About Some Shirt-Tail Relatives

About the only vocational guidance included in the instruction given in the Gowrie high school of my time was in the civics/American problems class taught by Mr. Millard. What sticks in my mind was the discussion and information given as to the financial awards and the particular qualities related to engineering. Whether other fields were discussed I have no recollection. This was perhaps the “seed” that led me into taking engineering in college and as a career.

There may have been one earlier fleeting impetus in this direction. I recall at one of the Thursday evening band concerts being aware of a visitor to the community, one Jack Sederholm, who was described as an electrical engineer. He was a cousin I believe of a Robert Blomgren, ahead of me by one year in school. He struck me as an intriguing inhabitant of a strange enticing world and I wonder now if it may not have been the initial nudge toward the engineering field. Robert Blomgren eventually ended up as an engineer, though in what field I don’t recall.

In my growing up years I was exposed to such popularized applications of science and engineering as the Tom Swift books; to what extent these Tom Swift books broadened my horizon I can’t really say. The source of the Tom Swift books was my relative Harold Renquist (a sort of shirt-tail relative — I believe he was the child of a cousin of my grandmother’s). Harold was enough older than I that he was not in high school even when I was a freshman. Though older than I he was never condescending toward me in his attitude and I have always had a fond recollection of the association I had with him.

He lived with his parents in Gowrie at the east edge of the town. His parents and he were often included in the Sunday dinners at my grandmother’s house and in other family gatherings. I can remember being at their house for a supper meal. There were also relatives of my grandmother’s who lived in Dayton, a nearby town or on farms in the Dayton area. We visited these families on occasion and they in turn were occasional guests at my grandmother’s or with us.

I can’t recall for sure their surnames now, but one family was named Blomquist. One couple had one child, a girl, and I believe the husband had been a farmer but had moved into Dayton. The other, more congenial couple, lived on a farm; there were two sons, the younger, Paul, being just about my age. He also was an individual that I always liked and have pleasant memories of. But I doubt I’ve had any contact with him since I left to go to school at Iowa.

There were also relatives of my grandmother’s near Madrid, Iowa (Madrid is more or less on a line between Gowrie and Des Moines). These were “uncle” Frank Anderson and family. As children we always enjoyed any visit with uncle Frank, who was a jolly, likable, friendly individual. I cannot recall visiting them in Madrid but he appeared periodically in Gowrie at family gatherings. One of his goals in later life was to live to be 100 years old which he managed to do; he didn’t however survive to his 101st year.