Dumas interview

[Begin Tape 2, Side 2]

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Warren: A long time ago you mentioned Lexington as an isolated place. Tell me what
you mean by that.
Dumas: Well, there is Lexington physically, its surroundings, what part of the country.
It is in southwestern Virginia. I remember reading somewhere that it took General Lee
and one of his daughters by horseback after the Civil War something like twelve days
to get to it from Richmond. Before there was the highway and the interstate, it was
difficult to get there. So its physical surroundings—I remember before the airport was
built, there was no terminal. It was just a building. We’d deplane like the President of
the United States.

         More specifically, the university was isolated because of, I think, its institutions,
the Honor System, and probably because of the way town-gown relationships
developed, and the composition of the student body, being rather privileged students
throughout the—well, probably since the century, its students, I think it always put the
town at a distance, and I have a feeling that these students were always viewed as
privileged, and they were always, I think, distant and separate from Lexington.

         What was good about that is, I think, it reinforced the institutions like the Honor
System. I attended maybe two or three Honor System conferences on behalf of
Washington and Lee around the country throughout my tenure, my four years on the
Executive Committee, and one of the questions that was eventually posed towards us at
Washington and Lee, because it was usually the consensus that, in the entire country,
our Honor System was the strongest, it was stronger than the military academies,
stronger than the University of Virginia or any of the other schools in the South, it was
usually posed to us, "Do you think this can be replicated?" from people who were
looking, trying to replicate it, and my answer was usually no, because I think that it
developed in a unique situation, and I think a lot of it had to do with history of the
university, how, I think, almost being in Lexington, it was almost sort of forgotten in
this little valley, and the rest of the world didn’t intrude in.

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         Washington and Lee integrated, what, in 1970, ‘71, ‘72? It went coed in 1985. The
world didn’t go in. I’m not saying that those factors that went in were bad or the fact
that they kept out individuals, that those people were good for doing that, but in that
environment, the Honor System had flourished. I think things started to change with
the rest of the outside world, and Washington and Lee, whether it was that there were
women on campus now, I think issues of safety of the female students heightened the
awareness of the safety of students in general, and I think that contributed to the
locking of the doors. That’s something that was happening, I think, nationally. I think
there was a recognition on the part of students, whether they were in Hanover, New
Hampshire, at Dartmouth, or Haverford College, or you name it, the ivory tower of
academia and the repose of privileged students or middle-class students no longer
existed from the crime in the United States.

         So in that way, Washington and Lee had been exempt. The stories about the
Honor System—Professor Stephenson, who had been my first German professor,
Buford Stephenson, he told a story of someone leaving a dollar on the ledge in the
bathroom and that over the course of a month it had turned into different forms of
change. It had gone from a silver dollar to quarters to nickels to dimes, but it was like
this communal source where some people would take from it and add to it. Now,
whether or not that really happened, there’s no reason for me to doubt what Professor
Stevenson said, but, you know, that’s changed. There was shock on the part of my
parents and other people when I described to them that we took our exams alone.

         Things are just really competitive now, and not that they weren’t before, but I
think it’s getting more difficult. President Elrod can probably elaborate or disagree, but
I think that it’s probably become more difficult to convince new faculty members of the
efficacy—not the efficacy, but the success of the Honor System. I would have to
imagine, with the heightened competition to get into graduate schools and people with
grades, I can’t believe that Washington and Lee is immune from charges of grade

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inflation and all sorts of other things, but somehow it had been kept out of all of that. I
think the realities now of life in America are creeping in, and before they had been out.
Warren: Did you feel isolated socially there?
Dumas: Yeah, in some ways I felt isolated from friends of mine who had gone off the
school around the country. We weren’t getting the big bands and people coming to—
because it was Lexington, Virginia. We could drive an hour and twenty minutes to
University of Virginia, and then you could see like big bands, and you could do more of
what was going on at other colleges across the country, but I don’t think that was that
important to people. So that was that type of isolation.

