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AN INTERVIEW WITH BRYANT FREEMAN

Interviewer: Jewell Willhite

Oral History Project

Endacott Society

University of Kansas

23 June 2008

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BRYANT FREEMAN

B.A., French, University of Virginia, 1953

M.A., French Language and Literature, Yale University, 1954

Ph.D., French Language and Literature, Yale University, 1961

Service at the University of Kansas

Came to K.U. in 1971

Chairman of the Department of French and Italian, 1971-1976

Professor of French and Italian, Latin American Studies,

and African and African American Studies

Director and Founder of the Institute of Haitian Studies, 1992-

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AN INTERVIEW WITH BRYANT FREEMAN

Interviewer: Jewell Willhite

Q: I am speaking with Bryant Freeman, who retired in 2007 as a professor of French and

Italian and African Studies and Latin American Studies and director of the Institute of

Haitian Studies at the University of Kansas. We are in Lawrence, Kansas, on June 23,

2008. Where were you born and in what year?

A: I was born in Richmond, Virginia, on June 26, 1931, so I’ll be 77 this week.

Q: What were your parents’ names?

A: Loomin Oscar Freeman Jr., and Virginia Bourke Oliver Freeman. My father was

president of an insurance company and my mother was a homemaker. I was an only

child. I was born and raised in Richmond, Virginia. I had a very pleasant upbringing.

My father was from Georgia and my mother was from South Carolina. But my father

accepted a job early in his career in Virginia. So that’s where I was born. I was the only

child in the family and also the only child in the neighborhood. I had no playmates. I

never saw another kid, really, until I went to kindergarten.

Q: What was their educational background?

A: My father was a graduate of the University of Georgia in civil engineering and a graduate

in law from the University of Richmond. My mother went to Cox College in College

Park, Georgia.

Q: Where did you go to elementary school?

A: Ginter Park Elementary School, where I was proudly a member of the safety patrol.

Q: I understand that you have collected stamps. Did this start when you were a kid?

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A: Yes. It started when I was probably third, fourth, or fifth grade. That’s where I learned

geography, basically by collecting stamps. At the beginning of the album there were

maps of the world, so I got pretty good at geography at the very beginning. This

continued later. When I got to be a teenager I started traveling. I’ve traveled all my life.

I’ve spent at least a week or two in more than 80 different countries. During elementary

school and junior high school my main hobby was stamps. I wanted to do music, but my

parents thought it was a waste of time. So I didn’t begin music until I reached high

school and I could really fight my parents and demand first piano lessons, which I never

got, and then I started on the clarinet and moved to oboe. Through high school my main

occupation was in music, the oboe. I became first chair in the all-state symphony and

represented Virginia in the All-South Symphony in Florida. Then the Richmond

Symphony was being formed. I was simply a high school oboist, good for a high school

oboist but nothing professional. But in any case the Richmond Symphony, which is now

a very good professional symphony, had just begun and they were desperate for an

oboist. So I was principal oboist. Now to have that role you would have to be really

good.

The other thing growing up was dogs. I was taken to my first dog show when I

was five in 1936. I remember it completely because the Affenpinscher was recognized

by the AKC in 1936. I had just learned to read. I read in the paper that the Affenpinscher

had just been recognized by the AKC. I went with my father and another gentleman to

the show. They saw an Affenpinscher and didn’t know what it was. I, a little five-year-

old boy, could proudly tell them this was an Affenpinscher.

Q: I’ve never heard of that kind of dog.

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A: They’ve been recognized since 1936. I’ve never had one. I grew up first with an Irish

Setter, which we had for a little while, and then a Boston Terrier. Then we had several

smooth Fox Terriers. Then for years we had a Miniature Pinscher. So from the very

beginning my two hobbies all the way through my life have been number one, dogs, and

number two, music. That began very little with the dogs, and music when I got in high

school when I could demand music lessons and got them. Eventually, I went from oboe

to bassoon and then contrabassoon. I played in the Richmond Symphony, and the

Virginia State Symphony. I spent several summers traveling professionally with the

orchestra from the first year of college. Eventually, I got to Kansas. I took up the

bassoon in Virginia and then the contrabassoon here. I played in the Lawrence

Symphony when the Lawrence Symphony still used to exist.

Q: What was the name of your high school?

A: Thomas Jefferson High School. I was in the band and the cadet corps.

Q: What is the cadet corps? Did that have something to do with band?

A: No, it was junior ROTC. There were about 300, I guess. The school was a public high

school, but you could either be in the cadet corps or not in the cadet corps. It was about

half and half, boys only. I was in the cadet corps because I was in the band. I would play

piccolo on the march because you can’t march with an oboe.

Q: Did you have honors in high school?

A: Yes. I was in the precollege bunch. I graduated in 1949, and went on to the University

of Virginia.

Q: Did you have influential teachers in high school?

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A: Yes. One of the most influential teachers was not in high school but in junior high

school, Ruby Tyree. She was a Latin teacher. Actually, beginning in sixth grade and

then in seventh and eighth grade they took all the kids who were straight “A” and put us

in Latin class. If you failed one test, you were out of the class. She was a real strict

disciplinarian and maybe the best teacher I have ever had. I fell in love with Latin. The

rest of the class day was just a detail. I just lived for Latin class. Then when I got to high

school I had probably the world’s worst Latin teacher in third year Latin. So that’s when

I began French. My mother is from French Huguenot ancestry from South Carolina. My

mother said, “Why not begin French because it is in our heritage.” So I said, “Why not?”

So I began French in high school and loved it from the very beginning. In fact, I

remember my first year of high school French I was so good—it is embarrassing now that

I think about it—that the teacher would give me papers of everyone in the class and I

would go home and grade the papers. Then when I got into third year high school French

I was in the National French Contest and I had Miss Eunice Gill, a huge influence in my

life. She was a French teacher at Thomas Jefferson High School. During study hall

every day I would go to her classroom and get a National French Contest paper from

years back and go to the library and fill it out and give it back to her. She would correct

it and yell at me if I made a mistake. So when the National French Contest came in my

senior year I was one of the national winners. In high school my loves were French and

oboe basically.

Q: Did you ever have jobs in the summer?

A: No. I was not allowed to do that. They thought it was a waste of time. I traveled.

Q: Did you travel with your family?

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A: Yes, and as soon as I was old enough, I traveled by myself.

Q: Where did you go?

A: Well, to France. I’m sorry. I’ll backtrack. In high school summers I simply went on

vacation with my family. One summer I went to summer school at a local high school,

John Marshall High School. But, no, I didn’t have jobs.

Q: When did you begin traveling?

A: I began traveling when I got in college. My first year in college, my first summer, I went

to Middlebury French School, which is at Middlebury College. It is a regular college

during the rest of the year, but during the summers they do just the languages. There is a

French school, a German school, a Spanish school.

Q: Was this somewhere in the United States?

A: In Vermont, in beautiful Middlebury, Vermont. When you enter, you have to sign a

written pledge to speak only the language of your school, that is, only French at any one

time. Actually, it was complicated my first summer because I met a girl who was in

German school and so I knew a little German but her French was excellent, though she

was a German major at Wellesley. So anyway, we finally got in trouble because she was

speaking French to me, but she should have been speaking German all the time. The

school was so strict that if your parents suddenly arrived on the campus, you couldn’t

even talk to them. You had to go to the director of the school and get a written allowance

to speak English with them during the time that they were there. This was definitely

discouraged. The radio sets were so that you couldn’t change the dial. It was all from

Quebec, Canada, in French. So I did that the first summer in college and the second

summer in college. Then I spent my junior year in France.

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Q: Where did you go in France?

A: First Tours for six weeks introductory. I was with the Sweet Briar junior year in France

group. We spent six weeks in Tours. I was living in a beautiful chateau with a very

wealthy French family. It had formal gardens, etc. It was very, very nice. That was my

introduction to French life, living in a chateau and much social life. That was six weeks.

Then we moved on to Paris in late September or early October. I lived with two other

Americans. The three of us lived with a lady who was the widow of a French senator

right in the heart of Paris, the Latin Quarter, 58, rue Monsieur-le-Prince right next to the

Sorbonne. I took courses at the Sorbonne my junior year, which then transferred back to

the University of Virginia.

Q: Your major at the University of Virginia was French.

A: Actually, I entered a premed program but my heart was never in it. I was always bored. I

was good in biology in high school. But I didn’t like chemistry very much. Then when I

was in first year chemistry at the University of Virginia I hated it. I used to cut chemistry

class to sit in as an auditor of a graduate course in French, which I couldn’t possibly take

as a freshman. My father eventually said to me, “What you really want to be is a

university professor of French, right?” I said, “Yes.” He said, “Well, be a good one.”

That was it. So beginning the sophomore year at the University of Virginia I was taking

three graduate courses in French. There I was, a lowly sophomore, and everybody else in

the class was getting either a master’s degree or a Ph.D. in French. It was great for me. I

spent two summers in Middlebury, Vermont, where I spoke only French and then my

junior year I went to France. Then my senior year they would choose five or six students

out of every graduating class for a special honors program. You didn’t take any classes

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at all. You simply worked with one professor. So I worked with one of the full

professors in French, Joseph Carrière. My subject was 20th

century French Lit. They

gave me a huge reading list at the beginning of the year. Then at the end of the year I had

to take a detailed exam on 20th

century French Lit., as well as the other five periods of

French literary history. I graduated first in the class.

The greatest honor I ever got was a Woodrow Wilson Fellowship. In those

days—Woodrow Wilsons are easier to get now—but in those days they only gave one per

state. There were 600 in my class. I was first out of 600. So I was automatically

nominated to go to Washington and take an oral interview. There are 12 colleges in the

state of Virginia. There was one person from each college. There was an interview by

professors. I happened to be in a good mood that day and they happened to ask me just

the right questions. So I got the one scholarship from Virginia, which paid my way all

through Yale. I was offered a full scholarship at Yale and a full scholarship at Harvard. I

always wanted to go to Harvard. But I asked 11 different college professors of French,

“What is the best French department in the country?” All of them said Yale. Yale is a

great university but it is not in a great town. It is in New Haven, Connecticut, which is

deplorable, whereas Harvard is in Cambridge and Boston. In any case I turned down

Harvard. The hardest letter I ever wrote was turning down a full scholarship to Harvard.

