December 1940

Iowa City
Thursday morning

Dear mother:

 I thought I would begin my letter now as I have 15 minutes before I will leave for my classes and I don’t believe it would be worthwhile to start studying something in such a short time. Besides I have about ½ of them already prepared for Friday.

The laundry came Friday evening (or was it Friday noon?), somewhat sooner than I expected it to come. Please accept my usual thanks for washing up my clothes and for sending me some things to eat. I have already begun to plan my eating so that everything will be finished up Thursday morning. If I leave with Fridell’s, as I will if Mr. Fridell comes down, I won’t be leaving until after dinner. However, if he does not come down, my plans might be slightly different. This morning, I am going to look up the bus depot and if possible, open up a line of escape in that direction. According to the telephone book, there are bus lines to Des Moines which would maybe put be aboard the M & St L. I wonder what time it leaves Des Moines? I will write more about this later in the letter after I have discovered the particulars. You can’t imagine how I am anticipating coming home. I received a letter from Vivian just the other day and I guess, from the sound of her letter, that she will also be happy to come home once more.

Last Friday [interruption: there goes “Jingle Bells” on the Music Shop. So Xmas-y sounding. It rouses that old anticipatory feeling in me] night, I went with two other boys to Cedar Rapids and saw a show. The boys were some that I knew at F.D.J.C and one of them had an old Chevrolet down here. They asked me to go along and I thought I might as well as I was pretty well caught up on my studying. I had a fairly good time but it could have been better. The show, “The Mark ofZorro” was pretty good because it had my movie hero, Basil Rathbone in it.

Well, here I am again and this time I guess I’ll finish the letter. I went to the bus depot and found out that there is a bus leaving at noon Thursday which would bring me to Des Moines at 3:30. Then there is a bus going to Ft. Dodge but it goes around by Ft. Dodge so if I went that way you would have to come & get me. I don’t know when the M & St L leaves Des Moines and the agent at the bus depot didn’t know, so I don’t think I’d risk running around down there where I don’t know my way around and wind up by losing both train and bus. If you could find out please drop a line or card and let me know. Of course, I’ll follow this plan only if Mr. Fridell does not come. if I do have to go home by bus, I’ll have to write another check, and if I don’t, I still might write one for $2 or so. I have bought several Xmas presents but still have about ½ or 2/3 left to buy. I’ll try to get that done next Saturday.

It has snowed some here this morning. When I left for school it was just starting. When I returned it was snowing quite hard but it has entirely stopped now. I, too, hope the weather remains nice so I can get home with Fridell’s. Weekly analysis of how I am getting along in becoming an engineer. (1) Drawing head the list this week. In the last test wqe had I got 87% which was the best grade in the class by 1%. I felt pretty good after that test.

(2) German — we have started a systematic review of all that we have covered so far. Yesterday we had a vocabulary test which was quite easy. I think for about 2 weeks I will have practically no studying to do in German since the review will be easy. I think if I study a little bit on oral German I can pull an A in this course.

(3) Mechanics of Solids — things are fairly tame. We have started the last section of the book, i.e., kinetics. As a sort of Xmas present the instructor is giving a test the very last class on Thurs. morning. If it wasn’t for that class I could get started for Des Moines at 8:14. I hope I do as well in this test as I did in the last one.

(4) Chem Industries — SoSo as usual — this weekend I am going to bring my notebook up to date since it is due the last class before Xmas vacation.

(5) Indus Stoichiometry — We have had 2 more quizzes. In both I made a small mistake. I should get 9 in both or 9 in one and 10 in the other since my error in the last was not more than about 2% or so. Today I have an experiment to do in this green-eyed-dragon-course. I already have one to write up and that will make two which I will try to finish during Xmas vacation some time (Oh happy thought! and that does go for the writing up either!)

I seem to be writing at an angle on this page so I will use this line to straighten things out.

I believe I’ll abbreviate this letter and call it enough. In just one week I’ll be home and then I can tell you about everything better than writing about it.

With love,

Carl

This is the last letter 

home before Xmas

Rah! Rah! Rah! Rah!

(1) Week from today I

should be home at some 

time or other. 

P.S. Who did Audrey A get married to? A foolish question to ask since I’ll find out soon enough anyway I guess.

P.S. I have had a little (very little) cold lately but with that exception none all winter.

P.S. The last roll was a little tough but that was all.

P.S. I just heard the Iowa weather forecast — a cold wave. That should stop this snow and make weather conditions more settled.

