Martha Rivers Ingram (interviewed by Lisa Hayes and Danielle Cox on November 29, 2023)

Martha Rivers Ingram (interviewed by Lisa Hayes and Danielle Cox on November 29, 2023)

2023-11-29

Martha Ingram was born in Charleston in 1935. She grew up downtown and went on to study history at Vassar. Mrs. Ingram shares about her family’s visits to the Library as a little girl and she recounts her job as a DJ at her father’s radio station in Charleston in the 1950s. Mrs. Ingram married Erskine Bronson Ingram and they went on to have great success in a variety of industries. She discusses her philanthropy both here and in Nashville and her success in getting major arts facilities constructed in both cities.

Hayes, Lisa

Cox, Danielle

WAV

Audio

English

MarthaRiversIngram_OralHistory_20231129

1:30:32/913.9GB

00:00,000 Lisa Hayes

Yes beautiful room.

00:02,000 Martha Rivers Ingram

Yeah, well, thank you well, so.

00:07,160 Lisa Hayes

Is it are you recording? Okay, so the recorder recorder is on we can chop things out. I'll just keep it relaxed and thank you so much.

00:20,000 Martha Rivers Ingram

No problem. Dani you're welcome if you haven't heard all this before you welcome to listen.

00:26,000 [Dani Assistant]

I might hang out.

00:38,500 Lisa Hayes

You don't.

00:39,500 Martha Rivers Ingram

You're not taking any pictures.

00:43,300 Lisa Hayes

You look beautiful. So let me just, so my name is Lisa Hayes and I'm the Special Collections Librarian at the Library Society and this is Danielle Cox , our digital historian and we are here today I'll just say the date it's November 29th 2023 and we are we're delighted to be in the house the home of Mrs. Martha Rivers Ingram and so we're just gonna keep a nice loose comfortable conversation going and take pauses or whatever we need.

01:22,000 Martha Rivers Ingram

It's up to you I've pause I've had had lunch I hope you all have had some lunch. I don't since I've lived away so long now I don't know how much I will remember that will be of interest to you so you can clip take whatever if there's anything there that you're worthwhile So you just, you know, I guess I've given a fair number of interviews for one thing or the other. So you guide me through how you would like this one to go.

02:06,960 Lisa Hayes

Oh, thank you. You're right. It was pretty easy to prepare a list of questions and thoughts I might ask because you are well-documented and you have given some great interviews. I listened to Jenette Alterman's interview with you from 2010, so 13 years ago. You spoke with her at the Center for Women here in Charleston. So I listened to that, so I have that to my advantage. She did a really nice job. But I just thought it would be nice for us at the Library Society to capture some about your time here in Charleston as a young person and then some about your philanthropy and your work here in Charleston also. And then any connections you have to the Library Society. I know that we were pleased to honor you with the Founders Award in 2016.

03:01,680 Martha Rivers Ingram

That was lovely. Yes, thank you.

03:03,680 Lisa Hayes

Yes, that was nice for your advocacy for the arts and for keeping things going here in and I'm Charleston, and revitalizing things for us at the Library Society. Anne Cleveland, I know is someone who really respects your work.

03:23,040 Martha Rivers Ingram

Anne Cleveland?

03:24,320 Lisa Hayes

Anne Cleveland, yes.

03:25,640 Martha Rivers Ingram

She and Will, her husband, were here for dinner last night.

03:28,280 Lisa Hayes

No.

03:29,560 Danielle Cox

Will was in the Library today for the event we had.

03:31,760 Lisa Hayes

Oh, wow. Well, yes, we do have so many good events at the Library Society. Actually, we have the symphony coming this weekend, and I was going to see if you had any interest in coming on Friday or Saturday night. welcome to you don't have to tell me now but are you leaving town again you're going...

03:45,240 Martha Rivers Ingram

I think we leave Friday, isn't that the first? Yes yes yes I've been here for almost a month now and you know love being here love being in this house and of course as you know I grew up here and never thought I'd ever live anywhere else except that I ended up falling in love with this very handsome man that lived in Nashville, Tennessee. So that's now my home and sadly he died of cancer about 25 years ago. So and my mother died one year before that and left her house here to me. So this house, I guess I've owned it now because of her thinking of me and her will for over 20 years. And I enjoy it every time I'm here. This is a portrait of my mother there. And my father is here in photographs and the gentleman on the wall over there is somebody who we don't know whether he lived here or somehow that portrait ended up in the house that I grew up in which was 20 Church Street and so when I inherited the house and I had heard that he had built the house here that that moved from 20 Church Street to where it is now.

05:28,000 Lisa Hayes

Do you know what his name is?

05:29,900 Martha Rivers Ingram

Ball is his name. I have some history. From time to time, this house is opened for tours for fundraising purposes, usually Historic Charleston or sometimes a church or sometimes an arts group. They put down the appropriate plastic mats and mats for people in high heels to walk on my very special oriental rugs. I try to protect them as best I can because nowadays at least people are more thoughtful when they're touring homes and try to, because they're more comfortable, try to remember to put on soft shoes that don't have heels that puncture into the oriental rugs. So anyhow.

06:31,940 Lisa Hayes

Tell us about your time on Church Street. Was it in a home this grand or did you have furnishings like this that you had to be careful with when you were a young child?

06:41,780 Martha Rivers Ingram

Yes.

06:42,780 Lisa Hayes

Yes.

06:43,780 Martha Rivers Ingram

I grew up at number 20 Church that was furnished with antiques. All, probably all of them were English antiques, or some may have been built in Charleston. In fact, there are some pieces in the dining room, a big cupboard that was probably built here in Charleston. I have several pieces that were, I know, built here. The dining room chairs were carved by a German who was obviously a transient or an immigrant who was here. His name was Neumeister. That's probably N-E-U-M-E-I-S-T-E-R. I remember them being carved when I was a little girl, and that's been a long time ago. So they're more than 50 years old, but the man was a person who had come from the old country and he and his father set up this shop here up near Queen Street, I seem to remember. My mother, because she ordered twelve of the chairs, we would go from time to time and see how he progressed with the chairs. But they're all now in the dining room here. So they're all together. So almost everything here is an English origin or certainly a European origin.

08:32,820 Lisa Hayes

Were you able to sit on the furniture when you were a child? Did your parents let you do that?

08:39,820 Martha Rivers Ingram

Yes. We had some newer furniture. It was overstuffed furniture. But the furniture was mostly like this more traditional English library-type furniture.

08:58,820 Lisa Hayes

It is very pretty. So what did your parents do for, what's your dad do for his profession?

