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MIKE EDGERLY: You're listening to Minnesota Public Radio. It's cloudy, 67 degrees at KNOW FM, 91.1, Minneapolis Saint Paul. Twin Cities weather for this afternoon-- cloudy skies, a chance of showers tonight, with a high this afternoon around 70 degrees. Rain continuing tonight. The time is now 12:01.

ANNE BOZELL: From NPR News in Washington, I'm Anne Bozell. Lawyers in the Microsoft case are due back in court today. This is the deadline for the final Justice Department recommendation on a punishment for Microsoft. Government attorneys will outline the plan for Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson. They have previously recommended splitting the software giant into two companies. New York City police want to question a former employee at the Wendy's restaurant where five workers were killed and two wounded in a shooting Wednesday night. Kerry Nolan of member station WNYC has details.

KERRY NOLAN: While reports say police are looking at several suspects in the grisly killings, tops on their list is a former employee who is also a suspect in a robbery at another fast food restaurant last summer. 36-year-old John Taylor missed a court date in connection with that robbery, and a warrant was issued for his arrest. The Wendy's Corporation has pledged $50,000 for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the killers. And the city of New York added another $10,000.

Police say the killings were methodically planned by someone who had intimate knowledge of how the restaurant worked. Seven people were shot execution style. Five died. One man is in critical condition, another has left the hospital. Both are under heavy police protection. For NPR news, I'm Kerry Nolan in New York.

ANNE BOZELL: A federal appeals court has refused to overturn a judge's ruling that President Clinton committed a criminal violation of the Privacy Act by releasing letters from presidential accuser Kathleen Willey. The three-judge panel said it did not take seriously White House arguments that the ruling interferes with the work of the president and his aides.

Peruvians are bracing for street protests and possible international sanctions in the wake of their government's decision to go ahead with presidential elections on Sunday. John Miller reports from Lima.

JOHN MILLER: Challenger Alejandro Toledo is calling for supporters to demonstrate in the streets rather than vote on Sunday. Yesterday, protesters hurled bricks at police and broke windows at the Office of the National electoral Tribunal. The Tribunal voted not to move the date of the election despite calls for a postponement by the Organization of American States, the European Union, and Peruvian poll watching groups.

The decision effectively means that President Alberto Fujimori will run uncontested for a third five-year term. The OAS says its observers won't monitor the vote since the credibility of the election has been compromised. Last month, President Clinton signed a resolution promising to reconsider relations with Peru if elections were seen to be less than free and fair. For NPR news, I'm John Miller in Lima.

President Clinton will travel to the Maryland shore this afternoon. He'll signed an executive order calling for new regulations to reduce pollution of beaches, coasts, and oceans. On Wall Street, the Dow Industrials are up about 10 points at this hour, the NASDAQ composite is down about ten, and the S&P 500 is down a fraction. This is NPR News from Washington.

In NPR'S business update, the leading maker of disk drives for personal computers says it's closing one of its plants in Southern California. The move by Seagate Technology will eliminate about 600 jobs. Jeff Berry with member station KCLU reports.

JEFF BERRY: The Seagate closure in the city of Anaheim is part of a company wide restructuring announced last September. Company officials say the California plant was unable to compete with overseas competitors that can produce data storage disks for less because of lower labor costs. In addition, sales of disk drives have been sluggish due to an industry-wide price war.

Seagate also plans to close a sister plant in Mexicali, Mexico, where 590 workers will be laid off. Production will be moved to a Seagate plant in Northern Ireland. Since September, Seagate has closed plants in Singapore, Thailand, and Northern California and has laid off nearly 18,000 employees. For NPR news, I'm Jeff Berry in Thousand Oaks, California.

ANNE BOZELL: A bit of a surprise today from the Commerce Department word that factory orders for durable goods dropped last month by 6.4%. Many economists had predicted that orders for items such as cars, computers, and appliances would rise in April. But David Wyss, the chief economist for Standard and Poor's, says recent rate hikes may be slowing the economy.

DAVID WYSS: I think we are seeing some cooling off of the economy. After all, the Fed's raised interest rates by point and a quarter since this whole thing started. We're up to 6.5% on the interest rate, and we're finally beginning to see some impact right about nine months after the first tightening move.

ANNE BOZELL: And the Commerce Department says personal incomes rose 7/10 of a percent in April. I'm Anne Bozell, national Public Radio News in Washington.

MODERATOR 1: Support for NPR comes from virtualrelocation.com, an online resource for moving and relocation featuring cost of living comparisons and virtual city tours, at virtualrelocation.com.

GRETA CUNNINGHAM: With news from Minnesota Public Radio, I'm Greta Cunningham. Family members, friends, and many NBA players turned out for today's funeral of Timberwolves player Malik Sealy in New York City. There's also a strong contingent from Saint John's, the University where Sealy starred. Sealy was killed Saturday in a crash with a wrong-way driver on a highway in a Minneapolis suburb. The other driver survived the crash and has been charged with vehicular homicide.

Today marks the one year anniversary of Moose Lake convenience store clerk Katie Poirier's disappearance. Moose Lake police chief Dale Heaton says the crime has changed people in the area.

DALE HEATON: Kind of a hard year for people, especially in the early part of the investigation and whatever, people looked upon Katie as something maybe closer to their family than just an acquaintance.

GRETA CUNNINGHAM: Donald Blom stands trial June 5 on charges he kidnapped and killed the Barnum woman. Blom confessed to the crime, but later recanted. Human remains were found on Blom's Kerrick property, but tests to identify them were inconclusive. Heaton claims more evidence against Blom would come to light in the trial in Virginia. Blom's wife maintains her husband was at their Ridgefield home the night Poirier disappeared.

A Republican hoping to challenge Congressman Jim Oberstar is suing his own party for blocking the endorsement he says he deserves. Michael Darling is trying to prevent the eighth district Republican Party from advertising or holding a new endorsing convention. The forecast for the state of Minnesota today calls for partly sunny skies in the North. Cloudy skies in the South with a chance of afternoon showers and thunderstorms. High temperatures today ranging from 65 to 75 degrees.

