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that the offending student was poor, not recalcitrant, and that he actually could not afford to buy what the teacher demanded. Genora took her weekly lunch money and bought the necessary supplies for the needy student.19 This could well have been Genora’s first overt action against what she considered to be injustice and unfairness. She began to believe that teachers, especially, should not jump to conclusions about the actions of people: opinions and situations should have factual bases behind them. She sensed that most of the problems in this world came from people—like her teacher—who expressed opinions without having any facts to support them. Surely, she reckoned, this accounted for most of the racial prejudice in the world, along with religious bigotry and ethnic hatred. She vowed never to fall prey to these human weaknesses.

Sixth grade students at Stevenson had opportunities for electives; however, the teacher made it clear that the boys should choose auto or woodshop, and the girls were to opt for cooking or sewing. Predictably, Genora picked auto shop, only to be denied. She then organized herself and four other girls into a demonstration, walking around and around the school, wearing overalls (unusual for that day—the early 1920s), until the principal, Mary Kelly, called them to her office. Miss Kelly contacted all the parents involved and told Raymond and Lora that they had better watch Genora, for she definitely had nonconformist tendencies. Though Genora did not get auto shop on this particular occasion, there were many assembly-line jobs in her future. After Stevenson Elementary, Genora enrolled in Central High School in Flint, where she excelled in English, drama, and music, playing both the clarinet and ukulele and having a full-sounding alto voice, for which she credited her mother.20 In fact, Lora wanted her to be a musician, and for two and a half years Genora took piano lessons at the Baker Conservatory of Music. Tiring of the piano, Genora took acting lessons. She caught onto these right away and used them to good advantage in future activities.

She loved Sunday school at the Methodist church because it gave her a forum for advancing Social Gospel ideas to her young students. These ideas, propounded by the likes of Josiah Strong, Walter Rauschenbusch, and other major reformers who were at their pinnacle around the turn of the twentieth century, held that good governments do have a right and a duty to help the underprivileged and that big corporations should be controlled for the public interest. Like the Unitarians, the Social Gospellers had a sense of presentism. Human beings live in the here and now, and there were grievances in the community that needed attention not only from the government but from society itself. Why would a young girl raised in a Protestant Christian environment forsake almost everything that had ever been taught to her by both school and family and embrace what many Americans regarded as godless Communism or Socialism? It was a combination of love, life, health, and happenstance that caused such a drastic change in Genora Albro’s outlook and philosophy.

Kermit Johnson, a year older than Genora, went to the same school, but they did not share many social contacts. Kermit was considered working class, while Genora’s father, with his photographic shops, was upper middle class. Genora could not go out on weeknights, only on Friday or Saturday, and then only as late as 11 P.M. On some of these weekend occasions, she began dating Kermit, and she worried that her father would disapprove. Raymond did not foster a happy home life and was abusive, especially to his wife. “My father was a man you couldn’t show any fear of. If he saw just a glimmer of fear in your eye, you were sunk. And he never saw that in my eye.” These thoughts did not turn her into a man hater, but they caused her to think in terms of equality when issues of gender cropped up. This absence of fear—in addition to an impulsive nature—caused Genora to run away to Bowling Green, Ohio, and marry Kermit simply because