In 1989, Sue Aycock Turnbull wrote from her Solvang, California home about some of her experiences and about her life after graduation. Excerpts from her letter are given as follows: It is true that I was in O.U. at a time when very few young women were enrolled in the College of Engineering. I came to the campus in the fall of 1930 and bravely enrolled in the Interior Decoration Department of the Art School. I soon found out that art was not my field, and several engineers who were enrolled in one of my courses suggested to me that I might transfer to Architectural Engineering since that would include more math and technical courses for which I seemed to be better fitted. This I did and found myself in several courses to be the only girl. I can honestly say that at no time did I ever feel that my presence was resented, and I never felt uncomfortable. I was able to make good grades, and the best part was that I was also able to make some very good friends. Another happy memory was being elected Engineer's Queen in the spring of 1934. My good friends Richard (Dick) Sneed and Latham Yates managed a sort of ‘Campaign’ for me which was successful by a very narrow margin. But it was an exciting time, with the lawyers as usual trying to pull off a kidnapping and other tricks to spoil the St. Pat's Day parade and celebration. Lewis McBride was St. Pat that year. When I graduated, a beginning draftsman was being paid less than a living wage, and I could not afford to continue further training. I decided to try for a job as a technical secretary in a large architectural firm, and succeeded in getting an appointment with Albert Kahn of Detroit for an interview. I was hired to assist Louis Kahn, one of the principals of the firm, Albert Kahn, Inc., to work on contracts and handle his correspondence. It was a very large office, with several hundred employees, and most of the work in the office was for Ford Motors, General Motors, and many other large industrial firms in many different fields. I met many interesting people both within the Kahn office and among clients. It was at Kahn's office that I met and later married, J. Gordon Turnbull, who was one of the key department heads. I left Detroit after about two years, and a few years after that my husband opened his own consulting engineering firm, J. Gordon Turnbull, Inc., in Cleveland, Ohio. His company grew swiftly during the war years, and though I never did any work as an ‘architect,’ I did spend much of my time at the office working with records, personnel, contracts, etc. -- that is until we started a family. I was an officer of the company until my husband died in 1953, six years after we moved to California. Upon his death, I served as President of the company
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