Tonight, cloudy skies statewide with a chance of showers and thunderstorms in the North and South, lows near 45 to 50 degrees. And for tomorrow, there is a chance of showers in the North. Rain is also likely in the South. Highs tomorrow mainly in the 60s. Checking current conditions around the region, Saint Cloud reports sunshine and 67. Skies are sunny in Duluth and 57. And in the Twin cities, partly cloudy skies, 67 degrees. That's a news update. I'm Greta Cunningham.

MODERATOR 2: Programming on NPR is supported by talk city.com, providing online community services to help businesses establish a new dialogue with customers for the digital age. On the web at business.talkcity.com.

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MIKE EDGERLY: Good afternoon. This is Midday. I'm Mike Edgerly, sitting in today for Gary Eichten. Today on Midday, conversations with three pioneers. We'll hear from Elizabeth Close, one of Minnesota's first woman architects, Concordia Language Villages founder Dr. Gerhard Haukebo, and women's rights leader Edna Schwartz.

School is just about out for the year, and that means summer camp season is at hand. Minnesota Public Radio's Dan Olson talked with Dr. Gerhard Haukebo, founder of one of Minnesota's best known summer camp offerings, the Concordia Language Villages.

DAN OLSON: Educator Gerry Haukebo created the Concordia Language Villages idea 40 years ago. The 72-year-old former Concordia College of Moorhead professor has a new gambit these days, English language immersion camps in China. Haukebo grew up in Underwood and Roseau, Minnesota. His idea for language villages came to him while in Germany in the 1950s. He was a principal there at a school for Children of American Military Personnel. We talked about the history of the language villages, but first, Haukebo wanted to talk about what he's doing in China.

GERHARD HAUKEBO: This is for Chinese children to learn English so we're really creating little Americas over there. The kids come to our village for two weeks, and they use American coinage and have a passport to enter or go to a shop at a mini mart and so forth. We bring Americans over to serve as faculty.

DAN OLSON: You've been to China yourself numerous times. Americans get a wide range of impressions of China. That it's either this very welcoming and open country or that it's stiff. The government is rigid. That for folks like you who want to go over there and do different kinds of activities, there are hurdles and obstacles at every turn. What have you found?

GERHARD HAUKEBO: We've seen actually elements of both, but we've been treated very nicely by the schools who are sponsoring our language villages. You see officialdom at work on various kinds of ways, but we've been most welcome. And that's not been a big problem with us since.

DAN OLSON: Why do you want to do that? Why do you want kids in China to learn English?

GERHARD HAUKEBO: First of all, they want to learn English. There's strong interest in the West. I understand English is the number two language in China after Chinese. It used to be Russian. Japanese is present there, but English is the one they seek. Their families want the kids to learn English. So all of the kids that we've had in our language villages have already studied some English.

DAN OLSON: Are these mostly children, I assume, from the middle and upper middle class of China society?

GERHARD HAUKEBO: Yes. Unfortunately, it has to be self-supporting, and the peasants and others in China without the wherewithal do not. It's middle and upper class. You're right.

DAN OLSON: We're having this conversation as Congress gets ready to vote on the trade treaty with China. What do you think should be done?

GERHARD HAUKEBO: My first visit over there was about 12 years ago, and I've seen dramatic changes in China, in part because I think we have welcomed them. There has been exchange, and I think we need to do more of that. That doesn't mean we agree with everything they do. But certainly, we need to understand them, they need to understand us, and we can't do that without some kind of intercourse.

DAN OLSON: Have you witnessed the oppression that people are concerned about? I doubt that you've been allowed to see the forced labor camps or anything like that. But no doubt, you've had conversations with people who either who themselves or their family members or relatives have run afoul of the government?

GERHARD HAUKEBO: I was trying to help a young woman get a visa to come to this country. Her husband was in prison because he had been a part of the Tiananmen Square demonstration. And they had agreed that during that time, this would be the chance for her to come to this country and study, come back when he was finished. So yeah, we understand a bit about that. He was sentenced to seven years in prison for what was rather a peaceful demonstration on his part.

DAN OLSON: So how do you reconcile that? I mean, you're a guy with liberal arts training. You've been a professor at a private but open and free college in the United States. And how do you reconcile getting along with a country that has this oppressive set of laws and regime?

GERHARD HAUKEBO: I think I have sensed in the 12 years that we've been there a diminishing of the respect for authority there. We've seen people react to police in recent years where they wouldn't have 10, 12 years ago. I think there's a loosening that way. There is not any way that they're going to be able to keep the people under control in the way they have because of the media, television, and email and fax and all of this. And I think the leaders recognize that. They're cautiously relaxing-- unless they're really in jeopardy, then they're going to clamp down, I'm sure. But I think there's a relaxing of a central authority.

DAN OLSON: Let's come back to Germany and what got you over there and put you in that place of being a principal at an American school in Germany. This was service related, military related?

GERHARD HAUKEBO: Yes. Well, I was a civilian hired by the Army. It was army dependent schools, a big program, a large presence in Germany of American forces. They brought families over. Their children went to school. We manned the schools for those children. I think there were something like 100 schools in Germany at the time we were there. And so it was like an American school except for the daily language instruction of all kids, to all kids.

DAN OLSON: What was this experience like for an American educator being plopped? And these were all these were all, of course, American kids, so it wasn't a big culture shock. The German culture is not exactly a big culture shock for somebody from Minnesota. But did you see it as an educational flowering for you or how did it affect you?

GERHARD HAUKEBO: Oh, absolutely a flowering-- I think greater appreciation for us to try to understand people of other nations as we help them try to understand us. Earlier, I had had some experience while in the service or Marine Corps in Japan. I had gotten some appreciation for other cultures and fascinated by them. The changes or the differences between us in Germany were less than certainly in Japan, but it reinforced this idea we are a planet that is shrinking and we've got to do our part about learning about other inhabitants in this planet.

