 
The Making of a Scientist: A Memoir

Calvin Souther Fuller

**With reminiscences by** _Willmine Works Fuller_

**Edited by** _Ann L. Fuller_

Copyright © 2014 John W. Fuller, Stephen S. Fuller, Robert W. Fuller, Ann L. Fuller

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form by any electronic or mechanical means including photocopying, recording, or information storage and retrieval without permission in writing from the author.

Smashwords Edition

ISBN: 9781311952912
Table of Contents

Foreword

Editor's Preface

I \- Calvin S. Fuller

Time Saved? A Poem

Prologue

Part 1: Growing Up (1906-1918)

Under Home Influences

The Street-Gang Years

Sports, Games, and Fun

Pranks and Dirty Tricks

Grammar School, Smoking, and Sex Talk

Under Norman Souther's Influence (1904-1916)

Reflections on My Early Years

Part 2: The More Serious Years (1918-1930)

Last Years of High School and Summer Jobs

College

I Return to Society as Chemical Analyst

A New Job and Night School

I Become a Photoengraver

I Return to the Campus

I Become a Graduate Student

Joys and Sorrows

Part 3: The Productive Years (1930-1967)

Some Historical Background

My Dream Comes True

The Summit Lab

A Wife, a Home, and Children

I Become a Polymer Chemist

Scientific Societies

A Big Move: Solid State Physics

Diffusion: Fast and Slow

Post War Consulting

International Conferences

The Government Synthetic Rubber Program

Retirement

Epilogue

II \- Willmine Works Fuller

Editor's Introduction

My First Eighty Years

Memories of History

Part I

Part II

Part III

Part IV

Conclusion

III - Appendices

Appendix 1: Important People in My Life [Calvin S. Fuller]

Appendix 2: Advice, Whether or Not [Calvin S. Fuller]

Appendix 3: People, Things, and Inventions We Could Do Without [Calvin S. Fuller]

Appendix 4: Pointers [Calvin S. Fuller]

Appendix 5: Presentation for Induction into the National Inventors Hall of Fame [Ann L. Fuller]

Appendix 6: Calvin S. Fuller Biographical Sketch

Appendix 7: Calvin S. Fuller Obituary

Appendix 8: Suggested Further Resources

IV - Photographs

Calvin S. Fuller: Growing Up (1906-1918)

Calvin S. Fuller: The More Serious Years (1918-1930)

Calvin S. Fuller: The Productive Years (1930-1967)

Willmine Works Fuller: Before 1932

Calvin and Willmine Fuller: The Later Years

Acknowledgments

## Foreword

Calvin Souther Fuller (1902-1994) was not a parent who freely shared his feelings with his children or regaled them with stories of his youth. What he did do, however, was set an example of fair play, hard work, and unstinting commitment to our fulfillment.

As if to compensate for his reticence, late in life, he wrote a memoir of growing up in gangland Chicago, his deliverance via the University of Chicago, and his career in science—culminating in the co-invention of the solar cell—at Bell Telephone Laboratories.

In the memoir, he revealed the toll taken on the family by his father's alcoholism. Perhaps his most beneficent legacy to his three children was that of a husband and father who never raised his hand, or even his voice, to his wife—our mother—or to us.

Calvin Fuller chronicled his life for his family, not the general public. A private, humble man, he would be chagrined not only by the idea of publishing his story, but also by the presumption that it might be of broader interest.

In the decades since his death, it has dawned on us that it would be ungenerous to keep his reflections within the family. So, not without misgivings, but unanimously, we've decided to publish our father's memoir so that others might take inspiration from his exemplary life, as have we.

John William Fuller

Stephen Souther Fuller

Robert Works Fuller

## Editor's Preface

Calvin Souther Fuller (1902-1994) lived through most of the twentieth century. In 1986, he was interviewed by the Chemical Heritage Foundation as part of a series to preserve the stories of notable figures in chemistry (1). At about the same time, he began to write a personal account of his life. Two of his sons, John and Stephen, discovered the memoir while cleaning out their mother Willmine's apartment after her death in 2001.

In Part 1 of his memoir, Calvin Fuller describes his childhood on the South Side of Chicago, his extended family, and his association with neighborhood boys. Although he excelled academically, he also engaged in games, sports, pranks, and mischief. At the same time, he developed an interest in building things, tinkering, and chemistry, aided by his youngest uncle, Norman Souther, a budding inventor only four years his senior. While Calvin had the loving support of grandparents, his father's alcoholism led to chronic financial instability, family stress, and frequent moves within Chicago for him, his sister, and his mother.

In Part 2, he chronicles his efforts to acquire a higher education while contributing to the family income. With the help of Mabel Walbridge, his high school physics teacher, he won a scholarship to the University of Chicago, where he spent his first two college years (1920-1921) studying science. Forced to drop out for financial reasons, he worked first as a chemical analyst and then as a photoengraver, continuing his education in night school and during the summers. Eventually he returned to campus to finish his B.S. in 1926 and to pursue a Ph.D. in chemistry, which he received in 1929.

The rest of the memoir, Part 3, covers his scientific career at Bell Telephone Laboratories from 1930 to 1967, doing research in polymer chemistry and solid state physics. It also describes his involvement in the Government Synthetic Rubber Program during World War II, his later professional activities, and his family life.

In 2009, John Fuller began to scan the original typewritten version of his father's memoir, using optical recognition software, to create a more readable version for the family. However, because of the many revisions, inserts, and handwritten notes in the original, this approach became overwhelming and he completed only part of the scan.

In 2013, Calvin Fuller's eldest son, Robert, proposed to his two brothers that the three of them publish their father's memoir. While Calvin did not intend or prepare it for a wider audience, thinking it too personal, detailed, and lengthy, his family thought that sufficient time had passed to consider making it public. Most of the people Calvin mentioned were deceased and the events he described had occurred long ago. While the memoir was not a shaped literary work, it could provide valuable source material to historians of science and others. In addition to documenting the path to becoming a scientist of note, it explored the themes of growing up in early twentieth century Chicago, overcoming the challenges of family instability and financial insecurity, and contributing as a scientist to the U.S. war effort during World War II. The family believed that public attitudes about privacy had changed dramatically since Calvin Fuller first began to write the memoir. Alcoholism, once a source of family shame, was now discussed more openly and viewed as a disease. The obstacles that Calvin Fuller overcame enhanced his story and made his accomplishments even more remarkable.

Woody (Eric) Fuller, Calvin's grandson, volunteered to retype the manuscript. His transcript has been carefully checked against the original. The text has neither been cut nor substantially modified in the editing process. However, spelling and punctuation have been standardized and corrected, names checked, dates provided, and some minor stylistic changes made to clarify the content. In addition, the names of a few of Calvin's associates have been changed to protect their privacy.

The family decided to include two autobiographical pieces by Willmine Fuller, adding her voice and some details to supplement Calvin's account. [See section II.] In addition to the influence she had on him and their family life during Calvin's working years, Willmine, with her sense of adventure, set the direction of their lives in retirement with the move to Florida and their many travels. Calvin and Willmine were married for nearly 62 years. Calvin says of his wife: "Willie was what I needed to make me anywhere near whole." (See Appendix 1.) Toward the end of his memoir, he adds: "It is my hope that Willie will take up her pen and typewriter and produce a separate record of these memorable events in our lives."

A series of appendices follow Willmine's reminiscences. [See section III.] The first three were included by Calvin. To these we have added "Pointers," which illustrates his philosophy and his relationship with his sons; the presentation for his posthumous induction into the National Inventors Hall of Fame in 2008; a biographical sketch; an obituary; and a list of suggested further references.

We have included many photographs to add a visual dimension to this memoir. The majority of them were provided by John Fuller who, after Willmine's death, digitized his parents' large photo collection spanning five generations. The remaining ones were contributed by other family members, the AT&T Archives and History Center, and the Special Collections Research Center, University of Chicago Library. In addition, Norma Souther Ward, Calvin's first cousin, whom we located while preparing this memoir, generously provided photos of her father, Norman G. Souther and her grandparents, Calvin and Jemima Lothian Souther.

On a personal note, my desire to edit this manuscript and help bring it to publication comes out of gratitude to Calvin and Willmine for their encouragement over many years. They welcomed me into their family and supported my choice to study science and undertake graduate work. They helped by providing general assistance and extensive childcare, whenever needed, starting from the birth of their first grandchild, Karen.

Ann L. Fuller, Editor

(1) For a summary of the Calvin Fuller 1986 oral history interview, conducted by James J. Bohning, see  http://www.chemheritage.org/discover/collections/oral-histories/details/fuller-calvin-s.aspx.

Ann L. Fuller is an Affiliate Scholar at Oberlin College. She received an M.A. in history from the University of Chicago and a Ph.D. in plasma physics from Columbia University. Retired from a career in social service administration, she currently consults to non-profit organizations and does historical research that combines technology with oral history and genealogy.

# I - Calvin S. Fuller

_Time Saved? A Poem_

Innocent child of youngest year

How relaxed your hours seem,

Free of hurry, free of fear,

Time is like a placid stream.

Active youngster, steeped in play,

No more crying from the fall,

Tireless at the end of day,

Heedless of the supper call.

Young man now, no time to spare,

Run to school; no time to wave,

Chores to do, a "see you there,"

Forgets to wash, a moment to save.

Grown man now, a family to raise.

Pressed by work, slips by a friend,

Every week filled with busy days,

Birthday card, forget to send.

Old man now in view of grave,

Only one gnawing question to face,

"Where's the time I fought to save,

Where, those moments I would replace?"

\- Calvin S. Fuller

## Prologue

Everything in these memoirs is true so far as I know and the names are real. Had I known how difficult it is to write about matters which happened so long ago I probably would not have undertaken the task. There is a tendency for those who undertake jobs of this kind to feel that their life histories are so exceptional that all the detailed experiences must be preserved. I hope I have not written these pages for that reason. No, I was sort of curious about some of the past myself. Then for my family, I thought the account might make some of the actions that I took to be a little more understandable. The account is obviously not written for public consumption. It is far too expository and private for that. For the greater part therefore I am afraid that the writing style will discourage interest by those outside of the immediate family members.

I am told that both my father's and my mother's lineages go back to the earliest time of our country. Both came originally through England to New England and then gradually migrated west. The Southers came to Plymouth colony where one is recorded as apparently arriving alone and taking duties as secretary to Governors Winslow and Bradford in the early 1630s. More immediately, my grandfather Souther's father [Nathaniel Souther (c. 1824-1856)] died before my grandfather [Calvin Nathaniel Souther (1857-1936)] was born. His wife, my great-grandmother Margaret [Margaret Trowbridge Souther (1827-1909)], brought him and his two brothers to live on a farm which stood almost in the center of what is now Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The Fullers, it seems, came to Massachusetts Colony. Later they moved to Lockport, New York where my father [Julius Quincy Fuller (1876-1947)] was born in 1876. Our family soon moved west, possibly to Ohio, and on to Chicago where I was born.

My mother, Bessie Ethel Souther [1881-1931], was said to have been a tomboy. Who would not have been with six brothers! But I remember her as a practical, capable mother, happy in spirit and most resourceful. She never complained. As a young man my father was said to be a popular, good-looking fellow, quick with the repartee. Some say he played up to the crowd too much. He liked sports and companionship. He enjoyed reading novels and good literature and liked to write poetry. He dreamt of the good life where everything would be calm and blissful, away from the everyday stresses his brokerage life was providing. Little did I realize the stresses my father was under. Later I learned that he was an incurable alcoholic.

I come now to what I see as a most remarkable contrast between the Southers and the Fullers as I knew them. Whether this difference (which I am convinced was one of basic philosophy and behavior) was of genetic or environmental origin, no one can say. No doubt it was some of both. I can testify though that the contrast ran deep in both families.

The Southers were ambitious, industrious, practical, and competitive, and had a strong sense of morality and pride. They were not philosophers and dreamers. They were doers. The Fullers, on the other hand, were dreamers, students, talkers and writers. They were philosophical, non-competitive, and impractical. The Southers' reading was _The_ _Saturday Evening Post, The Daily News,_ and _Popular Mechanics_. The Fullers liked Shakespeare, Poe, Keats, and Conan Doyle.

If these differences are to be attributed to strong parental influences, they were there. Grandmother (Wiley) Fuller [Caroline Wiley Fuller (1844-1916)] was quiet and contemplative and very effective in instilling in her family a love for good reading. She also read Mary Baker Eddy. I am told that Grandfather Fuller, too, was of a quiet contemplative nature. I know he worshipped me and never spoke harshly. Grandfather Souther, on the other hand, was firm, serious and authoritative, but never cruel. He wanted to be respected and to have his orders carried out. Each of us was to do his assigned duties without complaint. Grandmother (Lothian) Souther [Jemima Lothian Souther (1860-1943)] was also a strong-willed person. She had immense family pride and could be very stubborn on matters of etiquette and moral behavior. Grandparents Fuller were more flexible in their attitudes toward life; grandparents Souther, more rigid.

Of course, I was the product of all four of these lineages: the Fullers, the Southers, the Wileys, and the Lothians. But I was influenced during my impressionable years much more by the Southers environmentally than by the Fullers. I don't mean that my parents did not have a big effect on me; they did, of course. But in my formative period, it was the Southers, and particularly my uncles, who influenced me most. I think my practical bent comes from there and I am told I have a fair amount of it. The fact that I managed to get through a number of educational institutions also suggests that I acquired some contemplative ability along the way. Perhaps I should thank the Fullers for that. If there is a lesson to be learned from this, perhaps one could say: Blessed is he who has lots of attentive grandparents, uncles, and aunts.

In re-reading these memoirs I find myself asking, "Why did these things happen? What caused us to behave the way we did?" Here and there I have tried to dig into these questions. But as you will see when you read the Epilogue, the basic question remains: "Why?" We can only conclude that human behavior, in spite of the advances in modern psychology, is far from explained and that some of us are luckier than others. I was lucky.

## Part 1: Growing Up (1906-1918)

###  Under Home Influences

I was under the impression that I was born in a two-story gray stone apartment building on the west side of Lowe Avenue just south of 76th Street in Chicago. My uncle Harold [Harold Whitney Souther (1893-1983)] says this is not so, that I was born across the street from the Southers who lived at 7644 Emerald Avenue. We could have moved to the Lowe address after June (my sister) was born. Take your choice. I always thought that we moved to the house across from the Southers shortly after I was born in 1902. But it appears more likely that both my sister and I were born in an apartment in the house at 7647 Emerald Avenue.

Anyway, this section of Chicago was called Auburn Park and it was a middle-class residential section. Most of the men commuted on the Rock Island Railroad to white-collar jobs in the "loop" about 10 miles away. My grandfather, who I called "Papa Cal," was then or soon afterward a general passenger agent for the Chicago, Milwaukee and St. Paul Railroad, quite a good position. He had worked himself up from telegraph operator, a job he acquired soon after he started to work for the "Road" when he was eighteen. He was born in 1856 and when I was young, he was almost fifty.

The Souther home was a fairly large one for those days. It had a spacious porch extending across the front and around the south side. A smaller porch off the dining room and near the back was seldom used. The house had a big front hall with an alcove containing racks for apparel, and a wall telephone with its hand crank for calling the operator. As one entered, there was a natural oak staircase which rose to the right from the middle of the hall. Under it was a large closet for all of the children's things, including bats, balls, tennis rackets, and the like. In the middle of the hall in the floor was a large square opening covered by a grillwork out of which all the heat to warm the house came. Most of this went straight up, and in the winter you generally had to keep warm by sitting in front of the fireplace in the living room where a fire of cannel coal burned constantly. Somehow this family of nine, sometimes plus two maids, managed to live in the nine rooms and one bath. But at that time sleeping two in a bed was the normal thing.

The two older boys (Will and Cal) were gone from home then, as was my mother, Bess. Frank was soon to leave for Montana where Papa Cal had homesteaded a 640-acre farm near Mildred. There Frank was to contract typhoid fever and come home to die at the young age of 28. Sid [Sidney A. Souther (1887-1975)] was home weekends. He was studying at Armour Tech to be an electrical engineer. Harold was in high school and Norm, who was only four years older than I, was in the Oglesby grade school across Halsted Street where the trolleys ran. It was Norm who I tagged after, and as I will mention later, from whom I learned a great deal about mechanics, electrical things, and much more.

It is said that when I was four or five, Norm resented me when I came to visit and planned little "accidents" that I would be blamed for. Once he was accused (perhaps wrongly) of giving me an ink bottle with a loosely screwed-on top, which I promptly emptied on the living-room rug. I cannot attest to this, but I do know I worshipped Norm and would do whatever he said.

Never to be forgotten were the dazzling fireworks displays at the Southers every Fourth of July. People came from all over the neighborhood to see them. In those days, public fireworks were a rarity. The fireworks themselves always arrived in a box the size of a trunk and were stamped with all sorts of Chinese writing. You see, Papa Cal helped the Chinese immigrants get rail passage in the U.S. and this was their way of expressing appreciation.

There were pinwheels, Roman candles, colored lights, and even some burning figures. But I liked the firecrackers the best. These were hung in strings of whole packages from clothes poles nailed to the roof of the front porch and when they were lit, they sounded like a battery of Gatling guns. Why the house didn't catch fire, I will never know. I wonder now whether the great impression made on me by these displays played a part in my choosing chemistry as a career.

I remember the hammock strung between the two big poplar trees in the backyard where Papa Cal snatched a little sleep, the big watermelon parties we used to have in the "backyard" with all the grown-ups on Sundays, the inclined doors on the basement entryway which we kids used as a slide, the high bull-rushes across the alley where we used to have Vietnam-like battles, and the garden full of tomatoes and sweet corn. I also recall the time the maid, in her excitement, tossed a pillow out the kitchen window for me to land on after the screen holding me had given way. But it is difficult to order these impressions in time because I was coming to visit the Souther home over many years.

The Fuller Family had also lived in Auburn Park at the turn of the century; in fact my mother and father had met as students at Calumet High at 80th and Lowe. The Fullers, like the Southers, were an old Massachusetts family that slowly migrated west. Grandfather Fuller had spent twenty years doing dentistry; he was a graduate of Tufts Dental College in Cincinnati, Ohio. He had done fairly well and the home they had lived in Auburn Park was much like the Southers', a large frame house near 77th and Green Street. I think it is strange, but true, that the Fuller family also consisted of boys (Rob, Jule, Edgar, Leigh, and Gene) and only one girl, Annie.

Shortly after my father married, the elder Fullers moved from Chicago to a small frame house at 813 Oneida Street in Joliet, Illinois. It is rumored that my grandfather suffered a large financial reverse at the time. There he got a job as a salesman for Durand and Kasper food products. I still remember accompanying my grandfather Fuller [Eugene Corydon Fuller (1844-1914)] in his horse and buggy on several of his rounds. Best of all were the drawers full of dried fruits that he kept at home and into which we could dip whenever we wanted.

Grandma Fuller was a Wiley. She was small, quiet, gentle, and intelligent. She was an excellent cook with little in the way of kitchen facilities—hand pumped cistern water and a wood stove. All of the Wileys were well-educated and well-mannered. My great aunt, Daisy [Dara Wiley Harmon (1863-?)], was an example. She was a perfectionist on English diction and an authority on English literature. She had been a teacher, but when I knew her she was a private tutor governess to the Netcher family, wealthy owners of the Boston Department Store in the Chicago loop. Unlike her sister, (my grandmother), she was very strict and we kids soon learned not to test her.

Another of grandmother's sisters was married to a Hutchison. She had two sons, Seymour who became a doctor, and Rod, my father's age, who often visited us in Chicago. They lived in Cairo, Illinois. I learned later that Rod died in a Negro disturbance there. Both served in World War I.

My father's brother Edgar [1872-1928] married Frances Reid of Moline, Illinois. The Reids were part owners of the Moline Iron Works (later John Deere Company). Soon after my grand folks died, Edgar moved from Kansas City and took over their home in Joliet. He remodeled it into a larger and more modern home. Edgar was now a banker in Joliet and was doing very well, but unfortunately was struck down with pneumonia in 1928, from which he never recovered. He was about forty-five. I served as a pallbearer at Edgar's funeral and his death made a lasting impression on me.

Before Edgar's death I frequently visited my cousins, Frances and Bob, in Joliet. They were about the same ages as June and I, and we got along very well with them and had great times during these visits. But Bob Fuller was a little young for me and I often played with Lester Gardner next door. Lester had captured lots of live birds which he had caught under his porch. I soon learned the trick of how he caught them. We would sit quietly under the raised iron watering troughs, which were on almost every street corner in Joliet for the purpose of watering the many horses used in those days, and wait. Soon birds would come, sparrows, robins, jays, and others. Just as the birds dipped to drink we would come up behind them with one hand and grab them. We caught literally hundreds of birds in this way—so many that our parents made us finally release them.

(Note: Fran and Bob both are alive at this writing (1986)—Fran in Moline and Bob in Countryside, Illinois near Chicago.)

My Aunt Annie [Anna Eugenia Fuller (1870-1949)], the one girl in the Fuller family, lived there (1910) with her husband, Conn Lowall, in Aurora, Illinois. I used to go there also and play with my cousin Gene, their only child, who was about a year younger than I. Gene Lowall graduated from the University of Montana and became a journalist (Denver Post) and a writer of fiction—the Fuller influence. He died in New York in the early '70s.

The Lowalls were strapped for money at that time, and I remember once when the only fare was tomatoes, which they grew and bred. They called it "tomato sandwiches" and though I never had anything like it before, I found them quite edible and tasty. They lived near the Fox River and I remember my Uncle Conn taking us there in a boat where he dived for clams and oysters. One time we found a pearl in one which looked just like the head of Lincoln and I kept it for a long time. Conn turned out to be a poor provider (he too had a drinking problem) and eventually the family moved to Bozeman, Montana where Annie got a job teaching school, eventually becoming school principal. Later she became superintendent of all schools in Miles City—again the Fuller intellect came to the fore.

Both of my grandfathers homesteaded farms in the vicinity of Miles City, Montana. Gene Fuller [Eugene White Fuller (1888-1967)], my father's youngest brother, spent time there and Cal, the next to oldest Souther boy, managed the Souther ranch until he went broke and had to move his family to Spokane, Washington. That was only after many years of hard work and drought losses. All the brothers at one time or another tried to help out. The experience cost Frank's life and Cal's fortune, but taught the Souther boys many hard lessons besides how to ride horses and shoot from the hip.

(Note: Calvin C. Souther, my cousin now living in Portland, Oregon, vividly described his youth during this trying period.)

When I was about five, my family moved from Auburn Park into a new "flat" building at 7300 Harvard Avenue in Hamilton Park, one stop closer to the loop on the Rock Island Railroad. The neighborhood was a mixture of older wooden homes and some older two-story brick "two-flats" together with a few and growing number of new larger apartment buildings, like ours, in which there were twelve five-room apartments (or "flats," as they were called then). There were still many vacant lots and this was important because that is where much of our play took place. Not only was there a mixture of dwellings, but also of occupants. Some of the men were tradesmen; some were white-collar workers; some worked at skilled mechanical jobs. Some were of recent German origin, some were Scottish, a few were Swedish, many were Irish, and a few like ourselves were of English origin but had been in this country for many generations.

The men who planned Chicago (we studied the Burnham Plan in the "Wacker Manual" in grade school) were very foresighted. They first constructed an interconnected park system and then built communities around these parks as centers. The parks served to unite the neighborhoods around them by furnishing common activities for the children and the parents at essentially zero cost to them. Gymnastics and sports facilities were there. Picnicking was allowed among the beautifully kept shrubbery and trees. Wading pools and sand piles were maintained for the young. Skating was provided for everyone all through the winter. There was the library and allied classes and a story hour. During the summer months, band concerts were given every Saturday evening. The parks were used hard but remained clean and fresh and green; at least when I grew up it was so. Where the money came from for all of this (which required a large maintenance crew), I never questioned. I know it was not from our family; we paid only $25 in rent per month and no taxes.

