April 7, 1945

949 W 12th St

San Pedro, Calif

April 7, 1945

Dear Mother, Father and the rest of the folks at home,

If it were this kind of a day in Iowa, you would say that it almost felt like rain, but being as it is in Calif probably nothing shall come of it now. It has been quite warm all day and tonite it is very still and quiet. Outside you can hear birds singing off in the distance. It is almost sultry like and there are a few clouds lurking around the horizon. Probably the reason it has been so warm is that the mornings have not started to be foggy yet. This morning I sort of expected it to be foggy but it wasn’t. It is too bad that spring had a setback in Iowa, but the way it started in seemed almost too good to be true.

You ask in your letter that I got today, mother, what the relation of the work done here to Shell products is. Well, that is sort of a broad question. Since I have come here three processes based on research done here have been put in commercial operation. Two are being operated by Shell Oil at Dominguez. Both are concerned with aviation gasoline and explosives raw material. The other was being operated by Shell Chemical at Cactus, Texas but has been discontinued at last reports. Since then work on catalytic desulfurization and reforming has been investigated both on laboratory & pilot plant scale. A number of specialized problems relative to a plant at Wood River, Ill. refinery & at the catalytic cracking unit at Dominguez have been investigated. There have also been some minor investigations carried out. All of these if they show promise are incorporated in present operating techniques to make performance more successful and the products better. Besides this, some distillation work has been done in connection with some lube stock evaluation being carried out at Emeryville. A complete report of the relation between the experimental work here & Shell products would take a long time & would reveal supposedly confidential information but maybe you can get an idea from the foregoing.

I have heard nothing from the draft board. Mel thinks that I don’t need to worry and that if 25% of the guys taken here are drafted I will not be among them but that if more are taken I might have to go. However as I said before, matters seem to be reaching a climax in many quarters all at once, so that I could see very little action even I I were taken in the army. It is still possible to get commissions in the navy, and I think I will try to get one if the draft board gets too insistent.

Wednesday night next, a meeting of the congregation is to be held to discuss a possible pastoral candidate. Last night Tinberg called up and asked me to arrange the meeting. The Home Mission Board has evidently selected someone and Langhoff, the regional director will be down to present him to the congregation to see what they think. I have no idea who he is. We certainly need someone here to keep up the S.S. work etc.

My car is running fairly good. I don’t think it is going to give too good mileage tho. Probably I will have to ride the P.E. for awhile after my gas is used up. What I have tho should last into June, when I can begin to think of renewal of the gas rations. It surely is handy and it is a great timesaver. It is very nice to sleep in the mornings.

Last night I mowed the lawn for Mrs. Johnson and then went down and played volleyball at the Methodist gym for awhile. I tried to get some tennis shoes but couldn’t. Instead I got some non-rationed shoes suitable instead, and they are very comfortable so I should perhaps wear them often. Thursday night I went to a show but it wasn’t very good.

I feel like taking a bath and relaxing in bed reading for awhile so, good night —

With love

C.P.

April 22, 1943

April 22, 1943

425 S. Cabrillo

San Pedro Calif

Dear Father, Mother and the folks at home,

I got both of mother’s letters this week on the same day — Monday. The news that Vincent was in the army came as sort of a shock to me because I had anticipated his being out of it definitely for several months at least. I suppose that anything I would write about it would seem banal, so I won’t, except to say that I hope that this is the right course for him to take. No doubt the relief from uncertainty is to be desired altho it seems hard to think of his being in the army. Especially inasmuch as I am not. I received a card from him on Wednesday which I will enclose. It really doesn’t say an awful lot but I will enclose it anyway.

As a result of the foregoing events I have felt somewhat mentally dispirited this week. I have been feeling physically all right tho. My work is coming along about as usual. When I was working as operator Saturday afternoon on the swing shift a Shell Oil pipeline thru the plan sprung a leak. I didn’t notice it when it happened as it was over by the feed pumps behind the preheater furnace. When I went around to take the regular 9:00 readings I discovered it. The oil was shooting up in a spray all over the pumps, motors, the isomerization unit and the acid treating apparatus.

At first (it was dark) I couldn’t find it and when I did it was because I stepped right into the spray as it came out of the ruptured pipe. My pants got sort of oil soaked. The material was, I think, either a crude or else a very heave cut from some cracking operation. At any rate it was a gooey, non-volatile material and it isn’t going to be removed from the things it got on without a little work. I could hardly get my legs clean after they had come into contact with it. I understand that the office is trying to get Shell Oil to clean up our equipment.

Oh yes, I forgot to tell you what I did when I found out what was going on. There wasn’t any valves that I could close to shut off the flow — which probably wouldn’t have been very wise anyway if a positive displacement pump was being used. The best thing I could think of to do was to put the waste paper basket over the jet from the pipe. Strangely enough it worked fairly well, until I called the dispatcher and told him what was happening when he stopped the flow thru the pipe. I guess it has been fixed by now as I noticed the place was covered up again the other day.

Mel Oldfather says that several more Iowa students have been hired by Shell Development and that some of them may come here. Lawrence, who took Mel’s place as head of the coal lab at the U. is coming out here as is also Hugh Guthrie, who in my opinion is the smartest engineer to graduate from Iowa in a good long time. I guess that here are several others also who have accepted employment by Shell Development. It begins to seem as if they have taken about 50% of the chemical engineers graduated at Iowa in the past two years.

I will not have Easter off as there is to be no vacation then. I will be working days which is unfortunate but which I guess cannot be helped. Tonite I am of course going to the Holy Communion Services.

I bought a pair of brown shoes costing $4.50 but they will feel somewhat uncomfortable. I guess tho that time will improve their fit. I have them on now as it is almost time to go to church.

I will not enclose my bonds in this letter because I couldn’t get this letter registered until tomorrow in the afternoon after work and I want to get it off before then.

I have some pictures of the personnel here taken at the Shell Development party but I can’t locate them so I’ll show them to you some other time.

Incidentally the vacation choice list is out now and I am pretty certain I can get my vacation when I want it since everybody seems to be taking their vacations early so that by September I should have a clear field. Boy! I can hardly wait to be able to come home once again.

I must leave now. I may add some after I get back after church.

Love

C.P.

P.S. I won’t.

November 3, 1942

Nov 3, 1942

425 S. Cabrillo Ave

San Pedro, Calif.

Dear father, mother and the rest at home

It is getting along about time to go to work, 10:00 p.m., but I think I will start this letter anyway. I suppose you wonder why I am working graveyards this week instead of days. Well, I will tell you.

Last week one of the operators got sick so that Dwight has been given that job so that there are only two analysts working, George and I. This week I started working days, of course, but I thought being as there were only two analysts I would ask if I could work one shift steady all the time, that is, I wouldn’t change shift every week. So being as nobody likes to work graveyards and since I don’t mind it in the least, I thought that I would ask if I could work then all the time and it was decided that that would be all right. Therefore I will be working that shift all the time from now on.

