Laura Dressler, Oral History

Recorded: August 3, 2007
Interviewed by Craig Simpson
Transcribed by Celia R. Halkovich

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.

[Interviewer]: Good morning, my name is Craig Simpson and the date is August 3, 2007. We are conducting a May 4 Oral History interview today and could you please state your name?

[Laura Dressler]: Laura Dressler.

[Interviewer]: Laura, where were you born?

[Laura Dressler]: I was born in Akron, Ohio.

[Interviewer]: And when did you move to Kent?

[Laura Dressler]: I moved to Kent--

[telephone rings, interview pauses]

[Interviewer]: I had asked you when you had first moved to Kent?

[Laura Dressler]: I first moved to Kent in 1968 when I was still a freshman in the graphic design program here.

[Interviewer]: You were a freshman at Kent State?

[Laura Dressler]: I was a freshman in '67, '68.

[Interviewer]: What year were you in 1970?

[Laura Dressler]: I was a junior, finishing my junior year.

[Interviewer]: And you were in the graphic design program?

[Laura Dressler]: Correct.

[Interviewer]: Although you hadn't been in Kent very long, how would you describe the city of Kent the years leading up to 1970 before the events?

[Laura Dressler]: It's a nice quiet little town. A lot of trees. Of course in the summer when the students disappear, it's very quiet. A very nice little town. Quiet. Not a whole lot happens, or happened in Kent then. And I think the college was a little bit smaller, not a whole lot smaller, but a little bit smaller than it is now.

[Interviewer]: Did your family work here?

[Laura Dressler]: No.

[Interviewer]: Did they have a business here?

[Laura Dressler]: No. My family lived in Cuyahoga Falls, about ten miles away. My mother worked at the Akron Beacon Journal and my dad worked at the Walton Hills Ford Stamping Plant.

[Interviewer]: What memories do you have of those four days in May, starting with Friday, May 1st?

[Laura Dressler]: I think Friday, May 1st I was leaving on a bus with maybe 100 other art students for Washington, D.C. and so--I was in Washington, D.C. most of the weekend and we didn't know what was going on here at all until the buses got back to Kent Sunday night. And the buses pulled onto campus and we were told that we couldn't leave campus. And I didn't even live on campus. So I had to stay with a friend who lived in a dorm. Of course I still had my suitcase from my trip to Washington and actually the suitcase was stuck in that dorm until they opened campus again a month or two later. It was a shock to all of us that all of this stuff had been going on, that the ROTC building had been burned down. Actually, one thing I remember when we were in Washington, we were talking to some other college students in Washington, and they had never heard of Kent State. Of course a few days later, everybody had heard of Kent State. I think most people have heard of it now.

[Interviewer]: So you had no information at all prior to Sunday night?

[Laura Dressler]: No. We were in Washington and of course we were seeing sights. Even if it had been on the news we probably wouldn't have seen it because we were seeing museums and going places and going to restaurants and enjoying Washington, D.C. Actually, the dorm I ended up staying in looks over the area where--looks over the Taylor Hall parking lot. And I think that was part of the reason I couldn't get my suitcase back for a long time. And that's what I remember about those three days.

And then May 4th, I got up and went to class like I normally would. And I remember in classes that morning all the professors seemed to have the same little script and they told us not to participate in any assemblies and just pretty much to behave ourselves and not assemble and not take part in any rallies. And there were a lot of armored personnel carriers, and men with rifles all over campus. I was prepared to do what they told me to do, because I see people with guns and I see what look like army tanks all over campus, I'm going to listen. And then--do you want me to go on about that day?

[Interviewer]: Maybe just to back up a little bit, do you remember seeing any of that when you came in on the bus Sunday night? Anything that indicated something was out of the ordinary?

[Laura Dressler]: Oh, yeah. There were actually two busloads of our students. And when the buses pulled into campus over by Terrace Hall there were armored personnel carriers in the area and National Guardsmen. And they were the ones who told us we couldn't leave campus. I explained that I didn't live on campus but they didn't seem to care, they just told me to stay. Of course I had a big suitcase and I wasn't going to be able to sneak off campus very easily.

[Interviewer]: Did they--so they forced you into the dorm?

[Laura Dressler]: All they did was tell us not to leave campus.

[Interviewer]: So did you stay with a friend?

[Laura Dressler]: Yeah, actually a friend who had been on that trip, because she knew my dilemma. I stayed in her dorm. I left my stuff in her dorm room and I slept on the sofa in the study room down the hall.

[Interviewer]: Did you see or hear any of the events that happened Sunday night?

[Laura Dressler]: No.

[Interviewer]: Any of the confrontations between the Guardsmen and the students?

[Laura Dressler]: No. I don't remember anything Sunday night.

[Interviewer]: So continuing into Monday, May 4, as you were saying, you were in class.

[Laura Dressler]: Yeah, I think I had a couple classes that morning, because I remember hearing that announcement a couple times. I met some of my friends for lunch at what used to be the old Student Union, which is Ritchie Hall now. And we were in the commuter cafeteria which looked out onto The Commons area where the Victory Bell is. And we were all just eating lunch and talking and visiting, and somebody rushed in and said, "They've shot the pigs, they've shot the pigs, they've shot the pigs." And it was so dramatic that everybody stood up and started running out of the room to see what had happened outside.