There was a vacant lot south of our building and one of my first recollections is playing in it one very hot and lonely summer. It probably was the summer of 1908, soon after we moved in. There was a very neat small frame house on the opposite boundary of the lot, marked off by a painted picket fence which ran back to an equally neat barn on the alley. There lived the very proper Beaudry family, parents and two boys, Foster and Wallace (middle name Rathbone), who I still had not made my friends. Two things that slowed our acquaintance were a pair of goats that the boy tethered in "my" lot. I can still see them lowering their horns getting ready to take a good run at me. Later I played a great deal with Foster and Wallace, but also came to learn that the Beaudrys considered themselves a little above the rest of the neighbors and there were certain sports the boys were forbidden to participate in.

Vera Dodson, a longtime friend who died in 1973, lived in our building across the hall from us. Her father, a tailor, had a quick temper and a large vocabulary of foul words, whereas her mother was very meek and quiet, partly because she was deaf and so was seldom aware or embarrassed by her husband's language. Vera was a year older than I and although we were in different classes in school, we did play together around the apartment. She was a little devil and was frequently spanked on her bare behind before all the neighbors.

Mr. Dodson tanned my hide once. He had just finished making a nice wooden music cabinet which he had stained and varnished to a high gloss. Somehow I was in the parlor with it and was swinging my skate key on the end of a string when the string broke and the key struck the cabinet square in the middle and left a sizable dent there. Before I knew it Mr. Dodson had me over his knee and was letting me have it. He was so effective that my father didn't think I needed any more when I got home.

As I grew older, I began to see that our family had its problems. My father was and had always been a good-looking, jovial, and well-liked young man, if a little on the wild side. He and Harry Ney had lived together as young bachelors at the Auburn Park Golf Club, which was beyond their means. There they partied and learned to drink a lot. It was a gay life that my father never got over. He was employed as a clerk—nowadays called an accountant, but without the luxury of the electronic calculator. My father did it all in his head, and very rapidly too. How awful it must have been to be a mental laborer in the pre-computer days! He worked in the back room of a small brokerage office; Simmons, Day & Co. was the firm name. There were two Day brothers in the brokerage business: "Win" (Winthrop) who was a partner and "Min" (Minton) who, like my father, just worked there for his brother. I assume that my father met Min Day playing golf and got his job that way. Min and his wife always remained good friends and we often visited at their home in Elmhurst, Illinois. It turned out that the atmosphere of the brokerage office was just the kind that my father didn't need. He stuck with it through all his life, changing jobs often since it seems the firms were constantly going bankrupt or, as they said, "to the wall."

I can still remember Jule, as his brothers called my father (others referred to him as "Butch"), coming home very late after presumably being detained at the office. June and I would be in bed with our mother, who must have waited sleeplessly for the sound of his shaky footsteps. There was always some fuss, then a pleading—to no avail— _not_ to carry us down the long hall (I was 6, June, 4) to our back bedroom for fear he would fall. Only snatches of these episodes come back to me now. The aftermaths were always bad with my mother ending up reproving my father for something he knew he was helpless to control—his drinking. Often there were fights, ruined meals. I remember one time when there was a huge loss of temper and a throwing of potatoes: my father was so mad, actually, at himself. Somehow we went on, but not well, because as always happened, the money ran out.

I can still see in my mind's eye that first apartment. It was the one of the twelve that was right on the corner commanding a view of both Harvard Avenue and of 73rd Street in both directions. It was sunny, except for the kitchen, and nicely furnished. You entered from the second vestibule of the building (the mailboxes and speaking tubes were in the first) onto a long inner hall. The living room or parlor was at the right—a good-sized room, well lighted with a group of three large windows on the front and a smaller oval window on the side of the group where mother had a high pedestal supporting a copious fern.

The main bedroom was next down the hall, then the bath with the "modern" tub and washbasin and plenty of hot water. After the bath came the dining room at the end of the hall. It had a built-in buffet with ceiling-high cupboards on each side. Like the parlor, it too had a group of three windows on 73rd Street so it was well lighted from the north. There, Mom served us excellent meals for which I am sure she was never properly thanked. She was famous for her apple pies and must have made thousands. The door off the dining room led to the kitchen to the left and the back bedroom to the right where we kids slept. It had one window slanted to the west along 73rd Street. The kitchen had no outside windows but depended for its light on the upper part of the back door and a window on the back porch. The pantry was plain dark so that even in the daytime you needed a light to see. Fortunately we had electric lights, such as they were, having just become available a few years before. The Southers still had Welsbach gas lamps. The back porch was built around the square opening in the center of the building and joined the others in a stairway which ran four floors up, counting the basement. It was dark there at night and early in the morning when the milk came. One time I remember someone followed the milkman and collected the full bottles after he delivered them.

Time and again the family money ran out. Mother would raid Dad's pockets for grocery money but could not spend it at Moore's. We already owed them far too much. Collectors would come and we were warned not to go near the window; we were not home. No car in the driveway in those days to give one away. Mother would call the office and say my father would be late again. Then things would brighten and we would be a family again playing in the park, visiting with friends. These were the happy days to remember for soon the clouds, the inevitable clouds, gathered once more and everything went down the drain. More than once things became unbearable and we went home to the Southers. Then amends, and we were back. What made it worse my mother and father really loved each other intensely.

One learns somehow to make a way of life of this tragedy, or perhaps one should say a "half-way of life." Mother had to find extra money; she painted china and pictures and sold some of this, often to the Southers' friends. It was tedious work. She also painted thousands of greeting cards by hand in sort of a mass production line, as I recall, doing the same color on each and then changing to another. The earning must have been grindingly small indeed. I never knew all my mother did; I think she worked downtown for many years because we were commonly coming home to an empty flat. My sister spent more and more time away and I now realize why this was. She stayed with girlfriends more but I found a different route, the street gang, as I will tell. So June and I saw little of one another after grade school except at meal times.

The ice-wagon was the first instrument that enabled us to break away from the apron strings, although we were constantly warned about riding on the back step to grab a piece of ice to suck on. When the men jumped in and started up the horses, the slippery load crashed toward the back and heavy slabs had been known to tumble out and you could be knocked off and crushed. But we rode without serious incident, running after the wagon and jumping on the step. It was this way that I met Bonner Miller, a redhead who lived in a new building at 7220 Harvard just north of us. I must tell the one story about Bonner I remember best.

Bonner and I were in our kitchen one Saturday watching my mother clean a chicken for use the next day and Bonner was bragging how he helped his mother and all that when my mom asked him if he ever cleaned chickens. Bonner went right out on a limb and made it plain that this was nothing; he did it all the time, liked doing it. Mom, having finished doing the front of the chick, then obligingly offered to let Bonner do the rear. He stuck his hand in bravely, still keeping up his ploy but folded when he saw what came out. That was the last we saw of Bonner for some time. Besides, Bonner lived north of 73rd Street and for some reason our gang looked on that as a boundary.

### The Street-Gang Years

Up until now I had been under the influence of my grandparents and my own home atmosphere and environment. Now things were about to change. I discovered my peers as I roamed up and down my street and I became, in the eyes of some, a bad boy. I _was_ bad. I stole, cussed, lied, bullied, and destroyed property. But my new environment did not overcome the old completely. I also studied, did well in school, helped out at home, and became good at repairing things.

I suppose one tends to remember more vividly the distasteful episodes of one's life. At any rate it is probably true that what recollections I have are weighted more to this side. Yet I did have many joyous periods of pleasure and play, and largely because of my grandparents' generosity, did enjoy many of the better things in the way of food and toys than befell to most youngsters of my day. Both my mother's and father's families were good to me and I don't think I caused them great worries. But to my own family I must have been quite a worry at times and would have been much more so had they known all.

When I was eight I began playing with the younger gang that was growing up in the neighborhood. New buildings were going up and many new families were moving in. Older families like the Campbells, the Hublers, the Patzlaffs, the Witts, the Muters, and the "Wilseys" [name changed] were having younger offspring. The older brothers of this group had been the original Harvard Street gang. They passed down their traditions to the younger ones, who added some things of their own to them. Sometimes, as in their baseball and football games, the two groups had to overlap in order to obtain enough players, and in this way considerable teaching was transferred.

At first I stayed close to my own playmates around our corner. In the summer evenings we swatted June bugs, which collected in large numbers around the gas-lamp-lights. During the day we played hopscotch, marbles, and jacks on the sidewalks, much to the dismay of Olsen, our janitor who tried hard to keep things looking reasonably neat. But later these activities seemed tame and I joined the more interesting life I found farther from home.

I think the informality with which one child deals with another, the simple naturalness of their interaction, is what makes youngster play so refreshing. It was so in our gang in our neighborhood. You called for a friend when you felt like it, and if you didn't find one you found another. Or you just waited near the lamppost or in the lot and before long a bunch would gather, especially if you had a bat and ball. This was always true on Saturday mornings when we were free of schoolwork. The activity of the day then just developed naturally. We might split up into groups or we might all start playing ball or soccer, but things would get moving. By noon we were ready for a brief lunch, usually gobbled up rapidly in order to get back to the game. Some would come munching on big apples or pears, when the first to spot him would shout, "cores!" which meant that the announcer had ownership of the remainder of the apple or pear. If the original muncher was kindly, you might be lucky and get a very large core, when as likely as not you would hear someone call out "Second cores!" And so it went

The period from about the time I was ten until I reached third year of high school was the busiest and most destructive of my life. One of my earliest close friends was named John Hubler. He went to the parochial school but I began playing with him and Rich Campbell, who with Bob Wilsey became the leaders of the younger neighborhood gang. John would call for me after school or I would call for him, never ringing each other's bell or knocking on the door, just yelling outside until the other would appear. John was deathly afraid of my father and I don't know that I ever met John's.

John and I thought up a great number of projects during our association, many of them criminal, some which could have ended in fatal tragedy. Sometimes we acted alone; sometimes we would be involved with one or two others on the street. I remember once we built a shanty in Fat's backyard (we all called John "Fat"). One side was his back fence. We scrounged wood and tar paper for the rest, probably from buildings going up in the neighborhood. It had a door and a window, but was unfortunately dug below ground level so that water drained into it during rains. It had a fireplace and what we thought was a very clever table suspended by four wires from the ceiling. Like most kids' projects, it was instructive in the building but once finished was soon left idle. Nevertheless, we had many secret meetings in it and used it as a jail for stray dogs.

Fat was a good mechanic. In fact, in later years he went into business with another boy on the street (Jack Middleton) doing auto repairs. Fat's father had many tools in his basement that John could use. I remember that one time we each built ourselves a set of snowshoes. We even built a canoe and took it about a mile to Auburn Lakes to try it out by riding one end on a pair of old bike wheels. It leaked and sank as I recall. We also made skis. I remember still how the first time I tried them I hit a tree and knocked myself out. We had gone a long way to Beverly Hills for a slope and John was afraid I had killed myself. But I recovered.

Fat was also noted for being one of the toughest fighters in the neighborhood and as one of the best ball carriers in football. He was short and strong, not fat. He also extended his talents in other directions. He hunted with his BB gun and later with a .22 rifle which he hid between the beams in his basement. Living as I did in an apartment I was somewhat restricted, but I always had had a fascination for experimentation, for clockworks, and mechanical things. I liked to play with fire and to mix the contents of bottles in the medicine cabinet to see what would happen. I don't know how we got into the gas-pipe canon business but Fat and I got into it, and strangely, out of it safely, but only by a hair—more about this later.

Rich Campbell, who eventually became a motorcycle cop for the city of Chicago, was about two years older than I, so of course I admired him and looked up to him. Rich, Fat, and I often conspired together. One year, Rich's folks made the mistake of giving him a Benjamin air rifle for Christmas. The Benjamin shot only BB's but it was a lethal weapon when it was pumped up to its maximum air pressure. It only was a few hours before Rich had that gun taken away. By that time he had shot me in the back of the neck and destroyed his sister's Christmas watch. I went screaming home and had to have the pellet extracted. As for his sister's watch, Rich was "just taking aim" when the gun went off. Gladys' watch was in pieces. After that experience I was not so sure I thought so much of Rich or believed he was infallible.

There were few places that Fat, Rich, and I could not get to if we put our minds to it. I remember how we used to climb up onto the roof of our apartment building which was covered with pebbles over a tarred base. It was one of the few high places in the neighborhood where you could see in all directions and besides, it was fun to hide up there. I remember how once when we had climbed up there (I can't recall now just how we managed it since no stairway or ladder went up), I nearly made a fatal mistake. Thinking of it makes me sick to this day and helps to explain my innate fear of heights.

Several of us had made it to the roof when someone spied a milk wagon below and thought it would be a good idea to give it a shower of stones. This was quickly carried out and all of us ran. There were a number of dividing walls about three feet high across the roof over which we jumped to get to our hideout on the roof of the adjoining building. Imagine my horror when, as I was about to jump one of these, I saw it went down, down to the basement on the other side. It was an open shaft for light. I nearly became sick as I pulled myself back and continued silently to our hideout. Nothing more happened.

On one previous occasion, I had a similar experience and I think this also added to my growing fear of height. It was just before supper and I was chasing some of the neighbor kids up the backstairs of our building when, on a turn leading to the third floor, I slipped and slid out under one of the two parallel rails that served inadequately to prevent just what happened. I fortunately grabbed hold of the rail as I slid underneath and held on for dear life, screaming. My father heard and slammed out of our apartment and up the stairs. He yanked me in just in time to prevent a fall to the cement cellar below some thirty feet. It probably wasn't the only time my father had saved my life.

All of us kids were experts with slingshots, which we made from carefully selected tree limbs and special large rubber bands purchased at a store on 69th Street for five cents each! (Seventy-five cents in 1986!) All cats, some dogs, and most sparrows were fair game. But we used other weapons as well. I have mentioned the .22 that John Hubler had hidden in the rafters. We also had bows and slings, both of which shot lethal arrows. The slings consisted of a long flexible green limb to one end of which we attached a piece of building cord about three feet long. The end of this cord was knotted and this knot was hooked into a V-notch cut into the side of the arrow near the pointed end so that when engaged, the arrow hung vertically with its warhead up and its feather-end down towards the ground. With the stick poised over your shoulder and gripped firmly with two hands, you could, with a mighty lunge, send the arrow flying some 500 feet or more. I remember one time when one of the kids was put up in the tree in order to see where the arrows, slung over the tops of houses, were going in the next street. Fortunately, no one was hit. The bow-gun, which shot a similar arrow, was another lethal device which we constructed and used. It too could do remarkable damage to fences and garbage cans. This was made by attaching a bow horizontally to a piece of wood shaped like a rifle. The arrow rested horizontally on the top of the barrel in a groove and was launched by pulling a trigger to release the stretched bowstring.

None of the above weapons compared, however, with our gas-pipe cannons. These were constructed from half- or three-quarters-inch gas pipe and were dangerous weapons both for the gunner and the gunned. We usually loaded these cannons through the muzzle with powder from shotgun shells when we could get them. Lacking these, we resorted to the laborious task of de-heading kitchen matches and using the coarse explosive acquired in this way as the propellant. This procedure required that we purchase stick matches at several different stores so as to reduce suspicion and because many boxes were needed. We would spend hours pinching off the heads with pliers, a process we soon got very good at. We soon learned not to hold the match being de-headed over the pile already accumulated because frequently one would catch fire and if it fell into the pile already acquired, that of course went up and with it the paper on which it rested. Sometimes a hole was burned in the bench or table. Once sufficient "ammo" was made, we were ready to load. This was done by pouring a charge down the barrel of the canon and, if it was a charge of match heads, gently tamping them to compact them. This could be a dangerous operation because if the charge should ignite by too strong tamping, it could discharge. If this happened after we had tamped in the rags and inserted the lead shot on top of rags, it could lead to disaster. In fact it did once.

Fat and I were loading a cannon this way in my bedroom. No one else was home. We had put in the match charge, but fortunately not the lead. Fat, who had become hardened to the operation, was tamping in more rags with a brass curtain rod (a heavy piece of metal about three-eighths of an inch in diameter and three feet long) when it happened. The rod flew straight up and penetrated the ceiling. Fat had been grabbing it with his hand and his palm was badly seared, but since the rod had been pushed through his grip, he was not wounded, just burned. We patched the ceiling somehow and treated John's wound. It was easily explained because everyone knew that we had campfires in the vacant lots—John had just burned himself.

Not long after that we had a much more serious situation develop. I do not remember all the details of why it was undertaken; probably there was no good reason. Again we were alone in our apartment. Our dining room windows on the first floor faced north, and across the street was a vacant lot beyond which was a blank brick wall of a large three-story apartment. On the alley to the left were the old brick structures we called "bedbug row." These were individual dwellings but all connected, each with little yard and each had a garbage can in the fence. We had been loading the cannon and firing it out the window, but first, in order to determine its aim and accuracy (which we rightfully decided was important), we sighted it on one of these garbage cans. The distance was about a hundred and fifty feet, and we had to allow for some drop. Fat did the aiming, I probably lit the charges. We shot. Then after a suitable interval to determine that no one had noticed, we went out to examine the garbage can. The slug, a .22 long, had hit the can square and penetrated it, going through sideways. We were jubilant and confident. We reloaded. What would be next?

When a woman came along across the street walking a dog on a leash, I remember Fat had that dog in sights. He didn't want to hit the woman and waited for the dog would get out in front, so he could separate the two. To this day I can't remember whether we fired or not. If we did, we missed both targets and if we did, I would have been the fuse man. I suspect our better judgment restrained us this time. No doubt we discussed the possibility. Perhaps this shows that Fat and I were not bad deep down, just kids. We had no business being allowed to play with firearms the way kids still are free to do even today.

Another cannon episode I remember happened in a nearby lot next to Wilseys'. Our cannon was loaded with buckshot but we were uncertain of our target until we met Frankie Vogt, an older boy. "Give it to me and come along," he said. It seems there was a big flock of sparrows in the Parmelees' tree in their backyard. Frankie took a position under the tree and when the cannon was lit and went off, it took a wide swath of leaves out and some birds came down. We cleared out fast.

The cannon craze gradually died out. Strangely, we never did make pipe bombs. I'm sure we thought of it, but we had apparently a little sense of the limits beyond which we could not go.

But I must tell of another use for match heads which I think was rather ingenious. I am not sure of the inventor, but the device seems to have been passed down through our gang. For it, you needed one of those keys with a hollow stem. We had two in our bookcases. Poor Mom—she never did guess where they went. You also needed a nail of just the right diameter to fit the hole in the key. The nail had to be filed flat on the end. Next, you tied a strong cord to the key, measured off about four feet and tied the other end of the cord to the middle of the nail. Now you were ready to load the hollow stem of the key with match heads. Four or more was a good number, depending on the size of the key. Then you gently pushed the nail into the hole in the key and took hold of the loop in the cord at its middle with your throwing hand. The device was exploded by slamming the head of the nail against a brick wall or a lamppost. If you hit head-on the way you were supposed to, there was a pleasing loud bang—pleasing to us but quite annoying to the grown-ups. But the easing of the cannon craze did not mean the trouble was over. The next phase of our existence proved even more dangerous because it also involved shooting real guns.

Without a doubt, the most notorious gunman was Bob Wilsey. He was about two years older than I and did not very often join in the sports of our gang, nor of the older gang. But if there was underhanded work being done you could be sure Bob was in it. Yet Ralph, Bob's older brother, was as fine a boy as you could find. He was two years older than Bob. How the same family could produce such different types is a question for the experts.

Bob's mother was a shrew and didn't know or care what Bob did. His father was a sport and I suspect quite a ladies' man. I can still see him going off alone in his pressed suit and derby hat. He also seemed not to care. The Wilseys lived in a two-story two-family stone house which they owned. They rented the lower floor to the Tarner family—a family destined for tragedy when their son, Benjamin, was run over and killed by a truck on Wentworth Avenue. But that is another story.

The point is that Bob was let run wild. He would tune in always on one or another of us and before we knew it we were engaged in one of his nefarious operations, almost always involving guns or thievery. He even stole from his old man, as I will tell later. Many of the kids admired Bob for his fearless approach and Fat Hubler was one of these. In fact, my first experience with real bullets (as it had been with the cannon) was in an episode with Fat and some others whose identities I have now forgotten.

It seems that a large stray dog had been captured and put into the Hublers' barn which was seldom used for anything. The animal, although meek enough as I recall, had to be disposed of because of its "viciousness," at least that is what Fat decided. A plan was worked out whereby a ladder was put up to the loft above the floor where the dog was and a gun barrel was pointed through a knot hole in the floor, i.e. the ceiling of the first floor, through which the dog, sleeping soundly, could be observed. It was an old gun barrel off a .22 or .32 rifle and a shell had to be put in the end. To fire it, as apparently Fat had done before, the cartridge was hit by a hammer. So the barrel, firmly mounted, was aimed and fired and the sleeping dog didn't even move—the bullet pierced his brain. Now he had to be removed without anyone noticing. So Fat got a canvas and his wagon and I faintly remember how he said we all were needed to lift the dead dog into the wagon in the barn. This was done and I can still see the procession move out into the alley and down the sidewalks and adjoining alleys about a mile to a spot over near the car barns where a burial place was found. Nothing more ever came of this incident. None of Fat's family, his mother, father, or older brother, ever seemed to be around to question his actions on these occasions. In fact, I don't believe I ever met his folks.

But, as I mentioned before, real gunnery centered on Bob Wilsey. When his mother was out, Bob would get hold of his father's .38s and .32s, which were kept in a trunk. Sometimes we had target practice in the basement with them. More often, Bob would get out his own rifles and shotguns—Benjamin pump guns, 12 gauge Marlin and Remington repeaters. Officer Long, our local cop, knew Bob had to be watched. Once he had traced bullet holes in the bedroom of a house over on the next street to Bob by lining up the hole in a bedroom wall with a hole in the window. I know Bob was taken in under suspicion, but somehow he got off with only a warning.

One time Bob was nearly caught, though. He had told us that he had a motorboat and had even taken some of the kids over to Lake Michigan to see it. So we knew he was not kidding. All alone he had stolen it from its Chicago River berth and motored down the Lake to 76th Street, a distance of about ten miles. Eventually the boat was recovered, but Bob wasn't found out.

One of Bob's periodic doings was a "wild animal" hunt in his basement. This consisted of capturing all the stray cats he could and letting them loose in his basement. Then he handed out guns to those of us invited to the hunt. Except for the cats' eyes, it was pitch dark down in the basement and they were the targets. I don't know how well the heating system worked after these hunts since the ducts must have been riddled with holes. Nor do I understand why none of the hunters were not wounded or even killed. But Bob also didn't mind shooting in broad daylight. I have seen him grab his .22 repeater and bang away from his back porch. Once I saw him hit a Tom which spun way up in the air. Bob hated cats. His favorite stunt was to swing them by the tail against a brick wall! Or he would tie them in paper bags and toss them into the middle of Auburn Lake.

Without doubt, Bob Wilsey was the worst kid in our neighborhood. Actually he was a juvenile criminal. Why he was so bad is hard to explain. He had everything he wanted. But the crucial thing he was not given was parental guidance and affection. Besides guns, as we have seen, Bob dealt in thievery, large and small. His basement was literally full of items he had stolen. One day he came home with an expensive microscope he had walked in and taken from a lab in the Chicago Normal College. He had binoculars, motorboat engines, boxes of shotgun shells and much more. His parents just ignored all this, something I cannot believe if I did not know it was true.

As I mentioned, Bob even stole from his father. Bob did the shopping at Moore's Grocery, always on credit. He would add all sorts of cookies and candies to the shopping list and generously pass them out to us kids. Apparently his father or mother never bothered to check the lists. Bob was never stingy with other people's property and we kids naturally flocked to these handouts.

Once Bob's brother Ralph interested him in a money-making scheme which he probably hoped might take Bob into legitimate paths. Ralph built a very fine rabbit hutch and started off with a pair of rabbits. The idea was that Bob would raise and sell rabbits for profit and thus he would be kept busy. Unfortunately, the first pair of rabbits froze to death on a cold night. But once started, Bob was not to be defeated. He got hold of me and offered to make me a partner if I would finance another pair. My money was in my bank—a very good recording bank the Southers had given me to encourage thrift—all two dollars and some cents of it. It was not long before we had pried open the bank and purchased a new momma and papa rabbit. Up to this point, except for me not telling my folks about the bank, all was legal and above board. But Bob couldn't operate that way. Next thing I knew we were taking a sled down the alley to a neighbor's barn, loading it with "borrowed" feed and carting it back to our rabbits. I don't remember the end of this story. It is quite likely that my folks found out about the bank and that the old razor strap went into action. I think Bob carried on for a while but soon his interest also faded.

