Mildred Virginia Talbot

Arthur Talbot's second child was Mildred Virginia Talbot, born in 1891. Mildred attended the University of Illinois and graduated in 1912 with a degree in liberal arts and sciences. She then worked and studied at the Art Institute in Chicago, and spent some time in New York City. Later, she taught at Oklahoma A&M (now Oklahoma State).

Through her father, she met TAM instructor Herbert James Gilkey. Mildred and Herbert were married in 1923, but since Arthur Talbot was still head of the TAM Department at the time, and the University had strict nepotism rules, Herbert Gilkey had to leave the University. Herbert accepted a position as assistant professor of civil engineering at the University of Colorado. The Gilkeys later moved to Ames, Iowa, where Herbert founded, and later served for many years as head of, the Department of Theoretical and Applied Mechanics at Iowa State. "She was always interested in art, not as an active artist, specifically, but always in art generally," her son Herbert Talbot Gilkey recalls. "Everything was done in very good taste. Not flamboyant She was very active as a faculty wife in Ames. She was president of the Faculty Women's Club one year. And she was active in PEO, and as an alumna in Chi Omega, her university sorority."

The new Theoretical and Applied Mechanics Department at Iowa State was formed around a nucleus of faculty transferred from other engineering departments, primarily Civil Engineering. Mildred, taking a page from her mother's understanding of the responsibilities of a faculty wife, did a great deal to draw together the families of the new department into a community. Initially the department was small, and its faculty were younger than the Gilkeys. Her son Herbert Talbot Gilkey remembers many dinner parties in their home to which department members and their wives were invited, but these dinners were never limited solely to T&AM faculty and their wives. Couples from other engineering departments and administration were always included.

"AIthough Dad enjoyed these dinners and the conversations that followed, it was Mother who organized them and played her role as the perfect hostess, seemingly without stress despite the amount of work that went into their preparation.

'I remember," he continues, "that she sat down with the guests, waited until all had been served, took her first bite so that the guests would start eating, and only then arose to get the hot, home- baked rolls from the kitchen or to attend to something else that needed doing. I suspect that she learned much of this from her own mother whom I never knew but who set a pattern that carried throughout the family.

"Mother prepared these dinners without help, except as my brother and I were recruited to set the table, serve, clean up and do the dishes," Herb adds. "Although we, like most children, were not exactly eager recruits, we really didn't resent helping for they were family activities. Furthermore, even though we were young, we enjoyed listening in on conversations around the table and later in the living room. We were never excluded, but the conversation was never tailored for our young ears. It was a great learning experience -- and an enjoyable one.

"As I talk to my friends from grade through high school," Herb continues, "they and their parents remember my mother very, very fondly. Just recently the mother of two of my schoolmates died. They responded to my sympathy notes with letters remembering my mother very, very warmly." He adds, "She supported our school activities, taught Sunday school -- she taught the girls (in those days, girls sat on one side of the room, boys on the other, and classes were | separated by grade and gender) -- while my brothers and I were growing up. My brother and I knew Mother was watching and supporting but never intruding, although I suspect she would if we had given her cause."

According to he nephew, Warren F. Goodell Jr., Mildred was relatively retiring and soft-spoken. "Mildred was a wonderful person," her niece Barbara Fulls claims. "She was mother's [Dorothy's] big sister, and mother deferred to her to some degree. Lovely aunt. We used to go out to Ames for Thanksgiving and get stuck in the snow and that was always great fun."

"Of course one of my favorite stories about Aunt Mildred -- she worked at the Art Institute in Chicago before she was married -- was a story once that she had been back to the Art Institute for some meeting or something, and came on down to see us on that trip," Barbara says. "And every time she went to Chicago to see her former boss, who was in charge of rare gems, he would take her down to the vault where she could wear the pearls, because pearls must be worn to keep their luster. She would go sit in the vault for an hour and wear the pearls!" But Barbara adds, "People would take turns wearing them."

"She was a wonderful person -- loving, caring, considerate and gentle," says Herb. "My wife Mary Lou has often remarked she wishes she had known my mother; I wish that she could have."