         I had a rich social life there. I dated women from the women’s colleges and
women in my class and women who were younger than me. So there was, I think, a lot
to do. I didn’t feel isolated socially, but I had classmates who were white who did feel
isolated socially. The way I went about picking a college was not good, but so many
people do that. They have to go with what their parents suggest and hope that their
parents really know something. Although I have to say one of my highlights was giving
student tours. I enjoyed talking about Washington and Lee. That’s why I felt a little
better when I talked to Patrick about the flags, because I could give the history of the
university, and people enjoyed—at least said they enjoyed my tours. I threw so much
history into it, and I talked about how the banister in the Morris House was warped
because the Union officer took a saber and chopped it up because he wasn’t allowed to
burn the campus.

         For me, it was a history that could be honorable about the school. The fact that
Robert E. Lee was president hadn’t been a problem for me, and I didn’t let that be a
problem for me socially. There were others, I think there was a problem for them, and
that’s maybe white and black, but for me, I had reconciled and made peace with Robert
E. Lee. Not that he was someone I had to really make peace with, but I found after
reading what I read about him that I could be comfortable about talking about

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Washington and Lee. My appreciation for Washington and Lee has grown since I’ve left
the institution.
Warren: Tell me about that.
Dumas: There’s a lot of stuff that now in retrospect I would have liked to have taken
advantage of and done more of, definitely language-wise and in other classes, but it’s in
sharing my experiences with other friends from law school or even from graduate
school, although I do it a lot less now, which is probably healthy, just talking about who
these friends are. I say, "John and Gwen Handelman."

         "How do you know these people?"
         I said, "Oh, well, he was one of my politics professor."
         And people are like, "And you’re still seeing these people?"
         I say, "Well, actually yes. We’re friends.” They encouraged me to go back to
school when I was miserable trying to be a lawyer and not too successful at it.
         I called John Elrod up one day in Texas, while I was in Texas working for this
law firm, and I said, "I’m absolutely miserable.” He was president, but I got through to
Mrs.—oh, the secretary, not Harrison. I can’t think.
Warren: She’s gone now. I can see her, but I can’t think of her name.
Dumas: And she’s like, "Oh, he’s busy, but Willard, I know he’ll want to talk to you. I’ll
put him through.” He ended up giving me like forty, fifty minutes during his day,
which he probably didn’t have, and he probably began to realize that I was not going to
ever be one of these alums who could come close to matching a tenth of the gift of
Sydney and Frances Lewis, but he cared enough about me to listen to the
disappointment with my attempt at a legal career, and saying, "You know, we had a
conversation almost nine years ago that I remember, and you said you wanted to be a
professor of history but that there were other factors in your life that discouraged you
from doing that. Well, now, go ahead and do it. What do you have to lose?” There were

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other logistic things like, "Well, when you come out of your Ph.D. program, I think the
job market’s actually going to improve in academia.”

         So who did I speak to that day? I think that day I spoke to John Elrod and then I
spoke to David Parker and John Handelman and then to Gwen Handelman. Those are
the people who I spoke to, and eventually I spoke to my parents, but those are the
people who said yes. They were the people who supported me the most, with the
exception of my partner, and then my other classmates. Then I spoke to Pat Lopes and I
spoke to Bret Huttspeth [phonetic], and they were like, "This is what you always
wanted to do.” I’m fortunate enough that I’m able to go back and do it. So that’s how
they’ve been influential.

         And even Dick Haynes who I briefly worked for at his law firm. He knew that in
the conversations that we would have occasionally when I was at his law firm what my
passions were about. Occasionally I could make it about something that I was working
on, but our passions both met with Washington and Lee and his interest in history and
mine and our interest in art, and there were other things. He knew. He could
understand that.
Warren: He’s very fond of you. He mentioned you when I saw him.
Dumas: He’s another example of an alum—I don’t think Mr. Haynes actually ever
graduated from Washington and Lee. I’m not sure.
Warren: He’s so interesting. He went his freshman year and then his last year of law
school, first and seventh years. What an interesting career.
Dumas: He’s someone who the university, like Jim Brooks, means so much, and I think
it’s after talking with those individuals. When I was at Boston, I did some alumni
interviewing, and I hope that I was able to share some of my stories. There were more
good stories in some of the stuff we’ve talked about this afternoon.
Warren: Do you recruit for Washington and Lee?
Dumas: Do I regret?