Whatever became of Bob Wilsey? When he was about eighteen, he joined the 149th Field Artillery and was shipped overseas during World War I. At the front in France he must have been in his element. After the war he returned to Chicago, unscathed as you might expect, and became a taxi driver. After that I lost track of him until a few years ago when one of the younger gang, Dan McMahon, identified a drunken sign painter in Florida as none other than Bob, 60 years later!

I have dealt in some detail with guns and explosions because, if our neighborhood is typical of that time, they illustrate how deep in our national culture the obsession with arms goes. Today 60 or so more years later, the problem is still with us.

Our gang didn't spend all of its time doing bad things. We engaged in cultural things, too. We put on wild western shows in Campbell's basement, where he had a set-up with chairs, curtain, and stage. Mrs. Campbell, a small, pleasant, red-haired woman, encouraged us in this and made tea to fill our "beer" bottles, because we invariably had a drunken shooting scene—just like in the movies of the day. It was awful drama. We had several "fatal" shootings in every scene and even managed to get real blanks for our revolvers. We were mimicking the movies of that time.

The smaller kids in the neighborhood attended and we collected a few pennies from each. From the proceeds we lost no time in buying ice cream sodas at Rosenblume's Drug Store at 73rd and Vincennes. We generally shared one soda (10 cents) between two of us, each using separate straws—a situation in which the one who could suck the hardest got the most. If we had made enough money so that each of us could buy his own soda, we would try to make it last as long as possible by holding a mouthful for a time to relish its delightful tang. Then we would blow it back through the straw so that we could experience its flavor a second time.

Never to be forgotten were those quiet, balmy evenings in the spring when, after hours of exhausting play and the rejuvenation of a big supper, we kids would gather on Campbell's front steps and just sit. Boys and girls, together enjoying the hum of our bodies and that intoxicating June night atmosphere. Then a lull would descend over us with the deepening dusk and we would talk in low tones, not all at once but one at a time, in a spirit of rare politeness. It was in part the balmy air, in part the full stomachs, in part the pleasantly tired bodies, and in part the cozy feeling of peaceful coexistence. It was not a rap session; more like a group therapy.

One could probably write a book on the strange and complex behavior that is youth, and try to search out the reasons for it. Yet I doubt whether we would know much more if we did. Perhaps it makes more sense to ask whether all these weird experiences serve any purpose for the individual or for society. Surely they are all part of a learning process, though one might hope that a better system could be devised.

As I have remarked earlier, we kids were not always thinking up bad things to do. We had our quiet times. On rainy days at home we would spend hours constructing machines with our Mechano and Erector sets. When we tired of that we might play cards or other games—even Tiddlywinks. Sometimes we drew on our own imaginations and thought up weird activities. Most kids at some time or other masquerade in old clothes of our parents or older family members and we did this, but I think our imitation of the street organ grinder was rather novel: We would place two dining room chairs front-to-front and cover them with a sheet or spread. Then one of us would climb inside onto the chairs, taking a comb and paper to provide the music. The grinder going through the motions outside would call for a tune and commence grinding when the accomplice inside would play the tune called for.

Another pastime I remember doing with my sister at these tedious times was to pretend that the floor of our apartment was a lake. We would traverse it by laying a string of magazines down—about six or seven would do—spaced about a step apart. Then to move from landing to landing we would take the magazine from one end, pretending that it was a float, and drop it in the "water" at the other end, being careful not to step off. In this way we would move safely from room to room.

But most of the time our weather was good and we would take to the outdoors. Even then I spent a lot of my time working at mechanical things. I had accumulated a few tools and enjoyed taking appliances apart. I also became fascinated with small boat building, both sail and motor type. The latter were run by clocks or steam jets, using a baking power can as a boiler and candles as fuel. They had to be tried out in our big tub at home. The sailboats we could try in the big pond at Hamilton Park. Much of the inspiration for my mechanical endeavors came from magazines in our library, as well as from experiences at the Southers' workbench, watching Norm. More of this later.

### Sports, Games, and Fun

While the very name "street gang" implies mischief, as I have said, most of us were not really bad kids. Much of our time, most of it out of school, was spent playing games and engaging in sports. On the street and in the lots our sports were unguided. They tended to be rough and argumentative. In Hamilton Park there was some guidance and quite a bit of authority so that the activities there were more formalized.

Hamilton Park was truly a wonderful playground. It drew kids in from all of its four sides. The outdoor gyms—one for small kids, one for older boys, and one for older girls—were the last word in equipment and layout. The ball grounds had enough room for six baseball games at once. In the fall they became soccer and football fields. The tennis courts were some of the best and produced at least one national champion, George Lot, who lived on our street. The courts were used mostly by older boys and girls and the grown-ups. My father played there and I remember how he would, if we begged, slam a ball straight up in the air out of sight. I played with Norm a few times but never learned to play very well.

We also played baseball in Hamilton Park with the school teams. I had played a great deal of sandlot baseball and was pretty good at it. It was during one of those school games or practices that I suffered a near-tragedy which was to prevent any career of this sort I might have imagined. I was playing shortstop and our side was ahead. The other team put up a "pinch hitter," a lad older than any of us and no doubt a high school player. He slammed the first pitch directly at me. There was only one bounce and it struck me square on the nose. I was knocked down. There was lots of blood which I washed off in the drinking fountain. When I got home my mom noticed I looked funny, but I said I simply had had a nosebleed. Then the next day I was carried out of school and taken home. I had fainted and was unconscious in which state I remained for almost a week. The doctor said it was a blood clot at the base of the brain. But it finally did dissolve and except for a flat nose and bad sinus trouble ever since, I have not had much trouble from it.

Most of our sports and games during the summer were in our own neighborhood, in the lots and on the streets which were now paved with smooth asphalt. We played both hardball and softball in the big lot between the Campbells and the Patzlaffs. I remember when Rich caught a fly on the nose when he tried to field it through the leaves of one of the many elm trees that lined our street. There also was the time I fouled through the Patzlaffs' kitchen window which unfortunately was directly behind home plate. Mrs. Patzlaff would not release the ball until I replaced the window which cost $2, a lot of money in those days.

I don't know how we would have gotten along without the big lot. We used it for football in the fall. We skated on it much of the winter when we weren't in the park, until the March thaws. Then was the most fun of all, for the water would collect on top of the ice, sometimes to a depth of five or six inches. We would nail wooden boxes on our sleds and pole them through the water with broomsticks into the ends of which we had driven nails, filed to sharp points. We had armadas and would charge one another, often spilling into the cold water. We would transport small kids to islands and sometimes leave them there crying until rescued by an older brother or sister. The place would swarm with kids, especially on those rare spring-like days when you could remove most of your heavy clothing.

One episode occurred when, for some reason, I pushed Al Patzlaff into the cold water as he was reaching out to retrieve his sled which had slid out from shore. He was about two years older than I and his lanky form floundered about in the icy water for enough time to allow me a head start as I streaked for home. But he held on to his pole with the nail in the end and I could see him gaining, the sharp end extended. Literally spurred on in this way I made our front steps in one leap, banged through the outer and inner glass doors and into our apartment slamming and bolting the door just in time. No one was home. I don't remember what I was mad at him about, but I suspect Al got even with me later. Actually I liked Al and his brothers. They were an accomplished and well-behaved family in the old German tradition. Later Al became an expert in radio construction. This activity got the Patzlaffs a lot of undeserved criticism during the war (World War I).

I liked the times we played football in the big lot the best. We would collect ten or fifteen kids, choose sides as equal as we could and go to it. Only two kids had footballs so we had to have at least one playing. Henry Witt, who later took over his father's profitable sign-painting business, was one. We generally played on Saturdays when we could get into our oldest clothes. It was a rough game, especially if you were small because there was not much attention paid to size or age. You played where you fit in best. I was light and usually played tackle.

There were two groups of sandlot players when I first got involved in football, one based on the older bunch and one on the younger to which I belonged. Some got into both games; Fat Hubler was one who did. Rich Campbell was another. Fat's older brother, Ed, as well as Marvin Campbell, Frankie Vogt, Ralph Wilsey, Ed Patzlaff, John Enders, and some boys from adjacent streets made up the older gang. Our bunch was composed of the younger brothers and new kids who were coming in droves. Some of them were: Mal Campbell, the McMahon brothers (Bill and Dan), Hank Witt, Merritt and George Fleming, Ray Pullen, Herb Blaschen, Bob Eischen, Don Nightingale, Max Rasmussen, and others. Wallace or Foster Beaudry never played. Their mother, probably wisely, forbid it. Max Rasmussen shoveled coal for his father, who was janitor for the Muter apartments, and was as strong as an ox. Everyone wanted to be on his side. As Dan says, he was like Olie in the cartoon who took the ball right through the cement grandstand.

It was a sad day when they built two big four-story apartment buildings on our big lot. We had then to move our field to a small lot next to the Wilseys', which was narrow and rocky at the back. Maybe that is why Bob Eichen and I took a special grudge against poor Mr. Finney who became the janitor in those apartments.

In the winter, skating took over and in Hamilton Park we had an excellent place to do it. This was the big circular area, used for summer and fall sports, about a quarter of a mile in diameter. This was flooded and frequently resurfaced to give us the best and smoothest ice you can imagine. There were "warming houses" heated by red-hot pot-belly stoves where we could put on our skates. There was a boys' side and girls' side and benches along the walls to sit on. You left your shoes under the benches and if you were wise you never came back to get warm in the coldest weather because once you did you never felt warm again.

My sister and I were taught to skate about as soon as we could walk. Both of my parents were good skaters and they wanted us to enjoy the sport, too. As kids we lived on skates for almost three months out of the year. We played hockey all day Saturday, using the frozen horse droppings as pucks. These were plentiful because they used horses to plow the snow off the ice. I still remember how much fun it was to be the first to skate down the plowed lanes through the high snow banks and to get going fast and dive through the large soft snow piles at the ends.

Another thing we did in the winter was to go "hitching." We would loop the ropes of our sleds around the axles of the grocery wagons or, if they used sleighs, around the back runners. This was fun if the weather was not too cold. The drivers usually didn't object because we would earn our rides by delivering loads of groceries for them. But hitching could be quite messy during a thaw when mud was mixed with the snow and the mixture splashed all over you during a fast run.

In the spring, before the heat set it, the roller skates would suddenly appear. Then we would range over the sidewalks in fast-moving bunches. Unfortunately, our own walks had small pebbles in the cement so that the skates vibrated uncomfortably. So we frequently went out to the older neighborhoods like Auburn Park where they still had the smooth sandstone slabs on which we glided very easily.

We soon learned to make our old skates into the famous Chicago skateboards. I don't know where they originated. Maybe someone in our neighborhood invented them. What we did was to find a piece of two-by-four about three and one-half feet long, attach by nails the front and back half of a skate to the front and back of the board, turn the whole thing over, nail on an orange crate with handles on it, and you were in business. With these contraptions we could wear a shoe out in no time but it was amazing the ground one could cover, and the craze spread with great speed too.

The summer heat drove us to the lake—big Lake Michigan. But I must say that all of my numerous trips there did not result in my learning to swim. Fat Hubler and those who could swim had learned in the "plunge," which was an oversized bathtub in the field house in Hamilton Park. The Lake was too cold when calm and too rough when warm enough to practice, so few ever learned swimming there.

If we kids didn't have the ten cents for the eight-mile round trip to the beach at 75th Street, which was often, we would ride our bikes there. I didn't have a bike so I usually rode on the bar of Fat's or Bob's bike, which was very uncomfortable. We would wear our swimsuits under our clothes and would have our mom put up a lunch. Then when we got to the beach, we would bury our clothes so that they would not be taken, always marking the spot in the sand where they were. I remember one time when some kids watched us as we buried ours and then when we went in the water, changed them to another place. We looked for them for an hour or more, digging up large areas of the beach before we found them.

When we did have the money to ride the trolley, we generally tried to ride free since the return nickel in many cases was already spent for a hotdog. One way to do this was to walk the block to the Illinois Central crossing where the conductor had to go up front and see that the road was clear. Hiding behind the car we could dash inside at this moment; or since there was a huge jam getting on at the beach you could try to slide by the conductor saying "you got mine." In desperation, some would purposely yank the trolley off the overhead wire so that the conductor would have to get out and put it back on. This offered another opportunity to dash inside free. Sometimes we were caught though, and paid up by borrowing from a more fortunate buddy.

Even though Lake Michigan was cold and the big pebbles on the shore hurt your feet, we did enjoy the beach there a lot. We could watch the diving off the pier or we could watch the acrobatics of the muscle men on the shore. Bob Porter, Dan McMahon, and some others whom we knew as classmates in grammar school and in high school were among these. They could do back springs and somersaults down the beach which were great to watch. The fact that they were good is shown by Porter later taking a job with Ringling Bros. Circus, where he became an outstanding performer. He subbed for the famous Wallendas in some of their acts. Dan never joined the circus, but last I saw him he looked like he could do a backflip at eighty. I admired these boys but never thought of trying to become good at gymnastics. Nor was I good at any of the competitive sports like golf and tennis where you had to keep score. After my baseball accident I gave up any thought of trying to play for Parker High School. And as for football, I was too light and small at that time to make even the lightweight team. Skating I liked and could do well. It always irked me that I wasn't able to swim and I decided to learn. But it wasn't until I went to college and had the pool to practice in that I really made any progress. I am glad I persisted because it is the one sport I can still engage in now.

There were few sports that we didn't try when we were kids on Harvard Avenue. We had a basket hoop nailed to Beaudry's barn and played in Bill's (Bill McMahon) yard until Mrs. B. objected and made us take the hoop down. It was just as well anyway because Bill was so tall (even at thirteen) that the rest of us didn't have a chance.

Another sport we tried briefly—at least it was brief for me—was boxing. We had always sparred around in the gang but I never got into the real fights. We left that to Fat Hubler and Rich Campbell, who often defended the street's honor against neighboring gangs. But I thought that I could handle Bob Eichen when he asked Bill and me to take up sparring in his basement. He had gotten a new boxing set including gloves, punching bag, and all that goes with it. I guess I underestimated how proficient Bob had become. When my turn came I found I was not going to go the full time against him and bowed out before I was demolished. Bill McMahon with his long reach did much better.

We also wrestled a lot as kids always do. Again I was only fair at that. Often the spectators would pile on the two wrestlers when things got dull. One of the more terrifying moments that I can recall is being face down in the soft ground with about ten kids on top of me and not being able to breathe or move. That's scary.

We played a lot of soccer on Harvard Avenue. The smooth asphalt street made a great field, if rather narrow, and I can remember how during this period it took on a strong, brown color from the shoe leather we deposited on it. Perhaps our parents rebelled and we had to stop playing soccer on this account. More likely we went on to other activities, some of which I will try to summarize next.

When we were not engaged in sports we were playing games or doing other things that only a lively set of juvenile minds can contrive. Some of the so-called games were weird. Many of the other activities were the same as permeated almost every large city neighborhood.

One game we played we called "Duck on the Rock." In this, each player obtained an empty tin can, filled it with stones and pounded it shut to make a sort of metal ball. You stood behind an arbitrary line about fifty feet distance and threw your can at that of other players who had lost the toss. Any number could play and if you missed a can, you had to place your can on the rock where the first had been placed. The last to survive was the winner.

"Baby in the Hole" was a more popular game. It was also more complicated. Four or five players was the best number, but we often had more. First you picked out a flat place in the lot free of grass and each player dug a hole about twice the diameter of a tennis ball and equally deep. These were all within about a foot of one another in a cluster. Next you drew a circle in the dirt around the holes, around eight or ten feet in diameter. About five feet away, a second smaller circle was drawn for the tosser who was chosen by lot. The tosser or pitcher stood in the smaller circle and rolled the ball. The others stood in the large circle near their holes. If the ball went in a hole, everyone except that person ran as far as he could and the tosser jumped into the big ring. The person whose hole the ball rolled in would immediately grab the ball and try to hit with it any of the others outside. If one of those runners was hit he got a stone in his hole. If the tosser was hit, he got one, provided he was in the large ring at the time. The first player to get five stones was the loser and the game stopped. Then came the interesting part, for each player had to bend at the wall and take swats on the behind from those having fewer stones. Husky losers were generally treated gently because they might be the winners in the next game.

"Run-Sheep-Run" was the most exhausting of the games we played since it required endless running. Two teams would be picked and one would chase the other until all of one side were tagged. Some called the game "Cops and Robbers." Actually it was a tamer version of "Ringolevio," played in the very tough Italian ghettos of Brooklyn. We usually set limits of four square blocks within which you could roam anywhere indoors, outdoors, in basements, or on roofs. When being chased some of us could hurdle down a row of fences for a whole block, taking each in one flip in which the fleet sailed over your head and landed on the other side. The searches and chases ranged up and down stairs, through alleys, even through stores until all of one team was tagged, sometimes lasting all of Saturday.

While not a game or sport, walking on stilts was an activity that gave us a big kick. The craze lasted weeks. The idea was to see who could build and operate the highest stilts. I think Hank Witt got that distinction when he made some so high that he had to get on them out of his apartment window, which was a high first floor. The next day he fell off and broke his arm. That ended the mania for sheer height.

But the most fun on stilts came in walking through water during the spring thaws. The icy puddles with the water covering the ice were favorites. Of course one had to have spikes on the end of each stilt to prevent them from slipping. Even then, there were plenty of spills into the cold water.

Another of our activities was "digging-to-water." Our lots were covered with about a foot of rich black dirt after which you hit some gravel and then clean yellow sand. Usually you had to dig down ten or twelve feet to reach the depth where water would come in. I remember one time when we started such a project in the lot next to Campbell's. It started off all right with Fat, Rich, and me digging. After a few days we were down over five feet. A new lad, Wayne Martin, had been watching us and I guess we decided he should be initiated. So we had him take a turn at the digging. By the end of the day we had gotten down to about seven or eight feet. We decided it was Wayne's turn in the hole, the last digging we would do before supper. On some excuse Rich removed the ladder—leaving Wayne in the hole—and then we all ran, taking the ladder with us. Since the sides were steep, Wayne could not get out and his screams could not easily be heard. Well, Mrs. Martin got Wayne home and we three all heard about it from our parents. Wayne was never too popular with the gang after that and vice versa.

Frequently our hole-digging didn't go so far as to reach water. I recall the time we dug a huge hole about eight by ten by five feet deep in the lot behind McMahon's with about eight of us working. We put two-by-fours across the top, covered them with tar paper, and covered that with dirt so you couldn't tell our cave hideout was there. To get in we had a hole, also with a cover, through which we could pass by tunnel horizontally into the main room. Later we dug a fireplace into one end and put a chimney down to it. Fortunately no one was asphyxiated, and before we had to abandon the hideout we had many pleasant fires down there.

Fire cans! This was another craze we periodically passed through—and what fun it was! A good fire can had be made from a crimped (not a soldered) can. A five-pound Chase and Sanborn coffee can was the best. To make it into a fire can, you first punched about twenty to thirty holes through the bottom to allow air to get in using a large nail. Next you cut a hole about one- and one-half inches square in the side near the bottom, leaving on the tin flap as a door. This opening was for removing larger clinkers from the fire when required. Finally you attached a strong piece of bailing wire to the top edge of the can, putting the ends of the wire through the nail holes 180 degrees apart. This loop was almost long enough to allow the can to touch the ground when it was held in your hand at your side. With the proper length you could swing the can in a circle or in a figure eight, alternating the swing from side to side without hitting the ground.

The can had to have a fire in it, of course. This was accomplished by lighting some paper and wood splinters in the can and swinging it gently to spread the flame. When we had good wood "coals," we added real coal and swung some more. In no time we had a flaming forge. On a dark night with a number of us swinging, it looked like a carnival attraction. The amount of fuel one of these cans would consume was fabulous. We were continually visiting the coal windows of the large buildings where the wagons had dropped loose fuel. We picked up all the pieces of coal that had fallen on the ground from the last delivery and then, when this source was exhausted, we were, of course, forced to reach into the coal bin itself. We never ran out of fuel that way.

The nice thing about a fire can is that you can walk around the alleys and vacant lots, picking up fuel and at the same time setting fire to things. All you had to do was to rest the can momentarily on a dry spot of grass and it would burst into flame. On cold winter days we kept warm by sitting surrounded by our red-hot cans. There were accidents sometimes when, for example, two of us swinging cans got too close. Then there would be something akin to an explosion and coals would fly in every direction.

In the spring, besides spinning tops, two other manias took over. One was tossing diablos. A diablo consisted of two wooden cones attached together at their apexes. By means of a string, often attached to two short sticks, you would spin the diablo so that it remained on the string. By practice, you could throw the spinning diablo high in the air and catch it on the string innumerable times. Or you could do other tricks such as throwing it around your arm, catching it on the string. Some of us were amazingly expert at this art.

The other craze was marbles. Everyone went around with bags and pockets full of pee-wees made of glazed clay, connicks of glass and agate, and "steelies." It was playing for keeps. Sometime someone's bag would break in class and marbles would roll all over, causing much disruption.

Some of the kids came to school with gambling boards when the marble season was on and cleaned up because they were purposely made to favor the operator. These were thin pieces of wood or heavy cardboard into which square holes had been cut from one edge. This edge was held down on the sidewalk and the gambler rolled his marbles from a fixed distance at the various sized holes. The operator got all the marbles that missed and paid the number written over each hole when, as rarely happened, one of the lagged marbles would find a hole in the board.

At this point, I recall that there were a number of other shall we call them "activities" which we kids engaged in, individually or in groups. A special few come to mind.

In those early days, the buildings used wooden laths instead of gypsum board as they do today. We soon found a questionable use for these laths, which were lying in bundles around each building site. We would fence with them, swinging at each opponent's lath until it broke, the winner going on to spar with other winners. In the end, one of us prevailed among the shattered remains. I don't know what the builders thought the next morning.

Then there were the rubber molding strips which were used to cushion the street-car windows and were found in the car-barn dump. Since these had a U-shaped cross section, they made excellent projectiles when cut into quarter-inch sections and propelled by a rubber ball. They were particularly effective on bare necks in class.

Hardly an activity was our occasional date with the Golden State Limited, the crack Rock Island train that always passed over the 73rd Street underpass at 5:15 each afternoon. We would squeeze up under the tracks over the viaduct. There we could almost touch the rails and thrill at the thump of the wheels as they raced west to San Francisco.

These describe a few of our harmless diversions. There were other more nefarious undertakings that for some reason or other we felt compelled to perform. Many of these probably should not be mentioned. But if this account is to be complete and truthful, they should be. Perhaps they will tell something about the juvenile mind.

### Pranks and Dirty Tricks

Many of the things we called "fun" were definitely bad, like stealing gum from Rosey's Drug Store, or apples from the front of Moore's Grocery, which we did by rolling them out of view to an accomplice. Or picking plums off of Patzlaff's trees while hoisted on Fat's shoulders. We kids would class these acts as pranks and this leads me into a dark area I probably should not discuss at all.

I am ashamed to say it, but pranks were what we did best. We always engaged in pranks during Halloween week, but we seldom waited for that if someone had a bright idea and usually someone did. Probably the reason we got such a group kick out of doing pranks was that it gave us a feeling of getting even to see the grown-up authorities take it on the chin. Such pranks were also encouraged by the funny papers of those times, especially the "Katzenjammer Kids." It probably was that same revolutionary spirit that seems to be in all young humans. Had we had TV in those days, we might have been a lesser problem.

