On Religious Thought, Part 3

The third reason for concluding that all religious thought is manmade is that the creation as presented in Christianity, as well as in all other religions was left with no definitive avenue of communication between the deity and the creation. The communication process, ultimately and as described in Christianity, is one of revelation, the indispensable link being some individual man. Various men had offered various revelations as to the character and intentions of the deity — these have differed both in detail and in concept. The indefiniteness of the communication between man and the deity lies in the condition that there is no way of choosing between the alternative revelations offered. Typically each one claims to be, if not the correct one, then the best one. The choice in the end reduces to a trust in the particular individual making the revelation. It is the height of absurdity to claim that one in particular is true because it is deity-inspired, because the choice of a relation to believe depends not on this but on trust in the revealing individual. Even if one revelation were truly deity-inspired there is no basis for selecting it rather than any other. Logically either all revelations are true communications from the deity or none of them are.

There are other characteristics of the revelation process which make it man-inspired rather than deity-inspired. For example, for the process to be good and just, and thus to reflect the qualities of the deity it must be equally appealing and convincing to all men. Since men differ in understanding and situation the revelation must vary in its attributes so as to be equally appealing and convincing in all cases. It is not adequate for the revelation to appeal to only one or a few humans or many humans but not all. For the claim to be made that one particular revelation is correct even though it is rejected by one or more individuals means that it is inherently human-inspired and created. For a revelation to be correct, every many would have to be an identical clone of every other man and in the same situation and with the same history; thus every person would be equally appealed to and convinced. Obviously this is not the case in the history of the human race and therefore revelation is totally a man-created idea.

Another weakness in the revelations produced so far in the history of mankind is that they do not correspond to the characteristics of the world as it is observed. The most telling of these discrepancies is that revelations are typically static either in whole or in part. The revelation is presented on a “take it or leave it but do not change it” basis. If there is one thing evident from the world around us it is that it changes. The picture of creation as being functionally finished and complete after man’s creation denies the occurrence of real changes not only in the physical and biological world but also in man’s perception of it. This and other discrepancies are so basic and flagrant that they could only occur in an imperfect man-created revelation.

More specifically in the case of Christianity itself there are several basic illogicalities that destroy its connection with traditional Jewish writings. Two of these relate to the prophecies from the Old Testament which are considered the basis for making Jesus the promised savior. One of these indicates that the savior would be of the “House of David.” This lineage in the case of Jesus is through Joseph. Because of the doctrine of the virgin birth, this basis is effectively removed. The argument could perhaps be raised that Jesus was in the household of Joseph but this is a specious justification at best because of the careful blood-line relationship from David to Joseph outlined in the Bible. The doctrine of the virgin birth was probably incorporated in Christian belief to buttress the belief in the divinity of Christ; it is paradoxical that in the end it would do more to destroy it than to enhance it.

The second prophecy used as a basis for Jesus being the savior is that of the promised Messiah. The Messiah was supposed to deliver the Jewish people from their sins and from political domination by others. It cannot be that Jesus was the Messiah since he did not achieve this. Merely coming in the guise of the Messiah is not sufficient — the proof of being the Messiah rests not in the promise but in the actuality. That Jesus was a “Messiah” to the non-Jewish community is not enough. In a way the Jewish people are the only hope for Jesus ever being the promised Messiah of the Old Testament. It is only be a consensus acceptance by the Jewish community of Jesus as the Messiah that would validate him as such. Subconsciously this realization may be the reason for the ages-long prejudice that Christians have regarding the Jews — deep down there may be the hidden feeling in them that there is nothing to Christianity until and unless it is accepted by the Jews. Christianity carries on its record as being the cause of the Nazi policy of exterminating the Jewish people. Not a very high recommendation of it as a way of life.

It surely strikes me as evidence that Christianity is a man-made product when it contains such incontrovertible items of illogical premises as I have outlined about.

On Religious Thought, Part 2

The second reason for concluding that all religion is the product of man’s thinking is the incompatibility of the characteristics ascribed to the deity. Specifically the incompatibility in question is that between the deity being “all powerful” and the deity being “good and just.” Consider the situation. The deity has created in according to Christianity, the scheme of things in which man finds himself. This the deity can do because he is by definition all-powerful. But in doing so the deity has also:

1) Placed man willy-nilly in a situation not of his choice or doing. The consequences of man’s being in this situation are entirely within the control of the deity, the deity being all-powerful. Man’s position is that of a monumental charade, in which everything that transpires is at the whim of the deity. The deity thus is in the position of being not good since the deity condones not only man’s being placed in an untenable position but also the arbitrary results of man’s being place in that position. This all when, being all-powerful, the deity could at any time rectify the situation.

