Louise Mould

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Slide - 50 Years, 50 Voices - Louise Mould - 00:00 
Hello, my name is Louise Mould, M-O-U-L-D, and I came to University of
Prince Edward Island as a 17 year old fresh out of high school from
Montreal, where my family was living at the time. I think it was the last
years that they accepted students from Quebec who didn't have the CEGEP,
and of course I was dying to get out of big cities, I, my family is
originally from Toronto and the idea of staying in Montreal or going to
Toronto was just awful, so my guidance counselor before Internet told me I
could study Fine Arts at this new university in Prince Edward Island, I
thought 'Wow, never been to the Maritimes, I've heard wonderful things
about it' and of course, I was a fan of L. M. Montgomery and so all of that
together combined said that's where I'm going.


Slide - Island way - 01:07 
I had a private room and nobody could figure out I found this out
afterwards nobody could figure out how I got that as a Freshman, right, I
don't know either but I did have that and the very first day when I came
out of my room somebody walked along the hallway and said "Hello Louise,
how are you?" and I thought "how do they know my name? and why are they
asking how I am?" and then I realized much later they all did that or that
was just an island way they knew who I was or they didn't know who I was
but they knew my name and it would be not polite to not say hello, right,
whereas I had been coming from Montreal and it was a big high school and I
don't think very many people knew my name there at all so that was one
thing that really struck me and then of course when you're in residence,
you go over you eat in the dining room and that's another place where you
socialize, the big thing on campus every Thursday night was of course the
Pig and Whistle which was in the barn, so I think the age that my first
year, was 21 and...I think everybody just borrowed other IDs and just went
anyway, right? to the point where you'd walk in and the guards "Oh any
friend of Mary is friend of mine" and you just walk in, right? So that was
kind of an interesting eye-opener as well.


Slide - Residence Life - 02:45 
Residence was Bernadine and Marion Hall, it was still kind of a very 50-ish
kind of experience, right? Where the boys had to be out by 8 or something
and they could only go certain places I don't remember all the details of
it but the boys residence at that time was Dalton Hall which was kind of
the 'hellhole' of UPEI, Memorial Hall which was a little better and then
the 4th floor of Main Building was also the guys residence so they would
organize these raids on the girls residences where they would get in and go
running through with water there was water fights and shaving cream and all
that sort of big mess, right the rugs were, the hallway were wet and
horrible and the cleaning ladies really were disgusted the next morning
anyway! So, another friend of mine actually went to the lounge, she had
pre-arranged to let them in unbeknownst to any of us so she was kind of
caught in the act and so she very quickly said, you know, changed her mind
and started pushing them out saying "Oh the window is open, I was trying to
push them out" anyway they got in, I don't know how and so it was like this
mayhem for half an hour until they were scooted out but kind of hard to
believe that sort of thing went on in the early 70’s, right? But yeah, it
was just fun.


Slide - The Cadre - 04:26 
At that time the Student Union was in the basement of Memorial Hall and the
Cadre office was there and the Photo Club was there and so, you went down
the stairs; to the left Student Union was there and the Cadre was down the
hall and a friend of mine decided she wanted to volunteer to be the
business manager that year so she dragged me over to the office when they
were putting the Cadre, laying it out and literally cutting and pasting
with exacto knives and blades and UHU glue sticks we had the sheets and
there was someone typing up the columns and we were cutting that out and
laying it out and then we finally stuck it down. The headlines were formed
by Letraset I don't know if anybody even remembers Letraset and then some
university gave up a machine that gave headlines and so we could put the
headlines in, we got rid of the Letraset. I was there for three years and I
mostly did the cutting and pasting that first year and then I graduated to
managing editor I think, which was a name really but during that time that
was the time when there was a disgruntled employee from the President's
office who came down and handed us a story and I don't even know his name
but he handed us this story this was in February, probably
seventy...three...in which he gave out the salaries of every member of
Faculty and all of the Administration and how he suggested we frame it was
to say "Rate your professor, how many points would you give this professor?
and here's how the experts voted or rated them"; so that column was the
number there was no dollar sign there, it was very very clever and you know
that was right before Carnival, Winter Carnival and nobody paid any
attention to the Cadre except Father Bolger who said Monday morning 'cause
the paper came out Thursday or Friday don't remember Monday morning he said
"I want you all to know that if you have seen the Cadre this week, I am
worth every cent" and of course, that was all he said and he had a big
class and that was in his Island History class, I think, so off everyone
ran to get a Cadre and a friend of mine who was sitting in the barn, said
it was unbelievable; everybody came rushing in to get the Cadre and
normally you know, you can't give it away, right? …So that was a big
story and it basically my friend was asked she was American and she was
asked if her papers were in order and it was a big, big kind of breakup
with the editor and a lot of problems came out of that but you know, it's
one of those stories that it's kind of legendary, right?


