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.