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.

Carpooling to Fort Dodge

During my school years in Gowrie my father was on the local school board and I recall him going off to the meetings. I also remember that prospective teachers would come around to the individual board members to make a personal appeal for a position. The most distinct recollection is when Archie Gerber came around in this fashion. Doubtless he had started out in his best sartorial style but he had become mired with his car and as a result his shoes and pant legs were all muddy. Nonetheless he got the job. Although the school board as a whole presumably did the hiring I’m sure that the superintendent’s opinion was the decisive factor.

When Leistra left and a new superintendent was to be selected there were a lot of applicants. I wonder just how the decision was made.

So I finished up my high school career. I don’t recall anything about the actual graduation — I suppose it was in the school gym. I do remember vaguely attending the baccalaureate service at the Lutheran church, I think it alternated between the Lutheran and Methodist sites. In those days there wasn’t the furor and dissension about the relationship between school and religion that there is now. Actually Gowrie was a rather homogeneous community so dissension was unlikely to arise anyway. Come to think of it I seem to remember that in first grade at least the school day started out with some sortof reading by the teacher, possibly religious in nature.

When I finished high school my prospects for college were uncertain and limited at best. By the time I graduated my father was working full time at the county treasurer’s office, driving to and from home and the treasurer’s office each day — I sort of think it was a six-day schedule. That income, plus what he earned as part time bookkeeper at the Johnson lumber company abd the advantage we had on the farm as to milk, eggs, fruit and vegetables made for a fairly steady livelihood for the family. But there wasn’t much extra for any items such as college expenses.

Clarice rode with my father to attend Fort Dodge Junior College for one year but I seem to remember that she was mildly dissatisfied there. Anyway by that time my Aunt Laurine was established as a primary teacher in the Dubuque school system and Dubuque had a four-year college there, a Presbyterian school called the University of Dubuque. So Aunt Laurine offered Clarice the chance to live with her and attend school there, which she took advantage of. And when Clarice finished, Vivian was newly graduated from high school and she followed in Clarice’s footsteps.

This year (1997) when Jean and I visited Vivian and family in Ames the subject of Vivian’s school years came up peripherally in the conversation and she indicated that her feelings toward Aunt Laurine, despite the advantage she had given Vivian, weren’t entirely cordial. Certainly not the feeling Vivian had for her Aunt Ruth.

So for Clarice and Vivian the route to a college education turned out to be fairly assured. For me the situation was rather different and I simply proceeded along the most obvious path at the time, which was to ride along with my father and attend junior college. The college had a curriculum that furnished essentially one year of engineering as far as the total credits were concerned, but with the need to make up in lated years those courses which were usually included in the freshman year at such schools as Iowa State College.

My parents of course provided me with room and board as it were and my father paid the tuition (in part) and of course also provided the transportation, but he was driving to Fort Dodge daily anyway. Part of the tuition was paid for by my working at the junior college under some kind of government work program for an hour or so several days a week. I recall doing typing and perhaps other clerical-type work in Dean Dickey’s office. Whether I had applied for this work or my need was recognized by Dickey I have no idea now. I wonder in retrospect if this contact I had with Dickey resulted in my being offered the small scholarship at the conclusion of my second year at Fort Dodge JC that enabled me to continue my engineering at the University of Iowa. I’m sure it was through him that the offer came to me.

The junior college at the time I attended was an integral part of the Fort Dodge school system and the classes were held on the third floor of the high school building. Most of the students were either graduates of Fort Dodge high school or graduates of nearby high schools (mostly in Webster County but there were a few from outside the county I’m quite sure) but there was a smattering of Fort Dodge high school students. Generally the students were better qualified than the students I had encountered in high school in Gowrie, but as far as class achievement was concerned I more or less matched what I had done in high school.

