 Ida
Lou Anderson '24 leads a line of hungry students at a 1924 campus
event. Photo by Myron Huckle '27, courtesy WSU Manuscripts, Archives,
and Special Collections.
Just a few years into teaching, Anderson encountered Murrow, a
freshman who pleaded to be admitted to her upper-level courses. In
him she saw something more than just ambition. "She was content to
cause the student to do just a little better than he thought
himself capable of doing," Murrow wrote after her death. The man
who seemed never at a loss for words had struggled to write his
favorite teacher's memorial.
The two had an unusual relationship, say Murrow's biographers.
Anderson opened her home to her pupil, giving him private coaching
on the contents and delivery of his speeches. He consulted with her
on nearly all matters: classes, girlfriends, personal philosophy.
He would escort her to campus talks, performances, and even dances,
though neither danced.
Many of Anderson's students went on to careers in broadcasting,
but it was of Murrow that she was most proud. After he left
Pullman, she kept close watch on him and his career. Her health
tore her away from her teaching. She was in near-constant pain. She
took to wearing tinted glasses and avoided sunlight. By 1939,
Anderson could no longer stand the rigors of leading classes and
took a leave of absence. She formally resigned a year later,
retreating to live near her sister in Oregon.
From then on, Anderson spent much of her time lying on a bed in
a darkened room and listening to the radio. On Sundays, she looked
forward to Murrow's broadcasts from London. "No one was allowed to
speak or even move in Ida Lou's dark room," wrote Mrs. La Follette
of those hours.
Her body would tense as if every cell were listening to the
broadcast, wrote several who saw her. Afterward, she would compose
a letter to Murrow, mostly filled with pride and praise, but with
some critique about delivery or word choice. Though incapacitated,
she continued to teach.
Small pieces of Anderson's life can still be found on campus.
The University archives hold a box containing class notes, a few
photographs, and reading lists, as well as memorials from students
and a few of her own letters. In one of those notes, Anderson
summed up her teaching philosophy to WSC president E.O. Holland
shortly before her death in 1940. "If, because of me, some of our
students are able to make a little more of their lives, always
remember that in giving to them, I found my greatest compensation
for a strange and difficult life."
The few other clues to her unusual life come in biographies of
Murrow. In one by Joseph E. Persico, Murrow is quoted: "She knows
me better than any person in the world. The part of me that is
decent, that wants to do something, be something, is the part she
created."
Click here for a list of books about Edward R.
Murrow.
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