FLORENCE E. WALL: REBEL INTO PIONEER 167 sonal life to her work. Her former students, I have noticed, all seem to become her friends. She keeps in touch with them and they with her. She is forever glad to help them with their problems--gives them ideas for papers, lends them books and other materials. That sort of generosity, extending beyond the call of duty, comes only from the heart. She may not like my telling you some of these things, but I have learned of so many ways in which she is generous almost to a fault. I know, just by chance, something of the trouble she took in selecting just the right contents for packages she sent abroad to people she met while in Europe. And if she has friends in the hospital, she goes to a great deal of trouble to make their life more bearable and pleasant. She does not just take flowers or a package and chit chat she does things. She will give a woman patient a dry shampoo, or apply refreshing cologne she brought with her or fix her friend's nails. In other words, she gives of herself as she does in her work, too. Another phase of her generosity is her fairness toward people. She always gives everyone the benefit of the doubt. And she invariably has a kind word to say--or a word of credit to give--even to people who have not always been kind to her. I do not remember ever hearing Florence gossip or say an unkind word. Nor would she ever compromise principle for expediency--in either business or personal affairs. Now, if all that still sounds formidable, as though she might not have much spice in her life, you just have never had the privilege of talking with her when her guard is down. She has a keen wit and the most delightful sense of humor you can imagine even enjoys a joke on herself. Perhaps this is an inheritance from that Irish ancestry we have heard about. She likes to cook and sew and knit, and as she often puts it, she "has a lot of fun in her own way." She enjoys dancing, concerts, the theater and the movies--especially the foreign ones which give her practice in languages. She nearly got a degree in music in college but dropped that for one in education. She still plays the piano for her friends and her clubs. On one occasion , several years after leaving college, she and her talented sister--who, as Stephanie Wall was then singing professionally--returned to St. Elizabeth's and gave a joint recital. It was the first time any two alumnae--let alone two sisters--had ever done so. I have often wished that she would take time to write stories and make use in that way of her unusual understanding of people. Actually she has accumulated reams of material for stories on incidents in her interesting travels. She says, however, that these can wait until she is too old to talk and write convincingly about cosmetology. people often ask Florence what first interested her in cosmetics. Just recently I saw it--a clipping from The Attlanta •7ournal, dating from years ago when she first visited that city as a college girl• It still makes good

168 JOURNAL OF THE SOCIETY OF COSMETIC CHEMISTS reading--and I saw an angle to it which must have appealed to her inner nature. The article emphasized what cosmetics can do for a woman even beyond making her prettier or more glamorous or correcting her surface faults. They can contribute to her personality and react on her mind and character. If she knows she looks well, this makes her feel more cheerful and contented, giving her self-assurance. That is the sort of thing which interests Florence. There is an extreme sensitiveness there--almost hypersensitiveness-- but she tries to conceal it. She rarely discusses her own troubles yet she is a well of discretion when others wish to discuss their troubles with her. Yes, Florence Wall can think and work like a man. I have heard her say that she was the only woman on those early chemical jobs that she had. But a womanly sympathy and understanding--call it sentiment, if you like--is behind so much that she does. She seems to like to conceal this from business associates. That is why I wanted the privilege of bringing it out in the open for I think it transcends even her great accom- plishments as a professional person. It is just because she is that sort of person that I feel confident I am speaking for a host of others when I hope that this happy occasion will bring her enough good cheer to last for a long, long time to come. THE MEDALIST'S ADDRESS Mr. President, Mr. Toastmaster, Fellow Members and Guests: AFTER THIS triple exposure of my life and work, I feel appropriately overwhelmed, but I am also sincerely and humbly grateful that the Medal Award Committee was willing to choose one of my peculiar assortment of accomplishments for this highest honor. As you may have gathered, much of my work, although it has been related to cosmetics, has taken me far from the chemistry of cosmetics, to which our SOCIETY is nominally dedicated. Only those of you who were also working in it in those early days can appreciate the changes that have evolved during my half-a-lifetime of labor in one corner or another of our vast industry. Nor can you imagine how diflScult it is to try to inject a new branch of study into established educational centers. All of this has made a career which has always been interesting but never easy. Again, my thanks for this token of your esteem. I shall always treasure this beautiful medal, and it should serve me as an inspiration to do more, and even better, in the future.