My friends had left before that, I forgot about that. The three friends I had lunch with that day decided they would go to the demonstration, that was at noon or 12:05 or something. And they tried to persuade me to go, but I had seen all the armored personnel carriers and guns I cared to see. I stayed behind in the Student Union and kept reading. And then that incident happened with that guy running in shouting that they've shot the pigs and everybody jumped up, ran out--most people ran towards the area where it happened, but I went the other way. I've always had a well-developed chicken instinct [laughs].

I ran down to front campus, down at Lincoln and Main and I saw a bus coming and my car was parked out at Stow-Kent Shopping Center so I hopped on the bus and somebody tried to stop the bus. They said, "Stop the bus. You can't leave." because they knew what had happened. And the bus driver kept going anyway.

[Interviewer]: Was it a Guardsman or a police officer who stopped it?

[Laura Dressler]: I think it was, yeah. I can't remember which. My memory of some of this stuff is a little fuzzy at this point. Yeah, somebody tried to stop the bus and he kept going anyway.

My parents by that time had moved to Kent, to the west side of Kent. And I went home. My brother had flunked out of college--now he has a doctorate and everything--but he flunked out of college and was just bumming around at home at that time. It was probably one or two in the afternoon by then and he was still in bed so I got him up and told him something big had happened. And he and I walked to the end of the street--my parents lived on Spaulding on the west side. We walked down to West Main Street and there were no cars coming into Kent and traffic was bumper to bumper leaving Kent, because by then people had been told to take their essentials and go home. And then my brother and I went--we walked down Main Street towards Stow a little ways and sat on--there was a little bridge over Fishcreek [Road]. And we just sat there for a long time watching these cars leave Kent and no cars coming in. Both of my parents had trouble getting into Kent that night coming home from work.

[Interviewer]: What was your family's reaction to the shootings?

[Laura Dressler]: Well, they heard about it during the day, and I think there was so much confusion and maybe phone service was bad because of all the phone calls, they couldn't find out if I had been involved in it. And so they were relieved to see me. Of course they thought that [of] four people [who were shot] out of 20,000 I'd probably be one of them. But they didn't know me very well. I avoid trouble.

[Interviewer]: Was there any dinner table conversations about the confrontation between the Guardsmen and the protesters?

[Laura Dressler]: I don't remember anything that night about conversation, but a couple nights later I went to a father-daughter banquet at my parents church with my dad. He was president of the Methodist Men at the time, and sitting across the table from us was a guy who was way high up in the National Guard. I remember he was infuriating to me. He said, "Well, they should have shot more of those students." And I said, "Well, the students had no idea that the Guardsmen would to start shooting." They were used--back in the late 60s there were demonstrations on campus all the time. Every Wednesday on campus there was a group, The Kent Committee to End the War in Vietnam, you've probably heard of them before. It was an everyday thing to see a group assembling against the war, and it was always very peaceful. Usually there weren't even any campus police nearby. So I think most people had this level of trust that nothing would happen, and it was probably even unquestioned that something would happen.

I remember arguing a little bit with this man who was high up in the National Guard, and then he said something really outrageously ridiculous. I said, "I don't think they were throwing rocks at the Guardsmen." I said there really aren't any rocks--there's a nice lawn up in that area, and if they found anything it would be a few pebbles." But he said, "They had specially imported large rocks." And I thought, Well, no. Who's going to import large rocks to a campus and have them sitting in just the right spot for a confrontation like that? But I quit arguing with him. I wanted to have a nice time with my dad. And he got mad at me, and I got mad at him--not my dad, but the National Guardsman.

The other major thing I remember--my parents lived in Kent then--is that every night for a week or more, helicopters would fly over and mail trucks with taped up windows would drive by, and there was a curfew, we couldn't go out at night. Of course my brother was still living at home then, and he and I would sit out on the lawn and watch these helicopters go over. In a lot of ways it was ridiculous to see all these mail trucks with tape on the windows, because nobody was going to attack them.

[Interviewer]: This was after--

[Laura Dressler]: Yeah, this was for a week or two after the shootings. For years afterwards, I remember that the next-door neighbor woman wouldn't go to the side of town where the university was because she was afraid there'd be a riot. And she would talk about how there had been snipers on top of Reinker's [Super]Market. Which was out on West Main Street. I got off the bus there and my brother and I sat there and watched traffic across from Reinker's, and there were no snipers on the roof. There were all kinds of rumors. There was kind of a mass hysteria afterwards.

[Interviewer]: Just so I can get the quote right, when you said that that student on May 4 ran in and said, "They shot the pigs," was he saying the Guardsmen shot the demonstrators, or was he saying the Guardsmen had been--

[Laura Dressler]: Yeah, "pigs" then meant police or military.