DAN OLSON: An outward look as opposed to a fair number of folks, not just from Minnesota, but from around the country who would say, well, Dr. Haukebo, come on, we have it right here in this culture. We have the right economy. We have the right culture. It's a culture that is becoming increasingly pervasive around the globe. And I suppose some folks, I imagine you encounter them fairly regularly say, what do we have to concern ourselves with learning foreign languages for when we are the dominant-- becoming the dominant culture in the world.

GERHARD HAUKEBO: We are very fortunate to be living in this country, but that doesn't mean that everything we do is the right way of doing things. Absolutely not. I think the way the elderly in China are treated by families is maybe something we could learn from where we are putting the elderly into warehouses. That's an overstatement. But I think we do not do the same as they do in China. I think there are-- we can be awfully concerned about consuming, the magnificent waste that we have in this country. I think we could learn from other countries about that. So even though we have a delightful country to live in, there's a lot we could learn from others.

DAN OLSON: Have you seen a vast change in your view in Americans attitudes towards foreign language, their young-- their children learning foreign languages, or are we still stuck in an attitude that says, we really don't need it.

GERHARD HAUKEBO: I wish that we had a greater interest in this country. I think we've become so dependent on other nations learning English that we don't need to-- we travel to other countries, we can always find somebody who speaks English. We have any number of people who are keenly interested in language. The fact that the language villages have enjoyed the success they have represents a kind of interest on the part of many, but it's not a broad based kind of thing in our country, no.

DAN OLSON: Dr. Gerhard Haukebo, founder of Concordia Language Villages. You're listening to our Voices of Minnesota interview. Haukebo's experience in education includes preparing college students for teaching, and he was a Moorhead school board member for several years as well. Both experiences have given him strong opinions about the future of education in this country.

I confess, I am ignorant about how widespread the teaching of foreign language is in American public schools. Private schools too, for that matter. I know my children had a fairly wide offering going through public schools in Minneapolis, everything from Russian to French to even German and Chinese, as a matter of fact. I gather the picture varies widely across the country, is that right?

GERHARD HAUKEBO: I think it does. I haven't seen recent data about that. I think it does vary a great deal. I think the unfortunate part about it is many foreign language programs would start in a person only gets one or two years of study of that language, and you don't reach fluency in that and that short of time. To have a good language program, you ought to be starting when they're young and then make it available for the years that they're in school.

DAN OLSON: Now, I'm jumping to a conclusion that because you live in greater Minnesota, you have a little more chance to visit with some of the outstate schools. I don't know what's happening there. I know that some of the rural districts are very pressed for money, and I assume foreign language is on the chopping block in the curriculum. It's one of those things that is seen as a candidate for cutting.

GERHARD HAUKEBO: Yes, I think that's true. And I think demand for it has diminished a bit, and so it's easier to cut that kind of a program. Yeah. Unfortunately.

DAN OLSON: You've been an educator at the college level a good share of your life, but also in public education. What do you think of the reform ideas being offered?

GERHARD HAUKEBO: I had a different perspective on all of this as well in my background because I served on the school board in Moorhead for six years, and so I got to see something about that side of the educational equation. I've not been real close to the profile of learning, having been away from my college work for about 10 years.

I'm concerned a little bit-- I talked to my grandson, and he was telling about he's one of 25 the class that have passed the arithmetic or the math test. There are five who haven't. And my heart goes out a little bit to those five. What do they think about school, about learning and so forth, when they're identified in a sense as failures?

DAN OLSON: Why do you say that. What is it about what goes on inside a classroom that can lead a kid to take on a certain attitude about education because of how they do on the tests?

GERHARD HAUKEBO: I don't think anybody likes to be in a situation where they fail and continue to fail. Ideally, and I know this is very idealistic, you would like to have a kind of program where everybody could succeed. Then they're willing for more of this. And then that's a tough thing to do in schools when you've got such a range of ability. Understandably, those five kids are having problems with arithmetic. I would guess that they're going to grow to hate it.

DAN OLSON: What is your reaction to the theme that public education is costing too much? That looking out ahead 10 years into the future, we don't have the money. We don't have the resources. Taxpayers aren't going to be able to come up with the kinds of dollars to sustain the level of spending we're seeing in public education. And of course, the largest share of that spending is for salaries.

GERHARD HAUKEBO: I think that's a hateful kind of thought. I think that begins the demise of our culture. What's more important to a culture than the preparation of the young? We've got to find ways to do that. We can afford a lot of other luxuries and things in this country. Certainly, we ought to be-- the basic essentials, we ought to be supporting fully.

DAN OLSON: The message that we get from your involvement with language camps is here is a guy who had an idea. And what was it like when you proposed that idea? Did people say, Gerry, that's a weird idea. Nobody's going to buy that in a million years?

GERHARD HAUKEBO: Very definitely. Yeah. That's an important part to-- to bring an idea to fruition is to convince others of the potential of it. I was in a good climate. Concordia provided a good kind of climate for the idea. I talked to the president. I talked to the Dean. I was cautioned, well, we can't go into this and lose money, obviously, particularly when this is a program for pre-collegiate education. Our money should really be devoted to our primary mission, collegiate education.

So the program had to be self-supporting. But with that, there was interest and continued interest in support. We had the young doctor, Charles Mayo from Rochester who was studying Norwegian at the time down at Lanesboro. And he was very intrigued with the idea, agreed to head up a committee that would explore the idea of acquiring land up at Bemidji.

And it was a unanimous choice to go to Bemidji, where there was 800 acres of land, some four miles of shoreline, close to a city with a transportation and medical facilities and so forth. And the land was very inexpensive. A local businessman in Bemidji owned it and put a price on it that was very reasonable. And overnight, Bemidji people raised one seventh of the cost of the land.

