Oral History: An Interview with Barry Hollister

Oral History: An Interview with Barry Hollister Mary Ellen Singsen: This is an interview with Barry Hollister on his FGC experiences. This interview is taking place at the 1998 Gathering of Friends General Conference at River Falls, Wisconsin, on July 1, 1998. The interviewer is Mary Ellen Singsen. Barry, you've been so involved so many years, I'm glad you're doing this. Would you tell us just a little thumbnail sketch first. Where were you born? Barry Hollister: Omaha, Nebraska. MES: And who were your parents? BH: Robert and Susan Hollister. He was a familyphysician and surgeon. He had come there from the east after Harvard Medical School and hospital appointments in New York. She was a local woman from a businessman's family in Omaha. MES: Were they Quakers? BH: No. MES: How did you become a Friend? BH: I went to Antioch College when I was sixteen. After returning there as a faculty member in 1937, 1 met Clarence Pickett ofthe American Friends Service Committee, who was on the Board ofTrustees. More important, I met his two very attractive daughters who went to Antioch as students. I visited a number of Service Committee projects and had several family visits with the Pickett family in the Philadelphia area. Then in the wartime the conscientious objectors, status was a very decisive fact and I was involved in that from registration in 1940 to the end ofthe war. So I really was recruited into the Society of Friends by the AFSC. MES: Like a lot ofother people. When you became aware ofFGC, who were the leaders then? BH: I joined the Yellow Springs, Ohio, Meeting in 1940. That was part ofthe Indiana YearlyMeeting ofthe General Conference, and ourQuarterly Meeting was centered on Waynesville, Ohio, with tremendous enthusiasm for the Cape May Conference. Everybody was urged to go to Cape May, which I did in 1940 before I was married. MES: Did you meet Kay there? BH: No, wehadmet in college andthen lookedeachotherup after college and got married in Evanston Friends Meeting which she joined independently ofme. Our marriage was in December 1941 . I'd only been a Friend a year-and-a-half. Editor'sNote: QuakerHistory is grateful to Friends Historical Library ofSwarthmore College forpermission to publish the interview. The text has been edited for clarity, flow, and length. Oral History: An Interview with Barry Hollister43 MES: How many Gatherings have you attended, Barry? BH: From my first one in 1940, then alternate years, and then successively at Cape May on the coast ofNew Jersey. I don't really know, but if I were to guess I suppose I've been to halfofthem since then. Our children were still at home (we had four); they were zealots for that experience. MES: Ijust saw you in a slide that was shownhere at the Gathering at the History Harvest meeting, and it showed you standing up and I suppose introducing somebody ormaybe you gave atalkyourself. Tellus abouthow you became the clerk of, not the Gathering because I don't think they called it a Gathering then, but you were the clerk ofFriends General Conference. BH: I suppose I was appointed by the Yearly Meeting as one of the Central Committee members. I don't remember details, but my work on the faculty and staff at Antioch College periodically involved quite a bit of traveling, and I was able to control most ofthe timing. So on college travel money I'd get to Central Committee events. And I was one ofthe very few from "overthe mountains." At thatpoint Central Committee was about fifty percent Philadelphia, about twenty percent Baltimore, twenty percent New York, andthe restofus. Itwas very noticeable thatI was almostthe only one other than that Middle-Atlantic core. MES: Did they appreciate you especially for that reason? BH: I think so. Well, at least it was noticeable. The only clerks of the Conference, technically clerks ofthe Central Committee, were Dr. Janney from Baltimore for twenty-some years and Arthur Jackson from Philadelphia for twenty-some years. Then for briefer periods Bliss Forbush of Baltimore, that was a five or six year stint. And Clarence Pickett after retiring from the Service Committee...