09:06,180 Martha Rivers Ingram

He was, he graduated from college in the Wharton Business School at the University of Pennsylvania. So he started out as a banker and through his banking business He was selling stocks and bonds, which was part of what he did. He was transferred to Greenville, South Carolina, and he was selling stocks and bonds to a man named Mr. Hipp, like your hip, H-I-P-P. He was one of my father's customers. And in the course of his selling, my father heard that he had a radio station in Charleston. And he said, "Well, you know, that's where I grew up." And Mr. Hipp said, "Well, you know," I think his name was Francis Hipp. He said, "You know, I've got these radio stations there. But the financial man there doesn't seem to know what he's doing. He's not making any money. I wish he would leave the banking business long enough to try to help me understand whether I need to sell the businesses or how I can make them profitable." And so my father said, "Well, I don't know, but I grew up in Charleston. I'd love to live back there. I'm not married, so I can go anywhere." And so they had a handshake deal that my father would see if he could get a leave from his bank, the Bank of South Carolina, I think it was, where he worked, and move back to Charleston for some period of time to help advise Mr. Francis Hipp as to whether he should keep the radio stations or whether he should just sell them. And so that occurred and my father moved back to Charleston and the bank let him take a leave and he decided that in his opinion my father thought that running a radio business was a whole lot more interesting and fun than being in the banking world. And so he asked Mr. Hipp if he might be able to buy him out since he lived in Greenville and didn't want to have his, neither he nor his sons wanted to live in Charleston. So that all occurred. And so while this was all being worked out, Mr. Hipp, the father, and the customer of my father's bank transactions died. And lo and behold, my father thought his career change was dashed, was ruined. And so he said to the sons, "I have nothing in writing about this conversation, but I can tell you what he agreed to sell his stations for to me, and I have nothing to prove it. But if you would let me do that, that's what I'd very much like to do." And the sons huddled and they said, "Well, if this is what our father told you that he would sell them and this is a price that he had named, I think that we would just do that because we are getting into other kinds of businesses but not the radio businesses and it would be a good thing to get that off our plate." And so my father said he didn't know whether the deal would be honored or not. The deal was honored and the brothers came back, Mr. Hipp's sons, came back to him and said, "We have decided that you are an honest man and if you tell us that this is what our father said, and this was a deal the two made, we accept it. Well, that had all happened. My father moved back and he became a radio man instead of a banking man, but he still understood the numbers and the systems. But I grew up hearing the story of how important integrity was to a person because of this one incident because my father said the young men, the sons of Mr. Hipp, I had never even met them, but they thought that I had a name could be trusted, a good name. And so the deal went through and I became the owner of some radio stations with some borrowed money that I had to eventually repay. But he said that's how I got into the radio business. And instead of going back to the banking business, I decided that I understood why the company wasn't making money and I thought I could make it make money. I could know how to do it. I could figure out from my educational background what was not being offered, what was not being promoted and so that's how I ended up in the radio business. So that was in the long, the Reader's Digest version I guess, of how he went from being a financial banking person and became a radio financial person and also had to learn what the radio business was all about.

15:39,700 Lisa Hayes

That's nice. A lesson in integrity for you when he--

15:44,500 Martha Rivers Ingram

Well, it was a story that I grew up hearing around the dinner table. sister and I heard it over and over again it's so important to have a good name don't let anyone ever take it away from you it's the most important thing is to be a person of integrity a person that can be trusted and that is more important than anything else that you can ever achieve and you've already achieved it and so just don't let it get ruined or messed up by some wrong decisions just be careful in your decision-making.

16:29,000 Lisa Hayes

Well will you share with us how your parents met? Do you know the story?

16:35,000 Martha Rivers Ingram

My parents met because my father had been transferred up to the Greenville area in the banking business and my mother was at Converse College and she was about to graduate and he decided that he would be very interested in marrying her if she would be likewise interested. So what-But they met as—she was still a college student, and he was a newly-minted college graduate who had been with the bank for a very few months. But that was how they met, and all of a sudden their lives shifted and changed dramatically. And here they were, living in Charleston, South Carolina, in the radio business.

17:32,160 Lisa Hayes

Well, and you have a sister. You had a sister. What was the age difference between you and my sister?

17:39,040 Martha Rivers Ingram

My sister is still living. She is at Bishop Gadsden now, and she is two years younger. My brother, John Rivers, is ten years younger. So they considered themselves well-established by the time he was born.

18:05,980 Lisa Hayes

And you went to Ashley Hall. What was that like when you were going there? Was it a fun experience?

18:13,600 Martha Rivers Ingram

It felt very privileged because it was all girls and we were lucky enough to be amongst them and so many of those girls grew up to be our good friends because we were in the first grade together and went all the way to the 12th grade.

18:40,160 Lisa Hayes

Do you keep in touch with anybody from Ashley Hall now or are there still some friends around in Charleston?

18:46,560 Martha Rivers Ingram

Well, my sister, of course, graduated. And she graduated in 11 years. She was so smart. They made her skip a grade because she was too smart for the rest of the children in her class. So after I graduated, I went to Vassar College up in Poughkeepsie, New York, which I heard of is one of the best colleges that a girl could go to because in those days, days only boys got to go to the Ivy League colleges and in those days that was the same thing but she entered Vassar the year after I did she we were both good students and so we both ended up in Poughkeepsie, New York and both graduated from Vassar. She was just a year behind me.

19:51,480 Lisa Hayes

That was probably nice to have a sister right there with you so far from home.