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Warren: Recruit.
Dumas: Recruit. Not now in Iowa. The only person from Washington and Lee in Iowa
is a former dean, Randy Bezanson, and I had lunch with him a few months ago. I’d like
to see him more, but I’ve been so busy that I haven’t. I’d like to do more here in
Chicago, and I’ve actually run into a few classmates that are here. I’ve actually met an
alumnus who’s a few years older than me, whose fiancee clerked with a friend of mine
from law school, and I just like met them at a large dinner party. So the two of us ended
up talking. Unfortunately since I’m only here on the weekends, I haven’t gotten
together with him or one or two of my classmates that are here. But if I’m at the
University of Chicago next year, I can’t say that I’ll have time, but I will at least try and
get into the alumni activities here, and if I can recruit, then I will. I’ll put myself down,
but I don’t know what exactly time commitments I’ll be able to make for it. But I did in
law school, my last year of law school, I conducted, I think three or four interviews out
of Boston College law school, and it was convenient for the students because they lived
in Wellesley or Newton, and it was actually easier than their going downtown to meet
any of the guys who were downtown.
Warren: I sure would like to see more minorities of all kinds at Washington and Lee.
Did they have Senior Night when you were there? Do you remember that little ritual?
I think it’s a fairly new thing. I’m not sure.
Dumas: Well, I know there was something put together by the alumni office.
Warren: Yes. And the fellow who spoke, I don’t think he was even here when you were
there, George Bent, he’s in art history, very cool guy, and he gave the most wonderful
talk, and one thing he said, "I think you’ve gotten a wonderful education at Washington
and Lee, but I think there are certain things that you’re unlikely to learn here.” He said,
"What are you going to do when you’re in your first job and you go to a social occasion
with the people you work with and your boss shows up and she’s with a date you don’t
expect? She may not be white. In fact, she may not even be a Republican."

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Dumas: And she may not be a woman. I mean, she may not be a man.
Warren: That’s the point. That’s the point. And he said, "We’re in a very homophobic
place where everything about this place is very narrow, and I, for one, as a member of
this faculty, worry about you as seniors going out into this world because I don’t know
that we’ve prepared you for the real world very well.” So I’d like to see more and
different people coming onto the campus, not only because it’ll give me more
interesting people to talk to, but because I think that’s part of an education, is to be
exposed to a lot of different kinds of people.
Dumas: The reaction of the woman who was my date for the "On the Shoulders of
Giants" capital campaign, it’s like that. I meet a lot of friends there. This isn’t a terribly
diverse place, and they may be white themselves saying that. They may be seeing a lot
of people who look and dress—and I see it at the University of Iowa. We graduate
students have put ourselves on this pedestal, and we’re like, "They’re mindless drones,
and they all look alike, they all dress alike. They wear the same clothes. They do this,
they do that.”

         I know that I am in that unfortunate class of individuals—I don’t believe
unfortunate. I mean, I’m nowhere near as successful as what Dick Haynes has made of
his life at this point in my life and probably won’t have the financial success, but I think
I am at that place when it comes to love of the institution or of the Lewises. I had the
privilege of spending time with the Lewises, actually recruiting, trying to help them
recruit their grandson to go to Washington and Lee, and he ended up not going. But
Farris Hotchkiss was quite pleased with my performance and another student’s
performance of trying to sell the school.

         But the reaction I get is that other people who know me, like my partner, he’s
met John and Gwen, and he hasn’t figured out this Washington and Lee thing. He’s just
like, "This is something that you have to deal with.” He’s met Pat and a number of other
classmates, and he’s become very good friends with them. We did do one trip down to

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Lexington, and it was a rather difficult trip, because I came out to John and Mimi, and
they were actually the last people that I wanted to know at Washington and Lee that
I’m gay, and that was difficult for both of us, but the Parkers and the Elrods and Kirk
Follo and a number of other people know.

