wanted to live in a city and experience big city life.

KENNELLY: That is not here.

BRICE: Plus, I had a lot of friends who lived in Washington, mostly Virginia Tech connections.

KENNELLY: Oh so there was kind of a circle there?

BRICE: There still are. Even just in my neighborhood.

KENNELLY: Oh that's nice.

BRICE: So, yes, it has worked out.

KENNELLY: So a huge difference from when you probably first went to Washington to what it's like now.

BRICE: Oh dramatic change, that's right. In particular in my neighborhood, dramatic changes from a slum to world class stores and restaurants. Everything.

KENNELLY: What neighborhood is that?

BRICE: Near DuPont Circle.

KENNELLY: That's a nice neighborhood. That was sort of a slum for a while?

BRICE: It wasn't DuPont Circle, but a few blocks east, around 14th Street. That's when the Martin Luther King riots, you know when he was slaughtered or murdered. They marched up and down 14th Street and tore down or burned down or 57:00destroyed it. All sorts of damage up and down the street, rioting up and down the street, and that kind of spread out into the neighborhood on either side. I'm a few blocks west of that. So the DuPont Circle has been for as far back as I know upscale.

KENNELLY: When you come back here to Blacksburg, what are the changes that really stand out to you now that you are coming back? You know, after having been here since the fifties.

BRICE: Well of course I have been back every year since.

KENNELLY: Oh you have?

BRICE: Yes. So I keep in touch with my colleagues, and I have friends in Blacksburg that I visit and keep in touch with. So I've come down regularly and 58:00watched and observed the change. [laughter]

KENNELLY: Kind of over time, yeah.

BRICE: It's now what, 30,000 students, I think. When I arrived, there were less than 5,000.

KENNELLY: Wow, that in itself, and more fields and things I suppose.

BRICE: Dramatic. Amazing change.

KENNELLY: Are there changes that you'd like to see at Virginia Tech that you haven't seen? Ways that you think things could be better here, or things that bother you? It doesn't have to be about LGBTQ, but just in any kind of area?

BRICE: I think they ought to bring tuition down. [laughter] That's true at schools all over the country.

KENNELLY: Well, it's become a big problem for students.

BRICE: Oh, I know people now who when they graduate, they're $100,000 in debt.

KENNELLY: The jobs don't match that.

Are there things that you would like to bring up that I haven't asked you about, things that you wanted to mention?

BRICE: I can't think of anything right off hand. I will get a copy to you of 60:00those two things though.

KENNELLY: That would be great. Do you have other letters or memorabilia or scrapbooks or photographs?

BRICE: I have all sorts of stuff, but I don't know that it is all that relevant, like letter and notes from former students and stuff like that.

One of the memorable things that happened to me when I was teaching was that it was my custom at the beginning of the lecture to rap for attention with a meter stick. I walked into class one day, and this was in the Davidson Hall auditorium, and my meter stick was missing.

All of a sudden the class gets quiet--about 130 or 140 students, and these three students walk in the back door with a 15-foot piece of lumber. And they walked down the steps, plopped it down on the lecture table up front, and it is a beautifully designed replica of a meter stick. It was centimeters on one side, and inches on the other. On the left at the bottom it said, "Made in O'Shag," which is O'Shaughnessy. In the middle it said "Merlin K. Brice Scientific Company catalogue number 3-23-71," which was the date on which this thing was presented. The clear implication was when they sat down was, "Okay, now you can 62:00rap for attention." [laughter] So I picked this big piece of lumber up and go "bang, bang, bang," and everyone goes into hysterics. [laughter]

These three students during the previous week had gone to a lumber yard, gotten this big piece of lumber, took it to O'Shaughnessy where they lived, but they're on the third floor. They couldn't get this 15-foot piece of lumber through the door and down the hall. So they got people on the first level, second level, and third level in windows and pulled the stick up and into the window. That's where they did this beautiful work of art. [laughter]

KENNELLY: Oh that is wonderful!

BRICE: After class, of course, what am I going to do with this piece of lumber? It was taken up to my office, and it was nailed on the wall. That's where it 63:00stayed until I left. Then I left it behind, and somebody in the department nailed it to the wall across from my office, which is where it stayed for 20 years. Now the building is being reconstructed, but they saved that meter stick. I saw it when I was down here a couple of months ago. It's in storage, and when they finish the renovation of the building, they will nail it back to the wall. [laughter]

KENNELLY: Oh I would love to get a photograph of that. I have to see if we can get a photograph of that.