19:55,760 Martha Rivers Ingram

Yes, it was very nice. For me and for when I went to Vassar there was nobody there from this part of the world, from the South. It was highly unlikely to even have it suggested that one go as far away as from Charleston to Poughkeepsie, New York, but it turned out that the lady who was head of Vassar at that point had some roots in Charleston. So we had heard, you know, I knew that she was the kind of person that I would like to be associated with and she'd understand where I had come from. So it worked out very happily, but all of a sudden I had a whole new cast of characters who were my friends. And mostly they were from the New England area, New York, New England, Boston, Chicago. And so different for me and certainly right behind me my sister is saying. So it was particularly nice to have a sister there since all these other people. They were relatively new, but even though I was from down south, they were very nice, very friendly. And I'm very pleased to have had the opportunity to get that kind of training. It's mental training, I guess, as much as anything else. bigger ideas, bigger thoughts, and not everything about the South was said to be perfect. In fact, there were a lot of things that needed to be changed, like the segregated schools and things that today we take for granted. It's the way they should have always been, but they were not necessarily always that way. But it turned out to awaken my mind to a lot of things that I'd never, never even thought of that. And my sister as well. But proximity to New York was very important. In those days, the New York Central went from Poughkeepsie into New New York City and it was about an hour and a half on the train. And so we had the advantage of going to the theater and the opera and of course lots of plays. And we had both been to New York several times. My sister and I had both been there several times because of our father being in the radio business and he went up frequently to New York on business and he frequently took either me or my sister or both of us. And we got to see a lot behind the scenes in the production studios. The only radio then, but I remember there was, our favorite radio program was called “Let's Pretend.” And it was all just what you could hear. and the actors would come in on stage and get behind the microphone and do what they were supposed to be doing. So that was, we thought, a special treat. But we saw plays that were just opening in New York and one I remember was called “South Pacific” and there was one called "Annie Get Your Gun" and there was a play about a rabbit called Harvey that was an invisible rabbit. I mean it was just a whole kind of mind-blowing experience to go into New York City. And then of course the museums were just down the streets and We had some friends in New York that we could visit. Anyhow, it was living in a different world from Charleston.

24:31,700 Lisa Hayes

Do you remember during World War II talking about the radio, did you all have a room that had a nice radio in it where you would gather around and listen to the news?

24:41,780 Martha Rivers Ingram

Yes, to the Lone Ranger.

24:42,980 Lisa Hayes

The Lone Ranger.

24:44,660 Martha Rivers Ingram

And the news, whatever the news was. But yes, in those days also, although we were not told to be fearful, but we did know that there were German submarines during those early years, during the World War that were just off the coast. And we had to be prepared to dive underneath the dining room table to try to-in case the bombs were dropped on us. I don't know how we thought-our parents thought that that was going to somehow protect us from bombs. Maybe they weren't as lethal as today. Anyhow, we had the advantage of the-my father was too old to be drafted into the war. But he was not too old to raise money for the war effort, selling war bonds. And so many of the people that were helping him-And these people were helping various fundraising efforts around the country. But there were movie stars. There were people like Paulette Goddard and Martha O'Driscoll. And I don't even know how I remember those names but I can't remember who I met last week. So it was a scary experience to think back on it, knowing that the German submarines was just offshore. But we didn't know very much about it. We just know that there was some boats out there that weren't supposed to be there. But the last thing that we're trying to do was to scare us. But when I watch television today and think what people are going through, it makes me realize we have a very mild experience compared to what we see going on today with more terrible weapons and more horrible things happening.

27:04,660 Lisa Hayes

That's true. Well, do you remember anything about the Library Society from those before you went away to college or maybe coming home from school? Were your parents members of the library or did you come to the library?

27:16,660 Martha Rivers Ingram

My grandparents were. My grandfather was a lawyer and my mother was a college graduate too. But what I remember, you may find amusing, irrelevant, but we had a nanny and every Thursday the nanny was off, her day off. And our grandparents would come to 20 Church Street, where it is where we lived at that point in time, and get my sister and me. And they had a big Buick, which was, I don't know why I even remember, but it was longer than most Buicks are today even. They had in the back seat, they had two jump seats and then a bigger kind of almost sofa size seat where my grandparents sat and then my sister and I were on these little jump seats. And every Thursday, because that was when the nanny was off, our parents would come with their driver whose name was Edward who was an African-American man and they would get my sister and me and the first thing we do would be to go to the library society because my grandmother evidently had two books that she got out of the time and Edward the driver would go up those steep steps and return those two books and bring out two more books that she had not read. And that was for the coming week. And all I remember that may sound really weird today, but my grandmother would look at the new books and say, "Edward, these should be just fine." But now and then she'd say, "But Edward, this one already, I've already read this one, I can tell, because my circle is on the title page. And the circle meant she read the book. And, you know, today it would be like, "Oh no, you'd be defacing it." I have no memory of what she read, whether they were novels or whether they were biographies, or I don't think there was any science fiction. I have no idea what it was, but it was a routine that we did. And after we had the old books and brought the new ones, and then we had the next thing that we did was we'd go out to Magnolia Cemetery, still in the car, still in the jump seats. And if it was cold, we had what in those days, there were no heaters in the cars. We just had a lap robe that you put around you that had been brought somewhere on a trip to Europe. We'd go out to Magnolia Cemetery. That was where my grandparents would visit the little graves. They had five children, as I recall, that had died either from diphtheria or the childhood diseases that now are no more but they were they you know no matter how good care the level of care you tried to have your children. Sanitation just was not what it is today and diseases if they got to be a pandemic kind of thing it killed a lot of little children because there were no shots, there were no things to protect them. And so we'd go see the little graves, the little children that were lost and that had died. So that's the other thing I remember about those Thursday trips.

31:39,760 Lisa Hayes

Yeah. Do you remember feeling scared that those were children and you were a child, that that could happen to you?

31:46,480 Martha Rivers Ingram

No, because I felt so protected, you know, from, I guess, growing up. And, you know, I'm going to go get some water so I don't cough into your machine.

31:59,360 Lisa Hayes

I haven't touched mine. Can I give it to you?

32:01,360 Danielle Cox

I have a bottle of water if you want?

32:02,360 Martha Rivers Ingram

Well, I'll do that. Yeah. Sorry. When I talk too much, my throat gets dry.

32:06,360 Lisa Hayes

Sure.

32:16,360 Danielle Cox

It happens to me too. Yes.

32:18,360 Martha Rivers Ingram

Sorry about that. Thank you. But, you know, considering how life is today for younger people, So I think we were so lucky to grow up in Charleston, which was a very safe place, and to live amongst people that we knew, and everybody seemed to be nice to each other. So it was, even today, I don't have many friends still living. I'm 88 but they're, you know, and I have two or three friends that are that age but most of my other younger friends that were younger have died. So, but I know even before they died, we all, whenever we get together, we say, weren't we lucky to have been the safest time in life to be little and vulnerable and to live in such a nice city and such a nice neighborhood. And we could roller skate up and down the streets or ride bicycles to our friends' houses. There were so few cars.

33:43,160 Lisa Hayes

Do you know the name Jenks Gibbs? Do you recognize that name?

33:47,160 Martha Rivers Ingram

The Gibbs?

33:48,160 Lisa Hayes

Jenks Gibbs?

33:49,160 Martha Rivers Ingram

I do.
Lisa Hayes

I don't know what his given name was, but he goes by Jenks, but he tells the same story. He's the same age and grew up on, not on Church Street, but nearby. And he would talk about being able to just go all over and not worry about anything. And the gangs that you had in Charleston, you know, that you would be the so-and-so street gang and go over to the park over here and does all that sound familiar?

