MATT PAXTON JR. February 27, 1996 — Mame Warren, interviewer Warren: This is Mame Warren. Today is February 27, 1996. I'm in Lexington, Virginia, with Matt Paxton. Which Matt Paxton are you at this point? Are you number seventeen or eighteen? How many Matt Paxtons are there? Paxton: [Laughter] It's very confusing, because I'm really the third, but I go by "junior" because my dad and I made the switchover after my grandfather died, which was sometimes done then, and I think was a great mistake, because now I have a son, Matt IV, and he and I were in business together for some fourteen years, I guess, and nobody ever got the two of us straight during that time. Warren: Well, I'm glad to know I'm not the only one. [Laughter] So the name Paxton goes way back in this area? Paxton: Yes. Warren: Want to give me a little family background? Paxton: Well, it does go back a long time in this area. The earliest ones came in the early days of settlement. Sometime in the 1730s or '40s, a widow with several sons came down from Pennsylvania in the Scotch-Irish migration that came into this area and originally settled it. She was born in Ireland in the seventeenth century. Her tombstone is in an old family cemetery here in the county, and it seems quite remarkable to see a date of 1680-something on a tombstone in Rockbridge County, the date of her birth. Her descendants have continued to live here, some of them, while others have migrated all 1 over the country, as all families have. We just happened to have been among the less ambitious ones who just stayed put. [Laughter] We've lived here since that time. Warren: Is your family the founding family of the News Gazette? Did you all start the newspaper? Paxton: No, we didn't. My grandfather bought into one of the two local papers that became the News Gazette. We had the Lexington Gazette and the Rockbridge County News that merged in 1962, but the Rockbridge County News, which was my family's newspaper, was started in 1884, and he bought into it in about 1886 or '87, I guess, and then shortly bought the other partners out, and from that time ran it himself, so it's been in the family since that time. Warren: How far back does the connection to Washington and Lee go? Paxton: Well, that goes back, I believe, to my Great-grandfather Paxton, General E. F. Paxton, I believe was a Washington College graduate. I always have to go back and refresh my memory on these things. And my grandfather and my father and my brother and I, and then one of our sons is a W&L alumnus. Warren: So I'm obviously very interested in the oral tradition. How far back do Washington and Lee stories go in your family? Did you listen to your grandfather talk about attending? Did he ever talk about his student days? Paxton: Well, my grandfather—I was pretty young when he died, actually, and I was too young to have ever been very aware of those things. About the only recollection I can remember from that era were the members of the boat crew races. That seems to have been a great thing in the community. Harry Lee and Albert Sidney, I believe were the names of the two boat crews that raced on the Maury River, then called the North River, and those races were great community events, apparently. The community all picked up sides between Harry Lee and Albert Sidney, so that that's something that goes back in family tradition quite a long ways. 2 Warren: I'm interested that you brought that up, because yesterday I was looking at pictures of the boat races and today I was reading about them, at the turn of the century. In the photographs, you can clearly see a bunch of houses right down there on the river. Do you have any idea where on the river they did the racing? Because apparently it was a fairly short course. Paxton: Yes, I think it was in the pond behind the existing dam down there, and there were some buildings. I know there was an ice house down there and there were a lot more buildings down on the river at that time, but I think they used that slack water there behind the present dam at East Lexington for the races. Warren: So above the dam or below the dam? Paxton: Above the dam. Warren: So these houses that I'm seeing probably don't exist anymore. Paxton: Probably not. Warren: Because it's like a whole neighborhood there in this photograph, and it doesn't look at all familiar. Paxton: I'd have to look at it to see if I could get a feel for it. I've seen some of those old pictures. I know that one of the families down there, I can't remember whether it was the Humphreys family or the Shaner family, those are two well-known families in east Lexington, had an ice house down there close to the river, and that might have been one of the buildings that you can see. I don't know. Warren: Were those crew races still going on when you were a student? Paxton: Not on the Maury River. I was a student right after World War II, and the crew races were revived after the war. I think there had been crew before the war, and they were revived after the war, but the boat house and the races were down on the James River at Glasgow there, and it was a fairly long course there. Warren: So it was all moved. 