[Interviewer]: Okay. So that they shot--

[Laura Dressler]: Yeah, and he was shouting it very, very dramatically because it had just happened. This guy had probably seen the blood. And he came in just shouting very dramatically, "They've shot the pigs, they've shot the pigs, they've shot the pigs." I think he said it three times. And just en masse, everybody in that room who had been eating lunch, just stood up and scattered.

[Interviewer]: You said your dad had worked for the Beacon Journal. Did he encounter--

[Laura Dressler]: Actually my mom did.

[Interviewer]: I'm sorry, your mother did. Did she, I don't know what her position was there, if she encountered any of that--any of the events that happened afterward. Because I know that the Beacon Journal was involved a lot with the coverage of the shootings.

[Laura Dressler]: I don't remember her saying anything. She was an outside sales person and she sold display ads. She was separate from editorial and news.

[Interviewer]: Did you return to school afterward?

[Laura Dressler]: Yeah, I did. That quarter, of course, everything was interrupted. Some classes we finished by mail. I remember an art class I had, we finished in the basement of the Presbyterian Church. Every professor did things a little different. I dropped one class, and that was fencing, because I didn't like it anyway. [Interviewer laughs] I got paired up in fencing class with a very aggressive person and I didn't like it.

[Interviewer]: That would be difficult to do by mail, I would think.

[Laura Dressler]: [laughs] I think I would have liked it better by mail than with the partner I had.

[Interviewer]: [laughs] So did you, when class returned in session in the fall, did you return?

[Laura Dressler]: Yeah. I graduated a year later. A little follow up on that: I was an art student, and a lot of friends were, and by then I was living in a house with a lot of other art students. And several of us were on the Creative Arts Festival committee, which was completely different from the Creative Arts event that goes on now. Students actually ran the committee and would invite artists of different kinds: musicians, visual artists, poets, that they were interested in. And I think because of the notoriety of Kent State, Allen Ginsberg came to campus that next year for Creative Arts Festival Week. And I got to be his escort around campus for a day. He was such a nice man. He was courteous, he was just outstanding. Kooky. But he was an outstanding human being, and I think he came here only because of what had happened here the year before.

[Interviewer]: What was the atmosphere on campus like that year following the shootings?

[Laura Dressler]: A lot of people I knew quit Kent State and transferred elsewhere because their parents wouldn't let them come back. Otherwise it was pretty much normal, except that there were a lot of people missing. A lot of people I knew stayed too, but I did know a lot of people I who never came back.

[Interviewer]: Were your parents adverse to you returning?

[Laura Dressler]: No. I don't remember them saying anything. I think they knew that this was a fluke. That it's a pretty safe place, basically. I think they knew that.

[Interviewer]: What do you think the consequences were for the city of Kent or the university?

[Laura Dressler]: I think it's better known than it was before, for one thing. I'm sure if I had met those students in the museum in Washington two or three weeks after I did they would have heard of Kent State. If I'm out of state now and I mention Kent State, people have heard of it. So people have heard of it, I think that's a big consequence of it.

Of course every year they have the memorial program here, and there's a few people who participate in that every year that are, I think, notoriety seekers. I've only gone to that once. My memories of that day were so bad and so negative--even though I didn't see the blood and I wasn't there, I never really wanted to participate in that. But I did go, I think it was the twenty-fifth anniversary, and Chic Canfora was speaking and I decided I'd never go back again.

[Interviewer]: Because of what she said?

[Laura Dressler]: She turned her speech about what happened at Kent State into an argument for allowing abortion. And I'm opposed to abortion, but I think she was really getting off the point of memorializing the people who were killed here and turning it into a soap box for her own agenda. So I just decided that I really don't want to have any part of this, and so I've never gone back to one.

[Interviewer]: Are there any other thoughts you'd like to share?

[Laura Dressler]: I'm trying to think--

[Interviewer]: Or memories.

[Laura Dressler]: I've brought up stuff that I haven't thought of in a long time. I remember how kind of scared I was on the bus ride back home the day that happened.

I know something else. Years after this happened, I saw a map plotted out of that area where the Guardsmen were placed, and where each person who was killed was placed, and where each injured person had been. And when I looked at that, I realized that I was actually closer to where the Guardsmen were shooting than some of the people who were killed. And it made me realize--I think that was a very strong impression to me--I had always thought that they were victims, but when I saw--I was sitting just reading a book, minding my own business and I was closer than some of the people who were killed, and it made a very strong statement to me that these people were innocent. Maybe they were told not to--some of them were in the demonstration and they were told not to be there, but still somebody shouldn't get a death sentence for what's really a basic right. The right to assembly and the right to free speech. The people who were walking to class were definitely innocent victims.

[Interviewer]: You had originally thought the Guardsmen were victims prior to seeing that map, is that what you meant?

[Laura Dressler]: No, but I had always thought the students really were victims. Actually, I think the Guardsmen in a way were too, because they were young men, they had been at another event--I think a truck driver's strike--and they were tired, they didn't know what was going on. I've always heard that there was the sound of gunshots or firecrackers or something, and I think they spooked. I really think that's what happened. I've never blamed them. But I think that when the governor sent them here, that was a big mistake.

[Interviewer]: Laura, thank you very much for speaking with us today.

[Laura Dressler]: Okay.

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