Martha Rivers Ingram
I wonder if you talked about the neighborhood playgrounds.

34:23,800 Lisa Hayes

Yes.

34:24,840 Martha Rivers Ingram

And we played the girls played girls teams from other parts of town are and the boys had boy teams. We played kickball and we played basketball and ping pong was something not a team sport but that was available in East Bay playground now Hazel Parker playground. But you know everything seems so safe and we could get on a bus for a nickel or a dime or something and go to different parts of town or even walk up to the dime store. The Woolworths, I guess, would have been one of them. But I remember going on the bus up to see a friend that I knew from the summertime from Orangeburg, South Carolina. My parents would just drop me off at the bus station and I'd get on the bus and go see my friend in Orangeburg named Lyle Wannamaker that I knew in the summer because her family had a summer beach cottage here. So it's almost unimaginable to think of what we were allowed to do. I can remember riding my bicycle across the Ashley River Bridge and going over there. There were some low-hanging trees and tree branches and climbing those trees. It was just such an entirely different setting, a different feel. Everything was, seemed so safe and it, you know, there were certainly occasional stories of, I remember, I knew one little girl that got killed on her bicycle up on the post office corner here at Broad and Meeting Street and she just didn't pay attention to the fact that a bus was turning and killed her. But that was, her last name was Huguenin, but I can just remember, it was so shocking, but it was the object lesson for my sister and me is that you've got to be careful of the traffic. These buses, they have a job to pick up and take people around. You just can't get close to where they are. But as far as someone shooting you or doing physical harm, that just never entered my mind. I don't remember ever being fearful of any of that. But it was, I mean, it's just hard to believe that there was ever a time like that when we know turn on the television now and this is sort of one tragic thing after another happening.

37:45,360 Lisa Hayes

It does feel that way but well I'm glad to have this story that I'm glad to have this story that you shared that's nice. So you went to Vassar and then I know from listening to the other interview that I did or that Miss Alterman did you came back to Charleston tell us what where you worked when you came back to Charleston.

38:06,920 Martha Rivers Ingram

Well, when I came back after graduating, my father said, "Well, now what are you going to do?" And I said, "Well, I don't know. I really don't know." He said, "Well, you know, you will have to work. I mean, you will be doing something. If you haven't found anyone you want to be married to, you will be working. Would you like to come work for me in the broadcasting business?" I said, "Well, I don't know. I don't know." He said, "Well, why don't you come and find out?" He said, "You're smart enough." And he said, "Why don't you come and see if it's something you like?" He said, "You know, you've got a little brother, but he's 10 years younger than you are. So if you want to do it, you can be my successor." What? That was shocking. So, but I went to work and I had learned how to type at Rice Business College every summer for I guess six weeks or so. I came in every day, every other day to go to Rice Business College, which was right where King Street is in the downtown. But you said they're learning the keys and learning how to not look at the keys. It's the kind of muscle memory, I guess. But anyhow, so my father said, well, you know how to type, so you can write up program introductions whatever needs to be done you you can help in that sense but he said and furthermore my secretary is really quite ill and probably is not going to live. She had cancer and died he said why don't you just come and be my secretary for a while and I said well daddy I don't know how to do shorthand he said "Well, we have dictaphones." This was the new big thing. "You know, you'll just, you'll just, I'll, I'll," he said, "I'll dictate a letter and then you'll listen to the dictaphone and then you'll type it up and that way you'll be learning about my business and what I do and you can see see whether it's something you can see yourself doing at some point." So that's how I got started into that. And at one point I thought this is a little boring. And I said, "Hey, Daddy, I've got an idea." I said, "You know, I took some music courses. I played the piano. You made me go to piano lessons for 10, 12 years or so, a long time, with Miss Hester B. Finger. But I do know now because of my music courses, I know a fair amount of that history of music and there's no classical music on the radio. Why don't I put together a program every evening during the dinner hour for a couple of hours that's classical music. He said, "Well, that would be something a little different to do it on the radio part, the FM part. We've now got that along with the A.M. And you could do that." But he said, "You know, this is not a non-profit. You've got to figure out how to make money doing that." I said, "You mean I have to get sponsors to sponsor the program like you do on, you know, the Lone Ranger and all the other serials and soap operas and things, he said yes. So he said, "Well, if you can figure out how to do it, we'll give it a try." And so I ended up doing that. He said, "But, you know, you've got to have somebody on the air introducing the recordings." And he said, "But you can't just put yourself on the air. I don't like the idea of Martha Rivers being the one to do it." He said, "First of all, it may not work. And secondly, I just don't want your name all over the air. So you've got to make up another name. But you can do it. I'll let you give it a try, see if you can make a business out of it." OK. So that's what I did. So I became Elizabeth Crawford. That was a, I looked in some of our family albums and that was a name that I thought sounded properly classical. I was probably so terrible when I lowered my voice. I tried to sound sexy. But I had to write up the programs then I had to find sponsors. So the first one I went to call on was Hugh Lane at the bank. I can't even remember what the name of the bank was then that he was president of. Citizens and Southern, I think it was. And so I did that. I did it from seven to 11 every night. The first seven to eight, I called that part of the program Candlelight and Wine. And then that was sort of, it was kind of pop music, I guess we'd call it today. And it was something that you could listen to while you were having dinner. And then at eight o'clock till it finished, it was probably another two hours, My program was called Music from the Masters, and I'd do Beethoven one night and I'd do Mozart another. But I'd give a little bit of the introduction of their lives, and I was probably pretty awful. But nonetheless, I got some, believe it or not, some fan mail to Elizabeth Crawford. Anyhow. That was fine and I kept renewing the sponsorship. It was very cheap by comparison with anything today. But nonetheless, it was some... I told my father that this is a line of business that you didn't even know you had. A way of making money you didn't even know you had. because we do have some listeners and they are writing in, telling us what they like and what they don't like. So I became a disc jockey. Time went on and my previous boyfriend, I had met in New York, who had been at Princeton, then gone in the Navy and was now, he called and asked if he could come see me and so forth. So I started having dates and then he wanted me to marry him and moved to Nashville, which is what I ended up doing. That ended my career.

45:56,280 Lisa Hayes

How did you meet your husband?

