Barbara Matson, who entered Carleton in September 1953, came from a deeply god-fearing stock. She was brought up as a member of Our Redeemer's Lutheran Church in Hancock, Minnesota.
Her father was a pharmacist and during the school holidays she helped in the drug store “dusting, waiting on customers, marking goods and making deliveries.”
She was president and then secretary-treasurer of her religious group class at Hancock High School, took part in the dramatics group and served as president of the school band council.
When asked the priority of her interests, she replied “Sports, politics and music.”
When her high school principal recommended her admission to Carleton, he remarked: “Barbara will be able to do college work without any trouble. She has lots of drive and desire. She has a very good idea what she wants to do. With the exception of getting homesick, I can think of no weakness.”
Answering the Carleton admission form's question, “What are your reasons for going to college?”, she replied: “I want to prepare myself for my chosen vocation.”
It sounded like someone heading for the Sisters of Mercy rather than the Socialist Workers Party's national committee.
When she came to write a brief biographical sketch with her application, she pulled out all the stops. It is worth quoting in full:
I was two years old when my family moved from Milbank, South Dakota, to Hancock where my father had bought the drug store, and we have lived here ever since.
My grade school days were marked by a dread of anything resembling blood or internal organs, and it was with some anxiety that I looked forward to high school where, we had heard, they took frogs apart!
Ironically, biology later turned out to be my favorite subject and now figures heavily in my plans for the future.
Junior high school sped by quickly. I was president of our freshman class, and one of my biggest thrills came when my best friend and I received the junior high science awards at the end of the year.
Senior high was full of new valuable experiences. I served as class secretary-treasurer when a sophomore, took the part of an old maid in both our junior and senior class plays and was given the senior high award for mathematics in my junior year.
This year I'm editor-in-chief of our school paper and was voted by my fellow classmates to be the most talented and also the best-all-around (sic) girl in our class. My musical activities have included band, pep band, chorus, girls' glee club, piano lessons and church organist.
In my junior year, I was the local American Legion's representative to Girls’ State in St. Paul, Minnesota. My experiences at Girls’ State, both serious and light, taught me to set my goals high and to prepare myself for the full-time job of being a good citizen. In addition, I learned valuable lessons in politics, leadership and cooperation.
I thoroughly enjoy traveling and have been very fortunate in that my parents and I have traveled a great deal. In all I have been through 25 states and into Canada. Hopefully, this is only the beginning.
I will be graduated in May of 1953 and plan to enter college the following September. My immediate family (uncles, cousins) boast six pharmacists and one doctor. This, in addition to my love of biology and a desire to help people, has led me to seriously consider going into pre-medicine next fall.”
This Florence Nightingale dream never came true. She married another member of the “Carleton Twelve,” Larry Seigle, got “plugged into” the SWP and became a party organizer.
What is most striking about Matson's time at Carleton is its dedicated conformity and its suffocating conservatism. She received a BA in June 1957 majoring in biology and gaining a place in the top 15 percent in the class.
During her three years at college, she had won such illustrious positions as dorm president, and dorm section fire captain. She was chairman (this was before “chairperson” came into vogue) of the May Fete Publicity Committee when students dance around the May pole and choose the May queen.
She did voluntary work for a private home for the mentally retarded and belonged to the Women's League. But her political affiliations at Carleton make the most astonishing reading — she belonged to the Young Republicans!
It is worth casting back to the period from 1963 to 1967 to see what would have attracted her to become a Republican. In the 1964 presidential elections, the Republican candidate was the Arizona senator, Barry Goldwater, one of the most deeply reactionary men in the Congress.
Somewhere between the women's dorm, the Glee Club and the dean’s office, Matson made the quiet transformation from the Young Republicans to the Young Socialist Alliance.
She rose to the SWP’s National Committee, a position which she vacated in recent years to Peggy Brundy, another Carleton student.
Brundy became a national field organizer for the party which placed her in charge of recruitment, finance, administration and political campaigns in more than half a dozen states.