2) Instituted a system of consequences for any actions that man might take relative to the deity, even though these actions result only from the specific actions of the deity. Thus the deity is unjust totally and completely. The injustice is further deepened in extent: 1) Men differ in understanding, capability, and circumstance — thus their reactions to the deity will differ and to impose a common simple dictum of acceptance or denial of the deity as being the condition for reward of punishment means that men are not treated alike, and therefore unequally and unjustly. 2) The reward and punishment being eternal in nature are not commensurate with the actions of men which are comparatively trivial and temporal — this highly disparate system can only be regarded as being unjust in a most extreme degree. 3) The assigning of eternal life as an undefined condition of bliss as a reward for a certain attitude toward the deity is in and of itself an act of injustice. From what man knows, this eternal reward could well be as onerous as eternal damnation — to require a choice with no knowledge of the results or potentialities of the choice is extreme injustice.

For the deity to have ascribed to it such discordant characteristics as indicated means that the concept could only have been developed by the thinking of uninformed and biased men. No deity of ultimate wisdom, goodness and justice would ever have developed the religious theology and practices that have evolved in man’s history.

On Religious Thought, Part 1

Although the gradual change in my religious thinking was hastened by my introduction to philosophy etc. it was then delayed by the early years of my marriage. I’ve mentioned earlier that this was probably the result of the church compromise that Jean and I made as part of our family life, to provide a kind of church background for our three daughters. Another factor doubtless was that these were busy days of work at Shell and family responsibilities. The time and opportunity for reflection on religion and philosophical matters was quite limited.

This situation changed after the retirement to Ashland with the increase time available for such activity. And of course, Laurel was living with us for only her last three years in high school. I had often thought, and perhaps remarked, that a further delving into philosophy would be a part of retirement, but this has turned out to be quite limited. I think this is in part due to my gradually reaching the conclusion that most philosophical thought up until the time of Darwin suffered from an inadequate informational base and consequently much of the thinking could only be speculative. Thus, though it is of interest historically, a good part of it is no longer germane. A few years ago (about 1988 I believe) I audited a course at the college on the philosophy of religion. This experience plus my own thinking prior to and after the course has more or less systematized my thinking on religion. While the conclusions I have reached may still be modified, I do not expect them to change significantly in the years (or time) ahead of me.

My primary conclusion with regard to religion and specifically Christianity is that it is completely a man-made area of thought and that there is no indication whatsoever that it was transmitted to humankind by some deity. My first reason for reaching this conclusion involves the cause/effect relationship. The fundamentals of this relationship have been neglected in religious thought, as they very often are in many of man’s activities.

With respect to religion, specifically Christianity though applying in a general way to all religions, my thinking starts with the observation that religion typically pictures a creation process in which some pre-existing deity forms the universe, and make the solar system, the earth and the various forms of life on earth. In Christianity, man is the final step in creation and occupies a special place and has the special attribute of free will. The latter is the capacity to either accept or deny the aspects of religion as presented and to have as a result certain consequences applied either as salvation or damnation. This capacity is supposed to separate the deity from the results of man’s choice with regard to religion and to make man’s future independent of what the deity would choose or be responsible for.

This conclusion cannot be farther from the actual situation than possible. Inasmuch as the pre-existing deity created the world and everything in it, the basic elements of the cause/effect/responsibility relationship make the originating deity completely, totally, inescapably responsible for everything that transpires. Since the deity is the sole originating element, everything that occurs is the result directly or indirectly of the deity’s actions. The introduction of free will in the case of mankind does nothing to eliminate the deity’s responsibility for everything that transpires as the result of free will and its exercise by man. The deity is just as responsible for the excess of Hitler as it is for the Toccata and Fugue in D minor of Johann Sebastian Bach. What amazes me if that mankind has placed such a determining effect on free will in separating the deity from the consequences of the deity’s actions when such separation is so obviously invalid. It is indeed a sad commentary on the army of theologians that they have not realized this, nor significantly considered the implications of the total cause/effect/responsibility relationship.

If free will does actually exist, it does provide a basis for ascertaining what is “good” or “evil” in the relationships between individual humans. The characteristic of humans as being derivative rather than originating beings makes their status fundamentally different from that of the deity. The deity has the responsibility for everything. Humans have responsibility only relative to humans. In a way the appreciation of this limited responsibility, and the mistaken transfer of this responsibility toward the deity is the ultimate reason that all religion is the product of man’s fallible reasoning. No deity worthy of the attribute of wisdom applied to it would ever countenance such foolishness as the thesis that free will separates the deity from the total responsibility it has for everything that has occurred or will occur.