45:59,800 Martha Rivers Ingram

I met him on a blind date in New York City. He was there with a -he had a date and a man who was earlier out of the Navy who -he was her date and they had this friend named Bronson Ingram who was just out of the Navy and didn't have a date and so would I be the date so I was the blind date and and you know we've had a very nice time. We went to see it was so long ago we went to see in the opening week of “My Fair Lady” and Julie Andrews and that original crowd were what we saw. And we saw, it was a very, I would say, a very extravagant experience because most of people I knew in college didn't have much money and certainly not anything that they could afford to do on the scale but these men were from wealthy families and had money that they saved up while they were in the service. So anyhow we went out for several months and all of a sudden he asked me to marry him. And I said, "Yes, but I'll have to give up my broadcasting company." And so that was how that ended. And they basically, there was nobody there prepared to take it over. And so we just said, "Well, I hope you've enjoyed these programs. And perhaps it will start up again later." And, you know, I didn't know at the time that I was going to be moving to Nashville, that he wasn't going to be moving here. And so that's what happened. And then after I'd been there a short while, we moved to New Orleans because he was in the oil business and he was in charge of the company's filling station business. It was throughout the southeast. It was filling stations that wanted to sell gasoline for less money than Exxon or Gulf or the major brands of the time. And so it was called Ingram. And they had, we had small stations and never wanted to have more than six in one city because the price wars were going on. If one brand dropped the price from 30 cents a gallon to 32 cents you had to follow it or fight it. So it was a different world from the broadcasting world. And so as it turned out that almost right away I was having a baby and you know it just sort of one thing led to the other. My career turned into motherhood.

49:38,660 Lisa Hayes

When did you have your first child? What year was that event?

49:43,140 Martha Rivers Ingram

1960 And then I had a second one in 1961 and another one in 1962. And it was, I mean, you know, my husband, I guess, was 27 when we married and so he was getting on to 30 something. And you know, it was kind of, in those days, it was thought to be, he was getting kind old and I guess I was twenty three or four when we married and I had the last child when I was 30 and that was considered a little high risk.

50:26,000 Lisa Hayes

Wow so yeah you all had four children is that right and when did you move to Nashville?

50:33,780 Martha Rivers Ingram

When did I move? To Nashville. Well we married, let's see, I graduated in '57 and I guess I guess 58 or so. Well I guess we, I don't know the time it goes by very quickly but I I was the class of '57, I guess. So we moved to Nashville right after. Everything seems sort of compressed, what I think that got. But we barely moved to Nashville when his father, who lived in Nashville, or his business headquarters was there. But he was in the oil refining business, and that all happened in New Orleans. And his father wanted him to move down there and keep an eye on the business and develop the filling station part of the business. So we lived there for about three and a half years and came back with two babies. New Orleans, there was something in the water we said. And then they've lived in Nashville ever since. Although, you know, we have a second home here and there. But as he became more financially able to have those things. So that's just kind of moved right along and you know sadly he died of cancer. Of course we had all the children but he was only 63 or so when he died. So, and by then I was in the community, working in the community, and interested in trying to get music and arts more involved in the community. And then when he died, I inherited a very large business. It was international. And so in addition to having all these babies, I had a big business that I moved into to become Chairman of the Board. And that was the end of the babies. Well, of course, the babies grew up and just had different situations, different problems. I just had to go to their games, their baseball games or whatever.

53:31,840 Lisa Hayes

Well, I know you were the first woman on a lot of boards and the first—well, and you volunteered a lot when the kids were growing up, it sounded like. You were just very busy and then like you said you inherited your husband's company and have really been a leader in Nashville it sounds like in cultural circles. So tell us, so you mentioned the opera and the symphony and I know that you work with a ballet also. Are those your three sort of big passions?

54:07,160 Martha Rivers Ingram

Mm-hmm, and the repertory theater.

54:10,040 Lisa Hayes

Okay.

54:11,040 Martha Rivers Ingram

But none of those things were in -the opera -I mean the -let's see, the symphony was operating on a small scale. And it was okay, but it was not great. And I'd heard some great music in New York when I'd been there during that time and seen the opera, been to the Metropolitan Opera numerous times. I don't know how I had done so much, it seems, when I would think back on it, in just a little bit of time. But we had no ballet company. But now we have a ballet company that has an annual budget of eight and a half million dollars, you know, from zero when we started. In fact, the first year I helped get a performing arts center started. It took several years to get that done, but getting the ballet going took a while to get people to even know about ballet and to even think they wanted such a thing. So I feel as though fundraising to me is really about selling. It's about trying to get the vision right and then trying to sell it to other people. And sometimes you have to adjust it a little bit as you go along. But because of that, I think it was, and these things had never happened before. And I think that's why the businesses had never had a woman on the boards before. And so all of a sudden everybody seemed to want a woman on the board. So because I could add and subtract and attend in the business world, I was offered a lot of positions and was very flattered because I was usually the first woman who's ever been on the board. And so that was very nice and my hope was that I would not mess it up so that there will never be another woman on the board, that I could do a good enough job that they'll think it's a big, a good thing to have a woman on the board. So that kept on growing, but then there were companies outside of Nashville, Baxter, up in, outside of Chicago. There were just a lot of companies that decided they needed a woman. So I was ultimately in a Warehouser’s board, the first woman. It turned out my husband's grandfather had been one of the founders of Warehouser, which is a big lumber company out in Tacoma, Washington. So it was not just local boards all of a sudden. It was when somebody would say, "Well, I'm looking for a woman. Have you got any idea of somebody?" Or somebody would say, "Well, I hear there's this woman who's doing this kind of thing. You think she would consider coming on the bank board down at Birmingham?" It was just—and then it got to be a logistical problem, having the children looked after and going through school and also taking these opportunities to, you know, it was kind of a badge of honor, I guess you could say, to be the first woman on these boards and nobody ever, you know, how do you handle it? How do you, I said, I don't know, you just, you just do it.

58:33,720 Lisa Hayes

Well, and you strike me as a bridge builder and a person who looks for ways to cooperate and build consensus and that kind of thing. So I'm sure you were very effective on the boards and also in your career.

58:50,720 Martha Rivers Ingram

Well, it all seemed to have worked together somehow. But I, and part of that maybe came because I had so much up-close experience with my husband's company. And I traveled to Europe with him when he was building the book distribution business. And we had offices all over Europe. And he always wanted me to go with him and that created some babysitting problems. But my parents were, I was fortunate to have parents that would fly over to Nashville and stay with the children. They didn't have to do the cooking or the, I had helpers to do that. But they liked coming to Nashville, which was very friendly to them. And they really have a chance to get to know my children pretty well because I was gone so much. And they got to be sort of the substitute parents from time to time. It was a living, learning, growing experience, I guess. I think back on that sometimes think how did I work all that you know have--

01:00:18,200 Lisa Hayes

But you know Rosalynn Carter who just passed away and she's been in the news so much.

