"Meet Helen And Bobby, President's Family, At Home" from Spilled Ink
Meet Helen And Bobby, President's Family, At Home
Source: Spilled Ink
Date: November 20th, 1958, page 10
Terre Haute, Indianna, recently made "Life" magazine. This was of particular interest to one of the members of our Centenary family, Helen Seay, or Mrs. Edward W. Seay our president's wife. "That drawl I have is strictly Hoosier and not southern, as so many people think," she explained.
Mrs. Seay attended Indiana State Teachers College and majored in both chemistry and biology since, she said, "it was during the depression, and I thought I'd have a better chance to get a job that way." However, she remained at Indiana and taught freshman biology on a fellowship while she took graduate courses for her master's degree.
She next taught at Ward Belmont College in Nashville, Tennessee, which she described as, "a very elite, very strict, finishing school that almost finished me."
She then moved to Wood Junior College where she met Dr. Seay. Mrs Seay quickly stated that her favorite food is "everything!" but then reconsidered and said guinea hen with rice. Her favorite song is "Tales of the Vienna Woods" for no particular reason, she said; "I just like it."
I asked Mrs. Seay for an embarrassing moment, and after thinking for quite awhile quipped, "I guess I just don't get embarrassed easily."
Mrs. Seay has one brother who lives with her mother in Kokomo, Indiana. "He's not married," she said. "He always tells me I dis- illusioned him."
It's pretty hard when you're the son of the president of an "all girls" college and you don't like girls. That's Bobby Seay's problem. "Oh, the girls are O.K., but they always say 'hello' just when I'm trying to make an important play in football. Then I have to stop and answer them." As for having a girl friend, Bobby states plainly, "I don't ever want one, and I DON'T want to get married either. Wives are too expensive, and I'm going to be a football and baseball player when I grow up."
Bobby, whose real name is Robert Edward Seay, was born three days after graduation in 1950. He's lived all eight years here in Hackettstown, "but," be says, "I'd like to move to Oklahoma." I didn t get the connection until he explained that Oklahoma is Mickey Mantle's home state.
Bobby told me that hot dogs and hamburgers are his favorite foods. "Favorite," Mrs. Seay added, "they're all he'll eat!"
Baseball and football are his favorite sports. "I like basketball, too, though; I guess I like all sports," he concluded.
Bobby's in the third grade, and he says he likes school. "I have reading, arithmetic, spelling, and writing; but I like talking best."
"The teacher won't let us do much of that," he told me.
"My most embarrassing moment was the time I had to walk a girl home," Bobby confessed. "She would have told on me if I hadn't. She asked me to come over to her house, too. I told her I had to go home for my piano lesson." Then he added with a grin, "I don't take piano lessons."
"I don't mind Daddy working at the college," he told me, "but he's never home, and he always has to work at night. I don't like that part."
I tried one last time to find a warm spot in his heart for a girl. "You know," I said, "all girls aren't bad."
"Well," he answered seriously, "it seems the ones I've met are."
With that he suddenly jumped up and ran out of the room. "I've got to get going," he called back. "I've got to play football."
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