I went to Yale instead.

The summer before I entered Yale graduate school, I had never had German. One

of the most stringent requirements in the French department at Yale was you had to have

a very good knowledge of German. I had never had German. Harvard had an intensive

summer school program of four hours a day of German classes.

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During my junior year in France I did a lot of traveling. The French system gives

you a lot of free time. I began when four of us rented a car. At Christmas for an entire

month we went through Switzerland, Austria, Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, and

eventually back to Paris in a big circle. At Easter we went to England, Wales, Scotland,

Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic and then back to London and back to Paris. The

following summer after my junior year in France, since I was already in Europe, I had

been told that if you are going to be a French professor you should also know Spanish. I

had one year of Spanish already at the University of Virginia, so I spent the summer at

the Escuela Francesca de Segovia, which is a French school in Segovia, Spain. All of the

kids were French, except for me. We spoke French among ourselves. But we did three

or four hours a day in Spanish. So I had a smattering of Spanish. That was my junior

year. Then I went back to Virginia in the special honors program. I graduated first in my

class and then went to Yale, as I said.

Q: What year did you graduate?

A: In June of 1953. The summer of 1953 I spent at Harvard in the intensive German

program. In those years—they’ve changed it since—nowadays you just have to do two

years of German and get an A or B. Whereas when I was a student at Yale in the French

department you really had to know German. You also had to know classical Latin and

vulgar Latin. Of course I had had Latin. Vulgar Latin is much easier if you know Old

French. Old French helps you greatly with vulgar Latin. Of course classical Latin helps

you too. So there is a Latin test and a vulgar Latin test and then a test in German and a

test in Spanish. The really hard one was German. So for the next several years every

weekend was spent studying German. Then one summer I remember sitting on the side

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porch back at home in Richmond just doing German. Once a week I would take my

problems, things I just couldn’t translate, to a retired high school German teacher, Mr.

Lutz. He would explain things to me.

Q: Were you ever in the military?

A: No, I was never in the military, until recently, but I’ll get to that later.

Q: Okay. So then you went to Yale for your master’s degree in French.

A: I entered Yale in 1953. Only two or three people have ever done it before, get a master’s

degree in French in one year at Yale. Just for the heck of it, I decided to do it. So I

worked hard and got my master’s in French in 1954, one year after entering.

Q: Then what did you do?

A: I just stayed on for the Ph.D. The summers at Yale were normally spent at Yale

preparing things. The Yale French Department was very, very demanding. You did two

years of classes and then after that you had a huge exam, an oral exam of three hours,

before six professors. Once they saw that you knew the answer they would cut you off

right in the middle of a word and ask you increasingly more difficult questions. The year

I took my orals in French lit. I was the seventh person to take it and all six proceeding

me, who were good students, all failed. Maybe they passed me because they didn’t want

to fail a seventh person or maybe I somehow lucked through. In any case, I did pass. It

was three hours of a grueling exam. Then you go down the hall and sit and wait while

they meditate on your fate. Then someone comes down the hall and informs you whether

you failed or passed. Then after that, and only after that, can you discuss with a professor

what your dissertation will be. So I began in 1953 and finished classes in 1955. They

didn’t have a system of GTAs (graduate teaching assistants) at Yale in those days, but

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they did have a title of assistant instructor. So I was one of the few. You had to be male

in those days to be an assistant instructor there. Yale was not coed yet. In any case, I

was one of two or three who were named assistant instructors in 1955. Then in 1957

someone dropped out and I was still without a Ph.D. I was the youngest member of the

Yale faculty. I became a full-time instructor in French, which I did in ’57 and ’58. They

definitely put me in my place as the youngest and Ph.D.less instructor at Yale. In 1959 I

got a Fulbright to France, which I just took for granted. In those days anyone at Yale

who applied for the Fulbright got the Fulbright. Nowadays they are pretty hard to get.

Q: Did this mean that you studied in France for a year?

A: Yes, for a year. When I was instructor in French at Yale the instructors would get

together between classes at a local coffee shop. I heard about a famous Mallarmé

specialist who came from Oxford to lecture. He got there too early and they didn’t know

what to do with him. So they turned him loose in the Yale manuscript library. He

discovered a manuscript of Mallarmé, a French symbolist poet who has published very

little. His complete works are about 100 pages only. He discovered some important

works of Mallarmé in the Yale manuscript library. So I thought, “Well, if this happened,

what else is in the Yale manuscript library?” So instead of between classes having coffee

with other instructors I began to go over to the Yale manuscript library during that extra

hour in the morning. On my very first day I simply looked up Proust and discovered a

whole cache of unpublished Proust papers, which had been there but the Yale faculty of

French weren’t aware of it. I asked the reference librarian how come no one in the

French Department knew about this. I remember her saying to me, “Well, every time we

get some manuscript we can’t stand on the roof of the Yale library and holler to the

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department in question that we received these manuscripts.” Yale has a lot of very

wealthy graduates. They go to auctions and often they buy unpublished papers and just

give them to Yale manuscript library. That’s how all this Proust material ended up there.

So I worked at it and copied it all on microfiche. Then when I was in France my first

year on the Fulbright, instead of finishing my dissertation, which I should have been

doing, I published a whole lot of material in French on unpublished Proust, which very

much impressed the Fulbright committee. Ten percent of the Fulbright recipients are

renewed for a second year. So I was renewed a second year. That second year I realized

that I had to get down and be serious. My field of specialization is 17th

century French

literature, classical French literature. At that time my wife and I got a house in the

suburbs of Paris and I just never left the house. I simply worked 10, 12, 14 hours a day.

Q: When did you get married?

A: I got married in 1959. When I got the Fulbright, I got married at the same time to Gunda

Jahl Howard, who was from Pocatello, Idaho, who was in the special program in French

at Yale, Master’s of Art in Teaching of French. So we were married in August of ’59 and

also in August of ’59 we took the boat to France and lived in a tiny apartment in the Latin

Quarter in Paris. Also, Yale had just begun a program with the Ecole Normale

Supérieure, which is the top school in France. My professor at Yale, my boss, my main

professor was Henri Peyre. Henri Peyre was chairman of the department and probably

the most outstanding professor of French in America at the time. In any case he was a

graduate of Ecole Normale Supérieure and, thanks to his connections there, started a

program of exchange where a Normalien would come to Yale for one year and a Yale

graduate student in French would go to Ecole Normale Supérieure in Paris. So I began

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the program. So I went on the Fulbright and also—since I was married I couldn’t live in

the school, but we lived right next to the school. I had an office in the school. In France

it’s about one student out of a thousand who makes the Ecole Normale Supérieure. Once

you are in you have a card, which is good for life. I can flash it at policemen in France

and it impresses them greatly. If you are a French citizen, your retirement benefits and

everything begin with the year that you enter the Ecole Normale Supérieure. So I did that

for two years, since I was renewed for the Fulbright. Those were the days when there

were more jobs than professors. So I had firm offers from the University of Washington,

the University of Virginia, and Wake Forest in North Carolina and Davidson, all this

without being interviewed, just on the word of Yale. Since I was a graduate of the

University of Virginia and had many relatives in Virginia, naturally the obvious answer

was the University of Virginia. So I entered as an assistant professor. I finished my

dissertation in 1961.

Q: What was your dissertation on?

A: It was on Racine, Jean Racine. It was on the concept of the Racinian hero. That was the

title, “The Racinian Hero.” Voltaire said in a famous essay that Racine didn’t create any

male characters, just female characters. So I took the contrary of that. Professor Peyre

once mentioned in a lecture that the sole remaining good subject in Racinian studies was

the Racinian hero, the male hero. So I presented this to him and said, “You said this

several years ago, Sir, in lecture,” in French, of course. In the Yale French department

English was never, never spoken. He said, “Fine.” So I did that and finished it in

France. I mailed it and didn’t hear a thing from Yale. Normally, theYale French Dept.

doesn’t have a defense of your dissertation as most universities do because in the French

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department so many people are in France and would have to cross the ocean just to have

a one or two-hour perfunctory examination on their dissertation. So they didn’t have it. I

sent my dissertation off and didn’t get any response. Then my wife and I closed up the

house that we had in the suburbs of Paris and went to Denmark, still not knowing if they

had received the dissertation and if I was already a Ph.D. This was late June of ’61. So I

sent a telegram to my father asking him if he had heard anything because I knew that if

you weren’t present at the graduation that they mailed the diploma to your parents. So I

telegraphed my father. The next day I got a telegram at the American Express office in

Copenhagen, Denmark, addressed to Dr. Bryant Freeman. So before I opened it I knew

that everything was fine. Then we spent that summer in Sweden. My wife was of

Swedish origin. We got an apartment in Uppsala, the main Swedish university town. We

were a week or two in Stockholm but we spent the summer in Uppsala. Then my parents

flew over and joined us at the end of the summer. In any case they stayed on in Europe

and my wife and I on the boat came back to the United States. And I began as an

assistant professor at the University of Virginia.

Then the professor who taught graduate level 17th

century retired or decided he

didn’t want to teach graduate level any more in 1963, so in 1963, still very young, I

began teaching graduate 17th

century French literature, which I did for the next 15, 20

years, both at Virginia and at Kansas.

Q: How long were you at Virginia?

A: Ten years. I was very fortunate there. I was only for five years an assistant professor.