So there was a case then of acquiring that land and now to start building on it, And. There was a chance to go to the business community and so forth. It's delightful to see that now there are four villages that have been built there-- the French, the German, the Norwegian, and the Finnish, and the Spanish one is going to be completed sometime this summer. A big project, some $4 million. And so the concept now is really reaching fruition. There's room for other villages there as well in that property. But the business world, the professional world helped us immensely.

DAN OLSON: And they come to these camps and do they do they speak both English and the language they are studying or does the instructor say, OK, kids, here we are. You're going to be speaking German here for what, seven days.

GERHARD HAUKEBO: There will be some groupings, so people with advanced kind of knowledge of language, they'll be doing the language exclusively. Others with just beginning would have-- you can't do it totally, but you try to do as much as you can, force them into a situation where they must understand the language, learn to hear it and to speak it.

DAN OLSON: The people who are the instructors, the teachers at the camp, who are they?

GERHARD HAUKEBO: Well, they'd be college students who are majoring in the language, or they would be native speakers who have immigrated to this country or who are visiting this country. A great variety of people teaching.

DAN OLSON: But at the beginning, it sounds like it was a one man band. Professor Gerry Haukebo jumped in the car, threw in some boxes of paraphernalia, and went off at first to this rented Bible camp.

GERHARD HAUKEBO: Yes. Right. First one was in 1961. Luther Crest Bible Camp just north of Alexandria on Lake Carlos, and in a great center. And we leased that for a number of years, but we were also leasing them all over the central western part of the state. And that continues for many of the languages.

DAN OLSON: What did your family think of this idea? Did they throw in with you from the beginning, or did they say, dad, you're on this by yourself here?

GERHARD HAUKEBO: They were great supporters. My wife is a nurse. She served as a nurse at some of the early villages. Our kids were along, and they were villagers just like the people who had-- great family for that.

DAN OLSON: This became your life. You'd have an academic year at Concordia College, and then you'd move camp and head out to the language camp to teach for the summer.

GERHARD HAUKEBO: Yes, exactly. It was a delightful summer in many ways. The kids were fascinated by all of this, so there was a exhilaration you could sense. And the parents who brought the kids were delighted with this and delighted afterward with the results of it. That first year, we had 75 kids, and 62 of them signed up to come the following year. And so we knew we had a good thing going, and we needed to expand on this.

So the second year, we had two German and one French, and then the next year Spanish and Norwegian and then Russian added and so forth. And now I understand they offer 11. You understand, I'm not the administrator of this now. They have a very capable person, Christine Schultz, who was a villager herself, worked on staff, and the language villages earned a law degree and has had experience in fundraising. So those kinds of experiences in training, ideal for the position that she's in.

DAN OLSON: So now, what do your children say to you about those experiences when you're dragging the kids along to language camp?

GERHARD HAUKEBO: They're repeating it, but also with the grandchildren. Last year, we had nine language villages, English language villages in China. My wife went, all four of my children went, and two of my grandsons went. And this summer, on our plans for this summer, we will have three of my children, and a son-in-law, and again will be three grandchildren this summer going with us to China. So it's part of the family tradition, no question about it.

DAN OLSON: Dr. Gerry Haukebo, thank you so much for coming in to talk with us. A pleasure to meet you and talk with you.

GERHARD HAUKEBO: It's been my pleasure.

DAN OLSON: Gerhard Haukebo is the founder of the Concordia Language Villages. His idea has grown from 1 to 12 villages serving thousands of young people each summer. Dan Olson, Minnesota Public Radio.

MIKE EDGERLY: And you're listening to Midday on Minnesota Public radio, and you're listening to our Voices of Minnesota interviews. Later in the hour, we'll hear from one of Minnesota's early women's rights leaders, Edna Schwartz. But first, a conversation with Elizabeth Close, one of Minnesota's first woman architects. Here's Mary Stucky.

MARY STUCKY: Elizabeth Close is a woman far ahead of her time. In 1938, with her husband, Winston, Elizabeth close started an architecture firm in Minneapolis, a firm which designed houses for the elite and humble alike, all in the then avant-garde modernist style. Close also worked on public housing projects and for institutions like the University of Minnesota and Metropolitan Medical Center, winning awards and acclaim. I talked with Close, where she lives, in the home she designed.

In fact, her Twin Cities neighborhood is a collection of architecturally significant homes, with a number of them designed by Close and her husband. Elizabeth Close began life in turn of the century Vienna. Her childhood home was an attention-getting flat topped white cubist structure, which stood out dramatically in a city where elaborate ornamentation ruled the day. Perhaps the influence of this childhood home set Close on a path toward architecture.

ELIZABETH CLOSE: So I went to school. I decided I would take this study, architecture. A friend of mine said, why don't you study interior decoration? I said, no, if I'm going to do it, I'll do the whole thing. And that's what got me started. And of course, I was interested in it right from the start because of where I was living.

MARY STUCKY: And being a woman was of no import in your mind in terms of what you were going to do?

ELIZABETH CLOSE: Well, there were not very many women in the School of architecture, but I wasn't the only one in Vienna. There were, I think, six. I still correspond with one of them. She went to Sweden. I came here. It was not a common thing then, but it is now. And when I came here, for many years, I was the only female member of the AIA Chapter. But it didn't bother me because I'd been going to this gymnasium, which was really a boys' school also. My brother had gone there, a co-ed high school. And there were six women in that. So I was in the-- always in the minority, so to speak. Never bothered me.

MARY STUCKY: You transferred from Vienna to MIT, and I've read that you said you didn't like the education in Vienna and you didn't like the Nazis.

ELIZABETH CLOSE: Yes, that's obvious. Nobody liked the Nazis. They were aggressive. They were nasty. They were really terrible. And I didn't like the political orientation or anything about it. I studied in Vienna for two years at the University, Technical IT, and I didn't like the attitude of the professors. They didn't want women in their classes anyway. And so I took the first so-called state exam and then decided to leave. And I was very lucky. I got a scholarship at MIT.

MARY STUCKY: You met your husband, Winston Close, at MIT.