01:00:24,680 Martha Rivers Ingram

Rosalynn oh, yes.

1:00:25,000 Lisa Hayes

Yes. I am I've enjoyed learning more about her and how instrumental it sounds like she was and her husband's success and you know

01:00:35,140 Martha Rivers Ingram

Yeah, I was interested in that too. And of course my husband was not in public office office, but he had a public company and it was quite visible. So, you know, I had to learn how to do that too because although I was there and very involved in what he was doing, I was not the final decision maker until all of a sudden after he died very suddenly of this very aggressive cancer. I had to learn to deal with the press and all that kind of stuff. So, you know, it's never been dull.

01:01:19,640 Lisa Hayes

No. Well, and tell us about your -I want to hear about the Gaillard, of course, but your four children. I know you -from just reading online, it sounded like you -they are also kind of following in your family, your legacy that you have as far as being philanthropic. And that must make you very proud to know that they are doing the same kind of work.

01:01:44,500 Martha Rivers Ingram

Yeah, they are. They're better. No, they're doing, yes, they're combining community responsibilities with the business responsibilities and the family responsibilities that go along with it too. No I'm very pleased. They all, they've never known not to work. They just grew up with both mother and father working and yes we had a lot of help but I I couldn't have kept my mind together, had I not had people that did the cooking and the cleaning and that sort of thing. But still, there's the mommy and the daddy work that had to be done, too, to attend the events that children expect their parents to go to. And you want to go to, you want to see how they're functioning. But, yeah, it's been a busy time. It's a very busy life. But it's been very fulfilling because of not only exposure to a lot of wonderful things, but to have access to money to be able to do the, build performing arts centers and to lead by example by putting our money up front and that gave other people confidence to join in and be helpful. So you’ve been to the Gaillard, so you know what that's like. And that doesn't just happen. It was a combination of going to the mayor and saying, We've got this terrible facility here in the old Gaillard And I don't know how Spoleto is going to keep going if you don't have a better facility, because the sound is terrible and everything about. And I said, I can put up a lead gift if you'll join in and help make it happen. And he did. And so, you know, we were partners in that. And he got more money from the city than anybody thought possible. And I got more money from the private sector here than anyone expected to have happen. And now we've got the beautiful facilities and I've done all that before in Nashville. So I felt as though I knew how to do it. I knew the people and my husband's position in the communities gave me credibility because he had put so much trust in me, I guess, that they thought, "Well, if he trusts her, we've got to trust her too." It all had been very supportive. So it's a combination of things. It all kind of starts with a vision. How do I really, what is it we really need here? And then trying to figure out what the road is going to be to get to the end. Or sometimes it's like how do you get to the goal post. It's like a football game. You have to decide where you want to go and then how do you do it. But then, you know, it's never just you. It's always selling other people on the idea because you can never do these big projects by yourself. You've got to have a team.

01:05:56,180 Lisa Hayes

Well, the success of the Nashville Performing Arts Center, I would think, was helpful in getting the Gaillard work done. Is that right?

01:06:07,700 Martha Rivers Ingram

Yeah, because I knew how to do it by then. But, um...

01:06:12,540 Lisa Hayes

Was there anything that you changed based on what you learned from Nashville to the Gaillard? Did you do anything differently?

01:06:21,340 Martha Rivers Ingram

Well, it's... You know, you kind of have to sort of... I don't know if you play tennis or... You've got to be able to be flexible from one thing to the next. But I would say the main thing for me here was that I already knew what a good facility would take, what it would be like. And it was trying to figure out if I personally had enough money, access to enough money to get it started and going and did I have enough community clout here of the knowledge to be able to raise the additional money but also to have access to the mayor and I met him along the way. So much of it is in the beginning that was having access to my husband's network of power brokers. And then here it was trying to get Joe Riley going and then to get enough community members going to, you know, and Nashville is a wealthier community than Charleston. And so, I mean, I think we had something like 31 million-dollar-donors in Nashville. And here, I think we ended up with maybe 5 million-dollar, 5-1 million dollar donors. So it's just, so again I had to learn to paddle faster, you know, for the smaller dollars to try to, because when you're doing these projects, if you're going to do them at all, you want to done right, you don't want to, I mean we had this terrible Gaillard that was better than nothing until finally people stopped wanting to go because it was so bad. You couldn't hear, you couldn't see, you couldn't get to a bathroom, you couldn't--

01:08:46,060 Lisa Hayes

I remember that.

01:08:47,060 Martha Rivers Ingram

You remember that, too. So it's trying to work out all those kinks and I don't know, I think we were lucky to get as much work done as we did but it came out close to perfect and --

01:09:09,860 Lisa Hayes

It's beautiful yes I was there not too long ago for a performance and we sat in the I brought my daughter sat in the back and had such a nice view even way in the back it really is yeah nice you can hear my space oh yeah you can hear everything

01:09:25,500 Martha Rivers Ingram

Well, one of the things I had to work on that I didn't expect to have to work on is I had the same team of people that we'd used in Nashville. So I knew what to expect from them and the team of people, I wanted them, these same people to come here because I knew what to expect. And then I found that Joe Riley had decided that he had a, I don't know, that was a supporter or somebody he wanted to use as the sound design guy here. And I just happened to run into him in New York right after I thought all those decisions had been made. And I ran into him in New York at Carnegie Hall and his name was Ralph, oh, I can't think right this minute. But anyhow, I said, "Have you gotten started on the project in Charleston?" He said, Ralph Scarborough is his name, is his name. And he said, "No, I didn't get the job." I said, "What?" I said, "We had a handshake deal that we would use the same people that we used in Nashville because I know them and we can trust them. They know what they're doing." And he said, "Well, I just had this old crony that I thought that he'd worked on the bridge going over to -is somebody just walking. And that's all. Maybe it was just something else. I thought I saw someone walking up the steps, but maybe not. And anyhow, he said, "Well, I didn't get the job." And I said... Well, wait a minute. Someone just walked down the stairs. See? Are you expecting anyone else?

01:11:45,040 Lisa Hayes

Oh, she's pulled into your driveway. She has blonde hair.

01:11:50,680 Martha Rivers Ingram

Wrong address.

01:11:51,920 Lisa Hayes

No, short blonde hair. A woman. Do you want me to see if she left a package or something?

01:11:58,960 Martha Rivers Ingram

Well, she might have left something at the front door. I don't--

01:12:02,400 Lisa Hayes

Do you want me to check?