Then I published a large work on Jean Racine with the Cornell University Press, which

gave me a step up. So after five years I was made an associate professor. The University

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of California made me a firm offer of an associate professorship. So I simply presented

that to my chairman on a Thursday. He said, “Don’t do anything. I’ll talk to you.” Two

nights later, a Saturday night, we were having friends to dinner at our house and the

phone rang. I got up, annoyed, and answered it. It was the chairman saying, “You are

now an associate professor beginning next semester.” So that’s how I got tenure, no

papers to fill out or anything. It was simply thanks to this firm offer from the University

of California that I was made after five years an associate professor at the University of

Virginia. At the University of Virginia they have a beautiful housing situation for

assistant professors only. Then if you get tenure they will help you greatly with a

mortgage to buy a house. So we bought a beautiful home with a forest behind it and a

circular driveway, etc. This was in 1966. So we moved there.

The first thing we did, since I had always grown up with dogs, we got a Cocker

Spaniel. The two most influential people in my family besides my paternal grandmother,

who was a big Baptist, was her brother, my great-uncle on my father’s side, and my

great-uncle on my mother’s side. My maternal great-uncle was the comptroller general

of the state of South Carolina. That was his job, but his passion was dogs, Cocker

Spaniels. I spent several summers going down to South Carolina—I forgot to mention

that—working in his kennel. He had about 40 Cockers and went all over the country

showing his Cockers. His Prince George of Winyah was for a while the number one

Cocker in the country. It was a black Cocker. I still have a picture of the dog in the

kennel room at home. That was my maternal great-uncle. My paternal great-uncle was a

congressman from Georgia and a financier, Uncle Bryant. I am named after him. His

name was Bryant Castellow. He was a congressman and then attorney general and a

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financier. If I have money today it is thanks in great part to Uncle Bryant. My

grandmother influenced me greatly too. She was a very firm Baptist, so I have never

smoked nor drank. That was to a great extent thanks to grandmother.

Q: You were talking about when you moved into this house, you evidently got a dog.

A: Oh, yes. We got a dog. Naturally because of my maternal great-uncle we got a Cocker.

So then after a long break I started going to dog shows again because I probably hadn’t

been to a dog show since high school because I was too busy in college and graduate

school. I didn’t have time for dogs of course. So I started going to dog shows again. I

was horrified to see what had become of Cocker Spaniels. I’m sure Uncle Ormsby would

be revolving in his grave now if he had seen what has become of Cocker Spaniels in the

show dog world.

Q: What do you mean?

A: Coat, almost a poodlelike coat. Dog shows have been the ruination of Cockers, however,

the standard for Cockers says, “Excessive coat will be severely penalized.” But the

judges don’t go by that. There are several groups of dogs. Cocker Spaniels are in the

Sporting Group. Having a coat, the more coat, the more they would win, etc. So now,

although officially in the Sporting Group still—if you took a show Cocker out into the

field to hunt birds, this would be cruel and unusual punishment because of all this coat,

which would pick up all sorts of stuff. It’s become a very impracticable dog. Also, for

about 10 years one third of all dogs registered with the American Kennel Club were

Cockers. Cockers became so enormously popular in the 1940s and 1950s that everyone

was breeding anything just as long as it was a cocker because they could sell it. So the

temperament went way down. If you talk to a veterinarian or a professional dog

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groomer, they have great prejudices against Cockers because of temperament. They are

feisty and they occasionally bite at you, etc., nothing like the breed when my uncle was

involved with it. So I was horrified. We had one or two Cockers but they were not show

dogs because show Cockers just disgusted me. So my wife and I looked around and

thought, “What other breed shall we go into?” I was at Westminster about 1967 or ’68.

Westminster is every February. It is the number one dog show in the United States. I’ve

been going for about 50 years now, off and on, as a spectator or as an exhibitor. So I saw

my first two Clumber Spaniels. There are nine breeds of spaniels. The largest is the

Clumber and the smallest is the Cocker. At any case, my bedside book ever since

growing up has always been the Complete Dog Book of the American Kennel Club. I’ve

been reading about dogs all my life and I had certainly read about Clumbers, but I had

never seen a Clumber because they are so rare. Suddenly at Westminster that year I saw

two Clumber Spaniels and it was absolutely love at first sight. It was like being hit by a

bolt of lightning. My life has never been the same since having seen my first two

Clumbers at Westminster. At that time there were only four people in the country who

had Clumbers at all. Three of them, their breeding programs had either been

unsuccessful or they had ended them. So there was really only one breeder in the country

at the time, Eunice Gies in Voorheesville, New York. It was her two Clumbers at the

Westminster dog show. So little by little I got to know her.

Oh, I didn’t mention that once we got a house in Charlottesville and a Cocker I

was thinking one day, while brushing my teeth, that every time I went to the veterinarian

how much I learned about dogs. I thought it was too bad we didn’t have a kennel club in

Charlottesville. So as professor at the university I was able to put in a course on dogs in

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the outreach program. About 30 or 40 people signed up. I simply introduced the course

and had various veterinarians and really knowledgeable dog people come as guest

lecturers. It was a night course once a week for a semester. At the end of the course

everyone said, “Gee, this has been so great. It is too bad we can’t continue.” Someone

said, “Why don’t we form a kennel club here in Charlottesville?” They didn’t have one.

I said, “Who’s going to do the work? Who’s going to be the first president?” They said,

“You will.” So I became the founder and first president of the Charlottesville-Albemarle

Kennel Club, which is still going today. It’s now an official member club of the

American Kennel Club.

Q: Does this mean that this organization had dog shows?

A: Yes. If you are a member club you have to put on at least two shows a year. Then you

do educational things. It is pretty much up to the club how much else you do. I could

talk to you for hours about that. In any case I was president of the kennel club when I

first met Eunice Gies. She said to me, “I don’t know you.” I had to court her really at

dog show after dog show. Every time I would be at a show I would seek her out and talk

to her so she’d get to know me. We Clumber people are very protective. Unless you

have good dog credentials, you are not going to be sold a Clumber, which is as it should

be. Even though I was president of a kennel club she said, “I don’t know you.”

Eventually she said, “Bryant, I’ll put you on my list.” So two years after I first met her—

I had to wait two years to get my first Clumber. They are very rare and expensive. Five

hundred dollars is what it used to be in those days. Now it is $2,500 to $5,000 to buy a

Clumber. You have to have written credentials to own a Clumber. Eventually she

phoned me one day and said, “Bryant, I have a Clumber for you. Take the plane up to

18

Voorheesville, to Albany, New York, and spend a week with us as a guest and work in

the kennel.” They had 15 Clumbers. “Then you can fly back with a Clumber.” So I did.

That was my first Clumber. My second Clumber I had to go to Canada to get. The year I

got Luke, my first Clumber, there were just 10 Clumbers registered with AKC.

Nowadays there are 250 each year. They are still rare. There are 250 Clumbers whereas

there are 30 to 40,000 Labrador retrievers. We are very protective of the breed. It is an

English breed. So I started showing regularly, a Clumber. To get a second Clumber I

had to fly up to Canada and got one named Jasper. My third Clumber I had to fly to

England to get, with the great lady of the Clumber Spaniels, Rae Furness. I brought Ch.

Raycroft Snoozie, the top female Clumber in the U.K. back on the plane with me. It was

a KU plane so I could have the dog on the plane with me. I’m jumping ahead. I’m sorry.

Now that’s almost all I do. I am a Delegate of the American Kennel Club. There are a

number of responsibilities and there are four AKC meetings a year. To put it simply, the

same as there is a congress in the United States, in the dog world the Delegates meet four

times a year and legislate on anything concerning purebred dogs in the United States. In

1971 Eunice sent a letter around to a few of us and said, “Let’s form a Clumber Spaniel

Club of America.” So in February of 1972 after the judging of the Clumbers at the

Westminster show, standing we formed the Clumber Spaniel Club of America, just seven

people. We now have 489 as of last month. I’m the only person still active in Clumbers

of the seven. I’ve published a number of articles on Clumbers. Eventually I became

president of the Clumber Spaniel Club of America. I’ve made three trips to England to

Clumber kennels and to Clumber Park, where they originated in England. It’s in

Sherwood Forest, where Robin Hood used to hold forth. It is an old English breed

19

starting in the 1750s. It has been purebred for about 250 years. I have just three

Clumbers now. I’ve had anywhere from two to seven adults at one time. Our house, our

cars, everything is bought in relation to the dogs.

Q: When did you come to KU?

A: I came in 1971.

Q: Did you come from the University of Virginia?

A: Yes, I taught 10 years at the University of Virginia. I had only been an associate

professor for five years in Virginia. Unrealistically, I was hoping to be made a full

professor at Virginia. They turned me down and said, “No, wait one more year.” But I

was annoyed. Along came George Waggoner at that time. George Waggoner, who was

dean of Liberal Arts at Kansas, was the sort of person who could sell Eskimos

refrigerators. He was the best representative I think we’ve ever had on any level of

administration at the University of Kansas. I thought, wow, the possibility of serving

under such a person is a privilege in itself. They brought me to Kansas to give a lecture.

I realized that they were probably looking me over. Ron Tobin had been chairman of the

French Department. His field was 17th

century French literature. So he taught the

graduate 17th

century courses. But Ron had gone to the University of California. So they

were looking for a person who could teach graduate 17th

century and be chairman at the

same time. I never really wanted to be chairman. But I did want to be a full professor.

After my lecture here I realized they were looking me over. Then George Waggoner

called me and said, “How would you like it if we offered you a full professorship and the

chairmanship?” We had a beautiful home in Virginia. My parents lived 71 miles away

in Richmond. I have cousins around the state, etc. I was born and raised in Virginia. I

20

went to Virginia as an undergraduate. So I was definitely ensconced there. But George

Waggoner made such a good effort. At the time there were about 2,500 colleges and

universities in the United States and they all had French departments. Of all those, the

18th

was the University of Kansas. Kansas had a very outstanding French Department.

