Hobbies and Personal
Life
One of the most important
aspects of Parsons' personal life was her friendship with May
Louise Cowles, a fellow home economics professor. They lived
together for nearly fifty years and died within thirteen days of
each other--Parsons on 30 December 1977, and Cowles on 11 January
1978. Friends viewed the two women as each having her own identity
and interests, but they also nicknamed them "Helen and Cowlesy"
and described them as "inseparable" and their lives as
"entwined." The two housemates were friends since the
beginning of their time at UW and remained so until their deaths.
Retiring within several years of each other, Parsons and Cowles
grew old together as gardening and travel companions, and, most
importantly, as the best of friends.
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| Parsons
and Cowles in Switzerland, 1970 |
Parsons was as equally
enthusiastic and passionate about her hobbies as she was about her
professional life. She loved to garden and was renowned for her
green thumb, and she established herself as a gardener at her house,
at the University, and in the city, participating in the Madison
West Side Garden Club as the club's historian and secretary. Parsons
also enjoyed traveling and photography and often combined the two.
She and Cowles frequently traveled together. After their retirements,
the two friends traveled to Switzerland to visit former students.
To record their trip, Parsons took numerous photographs, and she
and Cowles assembled a small scrapbook that recorded their experiences
and thoughts and included numerous pictures of the places they visited
and the people they met. The thick, index-card-sized scrapbook documents
their trip and allows the reader to join Parsons and Cowles on their
adventures in Switzerland.
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