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Oral History Interview with Stephanie Kulp Seymour

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Oral History Interview with Stephanie Kulp Seymour Oral History Interview with Stephanie Kulp Seymour Interview Conducted by Juliana Nykolaiszyn May 24, 2011 Inductees of the Oklahoma Women’s Hall of Fame Oral History Project Special Collections & University Archives Edmon Low Library ● Oklahoma State University © 2011 Inductees of the Oklahoma Women’s Hall of Fame Oral History Project Interview History Interviewer: Juliana Nykolaiszyn Transcriber: Adam Evans Editors: Miranda Mackey, Latasha Wilson, Juliana Nykolaiszyn The recording and transcript of this interview were processed at the Oklahoma State University Library in Stillwater, Oklahoma. Project Detail The oral histories collected as a result of the Inductees of the Oklahoma Women’s Hall of Fame Oral History Project preserves the voices and experiences of extraordinary Oklahoma women who serve as pioneers in their fields, made significant contributions to the State of Oklahoma, or have championed other women, women’s issues, or served as public policy advocates for the issues important to women. This project was approved by the Oklahoma State University Institutional Review Board on June 18, 2007. Legal Status Scholarly use of the recordings and transcripts of the interview with Stephanie Kulp Seymour is unrestricted. The interview agreement was signed on May 24, 2011. 2 Inductees of the Oklahoma Women’s Hall of Fame Oral History Project About Stephanie Kulp Seymour… Judge Stephanie Kulp Seymour was born in Battle Creek, Michigan in 1940. She grew up going on extensive family vacations where she learned a lot about the world. She earned a bachelor’s degree from Smith College in 1962, where she graduated magna cum laude, and a Juris Doctorate from Harvard Law School. She was one of twenty-three women of 550 students to graduate from Harvard Law School in 1965. At this time, only 3 percent of law school graduates in the United States were women. After working in private practice in Boston, Houston, and Tulsa for fourteen years, in 1979 she was nominated by President Jimmy Carter to fill a new seat on the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals. She served as Chief Judge of the Tenth Circuit from 1994 to 2000, and in 2005 she assumed senior status. She was the first female judge to serve on the Tenth Circuit and the first to serve as Chief Judge. She was also the first woman to serve as chair of the US Judicial Conference. She was inducted in the Oklahoma Women’s Hall of Fame in 2005. Seymour enjoys her position as senior judge, as well as traveling and spending time with her husband, Tom, four children, Bart, Bria, Sara, and Anna, and their families. 3 Inductees of the Oklahoma Women’s Hall of Fame Oral History Project Stephanie Kulp Seymour Oral History Interview Interviewed by Juliana Nykolaiszyn May 24, 2011 Tulsa, Oklahoma Nykolaiszyn My name is Juliana Nykolaiszyn with the Oklahoma State University Library. Today is Tuesday, May 24, 2011, and I’m in Tulsa, Oklahoma, interviewing the Honorable Stephanie Seymour. This interview is being conducted as part of the inductees of the Oklahoma Women’s Hall of Fame Oral History Project. Judge Seymour was inducted into the Oklahoma Women’s Hall of Fame in 2005. Thank you for joining us today. Seymour You’re very welcome. Nykolaiszyn Let’s begin by learning a little bit more about you. Could you tell us a little bit about where you grew up and give us a little insight into your early life? Seymour I grew up in Battle Creek, Michigan, a town of about 30,000 back then, sort of halfway between Detroit and Chicago on the lower part of Michigan. I am one of four children, second oldest. I have an older brother, a younger brother, and younger sister. Neither of my parents went to college. My mother had a nursing degree. She was a nurse. My father, well, he was an interesting character. His father was a lawyer and a judge, but he broke his ankle ice skating when he was in the ninth grade. So, he was out of school recovering from that. And then the summer after that, he contracted polio, which really knocked him flat. He had a leg brace on. He never went back to school. So, he did a lot of goofing around, running around the country until he married my mom, at which time he was working for a bank. He saved some money, bought some land at the end of the war. He couldn’t be in the war because he was disabled, basically, and started getting into the businesses of having houses built for returning service people. So, he made a good living. One thing I did in my childhood that is so memorable to me is that we traveled all over the country, mostly in the wintertime, mostly going south. But this is with four kids, and up until I was about in eighth grade. 4 I was in every state except three by the time I went to college—by car. I was basically homeschooled in the car for the three months we would take off in the wintertime. So, that was an adventure, one that I really appreciate more now that I’m older than I did when I was younger, but we had a great time. Nykolaiszyn Do you have a lot of memories of visiting the different states? Seymour I do. I do. I remember seeing the Grand Canyon, Florida, Fort Lauderdale when there were no high rises on the beach. I mean, there was just nothing on the beach, just acres and acres of beautiful sand. I remember New Orleans, that was a wild place. I remember getting stung by a sting ray in water off of Texas. Just things like that. Getting up really early, we would travel early because there was no air conditioning and quit early, tried to find a motel with a swimming pool, which we’d all jump in. Yes, I remember a lot of places and things, and we always did museums. One year we spent a month in Florida, and then went all the way up the East Coast and did Savannah, Georgia, did Washington D.C. and all the monuments and museums, New York City, Boston, and then up—by that time it was spring—into Montreal and Toronto and Canada and came across the bridge to Detroit. Another year we went across New Orleans, across Texas, up, spent a month in LA, and then came back through the Grand Canyon and all of that. It was great. Nykolaiszyn Did you have a favorite place? Seymour Oh, gosh. I don’t think so. Nykolaiszyn Well, what a good adventure to have as a… Seymour It was a great adventure and made me want to—my father was extremely well read—well, both of my parents were. But he encouraged all of us to get as much education as we could. I grew up thinking I could do anything I wanted to do. Nykolaiszyn So, when you settled back down for school—I take it in Michigan? Seymour No. Nykolaiszyn No? Seymour No, I went to public high schools, and my father wanted somebody in the family to go to an Ivy League school, and women were not admitted in those days to places like Harvard and Yale. So, I went to Smith College. Back then, there were seven women’s colleges, all women, known as the Seven Sisters. I went to Smith, and I loved it. It was the 5 first time I was among all these terrific, smart women from all over the country. It was great. Nykolaiszyn But before Smith, where were you going then? Seymour I was going to public school in Michigan, in Battle Creek. Nykolaiszyn So, when you were going through high school, were you gravitating toward any special subjects? Seymour I was always interested in English and literature, and I thought I was pretty good in math until I took it in college. Got disabused of that notion, but primarily, not really sciences, although I took basic courses. Nykolaiszyn Did you do anything special in high school for fun? Seymour I was a cheerleader, and so I did all the sports events. I also swam. I dived. I was a diver. That was the only thing girls could do. They didn’t have basketball or anything for girls back then. Nykolaiszyn So, it seems your parents fostered this education… Seymour Yes, both of them. Nykolaiszyn And so when you were in high school getting ready to attend Smith, what were you thinking about what you wanted to be when you got older? Seymour I had no idea. And Smith is a liberal arts college, so you didn’t have to pick a major until entering junior year. So, it was basically—in fact, we were required to take courses in everything, including language and science and math, at least one year worth of everything. I’d taken Latin in high school, which was I think was the only thing offered, and I took French in college. And we continued to travel. My father took all of us to Europe when I was seventeen, the summer I graduated from high school. We went by boat because he didn’t like to fly, which is why we drove all over the place. He bought an English Ford, which we brought back with us. It was made by Ford, but made in England. We traveled all over Europe that summer. Nykolaiszyn Not too bad. Seymour No, it was great. I continued to do that. Got a great education at Smith and really learned.
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