         I do have a special relationship with the university, and I’m grateful. I’ve been
fortunate by the experience that I had, and I think that in general of people who went to
college, because I took something out of there, I think, more than just an education, and
maybe I should have taken more of my education out. I don’t know. But I’ve taken a lot
of friendships.
Warren: There’s a—they call themselves G&L, the gay and lesbian group that’s
becoming active now.
Dumas: I’ve thought about it, but I haven’t tried to make contact with them. I know
that the university’s not thrilled about them, but I probably would like to get
information on them. Actually, I really haven’t had a good conversation with John and
Mimi since I came out to them, and Mimi was very supportive. The president was very
pleasant, and it was difficult for me, because I’d wanted to tell them a little bit earlier,
but there never seemed to be the opportunity. So I wanted to actually sit down and talk
with them.
Warren: It’s very important to me to have this book be as inclusive as possible, and one
of the things I did at Alumni Weekend was—you know Ted DeLaney?
Dumas: Yes.
Warren: Do you know he’s back? He’s on the faculty now.
Dumas: In the history department, right?
Warren: Yes.
Dumas: I should say I don’t know Ted DeLaney well, but I know of him well, because
he briefly taught at the Asheville School, and he was friends with a very good friend of
mine from my class, a guy by the name of John Thorsen.

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Warren: Yes. He talked about him in his interview.
Dumas: John and I are really very good friends.
Warren: He admires him a great deal.
Dumas: So I know of Ted. I’ve met him before, but I know of him more by reputation
from either Washington and Lee students or faculty members.
Warren: He’s one of my best friends on the faculty. Ted and I have really bonded in the
last year, and at Alumni Weekend we were having lunch together, and he said, "Okay,
you’ve been real interested in gay alumni. That’s the table over there.” So I went over
and sat down, and I said, "All right, you guys. We need to strategize here, because I
really want to have you in this book. I want to have your presence there.” Obviously,
every single person who’s ever gone to Washington and Lee is not going to be in this
book, but I want everybody to recognize themselves in somebody in this book. I also
understand that I can’t be in-your-face about it, to 99 percent of the people who went to
Washington and Lee, but it’s really important to me that everybody recognize him or
herself in some way, and the way I see to do that is through photographs so that people
who know will recognize other people who know. And so, in particular, do you have
any photographs that you’d like to see in the book, of yourself as a student?
Dumas: As a student.
Warren: I suppose Patrick could probably pull up something.
Dumas: Yeah, that’s—
Warren: I’m not talking about outing anybody. That’s not at all what I’m talking about.
Dumas: Oh, well, I didn’t come out until I was finishing law school.
Warren: But that’s not what I’m talking about. Do you understand what I’m saying
trying to do?
Dumas: No, I’m not sure if I do.
Warren: From what I understand, there’s sort of a gay community within Washington
and Lee alumni who know each other.

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Dumas: I don’t know. I know only of one other student who’s at the University of
Texas who’s gay, and we’ve only talked once. I really don’t know any of the other gay
alums. People used to share rumors with me about classmates of mine, but now since
I’m gay, my friends have become much more sensitive and I don’t think they engage—I
mean, they don’t handle the issue of sexual orientation that way, I mean those people in
my class who I’m out to. And it’s a shock for a lot of people. It’s a shock for my parents
have not gotten over, and I’m not out to Mr. Haynes, and that’s been something that I
have struggled with, how I’d like to come out to him, but unfortunately I’ve kind of just
pushed that off of the burner. I can’t worry about it anymore, and I think that he—I
don’t know, he may know because I think by then the rest of the law firm knew by the
time I left that I was gay, so he may have eventually found out. I don’t know. He’s
never brought it up with me. So when you say—
Warren: I’m just saying just including photographs, making sure that I have
photographs of people in the book who are now out, whether they were out as students
or not. Some of them were out as students even though, practically, their roommates
would say they’ve never known anybody gay in their entire life, but just making sure
that there—in fact, there’s one person who lives in the Rockbridge County community
who has agreed to come in and look at photographs with me, because he apparently is
somebody people come and stay at his place when they’re in town, so he knows a lot of
people, apparently. So he’s going to come and look through my photographs with me
and help pinpoint pictures, "Oh, yeah. You might want to include that one. You might
want to include that one. You might want to include that one.” And the captions will be
completely innocuous, saying nothing, but just so that people will be recognized when
people—
Dumas: Well, I’ll have to—
Warren: It seems like a low-key way, to me, to be inclusive.

