Henry Tyler Hill, Oral History

Recorded: May 2, 1995
Interviewed by Connie Sickels
Transcribed by Athena Salaba 

Note: This transcript includes geo-references to locations that are discussed in the oral history. Geographical names linked in the transcript will open in a new window or tab that takes you to that location information and map in the Mapping May 4 project. To request a transcript without geo-reference links included, please contact Kent State University Special Collections & Archives.

[Henry Tyler Hill]: My name is Henry Tyler Hill and I'm fifty-one years old. I've lived in Kent since I came here as a student in 1962.

In 1964 my wife and I started -- we lived downstairs in a student rent-a-room, and managed the upstairs at 309 South Willow Street -- actually it was '66, sorry about that, we were married in '64, and it's '66. So we'd been living downstairs in this house from 1966 until 1970, at the corner of Willow and College [Street], and we had been interacting with the six male students who lived upstairs, different male students and so forth.

I had started teaching high school in 1968 and my wife in 1970 was pregnant for our first child, our daughter, and she was at home that day at 309 South Willow, and I was teaching school here at Roosevelt.

But let me go back to the Friday. Now Friday night, I don't remember too much, I think we just stayed at home or went down to see some friends. But Saturday morning we went downtown to do our banking and, of course go to Hahn's bakery, which everybody did, and stuff like that. And I was really sort of shocked to see the boarded up windows at different locations, and the Huntington Bank there were a few, and some other places, and of course we realized that the situation had gotten out of hand in some ways. We then, of course, started talking to people and we heard more about different things and so forth, and of course Saturday night we knew that tensions were raising even more and we heard the sirens for the fire at the ROTC building and so forth.

And in those days, College extended all the way down to Main Street, there was no Haymaker Parkway. So, at about three in the morning there was a four-way stop at the corner of Willow and College, and I remember hearing these trucks come up and they didn't stop for the stop sign, and they were grinding right through. Then my wife -- our bedroom was right on the ground floor facing College -- and my wife said "God, it's a big truck" and I said "No, Sandra, it has to be the National Guard or the convoy" because it had been going on, you know "rrrrrrr...", you know, this truck would have to be a mile long or whatever it was. And sure enough I looked out the window and you could see. And so, at that point, Sunday morning, a friend of ours came over, Tom Tursick [spelling?], and we went up to the University, just walked there, and it was really strange. I remember seeing soldiers with rifles and of course the burned down building, the ROTC building, and just thinking, you know, the whole thing was sort of -- what's going on and so forth. But I didn't feel any fear or anything.

As a school teacher, we had been involved with kids who were active in the SDS. In fact -- can I give names too? One of them was a young man called -- named Paul Learhouse. And Paul was one of these students who was very active on campus and wanted to bring that kind of activism into the school. But he did it in an aggressive, confrontational sort of way. But he had a following of students who thought like he did.

Well, anyways, in running for student council, Paul, around this time -- and I might -- I might have to look up the dates, but just to give you an example of dealing with these kind of kids. Paul was sort of interesting, I mean he was obviously very concerned about things, and you could talk to him really, and if you didn't -- if you listened to him and if you, you know, if you kept the conversation cool, he would respond appropriately and -- Anyways, the kids had split their vote, traditional kids who run for -- for student body president, and so Paul actually won the election.

And I remember the principal -- I was sort of involved with these kids and I'll explain that in a minute -- but anyways, Paul -- Paul [laughter] -- the principal came to me because I was close to a bunch of these kids, and he said -- he just asked my opinion about, should we really, "what do you think about letting him take office?", and my own feeling was, if we have a democracy, by God, we have to let him take office. And I said "If he does any, anything that's illegal or against the rules, let's deal with him on that basis, but not just because of his beliefs." And the principal felt this way too, and this was a crew-cutted [sic] principal, you wouldn't think would feel that way, but he believed in America, and so Paul took office.

Well, to make a long story short, he tried his confrontational method there, it didn't work, the kids stopped coming. He couldn't even get a majority [laughter] totally, so he didn't do anything for a whole year, he couldn't -- and of course he didn't want to have dances or anything else, that would have gotten other kids involved, he didn't really understand how to do this. So the whole thing just sort of collapsed.

I used to go to some of his meetings, and there would be three or four of his cronies and they'd bitch and moan, and nothing would happen, they couldn't even get a quorum to do anything. He was more effective on the outside than he was on the inside anyway.

[Interviewer]: This is at the high school?

[Henry T. Hill] This is here. And so, the next year the kids put a real, you know, person, to head the events and everything in life went on. But we, he did his thing and that was all right. But we had some kids who wanted to go out -- and Paul Learhouse with them, probably one of them whether he was or not, but the kids who thought like that wanted to go out and tear down the American flag on the flag pole, and we had some kids whose fathers and brothers and -- were over in Vietnam or had been, who were going to go out and explained why they weren't going to do that.

Then, there was also black tension in Kent and that tension spilled over into our high school too. And there were many meetings and we started a Black History course and a Black Literature course and this was controversial and so forth. So you put the three of those things going on and it was an exciting place. And we were just basically trying to keep the lid on.