3 Paxton: It was moved down there. They used, I guess, eight-man shells then. I think probably when they raced on the river down here, they were probably just four-man shells, I don't know, it being such a small course. But it was quite big right after the war. One of the big crew people was Roger Mudd. He raced in the crew races down there. I do remember some of the other people, but I don't think they would be anybody you particularly knew or would remember. There was quite a lot of excitement, even at that time. Warren: You mentioned that the Maury used to be the North River. When did that name change happen? Do you have any idea? Paxton: I can remember when it was the North River. I think it probably happened around 1940, plus or minus, I would say. Warren: I need to track that down. It's just a matter of personal curiosity. Paxton: That was something my grandfather was sort of interested in, I remember, as editor of the paper. He wanted the river named for Matthew Fontaine Maury. Warren: So he championed it? Paxton: I think he did, yes. Warren: I'm glad he did, because I think it's a lovely name. Paxton: Well, it is, and so appropriate. Warren: It fits the river and it fits the personality. It is, it's so appropriate. But tell me why it's appropriate. Let's get that down on tape. Paxton: For several reasons, the primary one being, I guess, that Matthew Fontaine Maury's wish before his death was that he be carried through Goshen Pass on the river for burial, and he was. That's my understanding. Of course, he wanted to be carried through when the rhododendron was in bloom, I think, and I don't know whether they managed that or not. [Laughter] Warren: You have to be real organized about when you die if you want the rhododendron in bloom. 4 Paxton: You really do. But then, of course, Maury, being a very important individual, really, had the local association, having been here at VMI, so it was appropriate that something here be named in his honor. Since he was the Pathfinder of the Seas, we should name some water in his honor, probably. [Laughter] Warren: And since it probably would have been a little hard to change the name of the James River. Paxton: [Laughter] Yeah, probably would. Warren: You grew up in Lexington. Can I ask what your birth date is? Paxton: February 26, 1927. Warren: One of the things I'm really interested in is what went on here during World War II. Paxton: Oh, yes. Warren: I would love to have you tell me about that, because I understand it was a very different place in that time period. Paxton: Yes. Well, of course, I think every place was very different during the war, because our social fabric was greatly disrupted and changed during the war, you know, when all the able-bodied men went off pretty much. Of course, one thing that made it quite different here was the Honor School for Special Services in Washington and Lee that brought in quite an interesting group of people. Warren: Tell me about that. Paxton: I was a little to have had a whole lot to do with it, but I do remember some of the interesting people who came through, people like Ben Hogan, the great golfer, who played on our little golf course out here and could practically drive the greens out there. Red Skelton. I can't remember. A good many people who were pretty well known at the time, since it was for people who were going to provide those special services of entertainment and other things for the services. Warren: What did they mean by Special Services School? 5 Paxton: I never saw it defined exactly. It primarily had to do with recreation, though, various kinds of recreation, sports, music, shows, canteen, whatever was being developed as entertainment for service people. These individuals went all over the world helping morale, of course, of the troops with shows and with various other services. Warren: So while these people were here in town, did you, as a local person, have any interaction with them? Did they give shows here? Paxton: They did give shows here. Warren: Do you remember? Paxton: I remember going to several of them, yes. A school class would go through here every so often. I don't know exactly how long the school ran; let's say two or three months. I'm sure all that's documented somewhere. They had a permanent faculty here, of course, to conduct the school, faculty and staff. Then the people who were being trained would come through in classes for several months, and at the end of each class, they would put on a show. It was always good entertainment, and people in town went to it. Warren: Where did the shows take place? Paxton: As I recall, they took place in Doremus Gym, I think. I think I'm right about that. That's where I remember going to see one. These things get to be a little cloudy in your mind when you haven't thought about it for all those years. [Laughter] But then, of course, meanwhile, the regular student body shrank down to almost nothing. I remember my class, when I entered, at that time the school was going year 'round in order to accelerate people as much as possible so they could get in whatever education they could before they went into the service. I started in the summer of '44, and my mother was just reminding me that she had my entire freshman class to lunch, which was nine people, and that was the size of my class when I started off. [Laughter] So the student body went down to practically nothing. 