Moreover, the operator who is sick, has been ordered off shift work by his doctor so this way he will work days all the time, George having taken the afternoon shift. I didn’t get much sleep Monday night as I went to work again at 12 after having gone off at 4, so that by 8:00 a.m. Tuesday morning I was pretty tired. However I slept pretty well today so I feel rested up. I went to L.L. after all since Rev. Wellington asked me to come but I felt a little bit like an Edna Nelson — that is, I’m not as young as I used to be. Most of them are in high school I would guess, more or less like they are in Gowrie.

I have written a letter to Eugene as you suggested and I will mail it tonite. Monday I got four pieces of mail, two letters from mother, dad’s letter and a postcard asking me to go to L.L. Today I got a letter from Howard. The letter containing Eugene’s letter, Clarice’s and Vivian;s had 3 cents due on it altho it didn’t feel to me as if it would have needed the additional postage.

Howard writes that teaching six classes a day keeps him busy. One weekend he had gone up to Cedar Falls to the Homecoming game. Another weekend he had gone out to collect scrap and he says he just about froze himself. He says that when it gets cold, he wishes that he were in California. Well, it gets warm here, at least in the days. Monday the temperature was about 81 or 82 along about 3 or 4 in the afternoon but today it has been cool and cloudy — getting ready for another rain I think. So far the rain here has not been accompanied by thunder and lightning. Perhaps it isn’t the custom around here. Howard also writes that his pupils are some bright but mostly dumb. One of them got 00 (whatever that represents) on a reading comprehension test.

I have started taking a daily paper. I wouldn’t have done it except a boy came around trying to get new subscribers and since he gave a nice sales talk for being such a little squirt I got soft-hearted or balmy-brained and said I would subscribe. I suppose it will be ok but I don’t suppose I’ll get much benefit from it.

I have still not developed any pictures from my set because I am waiting till I get up enough nerve to ask the landlady if I can do it in the bathroom. However, last Sunday afternoon I walked around and took some pictures which, as soon as they are developed, I will send home to you. I guess, being as some of them were taken at home, so that I can’t retake them, I’ll play safe and taken them downtown to have them developed. I wouldn’t trust myself too much on my first attempt at developing pictures.

Monday when I was paid I also got my bond, which I thought would be sent to you as was the otherN one. However, since it was not I will include it with this letter. I will also send some more money home. Incidentally every day when I go to eat at Thrifty’s Drug Store I go past the J.C. Penney Store and there is a brown suit in the window that is steadily lowering my sales resistance. Do you think I would be extravagant if I bought it? I don’t know why in the world I should want to buy another suit unless it can be that the California sun has touched my brain.

Today was election day here of course but I didn’t vote as I had neglected to register. I think that Earl Warren will oust the incumbent Democrat, Olson as governor. Warren has been conducting a very vigorous campaign I think but Olson has done very little that I have been able to see.

One unusual thing out here that does not come up very much in Iowa is the way in which various matters are brought to the vote of the people. I guess that the rights of referendum and initiative are more widely exercised out here than in Iowa. In this voting there are about 20 propositions that are being put to a popular vote. I think that this is a very good idea and that it should be more widely adopted and used.

Next day. I see that my sole election forecast came out as I said, Warren soundly trouncing Olson for governor. The Republicans gained one seat in the House of Representatives I think altho I am not certain. I looked at a newspaper rather hurriedly this morning while eating breakfast at the Shell Cafe. I had to hurry because I didn’t have too much time in which to catch the train.

My work is proceeding about as usual. At present, something new is being tried out in Plant IV. It has been found that under certain conditions, the same process used to making toluene by dehydrogenation of methyl cyclohexane can be used in the desulfurization of petroleum stocks. The sulfur comes out in the gas produced during the reaction as hydrogen sulfide. I think that this is a very significant development inasmuch as the present way of sulfur removal is by caustic treatment, which is both clumsy and expensive as compared with the treatment in the catalytic dehydrogenation unit.

I have run out of news so I will quit.

With love

Carl

P.S. Major development on the western industrial front: The P.E. railroad is now double-tracked all the way from Wilmington to San Pedro thereby eliminating a lot of delay occurring at the single track section.

September 11, 1942

Sept 11, 1942

425 S. Cabrillo Ave

San Pedro, Calif

Dear father, mother, and anyone else who may read this,

In my last letter I told you a little bit about the laboratory. This tim I guess I will try to reconstruct a sort of plan of the Shell Development Co’s buildings here. They are not very large, any of them, and the laboratory is about a representative size.

On the south side of the road is a big ditch and on the other side of the ditch is the manifold thru which all of the pumping here is done. All the pumps are in one place sp that they can be used continuously and therefore more economically. Farther south are the stabilizers where unstabilized gasoline from the other Shell refinery near here (at Dominguez) is stabilized (that is, compounds too volatile for gasoline are driven off; that is compounds of the properties similar to those used in natural gas).

A is a building housing a couple of desks, gas analysis equipment & AB Cox’s office. B is a mechanic’s shack where Shorty Coe has been building another lab sized model of Plant I, similar to plant IV lately. B also houses the centrifuge that is used in sulfanations. E and W are indiscriminate areas of which I know little. The outside gate of the refinery is about ¼ mile north of the Shell development plant. A road runs north from the east side of Plant I, passing some fractionating columns and the solvent extraction plant for lubricating oils, then stops and turns east & west near the furnaces. By following the east branch for awhile you come to a rather large vacant space across which you walk, past the loading racks, the Shell Oil Lab, the office building and finally out thru the main gate, opening on Sepulveda Blvd. (see map I sent you at one time).

I do not know a great deal about the refinery here except incidentally, because we have little to do with it. A toluene production plant is being built at the Dominguez refinery which is a couple miles north of the Wilmington refinery. A similar plant is being built at the Wood Rive Refinery near Chicago.

The Shell Development plant started here about 7 years ago as I have already said and has grown considerably since then. However, its growth has resulted in a considerable degree of disorganization I think. The laboratory records, while complete, are kept somewhat unsystematically and the laboratory, due more or less to the fact that nobody has the time or the inclination is never thoroly cleaned up. Probably the worst phase in this respect, in my opinion, is the sample situation. I think that is an many samples are to be kept as now are, more and better storage space than the inadequate cupboards, should be provided. Moreover many of the samples are kept for a considerable length of time since it is never known when they might become important.

Nevertheless, I think that if I am to continue working for the Shell Dev Co, I’d as lief work here as in Emeryville. The climate here, tho rather foggy as I have already implied, is not as bad as near San Francisco. Moreover I believe that the establishment here will continue to grow altho that is problematical. At any rate, it is a much smaller organization and I think easier to work in than at Emeryville. Also, at Emeryville, there was been considerable labor trouble, I gather which does not sound so good.

All this may be rather looking into the future too far. I can’t see that I am going to enjoy the work here very much, probably for a considerable length of time. I believe that when I have enough saved to start farming I will leave because I just cannot see myself doing work like this all my days. Ig I were really keen about my work, as Raiford was always saying, I suppose I wouldn’t mind keeping on with it, but the more I think about it and come in contact with it, the less I really like it. Perhaps if the war continues I will land up in the army. At any rate, I am managing to stay out of it for awhile which is something.

