More College Memories

I have some very vivid memories from my days at the university. One of these was being in the cafeteria line at the Quadrangle on Pearl Harbor day — it must have been at lunch time, although normally I’d have my one large cafeteria meal in the evening. I overheard some other people in the line talking about the attack, and the locale at the time remains etched in my memory.

It wasn’t long after that that the Quadrangle was commandeered and Robert and I found lodgings with this elderly lady who had a house east of the capitol on Iowa Avenue. We found a small restaurant close to the university, also on Iowa Avenue, that we tended to frequent for meals — a dinner was priced at about 25 cents as I seem to recall.

Another memory is of the time I had walked from the Quadrangle in the morning to my classes in the chemistry building (which also contained the chemical engineering department). The day had started out somewhat cloudy and the temperature was quite mild. But when I walked back to the Quadrangle at noon there was an icy wind from the west and the walk across the foot bridge over the Iowa river was cold indeed. I had not dressed for the change in the weather.

This was the memorable Armistice Day blizzard in Iowa. Back at Gowrie a large number of turkeys froze in the storm and a neighbor of my parents obtained some of the turkey which I guess were edible. This neighbor gave my mother some of the turkey meat — whether my mother used it or not I can’t really recall. Certainly if she used it it would have been with some reluctance; turkey to my recollection had never been used by the family (chicken was the Christmas and Thanksgiving staple). This unfamiliarity coupled with the source would have been major drawbacks to its use.

The lady who provided the turkey to my mother was Mrs. Voss. The Voss family were renting the small house that Annie and Will Lines had used until Annie took over the farming of the old Woodard place and the family moved to the larger house there. Mrs. Voss I seem to remember was an amiable, reasonably normal woman. Her husband was a rather backward individual and I think he worked mostly as a common laborer. I believe they also had a daughter.

During my second year at Iowa I was invited to join Tau Beta Pi, the scholastic engineering fraternity and Phi Lambda Upsilon, for chemistry. The initiation cost was $25 for Tau Beta Pi and $15 for Phi Lambda Upsilon and at first I was reluctant to spend this sum for either. When I conveyed my reluctance to the local president of Tau Beta Pi he responded that some arrangement could be made to accommodate my lack of ready funds. In the end I found the funds to join both fraternities. I think my father may have helped out.

The engineering society had an all-night initiation ceremony which included answering engineering type questions from members of the group and carving out the society symbol from a block of soft white pine, using only a pen knife. I can recall lugging along my technical books to the initiation and wearily carting them back to the Quadrangle in the early morning hours.

The procedure for the chemistry group was much simpler and stylized. I still have the wooden symbols we initiates had to make for both societies someplace, as well as the jeweled symbols (suitable for a tie chain, watch fob, etc.). I haven’t worn them for years and they are presently in the safe deposit box, along with my two pocket watches and the Shell anniversary pins. Two of the latter (the 10- and 15-year pins) Jean had had converted into cuff links but these were lost when our car was stolen in Golden Gate park in 1978. But the 20-, 25-, and 30-year pins are still there. After the theft I investigated with Shell if I could replace them, but the design had changed in the meantime and I decided against it.

One of the satisfactions I have had in later years is that both Muriel and Palma were asked to be members of Tau Beta Pi. Some years ago I was approached by Tau Beta Pi to contribute to their scholarship fund and have done so since. I had had no contact with them over the intervening years.