Virginia wasn’t even listed among the top 20. So here I was being offered the

chairmanship, a full professorship in a Ph.D. producing department. I never wanted to go

to any university that didn’t offer a Ph.D. in French. It was out of the question. George

Waggoner said I should come and pay another visit for a week to Lawrence. He said,

“We will pay for you and your wife airfare, motel, food and rental of a car and just drive

around Lawrence and get to know the university and see if you want to come.” Every

two days I’d meet with him, go to lunch or dinner, and he would offer me another $1,000

At the end of the week my wife said, “We no longer have a choice. We have been

bought.” The Journal-World was unhappy about it. On the front page of the newspaper

one day they talked about this new, incoming chairman of the French Department and his

salary, which they thought was exorbitant, etc. It was very good at the time. After that,

once you get here, as you know, it’s one, two or three percent. If you really publish a lot

of new things you get three and a half or four percent. But it just creeps up, whereas

inflation creeps up too. In any case I came doing very well here but after a few years it

wasn’t all that outstanding as salaries go at KU. I had been chairman of the French and

Italian Department at the University of Virginia. I was acting chairman there and George

began my tenure here at the beginning of the summer while I was still teaching in

Virginia, so I was getting a double salary for three months and he also paid all the

21

moving expenses, etc. It was really a very good deal. So we left Virginia and came in

August.

I was in Carrouth-O’Leary. My second year here the department moved into

Wescoe, much better quarters than Carrouth-O’Leary.

Q: So you were department chair of French and Italian.

A: Right. From 1971 to 1976. Part of the deal was that I had promised to do three years as

chairman. I never wanted the chairmanship. My father was the president of an insurance

company. The normal thing would have been that I went into the insurance business,

which means personnel and budgets. When you are department chair it is basically

personnel and budgets. You have the same problem whether it is a French Department or

the insurance business or a shoe factory. Whereas what I taught was language and

literature. I was still teaching one graduate level 17th

century course each semester.

There were natural tensions in the department, as there are in any department. It was one

of the outstanding departments in the country and we had a lot of graduate students. This

was a difficult time with Vietnam and people were excited and it passed over into

university life, unfortunately.

Q: It was kind of winding down here by the time you came. Was there any of that at the

University of Virginia?

A: Yes. When Nixon invaded Cambodia there were demonstrations. And Martin Luther

King came along here. The University of Virginia is only about 100 miles from

Washington. So things happened there too. The campus was in an uproar after the Kent

State shootings. Everything closed down. There was one riot where 500 students

surrounded the residence of the president of the University of Virginia. Nothing

22

happened. Some students got together and held hands and formed a group in front of the

president’s mansion to protect the president, his wife and family. Abby somebody had

made a speech there and infuriated the crowd and they all rushed out to attack the

president’s house, etc. There were instances like that on the campus of the University of

Virginia. Nothing ever happened. It could have happened. That was the worst single

thing. Then it was still winding down when I came here. Also, just before I came here

the KU Union burned. I wasn’t aware of that. Things were much more violent on the

campus of KU than they were at Virginia. The real violence was before I came. Haskell

Springer was professor of English. And Haskell had taught at Virginia and at Kansas.

He was here when I was coming. So I called him and said, “Haskell, what do you think I

should do?” He said, “Bryant, the University of Virginia is the best of the 19th

century

and KU is the best of the 20th

century.” He said, “When you come to KU, you change

centuries.” This was absolutely true. This was a whole other world. Virginia is very,

very conservative. First of all, there were only men students at the University of Virginia

when I left. But a year or two later they admitted coeds and everything changed greatly.

In French if we had seven or eight majors a year, this was a good crop, more than usual,

whereas nowadays at Virginia there would be 100 majors, mainly women. Girls major in

French much more than guys. It is true in all French departments. It was a small

department there and very, very, conservative, extremely staid, whereas Kansas was just

a whole other world in 1971. In any case I was glad to be here. We lived in

Meadowbrook the first year. Then we rented a huge house on University Drive the

second year. There were six bedrooms and six bathrooms. There was just my wife,

myself and my son. I had twin sons who were born my last month at the University of

23

Virginia in August of 1971. Timothy and Kevin Freeman were born. Kevin died within

two days, which is still very much with me. Timothy Oliver Freeman. There were just

the three of us, a little baby in a cradle, my wife and myself. We had two dogs at that

time. The house was simply too big for us. Eventually we built something in western

Lawrence and lived there. Then we were divorced in 1974. My wife, when we first

came, thanks to George Waggoner, to look over the University of Kansas in Lawrence,

we entered through the eastern entrance of Lawrence, which is not the best way to enter

Lawrence, if you ask me. My wife cried just at the thought that we might end up living

here. Nowadays you couldn’t dynamite her out of Lawrence. She loves Lawrence and is

totally wedded to being a resident of the town. Her name is Gunda Hiebert now. She

married Dave Hiebert. He’s a great guy. He’s an M.D., retired now. Five or 10 years

after we were divorced she married Dave. We are all very good friends. We have lunch

together frequently.

So from 1971 to 1976 I was chairman of the department. I had promised George

Waggoner that I would be chairman for three years. So I was definitely morally obliged

to do that. But George, being George, could talk you into anything. So I agreed to do a

fourth year and finally at the beginning of the fifth year, I said, “Under no circumstances

will I serve again after the fifth year as chair.” I wanted to go back to full-time teaching,

research and publishing. During the five years that I was chairman I think I published

about two articles. That’s all. That’s terrible. But I was so busy with paperwork and

budgets and department goings on, etc. It was an extremely active department. We put

on a French play twice a year. There was a French table all the time. There was a very

active French Club. We were always having visiting professors from France, etc. This

24

was one of the most active departments in the country. I was obviously very much

involved with that. Things have greatly calmed down since then. So in 1976 I simply

became a professor of French and was no longer chairperson.

While I was chairman I was aware of students going from here to France for their

junior year, and they didn’t really know anything about France. They studied the

language and literature but how the French politics worked, the French geography, etc.

they didn’t know. So I began a course called La France d’ Aujourdhui (France of

Today) for third and fourth-year French majors. I taught it myself. I tried to get other

people to teach it but they wouldn’t. The problem is that we all have a Ph.D. in French

literature. But this doesn’t mean that because you know about French literature that you

are able to step in and talk about French politics today and the present president of

France, how people vacation in France, etc., and how most people earn a living and racial

problems in France, everyday living. So I began teaching the course myself.

Then after three or four years of teaching it I talked about other places where they

speak French and was rather shocked to learn that the students were not aware that

French is an international language. The number one international language in the world

is English. The students speak English already. The second international language in the

world is French. It is thanks to that that in my day the enrollment was 90 percent in

French and 10 percent in Italian. There are more Italians in Italy than there are French in

France. Italy has nothing to be ashamed of in the way of art, literature, music, etc. How

come there are nine students in French for one student in Italian when there are more

Italians than there are French? It is because the French colonized. There are a number of

countries around the world which are French speaking, whereas Italy has never colonized

25

because it really didn’t get unified until under Garibaldi in the 19th

century. That’s why

French is so much more popular in universities than Italian. So I began another course in

addition to contemporary France, the French Speaking World Outside of France.

Being an inveterate traveler, I had been to Haiti and loved it and was charmed by

it. So when I was teaching about French-speaking countries outside of France I would

begin with our country, Louisiana, and then talk about Canada. I have spent a number of

summers in Canada. My cousin married a very, very wealthy American who had a

private island in Canada. So during the sixties and seventies we spent most of the

summers on this private island in western Ontario. I like Canada very much. In any case

I would talk about Canada and then I would talk about the Caribbean and Haiti.

Q: When did you first go to Haiti?

A: I first went to Haiti the summer before I got married. It was 1958. This was before my

Fulbright. I had summers off, of course. I knew what France was like on the other side

of the Atlantic. I wanted to see what France was like on this side of the Atlantic. So the

summer of 1958 I went to Haiti, Guadeloupe and Martinique. Guadeloupe and

Martinique are both departments of France. They are full citizens of France, even though

they are separated geographically, the same as Hawaii is separated from us. So first I

went to Guadeloupe, then Martinique, two weeks in each, and then two weeks in Haiti. I

thought it was going to be more or less the same. Well, it was a whole other world. Haiti

is beautiful, wild, exotic, the friendliest people you will meet anywhere, fantastic food

and very cheap, beautiful beaches, beautiful everything. It was just a whole other world.

Guadeloupe and Martinique are charming but they are French. Everything, even door

knobs, comes from France. Haiti became independent in 1804. It was the first black

26

nation in the world to fight and win its independence. They’ve been independent since

January 1, 1804, when they declared their independence. The revolution began in 1791

and it was a long, terrible war. Napoleon tried to keep Haiti for France because little

Haiti was producing more money for France than all the 13 American colonies had been

producing for England before we became independent. So the first country in this

hemisphere to become independent was us. The second one was Haiti. From 1791 until

1804 there was a bloody revolution and then the former slaves became independent. It

was the first nation in the world to officially abolish slavery.

So when I was teaching the French-speaking world and got to the Haiti section, I

would get all excited. The students said, “Why don’t you teach a whole course for us just

on Haiti?” I said, “Who would take it?” They said, “We would.” So I said, “All right.”

I began teaching a course on Haiti in the following year. Then I had a poster on Haiti

inside my office and a nurse came in the door one day and said, “Where did you get the

poster?” I said, “In Haiti.” She said, “My boyfriend lives in Haiti. He’s an American.

