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After Charles Curtiss’s death in 1947, Professor Elizabeth Hoyt of the Department of Economics shared the Farm House with two other employees of the college, Dr. Frances (Mary Agnes) Carlin and Beulah McBride. They lived there until the summer of 1948 when the house was reconditioned for use as a “home management house.” The concept of home management houses was very similar to the original model farm concept—classroom studies combined with practical work experience. These home management houses flourished on the Iowa State College campus from 1929 until the 1960s when they gradually ceased operations in response to the changing needs of the students. The Farm House only served as a home management house for the 1948–49 school year, but during that time more than 20 young women and two small infants lived there. In 1949 it once again became home to the dean of agriculture. Floyd Andre would be the third and final dean to live in the house. Dr. Henry Kildee, who was dean of agriculture in 1947, had no intentions of moving to the Farm House after Charles Curtiss’s death and was in fact contemplating retirement. Except for Dr. Hoyt’s belongings , the house was quite empty. After Charles Curtiss’s death, the family’s unwanted furniture was sold and the entire first floor was cleared of Charles’s possessions. Years later J. C. “Shorty” Schilletter, who was in charge of campus residences, remembered housing was quite tight on campus; he remembered assigning several women to the Farm House, but he was not certain if anyone was then living in the house with Dr. Hoyt. In January 1948, Dr. Frances Carlin and Beulah McBride moved into the Farm House with Dr. Hoyt. Dr. Carlin was quite happy to move from her small living quar7 • The Final Years of Active Use 141 ters south of the college and was grateful for the added space of the house and the convenience of living on campus. She was a recent graduate of the doctorate program in food and nutrition at the college and was looking forward to her new position as assistant professor in the same department. Beulah McBride was also beginning a new job at the college as assistant food manager at the Memorial Union. Dr. Hoyt began living at the Curtiss House (Farm House) in 1936 when she rented a bedroom on the second floor of the house from Olive and Charles Curtiss. Her association with them was warm and friendly and the house was as much her home as theirs. While other faculty members who rented rooms in the house saw it as a short-term residence, Elizabeth remained there for 11 years. Dr. Hoyt began her career at Iowa State College in 1925 after completing her doctorate in economics at Radcliffe College. She accepted a position as associate professor in the Department of Economics and was promoted to full professor two years later. As a young professor, Dr. Hoyt received a Fullbright grant and lectureship in Guatemala and traveled extensively in South America and Africa, observing living conditions in these countries. During her travels Hoyt wrote profusely and passionately, recording first-hand impressions of the problems facing the people in these countries. After one visit to Africa Dr. Hoyt began collecting books for a library she hoped to establish on a return visit to the country. Isabel Matterson, who worked at the college library and was Dr. Hoyt’s personal friend, said that she was out to save the world! Dr. Hoyt taught classes in both the economics and the home management programs and wrote three books based on her lectures: Consumption of Wealth (1928), Consumption in Our Society (1938), and American Income and Its Use (1954). When she retired in 1975, she was honored for her 50 years of service to the college and her research, which formed the basis for the National Consumer Price Index . Dr. Hoyt was the type of person, according to her many friends, who spent her life doing good for others, and it may have been her idea to use the Farm House as a home management house. The Department of Home Management, which was one of three departments formed in 1929 from the original Department of Household Administration, offered more electives than any other home economics program in the country. It also offered a broad educational program preparing students for work in extension and the social ser142 Farm House [3.145.12.242] Project MUSE...

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