It takes two or more to have a prank. We engaged in harmless pranks like gluing fake nickels to the sidewalk and jeering out the window at the suckers. Or pouring a bucket of water on the tops of umbrellas as they went under the window during a light rain. Or attaching a knocker to a victim's window after dusk. We had two kinds of window knockers. One required an old-fashion spool of thread with notches cut into the wooden ends. The sound was created when it was pressed against the glass pane and the string wound around the spool was yanked. A bent clothes hanger served as a holder. The other device, which was much more effective and could even result in cracking the window, was made from a large nail and a rubber washer taken off of the stopper of a bottle of magnesia. The washer was passed over the nail and down to the head. If properly fitted, moisture, usually in the firm of saliva, made it possible to stick the nail to the glass by pressing so as to expel all air. A strong fish line attached to the end of the nail ran a goodly distance away. The line was terminated in a series of knots so that by holding the line taut and passing one's thumbnails over them a strong and irritating noise could be made. By means of an extra-strong yank we could save our device for future use.

I remember one Halloween night when Don Nightingale was attaching one of these knockers to the window of a first-floor apartment at 74th and Harvard Avenue. A big fellow, who had been waiting for us, jumped out of the bushes and kicked poor Da-da on the backside so hard that he walked with a limp for a week afterwards. Later it turned out that a young policeman had just moved into that apartment and we were not aware of it.

Some of our Halloween activities, however, were not as harmless as the knockers, although these other pranks involved mostly the older gang which we joined at our own risk. Grown-ups walking down the sidewalk were fair game and could be the targets of over-ripe tomatoes or something worse.

One occasion I shall never forget involved the throwing of snowballs by the older gang. I was only an onlooker but unfortunately, I ran when all the others ran. They had peppered one of the tough drivers of the grocery delivery wagons, who retaliated by grabbing his horsewhip and charging after them. My mistake was to run, too. They all ran into Bob Wilsey's basement and bolted the door with me on the outside. So I dashed with all the speed I could muster out the back gate and down the alley, the driver in hot pursuit and lashing at me with the whip from behind. Finally, after running several blocks, I fell to the ground exhausted. Then the driver let me have it. Someone in a house made him quit or I would have been murdered, he was so mad. I had raw red stripes on my back from the whip, much to the amusement of the gangs. But I had also had a bowel movement and was in pretty poor shape. What they say about being that scared is true.

Eventually you learned not to trust the older gang in anything, but I hadn't learned this yet. One time Bob Wilsey asked me to take a package for him down the street to the cleaners. He said he had to go somewhere and would I do this favor for his mother. Of course I would do a lot for an older boy like Bob. As I left, Bob called, "be sure to wait till he checks that it's all there." I said I would. When I reached the cleaners' place I presented the package and waited. To my horror there sat a smelly headless chicken. I just turned and ran leaving the clerk thinking I had perpetrated the trick.

One other time there was nearly a repeat of the snowball incident but I was smarter this time and stayed out. Again I was with a group of older boys in Hubler's yard. The junk man had just disappeared behind Hubler's barn on his way down the alley with his horse and wagon when, without any warning, two of the kids heaved half-bricks over the barn. Then we all ran. But I dropped into a sand pile next door where small kids were playing. Fortunately, the driver didn't see me this time (or ignored me with the small fry) because I saw him streak through in search of the real culprits. I didn't stay to find out whether he caught them though.

Our younger gang wasn't pure when it came to dirty tricks either. Probably we had learned how to initiate new kids in the neighborhood from the older gang, for we ourselves had been caught on most of the pranks I will describe next.

We called one test of a new kid "following-the-leader." With all of the building going up around us, variations of this prank were constantly being thought up. This one took advantage of the mortar bed. It was the custom in those days for the bricklayers to prepare large amounts of mortar from quicklime and sand late in the afternoon and let it ripen overnight. Usually a good-sized area adjacent to the big sand pile scooped out for the building basement was chosen for this purpose. This would be filled to a depth of over a foot with the white gooey slaked-lime mixture, and then covered over with sand so you couldn't tell it from the sand pile itself unless you knew. This is when we would start our follow-the-leader game: after the men had left and the lime was all prepared. Everyone except the new boy had been told about the jump off the plank so that each of us would go sidewise enough to just miss the lime bed. The new kid, just as we figured, landed right in the middle of the quicklime where he was stuck in the hot mix and left to extricate himself. One mother made the round of our homes after such an event, but we of course were innocent.

Another initiation stunt that we pulled on new kids was even more cruel. The new boy (we never played this game with girls) was made the judge in the game of "return the golden balls." Two sides were chosen, one to be the robbers and one to be the police. The plot was simple: The robbers had stolen the golden balls; the police (after a chase) captured the robbers and the judge gave the sentence after demanding return of the golden balls. The catch, from the standpoint of the judge, was that the "golden balls" turned out to be fresh horse droppings, which were plentiful in the alleys of Chicago in those days. It mattered little that the new lad might be dressed in good clothes to impress us old-timers in the neighborhood. This game soon stopped as the parents complained and as the strap was applied to backsides.

As I have indicated above, Halloween brought out the worst in us all. "Gate night" was the week before and most of the celebrating started then and continued through the week. Often the damage would approach that seen on some of the city streets today after a riot. Entire fences would be laid low with cooperative pulling of perhaps ten to fifteen kids. There were nowhere enough cops to maintain order and certainly no soldiers with tear gas and rubber bullets. Even the victims would decry that. It was the unfortunate janitors of the larger apartment building who bore the brunt of the attacks.

I remember once when the older gang somehow managed to get Mr. Enders' buggy way up on the top of his barn. Another time I recall the same bunch making a catapult out the front end of a dump wagon that had been left in one of our vacant lots. They staked the front wheels so they could not move and, by forcing the long tongue backwards, converted the wagon into a lethal field-piece of Roman times. The shell could be a ten-pound rock capable of penetrating a fence or a barn.

Other tricks were perpetrated against the poor pedestrians on our street. In one, a piece of heavy rope was stretched between two trees about eight inches above the sidewalk, just enough to catch one at the ankles. A person walking in that poorly lighted section was apt to find himself entangled, which of course was the purpose of the maneuver.

Another stunt along the same lines was to saw off a good-sized limb of a tree, one which hung over the walk but was ordinarily well above head height. A clothes line would then be tied to its middle in such a way that the limb balanced in the position it had before it was sawed off. This was done by suspending it from a rope looped over a higher branch. The free end of the rope extended to the back alley where it was tied. When it had gotten suitably dark, the kids would wait until some grown-ups came by and then let the limb down on them and run in glee. The Fagans could not have been much worse than our group on Halloween.

Perhaps our two worst tricks involved chemicals. The first time I recall learning about "potash and sulphur" was from Bob Wilsey. He was hanging over the rail of his second-story porch dropping bricks on something below. After several unsuccessful trials, he finally got an axe and swung at the something on the sidewalk, producing a lot of smoke and a loud bang. That was potash, really potassium chlorate, mixed with sulphur powder. I think Bob stole the "potash" from the Normal College Lab. But we found we could buy it at the drugstore in pill form and got sulphur there too as flowers-of-sulphur. So we were in business. We soon learned that we could load empty Springfield rifle shells with the explosive and put them on the 75th Street trolley tracks. The bang was sometimes powerful enough to derail the trolley. We could hide in the vacant lot next to the tracks, and witness not only the bangs as the car went successively over the charges, but also the cussing of the motorman when he stopped to inspect what had happened. One time about a dozen charges each about twenty-five feet apart were placed on the rail and the repeated bangs were very gratifying.

Our other chemical prank involved quicklime. We had an unlimited supply of this from the new buildings going up and it made an excellent time bomb. All you had to do was to get a fruit jar with a rubber seal and screw top. You put lumps of quicklime into it until about two-thirds full and then added water until the jar was about three-quarters full. Finally you screwed on the top. You had about ten minutes at least before things would happen. This gave time to place the bomb on a porch or in a backyard or near something you wanted to whitewash. It was not so much the noise, although that could be sizeable, as the whitewashing power that appealed to us. Of course flying glass could be a problem, but I don't remember anyone being hurt.

Another chemical we used, not so much for deviltry but again just to make noise (which it did very effectively), was calcium carbide. For this you needed a press-top can, the size depending on how much noise you wanted to make. Then you punched a nail hole just above the base, put a lump of carbide inside, either spit on it or wet it with a little water, and closed the can tight. Quickly you lit a match and held it at the hole. If you had proceeded right, there followed a loud report on the lid. Then you retrieved the top and repeated the procedure. Generally you could get several explosions from one carbide lump.

Bill McMahon had a near-tragedy once this way. He bent over to spit on his carbide but unfortunately there was an ember burning from his last bang. The fresh gas burned in his face. He disappeared and the next I saw him his mother was marching him to the doctor—his head all wrapped in white cloth. But Bill recovered with no ill effects.

Another stunt that Fat and I did, but only once, was leveled at the occupants of the Muter apartments. We noted that their garbage pails were suspended over the railings of the back porches on shallow hooks and so hung out over the yard. When it got dark one night (probably around Halloween), Fat got a long clothesline and attached it to the pails on the two top floors. The loose end went out to us in the alley, where we waited for someone to come out with the dinner garbage. When they came we gave a hefty yank on the rope and the two cans came crashing down right in front of whoever it was. Then we ran as we always did. I think something got to Fat after that because he didn't leave his house for several days. But he didn't involve me, I'll say that for him.

I think our lowest point in pranks, if you can call it that, came when we took to crapping out of trees. I remember one tree, almost in front of Wilseys', a well leafed-out ash higher than his two-story building. The idea was to climb up about opposite the second-story where you could not be seen. You tried not to hit anyone, although some kids might have been considered, but probably just to dirty up the walk like the dogs do. Of course it was not always possible to carry out this mission, but Fat was one who somehow could muster up the urge at will.

In our defense, let me say again that while we were bad some of the time, we were not bad all the time. I have told how we gave the western plays in Campbell's basement to make extra money. We also made money in the spring by setting up a miniature amusement park in Fat's backyard. This involved considerable planning, building, and a fair amount of ingenuity. We had an entrance change at the gate of several cents. Inside there were all sorts of concessions ranging from roulette wheels made from old bikes to roller coasters using Fat's wagon and a series of planks nailed to his back fence. We sold popcorn and lemonade. I am sure we did more damage to Fat's yard than we made out of the amusements, but it was one of the more constructive things we did and I guess it was for that reason his folks did not object. I think this proves that kids don't choose to do bad things if they can be engaged in equally active and interesting projects. The trouble was we didn't have enough to occupy our full capabilities.

As I think back over some of the dastardly things we did, I wonder now at the patience of the grown-ups who had to put up with these things. I think there might have been several reasons for this attitude. There was the general idea in those days that that is the way kids were and they would grow out of it. In fact "Peck's Bad Boy" and, as I mentioned, the "Katzenjammer Kids" were the popular comics of that day and they furnished many novel pranks for the youth of that time. Secondly, the neighborhoods were not as homogeneous as they are now. Grown-ups confined their socializing to immediate neighbors or more distant friends. Finally, grown-ups worked long hours and were too tired to worry unless it came right down to their own children. This doesn't mean that parents did not try to correct misbehavior. They did the best they knew how. I think all the kids I knew, perhaps with the exception of Bob Wilsey, understood when they were misbehaving. And with few exceptions, they knew their parents were right in what they expected of them.

Today's parents, often both working, seem to be making a worse error. They spoil their young with excessive gifts and privileges to make up for their lack of attention and guidance in the home. They rely too much on paid specialists to do what parents should spend their time doing with their own children.

The question might be asked: Was there any indication during this early period of my growing up of any inclination toward a future interest in science? I think there definitely was. For I took a great interest in all things mechanical early and although it may not appear so, I spent a great deal of my spare time examining clocks, bikes, boats, kites, and any kind of device be it a toaster or an electric fixture to determine how the thing worked. Little electric motors were very intriguing to me and, as described earlier, I spent lots of time building model boats powered with jets of steam generated by candle heat. Steam engines powered by wood alcohol were the tops and could be used to perform all sorts of mechanical operations with the Erector sets.

As I shall describe later, much of my interest in technical things goes back to my young uncle Norm. Just how much I would have done on my own had not I been associating with Norm I cannot say, but I think I would have been at least average on my own. The added interest later on in my development probably would not have occurred without the apprenticeship to Norm.

### Grammar School, Smoking, and Sex Talk

Most of the kids in our neighborhood attended Harvard Grammar School located at 75th Street and Harvard Avenue. It was a box-like three-story building surrounded by an iron fence which enclosed large play areas covered with coarse cinders. One side was the boys' side, the other, the girls'. The basement, with its smooth cement floors, was where we assembled to march to class and several rooms down there were set aside with wall benches for those who brought lunches, as I did on rare occasions. Above was the auditorium and eight large classrooms capable of holding two classes each of thirty or more students—over sixty in all. There was also the principal's office in the middle of the first floor occupied by Mrs. Hartigan, a small white-haired woman who could make her eyes bulge when she was verbally chastising an offender. She also had a ruler handy that she would use on the palms of the big boys who deserved more than a tongue-lashing. At last resort, she had the parents. Mine only came once: the time I told a boy to put his tongue on the cold iron fence to see if it would freeze and stick (which it did).

Now I can remember only two of my teachers: a tough red-headed one who would snap your ears with a pencil and ruled her class on a no-quarter basis, Mrs. Blair; and Mrs. Maddock, a dark-eyed, small, and good-looking teacher who ruled with her personality and had just as good control, if not better, than Mrs. Blair.

It seems to be a law of nature that kids left to themselves become demons. That's what happened to us if we brought our lunch to school (as we did when Mom was away) and ate on the benches with the other kids. One kid would start throwing his food around. First a few crusts flew and then it was a melee with everyone joining in—fruit and everything except candy filling the air. I can still remember how disgusted I was after it was over. Perhaps we learned something permanent this way.

I am sure kids are better behaved today than we were. Substitute teachers were treated with chaos. The glass liners of the inkwells would sail down the aisles and smash against the wall in front. None of the troublemakers gave their right names. Pens solicited screams from the girls in the seats ahead, etc. Only when Mrs. Hartigan appeared would peace be restored.

Outside of our classes at recess there was bedlam. The boys would have several fights in progress in one area. In another they were running through a line of opponents from one fence to the other to see how long they could avoid being tackled and felled in the cinders—a game called "pump-pump-pull-away" which is eminently descriptive. Your clothes were generally hanging in shreds when the bell rang.

Then there were the spectator students who clung to the grills of the high windows of the toilets to get a better view of the game. I did this once to my sorrow, because it was a common practice for boys in the john to squirt out through the open window onto the backs of those out there, instead of into the urinals.

In class I was an average student or maybe somewhat above. Albert Fuhrman could always beat me out in math and Genevera Briggs always stayed up longer in spelling (but I was the best of the boys in that). A few other names come back: Elsie Valentine, the fattish girl who lived directly in front of the school, and Esther D., who all the boys knew was doing things she shouldn't in the old box car on the CRI&P (Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific) tracks. She didn't mess with the boys in class but with the wagon drivers and other toughs. She seemed too nice and too mature for our 7th grade and probably was sixteen or seventeen. Jenny C., who attended the Catholic school, also did this. She lived in a four-flat on Stewart right on the railroad. The "fancy" girls, though, lived in Bedbug Row. We in the gang knew who they were because every morning they left for "work" in the Red-light District on 22nd Street, all dressed to kill.

Harvard was a good grammar school in the old tradition. When you came out you knew how to read and write and do arithmetic, and you knew geography and U.S. history. It has always been a strange thought to me that my father attended school on the same location back in the 1880s. The red brick school house he went to was next to our building until they tore it down to get space for the girls' playground.

We didn't smoke marijuana when we were in grammar school but we did smoke everything else. We were not regular smokers, of course; we simply wanted to try everything to see what it was like, much like the kids do now. Coffee, tea, corn silk, and catalpa "bananas"—the latter would turn brown when they were dried and could be cut into small stogies about three inches long. They were really awful—you couldn't smoke them without choking, so they didn't do much harm. Real tobacco had to be obtained by picking up cigarette butts and removing the contents at one's leisure to get a box full of tobacco. I could always collect Bull Durham out of the seams of our furniture where my father dropped most of his when he rolled his cigarettes. The cure for me, though, was not these or the cubebs that we could legally buy because they were "good for the health!" It was Prince Albert. We got hold of a can of it once and I smoked two pipefuls in our basement. I threw up about six times but never said a word to my folks. When queried by the women who hung their clothes in that room, we blamed it on Olsen's dog which we declared we had seen sick down there.

When Freud's philosophy was riding high, it was common for psychologists to attribute everything in child behavior to sex in one way or another. The fashion more recently is to deny most of what Freud taught and to explain behavior on the basis of association groups, mainly on one's environment, granting that each individual has a certain genetic bias. Few deny Freud's claim that sex problems can in some lead to neuroses, but these usually occur in the late teen years when the sex drive is at its height and not in the period I am detailing here. Some of our associates had already reached this period, especially the older brothers of the kids I played with. It was from listening to them that we got most of our ideas about sex and they were seldom good.

We understood that sex was what you did if you were really bad; it was something to be joked about, too. The dirty story was created in its crude state. Often we listened without understanding to tales told by the older ones. But gradually we learned.

Among the gang on our street, sex was mostly talk, even among the older brothers. Bob Wilsey told me how he used to "diddle" with the girls downstairs. I'm sure he did something, just what I don't know. But it was mostly talk. Yet talk on some young ears can be dangerous, especially when it comes from one's peers.

As we grew older, we did gain a most intimate knowledge of what males and females did and although we could not believe the bragging of our own street roughnecks, we did have other direct evidence of the things that went on only blocks away in the park, on the tracks, even at school. I once saw a couple in the bushes in the park who were (as we called it) "stuck." They were face to face and actually couldn't get apart. It was a little dark and I pretended I didn't see them. But we often had seen Patzlaff's dog, Tricks, in this condition, so we knew it happened.

I have already mentioned the 7th grade girls who we knew were "putting out," as the expression was at that time. And again, we were aware of prostitutes because we knew at least one who regularly went off to the "district" each morning. But as for any involvements by any of the guys on the street, I never knew of any. It was all talk.

### Under Norman Souther's Influence (1904-1916)

What I have said above about my early years is distorted by compression and needs to be balanced by telling of the many times I spent at the Southers' during this period. I need particularly to point out the influence of Norman Souther, my youngest uncle, had on me. Norm was an outstanding boy and had he not left Parker High School as a result of a fist fight (the Souther pride again), just as he was about to graduate, he might have gone on to be a scientist or a professor. He not only had an uncanny knack with mechanics, electricity and photography, but he raised chickens, was an excellent salesman, and overflowed with ideas. I think my long interest in science stems from these contacts I had with Norm. Perhaps what business sense I have also goes back to Norm who was a natural born entrepreneur, if a poor bookkeeper.

I was Norm's assistant and he didn't hesitate to order me around. I helped Norm with his wireless and with his incubators, helping to candle and turn the eggs and adjust temperatures. We spent hours tickling galena crystals with pointed wires (cat's whiskers) to find that one hot spot that would bring in the Arlington time signals. I can still hear Norm yell, "I've got them. I've got them!" I helped Norm sell his chicks which he advertised, "delivered anywhere." I delivered many chicks to passengers on the Broadway Limited, the Golden State Limited, and the 20th Century Limited, all three of which came in on separate tracks at the Englewood Station. It was Norm's idea. I also helped Norm sell "skull caps," then the school-kids' rage. We became representatives of the manufacturer and walked the entire length of Halsted Street and other thoroughfares taking orders at every dry goods store along the way. Norm took one side; I took the other.

One time Norm got a retired painter who had worked for the Chicago Streetcar Lines to manufacture to Norm's specifications a fish lure he invented. Norm was quite a fisherman, a sport he learned from Papa Cal. He called his bait "Winter's Weedless Surface Bait" and I was enlisted to introduce it into the loop stores and take orders. No doubt Norm had tried already because I was not very imposing as a businessman at that time. We sold them on a trial basis to many stores but soon the debits exceeded the credits and Norm stopped manufacture.

I would like to give an example in some detail of the kind of activity Norm would plan for the two of us while the other kids were out in the sunshine playing games. This was just one of the recipes that I learned from Norm and added to my repertoire. We were, it appeared, to make a loud-speaker horn that afternoon out of papier-mâché. It went like this: We first collected about six pounds of newspapers from the back entryway, proceeded to the Souther basement, filled one of the washtubs about a fourth full with water and began tearing up the papers and submerging them in the water. When we had what Norm said was the right mixture, we took turns with the plumber's helper, squashing and mashing the papers to a pulp. At times we would use wooden paddles to help macerate the larger chunks, but with much effort we finally reached a point where Norm said it was done. Norm added a number of tablespoons full of flour and some lye and I mixed some more. Norm had greased a large metal funnel (used for kerosene, I think) all over its outer surface and sat it upright on a table. Then he instructed me to hand him batches of the partially dried pulp. This he would plaster on the outside of the funnel, building up a layer of about one-half inch or more. Norm was very particular and took great pains to get the layer uniform all over, even on the small part of the funnel which he made thicker so that the shape of the paper horn was rather prettier than that of the funnel.

The pulp in place, the next step was to place the work on the hot-air furnace to dry and set. This required at least a day, so we were through for the time being. Norm had learned to be patient, I suppose, through many failures, and he didn't rush things. In due course he coaxed the funnel from the papier-mâché and there was our horn. It simply remained to attach the speaker unit, which in those days was an overgrown receiver, to the end of the horn and we were in business.

By this time, Norm had stopped making crystal radio sets and was using vacuum tube amplifiers so he could get good volume from the horn. Usually we had to varnish or stain the papier-mâché to make it look professional and I remember how Norm would invite the grown-ups, neighbors included, to showings in which he would receive voice and music for their amusement and astonishment. A number ordered sets after these demonstrations. These Norm would build, sometimes with my help, though I was bigger and more independent now and becoming busy with my own projects, both electric and chemical.

No doubt Norm caught this enterprising drive from Papa Cal, who was always thinking up money-making schemes for the boys. Both father and son were lacking in their sense of how to run a business profitably and they usually ended up in the red. However, after several failures, Norm did successfully run a radio school in Marshall, Missouri, one of the first such schools in the country. He was also the first to carry a radio on an airplane and receive messages en route. In this he was connected with Wiley Post, and the experience on a wintry day in an open cockpit nearly cost him his life. But that is another story.

I had only one fight with Norm. One time he beat me up properly with his fists under the Southers' front porch. I have forgotten now what I did that he didn't like, but it sure made him mad.

Norm owed a debt, too, to his older brother, Sid, who had preceded him in having an electrical shop and lab at home. Sid attended Armour Tech and graduated in Electrical Engineering, the only Souther to go on to college. He later tried a turn at the telephone business but strangely ended up like my "great" cousin Milton Souther [1885-1967], working for David E. Kennedy, a well-established flooring business. So I probably owed something perhaps indirectly to Sid for the stimulation of my interest in technical things. But Norm was really my contemporary.

I remember one time when my enchantment with something Norm was doing was nearly the cause of a disaster for me. I had overstayed my time at the Southers' and was overdue at home, so instead of running the mile home I decided to take the streetcar. I saw a car leaving the Halsted and 74th Street intersection just as I got there and, always priding myself in my ability to flip on the back, I began running with the car which was rapidly picking up speed. I caught the rear vertical rail with a bang but missed the step; I was being dragged along (hanging on to the rail post with one hand) when the conductor rescued me. He looked at me in disgust as I paid my fare and sheepishly walked on. To save a few minutes I had risked my life. But I still hate to be late.

Whether my chemical curiosities stemmed from my uncle Norm or not I am unsure. Probably Bob Wilsey had more to do with that, with his potash and sulphur; I distinctly remember proving to my own satisfaction that human gas was inflammable. This was accomplished with a bottle in our bathtub, presumably after I had had beans for supper. I recall some difficulty in the collection and more in the ignition, since it is difficult to light matches when one is dripping wet. But the experiment was a great success and I was secretly pleased.