P.S. auf Wiederschreiben: meaning, I’ll be writing again to you but not till after Xmas.

Miscellaneous letters from childhood

Undated letter, circa 1927

Dear Aunt Laurine

I am in second grade this year. I get 100 in numbers almost every day. I have to learn long poems by heart. My arm is alright now but it took a long time. I had to go to the doctor. I haven’t forgotten you yet.

Much love from

Carl

-------

Gowrie, Iowa

August 13 1929

Dear Mamma:

I wish you would come home soon. Tuesday I was going over to Roberts [sic]. But when I came over there, they were away. I waited a little bit and then I went home. Then I went over to Harris’s and he had [sic] out to the Golf Links so I couldn’t play with Harris. So I went home. When I got home I went upstairs to draw. But as soon as I got upstairs I was told I could get an ice rem cone.

With all my love

Carl

[Note in his mother’s handwriting: When I was at Mercy Hospice for Marold’s birth. This is a precious letter from “little Carl.”]

-------

Sept. 6, 1929

Gowrie Ia.

Dear Laurine:

I wish you a happy birthday. I am only writing a few lines. Friday I help baby Marold for the first time. Boy it was fun!

Today I made an airplane our of boxs [sic], boards, quilts, bricks and etc. Vivian cooked food and Vincent and me drove the airplane.

A happy brithday [sic] and many whichs [sic]

from Carl

-------

Gowrie, Iowa

Feb. 21, 1932

Dear Laurine,

Thank you very much for the Valentine. I think it is very cute.

I am in a Flag Drill in school. We to act [sic] it out before the P.T. A. on Tues. night. Miss Moffett is drilling us and some of the boys weren’t good and they got it.

Guess what happened Saturday night. Our house nearly caught on fire. We had just put in some new coal and daddy had shoved some baskets to [sic] close to the furnace. They caught on fire. Mamma smelt smoke and thought something was wrong with the draft. When she was pulling on the chain she saw something red thru a crack. She whizzed downstairs and grabbed a pail of water which daddy was going to give to the cow. She threw the water on it and nearly extinguished it. Daddy was in by this time and we got it out. The [sic] were near a door and is was so hot it nearly was on fire.

I am getting along O.K. in school. We are having history now instead of hygiene. It is ancient history. For a while I wasn’t getting along so good in arith. but I got a hundred which brough my grades up.

A 1,000 kisses &

” ” hugs to you from

Carl

Thursday, May 22, 1947

May 22, 1947

1317 Shattuck

Berkeley, Calif

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

This week has been sort of a cool & blustery one so far. Most of the time in the mornings and the evenings it has been cloudy, and not only with misty indecisive clouds but with determined & voluminous ones. In addition the wind from the sea has been quite strong & certainly nippy. At midday the sun is usually out and it is nice and warm but it doesn’t stay out after mid-afternoon except fitfully. This noon I went for a little walk instead of kibitzing at the bridge game and it was nice out then but this evening it is nice to be indoors, or so my mood is anyway.

This morning the battleship Iowa was anchored in the bay, having steamed in sometime in the previous 12 hours or so since it wasn’t there yesterday evening. A couple of landing barges and some launches were headed toward it as the train went over the bridge so I guess that a whole bunch of sailors were in line for a leave. Altho it is supposed to be a very large ship, & undoubtedly is, it didn’t seem too large as it lay anchored there. However I suppose it was a good ¼ to ½ mile away so the distance may have made it seem smaller. Also the fact that no objects were nearby for comparison of relative sizes made an evaluation of the true picture of its size difficult. This morning about ten-thirty there was supposed to be a parade of some sort in S.F., in connection I presume with its presence, along with several smaller ships, in pot but it didn’t amount to very much. However people seem to have taken advantage of the situation to toss paper out of the office building windows, much like at New Year’s, since there was quite a bit laying around on the streets & sidewalks.

Tuesday night as usual I went to the fractionation class. This time he really went on a spree, deriving equations for absorption towers etc., and I got tired after about 15 minutes of it, and wished I were home in bed. Wednesday night I had supper with Frank before coming home. Mostly, life has proceeded along in its usual routine. It is sort of funny sometimes — you get so you recognize lots of people by sight, since they ride the same train in the morning, or they are waiters or bus boys or something — but you don’t know their names or what they think. It is fun tho to speculate some times about them. Perhaps they do the same about you.

Thank you, father & mother, for your recent letters and advice. However, I feel that perhaps I erred in discussing the subject, particularly since you do not seem amenable to my stand. So, let’s not discuss it any more, shall we?