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Dumas: I’ll think about that. I don’t have anything offhand. I have a picture of my
partner with me and my dog but—
Warren: It needs to be at W&L.
Dumas: Right. Well, actually, I was at W&L in June, and I think that John and Mimi
took pictures of the three of us together. That’s actually one of the things I wanted to
ask them about, if they had a picture. There’s a picture with John and I, and I think a
picture with Mimi and I. So that could be there. That’s probably the most recent photo
of me at Washington and Lee. There are photos of me with friends from Washington
and Lee, but I’m the only gay one in there.
Warren: As far as you know.
Dumas: Well, no. I mean, these are people that I still see every day. I just saw one a
month ago out in California.
Warren: Are you comfortable with this being on the record? We’ve had the tape
recorder going all this time.
Dumas: Yes. If I have a change of heart, I’ll call you Monday.
Warren: All this is sitting in my office for a long time before it goes into Special
Collections, but if you have any concerns or any hesitations about it, this section of the
tape can be off the record.
Dumas: There’s not much to say about it. I had a very active social life and I dated lots
of women, but I didn’t confront that part of my life, that I was gay. What was good out
of it was that my relationships with individuals like the Parkers and the Handelmans
and to some extent my relationships with the Elrods, I think, helped me face my parents
and other things. The experiences that I had and their philosophical sort of views and
approach to life made me feel confident, and I think that’s something that I gained in
spite of the opposition of a homophobic nature of the university. So that’s one of the
reasons I probably feel grateful. I could have just been in another environment where
that may not have happened, but talking to my friends from other schools, they just

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didn’t have the experience that I had in making friends with individuals who were also
on the faculty, and I think that gave me an opportunity to look at people who had life
experiences that I was prepared to deal with. No one ever listens to their parents when
their parents say, "I’ve done this. I’ve been here. Don’t do this.” I see it happen with all
my friends. That’s something that we’re coming to realize and something that happens
in the maturing process. You don’t take the advice probably from your parents that
you’re supposed to take, you go ahead and do something stupid or something that you
think is the right decision for you. I think it was those relationships that I had with
those individuals that helped me when I needed it the most, and that’s something that I
think they know, that I’ve expressed to them that they know that I’m grateful to them
for.
Warren: I know the Elrods are extremely fond of you. I know that. And I know Dick
Haynes is. I didn’t even know that you’d been down there, and as I was leaving, he
said, "Have you talked to Willard Dumas? You really should."

         I said, "He’s on my list. He’s on my list."
         He said, "He worked here, and we just thought the world of him.” And he just
couldn’t say enough wonderful things. In fact, it was when I came back from seeing him
that I really started bugging you. "Okay. All right. All right. I’ve got to see this guy,"
and I’m really, really glad I have. Is there anything—I mean, I feel like I’ve taken up
your whole day. Is there anything you’d like to talk about that we haven’t touched on
here?
Dumas: No. I do need to say that it was a very good growing experience, and despite
the homogeneity on the surface, I looked and I found people who didn’t fit into that
sort of stereotypical Washington and Lee mold, and those are some of the people who
are still very good friends of mine. I don’t always get to see them a lot, but we
communicate either by telephone or E-mail or something. I can pretty much tell you
where a number of people are right now and that I’ve spoken to them within the last

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month or two months, and things that are important in their lives I know about and
they know the same thing in mine, and so I think that Washington and Lee has a lot to
do with that.
Warren: Will you be pleased to know that I would say you’re within five minutes of
being as long an interview as John Wilson?
Dumas: Oh, God, long-winded. Not that he’s long-winded.
Warren: No, not at all. Like I said, I’d play you back if you got off the track. You’ve
been on the track the whole time, but I must say, this has been one of the longer
interviews, but it’s partly because I’m so interested.
Dumas: I’ll definitely be curious to see what you get out of this. So I really don’t mean
to emphasize all the race stuff that much. It can’t be denied that there were issues, but
that’s not what I take back now. I really do take with me the friendships that were made
and the exposure to different ideas—some academic things, a rich knowledge of books
and other things.
Warren: Thank you, Willard.
Dumas: Thank you.
Warren: It’s been a real pleasure.
[End of interview]

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