One questionable result of the electrical interest that Norm inspired in me was the wiretapping I did on my sister's phone conversations, as well as those of the neighbors. I feel a little guilty about this now and about the way I used to tease my sister, June. I also used to eavesdrop on the meetings of her sorority. There was that great occasion when, after learning that her best friend was about to be blackballed, the president of the group in a very haughty voice said, "If Dorothy is blackballed, even I may resign!" I also kidded my sister about her boyfriends of which she had a great many. She never knew how I found out about so many things, but it all goes back to Norm.

Norm had lots of wire for his radio work and I had acquired a 500-ohm receiver. So with some of Norm's finest gauge wire, I made connections to the terminals in the box on the wall, and ran the wires along the molding of the room around to the bathroom. There, with my receiver connected, I could sit and listen in.

Eventually I had to own up and stand my sister's wrath. I think my mother thought it rather clever of me to be able to do such a thing. She must have mentioned it to a neighbor in the building because the news got around and I was approached by a woman in one of the back apartments who wanted me to do the same thing to her phone. She suspected her husband, she said. I wisely stayed out of that. But I often hooked my receiver to the junction box in the basement of our apartment where, not realizing it was illegal, I could listen in on any phone in the building. I soon tired of this, though.

My interest in scientific things did not really crystallize until my third year of high school, when I took physics from Miss Mabel Walbridge in 1919. That is the period of my life I will cover next. The previous period, which started about 1908, I arbitrarily terminate about 1919 since at that time we moved from Harvard Avenue to the first floor of a two-family apartment at 7251 Princeton Avenue. It was owned by a Mr. Lacey, who was an engineer on one of the crack Rock Island trains. It was an upward move that we could scarcely afford, as was soon proven. I was in my sophomore year at Parker Practice High School at 68th and Stewart Avenue and had broken most of the ties to the gang I had belonged to on Harvard Avenue. I still saw four of my old friends on weekends; Bob Eichen, Bill McMahon, Don Nightingale, and Jim Dawson. We five stuck together for several years more but we all had made other high school friends. Yet I became sort of a recluse because I now had a private basement workroom where I could do experiments on my own without being told what to do by Norm. I also studied and read a lot of technical books. (More about this in Part 2.)

I would like to insert here what I think is an amusing happening that occurred around 1918-1920. I'm not sure of the time. But it was just prior to the time my Souther grand folks were retiring and giving up their long residence on Emerald Avenue. I was probably a junior in high school. It was also on the occasion of my birthday and could have been 1919. I have mentioned that the Fullers (including my father) were strong on literature. No doubt I was influenced in this direction by my father, who never really appreciated my scientific proclivities. Also, through dint of hard work, I was getting top marks in my English and language studies. It is thus my surmise, and it is only a surmise, but I have to explain what happened somehow—that the Southers felt I might pursue a literary path in my future. The only other factor that might have inspired them to do what they did (that I can think of) is that they simply had to clean out their big attic to make the move to the smaller apartment in Hamilton Park.

Anyway, what they did on this birthday of mine (when I was probably seventeen) was to present me with a complete set of Gibbon's "Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire"! This was a collection of about forty volumes of essentially untouched history books, something which today would be worth a considerable sum. I can see that the Southers, who had never shown too much interest in history or classical literature, would not treasure Gibbon particularly, and there being no one else except my father to give it to—and they probably mistrusted him—they might pick poor me, whom they treated like a son. That, anyway, is the best interpretation I can attach to this strange event. But that is not all. My next act only added to the strangeness. After thanking my grand folks profusely, for I was very impressed, I said I ought to inscribe my name in each volume with theirs as donors. I didn't do this immediately but my recollection is that I did shortly afterward in ink in each of the some forty volumes. What happened to these valuable volumes? I never did try to read them. I know they were to stay at the Southers for a time because we had no space for them and they would require transport. They probably ended up in the storehouse we rented at the time for my parents' furniture because they were also contemplating a move. If so, they were forfeited for lack of rental payment. Or possibly they could have been moved into storage by my grandparents. I will never know. But gosh, I wish I had them now!

### Reflections on My Early Years

I cannot leave the account of this first period of my life without some comment again on what psychological and philosophical conclusions, if any, might be drawn from it. The question arises: How is one to explain behaviors, such as I have recounted above, that we youngsters, and probably most youngsters, exhibit? Probably we should inquire also: How does one explain the parents' behavior, e.g., their apparent unconcern during these times? Although the events I have described did occur, the factors influencing any life are far too complex to expect to come to any eye-opening conclusions by just partially remembering them.

I don't think we can even say which aspects of our environment influence our behavior the most: our homes, our peers, or our schools. Certainly, these environmental influences were much greater than the genetic. If I had to pick one of the above, I would settle on "peers." One's associates I think are the biggest influence. Yet one might wonder about Bob and Ralph Wilsey, two brothers and yet so totally different. Genetics? I thought Bob was bad because of his poor home relationships. Perhaps Ralph was raised during a happier family period. Still, Bob seemed to have some inner capacity for being bad, so maybe his inheritance laid a fertile ground for criminal development given only a weak environmental bias.

One fact does stand out in this review. That is the superior behavior of the German kids, especially the ones whose parents had come from abroad recently. I have in mind the Patzlaff family and the Witt family. The Hublers do not stack up as well, but John's parents had been in this country for some generations. The Patzlaffs and the Witts ran close-knit families. The offspring were taught in the home not only the rules of behavior, but also skills, language, and music. The Campbells (Scots) were less strict but they were a happy and well-run family for the most part. I could cite others, e.g., the well-behaved McMahon brothers and sisters (Irish).

The Southers ran pretty much this sort of home and I no doubt had some of it rub off on me. Our problem was my father's drinking. This, as I have mentioned, had a disruptive effect. I am not saying that if my father had not done this, but had spent more time at home with us, I would not have done the bad things I did. But I do think I would have been better. I conclude from all of this that the structure and teaching of the family is probably the most important factor in the behavior of the young. This is not an earth-shaking finding and one might have guessed it, but it is nice to know that my experience confirms it. The disappearance of this type of parental influence during recent times suggests that some of our serious national problems, in particular the new drug and sex cultures, may have their origins in a weakened family environment.

Many young parents do not know and seem not to care much what their children are doing. It takes mature and dedicated as well as industrious parents to be constantly attentive to their offspring while at the same time earning a living. Likewise, children are in no position to understand the tremendous strains their parents are often under. Consequently, it is not surprising that families today are less well-managed than they were in the early part of this century when the roles of the various members were more clearly defined.

One final reflection: It seems that many youngsters are so impressed with strong personalities among their associates that they can be markedly influenced for good or for bad by them. Unfortunately, the influence is more often bad, and perhaps some who would not otherwise choose to break the law may be influenced to do so. I do know several boys that Bob Wilsey misled in this way. I nearly was. There can be no doubt that peer pressure has a big effect on one's behavior during the early years. Many do go awry. Perhaps this argues for patience and some leniency toward first offenders.

## Part 2: The More Serious Years (1918-1930)

###  Last Years of High School and Summer Jobs

As I mentioned, we moved into our new apartment at 7251 Princeton Avenue in 1918. It also had five rooms and one bath but cost more rent than the $25 per month we had been paying. It had a nice screened-in back porch and yard, but best of all it had a downstairs private room shut off from the rest of the basement which I took over as a lab and workshop. My father had bought me an induction coil capable of producing a one-inch spark and, although my mother was afraid I would electrocute myself, it made an enormous impression on me and was important in determining my future. With the coil I did many experiments and, building on what I had learned from Norm and at school, I began an active interest in physics. I sent for microphones and receivers and radio parts, wound coils and just dabbled. I was taking physics in high school now where we had an outstanding teacher in Miss Mabel Walbridge, who had studied under Professor Michelson at the University of Chicago for her master's degree. [Editor's note: Though she studied at the University of Chicago, Mabel Walbridge actually received her master's degree from Cornell. See her biography at the end of Appendix 1.] Chemistry, my early love, took a backseat but it was soon to re-ignite when I was to take my high school course from Mr. Wigger (a Northwestern product), and as a result of a summer job that I will describe later.

I was a junior at Parker High School now, going to basketball and football games. (My participation in sports except for some swimming and skating had stopped). We did do a lot of drilling in the ROTC, which was stimulated by our entry into the war. We drilled every day after school, just the boys, with real rifles. We practiced and practiced until we became so proficient that Parker took top honors in the city competition when all the schools marched, bands and all, down Michigan Avenue. We looked and marched just like West Pointers in our blue-grey dress uniforms.

I was working for good marks now and studying hard. Recreation consisted of my experiments in my new basement lab and in going out with the boys, especially Bob Eichin. We went to movies and often had joint card games with Bill McMahon and Jimmy Dawson at each other's homes. I can still remember the wonderful goodies Mrs. Eichin prepared for us.

Naively, I looked upon these occasions as just relief from my studies and work and so convinced myself that the time was not ill-spent. This was admittedly a narrow, selfish view. If the activities we engaged in were boring, as they were, I didn't consider that I might try to substitute something better. The others were no doubt thinking the same way and would have welcomed something fresh and more stimulating. So we let things drift along until, after several years, each of us felt the increasing pressures of life and went our own way. There is no question that I was a secret snob in those days. But each of us was different. I knew I had an intense curiosity about nature and a strong desire to find out why things were as they were. I found later that some people never wonder about such things, so to that extent I was developing differently.

Unfortunately, about that time a tragedy struck Bob Eichin. He contracted a very severe disease, but since his family were Christian Scientists, no doctor was called. I remember visiting him in a coma which lasted several days. Bob never was the same after that. He continued in high school but lost all of his former zip and ambition. Later he was to suffer another disaster when he and his mother were run down by an automobile while crossing a street. Mrs. Eichin was killed and Bob was so badly injured that he had to be kept in a nursing home the rest of his days. I saw him once after this, but the visit was so depressing I never returned.

During the summer vacation of 1918 I worked for my mother's first cousin, Milton Souther. Milton (who I last saw in 1966, the year he died in Fort Lauderdale, Florida) was at that time manager of the Chicago office of David E. Kennedy, the maker of floor coverings. The offices and supply rooms were in the Rand McNally Building on South State Street. I worked in the shipping room and office as I was needed. I also had to deliver big sample cases to customers, which were so heavy I had to slide them along the street at times. I knew quite a bit that went on at the office and later was not surprised when Milton married the pretty file clerk, Henrietta Bailey. (They raised two children and one boy still survives in Minneapolis, I believe.) It was Milton who first introduced me to Chinese food one night when we had to work late. He was also, as a bachelor, a frequent visitor at our home and took us for long "joy rides" on Sundays in his big auto.

Our stay in our Princeton Avenue apartment was unfortunately a short one—about a year. I am not sure why we moved. Perhaps Mrs. Lacey had objections. I know one time my father nearly burned the place down unintentionally. He was still prone to going on binges, sometimes lasting for days. He came home late one night and went to sleep on an army cot we had on the back porch. Apparently he had dropped a lighted cigarette in bed, which continued to smolder there for part of the next day. We had slept the night not knowing the danger we were in. Fortunately, we discovered it when the entire cot mattress fell into burning coals on the wooden porch. We quickly put out the fire with a pan of water.

We were lucky to find another apartment next door at 248 West 73rd Street. Here we lived about five years, until 1924. Mom didn't mind the move because we had a private front porch and the rooms were much brighter. We had a big hall also and the same number of rooms as before, five with one bath. Besides, the man who tended the furnace at Laceys' had been spying on us in my basement room through a peephole and Mom didn't like that. She didn't realize that she was soon to be shocked by an intruder in the new apartment, an event, I will tell about later.

Our new place was just across the alley from an apartment that was later rented by my uncle and aunt, Harold and Arlene Souther. In fact, we could look into each other's dining room. I remember how Harold would stop on paydays, tap on our windows, and leave his pay with Mom before he went down the dark alley to put his car away. Then he would collect it on his way back. I also remember him sitting in his dining room, eating supper and listening to the radio at the same time through double earphones—probably to the ball scores because Harold was an avid baseball fan.

My sister June lived with us until about 1921,when she married John McKinlay Jr., the son of the president of Marshall Field and Company. She and John took an apartment in our same building, but one which faced on Princeton Avenue. John was not too popular with his parents at the time and was working as an auto mechanic. Later though, they made up and John took a job with the _Chicago Tribune,_ which was fortunate because it was through him that I later joined his fine organization.

I graduated from high school in the upper part of my class in February, 1920, but the summer before (1919), I had taken a job with my uncle Gene, my father's youngest brother. Gene (Eugene White Fuller) had been trained as a pilot during World War I. This is why, after he returned from the service, he went into the airplane business. It seems James Levy, a well-to-do Chicago businessman and head of the biggest automobile agency in town, was an aviation enthusiast. He felt sure the airplane would follow in the path of the auto and he wanted to be ready when it did. As a result, he formed the James Levy Aircraft Corporation and made Gene the manager. He bought up hundreds of thousands of dollars' worth of surplus aircraft from Uncle Sam and some European governments. Then he rented the top section of the First Presbyterian Church at 18th and Indiana Avenue, an enormous structure which had fallen into disuse after the blacks moved into this formerly swank part of Chicago. The church had been divided up to make a factory space below, at the time occupied by the B&G Battery Company, about which I will have more to say later. The upper part, including the balconies and tower, were used by Levy as an airplane showroom and airplane parts storage. The high pillars and beautiful carved wood ceiling were still intact, and I was dumbfounded when I first saw inside because there were Canucks, Jennies, Avros, MF Flying Boats and even a DH-9 (De Havilland) bomber from England on display. Some even had their wings attached! After I took the summer job as shipping clerk and general handy man, I used to eat my lunch in this bomber with its big four-cylinder Sidley-Puma engine and pretend I was up in the sky.

It was my job to fill orders for parts, to maintain the parts in their bins properly, to manage the store at times, and to help when we had to move a plane out to the airport. This latter was quite a procedure. There was a ramp on the side of the church which had to be lifted up to two big side doors. Through these we lowered the planes with ropes, and I remember I built a drum up on the balcony out of a cable reel to assist in this. Often we had to tow planes to Ashburn Field (just southeast of the present Midway Airport), which was the only field in Chicago then. I remember riding in the truck and keeping watch of how the plane was running on its two landing wheels.

The worst job I ever had at the church was untangling a room full of stiff guy-wires for the Jenny. There were about twenty different wires to sort into piles. Each double cable had its number on a metal tag in the hopelessly tangled assortment.

Many recollections come back to me about the days I worked at the church, including the day I got a big splinter of wood rammed through my little finger when we were unloading a heavy crate. The stupid doctor I was sent to was actually pulling on the bone in my finger, thinking he was pulling out a splinter! I also remember when we nearly set the church on fire with the stovepipe from our only heated room in the back, formerly a minister's study.

But the time I lost my pet pigeon sticks in my mind perhaps the strongest. There were a lot of nesting pigeons up in the tower and one day one flew down inside. It was partly crippled or possibly injured. I kept the pigeon until it was stronger and had it flying around in the church, which was like flying in Madison Square Garden. The bird would come back to me because I fed it. One night after helping an ex-Navy mechanic by the name of Phelps repair one of the Hiso engines, I left a pail in which we washed parts, with a small amount of cleaning fluid in it and left for home. Phelps used to put his cigarettes out by throwing them forcefully into a pail half full of gasoline, a trick I didn't much appreciate! The next morning when I went to look for my pigeon it was gone and I thought it had finally flown the coop. Imagine my shock when I found it had landed squarely in our pail and suffocated.

I had gotten to know a number of barnstorming pilots because they always dropped in at the church. It was sort of a meeting place for pilots in town. I listened in awe to their tales. There was Ralph Diggins, one of the best stunt flyer on the Avros. Diggins, by the way, is one of the early aviation pilots honored in the Aeronautics and Space Museum in Washington, D.C. One Sunday, when we were at the field with my folks, Diggins (who had one passenger for $15) asked me to go free to fill the other seat. I was about to get in when, fortunate to me, my mother objected. So Gene went in my place. I never saw such flying, loops, dives and free falls and barrel rolls. When he got back, Gene was as white as a sheet. The passenger, too, had lost his lunch. Mom was right again.

Then there was Mike Eversole, who claimed to be a flying boat pilot. He worked for Levy that summer. Levy had the first airplane service across Lake Michigan. I flew with Mike once when it was time to put up the "boats" in Belmont Harbor for the winter. He had landed off Grant Park in the City Center and had come over to the church by auto. Gene thought I ought to have at least one ride and suggested that I go with Mike to fly the boat up to the Harbor.

I will never forget that trip. We took a cab over to the "Commodore" which had been a ship but was now the clubhouse for the Chicago Yacht Club. Our "ship" was anchored to a raft about 200 feet out in Lake Michigan. Mike took me out to the flying boat in a rowboat, showed me how to set the ignition, and then rowed himself around to the tail of the ship. Then he walked up the tail deck to the pusher propeller and at the signal gave it a whirl. He had told me it would need to warm up so after contact he proceeded to row himself back to the Club bar. I throttled down the banging engine as best I could but it was still too powerful for me to keep the ship headed into the raft. I was fearful it would twist off the mooring. Mike came out on the porch and yelled something through a megaphone several times, but for naught. Finally to my relief he came rowing out with someone to take the rowboat back. I figured that, like the engine, Mike was warmed up now and no doubt he was. Most of the pilots felt that drinking improved their flying ability.

We now prepared to take off but the Lake inside the breakwater was too smooth, Mike raced the plane up and down several times to stir up the water. This did it, and we soon were airborne, heading for the North Harbor. The trouble was Mike had on goggles, but I didn't. With no windshield at all and the wind so strong, I could only peek out of slits in my eyes, I saw the big Municipal Pier go by under us about 500 feet down. Ten minutes later I could see the marina we were headed for. I noticed that the Lake was quite rough outside the breakwater and thought Mike would surely land inside. But no, we slammed down hard onto those waves and cracked the hull. It is amazing that the Hiso Engine, standing right above and behind us, didn't crash down on us, since the plane was built for a much lighter OX-5 engine. That would have been the end for us.

Dick Borkland, Gene's closest friend, was also a pilot who hung around the church and flew at Ashburn Field. He was a dapper blond and made quite an impression in his flying togs. There was also a nice English pilot, named Yonge, who Gene let sleep in the church because he couldn't afford a hotel. Then there was Applegate, a small, cocky pilot who Gene got to run the MF-boats at the Municipal Pier during one of the City Pageants, which lasted about two weeks. I was assigned to help Applegate, hiking gasoline by cab from the nearest gas station and serving as a hand to help put on passengers and dock the ship on its return. Applegate collected the money, $5 per person. The passengers were mostly farmers and their wives from downstate Illinois. They would get a ride of only a few miles, down the side of the Navy pier and around the breakwater, scarcely getting off the water. The people nevertheless _continued_ to come into the line. Applegate had a big roll of bills and would cut the trip shorter as the business grew. One time he came in so fast that he missed our raft and cracked the nose of the boat. One look and Applegate waved the next passengers aboard. He was not one to lose business. Levy was supposed to get half of the receipts, but who was there to check? I am sure Applegate ended up with most of it.

I began to form a low opinion of most fliers. They drank too much, for one thing. One day a fellow named Dick Richard, who I know drank, bought a part from me and the next day fell in the center of Naperville, Illinois, killing himself and a passenger. On another occasion another pilot, who was also a parachute jumper, came into the church and presented his card: "King of the Air." Next day they caught him trying to jump off the top of the Wrigley Building to get publicity. Shortly after he came again into the church to get some alcohol to dry out his watch—he had jumped and landed in the Lake. There were women pilots in those days, too. One, a wing walker, came in a pickup towing a Jenny on which the wing fabric was so rotten that you could put your finger through it.

Some of the events I describe above occurred during the summer of 1921 when I worked for Gene after a year of college. In between, in 1920, I had taken another summer job which I will go into below. It was to have a lasting effect on my career.

Going back to my second job with Gene, I could see that Levy was not transacting much business as the weeks went on, and my guess was confirmed when he approached me and said that he had sounded out Mr. Galvin, the G. of the B&G Battery Company downstairs, and that he had a job for me. I would get the huge sum of $25 per week—10 dollars more than I was getting from Levy. I took the job. Gene left to start his own company in aerial photography and Levy went out of the airplane business, losing a million dollars (at least $10 million today).

During the two times I had worked for my uncle, I had come to admire his fine qualities. The youngest of the five Fuller boys, he became the most successful and in the end assumed responsibility for handling the problems that befell that family. Gene had attended Dartmouth College two years, worked in some capacity for Sears, and when the war came he enlisted in the Army Air Force—such as it was. When he returned from the service, he joined Levy and now he was running his own business. He understood business and early showed the marks of the company executive. He was always well-groomed and neat in appearance. He was soft-spoken and people liked him at once. He never got into the messy end of the business and didn't like messy jobs. He wasn't particularly interested in the mechanical working of things or of the workings of heavy industry. But he was intelligent and curious about the big questions dealt with in philosophy. He well could have been a professor of philosophy, or of English (in which he was quite adept both from the standpoint of language usage and literary accomplishment). Gene knew where his aptitudes lay and he was glad to leave the shaping of the product to other capable personnel.

After leaving Levy in 1922, Gene formed the Chicago Aerial Survey Company with offices in the McCormick Building on Michigan Avenue in Chicago. He would contract with organizations, such as local governments and companies doing surveys, who were interested in purchasing his photos. He maintained a small staff, (Bob Reid Fuller joined CAS and later took charge of the Photo Department) at first relying on pilots he knew to fly the missions and on a well-known Chicago photographic firm to furnish the cameramen. Eventually, he joined up with Fred Sonne, the inventor of the Sonne camera, which enabled low-altitude photos to be obtained without distortion because of the high ground speed. He went into the building of such cameras and this became an important business during World War II, necessitating considerable expansion. The company became Chicago Aerial Industries, E. W. Fuller as president. Gene remained the majority stockholder until he decided to sell his shares to the Loeb brothers (Sears Roebuck and the father of Loeb of the Loeb-Leopold Tragedy). This was after he, (Gene), had generously given shares to his closest relations, including me. The value (about $20,000) was a very great help to me with my growing family. As I mentioned before, Gene felt responsible for the Fuller families.

Gene retired as he had always wanted so that he could devote his time to writing and reading. He and his wife, Catharine, also traveled widely. He published three books of his poems before he died in 1967 at the age of eighty in Westwood, California.

Now, back to the job I took with the B&G Battery Company after Levy sold out. My assignment was to mix red-lead oxide, lithage, and charcoal with dilute sulphuric acid to form a paste for the battery grids. This I did in an open kettle with a machine-driven paddle. I was kept very busy lifting 100 pound sacks of the lead oxides and mixing so that that the "pasters" did not run out of the paste mixture. They were working on a piece-work schedule, so they worked like mad. I was hourly, but had to keep up.

My job also included drying the pasted plates. This exposed me to lead oxide dust which I knew was poisonous. I was supposed to wear a mask to catch the dust, but I could not breathe with the mask on. So I held my breath as much as I could. It took only about a month of this work to lay me low with lead poisoning. This took the form of severe stomach cramps and much vomiting. Mom said that I wasn't to return to that job and I didn't. Still, I can say that I once worked for the famous Paul Galvin. For although he went broke on his storage battery venture, he continued (with the $565 he had left) into the automobile radio—a new idea at the time—and founded what is now the huge, billion dollar Motorola Company.

I return now to the time when I graduated from Parker High, in February 1920. It was soon after, probably in March, that I took the job that was in the field that was to be my career—chemistry. But that was not to begin until 10 years more of education.

My getting the job as a chemical technician or assistant occurred in the following way. Mr. Mattison, chief engineer at the big Calumet, Illinois plant of the General Chemical Company, was the father of two girls, Jane and Susan, who both were school friends of my sister June. June knew that I needed a job and that I was a chem nut—she was impressed with my demonstrations of color magic and explosions. She must have praised me highly and expressed my need to continue schooling, for I got a call from Mr. Mattison who said he would arrange an interview with Mr. Brooks, chief chemist. I saw Mr. Brooks and a chemist under him and was accepted in the control lab as a chemist assistant doing analytical work. It meant traveling twenty miles by train and streetcar to the plant on an isolated part of the swamp on the bank of the Calumet River. My pay was only $15 per week and I soon learned that this was for twenty-four hours a day in case they needed me; otherwise eight hours, except four on Saturdays. I think it happened only once that I had to meet an emergency call that summer. I was shocked to learn I would not be reimbursed for my fare. But many times we would have to work beyond 5 p.m. and be forced to take a later train home. Nevertheless, I was pleased by the fact that I was learning a lot of chemistry from my chemist boss, the same one from my interview, Albert Wahlgren. Wahlgren, a self-educated chemist, was a most competent and demanding teacher. I learned more quantitative chem from him than I was to learn in college later.

