College Graduation

So on the last day of July 1942 I was graduated from Iowa with a B.S. in Chemical Engineering. The exercises were held in the auditorium of the Memorial Union building and my parents and brother Vincent drove down from Gowrie for the event. For some reason I don’t recall I didn’t ride back with them, but came a day or so later, I suppose by bus and the M & St L passenger train. On the way back my father developed one of his “sick” headaches and Vincent drove a good part of the way, even though he didn’t yet have a driver’s license.

Since leaving Iowa City them, I have been back two or three times, the last time being in 1985 when Jean and I drove from Michigan after attending Laurel and Mike’s wedding on our way to Gowrie. I was rather disappointed and in a way disillusioned in what had happened to the town and the campus. When I was there 1940–42, there were wide open areas in the campus; in 1985 many more buildings had been erected, particularly on the west side of the river between the Wuadrangle and the field house. That area had used to be a wide open field, used for intramural sports.

Other changes had also occurred on the campus; for example one quadrant of the Quadrangle had been town down for some reason (actually the part in which my dormitory room was located the first year I was at Iowa). Also the downtown business area adjacent the campus looked seedy, perhaps because business had moved to shopping malls on the outskirts of the city. But there seemed to be litter on the streets, different than when I was enrolled there.

I suppose the change from a campus with wide open spaces between buildings was inevitable, but it left me with a feeling of disillusion.

During the second year I was at Iowa (perhaps it was the second semester of the first year) I was invited to become a member of Tau Beta Pi, the honorary engineering society and Phi Lambda Upsilon, the same for chemistry. The initiation fee was $25 for the engineering fraternity and $15 for the other. These fees were high for me in my financial position but I came up with them. I recall discussing this with one of the members of Tau Beta Pi and he indicated that if I felt that I couldn’t pay the fee I would still be admitted.

I guess I am glad now that I decided to join, although I have had no or little contact with either fraternity since I graduated. Actually in recent years I have received an annual solicitation for a contribution from Tau Beta Pi but so far at least I have not responded. It was been a matter of personal satisfaction to me that both of my engineering daughters joined me as members of Tau Beta Pi.

Admittance to Tau Beta Pi involved participation in an all-night initiation procedure which involved a question and answer period by the older resident members. Following this there was a period in which the initiates started the lengthy process of carving a replica of the fraternity key from a block of wood. This task was not completed that night but eventually completion was achieved. A replica of the chemistry key was also required by that fraternity but in this case a simple plywood outline was all that was mandated. Somewhere I have the two replicas.

On graduation from college my parents gave me a pocket watch and I bought a watch chain and a small pocket knife to put on the other end of the chain (using some money I had received after my Uncle George died — apparently he had some funds derived from distribution of income from the farm which he hadn’t used). 

For a long time I wore my two fraternity keys on this chain, but eventually I stopped and the keys now reside in the safe deposit box.

I continued to wear the watch my parents gave me, and later the watch I received when I had worked 25 years at Shell, but as it became harder and harder to have them serviced, I had them both cleaned and repaired, stopped using them and they too reside in the safe deposit box. Since then I have resorted to using cheap pocket watches which I have purchased for $5 to $10 at such stores as Kmart. Eventually they deteriorate and I simply replace them. However the last one (as of 1997) has continued for a long time (perhaps 10 years) and though showing signs of age is still reasonably functional.

College Instructors

The second semester of my senior year I continued with Chemical Engineering Principles III, organic chemistry, chemical engineering economics, electrical engineering and I believe some other courses. It was the heaviest scholastic load I ever carried (19 hours of credit) and I did well, achieving a B in organic chemistry but A’s in all the rest.

In the summer session I completed an hour of speech that I needed, the first half of physical chemistry, a course in differential equations and an introductory course in meteorology. The reason for taking the course in meteorology was that, although I had accepted the position that Shell had offered, I was considering the advisibility of entering the armed services, the idea being that making a choice of what service I would enter I might do better than if I were simply drafted. To this end I thought of enlisting in a naval program for training in meteorology at the University of Chicago. I would have received a commission as an ensign (I suppose).

My recollection has been that I had been assured of being accepted but in reviewing the various items that I had retained from that time I don’t find any specific indication of acceptance. What I did keep was the completed application which in the end I never submitted.

One of the factors that kept me from pursuing a career in the military was the reaction of Professor Arnold when I mentioned to him what I was considering. He was standing behind his desk in his office in the rear of the chemistry building (a ground-floor position) and I was facing him. He said in his inimitable “why can’t you do better than that” way, “Why would you want to do that?” I’m sure that what he said on that occasion influenced my decision although it might not have been the decisive reason. In the end I decided to take my chances with Shell.