6 Then, of course, as soon as the war began to come to an end, it bounced back very quickly. In fact, immediately after the war, it went up to a record size. Colleges were trying to accommodate as many people as they could just to get people through, the backlog of people who had been in the service, of course. Warren: So then did people come back and join your class? Paxton: Yes. At that time, right after the war, classes were pretty mixed up. A number of people were coming back from the war, others had not been in the war, and so there was a mixture of veterans and non-veterans. Warren: Tell me about that. That must have been an interesting time to be in college. You had people of all kinds of different ages there. Paxton: Yes, much more of an age spread and more maturity, I think, than probably at a later time, which meant that most of them were pretty serious about it and pretty serious about getting their college education. A lot of them were here on the G.I. Bill, of course, and some of them wouldn't put up with all the high jinks that had gone on on campus before; they were a little past that, you know, the fraternity pranks and all those things. There was enough of that, but I think probably less than had gone on before and maybe went on afterwards, probably. Warren: Was fraternity life functioning? Paxton: Fraternity life picked up. Fraternity life came to a halt during the war. I don't think there were any active fraternities at that time. When my group entered school, there was one fraternity house that was sort of serving as a boarding house, providing meals. As I recall, it was sort of handled that way. One of the fraternities just provided those. Of course, the dorms and so forth were being used by the school for Special Services, so they housed students and fed them in one of the fraternities, but the fraternities themselves were not active during the war. But immediately after the war, they started back again in full force. Warren: But you're saying that the normal high jinks weren't happening then? 7 Paxton: Well, I think there was less of that. The guys, most of them being a little older, just wouldn't tolerate as much quite of the pranks and the fraternity hazing and all of that as had gone on before, probably. Warren: So as you were growing up, did you know you were going to go to Washington and Lee? Was that a given in your family? Paxton: I don't know that it was, necessarily. Sometimes it's hard to know how you wound up taking a certain path in education. I think probably most people at that time went to school a little closer to home than they did at a later, more mobile time. People didn't have as many cars. There were a good many student cars at W&L, because there was an affluent student body then as it is now, but I think that was a factor. There were a number of local students. I believe there were more Rockbridge area students in Washington and Lee then than there are now, probably more at VMI. I think that was probably one factor. If you had a good school close by, you were more likely to go there. Right after the war, more people lived at home. A lot of day students at that time. Warren: Were you one of those? Paxton: I was a day student. I did belong to a fraternity and took some of my meals at the fraternity and was involved in those activities, but I and most of my local friends here lived at home. Charlie McDowell was one of them. He was in school at that time here. Warren: I did an interview with him a couple of weeks ago. Paxton: Pat Robertson was another one. Warren: Did he go to W&L? Paxton: Oh, yeah! Warren: I didn't realize that. I knew he was a local person. Paxton: Yeah. Warren: Oh, there's an interesting story. 8 Paxton: Oh, yeah. See, I finished in '49. I think Pat finished probably a couple of years later, about '51. He and I were fraternity brothers at the SAE House. Charlie McDowell was an SAE. A fair number of the local boys happened to affiliate with SAE at that time. There were more SAEs than Delts. Some of the local boys went Delt, some of them went other things, too. But, yeah, Pat was in school at that time. Pat has continued his allegiance to Washington and Lee. He gave a very nice gift in the recent capital campaign. So it was an interesting crowd. Warren: A very distinguished crowd. So you talked about how small your freshman class was when you started. What about the faculty? Was there much faculty? Paxton: Not much faculty, no, no. Again, so many of them off in the service. Just a very small number were here. I don't know how many Washington and Lee people were associated with the School for Special Services. Some were, I think, but not a lot. I think it would be mostly probably staff people, maybe some of the faculty wives or whatnot were staff people, but just a large number of faculty people were off at war. I remember hearing a story that Washington and Lee was able to get that school through General George Marshall. I don't know whether that's true or not, whether that's just a rumor, but Marshall, with his VMI connection, was able to help Washington and Lee. I've heard that story. Warren: I'll have to track that down. Paxton: Whether that's a legitimate story or not, I don't know. Warren: So growing up in Lexington, did you know all these faculty people before you walked into their classes? Paxton: Yes, certainly. Most of my parents' friends were faculty people, a lot of them were. President Gaines' sons went to Washington and Lee. Edwin Gaines was in school with me, and Dean Gilliam, Frank Gilliam, who was dean for so many years, his son was in school at that time, Fontaine. So there were a lot of town-gown connections in those times. 