I scarcely, if ever, read any newspapers and I don’t have a radio so I am sort of out of contact with the war. I picked up a newspaper left on the P.E. the other morning, but the most interesting news I could find was that the Cards were 2½ games out of first place and the Browns seem to have annexed 3^d place rather conclusively. If it weren’t for the newspapers grabbing hold of every happening in the war and playing it up in big headlines, the was would begin to be a dead issue I think.

As usual, I am disgusted with what I am doing, with life, and with the world in general. Maybe that’s why I would like to be a farmer — where there is a minimum of contact with people etc if you want to make it that way. I have no desire to make a lot of money or influence people or do remarkable things or make contributions to science. The extent of my ambition is to have enough to eat, something to wear (preferably covert pants & shirt and Rockford sox), books to read, paper & pencils to fool around with and enough to keep me busy so that the leisure I get will be appreciated, all with as little contact with others as possible.

The farm seems to be almost ideal in this respect, except for the books. However, the books worth reading are relatively scarce and they probably could be obtained without too great hardship. Moreover, living on a farm by yourself would probably involve the least responsibility and the least danger of economic want neither of which I am particularly anxious to encounter. The only disadvantage I can possibly think of is that there probably will be another war 25 or 30 years hence and I might not be old enough to stay out of it. However, that is rather far in the future and it’s easier not to consider it altho it seems to be a relatively real possibility. If there were any uninhabited part of the globe not ruled by some asinine form of gov’t that is run by a bunch of loco-minded nit wits and which did not blithely assume that its citizens exist for its benefit, I would be tempted to hie myself thither provided it wasn’t 100% desert (like Calif).

Well, I guess that’s enough of that. I’ll probably be able to exist another week without thinking too much about it.

You asked me mother about how to get in the coast guard. I really don’t know but I think that inquiry at a large enough post office, at the dean of Men’s office at I.S.C. or at the individual in charge of the ROTC there might be able to supply the information. I do not believe that more than a high school education & reasonable physical health is required altho I am not certain.

If I were you Vincent, I would not immediately buy a slide rule. If you do, don’t be in a hurry but look at the bulletin boards etc & you might be able to pick one up second hand for a reasonable sum. The first year you probably will use a rule for multiplication & division only and after that for about 95% of the time. A Mannheim rule for $2 or $3 serves this purpose. In buying a rule make sure that the sliding part (that is the long part that has the numbered scales on it) works easily. It should not fall out when the rule is held vertical (that is, from the rule proper) but it should move easily.

The 25¢ rule I left at home moves entirely too hard and when I say entirely I mean entirely. The sliding part (reader) should be more difficult to move than the long sliding part having the scales on it. This part (the sliding part) is the glass part with the single line in it that can also be moved along the rule. However, here again reason should be observed. Besides this it is sufficient to see to it that the rule is not warped, as would be apparent by discrepancies between the long sliding part & the rule proper. Most rules nowadays are made of mahogany covered with celluloid or some similar substances. Distrust any that are not unless possibly in the $2 class of Mannheim rules.

If you want to get a better rule for permanent use, it should have, besides the usual multiplying & dividing scales (called a & b usually) the following (1) the c scale (or inverted b scale) on the long sliding part (2) log-log scales (3) trigonometric scales. Beyond these there is nothing to be gained I think and most any rule above $10 has them. You probably can ask an engineering teacher, or you might encounter it in one of your freshman courses, if you want to know anymore about. However, don’t be in a hurry — You probably won’t need it for a good while.

I have deposited my money on a checking acct in a bank here and will send home periodically any excess that occurs. There is one now so I will enclose a check for it in this letter.

Tomorrow I might decide to go up to Los Angeles and look around or maybe out to Pasadena to see some of the things of interest. As for looking up Earl Strand I will leave that to people who are more capable of enduring his peculiar and eccentric character than I am.

As I write this I am sitting in a sort of easy chair with my feet on the bed and I am noticing that I have a lot of hair on the top of them that I really was never conscious of before. Something of an accomplishment no doubt. The toes also have hair on them. I shall have to grow a mustaches to even things up, otherwise I will have too much hair on my feet and not enough on my head.

With love and in boredom

C.P.

August 18, 1942

Aug 18, 1942

1018 Avalon Ave

Wilmington, California

Dear father, mother, Snooty Poot, brothers and others,

I suppose that you should have gotten my letter and the cards I have sent so I will send you another letter to sort of keep you informed of what has been happening to me. First of all, I will be soon again moving because I have found a nicer place to stay in San Pedro, Calif. However, I will tell about that in its proper place.

Saturday I fooled around mostly. Sunday I went to church in San Pedro. It (the one I went to) is an Augustana Synod church, Bethel, located at 580 or something like that, West 5th St. The preacher is one Maynard C. Wellington. After the service, I met one of the people there, Carl E. Johnson, who is a chemist and metallurgist working for the company originated by the Kaiser of ship building fame.

At any rate he asked me if I knew Dwight Johnston and I replied that I did, that I had gone to school with him. Well, the way it turned out was that Dwight Johnston roomed with Carl E. Johnson’s mother in San Pedro. Carl E. Johnson is married and lives elsewhere in the city. Anyway, I got invited to dinner and afterward we rode around awhile, saw the ocean etc and then I visited with Dwight awhile. He told me a little of what he had been doing so that I got a little advance information. I surely appreciated the way my first Sunday in California turned out. It definitely was just the thing to keep me from becoming homesick. However, every once in a while I get to feeling that I wish I was home again but I suppose that that cannot be for awhile.

Monday morning I went to work, of course, signed some more papers etc etc. and spent most of the day in looking around. This morning I had to go over to Long Beach to get a Social Security number but this afternoon I worked in the laboratory some. It is all rather confusing at first but I suppose that that will take care of itself. I believe that I will not write anymore about my work until I become a trifle more familiar with it. However, it will be largely routine at first I expect.

Wilmington, as I said in my previous letter, is smaller than I thought it was. A large part of it is oil wells, or industrial plants. Many people live in Long Beach, Los Angeles or San Pedro and work in Wilmington. When I live in San Pedro (the place is on Cabrillo Ave., about 3 blocks from the church, but I forget what the number is) I will still use the P.E. railway to get to and from work. Strangely enough, it will not cost me anymore, altho it will be two miles farther. However, the room I will be getting ($20/month) will be considerably nicer so I thin the extra riding will be worth it. The rent will be slightly more than I would pay where I am now but I will be alone in my new room, besides which it is much nicer as far as neighborhood, size etc goes.

I think that I will have to spend about $35/month for food the way it looks now. I only wish that I had someone to fix me a lunch to take to work with me. That is the usual custom of most of the people working in the laboratory at the refinery. However when I get moved perhaps I will be able to make some arrangements in this respect.