01:12:03,360 Martha Rivers Ingram

Well, if you don't mind. Sure, yeah. Let's see in cases, something that might melt. That maybe it's just maybe it was just a note. I'm sorry.

01:12:27,460 [Dani Assistant]

Everything okay?

01:12:32,360 Martha Rivers Ingram

Yes, somebody just dropped something off.

01:12:35,760 Lisa Hayes

She saw them up the stairs.

01:12:42,260 Martha Rivers Ingram

Well, I don't have my glasses on, so.

01:12:44,000 [Dani Assistant]

It's official invitation to a ball.

01:12:46,660 Martha Rivers Ingram

You can see if there's anything I need to do anything about right away.

01:12:52,020 [Dani Assistant]

Oh, I would imagine to probably thank you notes from last night. Oh, well that's a good one. That's just my thoughts. But I'll leave them right there. Well, you were the chef.

01:13:06,740 Lisa Hayes

Looks like Anne's writing.

01:13:08,740 [Dani Assistant]

There you go.

01:13:10,740 Martha Rivers Ingram

You were the chef. Thank you.

01:13:12,740 [Dani Assistant]

Yes, ma'am.

01:13:14,740 Martha Rivers Ingram

So, anyhow, so when I got back from New York, I may have called from New York, but anyhow, I called the mayor and I said, "I just ran into this man, Paul Scarborough, that was part of a team to come from Nashville to Charleston to work on this new project. And I said, he said he had not been hired. I said, what do you mean not hired? You and I had a handshake deal. And he said, well, I didn't think you cared all that much about the sound. I said, Joe, let me just tell you, I care so much about the sound. If you don't rehire or hire this man, it's the sound guy, and fire the guy that you put in his place. You're going to lose me, your chief fund-your chief funder, your title person, and your chief fundraiser, because I'm not playing that game. And he said, well, I didn't think you cared that much. I said, well, I do. And I said, "I'll give you until tomorrow to make it right and put it back the way it's supposed to be." And he did, and it went on. But it's that kind of thing that, you know, and he really was fine on everything else we did, even the color of the hall, because when the architect said, "Visiting room, what color do you want this hall to be?" Meaning, "Gaillard." I said, "Well, I love the Celadon Green we have in Nashville." He said, "Well, we can't do the same one again." I said, "Well, then my next favorite color would be kind of an orange-y color." see not, what did I call it, well it'll come to me, but not tangerine but it's like

01:15:34,000 Lisa Hayes

sherbert.

01:15:35,000 Martha Rivers Ingram

No it's not, it's well it'll come but any anyhow we got it we got it But see, that's the kind of thing. And he didn't do that again. He didn't try to switch it out on anything switching it out on me. But anyhow, we--

01:15:57,960 Lisa Hayes

You have to have the sound right in a performing arts center. You can't have the sound not be perfect.

01:16:07,680 Martha Rivers Ingram

Well this man, Ralph Scarborough, is known for, he works for a company, I think he may be head of it now, called Acoustics. And they have since hired him to New York, to Lincoln Center, to try to straighten out their sound for their symphony hall there. I mean that's how good he is. I just got the reputation, and that's why our sound is so good here. So it might not have been. In fact, somebody was talking to me about that last night. How did you get the sound so right here and also everyone said that the sound in Nashville and here amongst the best halls in the world. And I said, "Well, it almost didn't happen here in Nashville." I was much more involved on that level in the beginning. I didn't realize I didn't have it covered here, but it was not. And so fortunately we found out in time and got Paul Scarborough back on the sound here and Yo-Yo Ma says that two of the best halls he plays in, this one and the one in Nashville. When I was complimenting him, he did say, "Well, you know, I do play all over the world and nobody has better sound than you've got right here." And so, you never know where the curve ball is, and I don't like to play what I call the money card, but this time I thought, I've got to have him back this out, this won't do. And so I told him, I said, "I'm playing the money card. I'm out of here unless you go back." We had a--. We don't have it in writing, no. I didn't think I had to have things in writing with you. I thought we had a handshake deal. And so a handshake deal is important to me. And if we don't do that, then we don't really have anything else to discuss. I'm just out of here because I can't deal with somebody that doesn't do what he says he's going to do. And so...

01:18:49,980 Lisa Hayes

Well, it brings it full circle to the story you shared about your dad and the integrity that he shared.

01:18:54,980 Martha Rivers Ingram

Yes. It's not an integrity thing. You know, it's more important than money, but it's about honesty and integrity. and doing what you say you're going to do and You know certainly worked hard to try to get that point across to my own children and I think that I've never heard anyone say that they were other than other than honest, other than doing you know doing what they agreed to do and you know of course it belonged the way you can't do it or something happened. But you don't just not do it because you found somebody who is cheaper or better that you like better. So it's just a matter of priorities. I guess in the last analysis it kind of gets back to the character of the situation, the character of the person, character, the importance. And I think that the Library Society that, you know, that Anne Cleveland certainly has gotten her thinking, getting everything back to what the Library Society stood for and has stood for, you know, for a place where you can have discussions about whatever it is you want to have discussions. It's not trying to sell propaganda from one point of view or the other, but it's a place that people can come to make their views known to other people that they respect. And they don't have to agree. They can still walk away as friends.

01:20:55,480 Lisa Hayes

That's right. Yeah, that's right. Well, thank you so much for all this time today. It was very generous of you.

01:21:02,800 Martha Rivers Ingram

I'm not sure I've done anything to illuminate anything very much.

01:21:07,960 Lisa Hayes

Oh, you did.

01:21:08,960 Martha Rivers Ingram

But maybe from the point of the vantage, from thinking back on, you know, you have to live with these decisions. Yeah.

01:21:24,440 [Dani Assistant]

Sorry to interrupt. I'm going to run to the store.

01:21:27,360 Martha Rivers Ingram

You're going to run? For dinner.

[Dani Assistant]

Are you going to be okay?

01:21:30,840 Martha Rivers Ingram

Well, I don't they don't look like murderers to me.

01:21:34,840 [Dani Assistant]

I just want to make sure y'all aren't murderers, right? Just kidding. I won't be long. I just want to let you know.

01:21:41,440 Martha Rivers Ingram

Well, just that's fine. Just don't rush. Just take your time.

01:21:45,040 [Dani Assistant]

Okay.

01:21:45,540 Martha Rivers Ingram

Don't rush.

01:21:47,840 [Dani Assistant]

Okay. Thank you.

01:21:50,640 Martha Rivers Ingram

Since you gave me your water, do you need?