9 Warren: Have you seen that tradition continue? Paxton: I think so, to some degree, certainly. I think fortunately there is town-gown cross-fertilization, or whatever you say. [Laughter] I think it certainly has continued. Warren: Am I correct? It seems to me when I first moved here, does Washington and Lee offer free education to people who are born here? Paxton: Washington and Lee offers a wonderful Rockbridge Scholarship. At one time I think it was free. They were not able to continue to make it totally free, but it certainly is a wonderful financial aid plan that they offer, which is really unusual among colleges, I think. I think Washington and Lee is a wonderful corporate citizen of this community. They certainly have been wonderfully responsible corporate citizens, I think. Warren: What does that mean, a corporate citizen? Paxton: Of course, any corporate entity is a part of the community, but I think when you use the term "corporate citizen," you mean a corporate entity that takes its responsibilities to the community seriously as a citizen in the community. Warren: Elaborate on how Washington and Lee has done such a good job of that. Paxton: I think Washington and Lee's been wonderful in many ways to the community, not just in the Rockbridge Scholarship, but in making its facilities available very generously, in community service by people on the faculty and administrative staff have been the backbone of the community leadership in so many ways, you know. Just generally providing the kind of community leadership that you hope that an entity like that would provide. It's made a great difference, made it a much more pleasant community, certainly. Warren: For a place its size, it certainly is. One major event that happened while you were a student, I think, was the Bicentennial of Washington and Lee. Paxton: Yes, I was in the Bicentennial class of '49. Warren: Tell me all about that. Did they tell you that when you arrived? Did you know that from the beginning? 10 Paxton: I don't remember that they made a great to-do of it. You know, in those days, public relations was just in its infancy, you know. We didn't know at all about how to beat the drums of public relations like people do now, you know. It was a much simpler society in those days. When I think about how the Bicentennial was observed, I think we would certainly pull out the stops more now for something like that. Warren: I think we're going to for the 250th. Paxton: I think so. Warren: Tell me what did happen for the Bicentennial. Paxton: I can't remember that a whole lot did, to tell you the honest truth. I know that they had a postage stamp issued, and that was a big do. That took quite a bit of doing. What else? They had a major, what was for them then a major capital campaign. I think the goal was something like $3 million, which I don't know that they ever raised it. I'm not sure they did. But that was the first time in recent times, I think, that a major fund campaign had been launched. That was certainly a sizable activity of it. But beyond that, my memory doesn't pull up a whole lot. I'm sure there were things, convocations and things, I imagine. I'd have to go back and dredge that up. Warren: But there are no events that stand out in your mind that were associated? Paxton: Not that stand out tremendously. We had all the good things that they have now, the mock convention and the other things that go on and are a lot of fun. Fancy Dress was big. But specifically Bicentennial things, I really think that probably there was more impact on the alumni than there was on the students for the Bicentennial. We were so busy doing our thing that we just weren't too taken up with the Bicentennial. Warren: You mentioned Fancy Dress. Tell me about going to Fancy Dress. Paxton: Well, Fancy Dress was, again, one of those things that was revived after the war, with great verve and enthusiasm, and I think very much as it had been before the war. At that time, Fancy Dress really meant costumes; it didn't just mean formal dress as it seems to mean now. The place we went in those days for costumes was Van Horn 11 in Philadelphia; I still remember that. One of the great things about the costumes was that you could get your date's measurements. [Laughter] You had to get your date's measurements. Then the costumes came, and they didn't remotely fit. They didn't even begin to fit. They just threw any old costume in there, after you'd gone to all this trouble. The girls were