Eating Out in San Francisco

Writing about Jim Cosgrave reminded me of a social activity that we participated in during the time I was working in San Francisco. At the time I was transferred from southern California in 1946, two other Shell engineers were transferred at the same time. We were together in the training program that the engineering department put all new engineers through on their arrival. Jim Cosgrave was working also in San Francisco, only a few blocks from the Shell building where we were, at the local office of McGraw-Hill. Somehow or other the four of us adopted the practice of getting together on Friday evenings after work, selecting one of the noted San Francisco restaurants as a place for dinner together and then taking in a movie afterward if one appealed to us.

I suppose the year or two that this went on that we sampled all the well-known restaurants of the period. I cam remember only a few names now — the Blue Fox, the Shadows (Nob Hill), Cairo’s — but there were many more. Once we visited Lupo’s Pizzeria, whose specialty was of course pizza (but it was at a time when pizza was just a name on an Italian menu, not a name in every town or city in the country). At one of the restaurants we had banana fritters for dessert; it was the first time I had had them. Later after I was married to Jean I found out that she grew up with them — her mother often served them for breakfast. All during our married life Jean has them for breakfast occasionally (when she has a supply of over-ripe bananas on hand; she says that over-ripe fruit are needed).

As to the theaters we visited I only recall the Fox theater in San Francisco, a magnificent and grand structure that was regrettably torn down as decade or more ago. Its ornate interior was as far a cry from present-day theaters as the Taj Mahal is form the Webster County courthouse.

While I am on the subject of San Francisco restaurants I must not fail to mention Adolph Wilke’s Business Men’s Lunch. This establishment was located just across Bush Street from the Shell building, in the same block. The service was cafeteria style and the single line of patrons often stretched well out onto the sidewalk during the busy noontime period. This was no deterrent to a potential experienced eater however, who was well aware that the line was the fastest moving line ever in existence, bar none. A person at the tag end of the long line outside the restaurant could well anticipate that he would in five minutes be through the cafeteria line and paying his check to Adolph Wilke, the proprietor in person. Wilke was the fastest cashier I have ever seen, though “messy.” The floor around the cash register was always littered with small coins that his flying hands had let go of. Stacked next to the register were appropriate collections of bills for making change for the 5, 10, or 20 dollar checks that the patrons tendered Mr. Wilke. He was open only for lunch (perhaps breakfast, I don’t know) but I never at there then.

The Business Men’s Lunch is no more. Not long after my work at Shell took me to Emeryville. The building in which the restaurant was located was torn down for a more imposing and modern edifice. A colorless replacement for a notable institution. I think Wilke called it a day and went out of business.

James Frank Cosgrave

I have mentioned that an important factor in the change in my thinking and conclusions with regard to religion was my introduction to philosophy and Biblical criticism (in the sense of inspection and analysis for sources, original meanings, glosses, etc. [the definition here being, according to thefreedictionary.com, “a brief explanatory note or translation of a difficult or technical expression usually inserted in the margin or between lines of a text or manuscript” or “an extensive commentary, often accompanying a text or publication] by one of my Shell colleagues whom I met during my early days at Wilmington. His name was James Frank Cosgrave and he went variably by the names of Jim and Frank. I recall using either name at time.

He had been a chemistry major at Fresno State and because of a physical disability (he was a low-level spastic) was not wanted by the military. He had been hired by Shell to work in the lab. For some reason he and I “hit” it off and our relationship continued after he left Shell, move to San Francisco when the war was over and went to work as a reporter for McGraw-Hill. He worked for their publication Chemical Engineering. His parents were strong Presbyterians but he had departed from their beliefs, doubtless because of his introduction to philosophy and analysis of the Bible, subjects that he had encountered in college. He did however remain on congenial terms with his parents though I am sure they were aware of his thinking on religion. Later on he became a lawyer but I never know in what capacity he worked in that field. Somewhere along the line I lost contact with him — partly because he didn’t seem to respond to Christmas cards and eventually one was I recall returned with the note “no person of this name at this address.”

Several years ago (probably 1998 or so) Jean and I were visiting Muriel in Sacramento and the subject of Jim Cosgrave came up. I had wondered previously if I could locate him through him being a lawyer in California. Typically for me I had not followed up on this idea. No so my daughter Muriel. She immediately telephoned some pertinent telephone number in this regard (an action that had occurred to me but in my usual way of procrastination had not pursued). She found out that he had died a short time previously. So my vague intention of locating him and resuming contact came to naught. I still wonder what happened to his life after I lost contact with him.

On Church Attendance and Participation

At this point, I shall digress a bit and summarize my current thinking along the line of religion. Perhaps because of my childhood background the importance of religion has been over-emphasized in my life and a considerable passage of time has been required to arrive at a more or less satisfactory evaluation. I suspect that a person with a less indoctrinated childhood would have spent considerably less time in reaching an evaluation, and would regard the subject in a more cursory way.