I was sort of the unofficial advisor to an underground newspaper, and the only word I ever censored was the "f" word [laughter], of course everybody knew what it was, whether it was there or not, but other than that I would read everything they wrote, you know -- but I didn't ever censor anything else and I don't know if they would have let me anyways. But they always brought it to me and had me read it. So I got along well with them, and I could understand their concerns and so forth, both ways. So I did have some understanding with that kind of thing.

I never thought -- back to Sunday -- even with the ROTC building, I never thought that it would lead to the tragedy that occurred Monday. I just -- I -- I felt that it would just go on, that maybe the school year would come to an end, and then just kind of, okay, we'd have the summer, and it would go on, and then -- So, Monday, May 4th, I was teaching school, and the first inkling I had of something was -- some kids were running down the hall, in between the period I'm teaching. And one of them was even crying and -- and you know. And finally the -- to the best of my knowledge, the principal came on and said that there had been -- and, of course, ambulances -- we also started hearing those and so forth, and the principal came on and said that there's been some -- something happened at Kent State, and that we were going to dismiss early and we had to wait until the buses came.

Well, there was a rush to get to phones by the kids, and of course, then panic really set in, and that is something -- of course maybe the young people wouldn't understand, but there are only so many phone lines. And if everybody picks up the phone line in Kent, we don't have enough phones, and you just don't get a dial tone. And this panics people like you can't believe. Anyway, no dial tones. And so people couldn't call their parents and they were worried about this, and the buses -- We had been getting bomb threats at Roosevelt. And the way we dealt with them then, was we basically just kind of walked around and like, near the gas lines, down by the boiler room, and if there were no bombs we didn't do anything, we didn't close down.

[Interviewer]: Wow.

[Henry T. Hill] And the reason we were getting bomb threats is because people at the university -- and the kids too -- were thinking, if they could get us out of school, a lot of these kids would come up to the university, which of course they would have, and that's partly why we didn't respond. And I remember watching the principal get one of these and his face turn white and I said, "Did you get another bomb threat?" and he said, "Yes," and then he said, "We'll just keep going," and of course, nothing blew up and everything was fine. I'm not sure if we would respond that way today after the tragedy in Oklahoma City, but luckily no one ever did do anything along those lines. But, so we kept going.

Anyway, the buses were escorted by troops and jeeps, and taken home, and we teachers stayed around until everybody was out. And I remember then, okay, I couldn't call my wife, there were no phone lines, so I couldn't get ahold of her. I knew she had gone up on the university that day, to put an add in the Stater for one of our rooms or something -- for some of our rooms, and she would have gone up to Taylor Hall to do this. But I -- I just trusted that she [laughter] wouldn't be involved and I -- we didn't have any idea of what really happened anyways, they were just rumors coming back and forth.

So, in driving home, I remember going down to Mantua and going to Main Street, and turning and going down the hill, and going across the Main Street bridge. And the whole Main Street was empty. I have never seen it like that. There were -- there weren't -- there wasn't anybody walking, there were no cars, and I thought, "My God, what has happened?" I mean, it was just -- And so I drove on up to Willow Street, and my wife started filling me in because she knew more than I did and so forth.

Students were packing like crazy, and leaving. And I remember we had a curfew at what?- At five o'clock the first night. And literally, before five o'clock there were kids running down the street with suitcases, you could tell were haphazardly packed, there was stuff hanging out of them. Literally running down the street. Our boys upstairs cleaned out right away and went home. And at five o'clock, the town all of the sudden just got quiet. Now the curfew was, we couldn't even be off our property, like driving or anything. And the first thing was like, it was like a silence. And then within about fifteen minutes I remember a policeman walking up College Street with his hand on his revolver and the strap off the top of the revolver. This is really something, I mean, he had his hand on the trigger, ready to pull it out. He didn't have it out, but he had it ready to pull out.

That night there were helicopters that flew over. I remember our cat, who always went out at night, especially in Spring, was -- finally came in with her ears flat because these helicopters would -- with search lights were beaming down, and so forth.

After that, it's -- it was a weird place. Without the students, the FBI agents were easy to spot. In fact my wife and I were so pathetic. We're over doing our laundry, we didn't have a washer and dryer, we were over in the little plaza where Kinko's is, we were doing our laundry, these two guys with crew cuts [laughter, words are not clear] everything but FBI agents and they were doing their laundry. So my wife being Sicilian and smart-mouthed, goes up to them and says, "You guys are FBI men," and they sort of gave us this look, and I said, "Oh, Sandra, we don't need to get anybody's 'How did you know?'" I think that's what they said and I thought, "Good God, it's the sign you worry about." I mean Geez, I mean guys, look around!

But other than that, we didn't open school the next day, I guess. And then the following day we did, and the only thing we did every single period was let just kids talk, and talk with them, just about everything and try to get our stories all straight so that everybody had, you know, "Where were you, where were your parents," and this kind of stuff, and that was just a -- we probably did that for a couple of days. And we just found a lot of, kind of therapy for all of us.