It is barely possible that I might have to telegraph you for some money if my expense check does not get to me in time. If it does give out, I will ask you to send it to my new address which of course, I have partly forgotten. I will determine what it is soon for I plan to move over there tomorrow night (maybe) and I will write a note immediately telling you what it is.

The weather here in California is not at all what I thought it would be. It is always foggy in the morning, but the afternoons are sunny. Sometimes it gets quite warm during the day and it is always comfortably cool at night. Everything now is sort of dried up looking because it is in the midst of the dry season. I expect it will be somewhat nicer in the rainy period. I think when I get some money as a surplus I will buy some covert pants to wear to work. That is just as good as anyone wears who is working there.

I will write more later but I thought I should let you know that I am moving and that it is possible I hay have to send for some money before I get my expense check or pay check.

With love and some homesickness

C.P.

P.S. The blue ink is due to the fact that I had to fill my pen in a Shell Co. office when my pen went dry.

P.S. There is an oil well in the back yard of the place where I am now staying.

March 24, 1943

March 24, 1943

425 S Cabrillo Ave

San Pedro, Calif

Dear father, mother and the folks at home,

Well, “spring is cub” to southern California I think. My cold is over tho for several days now so I really can’t talk like that now. Yesterday and today are very clear and quite warm days so I think that perhaps the rainy season is over — altho it drizzled some Tuesday morning as a final gesture of orneriness. When I went down to dinner yesterday I didn’t wear my jacket for the first time in months and I was really comfortable without it. No doubt it will now get so warm that I wish winter were still here. However, I am glad for every day that passes since the time comes closer when I will have the opportunity of coming home again. Someday it will be for good and then I’ll feel happier.

I have been feeling a little tiredish the first part of this week but I am better now. Sunday, inasmuch as I worked in the morning (graveyards), all the sleep I got was about 5 hours mostly in the afternoon so I was pretty tired by Monday morning. Tuesday morning was a hard morning inasmuch as plant IX wasn’t working so hot so again I felt pooked out when morning came. The high pressure separator wouldn’t let enough product out even if the motor valve was wife open so the product backed up into the scrubber, from whence I had to remove it. When I was fooling around with it, the recycle gas rates varied so much that the temperatures moved around somewhat so I had to adjust them later — worse of course on Plant IX which is adiabatic (no heat-transfer) and has no automatic temperature control like Plant I.

As I said before I feel pretty good this afternoon tho after my first sleep of the day. Friday will be my day off and Saturday I start working the afternoon shift. Thursday night the Luther League is going bowling. I won’t be able to be at the next L.L. meeting as I will be working days on that Sunday.

For your information an analyst is one who (around here) works in the laboratory, performs analytical tests and in general does laboratory work as small column distillations etc. An operator is the individual taking care of plants I and IX which are pilot size editions (semi-commercial) plants of those used for making toluene and aviation gasoline. An operator is an advancement from an analyst inasmuch as it requires more knowledge of what is going on and entails more responsibility but the work, unless something unusual arises, is no more difficult than that of an analyst so that I would hardly call it a real advancement. However, it is in general regarded as such as it is a stage thru which new employees pass around here more or less by custom.

I think I’d rather work in the lab almost. Being an operator gives you contact with reality tho that the laboratory doesn’t tho. That is, you realize more what something of commercial size around a refinery looks and acts like. Of course, the columns are under the operators care also when they are running (as they are not now) so that the very fundamental unit process of distillation is encountered. These columns are to the lab columns as Goliath to David or more so.

I will enclose some bonds in this letter and I mean it this time.

Thank you for the letters, mother and father. They bring me home (almost) and set me down among the things that I like. I am glad that you liked the cake, daddy.

How did Vivian happen to get in quarantine? I have heard none of the details.

I seem to be running out of things to say so I will stop.

With love

C.P.

P.S. After chasing around in the stores trying to find something suitable for a 25th wedding anniversary, I have given up. Most of the stuff I don’t think you would really want to have — at least I wouldn’t, and therefore assume you wouldn’t. So I am sending along what I would have spent and why don’t you get something for yourselves that you would really want — maybe like a lot of books. I take the pleasure, Mr. & Mrs. Strand, of congratulating you on your 25th wedding anniversary. How ancient I feel to be saying that.

C.P.

March 5, 1943

March 5, 1943

425 S Cabrillo Ave

San Pedro Calif.

Dear father, mother and the folks at home,

Rain, rain, go away!

Come gain (we hope not!) some other day.

As I write this the rain has gone at least temporarily but the sky is still cloudy and the sun isn’t out so we’ll probably have more despite my little ditty. It hasn’t rained much since midnight but previous to that time it rained hard and steadily for long periods. It did not however begin in earnest until I was home yesterday from work for which I am duly thankful. When I was going to go downtown to dinner or rather the usual someplace in-between-dinner-and-supper it was raining hard, but Mrs. Wills lent me her umbrella so I got downtown without getting very wet.

On the way back the rain let up for awhile. After that it rained more but I went to bed almost immediately since my feet were wet and cold and bed was the best place to warm them up I thought, so I don’t know just how much it rained. Last night and this morning also, the P.E. was under water in some places. By the way, you should here [sic] the frogs around the place into which the harbor dredgings were pumped. The croak was so loud that you can hear them above the noise of the P.E. which is certainly no mean accomplishment. Dwight says he has heard uninitiated riders on the P.E. wonder what the funny noise is when going around that way. Last night also the P.E. got stuck behind a banana train so we were late getting to Watson about 15 minutes.

Tomorrow night is the special congregational meeting being held to find out what should be done about our financial situation. Fortunately, things seem to be taking care of themselves somewhat so the situation is definitely improved from what it was. Some non-member of the church but [sic] a $100 bill in the offering last Sunday so that helped things a lot. If we get the back bills paid up things will be a lot better and easier I think.

Sunday night is the Luther League fellowship program at church which I will be glad when it is over.

I think that I am going to go to the show “Casablanca” over the weekend if there is time which there probably will be. The show as [sic] some of my favorite actors in it so that is why I am going.

This week I have been working with plants I and IX mostly so that I suppose I will be working as an operator pretty soon. It will be more interesting, at least for awhile, altho it will be not as clean as laboratory work altho that is no particular deterrent. It means tho that I will be back on work involving shift changing and I don’t think it will be possible to work one shift steadily as I have been.

I received a letter form Vivian the other day and she asked me to write to her in Chicago but unfortunately the date she wanted the letters to reach her in Chicago by had already passed here when she got the letter [this doesn’t make any sense] so I guess she won’t get any from me because I didn’t send one. She writes that the snow is going in Iowa and that they were having a typical spring day at Iowa City — students river banking, the windows in the Chem building all open, people dawdling around not doing much of anything. So much nicer than to have it rain so much. The rainy season should be over by the 1st part of April however. Sometimes it rains steadily thru March tho I have heard. I think that if we would sell Calif. to the Japanese, that’d fix ’em in short order.

I seem to have some to a dead end as far as news is concerned so I believe I’ll stop. This letter is written later this week so you probably won’t get it till Monday or Tuesday.