A further decline in my involvement occurred after my transfer to the San Francisco Bay Area — for a time I had my church membership transferred back to the congregation in Gowrie but eventually I transferred it to the Lutheran church in Berkeley. I think it still functions on University Avenue below what was then Grove Street. Here I attended and continued contributing but my attendance was irregular. During this time I didn’t think too much about church teaching and Christian theology though subconsciously there was a growing disenchantment.

A more serious deepening of the rift between me and religion was probably delayed by my contact with the Knock and Udden families. Rev. Knock and his wife were delightful people personally and though I didn’t share their unquestioning faith, it was easy to compromise my outward appearance of acquiescence in keeping up the social contact with them. The Uddens were similarly congenial people (Mrs. Udden was a sister of Rev. Knock) and I had the same relationship with them.

A rift was also delayed by the visit my parents made to California in the winter and spring of 1952–53 when my attendance at least improved during their visit. It was during this time that my relationship with my future wife Jean Ribley developed and because of the difference in religious training and background we went through a period of serious disagreement and estrangement. This disagreement resulted eventually in a further decline in my attachment to Christian doctrine but superficially the decline was softened and delayed by the compromise we made to attend the Methodist church in north Berkeley. I transferred my membership to that church, but Jean dropped her membership in the Christian Science church (both locally and nationally).

A further factor was the rearing of our three daughters. By experience both Jean and I were accustomed to attendance at Sunday school in our childhood and was wanted this for out offspring. The attendance of out daughters in the Sunday school served to involve us in various of the activities of the church and in attendance. Further I have always found some congenial contacts in church members and this has always and indeed currently prevented a more obvious break with any organized church function.

In recent years my attitude toward Christian theology has further declined. I think this has been partly the result of the deaths of both of my parents. Since I no longer feel the need to present at least a semblance of adherence to their position on theological matters, my feeling about church values has declined. Generally I have not discussed my attitude with my brothers or with my sisters when they were still living. Clarice died in the middle 1970s before her 60th birthday. Vivian died in 2003, having passed her 80th birthday.

I have retained my membership in the Methodist church, transferring it first from Epworth in Berkeley to Memorial Drive Methodist in Houston when we moved there and then to the church here in Ashland when we moved here from Houston. Jean continued to attend along with me though she has never joined the Methodist church as a member. I am sure that at present if I were faced with the decision to join a church I would undoubtedly decide against such a move. Habit kept me involved to the extent of fairly regular attendance, financial contribution and I acted as an usher one Sunday a month until I had a relatively mild stroke. Now all I do is send a contribution once a month.

Beyond ushering I have declined to participate as a church functionary. During our early years in Ashland I did attend the monthly meetings of the Methodist Men’s Group; the potluck dinners were tasty and I enjoyed the table conversation. However the programs were usually uninteresting and after being inveigled into being a “caller” to line up reservations for the dinner meetings, I concluded that the easiest way to avoid being asked to perform any duties was simply to stop attending the meetings, which I did. For a while various members continued to ask me to attend but gradually these overtures have ceased, as I didn’t respond.

Confirmation and Religious Questioning

In common with all 14-year-old adolescents whose parents were members of the Zion Evangelical Lutheran church of Gowrie, I was required to take the Confirmation training class during the time of my freshman year of high school. And then to participate in the rite of confirmation in the spring of that school term. In reviewing in my mind now what my reasoned reaction to this requirement then, I have the curious feeling that regardless of what my conclusions or feelings were at the time, it was inevitable that I would in time realize the shortcomings, inconsistencies, irrelevancies and mistakes of Lutheran theology as presented. And that I would drift away completely not only from Lutheran belief but form Christianity itself.



Confirmation photo, 1935, from left to right: Merlin Johnson, Carl Strand, Everette Johnson (seated), Arthur Holmer

This was of course quite different from what occurred at the time — perhaps the only reservation in my mind was the wonderment, and perhaps slight disquiet, at the extreme reaction of the minister when one of the confirmands asked a question about evolution. Even then in my mind opposition to this theory was passé and to have it actively opposed by a minister on theological grounds inevitably laid the seed of future questioning in my mind. Though at the time the development of a more serious questioning attitude was still latent. During my high school and college days I participated willy-nilly or by choice in various religious and semi-social activities either in the Gowrie church or in the Lutheran church in Iowa City that I attended.

It wasn’t until I started to work for Shell that the next significant alternation in my state of thinking occurred. At that time one of my Shell colleagues brought to my attention the subjects of philosophy and Biblical criticism (both old and new testaments) and my reading on these subjects raised severe questions about the teaching I had received as a child and a young adult. During the time I was working for Shell at Wilmington and Dominguez and living in San Pedro I was quite active in the small Lutheran church in San Pedro. Partly this was the result of habit and partly the friendly character of the minister and his wife. They remained in San Pedro until shortly after the war was over and then transferred the Midwest. Over the years I lost track of them. The replacement minister at the San Pedro church was a much less congenial person and I gradually became less involved in church activities.

