Frances Jewell McVey seemingly tried to look out for everyone. For example, Clifford Amos arrived on campus from Pike County, Kentucky in the middle of the Great Depression. A first generation college student, he had grown up in a coal camp and began college at UK with no more than a few dollars in his pocket. Clifford found a job waiting tables and took on a paper route among various other part-time jobs. He remembered working up to 75 hours a week as a student just to survive.
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| Clifford Amos |
One November afternoon in 1938, while walking along Limestone Street near the campus, Clifford fainted on the sidewalk, a result of hunger and exhaustion. Frances Jewell McVey, heard about Clifford’s misfortune and immediately sent word for Clifford to meet with her at Maxwell Place. After some conversation, McVey offered Clifford a place to live on the second floor of the garage in back of Maxwell Place to save money. Three other boys already lived there. Clifford’s only payment for his room was to do a few chores each month.
Clifford lived in that garage until he graduated. He told me years later in an interview for the Louie B. Nunn Center for Oral History that “Mrs. McVey saved my life. I was too young to fully appreciate what she had done. I was just trying to survive.” Clifford fondly remembered that McVey would often walk out to the garage and ask, “Clifford, have you eaten yet?” She would then invite him into the Maxwell Place kitchen for a meal. Clifford admitted, “There I was just a little mountain boy, who didn’t know straight up! Mrs. McVey always asked me how school was going and if there was anything else she could do to help me. She was a leader without personal ambition. She was always there to help those in need and never seemed to be in a hurry. She was as down to earth as anyone I ever knew.”
From Our Rightful Place: Women at the University of Kentucky, 1880-1945 (University Press of Kentucky) 2020
Also see oral history interview with Clifford Amos, December 5, 1991 in the Louie B. Nunn Center for Oral History, UK Libraries (1991oh408_af459). https://kentuckyoralhistory.org/
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