And I think we -- you know, the whole thing just changed. I had people write to me and ask me, that hadn't written to me in quite a while, and wanted me to write down what happened. And my brother-in-law asked me to send him a tape, and so we tried to put together the pieces as best we could. Very sad thing. I always viewed it as -- as almost like a traffic accident, you know. Here are two cars driving along and everything is fine, and somehow at a certain tragic moment they meet in a terrible way -- I don't think the Guardsmen went up there to -- they didn't want to be there, I mean, as far as I know, you know. Good golly, you know, they're called to fight a war, not to guard, and they've just been guarding truckers, and the teamsters' strike -- they didn't want to do that, and now they're up on a college campus, and, "Why we are here?" and -- and the whole thing just -- it had a certain unreal thing about it -- it just -- it was sort of like these forces just came together and then there was this tragedy.

You know, I think it changed America -- at least changed a lot of us. And -- and maybe for the better, I mean, you know -- I mean, I don't know -- we'll see. Anyways, those are some of my memories, so...

[Taping stopped and started again]

And one other story about high school at the time. In the twenty-seven years, from '68 to '95 that I've taught school, I never felt really, any concern for my safety, except for one incident and luckily I was young, it probably would bother me more now. Again, I think it was Paul Learhouse. I'm not sure, but I'm pretty sure it was either him or one of his -- either he or one of his followers. He was speaking outside the school during lunch hour. Just outside the atrium doors and so forth. And what it -- he was talking about the anti-war movement and why people should join in, why the Vietnam War was immoral and so forth.

And I remember, I'm out there, and I'm just sort of acting as a teacher, but I'm listening. This is part of my rapport with these, these kids, because I was only in my second or third year of teaching, and so forth. And I was the only teacher around. I never thought too much about that. Well, the crowd started to get -- different groups shifted up to the front. These were the kids whose fathers or brothers were over in Vietnam and they were pretty -- they were pretty upset by some of the things he was saying and by the whole...

[Tape 3:B ends here]

[Tape 4:A]

OK. And -- and the students that were moving more up to the front now, more reflected the people whose fathers or brothers were in the war, who supported them, and they had a grim look on their face. So I moved closer to the -- to the young man who was speaking, and I'm sort of standing almost next to him and I'm looking at them. And they picked up these little stones, little tiny gravel stones, maybe half an inch long or something, and they had a handful and they were starting to like, bounce them off to his chest. Not, not throw them hard, just sort of like that, just, you know -- you could -- just sort of like this. And they're just slowly moving closer. And I'm sort of looking at them and they're bouncing the stones off his chest and they're moving closer. And there probably were a good five or maybe ten of them, and these were some big boys, they even played football, and they were good kids. I mean nothing -- they weren't violent kids otherwise or in any way, but you could see that a rage was sort of coming over them. And he just kept on talking and so forth. And I could not see another teacher, there was no other teacher around to ask for help, I'm already standing right next to him, and the only thing that I can think is if they rush him, I'll just step in front. But they're just going to throw me out of the way, there is not much I can do. And so, I can't get an eye on an other teacher, I can't leave to go get another teacher because then for sure they'll rush him, and I'm thinking, "My God, what's going to happen, this is going to be, you know, this is really going to go at it, and it may be more than just a fight," and then the bell rang. [laughter] Being high school kids they went to class. It was classic, they all left and went to class. The whole thing just "poof," like a balloon, just collapsed, and even the kid speaking, they just -- that was it, it's time to go to class, lunch is over. And I thought, "God, thank God for Pavlov," or whatever, they were organized to the bells, hearing the bell they go.

[Interviewer]: So they did it, right?

[Henry T. Hill]: And that was it.

[Interviewer]: And it never happened again.

[Henry T. Hill]: And it, no, it didn't, you know. I don't know what, it just broke the mood and they went, and that was it. And I thought, "Oh, my God," nobody saw my moment. But I'll tell you, I earned my pay that day. I was going to throw my body in front and do my best to protect him if I could, but there were a lot of them, and they weren't going to hurt me, you know, I mean, but I felt concerned for more people's safety that way. But it was kind of neat story. Showed the tension here. And yet these kids had to kind of live together too. But this was America. This was a mini --

[Interviewer]: It was a microcosm.

[Henry T. Hill]: Right. A microcosm of America. And that's one of the neat things about Kent though. I like it, anyways. Every time I think about moving to a Hudson or a Bath, or anything, it's too vanilla. God, get a life! [laughter] What's the matter with you people? Geez, really.

[Interviewer]: What's vanilla about it?

[Henry T. Hill]: I mean it really is. I mean that's one of the neat things about a college town. I mean there's just all sorts of people here and they all sort of -- we may test each other a little bit but we get along. And we make something out of the place, and it's good for the kids too and they see it. And I like that. So we stay here and so do you.

[Interviewer]: Great story!

[Henry T. Hill]: Well, thanks.

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