With love

CP.

P.S. Didn’t you promise me you were going to send me some cookies, mama? Remember the old four-oclock cry — “I’m hun-gry!” Well I am for some of your cookies.

Continuing Professional Education

After graduation I took a two-week vacation at home before embarking on the train to take me to southern California and work at Shell. Although I had successfully finished college I had still much to learn “on the job.”

During the war years I had no educational courses but this changed during the years I spent in San Francisco and Emeryville. I attended a number of courses that Shell sponsored, such as a Fortran programming course while I was still working in San Francisco and a course in statistics and a public speaking course at Emeryville. Whether Shell ever benefited from my attended at these courses is doubtful. I never pursued computer programming, didn’t use the statistics procedure and only occasionally gave oral presentations.

In connection with my work at Shell I attended some of the Science and Engineering meetings that Shell Chemical held (at the Wigwam resort outside of Phoenix, Arizona), various technical society meetings (principally AIChE), and meetings of Fractionation Research http://www.fri.org/ to which Shell subscribed. At some of these I gave talks. I suppose these meetings could be considered of an educational nature, though not formally such.

During the time between when I moved to the San Francisco Bay Area and when I married Jean I took various courses at the University of California — these were all in the chemical engineering department and included such courses as diffusional operation. For these I received actual academic credit and I suppose I could have pursued and eventually received a master’s degree in Chemical Engineering but I didn’t. This activity ceased once I was married.

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.

Recreation with Co-Workers

One of the advantages of working for a large organization like Shell at one of its larger installations was the scope of capabilities of the people on site with whom one eventually became aware. The service engineering department was an attractive place for skilled laborers — very little if any shift work, stable employment at a competitive wage etc. So, for example, when I was constructing the extension to 411 Bonnie Drive and came to the point when the electrical wiring was to be done, an obvious possibility (since I didn’t feel I wanted to tackle the entire task myself) was to talk to the electrical foreman in service engineering. He offered his services and I’m sure I had the work done at less cost than had I fired an electrical contractor. This way I could also help him with work, under his direction, and thus facilitate the job and reduce the cost.

Another instance of “using” Shell was in regard to the photographic and duplicating department. In connection with the considerable number of movies and still photographs taken of the tray action in the tray test column I had become well acquainted with the principal photographer — that is, not the individual who ran the department who was also a very competent man, but instead the man who actually took the pictures requested of the department. So when my mother wrote her account of her mother’s life and wanted to include some pictures I suggested that I could probably arrange to get the appropriate negatives made from the old photographs she had that she wanted to include. I simply took them to Ed Nyberg, the Shell photographer, and asked if he could make negatives of them, which he offered to do, sub rosa, on Shell’s time. Strictly this was an unethical use of Shell’s time, but I’m sure it went on at all levels and personnel and so long as the opportunity wasn’t abused was winked at by management.

Another feature of the Emeryville establishment that I appreciated was the cafeteria. The food was good and the character I liked, cheap, and of course convenient. While I was a bachelor I would typically have my main meal of the day at lunch time. I have always liked, even preferred, cafeterias as a place to eat out, from days at the Quadrangle and its cafeteria, through Shell days at Emeryville, in Houston where I recall the meals to Luby’s and Morrison’s (the latter served me well during the time I was consulting at Shell in 1975, they had a cafeteria off of one of the downtown tunnels in the business district) and presently in Ashland at such places as North’s.

One of my favorites from Shell cafeteria days was sour cream raisin pie. When Emeryville shut down I lost this for an internal [sic] but re-established contact at a small restaurant called Just Desserts over in Medford, Some friends of ours here, Colver and Avis Anderson, had apprised us of this restaurant and we tried it out, and eventually became aware that included in the pies they made was a sour cream raisin pie. The restaurant no longer exists — it expanded to a second location in downtown Medford (a poor choice as downtown Medford is in the doldrums retail wise), later gave up their first location, and eventually folded. If they had stayed where they were originally (still used as a restaurant) they would probably still be in business. Just another example of an unwise business expansion that led to failure.

I inquired at the restaurant if the cook would give out the recipe but with no success. Jean eventually tracked down a recipe that, as near as I can taste, equals the old Shell cafeteria and the Just Desserts recipe. The lead came from the local extension service office over in Medford. Jean will occasionally made a modification of the recipe (only the filling, not the pie shell) substituting non-cholesterol bearing ingredients (yogurt for sour cream for example), which I duly appreciate. There appear to be several recipes for sour cream raisin pie and I have tried it in various restaurants over the years, since Emeryville days. Most have been disappointments; the closest match, other than Just Desserts, is at Marie Callenders, but even there the taste isn’t quite the same or quite as good.

Another feature of working in a fairly good-sized and coherent unit was the recreational opportunities that occurred. At Emeryville there was a group called the Shell Development Recreational Association, which received some funding from the company. One activity sponsored by the association was the softball league, which I recall fielded several teams from various departments at Emeryville. I remember participating in some games in which I was on the engineering department team; characteristically I was a recruit of necessity or desperation and I’m sure that I was at best a “space-filler” and any effect I would have had on the outcome would have been detrimental to the engineering team.

The engineering team was quite successful, principally because they had an excellent pitcher in one Merle Gould; they also had a good catcher in the person of my friend Hugh Guthrie. Indeed it was probably the latter that got me involved in playing in the games at all. Usually they were held on Saturday mornings on a school playground in south Berkeley. I actually had a fielder’s glove which I had purchased with some prize money from the informal Shell bowling leagure in the San Francisco office group.

My participating in this off-hours sport began of course while I was working in San Francisco and I suppose continued for 2 or 3 years. We would leave the Shell building on Bush Street right after work, and several of us would ride the street car out to the Broadway Bowl — there was a little “greasy-spoon” near it where we would perhaps have a hamburger. the “prize” money was as I recall really a refund of a portion of the fee we paid — at least in my case it was as I never was good enough to win anything for my standing. One time I bought some bowling shoes, which I kept long after I stopped bowling until Jean disposed of them. The softball glove went at some time before the move to Houston to one of the Piehl boys. My average in bowling was somewhere in the 130 range; once I lad a game over 200 but that only occurred once. Later on when I was working at Emeryville I would occasionally join the SDRA league at the Albany Bowl, but I was never a regular there.

Another activity that the SDRA sponsored was an occasional bridge tournament and I recall participating with Jean as partner in the cafeteria (in the evening) after it was moved to the M building. These were tournaments in which various Shell locations played the same hands so that the different locations competed with each other. Jean and I would as a rule perform less than the average although I recall once when we played against Stan Newman and Marilyn Johnson as opponents and beat them rather badly. This was indeed strange though since Marilyn was a life master — her big hobby was playing bridge and Stan was no slouch either.

Now that I think of it Marilyn was also interested in horses, and the riding thereof. She worked in either the library or tech files, made the move to Houston and was still unmarried, at the age of 40 or so, when I last encountered her or heard of her. Stan spent his career in process engineering and was one of those individuals who always seemed impeccably dressed regardless of the situation. I could never understand how anyone could not seem a bit rumpled at some time or other.