With love,
C.P.

Sunday, May 4, 1947

May 4, 1947

1317 Shattuck

Berkeley, Calif

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

I was very sorry to hear that your side was troubling you so mother. Perhaps you should go to the doctor and find out what’s wrong; even if it isn’t much you’ll know that it is that and not something to be concerned about. Anyway I hope it gets better quickly. As you mentioned in your last letter, Clarice is also probably having a difficult time keeping her household running. Will her knee get better with a little rest so that she can get along if she is careful or will it require more than that? I believe you mentioned something about an operation; it would be hard for her, & them, if that were the case.

Today has been a very nice day, as was also yesterday. Both were fairly cool but nice and sunshiny after being cloudy for awhile in the morning. Yesterday afternoon I got in my two hours of sitting in the sun in the park and this time it really looks like I was out in it a little. I thought when I left after 2 hours that I might have stayed out a little longer but I am glad now that I didn’t. May 1 was a record warm day here in San Francisco, both for all of the May 1’s on record and for this year. I didn’t mind it as much tho as the other warm spell. May 2 started out hot but cooled off suddenly about 10 or 11 and it has been cool since.

I didn’t get around to writing Thursday evening which makes it twice recently that I have missed the usual mid-week letter. I’ll endeavour to do better hereafter. Monday night I worked on the distillation problem; Tuesday I went to the class. As I expected I didn’t do very good in the test; however, a lot of other people didn’t either so I ended up slightly above the average. The longer I attend the less enthusiastic I get about the class. last Tuesday’s lecture was very dull and I almost went to sleep. This week three problems were assigned and altho I have spent considerable time on them they still aren’t complete, requiring at least two hours more work. Whether it’s me or the class I don’t know.

Last night, or rather Friday night, we had dinner at a place called the Ritz Cafe or something like that. This one was located very conveniently in downtown S.F. This makes the second in a row that was a very good place. I had a broiled salmon steak and it was really good; much better than the one I had at Fisherman’s Wharf. Afterward we went to see Blackstone the magician. I wasn’t very keen on going but the others wanted to so I went along. It was interesting enough but whether it was worth the price of admission or not I don’t know.

Yesterday morning I got my laundry and a suit from the cleaners, had breakfast and worked on the distillation assignment till noon, completing 2 of the problems. Then I went downtown, completed some errands, came back, went to the park, afterward read & practiced till suppertime. I went to bed early after the usual Saturday night bath since I was still sleepy from the night before, despite the fact that I didn’t get up till 7:30. Today I got up about seven and working on my scrapbooks till 9:30 when I got dressed and went down to breakfast & to church. This afternoon, till Fred Allen came on, I spent again on the distillation assignment, get about 2/3+ of the way thru the last problem. Fred Allen wasn’t very good this afternoon. I went downtown for a little supper, came back and practice for awhile but didn;t feel in the mood for it so stopped pretty soon. After I get this finished I guess I’ll go to bed & listen to the Ford Sunday Evening Hour or whatever program it is that has the music on it and comes on about 8:30.

As I wrote to you awhile ago I was very undecided what to do about my church membership. Well, this morning I thought I might as well transfer it here even if the church didn’t seem too desirable. However, by the time the service was over I was certainly not in the mood again, so I didn’t do anything about it. I don’t know what’s wrong but practically all the time recently I feel when I come out of church that I have been gypped. I get up in the morning feeling nice and peaceful and after breakfast take a nice little walk to church and see the nice day and the cute flowers in people’s yards, all the time feeling like I’m glad it’s Sunday & I am going to church. Then, boom!. as soon as I get in there and the service stats I feel like a big wet blanket has been thrown over my nice happy state of mind and I wish I were anyplace but there. This is the case for almost any church service, not only the one I usually go to, so your suggestion about visiting some others isn’t too useful. Anyway, it leaves the whole situation up in the air.

Roughly the possible alternatives are, as far as I came make out: a) I can leave my membership indefinitely in San Pedro. This I refuse to do absolutely. b) Transfer it to come church here. This also I refuse absolutely to do. My experience so far with any of them and an examination of the rest of them convinces me that I certainly do not desire to be affiliated with them. c) Transfer it back to Gowrie. This is acceptable to me, since altho I have no illusions about Pastor Walfrid, nevertheless it is at a safe enough distance so that it can’t make me unhappy. If you have any other suggestions to offer I would be glad to hear them.

