Interview of Beverly Rex-Burley

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Title

Description

Beverly Rex-Burley is a faculty woman who shared experiences of her in Geneseo, from when she was a student through now. Her niece, Miranda, a Geneseo student, joined the conversation. The oral interview was taken and transcribed by Jordan Keane.

Creator

Keane, Jordan

Date

2015-09-11

Contributor

Rex-Burley, Beverly; McKinney, Miranda

Format

doc, 32.6 KB

Type

Interview

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JORDAN: Can you tell me a little bit about your experiences in Geneseo? BEVERLY: When I first started here at Geneseo as a student, there was a Dean here. Her name was Dean Shoemaker. You know how their office is sorta open? There wasn’t walls down the hall. It was kinda all open. And well somebody was not happy with her for not approving something and she came to work one day and somebody had left her a pile of poo in her office. Also at that time my sister worked in the records office, and sometimes we had to work on Saturdays for registration times. I was working student accounts. It was when registration stuff was manually done, so you’d have these little cards and stuff, and one Saturday one drunk male student—I assume he was a student—was outside of Erwin urinating outside my sister’s office. JORDAN: What was it like for you to be a student here? BEVERLY: I came here right out of high school, and then I took a leave because my husband—I got married and my husband was in the service so I moved to Germany, and then I finished a semester while I was over there, and then I took a leave of absence when I started working here again when we decided to have a kid while he was still in the service. So then when I started working again, I started working as a state worker here, and at some point down the road, right before I became a widow, I started taking classes again to finish up my degree. So I took two classes a semester and finally finished my degree—changed my field of course. JORDAN: What did you get your degree in? BEVERLY: I got my degree in Sociology, but I originally came here as a mathematics major. I was going to be a math teacher. By the time that I got my degree in Sociology, my goal was to become a social worker because that really is my area of work. But by that time I was a widow, and I was making more money, ten thousand dollars more than what a social worker would start out with, but I also had benefits guaranteed for my son and I, and I had a retirement already locked in and everything. So I had a permanent full time job. So I just put my social work out to the students. So a little bit of a different field, but now my son [Brian], he was really good in math, and when he decided to quit college, I signed him up for a state clerk’s test and he was working three part time jobs, and he got a 100 on it. ‘Cause with the civil service you gotta, the higher you score, they interview the top three scores, and you have to be within the top three to get hired, and so that’s how he got hired here. And now he works in student accounts. MIRANDA: And that’s how my entire family ended up working here. BEVERLY: Actually, my second, her [Miranda’s] third cousin, works on maintenance. BEVERLY: What originally drew you to Geneseo? BEVERLY: I was close. Dansville wasn’t very far away. It’s actually the only school I applied to. And my brother is an alumni from Geneseo, so I wanted to go to Geneseo for those two reasons. I didn’t live on campus, I just wanted to commute. And I got a work study job, so I started working the summer before I started. I worked in the financial aid office. So I worked full time during the summer and then part time during the school year. JORDAN: What was it like commuting as opposed to living on campus? BEVERLY: I liked it better because I didn’t want to get into any of the Greek life stuff. I wasn’t a partier or anything like that. And I was very close to my family. So when I got married and all of a sudden moved to Germany, that was very hard. Because that was pre-facebook, pre-email, pre-text messaging, pre any of that stuff. And that was when the mall was still up in Germany. And you couldn’t call because it was very expensive. So very rarely could you call home. [. . .] I took my Calc. 3 final on a Thursday and got married that Saturday. JORDAN: How long were you there for? BEVERLY: A year. MIRANDA: And she got pregnant there. BEVERLY: Yep. My son’s got a stamp on his ass that says made in Germany [. . . ] But I love Geneseo, I’ve been here twenty five years as a worker. And of course I’m an alumni here. When my son was about a year old, I started working part time at a Rite Aid in Dansville as shift supervisor there. The state tests are only offered every so many years, so the state test came out, I took the test, did very well on it, and then there wasn’t an opening yet. The clerk tests—there was that many on campus, and so I got a part-time job at the DEC and then a position came open [at Geneseo] in student accounts, and back then they called it Bursars. And so I interviewed for that, and job the job, and