ONE-ON-ONE
- October 2001
by Ed G. Lane 'I Have Called
Myself a College Tramp'
From an early love for singing and voice, Lucille Caudill
Little has gone on to help artists, educators and
students discover their own voices
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Lucille
Caudille Little
Lucille Caudill Little, 92, hails from Rowan
County. She married Paul Little in 1937. After
his death in 1990, Mrs. Little was the sole heir
to a large fortune. In 1999, the W. Paul &
Lucille Caudill Little Foundation was the
9th-ranked foundation in Kentucky by total
dollars donated.Recent
projects include a $1-million donation to the
Lucille Caudill Little Fine Arts Library and
Learning Center Fund. Equally impressive is the
Lucille C. Little Theater at Transylvania
University, where she was a member of the class
of 1928. Another gift of $1 million to the
Kentucky Horse Park Foundation will endow the
International Museum of the Horse with the W.
Paul Little Cultural and Learning Center. She has
endowed the Lillian H. Press Distinguished
Speakers Series at Centre College, and recently
gave $100,000 to the Commonwealth Institute for
Parent Leadership.
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Ed Lane: Are you a native Kentuckian?
Lucille
Little: I was born in Morehead, the county seat of
Rowan County, Kentucky.
EL: Do you
mind if I ask in what year?
LL:
Nineteen oh-nine. I was 92 as of the 20th of August.
EL: What did
your father do for a living?
LL: He
was a lawyer, judge and really a banker. He did a lot
of things and was one of the movers in our little
town. Anything that came up that was good or
educational, Dad was in there pulling for it.
EL: Where did
you go to school?
LL: I
have called myself a college tramp, because I have
registered at 11 colleges. Generally, I can name
them, but I won’t struggle with you to name them
all. Of course, I went to Morehead College. And then,
I’m kind of mixed up a little bit about when, I
tried out for a scholarship at Ohio State. I won the
first scholarship the school ever awarded in voice.
Some of the other schools I also attended include
Hamilton College in Lexington, Stetson College in
Florida, Juilliard and Columbia in New York.
EL: What
degree did you receive?
LL: I
received a bachelor’s degree in voice from Ohio
State.
EL: Why did
you attend so many schools?
LL: To my
father, education was everything, and his one thing
was to get us all – I was the oldest of five
children – through college. Dad said as long as
we would go, he’d pay for it.
EL: When you
graduated from college in the late Twenties, that was a
time when women were not that “liberated” and
probably not as well educated as you were. Was that a
burden to you?
LL: Never
thought about it, never worried about it.
EL: Was the
Civil War a big issue when you were a young woman?
LL: My
dad’s father was in the Confederate Army and was
taken prisoner up at a place in Indiana or Illinois.
Dad saw the effects of the Civil War and how it was
going to divide people. He was going to get his
children educated beyond that, and that’s why he
wanted us to go to a school above the Mason and Dixon
Line – sometime.
EL: What
effect did the Depression have on your family?
LL: None,
my father was quite successful. During the
Depression, I was in school in Florida or Chicago. A
lot of my good friends had to leave school because
their families didn’t have the money to send
them. That was depressing, very depressing, when I
could stay but they had to leave because of money.
EL: Do you
remember the first airplane you ever saw?
LL: Oh
yes, and the first automobile. My mother’s two
brothers – my uncles – had an Oldsmobile
and it was the first car in Morehead. Oh lord, the
girls were after those two. They were kind of after
the girls, too. I can remember when an airplane
landed on my grandfather’s land, which was right
at the end of town in Morehead. I don’t recall
why it landed there – it might have been with
the circus.
EL: What do
you remember about the first telephone?
LL: Oh I
can remember, “Rrrrrrr hello.” Morehead had
a telephone office. An operator did the plugging in
and plugging out and all that. She was on the second
floor, right at a main road crossing in the midst of
town. She saw and knew everything that went on in
town and passed it along.
EL: How did
you meet your husband, Paul Little?
LL: Well,
I was going to Ohio State and was home for a holiday,
I think it was Christmas. Morehead didn’t have
dance clubs, but Mt. Sterling, Winchester, Paris and
Lexington had hop clubs. My sister Louise and I would
be invited. So these boys in Morehead, whom I’d
known all my life and grew up with, came and begged
my mother into letting me go to Mt. Sterling to a hop
club. It was winter and cars didn’t have
heaters. Mother warmed bricks and she got me wrapped
up in that car to go to that dance in Mt. Sterling.
Paul came with about four men. Never before or since
have I had such a rush.
EL: Was it
love at first sight?
LL: Paul
would come to Ohio State to see me, if I’d let
him, but I had another beau at that time from up in
Pennsylvania. I was pretty smitten there, and
we’d talked about getting married.
 EL: So how
did you and Paul get together?