He’s going to be away for the summer and he is looking for someone to take care of his

house—he has a great art collection—to basically ensure his art.” So I talked to him on

the phone and he said, “Fine. Rent free. Come and stay in my house all summer.” So I

went down to Haiti and spent the whole summer. This was in ’73 or ’74. My first visit to

Haiti was in ’58. But this was serious. I was going to spend the summer and I had my

own house. When I got down there I met a woman who was teaching French at

Princeton. She told me about this course she’d heard about that was for United Nations

employees six hours a day for people who spoke fluent French already to learn Haitian

Creole. I said, “Yes, but you and I are not U.N. employees.” She said, “Let me do the

27

talking.” She was a great salesperson. So she talked our way in. Suddenly I was six

hours a day in a class of about 10 or 15 people. All the others, except for this woman and

I, were United Nations employees. All of us spoke fluent French. The difference from

French to Haitian Creole is about the same difference as German to Dutch or from

Spanish to Portuguese. So you have a huge start. Ninety percent of the vocabulary in

Haitian Creole is based on French, not necessarily contemporary French but 18th

century

French. So I did that. While teaching this course on Haiti here for a term paper I gave

them the option of various subjects. One of the subjects was the first 10 lessons in a

Haitian Creole grammar. The entire class opted for the first 10 lessons in Haitian Creole

grammar. I thought, “Goodness, I’m going to have to learn this language myself.” I had

a smattering. But that’s when I lucked into this house and the six-hour a day program in

Haitian Creole. Then the following year I began teaching Haitian Creole for the first time

at the University of Kansas. The first class didn’t take place because of a snow storm.

We began in January. The university was closed down because of a snow storm. I

thought, “Here I am teaching this tropical language and we are closed down because of a

snow storm.” In any case, I had about six or seven students in the class, all French

majors who wanted to learn Creole. Jobs in French basically consist of being a French

teacher. Whereas jobs in Haitian Creole, especially in those years, were everywhere. If

you are nonHaitian and speak Haitian, you are worth your weight in gold because there

are maybe five or 10 people in the world who are nonHaitians who speak fluent Haitian

Creole. It really isn’t all that hard. People just don’t do it. Indiana University and

Kansas were the only universities who were actively teaching it. The University of

28

Florida began and now there are 11 universities around the country which off and on

teach Haitian Creole. So that’s how I began.

I got to be a full professor thanks to French. But, frankly, French professors are a

dime a dozen. Because a lot of good people get Ph.D.s in French whereas Haitian studies

is very rare. Eventually, Albert Valdman, who is the director of the Creole Institute at

Indiana University, and myself were really the only full-time people in Haitian studies,

which put us in a very favorable position. So I became an informal consultant to the

USIS directors at the United States embassy in Haiti beginning in 1980. Then I became a

consultant and a professor for the United States Peace Corps in Haiti beginning also in

1980.

Q: What was the Peace Corps doing in Haiti?

A: Well, they were not teaching English, which is what most people assume. They were

mainly in hygiene things, agriculture and fish ponds. The lack of protein is one of the big

problems in Haiti. Fish are a great provider of protein, so in Haiti they began farming a

fish called tilapia. Tilapia get strong and healthy on human excrement. So they were

being fed human excrement in these artificially dug ponds around the country.

Remember, they don’t have refrigeration. The Haitian fishing industry is not very

developed because the boats are small and Haitians normally do not swim. So the

fishermen are afraid to go very far out. They have cut down the trees. Every time there

is a tropical downpour, which is very frequent, some more Haitian soil goes out to sea.

The algae, which the fish feed on, cannot be anywhere near the coast of Haiti, so the

fishing is bad on the coast of Haiti. You go out two miles and there are plenty of fish. So

one thing the Peace Corps did—I was the main person pushing this—was to dig ponds

29

and provide tilapia there. That way they could have a good protein source. So in any

case I was an advisor and lecturer to the Peace Corps volunteers from 1998 on, ’99-2007.

Q: Does the Peace Corps still exist in Haiti?

A: No, things are too dangerous now. They should not be in Haiti today, absolutely not. In

any case, I was called in as consultant to the U.S. ambassador. The first ambassador that

I was advisor for was Creighton McMunaway in June of 1985, then Alvin Adams

beginning in 1991 and William Lacy Swing beginning in 1996 and then Brian Dean

Curran in 2002. Every time I would get to Haiti the word would spread. I remember one

time I arrived in Haiti late at night. The first thing in the morning there was a call from

the ambassador saying, “Dr. Freeman, I’m glad you’re here. Could you tell me who this

Spanish looking person is who we see on billboards everywhere around town?” I said,

“Sir, I just got in late last night after dark. I’m just here at the hotel. I will have to get

out and walk the streets and see what you are talking about.” So I did and I informed him

exactly who the person was. The United States occupied Haiti between 1915 to 1934.

There was a peasant uprising beginning in 1917 or 1918. The person who was leading it

was finally captured and killed. Putting his picture on billboards was definitely an anti-

American demonstration. In every embassy around the world the ambassadors and the

staff there know about the contemporary conditions in the country. But you need to have

a specialist, an academic, who studies the history of the country, etc. So this is how I was

able to inform the ambassador. Because of course the ambassador was in residence all

the time. Every time I would arrive I would be called over to the embassy and he would

sit there with a legal pad and take notes. Of course here in Kansas I was able to subscribe

to several Haitian newspapers. So I keep up with things.

30

After I got going with the institute I would spend every vacation anywhere from two

weeks to several months in Haiti and go three or four times a year. In fact people in Haiti

thought I lived there. They would say, “I haven’t seen you in the last month or so.” But I

lived in Lawrence, Kansas, and would go back and forth to Haiti. I had a house for a

while. I’ve lived at every level. I’ve lived with Haitian families, always speaking Creole

the whole time. Eventually, I ended up living at the Oloffson Hotel. The Oloffson Hotel

is an old, charming hotel. They now have a room there named after me. I’m very much

at home there and know all the staff, etc. In any case, I have served as advisor to various

ambassadors.

In 1986 I married Stephanie Lynn Smith, from Dalton, Kansas. Dalton has a

population of 13. She was an art student here. So we have been married for the last 22

years very happily. My son, in the meantime, has done very getting in the ground floor

of Yahoo in Silicon Valley in California. He’s now a consultant on electronic computer

things.

Then in 1987 I took the year off and worked in 10 rural Haitian hospitals. I was

writing a book on medical Haitian Creole. There are good Haitian doctors, but they are

only in the cities and only for the wealthy. A Haitian who is of that class is not willing to

live out in the provinces, because in the provinces there is just nothing. There is no

electricity, the roads are terrible, there is no social life, and no hospitals in which they can

do a lot, etc. So basically in the provinces it’s American medical missionaries who do the

work. It turned into three volumes, Medicine in Haiti, a Haitian-English medical

dictionary, a Haitian medical phrase book, and a book on Haitian medical anthropology.

It was going to be an introduction to begin with. This is the main hospital in Haiti. It is

31

called the Albert Schweitzer Memorial Hospital. I went there in 1986 just to visit. I

wanted to see if I could work there for a time. It is way out in the sticks, absolutely

nowhere. But it is an excellent hospital, the best hospital in Haiti. So I came into the

office of the director of the hospital. He didn’t know me from Adam, of course. I

thought, “This is going to be difficult to try to work here.” Behind his desk was a huge

Jayhawk flag. I thought, “This is going to be easy.” He and his wife were from

Hutchinson, Kansas. They were both graduates of KU. It was easy. He was Bill Dunn.

He was a professional hospital administrator who went there for one year, fell in love

with Haiti, resigned his job back in Illinois and moved permanently to Haiti with his

wife. He was director of the Schweitzer Memorial Hospital in the middle of nowhere in

Haiti. Dr. Mellon was from the extremely wealthy Mellon family and he was the medical

director of the hospital. He didn’t want any research people. He said, “We’ve got too

much work to do to do research.” I was there for research on the medical language of

Haitian Creole. So Bill Dunn sort of slipped me in. Exactly one year later I arrived and

began several months at the Schweitzer Hospital. They simply gave me a white gown,

the same as all the M.D.s, and I sat in on hundreds of interviews and listened to what was

being said and took copious notes on vocabulary, etc. and medical expressions. They

gave me a house there that I shared the house with a young doctor from Yale. At supper

every night he would tell me all these weird things he had heard during the day that he

couldn’t explain. Obviously, he couldn’t speak Creole and didn’t have any connection

with Haiti or Voodoo.

I didn’t mention this. On my first trip to Haiti I lucked in. There was a young

woman professor from Wellesley who wanted to go to a Voodoo ceremony. She found a

32

Haitian who would take her. It was way out in the sticks late at night and she was afraid

to go alone with him. So she said, “Would you like to go to a Voodoo ceremony?” I

said, “Of course.” I said, “What you really want me to be is a chaperone.” She said,

“Exactly.” So thanks to the fact that I was basically a chaperone I got to go to my first

Voodoo ceremony on my very first visit to Haiti. I’m obviously not a believer. But I

believe in religious tolerance. So that was my first example. A close friend of mine, an

American, was head of a U. S. Aid mission. He had a warehouseman on his staff, who

was very much into Voodoo. At that time I had a jeep in Haiti. So we got together. This

man had the connections and I had the jeep and transportation. So I would go three or

four times a week. It’s very tiring. You wear the worst clothes you can because it is

smoky and there will be two, three, or four hundred people all crowded together. These

ceremonies are all the same and yet all different. There is no seminary to train Voodoo

priests. It’s a one-on-one thing.

Q: It’s a religion then.

A: Absolutely. The religion of Haiti. The old joke is that Haiti nowadays is about 70

percent Catholic, 30 percent Protestant and 100 percent Voodoo. That is an exaggeration,

of course. The Protestant missionaries, beginning in 1941 especially, have waged an

anti-Voodoo campaign. The Catholic Church doesn’t like Voodoo but they tolerate it

because you cannot be a Voodooist without being Catholic. You can’t get married in the

Voodoo religion. You have to be married by a Catholic priest. There is this symbiotic

connection between Roman Catholicism and Voodoo. The normal Voodoo ceremony

begins with 45 minutes of Hail Marys, etc. in French. Then the real ceremony begins, in

Haitian Creole. It is very different. The Voodoo ceremonies are usually on Saturday

33

night. It varies greatly from temple to temple. But on Saturday night it begins around

nine or ten and then things end around three or four. When I first got to Haiti I saw that

Catholic Mass was at four or five in the morning. I thought, “Why in the world would

they have Mass so early in the morning?” It is because the typical Voodooist finishes the

Voodoo ceremony around three or four in the morning, then goes to Catholic Mass and

then goes home and goes to bed. They see the white man has done pretty well in the

world, so they figure he’s got something going for him there too, so they play both sides.