ELIZABETH CLOSE: Yes After I had gotten another guy and I went on for one more year, that's where I met him.

MARY STUCKY: And you opened a firm, an architecture firm, with him in the 1930s. And your intention was to be a full partner with him in this work, wasn't it?

ELIZABETH CLOSE: Yes, and no question about it.

MARY STUCKY: I guess I want to know what that was like for a woman. My generation is interested in that because you really were a pioneer.

ELIZABETH CLOSE: We first opened the office, and then we got married after that. [LAUGHS] We decided that if it didn't work, I mean, the office flopped, then we could always go back to work for somebody else. At back of the house, there was a porch and we converted that to a little office. And so I could be at home as well as work out of there. And maybe I should tell you what was going on when I came here. The field was being built, designed.

MARY STUCKY: The public housing project in Minneapolis, was that the first really in this area?

ELIZABETH CLOSE: Yes, it was. And it also was my first job here. I had been working for a year after I graduated. I got a master's degree at MIT, and so did Win. I went to Philadelphia, and I was working on public housing project there. And I was very lucky to get a job because there weren't very many jobs in those days. It was depth of the depression.

And that was an interesting project because many of the firms, architectural firms, were cooperating on it. And they had to be kept alive somehow, and this was one way of doing it. I think that the key to being able to do this was-- you see, I had two kids by that time. A key is somebody to take over your house and do the organization and do the cooking and do-- and I was very lucky.

MARY STUCKY: You had a housekeeper.

ELIZABETH CLOSE: I had a full time housekeeper. So this girl came and stayed with us for about 30 years.

MARY STUCKY: We are talking in your house, and I appreciate your graciousness letting me come here. This house is in an area called University Grove?

ELIZABETH CLOSE: That's correct.

MARY STUCKY: That was a planned community for people associated with the University. And most of the houses architect designed in the '50s and maybe '60s had to be--

ELIZABETH CLOSE: Registered architect designed.

MARY STUCKY: You designed some maybe 14 houses here. This house is classic. What I've been told is really your trademark in some ways, it's a modernist design, flat roofed, simple, cubist, wood, clad-- is that the word? With a spiral staircase heading up stairs, lots of light and windows. It's a lovely space to sit and talk in.

ELIZABETH CLOSE: Well, thank you. It's been a very good place to live. It's an old house by now. But the house depends always so much on the customer. And of course, a typical house is sold and bought without any input from the eventual owner or occupant. But in the Grove, everybody had to have a registered architect and everybody did not own the land, but owned the building.

And the University helped finance the houses as they were built. Many of our first clients had a terrible time trying to get financing because they said, we won't sell. No resale. They were wrong. It's just a very small group, but a very dedicated group. And so it's still-- that predisposition to be scared is still current.

MARY STUCKY: Let me ask you again then, given that challenge, was it harder being a modernist architect or was it harder being a female architect?

ELIZABETH CLOSE: Well, I think it was harder to be a modernist architect because of the bank, the problem of financing.

MARY STUCKY: What do you think of the housing being built today, the new suburban developments?

ELIZABETH CLOSE: Ghastly.

MARY STUCKY: Ghastly?

ELIZABETH CLOSE: Ghastly. All these huge-- they're too big. The scale is terrible. I mean, these places with-- most of it is not properly designed for the site. And that, in our practice, was the number one item that we considered important, the site and the budget, of course.

MARY STUCKY: I'm curious. I want to go back to this ghastly comment about the new houses being built mainly in the suburbs. Why are they like that?

ELIZABETH CLOSE: The shots are being called not by the eventual owners, but they're too big. I mean, they look pretentious. And that's one of my main objections. There are just many garages, many gables, and it's all architecturally pompous.

MARY STUCKY: When we think of the houses being built in some of the more affluent suburbs, we think of big. But there is something of a small house movement right now. What do you think that represents?

ELIZABETH CLOSE: Well, it makes sense. Low maintenance-- I mean, why burden yourself with a lot of stuff that you really don't have any use for?

MARY STUCKY: You're here in a house that still suits you. It's not so big that you can't be here, I take it.

ELIZABETH CLOSE: There was a very interesting restriction when these houses were built, all of them. At top cost. it couldn't cost more than usually-- it goes the other way in developments. You have to have at least this much in it. Here, it was top. So they didn't want to have people come in and build palaces because then they couldn't hang them on to the next person.

MARY STUCKY: You designed the Gray Freshwater Institute, Lake Minnetonka, won many awards for this. Take us on a tour of interesting architectural spots in Minnesota. If you and I were in the car, where would you see to it that we stop?

ELIZABETH CLOSE: I'd go first to Collegeville and see the church there. That is a fascinating building. There is a little book about the Twin Cities at the AIA put out. That will tell you where to go.

MARY STUCKY: The American Institute of Architects, the Minnesota Chapter has a book.

ELIZABETH CLOSE: I think I'll bring you to the Grove among other places because this is a real showcase for that era of architecture.

MARY STUCKY: University Grove, here where we are now?

ELIZABETH CLOSE: Right.

MARY STUCKY: Elizabeth Close, thank you so much for speaking with us.

ELIZABETH CLOSE: Well, you're welcome.

MARY STUCKY: The architecture firm, which Elizabeth Close began with her husband, is still in business in the hands of their protege. I'm Mary Stucky.

MIKE EDGERLY: And you're listening to Midday on Minnesota Public Radio. Long before the National Organization for Women was founded, the BPW, the Business and Professional Women's organization had been advancing the cause of rights for women. One of the BPW's early leaders in Minnesota is Edna Schwartz. She talked recently with Minnesota Public Radio's Dan Olson.

DAN OLSON: Edna Schwartz entered the work world at age 18. It was the late 1920s. She soon learned women had few, if any, workplace rights. The only child of Saint Paul working class parents, Schwartz says her upbringing was very sheltered. She says she didn't even know the facts of life. But as a young woman office worker in a world run by older men, she saw what is now called sexual harassment and discrimination were the rule rather than the exception.