LL: Well,
Paul’s race horse would bring him up to Beulah
Park, a little nothing of a track. There would be
times when he would have no school and he could go up
there and race it. And the track was real close to
Columbus. Of course you’re always wanting to get
out with somebody else from the sorority house, so
that was sort of the way it started. Then he would
come up home during vacations and the relationship
just kept building – until I started to
different schools.
It was very expensive to study voice and drama
[privately]. When I got the scholarship from
Juilliard, I went to New York to study.
EL: How long
did you and Paul date?
LL: Six
years. Well, I had planned to have a career. And I
was well on my way and with a lot of backing.
EL: What year
did you get married?
LL:
Nineteen thirty-seven.
EL: And how
old were you then?
LL:
Twenty-seven. Yeah, see I kept putting marriage off,
I was going to have that career. But finally I
decided, “I will be a slave to my voice, which I
was then. I’ll be a slave to an agent. I will
have no freedom in living. It’ll all be protect
the voice, practice, learn another song, learn
another part in an opera, la-ti-da, la-ti-da.”
So I decided, “that’s not for me,” and
that’s when I decided to get married. You often
wonder what you might have done, but that’s all.
I never have grieved over that, no, not at all.
EL: Paul was
in the tobacco business, horses and real estate. He was
good at business.
LL: Oh,
yeah. There on Angliana Avenue, near the tobacco
warehouse, there was a row of dwelling houses, little
cottages. Paul was able to buy all of those. Back
then you could buy anything for almost nothing. And
Paul’s mother let him build apartments on her
front lawn. It was a two story building with 12
apartments. We lived in one until we got a house. And
my father helped us finance these investments. Of
course, Paul paid Daddy back. It was a loan.
EL: Did you
develop property on New Circle Road?
LL: Paul
developed New Circle Road. Absolutely. He had been
out to Oklahoma and they had a “circumvent”
around the city, and he thought it was wonderful, and
it really saved the traffic. So when he came back, he
knew the man in the state who was the head of the
highways. Paul actually walked that whole circle road
and got all of the necessary acceptances to sell
their land. Paul had a farm over there, about 600
acres. With that land, he made so much money. He just
had a vision of land. He also made it in tobacco. The
tobacco business was very vulnerable and very
lucrative. It was right after World War II.
EL: When IBM
came to Lexington, did that help land values?
LL: Yes,
our land was in that area. Paul was always lucky, he
really was. He had good judgment and vision. The
reason he went out to Oklahoma was someone had given
him some land out there for a horse. He hadn’t
paid any attention, and there was an oil boom going
on.
EL: Were
Paul’s successes a factor in your kidnapping in
1979?
LL: My
kidnapper was a young man whose father worked at the
tobacco warehouse, and I guess he thought we had
money. It was the Wednesday after Mother’s Day.
He knocked on the door and presented a big pot of
plants. Then when I looked around, there he was with
a gun. He wanted $85,000. Well, I knew I could get
the money at the bank because they were good friends
of Dad’s. The kidnapper and I were going to the
bank to get the money. As we were getting ready to
leave, who came to the back door but Paul Little. I
said to the boy, “now you better be careful how
you handle him because he’s got a bad heart and
is likely to fall dead right there and I don’t
know what you’d do.” Paul really had the
strongest heart in the world. The boy sent me alone
to the bank.
EL: Did you
tell your bank you were being kidnapped?
LL: Yes,
I told them and that’s why I had to have the
$85,000. So when I got home, I drove into the garage
and I went in and I threw down the bag and I said,
“there it is, and it will take you until
tomorrow to count it, but it’s all there.”
There was Paul sitting there still, not knowing what
in the hell was going on. The boy decided to take my
car and take me, and so we got in the car and he
drove. He started driving all around the neighborhood
real slow. Finally he started raising cain, cussing
and carrying on like crazy – he was crazy. He
said the “damn cops” were following us. So
they followed and finally had a shoot out with the
boy over on Fairway Road. The police hit him and I
was on the floor in the backseat. The police shot up
my car. It totaled a brand new Cadillac.
EL: Were you
scared?
LL: I
don’t know that I was. I never am scarable. I
just took it as being in a drama, I’d say.
EL: When Paul
died in 1990, you were left a lot of money to manage.
You’ve been investing that money in the community.
Would you talk about that a little bit?
LL: I
never knew how much money we had. I never cared.
After Paul died, I was surprised. There was a lot. I
also found out that everything was left to me, and
that made it easy. I decided I had better take care
of our families first. So I took care of his and my
family the same way. I don’t know how much that
was but it was a whole lot of course, because it was
nieces, nephews, great-nieces, great-nephews,
great-greats, you know all the way, anyone with blood
of mine or Paul’s.
EL: And did
you have a lot of real estate?