So it is voodoo on one side and Catholic on the other. The main virtue of Voodoo is

religious tolerance. I’ve been to Voodoo ceremonies sitting next to a Catholic nun in full

regalia. It was fine. No one has ever tried to proselytize me in Voodoo. You do your

thing. We do our thing. There are white Americans who are Voodooists. They’ve gone

to Voodoo ceremonies, etc. But that is if they ask to be initiated. There is a long

initiation ceremony that lasts from one to two weeks. You’re bound and kept in a special

room, etc. It is a long process. In any case no one has ever tried to convert me

whatsoever. In the Christian religion the church belongs to the congregation. In Voodoo

the temple belongs legally, completely, to a Voodoo priest or priestess, so attendance is

by invitation. There are many priestesses.

Q: Is this in a building rather than outdoors?

A: It’s a funny building. It has a roof and walls that come up to your waist. That’s where

the dancing takes place. Voodoo is a danced religion. You can’t sit and be an active

voodooist. You dance counter clockwise around what is called the poto mitan, the center

post. The center post has to be present in a formal Voodoo temple because the center

post is the conduit between the natural and the supernatural. Down this post come the

34

Iwa, the Voodoo spirits. They possess various people. The ultimate thing in a Voodoo

ceremony is possession. The simple Haitian peasant doesn’t come there to worship God,

he becomes a god. They believe in one God, who is assisted by a number of assistants,

just like in Catholicism you have saints. The equivalent in Voodoo are the Iwa. But Iwa

are different from saints, who are normally exemplary human beings, whereas the Iwa

have all of the faults and virtues of a human being. They get drunk, they get jealous.

They get in rages or hold grudges against a person. When bad things happen in your life

and you don’t know why, it is because a Voodoo Iwa has got it in for you because you

are too beautiful, you transgressed the Iwa or Voodoo religion in some way. So you have

to go to a Voodoo priest or priestess to find out which Iwa has it in for you and give

something, corn, the ultimate is an ox. In any case I’ve been lecturing on Voodoo for

years. For the National Endowment of the Humanities I gave regularly in the Midwest a

lecture called “Everything You Wanted to Know About Haitian Voodoo But Were Too

Hexed To Ask.” That was one of my lectures. The other was “When the Indians

Discovered Columbus.” I gave this for about five years, I guess, 40 or 50 times.

Speaking of Voodoo, ABC television asked a Voodoo priest and a professor from

Princeton and myself to come to New York and do a national program on Voodoo. That

is a whole other story. You can’t be a Haiti specialist without being immersed in

Voodoo. It’s the same as if you were a professional historian on Medieval Europe, you

would have to know about Catholic theology, because it was essential to the culture. The

same thing in Haiti. Voodoo is essential to Haitian culture. Not all Haitians are

Voodooists and not all Haitians know about Voodoo. But still it permeates the society.

When you go to a typical ceremony there will be mainly peasants, but on the road to the

35

ceremony there will be a few Mercedes, etc. of wealthy Haitians who secretly come to

the ceremony. If you saw them the next day at a cocktail party they would deny having

been there. They say Voodoo has more public enemies and private friends than any other

religion because it is seen in Haiti as basically a peasant thing. So people of the upper

classes are embarrassed by it. There are no atheists in the trenches, supposedly, and there

are no Voodoo atheists in any case. So I worked for a year on medical terms and having

begun at Schweitzer Hospital, it opened all the doors to other hospitals, thanks to Bill

Dunn, who was a KU graduate, and his wife Irene.

Then in 1988 I was advisor and interpreter for the Associated Press during the

Haitian election. I was called upon in 1989 to be an expert witness in a murder trial

involving Voodoo in Eldorado, Kansas. There was an American Black who was a

convert to Voodoo and who had just been turned down by the Marine Corps by one point

or something. He was enraged. He was driving across Kansas at 90 miles an hour, which

is not a popular thing to do in Kansas. A state trooper pulled him over for speeding and

he pulled a gun out of his glove compartment and put 11 bullets into the head of the state

trouper, which also is not very popular in Kansas. This was right near Eldorado. There

was a trial and the defense lawyer called the University of Kansas and said, “Is there

anyone there who knows about Voodoo?” So they put him in contact with me. I was

called down to Eldorado to explain to 12 Kansas farmers what Voodoo was all about and

how it worked. I had one hour to explain the basic theology.

Q: Was his defense that Voodoo made him do it?

A: Exactly. Once I had finished testifying and was cross examined, the prosecutor said, “Dr.

Freeman, would the defendant be indicted in Haiti for murder?” I said, “Yes.” That, of

36

course, closed the trial. He was put away for life. In any case, that is one of the

interesting things that my work led me to right here in Kansas.

Then with the U.S. Department of Justice I worked with a team of one other

American and five Haitian scholars to create a series of oral and written examinations in

Haitian Creole for potential federal court interpreters. Haitian Creole is classified as a

critical language. A critical language means that in federal courts you get defendants

called up who say, “I speak only one language.” Then the United States has to furnish

an interpreter. Well, the number one language is Spanish, of course. People say they are

just monolingual Spanish speakers and they have to have an interpreter in court. This is

the federal system, not state. Well, what do you do if it is a language like Albanian or

Bulgarian? Well, there are not that many who come. So they just do whatever they can,

find somebody who speaks English and Albanian or Bulgarian. But they had so many

people who were called up as defendants who said they just spoke Haitian Creole that the

Justice Department decided they had to have a series of exams and actually certify people

who spoke fluent American English and fluent Haitian Creole. They have to be able to

use legal terms in Haitian Creole and in English because several times there have been

Haitian defendants and the interpreter would interpret things and there were Haitians in

the audience who would say, “Ahh.” The judge realized that was not a good translation.

So they asked the Justice department. So the second most critical language for the

federal system is Haitian Creole. Five Haitians and we two Americans were called upon

to set up a series of exams to test people about their Haitian Creole. So I worked for

several months first in Washington and then in Haiti on that. That was in 1989 and 1990.

Then in 1990 the Haitian president was overthrown and just the ambassador and I were

37

present at the inauguration of the first woman president of any French-speaking country

in the world, Ertha Pascal Trouillot. This was in December of 1990. Just the ambassador

and I were there plus of course the ambassadors of other countries for the inauguration.

Then I became, as I mentioned, a lecturer for the Kansas Speakers Bureau and lectured

on Haiti and Columbus, etc. Then at that time they overthrew President Aristide and

Haitians began coming out in great quantities. So then the U.S. Justice Department, the

Bureau of Immigration and Naturalization, asked me to be in charge of a team—there

were 18 of us—interviewing Haitian refugees at Guantánamo. This was quite an

experience. I was there for several months away from teaching at K.U. We worked

seven days a week 14 hours a day in the hot sun or in the wind when there was no sun. I

sat there interviewing Haitian refugees. There were three or four thousand when I got

there and there were 12,000 being held behind barbed wire in awful conditions when I

left. In any case, we had 20 to 40 minutes to decide someone’s entire life. These people

had taken to little boats and been picked up and taken to Guantánamo. Since

Guantánamo is an American Naval base but not officially American soil, they had no

rights to a lawyer. The only people they had going for them was one of us who worked

in teams of two people, a Justice Department person and another person like myself who

knew Haitian Creole. There were two American whites, myself and Jenny Smith, who

has a Ph.D. in anthropology specializing in Haiti who lived in Haiti for five years. So

Jenny and I were the only two white Americans. Otherwise, the other 16 were all Haitian

Americans who spoke fluent Creole, of course, and lived in the United States but were

ashamed of these “boat people.” The only people going for them were the interpreters.

So this was quite a time.

38

Q: Did they send most of these people back?

A: Well, when I arrived 10 percent were being approved to come to the United States. The

question was, is the person an economic refugee or a political refugee? We can’t take in

the world’s poor, but we do have to take by treaty political refugees. Ten percent were

being classified as political refugees and 90 percent were being classified as economic

refugees. Economic refugees were sent back on the next destroyer to Haiti. The other 10

percent would be flown to the United States, in which case they could perhaps eventually

be naturalized. That was it. Especially with Jenny and me being there, after a few

months it was 90 percent political and 10 economic. Washington finally became aware

of this. So one morning an officer appeared and said, “Dr. Freeman, you are leaving

Guantánamo today.” I said, “But my wash is in the laundry.” He said, “Put it in a bag.

You are leaving today.” They didn’t want Jenny and myself. The 16 Haitians there were

embarrassed about their fellow countrymen and looked down on them greatly as

refugees. Whereas they had gotten to the United States and gotten an official position,

etc. And these people were an embarrassment to them, whereas Jenny and I, being white

Americans, took a totally different tact.

With some of the people there was no question. The first question was, “Why are

you here?” Some said, “Oh, well, there was a boat leaving and my friend Tijo was going

so I jumped on board too.” I said, “Have you ever had political problems?” He said,

“Oh, no, no political problems.” I asked, “Any problems with the police?” “No, no

problems with the police.” They didn’t have a chance of being approved as a political

refugee. But on the other extreme were people who had been actual political organizers

for President Aristide and who would be killed. One question was, “If we send you back

39

to Haiti today, what will happen to you?” Some would say, “Se touye y ap touye m.”