The results, including unwanted pregnancy, spelled tragedy for some women. Among other jobs, Schwartz worked for the electrical Workers Union and later the Electrical Contractors Association. Her father was a house painter. Her mother did laundry for wealthy families. Both were religiously devout and hardworking, but the family didn't have much money.

EDNA SCHWARTZ: I wanted to be a teacher, and you only had to go to Saint Cloud for two years then. Well, they couldn't afford that. And I went to business college so I could stay home.

DAN OLSON: Business college, meaning learning office skills.

EDNA SCHWARTZ: Oh, yes, which I never thought-- in which I was never really very good at.

DAN OLSON: [LAUGHS] But that was a disappointment to not be able to become a teacher.

EDNA SCHWARTZ: My life was ruined. But you see, you didn't do anything about it, and it was all right. No, we believed then that-- that the Lord just had other plans for you than to be a teacher. I mean, that's how your mother said.

DAN OLSON: It's 1920. You're a teenager, maybe not quite old enough to be a teenager. Women won the right to vote, but you didn't care too much at the time.

EDNA SCHWARTZ: I wasn't too impressed.

DAN OLSON: But your mother, this must have been a very big deal.

EDNA SCHWARTZ: Yeah.

DAN OLSON: She was a young woman.

EDNA SCHWARTZ: Yes.

DAN OLSON: What did your father tried to tell your mother how to vote?

EDNA SCHWARTZ: Sure.

DAN OLSON: How did he do that.

EDNA SCHWARTZ: Well, you see, he wrote it on a piece of paper for us, governor, and this and that.

DAN OLSON: What did she do?

EDNA SCHWARTZ: My mother threw it away and said, we don't pay any attention to that. You read, so you read. Now, maybe she influenced me. You see that? I'm not saying she didn't, but at least she didn't write it on a slip of paper. He says, you take this with you. Now these will be the ballots and you put your-- and I remember he was a good man. And he was not so political. I don't mean that. But that's what-- you listen.

DAN OLSON: That was--

EDNA SCHWARTZ: There are women here today who when they go to vote, they say, well, I'm only voting for the governor, but my son told me or my-- not their husband because most of the husbands are gone. My son told me. My son-in-law told me. I don't say anything to them.

DAN OLSON: So that's interesting. Here at this point in your life, you've cut yourself off a little bit from saying certain political things with your friends here.

EDNA SCHWARTZ: Yes. I don't want to really offend anyone--

DAN OLSON: Really?

EDNA SCHWARTZ: --at that age.

DAN OLSON: That's interesting considering your work.

EDNA SCHWARTZ: I've changed my lifestyle a few times. You have to. You would not get along well.

DAN OLSON: You went off to a business college, Globe, and learned office skills. This was the normal course for a young woman and to look for a husband too? Was that considered.

EDNA SCHWARTZ: I wasn't looking for a husband. There was much too much excitement out there for me to be worried about a husband.

DAN OLSON: What was exciting?

EDNA SCHWARTZ: Now, this I hesitate to say to you. You know what, for 18 years old, going into an office, older men were very exciting compared to the poor boy who was going to the university and stood outside waiting for me. I mean, that's-- see, I didn't learn the facts of life from my mother or from school like they do today. I had to learn it from working.

DAN OLSON: The older men, they held power. They had influence. Was that the--

EDNA SCHWARTZ: And if we-- and today, we would have sued them for sex discrimination.

DAN OLSON: Because of the treatment?

EDNA SCHWARTZ: Aha. And it wasn't bad, you understand. We didn't know. In fact, I always am thankful to that older woman who said, Edna, you have to be careful. See, I wanted to do everything. I wanted to learn-- I really didn't think-- well, to tell you the truth, I didn't think anybody who was as old as my father would want to kiss me in the elevator.

DAN OLSON: But it happened?

EDNA SCHWARTZ: Yeah, the vice president. Well, the only thing-- see, girls would come and quit. But you know why I didn't quit? I wouldn't know what I would have told my mother and father. He'd probably been down there with a shotgun or something. Well, he didn't have one, but he would--

DAN OLSON: So you put up with it and kept quiet about it.

EDNA SCHWARTZ: Yeah. Seven years I worked. I always worked with the men. But oh, was I smart. See, I had learned my lesson in those seven years.

DAN OLSON: Say what the lesson was.

EDNA SCHWARTZ: The lesson was that there were some men who were just not going to be your friends or help you. Or if they help you, they want it more. And that was so contrary to everything that people of my generation had been brought up. And then I was deceitful. I enrolled in Valparaiso in university, and everybody thought it was wonderful that I was going.

And the only reason I-- one reason I was going was to get out of this, because one of the older girls had said, Edna, you're going to get in a little trouble. I'm telling you, we know because some of us have gone through it. But we're still here. But she said, you're so young. And so I went to Valparaiso for a year.

DAN OLSON: And that was the escape?

EDNA SCHWARTZ: That was the escape. Oh, sure. Summer, they called and said, come back and work in the summer. See, I had made it. And my parents never I never said anything about it. Other people left. I'm sorry to say, some were pregnant.

DAN OLSON: World War II came along, you were very much in the working world.

EDNA SCHWARTZ: Yeah. Got the first job with the Electrical Workers Union because they never had a girl. Oh, gosh, I hate the word. They never had a girl. Now they're going to have a girl in the labor temple. Now, they want a girl that comes from the union family. You understand that. Otherwise, she wouldn't know anything. So the electrician at the city courthouse said to my father, who was a painter at the city courthouse, said, the electricians are going to hire a girl. Do you think Edna would want to have-- they want her to come from a union family.

So he tells me, I go over to the labor temple, because I was only working at a crummy little place. They don't ask me a thing. They don't ask me if I can type. They don't ask me if I know how to keep books, anything. They just say, your father is a union member? I said, yes, a painter. Well, I got the job. I stayed there for 10 years.

