Oral history interview with Verna Emery, 2009 Jan. 26

Verna Emery, was born in 1926 in West Chester, Pennsylvania and grew up in the Wilmington, Delaware area, where she attended schools until graduating from high school. She met her husband in the Northeast and when he accepted a position in the Chemical Engineering School, came to West Lafayette. Emery discusses receiving a degree from Purdue and then beginning employment with the Office of Publications in part one of the interview. The Purdue University Press, then known as Purdue Studies, was a part of the Office of Publications, but became a separate department in 1977 when William Whalen retired. She discusses her duties with the Press in detail in part two. Emery was awarded the Distinguished Alumni Award from the College of Liberal Arts in 1991. When she retired from Purdue, the Purdue University Press established the Verna Emery Prize in Poetry in her honor