Since I have come to S.F., I have in general been happier, than I have been at almost any previous time in my life, except perhaps when I was going to Jr. College at Ft. Dodge. There have been times when I haven’t liked it so well like the time I got all wet walking home from the distillation class but mostly I have liked it. I like the work I am doing, the place I stay, and the things I do. I am most certainly not going to allow any generally unsatisfactory church affiliation like I had in San Pedro mar the possibility of such a state of mind & being continuing. Perhaps I am wrong but that is certainly the way I feel.

With love

C.P.

Thursday, April 24, 1947

April 24, 1947

1317 Shattuck

Berkeley, Calif

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

This week has certainly been cloudy and cool. I guess tho that the rainy season must be past since it didn’t rain despite the cloudy weather. Frank says that out where he lives (about a mile or so from the ocean shore) the fog has started to come in in the evenings, a sign of summer there. Her ein Berkeley it hasn’t been foggy however. I hope that it has warmed up and become springlike at home so that the farmers have an opportunity to get finished with their spring work.

As you mentioned in your last letter, mother, I suppose it is a curious feeling to think that you will be moving back to town soon. Just think, you won’t have all those strawberries & raspberries, chickens etc etc. You won’t have Mrs. Griffith to talk to altho doubtless there will be others in town. It will seem strange coming home to you there too. I don’t think I’ve been inside the house there since we left. not even when I was helping paint the barn did I go in.

This week has passed along fairly uneventfully. Tuesday night I went to class as usual. We had a test and I certainly made a miserable showing. I’ll have to try to do better in the next test. I guess I’ve been out of school too long to know how to do well in them. Last night I went to an illustrated lecture at Wheeler auditorium. It was part of a naturalist travelog & was fairly interesting. Before going I had supper with Frank in S.F.

I haven’t transferred my church membership here. As I believe I mentioned before I am not at all sure what I want to do with it. I suppose I shouldn’t leave it in San Pedro, but on the other hand there is no place here that I want to join. I guess tho I’ll have to decide before long. My initial impression of the minister hasn’t changed and aside from Sunday services when I usually don’t meet or talk to any of them I have no contact with any of the members.

This is about all for now

With love

C.P.

December 8, 1945

Dec 8, 1945

1046 W 24th St

San Pedro, Calif

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

Well, a week has passed since I returned to Calif and I can’t say that it has overwhelmed me with the desirability of living and working here. Sometimes it is work that makes it seem so depressing, sometimes it’s the weather, sometimes it’s the people, but always, or nearly always, it’s something. Depressing isn’t the right word — more it is enervating, deadening, dulling. Every time I get back here from a visit to the middle west it seems more colorless, the people seem more frenzied, dull, stupid, inane — the atmosphere more torpid, sluggish, the whole attitude toward life more out of focus.

I wrote a letter today to Glockler, department head of chemistry at Iowa asking him to keep me informed of any likely openings in the midwest for chemical engineers. I rather think I could pull a switch of jobs now without getting drafted. I also wrote to Arnold who is at the Univ of Calif at Berkeley asking him what he thought of the idea of going back to school If I don’t get the transfer to Wood River and no likely position shows up in or near Iowa, I think I shall plan definitely on returning to school next fall. The application for a research or teaching fellowship must be in my Feb 15 or March 1, so I would have to decide by that time anyway. Iowa State College seems like the best bet, but I shall pick out a couple of other prospects from the schools I wrote to last fall.

This morning I went to church as usual. As I had written before I wasn’t too favorably impressed with the new pastor, and the impression was strengthened this morning. He is pallid in every sense of the word. He looks anemic. His address is effeminate. He never looks you in the eye while preaching (altho the ceiling is minutely examined as well as the floor) and he must have almost flunked homiletics or whatever the science of preaching is called. His sermon this morning was a masterpiece of illogic and of vague, general statements. If I didn’t feel sorry for him in such a tough situation as San Pedro represents, I would be thoroly disgusted. What is the Augustana Seminary for anyway? Either their admission committee doesn’t function properly or they don’t teach their pupils much after they are admitted. How can you expect a church to progress when the caliber of the men admitted to the ministry is so low? Maybe I am wrong but I am afraid that the death knell for the San Pedro church was rung when he came.

Yesterday I did my Christmas shopping and got the packages wrapped to send off which I shall do tomorrow on the way home from work. I am sending Clarice’s, Verner’s and Ann Marie’s presents in the package home since I don’t have Verner’s address or Clarice’s Aurora address, so could you send them on to them? All except 3 of the stores are functioning again in San Pedro. Penney’s looks like it intends to reopen but one of the ten cent stores has moved out most of its stock so it may be closing. Therefore it wasn’t too hard to do the Christmas shopping, all of which I did in San Pedro.