DAN OLSON: Were you the first woman hired by the electrical workers Union?

EDNA SCHWARTZ: Oh, yes. Woman? We were a girl. Please. And then they had a business manager, of course, who came in who didn't know anything about the office, which I loved because I knew everything. And I stayed there for 10 years and went through three business agents, [LAUGHS] none of them knew anything about the office because they came from the trade, you see.

DAN OLSON: Did you make-- did you open the door wide for women or were you the--

EDNA SCHWARTZ: No.

DAN OLSON: --token woman?

EDNA SCHWARTZ: Well, there wasn't anybody else. I was the only one. I was the girl. That was all. And that was all right. I didn't expect anything else. I knew I would never be business manager. At times, I thought I'd probably make a better one than the one that was there, but I knew I wouldn't be.

DAN OLSON: You're listening to a Voices of Minnesota interview with Edna Schwartz. She says women trying to win equal pay and workplace rights were dismissed by lawmakers and the media. While serving as a board member of the former Saint Paul Ramsay hospital, Schwartz learned the polarizing power of the abortion issue. I think it was around the early '60s, maybe 1964, Minnesota created the Commission on the Economic Status of Women.

EDNA SCHWARTZ: Oh, yeah. By then, I had been in the women's movement. We had worked through business and professional women. And at that time, whose legislative platform is equality for all.

DAN OLSON: You were one of the first members of the commission.

EDNA SCHWARTZ: Well, Yeah. Oh, yes. I had just completed being state president of Business and Professional Women.

DAN OLSON: Was it a big deal? Was the creation of the Commission a big deal?

EDNA SCHWARTZ: Yeah. The National Federation of Business and Professional Women had sent a directive to the presidents, and it said, get a commission on status of women in your state. We thought everything was going to now be perfect.

DAN OLSON: When did the realization dawn on folks that the creation of the commission in and of itself was not going to answer many of the questions that women had?

EDNA SCHWARTZ: When we would go to the legislature with our white gloves, hat-- when I think how they run up there today-- [LAUGHS] and we would testify. I can remember, I one guy asked me if I thought I could be an over-the-road truck driver. And it was winter, and I drove a Volkswagen. I wasn't a very good driver. I'm not good at any of that stuff.

And I said, I couldn't even drive my Volkswagen up here today. How could I ever get a truck? I said, but I'll tell you, if you were stupid enough to hire me as a truck driver, then you ought to pay me the same wages. Well, then the dispatch, bless him--

DAN OLSON: The newspaper.

EDNA SCHWARTZ: --puts a piece in the paper that says, "Petite--" you know, I was kind of skinny then, "Petite woman in lavender dress--" my favorite clip, "says she can't be an over-the-road truck driver." Now, that wasn't the point at all, and that's what we put up with.

DAN OLSON: What was the reaction of your friends, other women, other working women, when they heard about the creation of the commission?

EDNA SCHWARTZ: Other working women too, many of them, were very sure that now things were going to be all right. They were going to be all right now. And it was going to get-- they knew that. Of course, we were naive. We thought if we talked to the legislature, everybody would just fall over.

And we would be up there testifying, which they were-- I suppose they were really laughing. The funniest thing that happened was we were going to ask for them to put sex in as far as a form of discrimination. And we all agreed, the Commission, Viola Hymes was the chairman. She was speaking, and all they said they'd put religion and--

DAN OLSON: No discrimination on the basis of religion.

EDNA SCHWARTZ: --basis but never-- no sex. And so we all-- we had s little caucus. Well, we decided that maybe we should give up the sex because we would get something and we'd be back next year. And we were-- by that time, we were learning that you had a-- so the funniest part was she walked in and she said-- we were so fussed up and she walked in and she said, the commission agrees to give up sex for one year, but we'll be back next year.

And so you can imagine what the newspaper did with that. [LAUGHS] I can remember one senator said to me, why don't you run for the legislature? Well, I says, I'll tell you, Senator Ashbach, why. Because you wouldn't vote for me. Why? Because I'm a woman. That's why I wouldn't run. I didn't want anyway. But I mean--

DAN OLSON: That's how you felt it was. But why didn't you? Was that the reason?

EDNA SCHWARTZ: Oh, no. Well, no. I was-- I had no desire to be that way. I knew I wasn't really qualified for that.

DAN OLSON: Really?

EDNA SCHWARTZ: Yeah. See--

DAN OLSON: But you were no doubt encouraging other women to run?

EDNA SCHWARTZ: Oh, well, yes. That was our big-- we knew that now we were learning. That until you get women elected and in position, you're not going to be able to get some of the things that are good for everyone. We learned that. That legislation is the way to go, not parading, not banners or bras or things like that, we learned-- we knew that was not the way.

DAN OLSON: Really? You didn't think that there was a place for the kind of public action that some people take to make their point?

EDNA SCHWARTZ: I am glad if they can do it. But see, I couldn't do that going way back. I mean, I wasn't able to do that. And I don't think it was-- I can remember when we'd be testifying, we wouldn't ask a woman who worked for-- who was Secretary to the president of the First National Bank to come up and talk about the banking industry. We knew that. We wouldn't ask her to do that. But my employers were wonderful as far as I was concerned. I think they thought I was a little crazy, but then I did my work.

DAN OLSON: Did you take a fair amount of personal criticism from men, either men who worked for or men who knew when you became even more active in business and Professional Women's and National Organization for Women.

EDNA SCHWARTZ: It wasn't criticism. It was making fun of you. Was making fun of you. Well, Edna is on her soapbox again. Oh, you better be careful. Edna is not going to let you do that, these men would say. The worst was Saint Paul Ramsey hospital commission. I was on that. That was--

DAN OLSON: Say a word about that. You've been a board member. You were on that commission. Why was that an unhappy experience?

EDNA SCHWARTZ: Because the Row and Wade came up then.

DAN OLSON: The Supreme Court decision allowing abortion.

