Purdue University

With the sun not rising until nearly 8:00 in the morning, our room was like a gloomy cave when my alarm sounded. Michelle still sleeping, I peeked between the curtains to find a wet parking lot, puddles scattered between the cars. It didn’t seem to be raining, so I changed into walking garb and headed out the door. It started misting about ten minutes into the walk, gradually becoming a steady drizzle. The YMCA indoor track was looking better all the time, but we were too far into our walk to bother. It’s only water, after all.

Departure was delayed roughly thirty minutes: the price of a physically active ensemble is often injury – in this case two twisted ankles were being treated at the local hospital. Yesterday, Ellen met a curb rather unexpectedly and twisted her ankle. She iced it all day and had only a slight limp at the concert last night, but morning brought pain and swelling. Sam had chosen a basketball game this morning at the nice, dry YMCA and managed to roll his ankle while chasing a stray ball. (Sam has promised to send me a picture of his swollen ankle so I can post it.)

Tonight’s concert was at Purdue University in the Elliot Hall of Music. Last night’s hall held 3200 or so people – this hall was vastly larger. We managed to fill three-fourths of the floor and a third of the balcony, which may not sound like much, but it must have been a comparable audience size to the night before.

I didn’t have time to walk the campus today (laundry day!), but I am looking forward to visiting the school tomorrow. One of the women in history I admire most was on the faculty at Purdue, retiring in 1948. Lillian Moller Gilbreth, the "Mother of Modern Management" was a woman ahead of her time. Graduating from Berkeley in 1900, she attended Columbia for graduate work before returning to Berkeley to complete her Masters. She married Frank Bunker Gilbreth in 1904 but continued working on her doctorate, receiving her PhD from Brown in 1915.

Her list of accomplishment is too long to list here, but her pioneering work with motion study, industrial organizational psychology, and engineering led to the development of the kitchen work triangle, the foot pedal trash can, and with her husband, aided in the development of more efficient surgical techniques and methods of rehabilitating people with physical handicaps.

Two of the Gilbreth's twelve children co-authored the books Cheaper By The Dozen, about their life as a family before Frank’s death, and Belles on Their Toes, chronicling Lillian’s struggles to continue the work she and her husband shared in a society prejudiced against women in the work place. I read these books often, growing up, and still enjoy re-reading them today.

By the way...she was a redhead.