The high school building was constructed of dark colored brick and was located in a middle class residential area. Actually it was only a few blocks from the best residences in town and there was as I recall a city park in the vicinity. Oftentimes at the noon hour some congenial students (including those riding along with my father) would go for walks in the area of these better residences (some of which were reputed to be valued at $10,000, a high valuation for the time).

The building located sort of in the northwest part of Fort Dodge was a distance of about a fifteen-minute walk from the county courthouse where my father worked. In the morning after the ride from the Peterson farm we would be left off at the school; in the evening we would walk down to the courthouse in the central business district.

My father had been making the daily journey from the Peterson farm to Fort Dodge for at least two years before I started to rise with him to school. Certainly it had been two years as Clarice, two years ahead of me in school rode during the one year she was at JC. During this time several other students from the Gowrie vicinity also rode along, a service that my father provided gratis. As I recall a neighboring boy, Marcus Anderson, was one of these during the time before I rode, and my brothers and I used to tease Clarice about him.

During the time I rode with my father, the other riders included Howard Nelson (a year ahead of me in school), Harlan Anderson (two years ahead and in Clarice’s class who resided next door to us in the old original Woodard farm), Darwin Liljegren (Howard’s classmate), John Woodard who lived with his aunt Annie Lines across the road from us, and I believe Art Sigurdson, oldest son of the school custodian who was a year behind me in school. After I left for the University of Iowa I believe that my dad continued to have these student riders, but I sort of lost track of the situation as I was absent during the school year.

The first year I rode, the family car was the old 1929 Essex, brown colored and with a top speed of about 40 miles per hour. That, or somewhat lower, was the speed we went at over the 20 miles of so to Fort Dodge. The Essex had the designation Super-Six. It was a little crowded inside with six passengers seated (and when our family used it as on Sundays that meant that the two youngest members of the family, Verner and Marold, had to sit on someone’s lap).

I don’t remember for sure but I think there were just five riders during the time I commuted to Fort Dodge JC. They were Howard, Harlan, John, myself and my father. The rides were characterized by a geat deal of conversation and the surviving members recall them with nostalgia. Indeed in 1988 when I went back for my 50th high school class reunion, Howard had the idea for an Essex memorial drive from the site of the Peterson farm to Fort Dodge and back. He, Harlan, Darwin Liljegren and I participated (Darwin had been a rider the year before my first year riding).

The Essex was of course long since gone, we rode instead on Darwin’s car. He had driven up from where he was living near Kansas City. We assembled at the Peterson farm (what was left of it, only the well near the barn and the old chicken house) and followed the gravel road route my dad always took, past the Bohemian Hall, the county “Poor Farm,” and joining Highway 169 till it joined #20, thence past the Lutheran hospital, and into town to the courthouse. There we parked and went into the courthouse and up to the treasurer’s office.

In the course of conversation with the personnel it developed that the current treasurer had come to work in the office when my dad left the office and had indeed be instructed by him on the work he was leaving.

From there we walked to the high school building, and since it was open walked up to the third floor and viewed the classrooms. The building was no longer the site of the junior college which had metamorphosed into a community college with a campus to the west of the Lutheran hospital.

Then we stopped in briefly at the public library where we used to spend time studying on our way back to the courthouse. Amongst my memories of the public library was the time I read of the very early research in atomic fission and of the speculation in the article of its possible military uses. During WWII when I was working in southern California I recalled this article and wondered why since then the subject had dropped out of sight in the public and technical press.

Somehow or other our entourage was noticed between the county courthouse and the school building and we were written up in the newspaper, if not the Fort Dodge Messenger then in the Gowrie News. I don’t recall which paper. One thing we noticed was how the downtown area of Fort Dodge had suffered with a distinct deterioration of the business establishments along Central Avenue. Here as in most cities there had been the move of stores to suburban malls.

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.