(They will kill me.) They didn’t know exactly what we were driving at. Someone

would say right in the middle of an interview, “Oh, yeah, that was three days after they

killed my wife.” I said, “They killed your wife? Why didn’t you tell me that to begin

with?” “Oh, yeah. They came trying to kill me and I wasn’t there and they killed my

wife instead.” Well, obviously he was a political refugee. But they didn’t know what we

were driving at. In any case, I gave many lectures on my experiences at Guantánamo. I

received a Commissioners Special Award for the Haitian operation in 1992. Then also in

1992 I became a consultant for Creole studies at Indiana University. They would pick me

up in a huge limousine at the airport in Indianapolis and drive me to Bloomington. It was

very fancy and nicely paid.

Then in November of 1992 I was one of three professors invited by ABC

Television to appear on an hour-long special on Voodoo, which unfortunately was never

aired due to many inaccuracies in the footage. The Voodoo priest and I were sitting there

and they said, “Would you like to see the Voodoo footage we filmed in Haiti?” We said

yes. It was the most outlandish thing we had ever seen. He looked at me and I looked at

him. We didn’t say anything. But the ABC person saw us looking at each other as if we

were startled and questioned us. They had sent a team down there who didn’t know

Haiti, didn’t know anything. They hired a person who put on the most elaborate,

ridiculous, way out things. So the whole program was squashed because of that. Then in

December of 1992 I founded the Institute of Haitian Studies at the University of Kansas.

The first class was in January of 1993 when we were snowed in. The class didn’t take

place for a week. Then in January and February of 1993 I served as interpreter and

40

lecturer for Pax Christi Human Rights team. Pax Christi is the human rights wing of the

Catholic Church. I’m not Catholic. I had been raised as an Episcopalian. But they chose

me to be an interpreter and explain Haitian things. At that time Raoul Cédras had taken

over, a military dictatorship. There were foreign observers, a United Nations team, but

they were under house arrest in Port-au-Prince and they couldn’t leave. So I went down

with seven nuns and two priests just dressed as tourists in dirty jeans, that sort of thing,

and we passed ourselves off as simple tourists. But the whole thing was coordinated and

in each village we would go to the Catholic priest who would know that we were coming

and after dark he would come in with us and bring in people who had been molested,

questions of rape, murder, etc., which was rife. Terrorists were going into slum areas and

machine-gunning anyone supposedly supporting Aristide. Then I would interpret the

whole thing and put it on tape, then send it on to the United Nations in New York. That

was in January and February of 1993. At the same time while I was there the United

Nations received permission to have real staff, not just the 18 who were there but a staff.

I happened to be there at the time. The first ones came in. I happened to be in the right

place at the right time and so they asked me if I would give an unpaid lecture to these 40

people who had just come in from the United States and the entire world. The military

junta running the country hoped to get international approval. So to get this they

accepted international observers. They didn’t want them but they figured that’s what

they had to have. So these 40 people suddenly came in, none of whom had been to Haiti.

I was in the right place at the right time and a United Nations person asked me if I would

lecture to them. So I did. I gave a three or four-hour lecture on Haitian customs, Haitian

politics, etc.

41

Q: The Haitians seem to keep overthrowing their leaders.

A: I’ve been in the midst of that. In fact, kiddingly, my colleagues at K.U. said that I was

fomenting revolutions in Haiti because every time I would go to Haiti, which was three or

four times a year, there would be an overthrow. It was just because there are frequent

overthrows. During several of the overthrows I actually went out in the crowd by myself.

I never engaged in any violence, but I certainly was observing violence, houses being

ransacked and stores being burned and cars being overturned, etc. They would see this

white guy but I could pass. They thought I was a Haitian with a skin problem because I

talk slang and make all sorts of remarks in Haitian Creole. So I was just accepted in the

crowd. Several white Americans wanted to come with me, but I said, “No, no, we would

stand out too much.” So I would go by myself and see these things first hand. This

happened to me several times.

Q: Do you think Haiti is ever going to have a stable government?

A: No, it hasn’t had a stable government since 1804 when it was founded. There’s no reason

to think it is going to change today. I can and do talk hours on the Haitian political

situation. It’s an agricultural country that cannot feed itself. Overpopulation is the

problem. They can’t afford cooking oil so they cut down the trees to make charcoal.

Charcoal is more transportable than wood. They have one cooked meal a day. So they

cut down trees and trees and trees. This means every time they have a tropical downpour,

which is very frequent, there is nothing to hold the soil down so it is washing away. So

Haiti is basically showing its bones as they say in Creole. It means that the soil has

washed away and it is down to bed rock. There is nothing one can do, so Haiti gets

smaller. The part of Haiti that you can grow crops on gets smaller all the time, every

42

rainfall, but the population gets larger. Families of 11 are not uncommon. Six or eight is

very, very common. Families who cannot feed, clothe and get medical attention for one

or two children have six, eight, or ten children. And it keeps going. There are 18 times

more Haitians now than when the country became independent in 1804, 18 times the

population. We are talking about a half million in 1804 and now it reaching almost nine

million, 18 times more people. The country is even smaller because so much of it has

washed away. When Columbus first came there was about 95 percent forest covering the

land. They have been cutting down the trees ever since and in recent times because of

extreme economic duress they have cut down more of the trees. It is the only way to

procure any money whatsoever. Then eventually the peasant farm is not producing any

more so they move into town and end up living in Cité Soleil, in slums in Port-au-Prince,

because they figure it has got to be better in Port-au-Prince and the ten major towns in

Haiti and it isn’t. It is even worse. Urban poverty is worse than rural poverty. But they

don’t realize that. They have burned their bridges. They’ve sold what little land they had

and have gone to the city. And there is no going back when things get worse and worse

all the time. Present unemployment is between 70 and 80 percent. Most of the 20 to 30

percent who do have jobs are underemployed. There is not much in the way of jobs.

When lecturing for the American Embassy I would say the three problems of Haiti are

job, jobs, jobs. If they just had jobs, then everything else would work out. They could

then pay for the schools. There is a place in the public schools for about one out of four

or five kids. I was a visiting scholar for a week at Berry College in Georgia just on the

question of education in Haiti. I gave a number of lectures on that problem, why Tijo

can’t read. It is rote learning in French, which is teaching the unknown by means of the

43

unknown. The average kid has never heard a word of French. When he goes to school,

everything is in French. French has been used since 1804 as a means to keep the rich rich

and the poor poor. Beginning in 1987 Haitian Creole became one of the two official

languages of Haiti. Up until that time French was the only official language. The

wealthy parents speak French in front of their kids so that when the kids go to school they

can do well. Whereas the peasant kids have never heard a word of French in their life

and they are 90 percent of the population. So they drop out in droves. Jowel Laguerre,

whom I hired to teach at K.U. was of peasant origin. He was 12 years old before he

finally began to understand what the teacher was saying. But he stuck with it. All his

brothers and sisters dropped out. Eventually I met him because he was the tutor of

Haitian Creole for the American Embassy staff. We had an opening here at K.U. in

French. So we hired him and he came back with me and began teaching French and

Haitian Creole here. He eventually got a Ph.D. in education here at K.U. He is now the

vice president of a college in Utah and has become an American citizen. He is one of the

most intelligent persons I’ve ever met. The chances of success for a peasant kid are just

terrible, mainly because, number one, there are not enough places in school and number

two is the speaking in French. I don’t speak French except when I have to and I have

been speaking French most of my life now. I speak fluent Creole and I can pass for

Haitian on the phone but still French is easier for me because I have been speaking it

most of my life. But I avoid speaking French because I’ve seen what French has done to

Haiti. It’s been the curse of Haiti. One hundred percent of Haitians speak Haitian

Creole. Three percent speak excellent French. Another nine percent speak some French,

a few words, enough to bargain with you. So 12 to 15 percent speak some French or very

44

good French. The other 85 percent of the population, not a word of French. Yet, the

government has always been run in French, etc. and schools are in French. It hasn’t

changed too much. I could go on for hours about that. In any case I did the final

intensive research on my Haitian dictionary from January to March of 1994 in Haiti. In

1995 I moved to Fort Leavenworth here in Kansas and began teaching 125 U.S. and

international high-ranking officers who were going to be sent to Haiti for a peace-keeping

mission from the Fort Leavenworth Command and General Staff College. Then they

flew me down. At the same time they gave me the protocol rank of Major General for

pay and perks. I’ve never lived so well. In Leavenworth I had beautiful quarters, a

canopy above my bed. The cup in my bathroom used to rinse your mouth when you

brush your teeth was in silver. Later in Haiti I had my own driver and my own jeep.

American generals live very well. My advice has always been to join the American army

but at the rank of Major General, a two-star general, and you never had it so good. After

a few months of that I returned to KU where I was just one more professor.

Then I became a political advisor in Haiti to General Kinzer, who was in charge

of the whole thing. I had two hours with the general every Monday morning. I could

have lived in Army quarters, but I opted to live out because of the people I knew

previously at the Saint-Joseph orphanage. In the orphanage there were people coming

and going all the time, Haitians of all levels and all ages. So I really had my fingers on

the pulse of Haiti at the time. Then every morning I would begin at 5 a.m. listening to the

news in Creole and at 6 a.m. the news given in French. So I was right on top of things. I

read all the Haitian papers of course. And I would report all that to General Kinzer every

45

Monday morning for two hours. I continued to lecture about once a week to the officers

who were occupying Haiti.

Then I was invited to an international conference on Haitian studies in Mayaguez,

Puerto Rico, in September of 1995. I was an official advisor and member of the U.S.

civilian observer delegation for the Haitian presidential election in December1995. I did

this for several Haitian presidential elections as an official observer. I wouldn’t do it now

because of what happened in Florida in the Bush-Gore election. I think no American has

the right to observe the election politics of another country when we are so irresponsible

in our own country. But this was before the Bush-Gore fiasco in Florida.

Then in July of 1996 I was consultant for U.N. Peace-Keeping mission in Haiti.