Several years ago, my brother Verner was at some church convention in Kansas and by chance encountered the minister that I had known in San Pedro when I was first in California. When this minister left San Pedro at the conclusion of the war he went to a congregation in Manhattan, Kansas, which I think was in the central part of the state. Somehow my name came up in the conversation and as a result of Verner’s informing me of the contact, there was a brief exchange of letters and Christmas cards between me and pastor Wellington but it soon ceased. His name was Maynard but I can’t recall his wife’s name.

Fortunate Son

In many ways I was the most fortunate of the six Strand children. Despite his rather crusty personality and his ability to convey intense disapproval, uncle Carl was underneath a considerate person and both Vincent and I benefited from the money we earned working for him in the summers we were on the farm. On the whole Vincent got along better with my namesake uncle than I did. I think though that I didn’t have quite the averse reaction to him as for example Verner did.

Relative to Clarice I had a somewhat more relaxed view of the future — perhaps because I was a male I was less restricted in employment opportunities than she. Thus when it didn’t seem feasible to go away to school after my initial year at junior college, and because a course in organic chemistry and in quantitative analysis had been added to the curriculum there, I felt reasonably content to take the path of least resistance and take a second year at the junior college. Following this the scholarship I got to SUI enabled me to go to school there and complete my engineering training. Then with WWII going on it was rather easy for me to secure employment in comparison to Clarice’s difficulties.

Vivian followed Clarice’s footsteps and attended the University of Dubuque — in contrast to Clarice however, teachers were in short supply when she finished school and she was immediately employed (even as I seem to recall before the normal time of completion of her fourth year of college).

Vincent was young enough so that it was inevitable that he would become involved in military service in the war, but he was shortly in a program in meteorology at the University of Wisconsin. The academic training he received in the program eventually served him in good stead when he returned to school after his discharge at Iowa State College.

Verner suffered the most from being in the military perhaps because of the intensity of his reactions, which were more extreme than those of Vincent for example. But in the end his experience in the military gave him the advantages afforded him as a veteran.

Finally Marold was hardly affected by the Depression at all. By the time he was of high school age, the war was almost over. My parents moved back to the little brown house so he was out from under the potential supervision of my uncle Carl. Economic conditions in the family were much improved and considering he was the only child still to be cared for he pretty much had his choice of his college education. He was however eventually involved in the military service which I had escaped.

During my senior year at Iowa I considered enrolling in a meteorology program in the Navy. I had the paperwork pretty much complete but I hesitated to go ahead with the possibility as I had already been offered a position with Shell. As I recall I would have received a commission as an ensign when I enrolled. One day I mentioned this tentative plan to one of my chemical engineering professors. His immediate comment was “Why would you want to do that?” I guess that was the deciding factor for me in the situation.

Teachers and Classes at Fort Dodge J.C.

Some of the teachers at the college were rather colorful characters. The dean of the junior college was Harris Dickey, who had enough independent income from farm property that he wouldn’t have needed to work but was the kind of individual who felt he needed to do something constructive with his life. There was a New Deal program when I was at the college which provided funds for a work program for the students. I was a participant in the program and worked for Dickey maybe an hour or so a day, perhaps not every day. I can’t remember ever getting paid directly, maybe what I earned went toward the tuition.

I took one class from Dickey — European history — which I thoroughly enjoyed. This was in my second year at the college when the technical courses available were limited. I suspect that the contact I had with Dickey working for him and being in the history class may have led to my receiving the Alice Granger scholarship that enabled me to attend the University of Iowa. I would think he would have had a role in awarding the scholarship.

Another colorful character was the spinster math teacher — Ethel Shannon. She wasn’t a particularly good teacher and my facility in the use of math in my later engineering classes was hampered. The English teacher, Ruth Goodrich, was a good teacher and I liked her. The chemistry and physics professor was Chaoman. He was a reasonable enough teacher but nothing exceptional. The only teacher I really didn’t like was “Horseface” Thiele, the P.E. instructor. The only good thing I can say about him is that I got through swimming, so I didn’t have that hanging over me when I got to Iowa. I never did really learn to swim and haven’t been in a swimming pool since I climbed out of the pool at the junior college.

The first year at the junior college approximated a full year of an engineering curriculum though the fact that physics was included was out of order for most engineering curricula of the time. The second year had only about half transferable subjects (calculus, quantitative analysis and organic chemistry). Even these, for example the organic chemistry, were only partly transferable and I took the full organic class at Iowa. As a consequence I needed to take a summer session to finish at Iowa and I also needed to petition for using my European history credits as a substitute for the freshman surveying class, etc. I had intended to take a full additional year to finish but the war hurried things along.