so, so upset because the costumes didn't fit, you know. [Laughter] But somehow we managed and got through the whole thing. Warren: How did these costumes arrive? Paxton: They came in these great boxes, and you had to go down. It was all a great process, you know. Various committees would distribute the costumes and so forth. It was quite a thing, the whole business of getting measured and then ordering and then the costumes coming in. Just all kinds of bizarre things that I'm sure they used for every kind of affair. They just would dust them off for anything that was coming along, you know. Just happened that I guess it was my senior year, my fraternity brother, who was president of Fancy Dress, was having academic difficulties and had to withdraw as president of—I guess that was in '49. Since I had fairly good grades, they asked me if I would substitute for him, so I got to lead the Fancy Dress that year as George Washington, and yet I hadn't gone through the regular channels of being chosen president. That was one of the elective offices, I believe, president of Fancy Dress, and was quite a plum. Politics were big on campus then, as they are now. So I just got a free ride as president of Fancy Dress without ever having to go through the political process to get there. Warren: So you were George Washington. Was that a tradition or was that the theme of that year? Paxton: That was the theme of that year. But you never saw anything like the variety of costumes. I mean, just because George Washington was the theme didn't mean that you didn't have people from Fiji Islands and every place else, you know. [Laughter] But it 12 was quite fun. At that time, Mrs. Desha, Mrs. Lucius Desha, faculty wife, was the arbiter of Fancy Dress protocol and so forth, so as president of Fancy Dress you had to go and call on Mrs. Desha, and Mrs. Desha told you just how you should behave and how we did things and so forth. So we went right by what she told us to do. So there was a lot of tradition that was passed down. Of course, Fancy Dress continued pretty much that way until the terrible sixties, I guess, when everything was being turned topsy-turvy, you know, and Fancy Dress went by the boards just like so many juvenile college things. Things were all juvenile in the sixties except protest. So it then was discontinued, and when it was later revived, it was on a rather different plan with just the formal dress being considered Fancy Dress. Warren: I sure would like to see the old costumes revived. That sounds like so much fun. Paxton: Oh, it was, it was just a lot of fun, it really was, because they were just outlandish, a lot of them. You would just have such fun seeing who came as what, you know. So it was really quite a lot of fun. Warren: Where were they held and how were they decorated? Paxton: They would have them in Doremus Gym, and Doremus Gym was elaborately decorated for it. It was quite an affair. Warren: How was the theme picked? Paxton: I'm sure that the dance board probably picked the theme each year, but I was never on that. I just kind of came up unexpectedly to lead the Fancy Dress. When they spoke of leading, of course, they had what they called the Figure, which meant that it was sort of a grand march, I guess you'd say, you know. At the appropriate time during the dance, the people in the Figure, and that would be I don't know who all, class presidents and this and that and so forth, would assemble with their dates, and then they'd promenade down the floor, you know, two or three times, then have their own 13 private little individual dance, then the thing would go on. But when it's referred to leading the Figure, that was sort of what it amounted to, I guess. Warren: You made mention of politics being a big thing on campus. Tell me about that. Paxton: Well, the student government politics were big, as I suppose they still are. I don't know exactly how it works now. I guess the campus sort of divided itself politically into what they called the Big Clique and the Little Clique at that time. There were a certain group of fraternities that sort of banded together to form the Big Clique, and then there was another group and maybe the non-fraternity people in that group that was the Little Clique. They would have elections for student government and class officers and so forth, and the dance leaders and one thing and another. The two parties would, I guess, vie for things, and the Big Clique probably won out more often than not, but not always. Sometimes the other candidates would win. Warren: What kind of things were they running for? Paxton: Student government, the executive committee, president of student body, vice president, and so forth, and class officers, president and so forth of the various classes. I think the presidents of the dances, Fancy Dress president, I think was another office that they ran for. I was never much of a politician, so I didn't get involved in all that too much. Warren: Were you a journalism major? Paxton: No, I majored in English. I did take journalism courses. Warren: Did you work on the Ring-tum Phi? Paxton: Yeah, I did work on the Ring-tum Phi some. Warren: Were you covering these political clashes? Paxton: I don't remember that I did. I just can't recall that I did, but I did do a little bit of work on the paper, as I recall, not a whole lot. Warren: So that wasn't real important? Paxton: Wasn't a real big thing for me, as I recall. 