I also played in some bridge tournaments with Dwight Johnston as partner. In one of them we actually garnered a few master points. Jean and I haven’t played bridge in some time; we used to have a weekly evening with Nan and Louis Hershberger — people we knew from church and who have lived within walking distance of us here — but this was discontinued when Jean developed her going-to-sleep problem. Such activity would stimulate her so that she’d have trouble going to sleep.

In a way I miss playing bridge occasionally; it is a game that has attracted me ever since the early days of kibitizing the noontime games at Shell in San Francisco, and later in Emeryville. Recalling these days of watching the noontime game brings back vivid memories of the participants: Russ Shiras, who was a participant in the early development of distillation calculation technique for Shell in the 1930s and who was one of the seediest, most disheveled persons of a professional level that I’ve ever encountered — his long lank hair was always drooping into his face, to be ineffectually brushed back, his suit always seemed wrinkled and a size or two too small, he was always dripping cigarette ash everywhere including himself. He was a man with a very mobile face, bushy eyebrows, rather pale blue eyes. For all his unkempt appearance (and his bridge-playing tended to be as disorganized and erratic as his dress) he was basically a very kind and considerate person. He read a lot — that was his hobby; his wife, a strong Catholic, was a write, I think of detective fiction though I’m not sure. She had got Shiras to adopt Catholicism; I was always surprised that he had agreed to this.

Then there was Charlie Hurd, also with a finger in development of engineering calculations for distillation for Shell. A thin, dark, somewhat saturnine man, he was the basic data honcho at San Francisco when I arrived from the south and it was he that the new trainee engineers met first in their training program and assignments. A better bridge player than Shiras. In later days after the move to Emeryville he wrote the first comprehensive distillation calculation program in Shell; this was in the early days of electronic computers and he wrote the program in machine language (not something like Fortran which later became the programming medium — I don’t know now what is used).

Another participant in the noonday bridge was Dick Kunstman I think by Emeryville days he may have been transferred to the instrumentation department — he and Shiras would occasionally get into past bridge game discussions lasting for some time with both men almost livid. I wondered on occasion what department management thought of the time wasted in these discussions — the noon “hour” had a nominal, scheduled, length of 40 minutes but the bridge plus discussion time often 1-1/2 hours. But to my knowledge nothing was ever said about the time consumed.

A minor member of the fractionation calculation groups was Cornell Jarman. He was an accountant by training, had been with the group since Wilmington days and was a person used for menial calculation chores. A congenial person, a Mormon and an active one though he and his wife had limited their family size.

A more colorful figure was Dante Sarno, who to my way of thinking was the real brains of the fractionation group. A rather short, dark, bald-on-top person of Italian background, with his customary black cigarette holder and cigarettes. He played an important part in the plant startups of Shell’s extractive distillation licensing activities.

The Tray Test Column

-->

For a good part of the time I was in chemical engineering research, the experimental facilities were situated at various places — the tray test column for example was in the pilot plant area at Emeryville while other experiments and tests were done at the Berkeley lab — a facility that Shell rented for several years in the 1950s. When Shell purchased the old Western Electric building across the street from the original Shell N building, they converted the building into labs and offices and the chemical engineering department was allotted unified and improved facilities.

At considerable expense the tray test column was moved to a location outside the new lab facilities, but to my recollection it was never actually operated again in its new location. By then fractionation research had progressed to the point that any further simulator tests were passé. I have a few mementoes of the column which had played such an important part in my work.

The original column was rectangular in cross section (about 3 feet by 5 feet) and had glass panels for the sides of three trays so that a clear visual picture of the air/water contact and flow could be observed. These panels, then, were as large as slightly less than 3 feet by 5 feet. They were thick plate glass, polished etc on each side so that the image viewed through them would be clear for photography of the operating tray. Although the pressure in the column was not high (max perhaps 12 inches to 18 inches of water column) it was high enough that a material such as glass the size of the panels needed to be rather thick to withstand the pressure and the panels were 3/4 inch thick. I wasn’t in on the planning of the column construction but the glass panels must have cost a mint.

The panels were sealed against the flat sides of the column by a gasket between the panel and the column with external pressure applied along the panel edges by a heavy metal strip. The strip was of course also gasketed against the glass and the pressure was applied by bolts attached to the column and passing through the metal strip. Even though every effort had been made to have the sides of the column flat and the use of the gaskets softened minor irregularities on the column sides, the process of tighetning the hold down metal strips was a tricky process. It was easy to apply uneven pressure via the hold down bolts so that a torque would be applied on the glass panel and it would crack.

Eventually, they were replaced in whole or in part by 1/2-inch thick Plexiglas panels which worked well. One of the broken glass panels had an end broken so that a recoverable piece approximately 3 feet by 4 feet could be cut from it and, since the panel was unusable in its broken state and since the use of the Plexiglas panels had been adopted, I asked for the broken panel and was given it. Eventually I converted it into a glass top coffee table. To do this I had to have the broken edge repaired and Ray knew someone who would attempt the task; the repair wasn’t totally perfect but it was quite good and so it is now part of the coffee table downstairs here. The glass piece is heavy; I doubt that I could ever lift it by myself and certainly not at this stage in my life.

The other memento I have of the column is a stainless steel bubble cap which presently sits on the fireplace mantel downstairs. When the research on the column started the caps were standard devices placed on the trays in most fractionation columns. They varied in size and design and the one I have is a design that Shell developed for its own use. Eventually the research led into other types of contacting trays and trays with bubble caps fell into disuse, except for very special applications. The unit at Emeryville had enough of these caps for three test trays and when they became obsolete I acquired one of them as a memento.

When I wrote about the coffee table, I was reminded that the wood in it was also salvaged material. When we lived at 411 Bonnie Drive we had as next door neighbors Claude and Grace Weeks; Grace was one of the D’Addiego clan, one member of which was in the house razing business. Claude mentioned to me that this latter individual was tearing down an old house in Berkeley, where the Baptist(?) divinity school was expanding and that the living/dining area in this old house was oak paneled, and anyone who wanted to could go there and take whatever wood was desired. So I went and the room was indeed a treasure trove to a salvage-minded person.

I think I was one of the first scroungers to investigate the room, but I made the mistake of limiting my attention to the ornate moulding. After I was home and had reflected for a day or so, I realized that I should have taken a supply of the paneling itself — which consisted of 3/4-inch thick oak pieces, about 10 to 12 inches wide and maybe 5 to 6 feet long. So I went back but most of the paneling have been taken; I did gather up from what was left and the supply I got has served me well over the years — I still have oddments left. It was from this second visit lumber that I made the legs and frame for the coffee table.

I have also used this oak lumber for making an extension of the sides of the Victorian bedroom set that Jean acquired from her folks, so that the bed was long enough for a mattress of queen size length (but of course, not queen size width) and, most recently for the legs of he sane table I made for when both Palma’s and Laurel’s were visiting here over the Fourth of July a couple of years back. The moulding has largely been used up for various picture frames.