so I was excited and very happy. And my office was right next door to my sister’s office, so it was very cool and very nice. We would drop some kids off at the daycare down the hill—some little kid’s named Miranda and Anthony [her sister’s kids]. MIRANDA: The daycare was where the new sports complex is. So it was on campus. BEVERLY: So yeah, it was really nice. Back in the 70s, Geneseo was known as a party school, but then in the 80s it was getting hard to get into. So I put my money on applying to one school. But I did well on my SATs. I won a regional scholarship and then a couple other scholarships. So I did well. And financial aid did well because my parents didn’t make a lot of money. But yeah, Geneseo, I liked it. I’m still here. I graduated in 1983, and I started here as a work study, so I’ve been working here a long time. I remember one time when I was working at student accounts, we had a student come in and they were from the AOP office, and there was this one girl who came in and her nails—I think she was from Brooklyn—her nails were so long and they like curled. I’m like “How do you do anything with that?” And she just laughed. I mean, some weird experiences. When I was working there, I worked with a guy, my friend Dan. And so Dan was talking to somebody, I was working with a student, and all of a sudden, he looks at me and says “Where did she go?” And I was like “What?” And he goes “The girl I was talking to?” And so I look over the counter and she passed out! And so I run out and I was trying to help her and call for help—the first responders and stuff—and he [Dan] told her there was something wrong with her financial aid, and she was stressed, and so she passed out. Dan was like this very scrawny little guy, you know, redhead, very short—and so all day he was like “Aw I’ve had women falling at my feet all day today.” JORDAN: What are some experiences you’ve had off the campus, in the town? BEVERLY: I had a weird experience at Walmart. I went to Walmart one day, and it was high school graduation day, and I stopped in there for something. And when I was checking out I wasn’t paying attention, and I looked down. And in the cart, there was one of their deposit bags. And I look inside, and there was all this cash. And so I took it up and gave it to customer service. I didn’t want anybody to get fired from their job. I had all these people tell me “Aw man! You should have left with it!” No! That’s stealing. It’s still their money, you know? There’s cameras everywhere, first of all. MIRANDA: How about when you were younger? Did you like any places in Geneseo? BEVERLY: We once in a while came to the movies here, but we didn’t have a lot of money. And I certainly wasn’t one to hang out with the college kids because I wasn’t a drinker. But we did come. My brother had a lot of band, orchestra, events. So we’d come, especially his senior recitals and stuff, we’d come and listen to that. I really liked that. And when I was a student here, I took some German classes, after I lived in Germany. And my teacher was this little German woman. And she had us to her house once, to watch a German movie and there was German food. And that was really cool. MIRANDA: Did you have any friends and go somewhere? BEVERLY: Well my one friend, my best friend actually, commuted with me. MIRANDA: Aunt Teresa? BEVERLY: Aunt Teresa. MIRANDA: Her best friend married her brother. BEVERLY: We used to go to the Hub a lot. It’s no longer there. It’s now called “The Knight Spot.” It’s Blake A. I don’t know, is it even still open? But anyways, it was amazing. It was not Fusion or whatever, and you could get lunch there and stuff, and they had the best cookies and they had nice salads. And we’d go there and sit and have lunch and it was just a nice hang out space. And it’s no longer there anymore. Of course we loved, everybody loved Aunt Cookies. You can’t go to Geneseo and not go to Aunt Cookies. And of course Buzzo’s. Buzzo’s on Main Street. MIRANDA: It’s the music store on Main Street. They have a bunch of records and stuff. BEVERLY: Buzzo’s famous. I think he was in a motorcycle accident, too. And Uncle Bob’s picture might be on the wall—my brother, because he’s a musician. Obviously, Buzzo’s a musician. Anyways, the store is right next to Sundance. And back then the bookstore here was horrible, it was horribly expensive. There was no online Amazon or anything. There were barely computers. But Sundance, you could order your books through them. And it was much cheaper, and they were alumni’s from the school, so you were helping the alumn. It was much cheaper. So that was nice. There weren’t a lot of restaurants back then. There weren’t any on the strip. I was so happy when Applebee’s came. It’s my favorite restaurant. But I think Wendy’s was big here. We didn’t have a Wendy’s anywhere near us. [. . .] I went to Club 41 once, when I first started at the college. I went with some of my work friends. And I went to Kelly’s I think once or twice. But I was like “No, I’m not touching anything here. It was gross.” Of course, I’m not much of a drinker. I was drunk once in my life, and I was not fond of it.