BRICE: I can send you a photo.

KENNELLY: Oh you have a photo? That's wonderful. That's really a tribute to do all that. It's a prank, but it's such a sweet prank!

BRICE: That's the sort of thing that you remember. [laughter]

KENNELLY: And you would too! What a great memory. That's really a tribute, that they would go through all of that trouble, and then they had to get up to their room and then they had to get it back out through the windows and then march it over there to you.

BRICE: -- Carried it across the Drillfield. [laughter]

KENNELLY: And that would be the early seventies?

BRICE: Yes. That's right.

KENNELLY: Wow, oh that's great. Well I think that's a great story and a great tribute.

BRICE: Then I used to do a chemistry magic show. This was a collection of demonstrations I used to do in class. A couple of the female students went out 65:00and got some black and red cloth, and they designed and made a magician's cloak for me. For all of the magic shows that I put on after that, I wore this magician's cape. [laughter]

KENNELLY: That's great! Do you have a photograph of that? Do you have one of you wearing it?

BRICE: Yes.

KENNELLY: Well we will have to get those. Wow! It sounds like you really touched your students.

BRICE: A few of them, maybe! [laughter]

KENNELLY: Well, quite a few! In a serious way if they carry this huge beam across, and then to actually sew a cloak. I don't think that I have ever heard a 66:00story like that. You must have made chemistry really interesting to them by the way you handled things. Those are great stories. Are there any other stories you remember?

BRICE: I can't think of any right off hand. This chemical magic show that I did, I was also invited to present it to Mrs. Ogliaruso's second grade class, which I did. I think it was the year before I was invited to present the chemical magic 67:00show at a meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Washington, D.C. in this huge ballroom. I had been to a few AAAS meetings, but not many. Anyway, the magic show was presented there. The room was packed-- standing room only. Somebody who was a regular attender to those meetings said that he had never seen a crowd this big at any lecture at the AAAS. I may be the only person who ever gave the same lecture to a room full of professional scientists and a room full of second graders. [laughter]

KENNELLY: To packed houses, wow! So the word must have been out about you as far 68:00as a teacher.

BRICE: Well, when I would do this magic show in Davidson Hall, the auditorium again would be packed. I have a picture of that too that I will send to you.

KENNELLY: I'd love that. Did you wear the cape?

BRICE: Oh yes.

KENNELLY: That is wonderful. I would love to see those pictures, and we can scan them if you don't want to give them to us.

BRICE: Okay. Could I send them as an email attachment? Or through the mail? Or what would be the best way to send the pictures?

KENNELLY: Probably the best way would be if we could get the physical ones because we could make a high quality scan. We like to make scans at 600 DPI.

BRICE: The only thing that I could do would be to scan it myself and then print out the scan and send it. Or I could just email you.

KENNELLY: That would be the best way.

BRICE: I think it will be as good a quality that way.

KENNELLY: That would be great, and then we could put them with the interview. Well, it sounds like you really made a name for yourself as a teacher. If you get this packed crowd at one of these professional meeting, that's such a funny story. Plus the second graders probably loved it too. Was it pretty much the same lecture?

BRICE: Not really very different.

KENNELLY: They wanted to see how you did the magic show.

BRICE: Of course the professional chemists would know the chemistry behind each 70:00of the demonstrations. The second graders, of course, wouldn't know that. But they both see the same thing.

KENNELLY: Yeah, and they were both engaged.

BRICE: When I give the lecture even to the chemists, I don't go through a lot of technical stuff. It's entertainment, not education.

KENNELLY: That makes sense. And then when you give it to your students--

BRICE: Well, when I did the demonstrations in class, of course, there was a lot of technical background stuff.

KENNELLY: Because they had to have it-- But you probably also made it kind of fun.

BRICE: Oh yes. [laughter]

KENNELLY: That's great. Well thank you for coming in today. These are wonderful stories. If you think of other stories that you want to share, be sure to let me know.

BRICE: Okay.

[End of interview]