The tray test column was also the basis for my becoming involved with an individual from the service engineering department, who came to be known as “Machinist Brown.” He was a portly, faintly obnoxious character who was assigned to do some mechanical work on the column. The column had been in use for some [time] when this work was being done and in various places in the column there were small accumulations of liquid mercury [soot?]. This mercury had its source from the various mercury manometers attached to the column for pressure difference measurements; these had been on occasion out-ranged so that the manometers had “blown” thus discharging the mercury into the column.

I suppose an effort was made to recover what could be recovered but inevitably some remained. I suppose that environmental regulations would now require a thorough de-contamination of the apparatus, but in those days a much more tolerant policy and attitude was in effect, both as far as Shell and the government was concerned. Liquid mercury is pretty harmless in my opinion, but I suppose in a poorly ventilated place the vapor pressure might be enough to result in possible injurious air concentrations.

Anyway, Machinist Brown was wearing an ornate gold ring when he was working on the column and the ring chanced to come in contact with some of the residual mercury, and of course the mercury immediately amalgamated with the gold and the ring turned white. Why he was wearing such a valuable ring when he was engaged in mechanical work is beyond me, but it was probably a clue to his character. When he saw what had happened to his ring he complained loudly and the event came noticeably to the attention of the chemical engineering personnel. I don’t know what the eventual outcome of the affair was, but we had no further relations with Machinist Brown, both at his and our instigation.

A Lot About Tom Baron

Writing about the figure drawing class at the Elderhostel program brings to mind the retirement hobby of drawing, watercoloring, oil painting that developed after we came to Ashland. I had for a long time drawn cartoon-like drawings for greeting cards and the like and this was a continuation of a liking to draw that stretched back to childhood.

When I was working at Shell I remember drawing such cartoons for various anniversaries etc. for colleagues and on one occasion I drew a series of more finished drawings for the department head at the time (Tom Baron) which he proposed to use for some talk he was scheduled to give. As it turned out he decided not to use them and I think they were returned to me — I think I have them filed away somewhere. I think I shall digress a bit at this point; thinking again about Tom Baron brings to my mind thoughts about some of the more picturesque individuals I encountered at Shell and I shall write a bit about them.

I first encountered Tom Baron when I was working in San Francisco after being transferred up from the LA area. One of the executive personnel at San Francisco, B.M. Beins (an import from Holland) had I think met him probably on a recruiting trip. At that time Baron was teaching at the University of Illinois and Beins arranged for him to give a seminar on fluid flow for selected members of the engineering staff; I was one of the participants though I really feel that I was rather out of my depth.

Eventually he came to work for Shell, I think after the move to Emeryville. I think he was initially a member of the chemical engineering department, though he may have had training assignments elsewhere. He rose in Shell rather slowly at first, proceeding to become department head of chemical engineering and then more rapidly to be president of Shell Development which he was for the last part of his career. He held the post for I suppose 15–20 years and was the guiding light in moving Shell Development from Emeryville to Houston. Associated with the move was the consolidation of all of Shell Oil’s research in Houston.

Although the move was perhaps decided by such matters as efficiency of research companywide and the increasing problems (environmental and spacewise) of the operation at Emeryville, it was also influenced by Baron’s antipathy to the professional bargaining agent at Emeryville, the Association of Industrial Scientists. This labor union, for that is what it was (being the certified group by the NLRB) had its origin at a period before I arrived at Emeryville and was the answer by a majority of the professional staff to an organizing effort by I think the Oil Workers Union which was favored by some of the staff.

In a way it was a toothless organization but it did have legal standing and was a thorn in the side of the Emeryville management and of Baron in particular. The situation leading to the organizing effort by the Oil Workers Union was I believe one of the periodic purges that the company underwent when business conditions led to a re-evaluation and assessment of the company’s research program. I say purges because involved was usually a reduction in staff, a weeding out of less productive and capable personnel. Several of these “purges” took place during the time I worked at Emeryville. In a way it was similar to the white collar retrenchment being in effect at General Motors, IBM and other companies in the current (1991–92) business climate, though on a smaller scale.

It has always seemed to me that oil company management was usually in better control and more perceptive of current and future business conditions than in other parts of the business environment. I attribute this to the tendency for top management in oil companies to be dominated by persons of engineering or marketing background. Financial and legal personnel were always used but they were generally staff positions, note “line” officers. Thus retrenchments occurred [more often] and on a smaller scale.

Because Baron was closely involved with the chemical engineering department for quite some time, those individuals in the department got to know him quite well. He was indeed an unusual and exceedingly capable individual. He was born in Hungary and in his speech he retained some of the characteristics of his native tongue — not in accent of pronunciation so much as how the sounds were produced in his throat and mouth. I always had the impression that his words were proceedings from somewhere deep within him.

This does not mean he was hard to understand (like some of the teachers Palma encountered at Stanford who were immigrants to whom English was still a foreign and unfamiliar language). On the contrary there was no difficulty in understanding what he was saying and indeed he was an effective speaker, as to presentation and organization of what he had to say.

He came to the U.S. as the consequence of the German occupation of Hungary and I guess the loss of position and property for his family that ensued. I had the impression, from his remarks, that his family was some kind of low-level royalty — perhaps that was the reason for his surname. I suppose his name had been anglicized or changed, I really don’t know.

When he arrived in this country he had the equivalent I suppose of a high school education but he knew no English at all. His family decided that he should enroll in engineering in college, since their opinion was that he did not have the intelligence for “science.” My opinion of their opinion is that they could not have been more wrong. Baron would have succeeded at the highest level of attainment in any field of work.

Anyway when he started attending classes he was at a total loss because he couldn’t understand anything that was being said. So for the initial six weeks or two months of the first term he did nothing except study English, at which time he apparently had a more than adequate command of the language. Meanwhile he was an absolute failure in his studies. At this point there was a step change in his scholastic performance from the lowest level to the best — which resulted in astonishment on the part of his faculty teachers until they were apprised of what had transpired. I believe he served in the military during WWII, but after the war he got his doctorate in engineering at the University of Illinois. He married the daughter of one of his professors; they had two children, daughters.

He wasn’t above commandeering the services of Jess Sutfin (a technician, or I believe he achieved the status of junior engineer) to aid him in controlling the situation (during working hours). Once, after he was department he engaged me in a curious conversation about the desirability of me as to my future at Shell by spending more time, effort and attention on matters related to work both in matters technical as well as supervisory. He wasn’t too explicit and I don’t think his remarks really penetrated my thinking at the time, and it is only in retrospect that I’ve decided what message he was trying to convey.

In a way it was another instance in my working career where I wasn’t very discerning of the possibilities of advancement, and would perhaps have profited by a more overt exploration of the opportunities available. I say perhaps because my non-assertive personality might have not resulted in any more strenuous effort or more active interest on my part. And perhaps these characteristics on my part insulated me from the hints by management individuals by preventing my wanting to sense the import of what was being said. The encounter occurred as we were at the entrance to one of the restrooms on the third floor in the Q(?) building and I can still picture the scene.