Fort Dodge Junior College

I look back on the two years I spent at Fort Dodge Junior College with nostalgia and fond memories. The first year I was there I had the companionship of Howard Nelson, Harlan Anderson and John Woodard. They rode along with me and my father in his daily drive to his work in the courthouse. Harlan of course was a good man with the off-the-cuff quip and an engaging conversationalist. Howard too was an individual who cam up constantly with fresh ideas and opinions. John had been my spare-time playmate all the time we were on the farm.



John Woodard, high school graduation photo, 1938

Part of the time we walked from the courthouse to the junior college (which had its classes on the top floor of the high school building — I think it was part of the Fort Dodge school district). But at least part of the time (in winter) we drove to the school and my father continued on back to the courthouse. Come to think of it I believe was another student riding along, Darwin Liljegren. At least he participated in the Essex memorial drive in 1988, the year of the Strand family reunion and my 50th high school class reunion. Darwin may have ridden with my dad some other year however. John wasn’t available for the memorial drive — he had died in the meantime.





I found the above two photos in an envelope labeled “Essex Memorial Run.” Unfortunately, there were no notations on the back to identify any of the individuals. Thus, the only one I can identify is my dad, who is standing second from left in both pictures in the blue “gimme” cap, blue windbreaker, beige shorts, and handknit diamond pattern socks. I think the person in the far left of both pictures wearing the straw boater is Harlan Anderson. I don’t know why I think that, but I just have a feeling. Who the other two/three gentlemen are, I have not a clue. —Laurel

The last time I saw John was shortly after the end of WWII. He had driven out west in his new Ford from Michigan (where his half-sister lived). I was living in Berkeley at the time and he looked me up — must have gotten my address from my parents. He wasn’t impressed with California and said that he was headed right back east. I tried to dissuade him to try out California for a while but he was adamant. I don’t think I ever had any further contact with him.

Howard was a year older than I and thought I sort of lost track of him our relationship was renewed sometime in the 1950s and we have corresponded ever since — particularly in recent years after he retired from teaching at UCLA. Harlan had been in Clarice’s class in school, but he lived in the old Woodard place adjacent to the Peterson homestead for several years so I was well acquainted with him. Later he moved to the Twin Cities, got a degree in mechanical engineering at the University of Minnesota, and founded an independent business.

The members of the ride group all carried their noonday lunches along and we would eat together and then, when the weather was nice, we would go for a stroll. There was a nice part nearby that we often visited and the school was close enough to the outskirts of Fort Dodge that we could reach the actual countryside. On these walks we often had along with us Gaylord Van Alstine. He was an ardent chemistry student and on some of our walks he tried to detonate some of his lab products — such as a flask of nitrobenzene http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nitrobenzene. Sadly he did not survive WWII.

Sister Clarice

In looking back at the relationships I had with my sisters and brothers I realize that during the days on the farm I never felt particularly close to my older sister Clarice or to my younger brothers Marold and Verner. Much of the time they were not in my sphere of activity as far as farm work and chores were concerned, and Marold and Verner I seldom encountered at school. I felt much closer to Vivian and Vincent, Vivian perhaps because of her engaging personality and Vincent because he and I shared a bedroom for years (both in the little brown house and on the farm).

Clarice I think suffered a good deal more than the rest of us children from the deprivation associated with the Depression and the reduced economic condition of the family. Her first year of college was at Fort Dodge Junior College (by the time she had finished high school my father was commuting the year round to his work at the county treasurer’s office, making attendance at the junior college a possibility). But whereas I look back at my two years at junior college with considerable nostalgia and pleasant memories, she was quite dissatisfied (at least that is my impression).

It was during that time that my aunt Laurine started teaching in Dubuque, Iowa, and this opened up the possibility of Clarice living with her and attending the University of Dubuque (a Presbyterian-funded four-year college). After finishing there she was not able to get a teaching position for which she had trained, again perhaps because the economic condition in the state was still in a depressed state and competition for teaching positions was extreme. Instead she went to library school at the University of Minnesota (she stayed with uncle Laurence and aunt Dagmar who were then living in Minneapolis where my uncle was at the time the minister of a Lutheran church).

On completing this she again had difficulty in finding employment in her field. She finally got a position at the seminary associated with the University of Dubuque. It was there that she met her future husband who was in training for the ministry. Clarice seemed to be happy in her marriage and was a dutiful minister’s wife. After their marriage he was a chaplain in the United States navy for a while and then served in parishes in two rather small congregations. The first was in Dallas Center, Iowa (I believe that was the name of the town, not far from Des Moines) and the second was in Joplin, Missouri.



Clarice and daughter Ann, April 1945

In 1958 we visited them in Joplin — it was the year we drove east in our new Plymouth taking Muriel and Palma with us. The parsonage in Joplin was really quite substandard and I felt sorry for Clarice and her three children. Her husband died of cancer within a year or so.