At the plant I also learned how sulphuric acid and other heavy chemicals were made in huge quantities and unfortunately under very unhealthy conditions.

Part of my duties was to service the first-aid stations in the plant. This required climbing to the top of some of the acid towers and carrying new soda solution up for the use of plant men who might get doused with acid. I also had to take the gravities of acid samples which were very corrosive on the hands, turning the skin black. Rubber gloves were useless since the acids soon worked into the inside where they had a way of creeping. Another plant duty was to keep the various acid samples up to date. This involved discarding old samples and adding new ones as we tested them. The oleums were stronger than 100% sulphuric acid. The 20% oleum, for example, was 100% sulphuric acid plus 20% sulphur trioxide, a violent substance. There were hundreds of bottles stored on shelves and I remember that once I dropped a 20% oleum bottle which filled my shoe with that most powerful acid. I didn't even wait but headed for the nearest aid station and put my entire foot, shoe and all, in the bicarbonate solution. I was lucky. By the end of the summer I was disillusioned by what I learned chemists really did. Yet this experience would prove of great value to me, even though at that time, if someone had asked me to come back, I would have said, "no thanks." But as you will see, I did return for another tour of duty with General Chemical and in the same lab!

### College

That summer of 1920, from March to October, when I was commuting to the Calumet plant of General Chemical Company, I was also studying at night under my former physics teacher, Mabel Walbridge, for the competitive exam in physics given each year by the University of Chicago. This was an extremely kind thing for her to do. I think she wanted to help me get to college and also, since I was willing to be tutored, she saw in me a chance to win some glory for our school. Besides, Phil Rudnick, her best student, had decided to compete in math, so I was probably the best second choice she had for the physics exam.

When the day came, I had to get off from work to take the exam. Hundreds of students from all over the Midwest collected to compete in the big Bartlett Gym at the University. I tried my best, but felt I didn't do too well. As it turned out, I tied for first place with a boy from Indiana who later dropped out, so that I got the entire scholarship which paid tuition for one year. This decided it; I would now go to college. Phil Rudnick also won a first, so our school did very well indeed, as it had done before, undoubtedly because of good coaching by Mabel Walbridge and a few others.

Mother thought we should give Miss Walbridge a present to show our appreciation and got me an embroidered handkerchief for her. It wasn't much, but Miss Walbridge was pleased. Many years later in 1934 when I was at Cornell taking a special course, I found Miss Walbridge retired and working in the Library. She had lost a great deal of money in the 1928 Insull collapse and had to work and rent her home near the Cornell Campus. I was glad that I could repay her a little, by using my car to move things for her while I was in Ithaca. After that I lost track of her and assume she lived out her days there at Cornell where she had grown up and always wanted to retire.

Late in September 1920, I left my job with General Chemical, taking with me a nice letter of recommendation (which I didn't ask for) from Mr. Brooks, Chief Chemist. I had done a good job. Now the $400 I would get from my scholarship would enable me to enter college, and on October 1, 1920, I proudly entered the University of Chicago, just twenty minutes by streetcar from my home in Hamilton Park.

It is important to realize how much $400 was in those days. It was equivalent to half a year's salary for me, so although I would need help from home in the way of food and lodging, I could, with the savings I had accumulated, buy my books and lunches and pay my extra expenses. I just assumed that my father could keep on paying the rent and buying the food as he had been, an assumption I should have been wary about. I did know that our furniture had been partly removed not long before because of nonpayment of credit installments. But as usually happened, ways were found to right such situations and I just assumed, as kids do, that things would go on as before. My father still had his problem, but that too we had learned to treat as something you lived with.

The competition at the University was much more severe that I had thought. I had had the advantages of excellent background training and experience, but in spite of that I studied every minute I could and took hardly any time for extracurricular activities. I knew that I had to stay in the upper twenty-five of the entire class of some 800 students if I was to get my scholarship extended to the next three years, but I was concerned then only with getting it in my sophomore year.

I enrolled, of course, in the science school and signed up for straight chemistry, physics, and math courses, taking only those courses outside of science that were absolutely required, such as English composition. I had the most difficulty with the English and the Math. Although I was reasonably good in composition, I found that those specializing in English were a lot better, and I had to work very hard. We had as our teacher the famous James Weber Linn, who attracted the best to his classes.

Math was also tough for me because I had had a teacher at Parker High, Mr. Staley, who suffered from the same problem as my father and often was frowzy in class. As a result, I never really caught on to the abstract thinking required in algebra, so that now in college it was a major struggle and I poured gobs of time on that subject. I had no trouble getting As in chemistry and physics, though they required much time too. By dint of effort, I managed an A in college algebra also, but only a B in English. The professors didn't deal out their high grades loosely in those days. I did remain in the first twenty-five that freshman year and as I took the job with my uncle Gene that summer of 1921, I was relieved to know I would return to my science studies in the fall.

The year 1922 was another year of hard study. Math was still my main problem and English was still with me part of the year. Physics and chemistry were getting tougher, too, because I purposely signed up for enough courses to give me sufficient credits in science in two years to allow me to graduate! I studied at our little round dining room table until midnight every weeknight, often until my father would come tottering home after 1 a.m. These occasions would cut into my sleep even further because if he was real bad, Dad would have to sleep on a cot in the back room with me.

I also began to read furiously and to take notes on everything I read: articles and books on philosophy, religion, and science in which the big questions of life were discussed and the answers debated. I now felt keen competition not only for jobs during the summers, but also in the college classroom, where many were much brighter than I. I tried to make up by studying harder and then I began worrying about my health. I remember deciding that one could not compete if sickly and I read up on health measures including proper diet and sleep habits. I would not touch alcohol after seeing what it did to our family and smoking was also out. That, I had learned early, was not for me. Only later (when I was in my late 20s) did I accept a drink and then only in moderation.

But these first two years of college were not all schoolwork for me. My mother saw that my cultural side was not totally neglected. Ed Wayman was a longtime friend who owned the two local movie theaters. He often got tickets that he could not use for downtown events and my mother got these at times. Thus I was taken to a recital by the famous Fritz Kreisler on violin, and at another time we saw the noted magician Thurston. I was much impressed by his acts, especially the levitation act in which a woman was lifted into space horizontally and the audience was allowed to pass hoops around her. I liked best of all the plays and remember seeing George Arliss in one that showed the difference in the behavior of married royalty inside and outside of their castle. I can still remember the tune he sang, beginning "I'll build for you a sweet castle, Eileen." I never could see why the women went so wild over the homely, short George Arliss. I guess they were taken by his forceful demeanor, which seemed "put-on" to me.

It was around this time that Mom got the scare I promised to tell about a few page back. In spite of hardly ever locking the door to our apartments, (probably so we kids could get in easily), we had never had a break-in or theft. But one morning, when my mother was in her bedroom getting ready to go somewhere, the phone rang and she went to answer. This was when we lived at 248 West 73rd Street, and in order to get the phone, she had to go through the hall and into the dining room where the phone was located. There were long drapes on the living room side of the hall and as Mom passed them, two arms reached out and grabbed her. It was a man and Mom broke away and faced him. Then she said, "Will you please go!" and with that the guy went out the front door, probably because the phone was still ringing and he became unnerved. Mom ran to the phone and broke down. It was some time before Catherine (Gene's wife) could figure out what happened. At any rate, Mom was all right, if badly frightened, and Catherine's call had probably averted something bad.

But I must continue the discussion of my university life a little longer, since that was what mostly concerned me during these times. I joined several clubs and almost joined one fraternity, but these were decreasing in popularity and we could not have afforded it, so it was just as well I didn't. I went to football games in the fall. Chicago was still ranked well, but would (eight years later) give up football altogether. I made many lifelong friends among my classmates and, although I did not have a real campus life, I fell in love with the place and its atmosphere.

At first, the courses in college seemed to me to have little relevance to the real life which I had sampled through my various temporary jobs. How could these theoretical programs possibly help me earn a living? That was difficult to see, as I am sure it is with many students today. However, gradually I began to recognize the value in the basic approach, especially in science. With a good theoretical background, one could organize the facts and observations so that they stuck. Furthermore, problems could be solved without having to resort to trial and error. The strong emphasis at Chicago on basics was no doubt one reason for its good reputation in science teaching.

I was very uncomfortable with gym at the University of Chicago. Not only did the locker room stink of sweat, but I was not used to seeing hundreds of men running around naked and it took a while to get used to it. One day after a cross-country run, when one of my classmates dropped dead only a few steps from me, I felt I would rather take ROTC, which could be substituted for gym credit. I soon found that this had its own drawbacks. Our unit was an artillery one and included gun squads and horses. The latter we were expected to learn to ride, but anyone who knows how army horses are treated, knows that riding them, except by the regular tough army personnel, was impossible. I found that out one day when my nag took off through the bushes in Washington Park with me clinging on for dear life. The horse took a direct path back to the barn on Cottage Grove Avenue, where I was rescued by an enlisted man.

We had weekly drills with the guns and caissons in which six horses, each pair with one rider, were hitched to a French 75 with its caisson. When the students took over, there was invariably a tangled mess of horses, hardware, and students wrapped in the cables, with all the horses kicking and the students yelling. I remember one occasion like this when there were several broken bones.

June, 1922 arrived and in spite of all my efforts, I failed to stay in the top twenty-five of the sophomore class. I knew I would have to go to work again to earn money. If anything, things at home were worse; I had not realized the strain I was putting on my family by not contributing more help. Times were very bad and I knew that getting another job, especially one in science like I wanted, would be tough. In one way, I was very fortunate. I had wisely completed all of the science courses—particularly the ones requiring lab work—in my first two years, so that the requirements for my bachelor's degree were satisfied. Furthermore, I had had the best of the professors in all of my subjects, so I felt rather good about that.

### I Return to Society as Chemical Analyst

Desperately I answered an ad in the help wanted section of the _Chicago Tribune_. There were very few jobs for chemical assistants in those days and here was one chance. Soon I received a call: "So you want to come back," the voice said. I recognized the sound of my former boss, Al Wahlgren. He was now laboratory head at the Calumet plant of the General Chemical Company where I had worked two years before. I nearly fell over, but jumped at the chance to earn $18 per week, even though the thought of some of the old scenes coming back sickened me. I had been chosen out of some 200 applicants.

1922 and 1923 were winters of monstrous snow and wind over the Chicago region. For me to get work, it was a two-block hike to the trolley which took me close to the Pennsylvania station on Cottage Grove Avenue. There I would catch an old Toonerville-like train of two, dated coaches to South Chicago. This train would cut off at the Calumet River, following the south bank on a single track. It was definitely a white-collar conveyance and distributed employees to each of the big plants along the River, all the way to Hegewisch, Illinois. It was possible to get to our plant by trolley but these cars were so packed with blue collar, or perhaps more accurately, "no-collar" workers that I only chose that route when I missed the train, which was very seldom. We still had a half-mile walk from the train to the lab. The path took us through the high marshes of that swamp—the same swamp where Leopold and Loeb perpetrated their shocking murder. In the winter when the snows were deep and the wind was streaking across, it was almost impassable. Sometimes the fumes alone from the plant were so thick you almost lost your way.

In the lab I found new faces since the time I was there two years before, attesting to the high turnover rate because of the low pay and poor chances for advancement. The workers in the plant were even worse off because they could not work anywhere else. Most were Polish and lived in Hegewisch, the nearest town, and knew no other place to go. The pay was as low as $7 per week for the track workers. The working conditions were unbelievably bad. Fumes were everywhere, clothes were rags, the cafeteria was roach-infested, and the medical service was a fraud. No wonder the unions grew!

Kitzmiller, who used to imbibe the absolute alcohol which we used to dry out our pipettes, was gone, as were Fahrbach and Brooks. Fahrbach got in some trouble for analyzing bootleg gin. Carter, the plant superintendent, was still there, although Denny Swords of the sulphuric, a self-made executive and former switchman, soon replaced him. Howard O'Brien was a new man and he and I soon became fast friends and have remained so to this day. Later, when Howard joined Blue Books (the original auto guidebook), we spent many weeks mapping roads together. Frankie Steinweg, a lad who worked in the sulphuric, was still there. He was about two years older than I and I still can see him gagging over my sink in the Baumé room from doses of SO2 (Sulphur dioxide) he frequently got in the plant. Ed Gavin, the young fellow with a wooden leg who had been in the lab when I was there before, was now in the sulphuric. He had enormous arms and would scale the steel ladders and crawl around on converters and pipes like anyone with two good legs. Fat Hank Bower, who generally sat in the lab waiting for his Zn analyses and complaining about the price of the Company's stock, was still around, too.

We worked hard in the lab. O'Brien was the expert on mixed acid, used mostly for explosives manufacture, and was always figuring ways to use up leftover acid. I was advanced to do the oleum analyses after I had done my share of the messy things like depilatory and coal ash and fixed carbons. The plant ran on the lab's findings and we had to have final analyses on everything shipped that day before we could go home. If the cars did not meet the specifications, something had to be done right away and analyses had to be made on scores of samples at times. If this required overtime, you stayed without pay. For supper you had your choice of a sandwich and milk or a piece of pie and milk, given free! All in all it was excellent instruction for anyone who would go into chemistry, because one learned the hard way what quantitative analysis really was. When I took "quant" in college, I was so far ahead of most of the students, or even instructors, that I could ease through the lab part of the course without half-trying. This, of course, was before electronics revolutionized the entire discipline, taking it out of chemistry and into physics.

O'Brien and I sometimes got messy jobs in the plant. Besides, the plant fellows liked to play tricks on lab people. One they did to me I didn't think very funny. I had among my duties the taking of "moistures." That meant that you took weighed glass bulbs containing an absorbent over to the sulphuric plant, ran a measured amount of the sulphur dioxide gas through and then went back to the lab and re-weighed them. I had just finished and was on my way back to the lab when (passing one of the big converters in the plant) I was almost felled by a stifling stream of concentrated sulphur dioxide gas. Some funny guy had opened a valve in the side of the converter so as to hit me at nose level with a blast of gas. It nearly knocked me down but you dismissed the act as something that went with the job.

Then there was the time I lost the platinum cone. At General there was no provision made for shrinkage—if you broke a thermometer or lab glassware, the boss let you know that you might be docked in your pay the next time. So when I accidently threw one of our platinum cones, which we used in filtering, in the wastebasket (the cone was worth about $10), I grew faint. The loss was discovered by Wahlgren, who counted the platinum ware at quitting time every night. He said it was useless to try to trace it, but I found that all our trash was burned in the powerhouse and dumped out on the ash pile with the rest of the ashes. I found where the most recent ashes had been dumped and began sifting. Wahlgren was dumbfounded when after about a half-hour's work, I turned up with the cone.

One day superintendent Carter wanted the labs to measure the amount of sulphuric acid mist being spread into the atmosphere by the plant exhaust stacks. A scaffold had been built above the roof of the sulphuric plant building so that we had access to the top of one stack. O'Brien and I had been tagged for the job and we crawled out onto a scaffold with our apparatus. We hadn't been there ten seconds before we were screaming, because big gobs of hot acid rained down on our bare necks. It was raining acid! Any measurements were meaningless and we left. It was common knowledge that when the absorbing towers failed, our plant would spew acid fumes over the countryside. This is why nothing grew in the area and why the tennis court fences (made of chicken wire) hung in shreds. It was also why Wisconsin Steel and Ford, our neighbors on the South Chicago side, were suing General. Carter would have to find another way to try to prove that our plant was not expelling acid.

While the sulphuric was not the only manufacturing unit at the Calumet Plant (there were the muriatic acid, nitric, mixed acid, soda ash, sulfide, and zinc chloride units also), it was by far the largest, extending over a city block from one end to the other. It was an enormous plant, making hundreds of tons of acid a day. I had gone over every detail of the process in my walks around the plant while attending the aid stations and put everything down in a big notebook at home. Maybe I thought I might want to build such a plant one day. But all this information was lost when my father later failed to pay the rent on our stored furniture.

Our plant shipped out from four to ten tank cars a day to various customers, some weighing as much as 144,000 pounds in capacity. I will never forget the day when an end of one of these cars, loaded with sulphuric acid, sheared off. The switch engine had bumped it too hard. All available fire hoses in the plant were turned on the spill. Even so, when we sampled the water in the ditch running past our lab about a half-mile away, it had 15% sulphuric in it! I could only think of all the water and sewer pipes that would eventually be eaten away below ground.

Someone was always getting burned in the plant and being brought into first-aid for treatment. It was common to see a workman being carried in without any clothes on. Joe Perigo, who loaded the sulphuric acid tank cars, had one of the riskiest jobs. One day he overflowed a car and the acid ran all over him. Fortunately, the Calumet River ran along the tracks and Joe just dove in.

The big Great Lakes ore boats came right up the river to our plant with their loads of pyrites ore. (Pyrites is a form of iron sulfide and can be used to make sulphuric acid.) A little old Pole (I guessed in his sixties) had the job of taking ore samples from these ships so that analyses could be made in our lab. His job was to select wheelbarrow loads from various holds of the ship and take them to the sample room where they were powdered, thoroughly mixed, and sampled for analysis. I met my old friend one day as he was wheeling a load of pyrites ore on his way to his sampling room. Although he was moving with little effort, I offered to take the load the rest of the way for him. Imagine my embarrassment when I couldn't even lift the handles of the barrow off the ground!

As a result of both my college and industrial experiences, I had developed an intense interest in science and in chemistry in particular. I was intrigued by the thought that in science I would have an occupation with no bottom, into which one could pour his energies without any fear of running out of interesting things to delve into. Meager as it was, the little library of books in the lab office at Calumet (with the standard works of those days on chemical analysis: Scott's "Methods of Analysis," Treadwell and Hall's "Quantitative Chemistry," Lange's handbook, and a few others) was a gold mine for me. At noon, when some of the office and lab gang would go up to the unimposing conference room to play cards—those involved were: Wahlgren, O'Brien, Carter, Collins, Townes, Mattison, and Freddy Stair; there were no women working in the plant except Mrs. Stair and cafeteria personnel—I found in a corner a dusty collection of old volumes of "Chemical Abstracts." So I soon quit watching the smoky bridge game during lunch and I read these instead—a new route to chemical knowledge, if mostly beyond my ken at that time.

### A New Job and Night School

My second tour of duty at General Chemical had become routine and I longed to get into a job where I could learn more about science and go on to research. I realized I must continue toward my degree to do this, so in the fall of 1922, I started going to the University of Chicago night school. These classes were held in the loop in the Lakeview Building on Michigan Avenue, at least twenty-five miles from the plant! I had to travel an atrocious route to get there.

On school nights I left the plant on the usual train, but instead of getting off at Cottage Grove to transfer, I stayed on to the end of the line in Englewood. There I walked over to the Rock Island Railroad where a commuter train took me the rest of the way to the loop at Van Buren Street. I then had to walk about three-quarters of a mile to the University building, grabbing a fast supper at Thompson's armchair restaurant on the way, because I was due in class at 7 p.m. After classes were over at 10 p.m., I walked to the Clark Street trolley where I could get a streetcar to my home ten miles to the south. Usually I made it by 11 p.m.

Unfortunately, I could not get many science courses at night. But I had, as I mentioned, completed all the math and science that I needed for graduation in my first two years, so this restriction was not a crucial one. In fact, I rather welcomed the chance to take philosophy and social science courses and in particular astronomy, all of which were allowed as electives. The astronomy course met on the campus at night under Professor Forest Ray Moulton, the famous mathematical astronomer. The course lasted four hours each time we met, during part of which time Professor Moulton would eat his supper of sandwiches while amusing us (we already had eaten) with recitations from Byron's "Childe Harold," which he seemed to know by heart in its entirety. On clear nights we would go out to observe the sky. But the climax of the course came when we all went for a weekend visit to the Yerkes Observatory on Lake Geneva in Wisconsin. I remember I arranged for my uncle Gene Fuller to go along since he was fascinated by the stars. There we were treated to a lecture by the blind astronomer, Professor Frost, and were shown the operation of the huge refractor telescope, as well as many of the smaller ones. (Incidentally in 1972, many years after this astronomy course, I was surprised to find Professor Moulton's son, Gale, living in the building next door to me in Florida. He had been a professor in his own right as well as a geologist and mineral expert and, like me, was retired.)

Meanwhile, we in the General Chemical lab were getting tired of promises. I had had only one raise and was now up to $20 per week. Howard O'Brien was not much better off, probably $24. Finally he decided to quit and when I found out that my brother-in-law, John McKinlay, could get me a job with the _Chicago Tribune_ [Trib], I also decided to leave. I left on a Friday and, losing no time at all, started work at the Tribune "Sunday" Plant on East Ontario Street the following Monday, for $44 per week, over twice the salary I was getting at General! It was a crucial decision I had made; one I would not regret, even though I would no longer be a chemist, at least for a while. I soon found out my new job had other advantages besides the welcome increase in pay.

As I have mentioned, since leaving the University campus, I had been attending night college while working at the chemical plant. This required a twenty-five mile commute (on two railroads) into the city where the University maintained classrooms in the Lakeside Building on Michigan Avenue. Now in my new job at the Trib, I would be a lot closer. And I would save quite a bit of train fare, too.

Soon after I made my job change, something bad happened with my father (probably he lost his job) that caused my folks to move from the 248 West 73rd Street address. This was in the summer of 1924. My folks took a room in a house on 72nd Street near Harvard Avenue and I was told that I would live with my grandfolks who, now retired, had moved to an apartment opposite our building, on the corner at 7256 Princeton Avenue. It was a five-room apartment on the first floor south and I was to have the back bedroom for which I paid a small sum that also covered breakfast and meals on weekends. I didn't realize until later how lucky I was to have such considerate grandparents. I tried to be as little bother as I could. I helped Mama Cal with the dishes and played chess with Papa Cal when I could find the time. He nearly always beat me but loved to play. Mama Cal was not well. She had to eat a pound of raw liver a day for her pernicious anemia since there were no B12 shots in those days. She also suffered occasional epilepsy spells, when Papa Cal would have to see that she did not choke. They were not very pleasant to witness. Later my grand folks went to live in Spokane with their oldest son, Cal. It was at that time (1926) I rejoined my folks who had moved into a small two-room apartment at 132 West Marquette Road. I slept in the living room on a cot next to the boulevard, which was very heavily traveled. I don't think it was more than twenty feet to the curb from our windows. But I slept in spite of the constant racket and fumes since I was dead tired from the work-school routine I kept up during that time. My folks took meals in this building in a restaurant in the lower level and lived there after I left for New York and until my mother died in 1931. More about this later.

### I Become a Photoengraver

I must go back now and pick up my story. On May 19, 1924, I reported (as I had been instructed to do) to Tex Gaines, the manager of the Chicago Sunday Tribune plant on East Ontario Street, almost on the shore of Lake Michigan. I found him poring over proofs of the new four-color ads coming off the Goss presses. It was the initial run of the new COLORoto Process by which the Tribune hoped to revolutionize the newspaper by making it as nice to look at as any magazine. In fact, I could see the first copies of the newly published "Liberty" Magazine pouring out of the presses. (The first issue had the date May 10, 1924.)

I was put in the hands of kind old Mr. Schultz, who was the union man in charge, and also part of the management. He took me up to the room where the "carbon" paper, used in the photogravure process, was sensitized to light, and there I met Mr. Frank Czernasty, a short, squatty man of about forty-five years with a mustache, who proceeded to instruct me in my job. He told me that "Czernasty" meant 14 in Czech, that he had come to this country as a boy and that he was a freethinker. He seemed much too intelligent for the work he was doing, which consisted of passing large sheets of carbon paper through potassium chromate solutions and drying them after they were squeegeed to ferrotype sheets to give them a gloss. The final drying was done on large rotating drums and the work was in subdued orange light.