High School Recollections

At the time I was a freshman in Gowrie there was a hazing process that the freshmen had to undergo at the hands of the sophomore class. I really don’t know if there was compulsion involved but everyone went through it, perhaps for reasons of peer pressure. The process was tacitly permitted by the school administrations, at least it was held in the school gymnasium. I don’t recall all the details but there was a gauntlet that the freshmen had to run, past sophomores equipped with wooden paddles. How long this practice lasted I don’t know — I have no recollection of attending it as a sophomore to get my licks in.

I have only a single recollection that comes to mind of my sophomore year. The Des Moines newspaper sponsored an essay content open to high school students. How this came to my attention I don’t know but I entered, perhaps Miss Amlie suggested it. The topic I chose was “Immunization” and somewhere in my collection of trivia I believe I have a pencil draft. I won third prize which was $5. I think a girl in Clarice’s class, Ruth Fridell, also entered and received Honorable Mention.

My father cashed my check, giving me at my request five silver dollars. I remember keeping them for some time. At this time, though my dad was by then working at the treasurer’s office in Fort Dodge, the family was still operating on a financial shoestring. So when my mother broke her glasses and was faced with the cost of a new lens, she broke down and cried. I was moved to offer her my five silver dollars to help defray the cost. She refused the offer, but I think she was somewhat heartened.

It was in my junior year that I took five subjects instead of the usual four. This was a prerogative normally reserved for senior, why I did it as a junior I can’t remember. I thibnk I took all the classes offered in the high school curriculum with the exception of home economics and the agriculture classes. The ag classes were taken only by a few boys, who had the intention of being farmers, but they would have been of interest to me although my expected career at that time was far from being clear in muy mind. However, the ag classes occupied 1-1/2 periods and conflicted with classes of more pertinence and interest to me so I didn’t attempt to take them.

Academic Testing

At the time I was in high school, Gowrie participated in an Every-Pupil Testing program which was developed and run by a department at the University of Iowa. Actually the idea and program were the work of an individual, Everett Lindquist, who was born and grew up in Gowrie. The first part of the program was carried out in individual schools, and students having a certain level of achievement at this level were invited to come to Iowa City for more advanced tests.

As a freshman I was selected to go to Iowa City in General Science. I can remember being driven down to Iowa City by Mr. Millard along with another member of the General Science class, Richard Swanson. I don’t recall any other students along. I was also chosen for the trip in each of the three subsequent years of high school. I went in both American and European history, in Latin I and II and in Physics and perhaps one other subject that I can’t identify at the moment.

I never received a first or second recognition at SUI, although I was third or fourth in a couple of cases. A couple of the years I went, my acquaintance Howard Nelson (a year ahead of me in school) also went and he had a couple of “firsts” as I recall. At the conclusion of the tests at Iowa City there was a banquet at the Memorial Union at which the winning students were recognized.

These trips to Iowa City gave me a little touch of the campus there so when I went there after my two years at Fort Dodge Junior College it wasn’t a completely strange scene. We stayed at the Quadrangle dormitory, where I roomed part of the time I was a student at SUI, had meals there and on one occasion, saw a performance of Oscar Wilde’s “The Importance of Being Earnest” at McBride Hall. I was entranced by the performance which was far and beyond any theatrical event I had witnessed up to that time.

By the time I went to Iowa City as a student the Fine Arts Building had been constructed across the river from the Memorial Union and that was where the university plays were staged — a much more elegant place than McBride Auditorium. I recall seeing some plays there but I don’t remember them the way I do of that Wilde play. Probably because of the novelty of it then.

I have the vague recollection that my older sister Clarice may have been along on one of the times I went to Iowa City. One year Vivian went in four subjects, perhaps when I was a senior and she was a sophomore. She recalls going but Vincent does not.

At some time the event at Iowa City was abandoned although I believe the rest of the program continued. One reason for this was that some schools had turned the tests into sort of a competition, with special coaching which tended to negate the factor of individual progress. Not long ago (1996–97) there was an article in “The Spectator,” the SUI publication about university news and matters describing the program, its initiator and its current state.