Initially I rather disliked Arnold, but by the end of my training at Iowa I valued him as a teacher and mentor — considerably more than Professor Olin who was head of the department. He (Arnold) was a gentler edition of Uncle Carl, being less caustic in his words and demeanor but he could certainly let his opinion of your position or actions be crystal clear. He was an individual who did not restrict his activities to engineering or teaching matters. I well recall seeing him in the parking lot behind the chemistry building tinkering with the engine on his Ford sedan.

And I remember the story told me by someone in the chemistry or chemical engineering department, whether a student, a teaching assistant or a member of the faculty I don’t recall. It seems that Arnold had a dental problem and went to see a dentist. When the dentist indicated what he proposed to do, Arnold demurred, went to the library in the dental college and decided what he thought should be done. The dentist disagreed, so Arnold scouted around until he found a dentist who would do what Arnold wanted. Whether the correct procedure was followed the account of the incident doesn’t say.

When I left Iowa after graduation I had no further contact with Arnold until after I was transferred to the Bay Area, actually until in the early 1950s when I was rooming at the Wilsons in El Cerrito. He had left the teaching profession and Iowa and had taken a job with Chevron in Richmond. Rumor had it that his acerbic behavior had led to his leaving, whether by request or not I don’t know.

He was living with his family in Albany and I have a Christmas card from him showing a photograph of his family, really an attractive group. However it wasn’t long before he left Chevron,a gain whether by request or not I don’t know. Anyway from that point on his career as an engineer essentially ended and apparently his wife divorced him, perhaps for non-support.

I could never figure out why his life developed as it did, perhaps there was some personality defect. All I am certain of is that during my schooling he was an excellent teacher, and he certainly played a part in a decision that was crucial to my life.

The instructors I had at Iowa other than Olin and Arnold in Chemical Engineering ranged in character from colorful and eccentric through complete conventionality and from being good through merely being competent to being close to idiotic.

Among those being competent but conventional were the two instructors in the mechanical engineering department — in mechanics of solids and of materials — and I don’t even recall their names. This was also true of the electrical engineering professor, although he was marginally competent. Eversole in physical chemistry and Kalinske in physical metallurgy were good. The beginning German teacher was entertaining, the one in technical German stodgy. I had a course in technical writing under a teacher, also nameless, who was an oddball to the point of being idiotic. I can remember mystically [?] analyzing sentences on the blackboard as to their effectiveness and appropriateness.

The two teachers in drawing were Highee and Russ. Highee taught the theory part of the course and was a crusty elderly man who seemed to regard young engineering students of requiring indoctrination of “old-time” engineering. Russ was the real drafting instructor, good but conventional.

The two professors I had in differential equations and introductory meteorology during the summer session that concluded my college studies are not only dim pictures to me.

By far the most colorful figure was “Uncle Charlie” Raiford, the organic professor. He was elderly and widowed and his life was organic chemistry. His lectures were held in a large hall in the chemistry building and he used a long bamboo stick to point out the points he had inscribed on the backboard. Often he would question students using the bamboo stick pointing it at the hapless victim.

Senior Year, First Semester

The first semester of my senior year my courses consisted of chem eng thermo, principles of chem eng II, organic chemistry and I believe metallurgy. I did well that semester, it was one of the two straight A terms I had at Iowa (the other was the concluding summer session in 1942).

At sometime in my senior year I had a further course in German — one semester of technical German. A different teacher however, much less personably than in the first-year German class I had taken. I can’t remember ever using my limited capability in German in my working career.

As I have already mentioned the term was marked by an easing of my financial situation, with the extension of the scholarship I had, and my work at the power plant.

Several things occurred during my senior year that I will recall and which affected my future, both at the time and more importantly for my entire career as an engineer.

The first of course was the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. I was passing through the cafeteria line at noon on that day when I overheard someone mentioning what had occurred in Hawaii. The Quadrangle where I was rooming at the time had been built by the US Navy during WWI and the Navy could in time of emergency commandeer the building.

After Pearl Harbor we were notified that we would need to find other housing. I and my roommate (Robert Lloyd) located housing east of the university on Iowa Avenue in a private home and I lived there to finish out the second half of my senior year and the following summer session. I can’t remember now if we had some kitchen privileges in the private home, but I do recall having some meals at a little restaurant on Iowa Avenue close to the university.