01:21:54,440 Danielle Cox

No, I'm good, actually brought two.

01:21:56,240 Martha Rivers Ingram

Yeah.

01:21:58,240 Danielle Cox

What anything could happen if you need another one.

01:22:04,240 [Dani Assistant]

Goodness. Just left you some soaps too. They're from Sally and Charlie.

01:22:11,240 Lisa Hayes

Oh my goodness. Nice gifts today.

01:22:13,240 Martha Rivers Ingram

That was really a face on your good cooking.

01:22:17,240 [Dani Assistant]

Oh, that's okay. You can keep it. [Laughter]

01:22:22,240 Martha Rivers Ingram

Dani was our chef last night. She's really quite wonderful. She used her father's was a party manager, party giver, caterer, and she used to work with him and she said she got tired of doing all the hard work as the youngest one and so she when I fell and hit my head and had all these problems. And so my children decided I needed somebody to help me with the driving. I shouldn't be driving and that kind of. So Dani, this was now I guess year and a half, almost two years ago. So she came to work for me. So she, it's really got in. She does a very, very nice job. And she said, but it's so much nicer than carrying all those trays and catering. (laughing) So as long as she's happy, she can drive and go wherever she wants when she wants. And when she's going to the grocery store, I guess she decides what we're going to have for dinner. I don't have to make that decision anymore and I don't have to go do it. I don't have to. So she has a credit card, so she can buy what she needs. So anyhow, it's kind of weird, but it's a different lifestyle from the corporate boards and all the things that I've done all my life, most of my life. And so I don't miss it. You have asked me if I'm missing all that. Nope. I did it. I've peddled as hard as I could, as fast as I could, for a long time. I wish I hadn't fallen and hit my head, but I had one of these blackouts. They don't know where it comes from. They said that when you get-I'm in 88. They said, "When you get in your 80s, "there are little wires around your head "that can come loose or something." Just, "We don't see anything that's really bad." And they did all these MRIs and things. They said, "Just go and enjoy your life and don't worry about it." And I said, "Okay."

01:24:54,640 Lisa Hayes

Well, and I see you have this picture next to you of your family. Do you get to see your family a lot?

01:25:02,600 Martha Rivers Ingram

Yeah, they all live in Nashville.

01:25:04,060 Lisa Hayes

Oh, they do? Okay.

Martha Rivers Ingram

Yeah. But there are more of them than that.

Lisa Hayes

Oh really?

01:25:10,400 Martha Rivers Ingram

Because I've got now five great-grandchildren, and the other-the grandchildren, that's from the grandchildren having children. But I've got dinner Christmas day at my house under a tent. It's got to be heated and natural, of course. But last I heard I had 45 coming from family Christmas dinner.

01:25:39,080 Lisa Hayes

Sounds nice.

01:25:41,360 Martha Rivers Ingram

Yeah, it is nice. And the good thing is they kind of like all getting together with each other. And my big conversation the last day has been with my brother John, who has three teenage children. And they wanted to come to Nashville, too, because they have been there for a couple of weddings recently. And they said, "Well, people there are just-your family-there's so many of them. They have such a good time. They have more fun than any of the rest of us, so we want to come and do that." I said, "Well, OK." And the color I was trying to think of is apricot. It's the color-you've seen the facility, right?

01:26:32,280 Danielle Cox

I haven't been there in a while, but apricot is always a nice color.

01:26:36,280 Martha Rivers Ingram

Well, that's the color. And with the mayor, they asked him at the same time, "How do you feel about apricot for the color the architect did?" And he said, "Oh, I just love apricot." And I thought, "Well, that's fine." And I heard he's colorblind. [Laughter] I don't know. It doesn't matter. It is what it is. And most people seem to think apricot is perfect. It's very pretty.

01:27:09,480 Lisa Hayes

We used to work at the Library Society with Doerte McManus. Do you recognize?

01:27:14,440 Martha Rivers Ingram

Oh, Doerte.

01:27:15,440 Lisa Hayes

Yeah. Doerte. She worked with us while we were doing some of that fundraising early on.

01:27:21,480 Martha Rivers Ingram

Yeah. I liked her very much.

01:27:22,680 Lisa Hayes

She's wonderful. She did the same thing for the Library Society when we did a big capital campaign for the renovations to the building. Doerte was the chair.

01:27:30,000 Martha Rivers Ingram

Where is she now, do you know?

01:27:33,000 Lisa Hayes

She's retired. She and her husband are, they live on Tradd Street, so not too far from here, but yes.

01:27:38,000 Martha Rivers Ingram

Oh, so they didn't go back to Germany?

01:27:43,000 Lisa Hayes

No, no, they live here.

01:27:45,000 Martha Rivers Ingram

Oh, good. Well, I just haven't seen her in a while, but you know, I like to, it's hard not to like her. She was just so pleasant, jolly. And Anne was always so accommodating and so interested in what we were doing. She told me last night, she and her husband Will were here for dinner along with the Duells. I don't know if you know the Middleton Plantation Duells. And anyhow, they seem to all be moving along happily, but they all talking kind of like I do now about retirement. It's not all bad, you know, it's okay. If you worked hard and done your best, it's all right.

01:28:44,680 Lisa Hayes

Enjoy it. Yes, good.

01:28:46,680 Martha Rivers Ingram

So anyhow.

01:28:47,680 Lisa Hayes

All right.

01:28:48,680 Martha Rivers Ingram

Well, I don't know if any of this covered what kind of thing you were looking at.

01:28:53,960 Lisa Hayes

It's perfect, really. I mean, hearing about your life in Charleston and then the story about your grandparents taking you to the library, that was great. And your career as a DJ, that's fun.

01:29:07,320 Martha Rivers Ingram

You know, it's sort of fun because I'm also very involved in Vanderbilt University. I was chairman of that board for, I don't know, 15 years or so. But anyhow, the girls would make appointments and still do, to want to come to talk to me. And usually they want to talk about, you know, their careers, how they're going to get from here to there. And almost always they'll say, "Mrs. Ingram, "How did you start at?" I said, "Well, as a disc jockey" (laughing) Here I've got the corner office. (laughing) So, anyhow, well, you have to start somewhere. Just find something you like and relate to and follow the trail.

01:30:05,120 Lisa Hayes

That's good advice.

01:30:07,520 Martha Rivers Ingram

I would say that's my best advice for anybody, not that you all need it or ask for it, but it's just to find out what interests you and then go for it.

01:30:19,640 Lisa Hayes

Do you mind signing the agreement? Can I get your glasses? Where did she say they were? Yeah, yeah. Mm-hm.