Golden Days: Reminiscences of Alumnae, Mississippi State College for Women

Carmen Pearson Ronken, Class of 1937

MARCH 8, 2OO5 INTERVIEWED BY SUSAN PUCKETT AND BARBARA WHITE FILMED BY CHRISJENKINS TRANSCRIBED BY BRANDIE ASHE 1* (BARMEN PEARSON WAS BORN ON NOVEMBER 23, 1914, in Conehatta, Mississippi, one of seven children of Edward Pearson and Addie Wilkins Pearson. Carmen Pearson spent two years at Decatur Junior College (now East Central Community College) before transferring to MSCW, where she majored in home economics. She was active in the Home Economics Club, the Junior Forum, and the senior Y Group. According to the 1937 yearbook, the Meh Lady, "Mature thought comes from her rare silence and pensiveness." After graduation, she spent severalyears working in Mississippi as home demonstration agent and for the State Board of Health and the Department of Education. She later completed a masters degree in public health at Bostons Simmons School of SocialWork and Harvard Medical School. In 1954, she married Noel M. Ronken (1902-78), who did applied research in plant science. She held leadership positions in a variety of organizations, including the American Home Economics 95 Class of 1937 Carmen Pearson Ronken, Association, American Women in Radio and Television, and the State Nutrition Council. She was very active in civic leadership, and in 2001 the Mississippi legislature passed a resolution "commending Ms. Carmen Ronken for her many years of outstanding community service" and "her tireless devotion to improving the quality of life of those around her." She lived in Jackson until her death in November 2006. CR: Conehatta, Mississippi, is over in Newton County, and its out in the Choctaw area. The name Conehatta means "polecat" in the Indian language. We really had more Indians than we had white people in our community. BW: Did you socialize with them at all? CR: Oh, yes. We'd go to their church, because they had the first organ in the area, and they had someone that had learned to play that organ and played it beautifully. This was on Sunday. Also, on Saturday night, they would meet and have a social hour at that church, play the organ and beat the drums. Then after they'd started the drum beating, you'd hear them singing, and they were dancing the Indian dance. And it was beautiful—just beautiful. We liked to go watch it, but lots of times my mother and I would sit on the big front porch at our house just so we could hear them. We'd enjoy it so very much. BW:Were the Indians very poor? CR: Oh, yes, they were poor. But the government came in and started a school for them. And when they started that school, many of them learned and were very smart—very smart. And some of them, now their children and grandchildren are leaders in the tribe over around Philadelphia in that area. BW:Where did you go to school as a child? CR: I went to the little consolidated school in Conehatta. It was one of the first consolidated schools in the area. And I could walk. I'd go across 96 Classof1937 the pasture because there was a path. We had no buses at that time. BW: How many students were in the school? CR: We had about three hundred, maybe four hundred. It was a big school because children came in from far and near. BW: Tell me about your parents and your brothers and sisters. What kind of work did your parents do? CR: My father passed away when I was eleven years old, but he worked with the county government. He was what we called a county supervisor . When I was a child, my oldest brothers and sisters were married and away from home. The youngest—I and my three brothers and one sister—lived at home at that time. One of my brothers was in the First World War in 1918, and of course we were all looking forward to the time that he came home. He came home, and he married and had children . And my other siblings lived around different places but not too far away. We lived near enough that we'd get together at Christmastimes and have a reunion—all of the family, with the big Christmas tree in the Christmas parlor, the living room. We didn't call it a living room, it was the front room to the house, sowe called it the big hall. My father would go to the little...