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.