Early in 1942 Shell came to the university, interviewing students in the chemical engineering department (I suppose they also interviewed chemistry students). At the time I was still thinking in terms of taking another year to complete my engineering education (my memory is a little vague but I think I had investigated working for Eastman Kodak during the summer of 1942 and had summer employment lined up there).

But, perhaps at the suggestion of Prof. Arnold, I decided I would sign up for an interview with Shell. The interviewers were Millar and Vaughn, who were working at the time at Emeryville. Millar was the department head in physical chemistry. It happened that just at the time of the interview the class in Chemical Engineering Principles was beginning the section on distillation. For some reason I had read ahead, perhaps this phase of chemical engineering unit operations had roused my interest.

At any rate I was fortuitously “primed” for the interview as it turned out. Millar began the interview and it proceeded through a discussion of phase equilibria and how it was experimentally determined, fractionation calculation techniques and finally tray efficiency. The answers I gave seemed to satisfy Millar and when I responded correctly in the matter of tray efficiency he seemed to give unconsciously a stamp of approval on me as a potential employee.

From that point on the interview was conducted by Vaughn who described the Emeryville lab and in essence gave a little sales pitch. When I left the interview I felt that I had indeed made a good impression, in good part because of what I had read ahead in my class in unit operations. During the interview I indicated that it might be a year before I would finish my schooling.

Within a few days I received a telegram offering me a job with Shell, and in discussing the matter with Prof. Arnold he indicated that Millar and Vaughn had told him before they left that they intended to offer me a job and also to some other individuals they had interviewed at the same time. The offer carried with it certain obvious advantages in light of the war situation and possible draft deferment. Perhaps I was, because of my lack of experience in looking for employment and lack of realization of what industry had to offer, more disposed to act on this unexpected development in the matter of employment that I would have otherwise.

Anyway I shortly responded indicating I was accepting the offer of employment but that I wasn’t sure just when Shell could expect me to report for work. What had started out for me as a sort of trial run at interviewing for a job turned out to lead to a decision on my part that affected profoundly the rest of my life.

As the war progressed there developed an emphasis on having students complete their course of study as expeditiously as possible and I began to evaluate in my mind the route of completing my school work by attending the summer session in 1942 and graduating about August 1. This possibility was enhanced by the relaxed attitude on the part of the university (doubtless influenced by the war situation) on substituting some of my junior college credits for courses that I had missed in the normal first and second years’ curriculum.

Summer Work

Toward the end of the first year at SUI I applied for work during the summer that would offset board and room expenses for the next year and I had work lined up, as I recall at one of the university hospitals. I’m not sure just how it would have been arranged the next year. And it is not clear to me just why my parents arrived to carry my belongings back to the farm for the summer — perhaps the job developed at the last minute and the trip back had already been planned and they weren’t aware of the situation.

At any rate they arrived and when I told my mother of what I had lined up she prevailed on me to change my mind and return with them. Unfortunately it wasn’t convenient to tell the hospital and the employment office of my change of plans (which I should certainly have done) and I simply didn't show up for work at the hospital as scheduled.

The dereliction on my part came back to hurt me when at the beginning of the second year I again approached the employment office for work. They brought this to my attention but nonetheless I was given the opportunity to work at the university power plant which made my second year much easier financially. The work consisted of running some tests on the boiler makeup water (taken from the Iowa River) to determine what the treatment chemicals should be to prevent deposition in the boiler. There was also some daily recording of steam usage at various buildings in the university which an individual in charge of the university utilities watched, for some reason that wasn’t entirely clear to me.

My recollection is that I earned on the average about $25/month which more than covered my room and board. Since my scholarship was renewed for a second year, covering tuition and books (I suppose on the basis that I was performing scholastically in a satisfactory manner) my expenses were all covered.

I’m not sure to what extent mu parents ended up helping me during my first year at Iowa. My father had authorized me to write checks on his account in the bank in Gowrie and I think he offset the checks with the money I had earned helping Uncle Carl during summers (and indeed at others times of the year in the spring and fall) and which I had given him for safekeeping (I rather think U.S. savings bonds were purchased).

I kept no record of what earnings I had accumulated but I think it much has been at least a couple of hundred dollars which would have been more than enough to cover my room and board that first year. I never thought of asking him for an accounting at the time and it wasn’t until I was working at Shell that the question occurred to me. By then it really didn’t make any different to me what had happened and, not wanting to cause a bother to my father I decided not to pursue the matter further. After all, my parents had certainly aided me in achieving my college education, of not by actual money spent then by housing and feeding me during my junior college years and in the summer between my two years at SUI.

