Patricia Wall's Enlistment

PATRICIA WALL is not an activist.

She is a Democrat of center-stripe conviction, a Roman Catholic, a young (31) suburban (Evanston, Ill.) mother of two and wife of a vice president at the First National Bank of Chicago. Her joiner's urge has been satisfied by participation in the 4-H Club. When she told her husband Bernard that she planned to attend a Moratorium observance at Mundelein College, he had a surprise for her too: he had decided to take part in a businessmen's discussion of the war at his downtown bank.

A year ago, Mrs. Wall, a petite, college-educated brunette, would have hung back. She was not a hawk, but neither was she a participant in the peace movement. "The whole problem is so complex," she explained, "that for a while it overwhelmed me. But then I began to realize that the complexity of a problem shouldn't be a reason not to do anything." There was another influence working as well: "As my husband and I have grown older, we .have become increasingly aware of our Christian responsibilities and more deeply committed to our moral obligations, and this, too, led to my decision to participate."

Early Wednesday morning, Pat packed her children off to school and boarded the train to Mundelein, a Catholic girls' school run by the Sisters of Charity of the Blessed Virgin Mary. She entered Coffey Hall, picked up a black crape armband and some pamphlets in the lobby and went inside to sit down.

About 100 people had shown up for the observance, including teachers, students, nuns and visitors like Pat Wall. They listened intently as Sister Ann Ida Gannon, the school's president, greeted them: "This day will be a failure if most of you let it stop at 4 or 5 o'clock. Today is only a beginning." It was a thoughtful group, not one inclined to swallow any spoon-fed dogmatism. When a bearded teacher began to criticize "our corrupt society" and "our bankrupt electoral system," one woman in the audience objected quietly but firmly that she was there to protest the war in Viet Nam, not the state of society or the electoral system. -

Though silent during the discussion, Pat Wall was going through an internal process of decision. Soon a petition was passed around. One woman pointed out that it called for complete and immediate withdrawal of U.S. troops, and refused to sign. She argued that such precipitous action was impractical. When the petition reached Pat, she hesitated, started to pass it along, then got it back and signed.

Later she reflected: "When I went to that meeting this morning, I believe that I was emotionally committed. Now it is more than that. I've enlisted." How would she serve? "I really don't know what we might do next. I just can't tell. We are not the sort of people who picket and hand out pamphlets. But I do think we might have some of the people who spoke this morning over to our home. I'd like to have some of our neighbors in to hear them talk."

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