EDNA SCHWARTZ: And I remember that, me who didn't even know what abortion was, I'd never even heard the word hardly when I was-- never. I never even-- I suppose people were having, but I didn't know anybody who did. When that came up, you see, Saint Paul Ramsey did abortions. If you were poor, guess you went to Saint Paul Ramsey. Otherwise, you went somewhere else and nobody knew it. And the men, they didn't-- and nobody got so-- seemed to be as upset about it as I did. But I wasn't used to having somebody would call me at midnight.

DAN OLSON: These were people who were opposed to abortion. You were sitting on the hospital commission.

EDNA SCHWARTZ: Yes. And if we voted for not to have abortions at Saint Paul Ramsey, they would have lost their funding. And anyway, I didn't know much about abortion, but I figured that that woman had a right to do what she wanted to do, right or wrong. I'm not saying I was right, but that I thought, well, they're making this big fuss about it. I never thought of the seriousness of abortion at that moment. I didn't know anything about it. I didn't know anybody who had had one or I didn't know you could do that. It just wasn't in my life.

DAN OLSON: In retrospect, do you still support abortion?

EDNA SCHWARTZ: Yes, I do, and for the same reason. I'm not in favor of it, and I would-- if somebody came and asked me, I'd try to tell them to have it and let it be adopted and all that kind of stuff if they couldn't keep it.

DAN OLSEN: So you got a lot of opposition as a result of your public service.

EDNA SCHWARTZ: Oh, yes.

DAN OLSEN: What kinds of things happened?

EDNA SCHWARTZ: Well, I'll call at-- I lived alone. I'll call at midnight in the middle of winter when I, again, couldn't drive that Volkswagen, said, you're going today to a meeting to kill the babies. Well, that's not really very much fun at 1 o'clock in the morning when you're alone, and that kind of stuff.

DAN OLSEN: Did it have an effect on you?

EDNA SCHWARTZ: I'm sure it just made me more determined. I didn't know so much about abortion, but I knew it was-- why were these men-- why were these people deciding what a woman should do?

DAN OLSEN: What happened to your thoughts about the process?

EDNA SCHWARTZ: I didn't change. I'm sorry. I know now what it is, but I didn't have to ever make a decision about it for me and I didn't see why I should be making a decision for somebody else. And I couldn't see why all these men who weren't involved with this woman, didn't even know her, why they're making this momentous decision when she has a husband and a doctor. Because then, it was more-- it wasn't so much, I don't think, like teenage pregnancy.

I hate to say it, it was like where I worked. The father very often was a married man, and he paid for the abortion to get her out, get her away. Because he had three children and his son in college. Now, that irked me, you see. But the father, I was used to a father who took care of things, not who walked away.

DAN OLSEN: What's your advice for working women of all ages these days?

EDNA SCHWARTZ: I just think they have to be more courageous. And I think they have to have education, and I think they have to get people in the legislation both in state and national who support equality for all people.

DAN OLSEN: We still don't have an equal rights amendment in this country. Do we need one?

EDNA SCHWARTZ: Business and professional women has on their legislative platform forever since it came. No, we would like to have that [INAUDIBLE].

DAN OLSEN: Still needed, do you think?

EDNA SCHWARTZ: Yes.

DAN OLSEN: It seems like there are so many laws on the books already, which offer protection.

EDNA SCHWARTZ: Yeah, a little piddly ones they keep adding. That's one of the mistakes. Yeah, that's one of the mistakes. [INAUDIBLE] Oh, that we thought was going to be a pushover. Oh, we were nothing to it. Why wouldn't everybody? Doesn't everybody think everybody should be equal?

DAN OLSEN: Edna Schwartz, thank you so much for your time. What a pleasure to talk to you.

EDNA SCHWARTZ: Well, I don't know about that. We could go on forever. Isn't it awful? You shouldn't start me remembering things because at 90, you can easily forget them if nobody reminds you. [LAUGHS]

DAN OLSEN: Edna Schwartz, a past president of the Saint Paul Business and Professional Women's organization, present at the creation of the National Organization for Women, a member of Minnesota's first commission on the status of women. Dan Olson, Minnesota Public Radio.

MIKE EDGERLY: You've been listening to voices of Minnesota this hour. You heard from Concordia Language Village founder Gerhard Haukebo, one of the first female architects, Elizabeth Close, and one of Minnesota's early women's rights leaders, Edna Schwartz. If you missed part of this hour, you'll have a chance to hear Voices of Minnesota again tonight at 9 o'clock, or visit our website where you can hear this Midday or any of this week's Midday programs at npr.org.

On Monday's Midday, a Memorial Day special DFL. State representative Bernie Lieder from Crookston served in Europe during World War II. He'll share his experience as an infantryman with substitute host Mike Mulcahy. And at noon, it's a speech by PBS news host Jim Lehrer. Midday is produced by Sarah Meier with assistance from Kara Fiegenschuh. Our engineer today is Steve Griffith. Special thanks to Chris Roberts. I'm Mike Edgerly. Gary Eichten will return next Tuesday. Taking a quick look at the state forecast, a chance of rain around the state today, rain continuing tomorrow, and then clearing on Sunday.

LORNA BENSON: I'm Lorna Benson. 100 years ago, Saint Paul's Harriet Island was a hub of city life. Now the city is renovating the park hoping to bring people back to the riverfront. It's All Things Considered, weekdays at 3:00 on Minnesota Public Radio.

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MIKE EDGERLY: And you're listening to Minnesota Public Radio. It's cloudy, 70 degrees at K-N-O-W FM, 91.1, Minneapolis, Saint Paul. Twin Cities weather for this afternoon, we'll see cloudy skies, a chance of showers later this afternoon. The high around 72 degrees. Rain likely tonight continuing through tomorrow. The time is 1 o'clock.

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DAVID BARON: From national Public Radio in New York, this is Talk of The Nation-- Science Friday. I'm David Baron. People hate germs. Companies know that, and they've responded by producing a remarkable variety of antibacterial products, everything from soap to--