This was easy work compared to what I had been doing and I caught on in short order. I had time, in fact, to circulate around and see what other tradesmen did in "our" union, The International Photoengravers, to which I was now apprenticed to serve four years before being admitted as a journeyman. I went down the long row of retouchers who were in contained stalls facing the north side of the building and made friends with all of them. They enjoyed company. There was Alex Zeller, the good-looking Argentinian about thirty-five years old, small, athletic. He held several walking records for speed and told me about his life. There was a heavy-set old German with gray hair; a thick, jumpy man who looked like Bertrand Russell; he was in charge and directed most of the work. I had time to talk to Frank Pace and John Otto, who did the layout work consisting of accurate placing of the print and photos on page-sized sheets of plate glass so that they could be printed on the carbon paper we made. I visited in the photography department where you could always get supplied with the latest dirty jokes. And I helped the printers, Darwin Healy and John Veruda, who worked before huge banks of hot mercury lamps. They were young fellows and seemed to be like some of the street gang I had grown up with.

The photographic, retouching, layout, sensitizing, and printing departments discussed above were located on the second floor of our plant. There the work started. On the first floor were the transfer, staging, and etching groups. They took the copy in the form of large printed sheets of carbon paper and, through their operations, saw to it that all the print and pictures to appear in the paper and in Liberty Magazine would find its way to the copper cylinders used in the printing presses. The presses themselves occupied one-half of the first floor and the basement space as well. We had most of the rest except for the grinding department, which prepared the polished copper cylinders for us. We took these, which were eight feet long and about fifteen inches in diameter, weighing half a ton each, from the grinders and placed them in our machines for further polishing and transfer.

The carbon paper (heavy paper coated on one side with gelatin) with the type material printed on it was transferred to the copper by letting a heavy rubber roller down on one edge and "sticking" it, much like one would a postage stamp, by running water under it and squeegeeing it in place by means of the roller. Four double-spread pages were placed on one cylinder. Later the photographs would be added to this cylinder by repeating the process with carbon paper containing the pictures. Of course, extreme care was necessary to get every work and picture in its proper place.

There is not space here to go into the photoengraving process in detail. I will simply add that after the transfer of the type and picture material, the carbon prints were developed in hot water, dried in alcohol, and delivered on their trucks to the stagers who painted out everything to be protected from the etching solutions. Next the etching was done, also on the trucks, by means of cotton swabs dipped in the etchant—rubber gloves, of course. After cleaning off the paint and asphalt and gelatin—a messy job for the apprentices—the proofs were taken and, if faulty, had to be corrected either by redoing entire pages on a new cylinder or by an engraver working on the copper metal with engraving tools.

Somehow all the cylinders for an edition were completed and once in the presses, the paper took form. Only occasionally were pictures in the wrong place, or colors out of register, or cylinders dented by accident at the last moment. Then we would have to move with all speed to repair and replace them.

In ending this part, I should remark that what I have described above applies only to black and sepia printing. For the color printing, three more cylinders in addition to the black are needed: one for the yellow, one for the red, and one for the blue ink. The paper travels over each of the four cylinders in succession with a drying stage in between each application. It can be imagined how precise the controls must be in order to print each color ink exactly on top of its predecessor, especially when the presses are running at high speed.

I stayed in the transfer department until I went on the night shift early in 1926. On that shift we had a smaller force and I was soon put in charge of the transfer group. I also got to do some staging and etching. On the night shift, we had an unwritten agreement with the Company that we could quit work when we had finished, provided we did not sacrifice the quality of the work. And even though we often quit early, we always got paid for full time. If we had to work overtime, i.e., past midnight, we got paid time and a half for it. The scale was usually $44 per week for starting apprentice and $66 per week for a journeyman on the night shift—equivalent to about $660 today (1988).

I had never been accustomed to such enlightened treatment and soon decided that the Tribune was a most unusual employer. Not only did we get two-weeks off each year with full pay (unusual for unions in those days), but we made out our own time cards in pencil, overtime and all. And we were treated by the Colonel (McCormick) with candy, cigars and bonuses if we turned out an usually good job. Compared to the stingy, impersonal treatment we had received at General Chemical Company, this was unbelievable and I resolved to do my best. I soon learned that the Tribune had a reason. They expected full-steam effort when the deadlines and the business demanded it and from most of us (not all unfortunately), they got it. For the many nights that I got home at 10 p.m., there were times when I came home just as the sun was rising and I would get only an hour's sleep, unless it happened to be on a Friday when I could sleep until about 11 a.m. before going to work for the four hours in the afternoon. I had an 8 o'clock class on weekdays.

The result of this policy by the Tribune was that we worked hard all the time, seldom sitting down even for supper, because we were either working to get out early and go home or we were seeing endless work ahead and good overtime, but we felt the Company deserved our greatest effort; at least most of us felt that way. For supper I lived on Campbell's Tomato Soup and bread and butter. I had a milk bottle in which I poured the soup and added water. I heated the soup by letting the can sit in the developing tanks at 125 (degrees) F and added hot water from the tap. This was convenient because I could set it down beside me while I worked and take a swig every so often. This routine didn't give me ulcers as they say it does.

We wore the worst old clothes we could find and until they dropped off. Dungarees cost money. The etchers wore tan shirts and slacks; they looked neat and stayed that way, since the apprentices did the dirty jobs of mopping, pouring the etchants, and cleaning off the messy black asphaltum paint with kerosene. We smelled of acetic acid, benzene, and methyl alcohol. The latter two were used in the open and I held my breath usually as long as I could while using them.

Only once do I remember a real serious fight at the Trib. That was when the two Hanna brothers, George and Sam, pounded up on McGinnis, a good looking Irishman, who I thought was pleasant and harmless. But McGinnis was Catholic and the Hannas were from the north of Ireland where they had been in contact with the fighting Irish from the south. In fact, George had had his fingers shot off one Sunday coming out of church. I didn't hear the start of the fracas. Evidently McGinnis passed what he thought was a harmless remark, but it set the two Hannas on him and in no time he was bloodied. Since McGinnis didn't fight back, you couldn't really call it a fight.

Actually the Hannas were two of the finest workers on the night shift. I considered them my best friends and near the end of my stay they frequently drove me home in their Ford X. They had recently arrived in this country when they joined the Trib and I suppose the hatred for the Catholics was still boiling in them.

We had some bums, several toughies, and several egotistical Nordics in the gang. But the majority were intrinsically good fellows. A few were outstanding. Take Alan Coke, for example. He was head of our small force when I came. A dark-haired chap with sorrowful dark eyes, Coke was twenty-five and was just graduating from high school which he attended days. He had been the entire support of his mother and sister and still was. He would, like I, study at night and I remember him reading "Midsummer Night's Dream" while etching cylinders one night. He was politely told by Schultz the next day to discontinue this practice, but how Schultz found out we never did know. Alan ran four or five miles every day along the Lake before coming to work. I am sure he went on to bigger things.

We had an ex-streetcar motorman by the name of Malone, who apprenticed at about twenty-eight years of age and became a retoucher and artist. Pace, the fat layout man, was studying to be an undertaker and I am sure he had his own business some time later. John Otto, who worked with Pace on layouts, was a short-spoken German, tall and muscular, one I soon learned not to cross. One night, in spite of pleading by Schultz to be reasonable, John walked out in a huff, never to return. He had been twenty years with the Trib. Ted Krebs was a nice lad and with some of the others belonged to the sex club down the street. The club rented an apartment for their mutual use. Dan H. was said to be a homosexual. John V., who worked with H., was just plain dirty. He had pornographic photos, mostly Russian, and was always copying them at night in the empty photographic department. (Others at the Tribune were: Bob Brown, George Quintal, Red Lindsey, Ralph Badeau, Fat Delahanty, Art Hommel, and Koci, the Czech etcher.)

I also knew a number of fellows in the grinding department and a few in the adjoining pressroom which rumbled all the time. We had our cylinders stored in there and would move them by electric crane and truck into our quarters as needed. The grinders removed the old etchings from the old cylinders with huge grinding machines in the area of the plant next to us. I will never forget when one night, the tile wall crumbled next to me and one of the big machine carriages came poking through. The reversing mechanism had failed.

I was brought up in the era when a person stood as an individual before his employer and sold his or her wares. Yet after my experiences at the Calumet plant, it was clear that even for me with my advantages, it was a one-sided affair, to say nothing of the plight of the Mexican track worker who was paid $7 per week! So I entered the union—which came with my present job—with a changed mind. Not that I intended to stay in the newspaper work; it was supposed to be only a means to my long-planned career in science. Nevertheless, I realized that I could stay in it and do science on the side; perhaps I might have to. As time went on, however, I sensed a different kind of unfairness in this way of organizing workers. We in the union were all much better off in pay, but now one could get by with inferior performance, and quite a few did. I did prefer this to the former environment, since I could more easily pay for my schooling and have all the satisfactions of making my own way. In the back of my mind, though, I knew I would prefer to work as an individual, free of the encumbering organization of the union which protected the lazy and incompetent.

I haven't told how I still remained a chemist while working for the Trib. When one of the big bosses (Mr. Raciceau, pronounced Ras-sic-co) found out that I was studying chemistry, he suggested that I look over their copper-plating operation which provided the printing surface in the intaglio (sub-surface) method of printing. This operation was conducted in a garage-like building over near the Tribune Tower, about three-quarters of a mile away. There had been periodic trouble getting proper plating and I conjectured that Mr. R. saw me as a possible person to head up and improve that product.

The plating process consisted of taking the big iron-cored press cylinders by overhead lifts and immersing them in the plating baths of copper sulfate plus other ingredients. Initially a thin smooth coating of copper was given in a cyanide bath. This was followed by a much thicker coating in the sulfate acid bath. The compositions of the baths and the electric current and other factors were important in achieving a satisfactory deposit of metal, which had to be perfect in texture.

My inspection showed that even though they had an outside firm analyzing and adjusting the composition of the baths, they were still in trouble. I found that the plant was being run by a wild-looking older man with long hair, named Slaughter, who looked like what he was—a violinist in the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. He was thin, excitable and had the bushiest eyebrows I have seen on anyone. I talked to him about the work and was taken aback when he contended that electroplating was an art, just like his violin playing, and that he had had to take an emotional approach to the whole operation in order to get satisfactory results. He told me that the baths and cylinders were alive and had feelings, just like humans, and had to be handled according. He would adjust the baths and the voltages in accordance with his dreams and not on the basis of their chemical analyses.

I did not quite know how I could help out in this situation. As I said, I suspect that Mr. R. thought the old man might give out or already had given out, and that I might have to take over jobs. At any rate, I was sent over to the lab of the company doing the analyses for instruction on how they did them. I already knew from my past experience how this was done. I was told to order what lab equipment I would need and this was set up in an adjoining room. About every two weeks I would check the bath compositions and leave instructions as to what adjustments should be made. However, I am sure old man Slaughter, who insisted on remaining in charge, went ahead as he had before, paying little or no attention to the analyses. I never did know what happened after I left the Trib, but I suspect that Mr. R. probably received a nice bill from the chemical consulting firm and went back to his old problem of what to do about old man Slaughter. I felt rather bad about the whole matter but I had told Mr. R. of my hopes for the future, and they were only "hopes" at the time. And I must confess I could see that the printing business could well profit from a good injection of technical controls and improvements. In fact, I had been thinking about some of these and, in an offhand way, I had felt out Mr. R.'s views and found him sympathetic. But that is as far as things went until the plating crisis occurred.

I might, before changing my narrative in another direction, mention briefly what some of my thoughts were on what might be done to introduce more science in a few operations at the Trib, in addition to the plating operations. When I was in the sensitizing department early in my job, I had worried about the uniformity of the photo-sheets that we turned out, all done by hand in open trays. I had drawings of a continuous machine method of sensitizing and drying the carbon paper (as the sheets were called). We had a problem, not only with the drying during the batch method, but also with a slow deterioration of the sensitized paper with time. I devised and did a few experiments on a method for determining sensitivity which looked promising, but found little time to perfect the method. Later, when I moved to the transfer department, other obvious changes and possibilities occurred to me. In the etching department, for example, as in the plating department already mentioned, no good control of the etching fluid strengths (ferric chloride) or of temperatures and other variables affecting the process was attempted. In fact, there was no check of the purchased etchant to see if it was what was ordered before it was put to use. This resulted in a major crisis one day when all of the etchers (who were mainly unsuccessful artists) saw their pictures etch black for no reason they could understand. They had been sent a shipment of ferric sulfate instead of ferric chloride by the supplier and were completely bewildered.

In closing, I would like to mention that, along with work on my school subjects, I did some library searching on the matter of recent innovations in the reproduction printing arts, in particular the area of patents granted. I was particularly fortunate in this because the famous John Crerar Library at Michigan and Randolph Street was right on my route to work at the Tribune. I had discovered the Crerar Library several years before joining the Trib when I was going to night school in the loop. It is probably the greatest non-fiction technical library in the U.S. and is open to the public. I found the medical reading room on the 12th floor fascinating. One could request books from any floor and get almost instant automated delivery. The main reading room on the 13th floor was a delightful, bright place, covering the entire floor. There one forgot completely the bustle of the big city. It was like a different country, or like being in a castle in some foreign land. Just recently, the University of Chicago has acquired the entire collection of John Crerar and moved it to a new building on the Chicago campus.

### I Return to the Campus

I have to go back now and describe the academic side of my life which was running parallel to the events I have just related. In my first two years at the University, in 1921 and 1922, I was fortunate to have had men and women who were outstanding in their fields as teachers. In geology I had McClintock, Bastin, and Fisher. In chemistry, I had Mrs. Terry-McCoy, W. D. Harkins (later my thesis prof), Stieglitz, Schlesinger, Glattfelt, and among the younger professors: Mary Rising, W. A. Noyes Jr., Fraser Young, Mortimer Adler, and Marie Farnsworth. In physics, I had Monk, Lemon, and Watson. In math I had Slaughter (no relation to the Trib character) and Mrs. Logston. In astronomy I had Laves, Bartky, and Moulton.

(Note: As I mentioned, Forest Ray Moulton, the famous astronomer, was the father of Gale Moulton who, until he died in 1974, lived in the building next door to us in Vero Beach, Florida.)

During my years going to night school and working days (1923 to 1925), with the exception of Professor Lemon, I had no science teachers. I lost touch with the campus. This was unfortunate, but could not be avoided. I had to have a job. However, in the fall of 1925 I saw an opportunity to work on the night shift at the Trib, from 4 p.m. to midnight, because few wanted to work that shift. This meant that I could go back to the Campus again, and for the first time I envisioned graduate work. This was a most important decision for my future. I found that I could work under Professor Harkins, who became my thesis mentor in physical chemistry. I could get such courses as X-rays with Arthur Compton and Dempster and Michelson (he and Compton both Nobel Prize winners). My chemistry course work was in good shape, so I concentrated on physics. I audited Robert Mulliken's course (another Nobeller). I was an experimentalist, but I tried to acquaint myself with the rapidly changing theoretical work as best I could with my limited math, only through differential equations. Quantum theories were bursting and one needed matrix math and much more to understand Heisenberg (who lectured to us in 1928) and Schroedinger. So I spent most of my time in my lab in the basement of Kent, getting my apparatus built, and then in making measurements of magnetic susceptibility of gases for my thesis.

Once I decided to return to the Campus, I got locked into a routine which I followed almost without change for nearly five years. It absorbed every minute of my day. I regarded my time at the University as play; there I got plenty of mental stimulation and lots of sitting. My studying was done mostly in the small library in the Ryerson Physics Laboratory. Here one could get the latest texts on atomic structure and all of the latest scientific periodicals. My research also was largely sedentary. It was at the Trib that I got my exercise. So the university activities and the work at the Trib balanced one another off nicely. The two things that I missed getting enough of were sleep and campus life. It was only at lunch that I got the stimulation of peer talk, so necessary to a good rounding out in science. These conversations I really enjoyed. My friends included (at different times): Al Shaw, Gerry Willard, Roy Dahlstrom, Al Meyer, Olie Vogel, Bill Vaughn, Art Schuh [Arthur E. Schuh (1899-1975)]and other grad students in chemistry and physics. Usually there would be three or four of us and we always ate in the Commons. I think I had apple pie for lunch every time I ate; it was too good to miss.

The above named were regular students who attended the usual three quarters of school, but since I attended during the summer quarter as well, I made other friends. Most of these were married couples and most were teaching at smaller universities and colleges in the Middle West. They would come to get higher degrees, which meant they could demand more salary. It was this way that I met Joe and Grace Jasper, Joe Chittum, the Ginriches, the Albrights, and others. With the Jaspers in particular, I became very friendly. We all had a vacation during September and I shared a rented cottage with them one summer. More about that later.

My daily routine in those days went something like this: I was living with my parents at 132 Marquette Road. I would get up about 7 a.m., rush downstairs for breakfast (usually with my parents). Then I would take the trolley to 58th and Cottage Grove Avenue, making two transfers; a distance of about five miles. From there I would walk about three-quarters of a mile to the Campus, usually to Kent or Ryerson, for my 8 o'clock class. The morning and part of the afternoon were filled with classes or study and always ended at 3 p.m., because then I had to leave for work. It was almost a mile hike along 57th Street to the Illinois Central station where I took the electric train to the loop. From there I had a mile and a half jaunt to the Sunday Tribune plant on the north side of the Chicago River. It could be a cold and windy walk in the winter, and I tried to stick to the lower level when I crossed the Michigan Avenue Bridge. Our plant was only a short block from the famous Navy Pier.

We began work at 4 p.m. when the day shift quit (Saturdays it was noon), and worked without really stopping for supper until we finished the job list left by Mr. Schultz or, if that was impossible, until midnight or later if we were behind schedule. Most of the time, I took the Clark Street trolley home—another walk of about six blocks. I made it by 12:00 most of the time but as I mentioned, I remember occasions when the sun was coming up in the east and I had only time to wash up for breakfast downstairs.

This was a tight schedule, but there was time on the various conveyances to complete a lot of reading and thinking. I could work on my French and German, required for the higher degree. I tried to memorize at least 10 new words per night and since I only had to have scientific ready ability, it was not too difficult. The French, which I had had a year of in high school, was rather easy in fact because it was so much like English. German was another matter, and that is what I needed the most.

At some point in this school/work program, in the spring of 1926, I took time off to receive my B.S. degree. The circumstances of this event have been largely forgotten now. But how proud my mother and father were—my sister too—when I walked down the aisle in the big Rockefeller Chapel. I don't recall, but I am sure my Aunt and Uncle Fuller were present. But this occasion was only an interlude along the way to my goal of a graduate degree in science, and I soon found myself once more in my old routine.

I cannot end this part of my account without further mention of my uncle, Eugene Fuller. I had great fondness for Gene. All during my youth, Gene had taken an interest in me. He encouraged me in school and saw that I got jobs in the summers. He took time off to attend my graduations. He took me to lunch at the University and other clubs he belonged to and confided in me. Because of a turn in his father's finances, Gene had never finished at Dartmouth College but, as I have mentioned, he was literary through and through. He loved to read Shakespeare and the famous poets. A poet himself, he published for many years in the columns of the _Chicago Tribune_ ("A Line-o-Type or Two"). He was also instrumental, I am sure, in initiating a writing circle with his brothers Rob Fuller and my father. They would each contribute in turn to an evolving novel by writing a chapter and submitting it for comments by the others. Meetings were held in our home usually on Sunday afternoons.

Gene knew what the value of an education was and encouraged me to go on to graduate studies. He died in Los Angeles of heart failure, leaving his wife Catharine Rowe Fuller, also a longtime friend from my Chicago days. His death in 1967 was a great loss to me.

### I Become a Graduate Student

William Draper Harkins [1873-1951], my thesis professor, was one of the earliest chemistry scientists to contribute to nuclear research. The work of Rutherford especially held great interest for him. Harkins' areas of specialization included surface chemistry and physics, as well as nuclear science. He was interested in isotopes and, with the Nobeller Mulliken (one of Harkins' students five years before me), he successfully separated chlorine isotopes by diffusion. Early in his career, Harkins had devised an ingenious helical model of the chemical elements. The term "neutron" was suggested by Harkins before the neutron was discovered. Harkins was also interested in the effect of magnetic fields on molecules as a means of investigating the new electronic nature of chemical valence, and he interested me in tackling this area for my thesis work. Originally it had the high-sounding title: "The Magnetic Susceptibilities of Oxygen, Carbon-dioxide, and Nitric Oxide." (My thesis was in three parts: I. An Apparatus for Measuring Strong Magnetic Fields; II. The Magnetic Susceptibility of Nitric Oxide; III. The Glaser Effect.) I would work with one of the strongest magnets then available to researchers in the U.S.

There were about four of Harkins' grads working in the Kent basement labs at this time. Harkins would make daily visits to check on progress and talk a bit about each problem. He would purposely, I think, give us warning of his approach by walking loudly down the wooden stairs as he came. Perhaps he knew that we students, like all students of old, often discussed the old man and his peculiarities, and didn't want to embarrass anyone.

Art Schuh, who like me joined Bell Labs after graduation, had a big, high-voltage machine in his lab, and if he didn't feel prepared to talk to the "boss," he would set it going as soon as he heard Harkins' footsteps approaching. Harkins was deathly afraid of high voltage. Another ploy Schuh used was to fake a bad cold by coughing when the "boss" was at the door. Harkins feared catching cold and would often pass on to the next in line. I didn't have that problem. Because of my hours, I was glad to get what time I could. It may be, too, that Harkins was wary of my high voltage magnet, since he had warned me to "take care" many times.

Stieglitz, who was head of the department, had never gotten along well with Harkins. I remember when I had heard nothing about my thesis, which had been circulating, I went to Stieglitz in Harkins' absence to find out about it. He was surprised and promptly went with me to Harkins' office, entered with his pass key, and on seeing Harkins' always untidy office, threw up his hands and said, "Look at that mess," referring to the piles of manuscripts everywhere. After much rumbling through papers, he found my thesis and assured me it would be taken care of. I always liked Stieglitz for that, though he was one you never spoke to in the halls - the old German tradition.

I had studied hard for my oral exam (prelims were long ago over, i.e., the written exams) and I was very shaky when I entered the room where I was to face the Profs. No one except Fraser Young, the new young physical chemist, had come as yet. He promptly said, "Why don't we start?" and proceeded to ask me to explain the third law of thermodynamics. I gave what I knew, how the entropy was zero at absolute zero and did a little math on the board which he said was wrong. But he had me erase what I had done as others entered and I heaved a sigh of relief at that. I was not to get off easy though because Young continued to question me on the weak spot he had found and it was not until kind old Steiglitz came to my rescue and changed the subject that I could go on. I felt sure I had flunked when I went out.

But I must have done better than I thought. I did pass my oral exam and we celebrated in Kent that day. I was presented with my doctor's degree in the winter of 1929. My college career, lasting 10 years, had come to an end. My job at the Tribune, which I still needed in order to live, looked more and more drab. Would I be able to get another job where I could spend my full time doing science? Or would I have to hang on in the union, my special knowledge growing staler each day? Those were my thoughts as the winter quarter ended and the new year began—the fateful year of 1930.

### Joys and Sorrows

As I have mentioned, I had rejoined my father and mother in their small apartment at 132 West Marquette Road, (67th Street), late in 1926 or early 1927, so I saw them every morning before I left and on Sundays. My father was better now and in control of himself for the most part, probably because of Mother and the easier life they were now enjoying. They were both in good health and after the turbulence of the life in Hamilton Park, they deserved this period of calm, though they really had little cash. My parents saw much of the family of my sister and of Papa and Mama Cal, who lived in a similar arrangement not far from us, one in which they could get their meals and did not have to cook.

I was extremely busy with school and work, so I paid less attention to my parents than I should have. I do remember that we all had a good Christmas in 1929 with my sister and John and their fine family, now three boys with the last, named after me, only eight months old.