Slide - Working in the UPEI Special Collections - 07:52 
I came as, you know, a temporary it was a short term contract that was
renewed a few times and I was working in the cataloguing and metadata, it
was with the original cataloguing for the UPEI what is it...the PEI
collection, Prince Edward Island collection, and of course that's probably
the only cataloguing I really enjoy because it's a challenge, right? It's a
challenge to pull out those subjects and to pull out those things and kind
of make it searchable and for those kinds of things, you know, I did have a
lot of experience working with special collections and you just can't have
a subject heading 'Prince Edward Island' you know in a collection of Prince
Edward Island you can't have that subject you have to, you know, disable
that sort of thing so you know to really get into the detail of Prince
Edward Island, that collection is so amazing it does not, it never ceased
to amaze me the different kinds of... the different all the different
topics that Islanders and former Islanders and generations later Islanders
write about, right. It's absolutely an amazing collection and I'm gonna
tell you one more story because it has to do with Frank Pigot; he was you
know a quiet Librarian you know, I came into the library but I rarely
approached anybody and he was always there, I noticed him but one day, I
came with the Cadre delivering them just out here so it was my last year it
was like maybe March, April and he came out the doors to meet me and he
said, "Oh, can I have a couple of copies?" and I kind of looked at him I
was like, "What does he want a copy of the Cadre for?" I just couldn't
imagine that he was dying to read it, right so he said, "You know we
collect them here in the library" I said, "Really?" I just hadn't imagined,
hadn't imagined anybody wanting to collect the Cadre he said, "Yes, come
and see me and I'll show you, I'll show them to you, we have them bound
even" I said, "Wow, okay" so I took him up on it and it was a very small
the UPEI collection was very small, just here where you have your reference
desk it was in back there in a small room and I went to see him and he
pulled out these Cadres that were bound huge things, I’ve seen them since
and he started to show me the pages where I had first started working on
it, right? and that to me was an amazing thing, how did that, those broad
sheets right that really were the fruit of nothing kept collected and saved
and bound into a volume that, you know, is something that you can go back
and look at not research or study, but look at anyway...so that was kind of
fun gave me an interesting idea about libraries didn’t it, yeah.


Slide - Final Thoughts - 11:28 
Well the development of the physical development has been quite
extraordinary, right even the Ring Road was new in my second or third year
and of course everybody complained bitterly when they couldn't park in
front of their residence and they had to go down to these parking lots that
ringed the whole place and there was a football field, probably around
where Robertson Library sits now and it was pushed further down, so it was
you know it just kept getting bigger and bigger but I will tell you one
thing I noticed on my way in today, and that is that all of the corners
still have that red mud and there's always some place on campus that has
that red mud and all the students from away always curse that red mud it
used to ‘cause of course pants had to be very long and belt bottomed,
right, so they all got very stained with this red mud stuff 'cause they
dragged on the ground anyway, I noticed that mud... yeah, UPEI was a
special special place, I think it still is and that it's still pretty
small, I think a lot of things have contributed to it, one is the
enthusiasm with which the students and faculty and staff come together and
you know, for all there are differences, sometimes it's easy to overlook
them too because you kind of have that common goal right to produce a great
experience, yeah.