A second personal contact between the two of us was when we chanced to pass on the overhead walkway between the Q and M buildings, over Horton or Hollis street. He stopped me and complimented me on the suit I was wearing. In a way I was flabbergasted. I had bought two suits at Penney’s, both of the same single-breasted type, and though the fabric was of attractive design in both, they were scarcely of exceptional design as to style. One suit was light gray, the other dark gray with spots of red in the weave to bring color to the fabric. Why he would have made his comments still seems a mystery to me.

As I mentioned Baron became department head in chemical engineering and rose rapidly thereafter so that he had become president of Shell Development by the early 1970s or late 1960s. He had one characteristic, both during his days in the chemical engineering department and later on, that was quite different from any other of the Shell management personnel. This was his practice of ignoring the chain of command and [roving?] down to all levels of activity, observing what was going on and talking to the personnel at all levels.

He tended to favor the chemical engineering lab and facilities but I think his sphere of “inspection” widened as his area of responsibility increased. When he visited the chemical engineering labs one of his favorite persons to indulge in conversation with was Tom Hogan. I knew Tom Hogan very well; he was working on the tray test column (the air/water fractionation column simulator at Emeryville) when I became associated with the project during its early days. There was a period of perhaps up to 10 years when there was an active program on the column and we both worked with the column during this time so we got to know each other well.

Tom H is the one non-professional person from the lab that I still keep up with at Christmas card time — although our paths diverged when I went into licensing and processing engineering in the mid 1960s, and even more so when the move to Houston was made. There Tom H ended up, still in the chemical engineering department at Westhollow and I worked at the International Trade Center.

Anyway the two Toms, H[ogan] and B[aron], developed this conversational gambit that persisted to Westhollow days. I recall seeing Tom H. at one of the Shell Christmas parties in Berkeley (at the Marina) and his telling me of Tom B coming down to the lab at Westhollow and chewing the fat with him. The newer personnel there were astounded that the president of the company would visit the lab for a conversation with a lowly lab assistant.

During the time we were in Houston, and I think maybe on one of the two trips we made through Houston after my retirement, I visited Westhollow a couple of times. But I don’t recall much about the place. After we left Emeryville I don’t think I ever again saw Tom Baron. There would be occasional reports of his activities — such as his painting a self-portrait which graced the entry hall to Westhollow (I guess with pictures of other presidents). It seems that he investigated the cost of a portrait by an established artist and decided he could do it himself at a more reasonable cost.

I guess he retired at age 60, a requirement for Shell executive personnel at the time — since he was about my age that would have been about 1980. He consulted for awhile but he died rather suddenly shortly after he retired. Some strange malady as I seem to recall.

A Career at Shell

The work I did at Shell from the time I transferred to San Francisco until the mid 1960s was certainly enjoyable and I suppose it some respects it was what a chemical engineering graduate would sort of dream about doing as a career goal. One was always on the forefront of what was going on in the development of equipment; indeed a fair amount of time was always devoted to keeping up with the current literature. This involved scanning the summary of contents of periodicals circulated by the library, perusing the half dozen or so periodicals that were regularly sent to me and doing the same with company reports that Technical Files sent around.

The work was not entirely research however as there were always operating or design problems that were referred to the department that required handling. Shell used the chemical engineering department as sort of a lure for engineering graduated they wanted to hire. As I indicated the work was sort of a novice graduate’s dream and they played on prospective employees’ desired in the regard to get them to accept employment.

Gradually this presents a problem as it required moving people out of chemical engineering into other parts of the organization. After new engineers would work for a couple of years and then sending that there were better opportunities for career advancement elsewhere would take transfers to other parts of Shell. This partly solved the problem but there came to be the feeling on the part of management that it would be helpful if members of the department who had been in research for a considerable legth of time would also transfer out.

So I was approached in this regard and a year’s assignment to Licensing and Design engineering was arranged. This department handled the evaluations and actual designs of the process that Shell licensed to outside companies, as well as some of the designs for applications within the Shell organization itself. This occurred in the mid 1960s, essentially after nearly two decades in research.

I found the work, essentially process engineering, to be stimulating and interesting and at the conclusion of the year decided to transfer permanently into this new phase of chemical engineering. It was in this kind of work that I spent the remainder of my career at Shell, including the work I did for the company after I retired (mostly in 1975, but also briefly in 1976).

In retrospect I think that it would have been more favorable to my career at Shell had I made the change earlier. In a way I feel that my career potential at Shell was not achieved — I attribute this in part by the lack of background and sophistication in my childhood and adolescence (i.e., when I went to work at Shell I really had no feel for how a large industrial organization operates) and secondly by the absence of some experienced person who would have offered advice to me at some crucial points in my career.

Had these factors been in effect it still might not have affected the course of my career significantly. I have a certain diffidence, lack of aggressiveness and unwillingness to have the single-minded commitment to career goals that would have kept my career to about what it was.

Shortly after transferring to process engineering, my department head approached me about the possibility of becoming a supervisor, with responsibility in the area of separations (distillation etc.). However he said to achieve this I would need some plant start-up experience and this would have involved a fairly lengthy absence away from family and the familiar scene. After considering the matter I decided I wasn’t interested in the effort and disruption involved, at least at that point in my career.

When Shell decided to move its research establishment, along with the associated engineering functions, to Houston I first decided not to go, but later changed my mind and the family made the move. It it still a question in my mind if we made the right move, economically or for the effect of the move on our daughters.

Economically I suspect there would have been little difference in the family fortunes. The appreciation in the value of 411 Bonnie Drive would have well offset the income from two years of employment, the increase in the Provident Fund savings and what I received “consulting” in 1975–76.

After we moved to Ashland I considered getting a degree in accounting and doing income tax work but there wasn’t any incentive income-wise to do so and other diversions such as gardening and drawing and water-coloring intervened. It is also, at this point, a question in my mind once we went in Houston to have stuck it out for longer than the two years we were there.

I suspect that had I been working downtown in Houston, instead of out at the International Trade Center there would have been a good deal less impetus to leave Houston on my part. Had I been working downtown I could have commuted easily on the bus that ran along Memorial Drive to downtown. Such a commute would have been much more to my liking that the drive in an un-air-conditioned [car] to ITC.

As it turned out Shell moved its engineering functions from ITS to a downtown location within less than a year after we departed Houston. We left in June 1974 and by March 1975 when I started the work I did for Shell that year they have moved downtown to the Milam building. I think that had we stayed in Houston it would have been much easier on Laurel. She was just getting established I think with a group of friends in Houston and she never did really “click” in Ashland.

For Jean and me the early retirement to Ashland turned out very well. We have been happy and occupied here and life here has been satisfying and rewarding. Income-wise there was no problem at all, and we were easily capable of meeting the 2-1/2 college educations that we still had to provide for. Muriel was halfway through her first four years, but Palma was just starting college when we arrived in Ashland. Laurel of course still had three years of high school still before her college career would begin.