With the proceeds of her husband’s navy life insurance Clarice moved to Des Moines, bought a house, and got a job as a librarian in the Des Moines school system. The next ten years or so were relatively happy ones for Clarice. She was well liked and admired in her school work.

During most of this Clarice developed severe arthritis (like our aunt Esther had) and had almost reached her retirement point when she was hospitalized, developed a staph infection from a small lesion on her foot and died shortly before she reached her 60th birthday.

Extracurricular Activities

I did not participate in any of the athletic programs carried on in high school (principally basketball). Because of the chores I was responsible for at home and the inconvenience of getting transportation to and from the practices (typically after school hours) I never seriously considered it. Not that I would have had much success. I do not have the physical capability nor the quickness of mind required.

During the time I was in high school there was no instrumental music program — whether I would have participated in this I don’t know had it been available. I did start in the Glee club but singing never appealed to me and I dropped out of that activity fairly soon. By the time Vincent and Verner were in high school a band program had been started and they were in it and I believe Marold also participated.

Vivian was interested in piano but this was a private activity with my aunt Ruth as teacher. Clarice and I also started music lessons with aunt Ruth while we were still living in the little brown house but it was only Vivian that persevered after the move to the farm. Aunt Ruth was the organist at the Lutheran church we attended and had had training in both piano and organ, I think at Gustavus Adolphus college in St. Peter, Minnesota. She lived her life in her parental environment except for the relatively brief time she was away at school. She died while I was away at school at the University of Iowa from some obscure tropical ailment — I came home for the funeral at the urging of my mother although I had never felt particularly close to her. In a way I think her life was stunted by the rather psychologically and subtly repressive atmosphere that existed in my maternal grandparents’ home.

During my senior year in high school there was in one of my classes some information provided on various vocational pursuits and I think it was from this that I first developed the idea of entering the engineering profession. Where I became interested in chemistry I don’t recall but the superintendent at Gowrie did give me a sample high school chemistry text that I read through at least in part. Chemistry was not in the Gowrie high school curriculum at the time. The physics class suffered from an almost entire lack of experimental laboratory sessions and this was somewhat of a drawback when I went later to junior college.

The Dumb Waiter

In my grandmother’s house there was a dumb waiter which was operated by a long continuous loop of rope. When I was in the rope-splicing part of the manual training class I must have discussed this with my uncle Carl as he challenged me to located the splice in the loop of rope, he having made the splice. I recall I located the splice on the first pass, I think somewhat to his chagrin. It was a very good splice but even a long splice as this was is rather easy to detect because of the increased diameter of the rope inherent in the making of the splice.

The dumb waiter at my grandmother’s had its opening door just off the kitchen and it would ascend/descend between the cellar and the door by pulling on the rope. I can remember my grandmother operating it. The purpose of the dumb waiter was of course to store food items in a cool place. When the house in town was built about 1915 iceboxes or mechanical refrigerators were not in common use in Gowrie. It was later on that my grandmother got her first refrigerator, probably in the mid 1930s. My parents never had a refrigerator until they moved back to the little brown house after the years on the farm.

High School

The following year I was in high school and during the time I was a high school student I took all the courses that were offered except for advanced farm shop and home economics. Generally my grades were good and all during high school I never took a semester test (the rule being that if a student had a B average he or she was excused from these tests). The six-weeks tests I did take. I realized now that it would have been to my advantage to have been required to take the semester tests as well.

During the years I was in high school, the school administered the every-pupil tests prepared by the University of Iowa — I did well enough in these tests so each year I participated in the most exacting tests given at the Iowa campus for proficiency in the subjects for which a suitable level had been achieved at the local level. I don’t recall specifically what subjects I qualified in, but included were General Science, world and American history, Latin, perhaps Physics and I think several others.

As a freshman I was also on the team from the manual training class that participated in the competition at Iowa State College in Ames. As I recall our team did reasonably well despite our having had no instruction in concrete work (and part of the competition was to construct a concrete home base for a baseball field).

The manual training class covered such items as woodworking, rope splicing, harness repair, tool sharpening, gas engine repair and some elementary drafting. It was from this class I suppose that I acquired my liking for woodworking. Included in the projects in the class that I made were an oak table for the boys’ bedroom, some “rubber” guns for games of cops and robbers, a tool chest, the sewing box I gave to my grandmother, and a set of bookends. The tool chest was for the tools that my father got for me from the lumber company where he worked at his second bookkeeping job. I used these tools later on in making the buildings and the machinery for the toy farms that Vincent and I played with for several years during the early years on the farm.