Then I continued as an advisor for the media. One day I remember doing nine radio

interviews in the United States and Canada. Another time Aristide was returning and the

National Radio System of Jamaica phoned me and said, “Would you do a live interview

on the Haitian political situation?” At that time Aristide was arriving in Jamaica. They

said, “Do you think Jamaica, since we are small and defenseless and the United States

doesn’t like Aristide, do you think we are acting out of line to have Aristide as an official

visitor here?” I said, “The last I heard, Jamaica became independent around 1962 and it

seems to me Jamaica could very well do what you believe you should do, etc.” I

explained the politics of Aristide, etc. For interviews they simply phone you and say,

“Can we do a live interview with you and we’ll phone you at such and such a time?” So I

sit at home right here in Lawrence with my feet up on the desk and talk to all of Canada

and sometimes all of the United States in those years when everything was acting up in

Haiti. This was before we got into the Iraqi situation and Haiti was on the news

46

practically every day. People were very, very aware of Haiti. There are not very many

Haiti specialists around and being director of one of the two Institutes of Haitian Studies

in the world, I got called on a lot, the Voice of America, CNN, Christian Science

Monitor, etc., a number of these papers. Of course, however, it is thanks to my books

that there is this attention. I have written or edited more than 20 published books on

Haiti, including a 1,000-page Creole-English dictionary, a multi-volume set of Haitian

folktales in Creole, plus 26 occasional papers on Haiti.

Then I was asked by the U.S. Embassy staff in Haiti to represent our country in a

live television discussion in French on Haitian television contrasting the United Nations

occupation of Haiti in 1994-95 with that of the American occupation 1915-1934, which

got me a free trip to Haiti, which is good. Then I was one of eight Americans to receive a

lifetime achievement award from the U.S. Embassy in Haiti for contributions promoting

mutual understanding between Haiti and the United States. I wasn’t going to go down for

the ceremony until I found among the other seven people who were getting it was

Katherine Dunham. I thought, “My goodness. I’m getting the same award as Katherine

Dunham, who has consecrated her life to Haiti and Dr. Mellon from the Schweitzer

Hospital. They are getting the same award. So I made a trip down there just for that.

Actually, I already had a student there who was going to represent me. Students from the

Haitian Studies program at K.U. would very often go down and work in Haiti. One

worked three years with the Haitian Justice Department. She majored in Haitian Studies

at K.U. then went to law school and then went down and worked in Haiti. There are so

few foreigners who speak Haitian Creole. I’ve had several students who have gone to

47

medical school after K.U., after majoring in Haitian Studies here, and then they go down

there and work as a doctor.

Then I was asked by the Haitian Protestant Churches to redo their Chants d’

Espérance, which is the hymn book used in all Protestant Churches in Haiti. That was in

1998. In 1999 I was interpreter for a series of medical clinics conducted in rural southern

Haiti. Then at the same time—I was there for a good length of time—the dean and I

decided long ago—this was Dean Mieskins—that I could be more useful in Haiti than

here. You can take a leave of absence without pay simply by requesting it for as much as

two years. Anything over two years has to be approved by the Board of Regents. But

anything up to two years you can be gone by simply informing the dean that you need to

be gone for whatever reason for as much as two years. So that’s how I was able to do

this so much.

In 1999-2000 I did a series of regular broadcasts twice a week on one of the main

Haitian radio stations in Haitian Creole on the history of Haiti. I worked with a Haitian

historian and we prepared these programs each week. Then in December of 2002 I was

scholar in residence for a week at Berry College in Georgia on Latin and Caribbean

studies. I talked about education in Haiti basically. Then I have done well over 100

addresses on Haiti to various civic groups under the auspices of the Kansas Speakers

Bureau. Then the thing that, amazingly, I am best known for I just discovered a few days

ago is in 2004 President Aristide on Leap Year Day 2004 was put on a plane and sent out

of the country. He wrote a public letter in Creole to the Haitian population. The State

Department called me up in March of 2004 and asked me if I would do an official

translation. It was maybe 10 or 20 lines. I translated it in two minutes just standing

48

there. In the word processing center we sent it off back to the State Department. It was

published, my translation into English of this letter. That’s the thing I seem to be best

known for these days is having been chosen by the State Department to translate this little

letter in Haitian Creole of Aristide. It couldn’t have been simpler. It was like falling off

a tree.

So I continued teaching. I officially retired—actually I had a lot of research

funds—when I discovered that I would be earning twice my salary. Because I had been

putting money in TIAA CREF since 1955, which is when I began as an assistant

instructor at Yale. I had been piling up retirement funds ever since then. Then they were

invested. The university donates part and you donate part. I found with the interest from

that I would be getting over twice what my salary was at K.U. So I realized that I

couldn’t afford to continue teaching. But I did just go on full-time research until my

research funds were all expended. The very day that the accountant at K.U. said, “This is

the day the funds run out,” is the day I officially took retirement. So I haven’t taught in

two or three years because I was using research funds. I retired in August of 2007. I

think that about covers it.

I mentioned the Lifetime Achievement Award I got for service to the Haitian

people, Justice Department special award, Kansas Humanities Council Award, Woodrow

Wilson Fellowship, Phi Beta Kappa and Yale University Fellowship and Fulbright

Scholarship.

Oh, yes, and I haven’t talked about other things. I twice served as president of the

North American Society for 17th

century French Literature, when I was teaching 17th

century, first when I was at Virginia and then at Kansas. In my first or second year at

49

Kansas the National Meeting of 17th

Century French Scholars, about 100 people, showed

up here in Lawrence, we had it here because I was president. Then I also served, while I

was in Virginia, as president of the Modern Foreign Language Association of Virginia.

Then, in Kansas, I served as president of the Kansas chapter of the American Association

of Teachers of French. I served two terms as president of the Clumber Spaniel Club of

America. As I mentioned earlier, I was the founder and first president of the

Charlottesville-Albermarle Kennel Club. Then five years ago I was elected to be a

delegate of the American Kennel Club. We have four meetings a year, usually in New

York. I am a life member of the Modern Language Association of America, American

Association of Teachers of French, life member of the Clumber Spaniel Club of America

and a life member of the Lawrence Jayhawk Kennel Club. I have talked about various

things, the Virginia State Symphony, the Lawrence Symphony.

Q: To finish up, what is your assessment of either KU or your department, past present,

hopes for the future?

A: I’m sorry you asked that. When I came to KU in 1971, we had eight or nine full

professors in French. This was classified as the 18th

Department of French in the country,

which is pretty good, considering that there are 2,500. Nowadays we have one full

professor of French when we used to have eight or nine. In Medieval French alone, we

had three full professors. Now we have just one full professor, who is a very good

person, a specialist in 19th

century. We have some good people in the department. When

I was in graduate school at Yale we were very snotty. We only took classes, unless they

were required, with full professors because a letter of recommendation from a full

professor carries a lot more weight than one from an assistant or associate professor. So

50

basically, if you weren’t a full professor at Yale you didn’t get many students. Right now

in Kansas we have just one full professor, which is really regrettable. The department

when I came here had three publications. Now we have one occasional one. This was a

very active department in those days. Now, in spite of the good people we have, we only

have one full professor.

What I regret about K.U. right now is the emphasis on sports. It’s endemic in the

situation. It’s almost embarrassing. The present sports situation as you read in the

papers, so many people have changed who had K.U. in their wills. They have changed

their wills now. People who had been coming to basketball and football games for years

and had good seats, suddenly they no longer have rights. This present situation has

created more ill will. Everywhere I go, every time I am at a party or dinner, it is criticism

of K.U. based on this whole emphasis on sports. This $31 million football thing next to

the stadium uprooted some century-old trees, etc. I know that campus very well because

being a dog person for years since I have been here I have been walking my dogs on the

campus around Potter Lake. It has just changed it so much. I really regret that that is the

situation.

Q: Is there less interest in taking French among students now as compared to other

languages?

A: Yes. But this isn’t just K.U. This is a national phenomenon. For example, I was at a

conference at Yale recently. I was horrified to find…the French Department used to have

a whole floor in one of the main buildings on the campus with a beautiful meeting room

where they served coffee in the morning and tea in the afternoon and had all the French

newspapers. Now they occupy quarters over a pizza shop, which is reached by a little

51

alley. I couldn’t believe it. So it has been marginalized at Yale. It’s not as extreme at

K.U. but there is this basic marginalization. Spanish has taken over greatly. Over half of

the enrollments in foreign languages now in American colleges are in Spanish. French is

still second, but it is not too strong a second. German is a weak third and Russian has

really suffered because the Soviet Union used to be a major threat, etc. and no longer is.

Also, there is the fact that Russian is hard. So Russian has greatly suffered in the number

of students. There are still French majors and this department is still going along, but it

isn’t what it used to be.

I didn’t mention that the Haitian Studies program here was Third World studies.

What I was doing, and I made this very clear in class, was teaching basically about Third

World problems as exemplified by one extreme case of Third World problems, which is

Haiti. Haiti is simply in advance for things being bad in the Third World--

overpopulation, cutting down trees, etc. All these things are so evident in Haiti and Haiti

is right next door to us. So I would get over 100 students in my introductory course on

Haiti, which would involve no foreign language whatsoever. I was simply lecturing

about Third World problems using Haiti as the prime example. In the Haitian Creole

classes once we had 21 students. Normally in beginning Creole, we have at most 12 to

15. They would go down to Haiti. We teach three years of Haitian Creole.

Unfortunately, people would discover Haitian Creole only when they were juniors so

most of them just had two years before they would graduate. I remember one student

called me up. He had applied for the FBI. He had been turned down but when they

discovered he had studied Haitian Creole, they wanted to hire him because he had had

two years of Haitian Creole. So he called me up at home one night and said, “Quick, I’ve

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got to review my Haitian Creole, because I’m joining the FBI thanks only to Haitian

Creole.” There were a number of cases like that.

Q: I guess that’s about it then. Thank you very much.