14 Warren: As you progressed through your career at Washington and Lee, the faculty started coming back? Paxton: Oh, yes. Everything snapped back to normal so quickly after the war, it was just amazing. They mustered people out of service pretty quick. As a matter of fact, at one time it looked like there was just going to be bedlam, and then they kind of slowed up a little bit and phased it a little bit so that everybody just wouldn't be thrown out on the public right at one minute, you know. But demobilization was fast, so that within a year of the time the war was over, everything was pretty much back to normal, so it snapped back fast. Warren: I've certainly seen the Memorial Gate down there. Was there a strong sense of loss of the people who had been lost in the war? Paxton: The Memorial Gate, actually, I think was maybe for World War I. That Memorial Gate goes back before World War II. Warren: But there are a bunch of names up there for World War II. Paxton: For World War II also. Warren: And Korea and Vietnam. Paxton: Yeah. Yes, there was feeling for people who were lost, and there were more lost, of course, in those other wars, too. There was that. I think people were just real anxious to get on with their lives, and everybody had been through a lot, but there certainly was a sense of loss for the people that were lost in the war. Warren: Were there any local people that you remember? Paxton: My friends, I had more friends lost in the Korean War. I had three or four friends lost in there. I really just kind of got in on the tag end of World War II, so the ones who were lost in that war were really of an older group than I. Warren: How about the relationship with VMI? What was going on with VMI at that point? 15 Paxton: Well, the relationship was kind of hot and cold. There was some friction, although all of us at W&L probably had friends at VMI. The VMI cadets would come up to the fraternities for things and so forth, and we'd go down there. I remember going to dances down at VMI. But then pranksters would go down and roll a canon down the hill or something like that, and the cadets would come up and make a raid on a fraternity house or something, you know. I remember one story about the cadets coming up after something like that to the Beta House, which is still down there at Red Square, and it was about the closest one to VMI that they could get to, and they went in, started rousting out all the boys, and the house mother came out and she was pleading with them not to take her boys, you know. It was quite a dramatic episode, but usually didn't amount to anything much. They'd march them up to VMI, maybe, and make them roll the canon back up the hill or something like that. Then sometimes they'd come over and put some paint on the columns at W&L or something like that. But there was not a lot of that that went on, and it was just more in the nature of something fun to talk about than anything else, I think. Warren: Did other local people go to VMI like you went to Washington and Lee? Paxton: Yes, a number of my friends went to VMI, and there were more local boys at VMI than there are now, I'm sure. That was also the year, of course, of the big bands for the dances, and that was great fun, people like Louis Armstrong and Glenn Miller and Harry James and Benny Goodman. Just everybody you can think of came to Washington and Lee. I remember when the Dorsey brothers came in twin Cadillacs, and people were talking about that. But it was just wonderful music to dance with for the dances, you know, and we would go up to VMI when they had the big bands, just as some of them would come over to our dances. Warren: Those are pretty big names. 16 Paxton: Yeah, they had the top people, the top names. Warren: How did you go about booking names like that? Paxton: I don't know, because I never was in on any of what the dance board did. Warren: That's pretty impressive. Paxton: Yeah, it is. Well, obviously those bands played around at the colleges, and it was a very businesslike thing. They were used to doing this and it was pretty well organized and handled in a very businesslike way. They had advice from people like old Sam Rayder, who advised the dance board for years. He's still around here at ninety-something. Warren: I saw his picture just the other day. Paxton: And I think he was advisor to the dance board, maybe, for a long time. I'm not sure. But he was advisor to various things over at W&L, and treasurer of this and that, and helped the boys with a lot of things. They needed something like that for continuity, you know. You get a whole new bunch of students and there's so little continuity, so various people, faculty advisors and people in town like Sam Rayder, who were alumni, as they still do, alumni here are still faculty advisors for fraternities and that sort of thing, you know, provided the continuity. Warren: We're just about at the end of this side.