This afternoon I went down to the Vesper music hour at the YMCA. It was pretty good but nothing to yell about. The best number on the program was a couple of songs by a soldier. He was tall, skinny, shy, bashful but he surely could sing.

This is all for now.

With love

C.P.

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.

Two Years at Fort Dodge Junior College

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Student Body

Recently (late 1997) I looked through the material that I had saved relative to me education and I found what someone had written entitled the Class History — Seniors of 1938. According to this account 50 students entered the first grade in the fall of 1926. Of those 50, ten made it through the twelve grades together: Don Drayer, Dale Hauser, Mary Jane Hoff, Everette Johnson, Philip Lind, Glenda Meyer, Russell Peterson, Carl Strand, Richard Swanson and Ruth Telleen.

In second grade, Annabelle Strough (of the graduating class in 1938) joined us.

In third grade, no one.

In fourth grade, June Telleen, Margaret Hunter and Bill Jones joined.

In fifth grade, John Woodard and Vernon Telleen joined.

In sixth grade, Dale Coffin came in.

In seventh grade, Luther Peterson, Jane Horum, Doris Griffee and Audrey Anderson joined.

In eighth grade, Birdie Swan came in.

In ninth grade, Nina Cooklin joined us.

In tenth grade, Harold Cox, Beulah Parsons and Arlene Zenor came in.

In eleventh grade, Hazel Hamann joined us.

In twelfth grade, Lester Person.

At the fiftieth anniversary party in 1988, as I recall, there were 23 members (of 28) still surviving of which 21 attended. Of the five who had died, I’m quite sure John Woodard, Dale Hauser and Bill Jones were include. I don’t know about the other two. Doris Griffee did not attend.

Friday NIght Basketball

I have written a little already about the athletic program at Gowrie. Though I never “went out for a team” I did attend the basketball games which were held in the local gym. Somehow or ther I had a season ticket I believe. The games were invariably on Friday evenings and were usually preceded by a pep rally on the last period of the day on Friday. As I recall I was rather emotionally involved early in high school but this attitude had tended to fade by the time I was a senior.

On occasion I attended games away from Gowrie. My friend John Woodard was permitted to drive the Model A Ford belonging to Well Lines, his uncle, to a few such games and I rode along. There was also the time John and I rode along with Darwin Liljegren to one of these out-of-town games. Darwin had taken the car his father, a rural mail carrier, had and when we were to start home the car wouldn’t start. I think a relative came to get us, but we were brought back only as far as where Darwin then resided, which was in the old Amanda Gorman house next to my grandmother’s house. 

John and I were left on our own as to how we would get home. It was suggested that we wake up my uncle Carl and have him drive us home but I mentally vetoed this idea. I wasn’t about to meet his reaction to such a situation. Instead John and I walked the four miles home — it wasn’t a hard walk. The night though cool wasn’t cold. I suppose we got home sometime in the early hours of the morning.

Career Guidance

The school staff included no counselor to guide students in choosing a career, but I recall Mr. Millard in one of his classes talking a bit about various careers. As I recall he handed out a little pamphlet that listed potential incomes in various professions and engineering was indicated as having a top potential of about $50,000/year. I never achieved that in all the years I was at Shell. About the closest was the $35,000 I earned in 1975 when I worked part-time for Shell as a “consultant.” Perhaps that was the first “push” toward engineering as a career for me.

Although Gowrie high school did not include chemistry in the curriculum, somehow or other I had developed an interest in the subject. Perhaps I mentioned it to the superintendent (A.C. Anderson, who succeeded Leistra) and he gave me a couple of demo textbooks that he, as superintendent, had received from textbook vendors. One was in physics and the other chemistry. I think I read portions of the chemistry text so I had an idea of what it was about when I enrolled in junior college.

There was one incident that may have steered me in the direction of engineering. One evening, when we were still in the little brown house, I was at one of the summer band concerts. Somehow or other I became aware of, or possibly was introduced to, a cousin of Robert Blomgren (a year ahead of me in school but with whom I played on occasion — he lived in a house not far from us — actually when we children carried milk to Aunt Hulda and gradfather Strand we walked through their yard). I was impressed by this cousin (by name Jack Sederholm) who was described as being an engineer. Robert followed his cousin’s example and ended up as an engineer.