The sewing box, the bookends and the tool chest I now have, having retrieved them over the years. The tool chest I retrieved once when visiting my mother in the little brown house. I think it was just after my father died and I may have been on a business trip and I was just stopping by as I don’t think Jean or our daughters were along. The tool chest was up in the hayloft of the barn and had some parts of the toy machinery that I had made for our toy farms out on the Peterson farm. Dad had gathered these up when my parents moved back from the farm. I still have these bedraggled remnants of the tractors, plows and trucks that I made. We also had barns and corn cribs but these were all gone.


Sewing box


Wooden toys


Tool box

I packed the chest up with these fragments of toys and sent it back to California by Railway Express. I reworked the tool chest in part and it now serves me as mail storage. I also reworked the sewing box that I had made for my grandmother, improving on the workmanship skills I had in ninth grade. And I reworked the bookends also and Jean now uses them for her cookbooks.

[Note from Laurel: I have the sewing box and the tool chest. After my dad's death, my mother sent the toys to his younger brother, Vincent, whose daughter Julie sent me the above photo. The bookends are with my sister Muriel. I have asked her to send me a photo, which I will post at a future date.]

Summer 1934 and Winter 1935

That summer was also the summer of the drought in Iowa. The oat crop was relatively normal as it had matured before the drought set in. June and July were hot with many days 100 degrees of more. Vincent and I shocked oats for uncle Carl, but we went out to work only from very early morning until about noon. Because our bedroom was so hot in the evening, Vincent and I slept on the back door screened porch (where the pump was) and I vaguely recall the reluctance with which we woke for our daily stint of oat-shocking. It is a commentary on the resilience of youth that a couple of months after having my bout with appendicitis I was working shocking oats. The corn suffered most from the drought and the yield was only about 25 bushels per acre — about half the normal yield for those days.

The next winter by contrast was very cold and snowy with quite a few days when the temperature did not get above zero and with low temperatures of 30 degrees below zero or even colder. During this time my father had to stay in Fort Dodge while he was working there as it was impossible to drive between Fort Dodge and the farmhouse. It devolved on me to take care of the chores in the bitter cold and I was quite disheartened at times. Perhaps what was most difficult was keeping a supply of water available for the cows and horses. Uncle Carl did not have a heater for the water tank as most of the farmers did and toward the end of the winter the tank was almost a solid block of ice.

During this period there were several blizzards that had us snowbound for days at a time. It was a source of concern having enough fuel (coal) for use to fire the furnace with. I recall on once occasion we received a supply of coal quite fortuitously just before we were about to be hit by another blizzard. On at least once occasion we were sent home from school about midday because of a developing storm. Once the school bus got as far as about a half mile west of our home, at which point it could proceed no further. Our neighbor Carl Anderson came in a bobsled drawn by a team of horses and we rode the rest of the way home in the sled. The school bus stood where it had stopped for the next week or ten days.

It was during this storm that the snowdrift in the lower garden area was perhaps 6 to 8 feet deep — deep enough so that standing on it our heads were well above the top of the shed housing the threshing machines. That year because of the days lost from school closure due to weather, school weeks in the spring were lengthened to 6 days a week to make up for the lost time.

The commute that my father had to his work in Fort Dodge was always a worry to my mother in the winter months and I can remember the anxious waiting on occasion. I vividly recall one time when my father went in the ditch a couple of miles west from the farmhouse, having even taken a roundabout route to avoid snow-drifted roads. He arrived at the house finally walking.

A Brush with Mortality

Late in the school year I developed a severe stomach ache (or what I thought it to be, having had such symptoms before in my life) only this time it was worse. I recall spending a very wakeful and restless night up on the boys bedroom of the Peterson farmhouse though by dawn I felt a little better — however my mother looking at my condition decided that the doctor should be called, which was surely indicative of her evaluation of the situation as being serious as calling the doctor for a house call under the economic circumstances of the family was not a decision to be taken lightly.

I guess the doctor recognized the condition immediately as appendicitis and indicated that I should be taken to the hospital in Fort Dodge at once for surgery. I vaguely recall being administered the anesthetic, but I have no recollection of the ride to Fort Dodge, or entering the hospital or any pre-operative diagnosis by the surgeon. It seems though that the operation was in the late morning. The appendix had ruptured (which was perhaps the reason that I had felt a little better earlier that morning).

I was in the hospital 11 days and for a time around the third or fourth day it was touch-and-go whether I would survive or not. It was in the period before antibiotics and perhaps the deciding factor was the use of an implement that provided for the continuous washing out of my [abdominal cavity]. There was a special nurse assigned to me (this was before the days of intensive care units) by the name of Miss Bang. She turned out to be the fiancée of one of the workers at the country treasurer’s office where my father had by then started to work part-time.

That was also the summer that my mother had her goiter operation so the family had a considerable medical expense at a difficult time. I believe that my grandmother bore some of the cost of the hospital and the special nurse and I think that the surgeon cut his fee in half.