“It has been 70 years since I left Berkeley. My first year was at Barrington Hall in 1937, In 1938 I transferred to the new Oxford Hall and was there until 1941. I spent a lot of time my first two years in the Central Kitchen as a kitchen assistant. In the 1938 Christmas-New Years time there was a Student Christian conference at Asilomar (near Monterey). The Central Kitchen was given a contract to provide the food services for the conference, so I went along to work there. I had plenty of spare time so was able to attend many of the conference lectures. I was introduced to a ‘wonderful’ girl, who in time became my beloved wife of 61 years, and who has now passed away. This shows how influential the Co-op has been in my life. Among my life-long friends have been Ted Johnson, George Yasukochi, Hal Norton, to name a few of many.”

Richard Gardner
Oxford Hall 1937-41

“I remember well the very early morning workshift at the central bakeshop. I loved making the fabulous bear claws that had tons and tons of butter slathered on the dough. In those days we didn’t worry about saturated fat!”

Dr June Payne Palacio
Stebbins Hall, 1960-62

“I share with my interns too young to remember a time without laptops and WiFi my memories of typing the minutes of the ExCom meetings on Wordstar for DOS, printing them on a daisy wheel printer on mimeograph masters, then going downstairs to load mimeograph machine with the master and the ink and run them off for compilation in time for House Run... I’m guessing that’s all done via email now, huh?”

Valerie Smith,
Sherman Hall 1981-85, Co-op President

“The extraordinary thing about Oxford was the intensity of studiousness there. Most of the men were recently out of the second world war and were deadly serious about getting good grades and good jobs. One day, a small article appeared on the Oxford bulletin board saying that of all the U.C. living groups on campus, Oxford Hall had the highest grade-point average! Nobody said a word. I went around trying to arouse a little enthusiasm. “Yeah, yeah,” they all said... “So?” That’s how things were in yee olde days”

Robert Blau
Oxford Hall, 1949-51