Two Years at Fort Dodge Junior College

Of the classes I took my first year at junior college, chemical and physics were taught by Mr. Chapman. He was an effective enough instructor though somewhat introverted. One of his characteristics was to keep his gaze averted at most time, during his lectures as at other times. A radio ham, he had some of his equipment on the school premises and would occasionally operate it at odd, spare moments.

In both of the classes I was exposed to actual laboratory sessions for the first time. By present day standards the labs, particularly chemistry, would be considered unsafe, but I recall no untoward incidents in either. Mr. Chapman did not supervise the chemistry lab, there were lab assistants for that function, of which there were a couple during the times I was at junior college.

The second semester of chemistry lab was quantitative analysis. In the chemistry class I became acquainted with Gaylord Van Alstine, who became one of the individuals who would go for walks during the noon hour, after we had eaten our brown-bag lunches. He was I think a student interested in knowledge for its own sake, not only as a means to an end, such as preparing for a career.

During my second year at junior college when we were together in organic chemistry and one of the experiments was to make nitrobenzene. This material is an explosive of sorts and Gaylord tried to set it off in a little experiment in a plowed area along the path of our noontime walk. I can recall the little Erlenmeyer flask containing the liquid nitrobenzene; Gaylord had rigged up some sort of detonator. The test was a failure, perhaps happily so. Gaylord was a likable individual. He met a sad end in his service in WWII.

The math teacher I had, Ethel Shannon, for both freshman math (algebra, trigonometry, analytic geometry) and for calculus the second year at junior college was not really a good teacher. Although she covered the background theoretical aspects she never tested the class with any “proof” problems — the assignments were invariably problem-solving ones. I have always felt that I was somewhat lacking in my ability to use advanced mathematical procedures, particularly such things as formulating and solved differential equations. Perhaps I didn’t have the innate capability but I also wonder if the training I had in math was a factor. In high school, the absence of such classes as trig, solid and analytic geometry; in junior college the kind of instruction that Miss Shannon (for she was a spinster) afforded.

At the time I had her in math, she seemed past middle age, but not too long ago I heard of her, either her passing or some other event in her later life so she couldn’t have been too old then. She was however a memorable character in a way and I certainly remember her well.

The English teacher, Miss (Gladys?) Goodrich had previously taught the subject at Iowa State College — how she came to teach at Fort Dodge Junior College I don’t know. Perhaps there were depression-style cutback at ISU. She was a competent teacher and I recall with liking her classes, but English then was taking a back seat to my engineering classes.

I apparently also took a semester of speech during my first year at junior college; the teacher was a John (?) Stover. Apparently this didn’t fulfill the speech class requirement for engineers as I had to take another hour’s credit during the last term at SUI.

Last, but not least, was the physical education class, under the tutelage of Harold (?) “Horseface” Thiele. The phys ed class included both idle play in the gymnasium and swimming. The former was only an extension of what I had had in high school but the latter was entirely new. Previously the only water I had encountered was in the bathtub or the wash basin.

Swimming was done in the class in the nude, with a shower ahead of time to help keep the water in the swimming pool clean and a shower after the session to rinse off the chlorinated pool water and, for me at least, to warm up. Rumor had it that the girls’ swimming class had used some sort of bathing suit but I never heard it from anyone directly.

I never really learned to sim, the snag was that I never achieved the technique of breathing while swimming. I could make it across the pool the short way, perhaps 30 feet, by holding my breath while traversing that distance. I never attempted the long way. Mr. Thiele gave me a “B” the first semester and “A’s” thereafter — I think he graded principally on attendance. I have the vague recollection I had to demonstrate getting across the pool the short way but I’m not sure.

Since I ended up going to junior college two years I satisfied the phys ed requirement for getting a degree at SUI — if I hadn’t managed to pass at J.C. (under Mr. Thiele’s regime of benign neglect) I don’t know what I would have done to finish college and get a degree. This circumstance alone was one of the distinct advantages of my two years at Fort Dodge Junior College.

When I finished the first year at J.C., there was a move afoot in the Fort Dodge school district to add a semester of organic chemistry and a semester of quantitative analysis to the junior college curriculum. When this became reality I decided to take a second year at J.C. I could also take calculus which could be transferred later.

The other subjects I took, or at least started, were European history (under Mr. Dickey, the dean) and biology, which I dropped after six weeks. I suppose I should have persevered in the biology class but the lab part, cutting up and dissecting frogs was rather nauseating to me and the prospect of later doing the same with a small mammal such as a cat decided for me dropping the course.

So that year at school I was taking only a partial academic load. but I enjoyed the year, partly because there was no pressure on me as fas as continuing on in school after that.