So I spent the summer between my junior and senior years of college back on the farm. That summer I actually did not work for Uncle Carl — instead I worked for neighboring farmers when they needed help. That was the summer I believe when I shocked oats for Carl Anderson (who had lived next foor to the Peterson homestead for several years and who was then farming east of Gowrie) and was paid $5/day. That for me was a high point as far as my work as a farm laborer was concerned. Verner was along at the time and droves the tractor for Carl, who rode the binder.

One reason I didn’t work for Uncle Carl was by then he had pretty much stopped his threshing rig operation. He had bought a combine and was combining what oats he grew. Thus there was no need for me to act as a bundle hauler, or to pitch bundles out in the field.

I recall that I spent the last week of the summer before I returned to school helping the Woodard boys (Harold and Lloyd who were farming the old Woodard place) put up soybean hay.

Engineering Classes

I had not been very well advised on what I should register for in the first semester, as I should have started physical chemistry. So the second semester I took the second half of that course even though the first semester was normally a prerequisite. I continued with the German and engineering drawing. In addition I had mechanics of materials (in the Mechanical Engineering department), the second part of the chemical process industries course, and the first of three semesters of chemical engineering principles. Gradewise I continued about as I had the first semester.

As the year progressed I became more acclimated to the climate in a larger school in a more competitive situation, in a way paralleling what happened when I entered high school.

I still have a few mementoes from my first year at the university. While in junior college I had a cheap slide rule but at Iowa I decided I needed a better one. After some hesitation I bought an F. Post rule (of Japanese manufacture) since it was marginally cheaper than a K&E rule. I still have it and use it periodically even yet (as when I am scaling up a photography or picture in making a watercolor painting).

After I was transferred at Shell from Wilmington to the San Francisco Bay Area, at some point I bought a K&E rule. But I still continued to use my college rule on occasion, like an old friend I feel more comfortable with it.

I also have the mechanical drawing set I bought for use in engineering drawing — a German-made Dietzgen set that is still in almost mint condition. A real collector’s item. 

And I have the drawing board, the T square and one of the plastic triangles that I used in engineering drawing. All of these drawing implements were used by Vincent when he was in the agricultural engineering course at ISU after WWII, and perhaps by Marold also when he first tried out engineering as a course of study at ISU. It proved not to his liking and aptitude and he settled for going to Gustavus Adolphus.

First Semester at University of Iowa

My first year at the university was not the easiest one for me, particularly after the congenial second year at junior college. I guess I was just lonely for the environment of the farm and home and it took me most of the year to become adjusted to the new regiment in my life.

I roomed at the Quadrangle that year — this was the older of the two men’s dormitories on campus and I had meals there (although I also had some meals in my room from grocery items I bought — this was presumably against the rules, but was honored more in the breach than in the observance amongst various of my compatriots in the engineering divisions).

Like many students I sent my laundry home, using a reusable container and I always looked forward to its return as my mother would always include some cookies or other edible goodies with the clean laundry.

It was also a time when I missed the social contacts I had at home and at junior college. I was with my co-students in classes etc. but outside of that milieu I had to contact with them. I guess the only two individuals that I met in a social situation outside of classes were two boys who had been in junior college with me and who had both enrolled in the college of commerce at the university. We would have dormitory meals together and meet each other on weekends.

There was a Lutheran church (not Augustana Synod) on the far side of Iowa City from the Quadrangle and I attended church there on Sundays and the group for young people and students on Sunday evenings. But I developed no acquaintances from these contacts and have indeed forgotten the names of the individuals involved.

My classes in the chemical engineering department the first semester of that first year at SUI were Industrial Stoichiometry and a survey course of the chemical process industries taught by Professors Arnold and Olin respectively. Arnold at the time was considerably the better teacher, Olin was much older and rather past his prime. Arnold gave me an A, whereas Olin gave me a B, and I sort of had the impression that he (Olin) was surprised that Arnold had accorded me a better grade than he had. After that he (Olin) treated me with more respect as a student and graded me accordingly, although I really hadn’t changed in what I achieved (as in the second semester of the survey of process industries).

I also took engineering drawing which I really enjoyed and did well at.

The other two classes were Mechanics of Solids (in the Mechanical Engineering department) and German. The latter was in the school of liberal arts. At that time the German literature was more relevant for chemistry than it is nowadays. I venture to guess that it is no longer in the curriculum.

One day stands out in my memory that first semester. It must have been the day before Thanksgiving as it was at the time of what came to be known as the Thanksgiving Day blizzard that swept through Iowa (and I suppose the rest of the Midwest).