LL: Oh,
yes! That was the point. Paul bought when real estate
was so cheap. I had 65 pieces of property to sell.
EL: Was the
money placed in a trust?
LL: Yes,
I had it down at one of the big national banks. I
went down there to find out something and the books
were in Pittsburgh. Boy, that clipped me with them.
And I thought, “My Lord, Paul and I helped Jett
start his bank,” we had money down there and had
helped him start it, “why don’t I go there,
I know they’ll take care of me.” I called
Charlie Jett and told him what I wanted, and he said,
“well I’ll come out there and talk to
you.” And I guess the trust was as big as the
bank, which was kind of funny. Charlie was so good to
me, we just got along perfectly.
EL: How many
years have you been responsible for the trust?
LL: Paul
died in ’90, and I think in ’91 I talked to
Charlie and made this arrangement.
EL: Because
of your training in the arts, drama and voice and your
father stressing education when you were a young girl,
are these some of the reasons you’ve made
substantial gifts in the areas of the arts and education?
LL: Yes.
EL: How much
do you think you’ve contributed over the last 10
years?
LL: I
don’t know exactly, I think I know, but I
won’t quote. I have been sickened by the people
that give money for athletics, but wouldn’t give
a dime for the arts. That was so in my life before
Paul died – I mean he shared this with me. He
said, during his illness, for me to take over and do
what I wanted to do. He knew I wanted to do it in the
arts. So I am doing it with his permission.
EL: How many
requests for contributions do you get?
LL: Oh
Lord, everyday. I don’t know how many.
EL: Do they
send requests to the bank or do they call you?
LL: Oh,
every way. I am trying to direct requests to Kathy
Milby at the Bank of the Bluegrass and Trust Company.
And Kathy doesn’t mind reviewing the requests
– she knows how I feel, what I want to do. And
of course she always calls me, and never makes a
decision without it being mine. The bank is awfully
nice about the whole thing. When I need help, I get
it. With a small bank, there are many pluses. At
these big banks, you’re not known, they take
care of customers at some foreign place. I can’t
deal with that.
EL: What are
your criteria for giving?
LL: Well,
we had to make a mission statement. And the mission
statement has helped me tremendously. I think I can
quote it, “I am using the funds for education,
specifically in fine arts, hoping to develop
creativity in the individual.” As time goes on,
you find things you have to add. For instance, I give
to no individuals – if I did that, Lord I’d
go crazy. It would be constant. The trust
investigates organizations that request gifts. I
require that before I decide to give them anything.
EL: Do you
have any limitations on the areas in which you will make
new gifts?
LL: Just
the arts, that’s all. And the gifts are given
only around Central and Eastern Kentucky where Paul
and I made the money. I’m not reaching out to
other places.
EL: Do you
think Lexington is growing too fast?
LL: If
everything grew with it – all of the parks
– then Lexington could never grow too fast, but
it’s the direction it’s taking, and
there’s too much politics. I have dedicated
myself to not be involved. I want to wash my hands of
politics.
EL: When you
give money to a school, organization or art group, do you
get a lot of satisfaction from helping?
LL: Well,
I do it because I want to make the gift, I’ve
studied it, I think it’s correct, they need it,
and it’s all up and above board. When I do all
of that I feel very comfortable. Not exhilarated, no
I don’t feel that way. When I looked at the
library building at Midway and the wife of the
president arranged for a portrait of the two of us,
Paul and me – a way-too-big portrait of the two
of us – she did that without asking me. So, I
learned a lesson there, you don’t do anything
without asking me if I approve. I felt like the
portrait was imposing, but it’s good.
EL: Last week
we had airplane terrorism in New York and Washington D.C.
Thinking back over your 92 years in America, and all the
things that have happened, how does the terrorism attack
compare to World War I, World War II, the Korean War,
etc.?
LL:
It’s the worst thing that ever happened to this
country. What’s worrying me is that the
terrorists were so successful that they might try to
do it in Dallas, New Orleans, Seattle. I’m
scared of that.
EL: What
about President George W. Bush?
LL: I
think terrorism will make him or kill him. But I
think it will make him. I don’t think we’re
out of danger, that’s what’s worrying me.
He’s got to make the right decisions. It’s
ultimate for this country to survive.
EL: What
advice would you give to a 21 year old woman today?
LL: Be
proud of yourself, work hard and you’ll make it
if you’ve got the brain. But you’ve got to
have a brain and a healthy body. You have to have
good health to get along in this world.
EL: Why have
you given so freely in the arts?
LL: I
wish people could feel the power of the arts. That
the arts can be in their living. It has been such a
power in my life and has led me into such beautiful
pathways, that I would like everybody to have the
experience.
Ed G. Lane is
chief executive of Lane Consultants Inc. and publisher of
The Lane Report.
edlane@lanereport.com
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