The day had started off cloudy but quite mild and I debated what I should wear weatherwise and opted for something not very protective. As usual I walked that morning from the Quadrangle, down the winding path to the river, and thought in my mind how mild it was as I crossed the footbridge leading to the vicinity of the chemistry building.

When I returned at noon the wind had come up, the temperature was down markedly and I nearly froze on the way back to the Quadrangle. After having lived through the blizzard years of the early 1930s I should have suspected that the day would change abruptly as the weather front moved through but I didn’t.

That was the storm in which the turkeys on a turkey farm in the vicinity of Gowrie largely perished. At the time Annie and Will Lines had moved across the road to the old Woodard place and were farming there. They had rented their little house across the road to a couple that somehow received some of the frozen turkeys which they shared with my mother. I guess she used them, though they didn’t prove to be very tasty.

Financial Aid

At the conclusion of the second year I was offered a small scholarship to the University of Iowa. As I’ve mentioned before I’m quite sure that Dean Dickey was the individual who steered this aid my way. I’m not at all sure what would have transpired for me had not this aid come my way. My parents were in no position to finance my going to Iowa State College for example which would have been the logical place for me to go.

I suppose I could have asked for help from my Uncle Carl. I knew from somehow that he had helped my cousin Eugene in going to college, but I had the vague feeling that he had a regard for Eugene (from the days when my Uncle Serenus was on the farm along with Uncle Carl and the bond between them that developed as a result) that he didn’t quite have for me. So I doubt I would have approached him.

I could have followed in Clarice’s place when she stayed for a year with Uncle Lawrence and Aunt Dagmar and went to Library School at the University of Minnesota. She did this when she couldn’t find a teaching position after finishing at the University of Dubuque. However, though I had a regard for Uncle Lawrence and Aunt Dagmar, and they had always been thoughtful of their nieces and nephews, I would have been restive living with them on a daily basis. I wouldn’t have gone to library school of course but the University of Minnesota had a good engineering school.

The other alternative for me was to have slowly drifted into a farming career. Though Uncle Carl had been an acerbic mentor I had acquired a liking for farming, being out of doors and relishing the opportunity of growing things. Maybe I had inherited my mother’s liking for “gardening.” My father had inherited my grandfather Strand’s basic farm when he died in 1938 and in 1940 when I finished my second year at junior college I could perhaps, with enough financing, to get the basic equipment, have started to farm it.

But that was not to be, and is idle speculation, and in the fall of 1940, I head for the University of Iowa. It did not have the prestige of the engineering department at Iowa State College but it was accredited in the basic engineering disciplines. The scholarship I had been offered was specific to the University so to use it I perforce must enroll there. The scholarship was from the Alice Granger fund which was administered by the Fort Dodge public schools. I have never investigated who Alice Granger was, perhaps I should do so as a matter of interest. Whoever she was, she was certainly a key factor in my life.

Several years ago, impelled by the realization of what she had meant to me, I wrote to the Fort Dodge schools and determined that the Alice Granger scholarship fund was still in existence. So I repaid the fund to the extend of two years’ current tuition to the university at the time I wrote the district. The scholarship as I received it was for $125/year, which was sufficient for tuition and a little beside. It was renewed for my second year, though there was no stipend for the summer session I spent in 1942 to finish up my engineering training.

What I repaid the fund was something like $3000 for two years’ tuition. A couple of years ago the Shell Companies Foundation has extended its matching gift program to include junior colleges as well, and I have considered further contributions to the Alice Granger fund but I have so far made no more.

Beginning with the 40th anniversary of my graduation from SUI I have made annual contributions to the Engineering Development Fund there. I guess I started in response to some mailing from the university on the passing of the 40th anniversary of my graduation. The initial contribution I made was, as I recall, $100, but in subsequent years it has increase to $1000 where it has remained. With the matching gift from the Shell Foundation, the amount to the college has been $2500–$3000.

When I worked for Shell in 1975 and 1976 after my retirement I put part of the earnings in a Keogh fund (later converted to an IRA) and I have been using this IRA for the contribution to SUI. The IRA still has (1997) between $5000 and $6000 in it so my contribution is funded for half a dozen years or so. What I will do when it runs out I haven’t decided, perhaps I shall not have to make a decision having expired by then.

Although the total amount I have given is not a large amount it has nonetheless qualified me for inclusion in the highest group of contributors to the university, termed the President’s Club. Not long ago I received a wall plaque acknowledging this.