Though I had no inkling if it, I would soon bid them all goodbye and would find myself in New York. (In Part 3, I will touch on the events of this time again, looking from the other direction.) I also was unaware after my departure that Mother's health was deteriorating. Her letters gave no signs and I know she was pleased with both of her children, the way we had turned out. But late in 1930, still keeping the seriousness of her sickness from me, my father suggested I ought to visit if I could. That fall I got the chance and spent several days with my folks. Mother was at June's "recuperating," she said. It was my last visit with her. Mother died at June's home on February 18, 1931. More about this later.

I return now to my history and the period 1925-1930. The University always closed the month of September, so I arranged for my vacation from work then. One summer (1928) I remember I spent with Grace and Joe Jasper in Holland, Michigan. He was a professor at Wayne State and took advanced chemistry courses during the summer at Chicago. Joe and I nearly burned down the town of Holland that summer. We were out to rid the trees of army worms with burning kerosene torches. However, we failed to note the dry grass all around the cottage and soon this was in flames and spreading fast in a strong breeze. We ruined a lot of blankets trying to stop the fire, but it was only the Holland Fire Department who saved the situation.

But the most memorable vacations were those of the two summers in '25 and '26, spent on the road with Howard O'Brien, with whom I had worked a few years before at General. Howard was then working with the Automobile Blue Books, doing road mapping. He had very nice cars, usually the latest roadsters. When I got the chance to meet him down in Mississippi in September, 1925, I jumped at it. It was the first time I had been on a sleeper. We drove through Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, West Virginia, and Tennessee. Some of the roads were under construction and full of boulders; others were old "corduroy" made roads built of railroad ties. The heat was furious, but we stopped at every town for unsweetened lemonade and didn't mind. No air conditioned hotel, no private baths, often no baths at all. We swam naked in a creek with the native boys and gorged on watermelon. We climbed Wilson Dam as it was being built and crawled around Wonder Cave before it became well-known. We were entertained by innkeepers and envied by the populace because of the impressive "Official Car" sign painted on the side with the name "Automobile Blue Books" in smaller print. It was a rare time to see the South, before the poor knew they were poverty-stricken and were still happy everywhere we went.

The summer of 1926, I met Howard again, this time in Pittsburgh. At Howard's suggestion, I stayed free at the fancy Schenley Hotel by entering with his key after he had registered. When the bellboy knocked, I hid in the closet. I have felt guilty about that stay ever since. One afternoon we went to a wake held for one of Howard's 1918 army buddies. It was held in the poor and tough Wood's Run section of town. It turned out that the buddy had committed suicide by jumping off the Allegheny Bridge a few days before. He had been a pugilist and his friends fitted the same mold. I never went for whiskey out of the bottle, but that night I dared not refuse. They wanted us to stay all night but Howard wormed out of that one.

After Pittsburgh we drove through New York State, visiting the beautiful Letchworth Estate. This was before it became a state park and was known as the Grand Canyon of the East. I was not happy when Howard, removing his shoes to get a better grip, climbed down the wall to the Genesee River below. In Olean, New York, we visited the Roycrofters. I had known of Elbert Hubbard through his "Bible" which made sense to me. We stopped in Niagara Falls to visit the "Cave of the Winds"; then on around Lake Ontario to Canada and the city of Hamilton. Both Howard and I suffered from cramps on that trip because we could not resist the unripe apples and peaches along the way. We were soon back in Buffalo, though, because my time had expired. There I boarded the Nickel Plate for Chicago and soon was back in my old routine.

After two wonderful vacations with Howard, both he and I found ourselves going in different ways. Howard changed jobs and took on a family. I became more bogged down with my university work and my job. But we kept in touch and our paths crossed several times later on.

(Note: Howard later formed his own business in diamond drills and drilling operations. Now retired in Maine, we still remain in contact through the mails and telephone. Last I knew of Howard, he was in a convalescent home in Camden, Maine (1989).)

During this 1926 to 1930 period before our mother died, my sister, June, was very busy raising a family. She and John had moved from the apartment at 248 West 73rd Street—(I was living with the Southers (1926))—to a larger newly- built apartment at 77th and Essex Street over near Lake Michigan. My parents had also moved from the same 248 address to Marquette Road during this time. John McKinlay was working for the Tribune in display advertising. (Remember, it was through him that I obtained my job with the Tribune.) About 1928, John left the Trib to take the position of Office Manager for Walgreen Company, a growing drug firm. At the same time, John and my sister moved again into a new home just built by Charles Walgreen, son of the head of the Walgreen Company. It was a beautiful place on the edge of the forest preserve at 89th and Hamilton Avenue in Beverly Hills. We had many good times in John and June's new home. I remember helping erect a fence to keep the boys from wandering into the woods. John and I creosoted the wood and made it secure with wire all around. I also remember how little John and Alan, doing Tarzan one better, managed to throw all of their clothes over the fence. And I volunteered to paint the master bedroom closets with white enamel, but almost suffocated from the fumes.

About the year 1929, John and June had a chance to take over his parents' home at 10350 Seeley Avenue in Beverly, not far from where they lived. Mr. and Mrs. McKinlay had purchased a large mansion on Longwood Drive, reputedly for $200,000, equal to about one and a half million dollars today (1987). Mr. McKinlay was head of Marshall Fields and needed a home to go with the job.

Unfortunately, June was to have only a few years in her big house on Seeley Avenue. Helen June, (now June), and Calvin had been added to the family, so there were now four young ones to raise. She had a constant round of social obligations to fulfill, and in addition to all that, she had our mother on her hands, who had become very ill with malignant endocarditis. Our mother's death weighed heavily on everyone. That was in 1931. Under these strains, June contracted a cold which developed into pneumonia. She died on December 23, 1932 at the age of twenty-eight.

Other tragedies were to happen. John's sister Dorothy, happily married with a fine family, was to take her life—alcohol. Mr. McKinlay, the immigrant boy who had risen through the ranks to become president of Marshall Fields, died. He had retired a few years before. My brother-in-law John had to carry on with his large family of youngsters as best he could. He soon left Walgreen Company and returned once again to Marshall Fields. There he rose to become president of the store's outlying units. He and his wife, Elnora, are now retired and spend summers in Chicago and winters in Palm Beach, Florida.

(Note: John during the last years has been in poor health according to his son and my nephew John (living in Elizabethton, Tennessee). He, (the elder John), and Elnora live in Palm Beach now (1988), but he is largely confined to bed most of the time.)

## Part 3: The Productive Years (1930-1967)

###  Some Historical Background

Not only was there an abrupt change in my life in 1930, but there were also major changes occurring throughout the world. Let us look back for a moment at the big movements which, unknown to most of us, were slowly altering our lives.

Both of my grandparents came out of a terrible period of internecine warfare that few countries have experienced. Although they were only youngsters then, the strains of the Civil War and the resulting poverty left their marks on them. The reconstruction saw vigorous recovery however, and by the time they had grown up, the country was off on an unprecedented period of growth. There were railroads to be built, farm lands to be opened, and entire new cities to be constructed. Jobs were plentiful and skills and plain muscle were needed in quantity. The immigration gates were opened and a stream of Swedes, Germans, Poles, and Irish crossed to our side. Everything was strictly laissez-faire; everyone was on his own; work was hard; pay was low; prices were low. Strangely, everyone seemed happy. Everyone ate and somehow found a place to live. Except for the tragedy of disease which struck mercilessly in those days, one might say this was utopia—or soon would be. There were setbacks, like the fire in Chicago, but these were minor disasters compared to those that came later and such as those that occur today on the highways and in the airways.

For fifty years, the young country grew and prospered. Most people had little if anything to fall back on, yet if one didn't grow, he blamed himself. Everyone felt the opportunities had to be made, not given. In spite of low taxes, the public return was unbelievably great. One needed no money to enjoy the parks, and the transportation was essentially free throughout the big cities and very efficient, too.

There were no autos to speak of and it seems now that our troubles started with them and multiplied in proportion to the growth of the motor vehicle. This was not the only factor, of course. We as a country were attracting world attention now and the low cost of our federal government was soon to be no more. World War I was the first move toward Federal Socialism. No longer would the localities have control of their own pocketbooks. No longer would there be parks like Hamilton.

Although the 1920s was a most tragic and trying period for my own immediate family, it was one last fling before the curtain dropped for the country as a whole. There was an economic coagulation taking place. Larger businesses were swallowing small. Big unions were rising. Pay and prices were both going up. I have told how I personally was involved in this process. Like many who worked I found I could save part of what I earned now, and by late 1930 I had several hundred dollars in the bank and over a thousand in Insull preferred stock. What I did not know, but might have surmised from the way the innocents at the Trib were speculating in the stock market, was that everyone, even the big operator, was living on over-extended credit. The speculative frenzy apparently went beyond the U.S. to other countries as well.

The collapse came in 1929 and the resulting depression continued thereafter right up to World War II. Away went my hard earned $1,100 and the myth that we could have a private happy utopia in this country. Our youth as a country had been spent and the disillusionments of maturity were upon us. Some say the Depression happened because we had lost our frontier and there was no more land to develop. Others say we lost our local democracy to federal interests. Still others, with more truth, say that we were now playing the game with the old professionals—England, France, Germany, Japan, and Russia—who had been too busy to bother with us before. Also, our growing dependence on the automobile was forcing us to look more and more to the East for oil. It was inevitable that our federal government would have to enlarge to deal with these world concerns. This shift, from local and state to federal, resulted in a loss of control of the budget, a situation we have still not corrected.

We were learning now about unemployment, hunger, welfare, and taxes on a national scale. At the same time, large private interests were forming. Companies were becoming larger as were the unions. The spread in incomes between the social classes was coming more into question. Labor began to demand more of the fruits of the machine.

All of these changes were taking place during the '30s. But it was the involvement in World War II that really gave impetus to the movement. Big technology took hold, a nationwide highway system was built. We assumed leadership as a world power and built an even larger Federal bureaucracy to administer our new responsibilities. We went further into debt to bail out our allies. We took on more debt with our aid to South Korea where we still remain. Not learning from that war, we dove again into the losing one in Vietnam, where again we were mired in a Chinese-Russian trap from which we paid heavily to be freed.

This last war with its sickening casualty lists resulted in a relentless inflation and divided the country as it never had been before. Those like myself, who remember the happy days before we became a "great power," who know the story of the Russian intrigue and the German brutality as well as Korea and Vietnam, naturally long for a return to those early days. However, as the events which have happened since Vietnam show, we shall never return. In fact, as I write now, foreign relations for the U.S. could hardly be more strained and the domestic situation fraught with problems.

It is against this background that I continue the account of my life experiences. No one living through these times could help but be shaped by them. Many would come through with scars and I have a few, but in another way, I was very fortunate. I found a new life along the lines I had long hoped for and a nice girl to share it with me.

### My Dream Comes True

As I have related, the day I had long been working for finally came at the end of December 1929 when I passed my orals for my Ph.D. in physical chemistry. I have already told how scared I was and how the kind Professor Stieglitz came to my rescue. How proud my mother and father were when they sat in Rockefeller and saw me, decked out in my robe and shield, march to the platform and get that sheepskin. My uncle Gene, who always looked on me as his closest relation, was also there and I was given a beautiful watch engraved with my name by the McKinlays—a Longines designed especially for Marshall Fields.

Shortly, I was told by the University that representatives from industry would arrive to look over the doctoral graduates and if I wanted to be interviewed, I should put my name down on the lists so schedules could be arranged. This I did, making sure Bell Laboratories was one of them. I had to arrange for a switch with someone on the day shift at the Trib so that I could keep this date. I remember little about these interviews except that I thought chances were rather slim. My interviewer was Robert R. Williams [1886-1965], Chemical Director for Bell Laboratories. Although I could not have known it, Mr. Williams (he had a B.A. and M.A. in chemistry from Chicago and later received many honorary degrees and honors for his synthesis of thiamine or vitamin B1) turned out later to be my best friend and supporter.

I had almost given up hope of getting a job in science when I received a letter from G. B. Thomas, Personnel Director, in February 1930 saying that I had been chosen for a position in the Chemical Research Department of Bell Laboratories in New York City. The salary would be $3,600 per year to start, less than the $4,800 I was making at the Trib (about equal to $32,000 and $43,000 in 1987), and I could choose my time to start during the next month.

I was overjoyed but scared. Except for a few times when I had toured the South and some states in the East with Howard O'Brien, I had never been away from home. My mother encouraged me to go, something that must have been hard indeed for her. And as much as I disliked the work at the Trib, when it came time to leave all the good friends I had in the Sunday Plant, I was loath to make the move to New York. Two of my school friends had gone to Bell earlier, Art Schuh (who later became vice-president of research for U.S. Cast Iron Pipe) and Gerald Willard [Gerald Warner Willard (1901-1955)] in physics, who later was to be my best man. This encouraged me because I thought I would know someone at my new job. Mr. Ney, a friend of my father's, gave me the address of the Y on 38th Street where he had once lived. There, he said, I would find good lodging until I could find something better. It would be close to the Labs, which was at 14th Street. I knew the long-awaited opportunity had come, so I had really no choice but to make the break. Little did I realize that because of the deepening Depression, it would be six years before I would earn as much as a scientist as I had made as a photoengraver.

I took the Nickel Plate to Buffalo so that I could look out the train window and contemplate the wonderful scenes as they passed by. I remember we went through Canada for part of the trip and the customs men boarded the train twice. From Buffalo I took the sleeper, the second time I had been in a berth, arriving in Grand Central Station in New York. I took a cab to the Y and got a room without difficulty. Suddenly I had time just to think and pinch myself to see if it was all real.

Here I was in a strangely foreign city. I was used to big city bustle, but New York was different, entirely different from Chicago. I had lost that $1,100 in the Insull utility tumble, (about equal to $11,000 in 1987 dollars), but I had several thousands in railroad stocks and $500 in an Omaha Bee News bond which paid me 6%. I also had a bank check for several hundred dollars to transfer my account from the Continental of Chicago to some bank in New York. So, thanks to my jobs and my savings and in spite of the crash, I had a good nest egg.

Financially, I felt secure. But what about the job? What would it be like? Could I do it? I felt rather insecure about it. After all, this was the famous Bell Laboratories where they were making pictures talk and other incredible things. I would have to wait to see because it was only Friday and I was to report on Monday. I thought I might call Art Schuh, whose phone number I had, but decided against it. I thought I would learn about New York first and what better way is there to see it than by walking?

I walked and walked, first proceeding south along Broadway all the way to the Battery. I stopped and gazed at Wall Street—a magic name I had heard through the years from my father. It looks like any other street, except for the very tall buildings. I walked around the tip of Manhattan into Chinatown and the Bowery. I stopped somewhere and had a bite to eat, probably in a drugstore. Finally, I took refuge in a bus going north and rode up Fifth Avenue, making note of the New York Public Library, a structure I was later to visit often and long. The Metropolitan Museum and Central Park about did me in and I hastened back by bus to 38th and flung myself on the bed, exhausted. Saturday and Sunday were repeats of Friday, with the Natural History Museum and the subways from Times Square to Columbia north and Brooklyn and Prospect Park on the south. By Sunday afternoon I felt I knew my way around New York!

With trepidation I arrived at the appointed time at the Laboratories, found Mr. Thomas's office, and sat down to wait with several others who were in my same boat. After the usual thing that the personnel people do, such as arranging medical etc., I was met by Mr. Williams and taken to lunch with a few of the sub-department heads present. Afterward I was left with each one who explained to me the kind of work being done. I probably had a choice about where I could be placed, whether in the physical chemical projects, the organic, or the inorganic; the metallurgists then were a separate breed. However, I had made my mind up that Mr. Williams had ideas of his own about where he would like to have me and that I would take his judgment.

In those days at the Labs, the Chemical Department was organized along materials and processes lines. Some worked on fibers used for insulation: some on paper used for condensers: some on ceramics, rubber, rubber processing for cable and wire: others on batteries and the chemistry of their action. Considerable work was being done on carbon from special coals for use in the telephone transmitters. Bakelite was about the only plastic then and very little (if any) work was done on it or any of the other plastics which were just appearing. I knew about as little of one material as I did about another, but I was not expected to know anything except basic chemistry. However, I had had valuable practical experience in the lab at General Chemical, so that analytical chemistry was an open book to me. Also, I had had enough organic chemistry so that I could quickly fit into the jobs that required a knowledge of it.

As it turned out, I was sold on working on the problems of developing a better enamel coating for wire—a project already underway under a Dr. Lasalle with the aid of C. L. Erickson and an assistant by the name of Towsley. Enameled wire was manufactured as it had been for decades by the Western Electric Company. Enough of it was turned out every year at the Hawthorne Plant, just outside of Chicago, to reach from the earth to the moon and back eleven times. Some of the wire was finer than a human hair and some as large as the lead in a pencil.

Enameling was done by applying a liquid coating of resins and vegetable oils to the wires as they are drawn rapidly through a mixture. The mixture is converted into a tough insulating film by passing it through ovens which evaporate the solvents and oxidize and react the oils and resins. The product, as it was made then, needed improvement. We were told we had a free rein to find a tougher coating so that the losses on the winding machines could be reduced and a better life could be obtained from enameled- wire-wound-coils (such as are used in the telephone ringing equipment and loading-coils used on long lines). Within the restrictions imposed by cost, obsolescence, and politics, this was not as easy a job as it first appeared.

I encountered the politics right away. I was told to report not to Lasalle but to his boss, Mr. Kemp, an expert on rubber and cable. Kemp was in charge of both rubber and enamels for wire. Lasalle was naturally loath to teach me all the ins and outs of the job, suspecting that I was to replace him. So I was assigned to work with Erickson, an affable chap with whom I became a good friend. Lasalle sulked and was finally prevailed upon to leave. That left me in charge of the group which later was enlarged to cover all synthetic-type insulations for wire, including fibers.

When I took my job with the Bell Labs, I assumed that I would be applying what I had learned in science to the problems of telephony. I didn't know just how; that I trusted would be spelled out for me. It wasn't. Things were worse than I thought, or better; I wasn't sure which. We were expected to produce our own show. When I started on the enameled wire problem, I could see only a fuzzy connection to things I had learned formally. But I had thinking and working habits that were of immediate use. Our bosses didn't know what needed to be done, except in a general way, and it was up to us. I found that this was the policy throughout the Labs, a policy instituted by Frank B. Jewett, one of the farsighted men in the early organization of Bell System research (now revived by Charles Brown, Chairman of the new AT&T—1987).

If it hadn't been for Erickson—Eric as everyone called him—my first year would have been much more lonesome than it was. He and his wife Oleve, strapped as they were during the Depression, often had me to the little cottage they were renting in the country in New Jersey. This was especially appreciated on the weekends, when I missed my home ties the most. I remember one such visit very clearly. We had had a late Saturday night and were, or at least I was, snoring soundly when I was suddenly awakened by a shotgun blast out my window. I jumped up and ran to the window where, in the dim light of the morning, I could see Eric holding a smoking gun. He had just shot off his weathervane, thinking it was a crow that had been bothering his young son the day before. It was an embarrassing error he could not get out of.

But I had also made other friends. I had called Art Schuh, my Chicago friend, who had me over to his abode in the Woodward residence hotel at 55th and Broadway. He had kindly asked me to join him and others in sharing a big suite of rooms they had there. After seeing the rather loose arrangement Art had set up with two women and his piano, I decided against it. Art always had been ahead of his time.

Instead, I moved to the new residence tower just completed as an adjunct to the Hotel St. George in Brooklyn Heights, right at the east end of the Williamsburg Bridge. I was on the tenth floor and from my room could look over lower Manhattan. The room cost $60 per month, but that included free use of the largest indoor saltwater pool in the world. It could be reached by special elevators that would carry you in your bathrobe right to the showers. So every morning I had my swim before breakfast. I didn't know it at the time, but realized later that swimming was not for me. The broken nose of my youth plus the water of the pool soon brought on chronic sinus trouble which was to plague me for many years.

I knew a few fellows at the hotel, but no girls (although there were several floors restricted to women with easy stairways between them that many fellows used). Most of my friends were Lab friends and I struck up the closest friendship with Emerson Kern, who worked in Art Schuh's group and lived by himself in a brownstone near Columbia. Emerson had a liking for the outdoors and for shows; he also liked to discuss philosophy and knew several girls. We had many outings on weekends and frequently had supper together. I also had found my old Chicago friend Gerry Willard working at the Graybar Building, which was housing some of the Labs groups in lower Manhattan. Through Gerry I met Art Ahearn, since the two were rooming together. Art and I saw a lot of each other later at Murray Hill and have kept in touch ever since. His wife Ella also lived in the Village before their marriage and we often attended gatherings in her apartment. I think Gerry and Art had the darkest apartment in the Village. It was next to a speakeasy in the basement of a building on Barrow Street. This didn't affect their parties, though, and it was at one of these that I met the girl who was later to become my wife. (More on this later.)

I had only been with the Labs a year when I learned that some of the more hazardous work, and that included us, was to be moved to a rented building in Summit, New Jersey. Four groups were chosen to go. Ours included myself, Charley Erickson, and three others. The year was 1931.

### The Summit Lab

We were put on the second floor of a small three-story building in Summit with two other chemical groups. One was headed by S. O. Morgan and dealt with dielectrics; the other was headed by Lee T. Smith and was concerned with cellulose research. Somehow, Smith never seemed to go over with his men. He had three single fellows recently out of college in his group. They were Bryan L. Rauschert, a husky likeable farm boy from Washington State; Henry [Hank] Nash, a good-looking girl chaser; and Keith Storks from Ames, Iowa who still showed his country upbringing. Since I was single, I palled around with these three, especially Bryan and Hank, who got several dates for me because I had a car big enough for four.

Lee was pleasant enough but it was difficult to fix the reason for his popularity. I suppose it rested in his officiousness and his inflated opinion of himself. At any rate, Smith always went home for lunch, which must have been very ample because invariably, after he returned and settled himself at his desk, he would fall asleep. However, it was not a long one and somehow he could feign working by propping a book up in front of him and appear to be reading. This however, did not escape Keith Storks' sharp eye and one day he and Stan Morgan conspired (I still to this day do not know who was the initiator) to put an end to Smith's siestas.

The method they chose was novel, if not dangerous. Directly behind Smith was a tank containing nitrogen gas under high pressure. To the outlet of this they had wired a heavy rubber hose about four inches long and closed it with a screw clamp. After Smith had settled down on returning from what must have been a particularly heavy lunch because he was nodding, one of the conspirators cracked the value on the tank and walked away. It took about five minutes before the explosion occurred. You could see the ominous bulge in the rubber tube getting bigger and bigger. Then BOOM! The clamp flew through the room like a projectile and Smith, almost without waking, went over backwards in his swivel chair. As I recall, no one said a word, including Smith who got up, shook himself, and resumed his "reading." But if Smith napped again, it was at home.

In the spring of 1931, I found myself living in an upper floor room I rented in a house on Hillside Avenue in Summit, New Jersey. I was cut off from my friends in New York and felt more isolated than ever. I saw a lot of the Ericksons and spent my weekends helping Eric build his new home. This was not far from the place he was renting in Towaco, New Jersey. I had bought a secondhand Chevy so I could now get around to see old friends I had known in Chicago, in particular Hazel and Hubert Jordan who lived in Nutley, New Jersey. I also visited Al and Leslie Meyer who I had known at the University of Chicago. Both Al and Hubert worked for the U.S. Rubber Company in Passaic, New Jersey and through them I got to know many others.

I still was not very happy, though I had made friends of the Cranes in Summit, a son and two daughters of Mrs. Crane who had known my grandmother. But they were years older than I. I thought of switching jobs, but the Depression was worsening early in 1931 and this seemed no time for it. Then a real shock hit me in February of 1931.

I knew from the sound of my father's voice when I was called to the phone that something was wrong. Mother had died. I knew she was ill, but I had not ever believed she could die. I had seen her only recently on a business trip to Chicago, as I mentioned before. I was not told of her fatal disease, malignant endocarditis, for which there was then no cure. I should have sensed from the tightness with which Mom had held me during that visit that she knew we would never meet again.

It was back to Chicago for the funeral, a long sorrowful trip. I perceived the numerous old family friends who came up to me, as through a fog. My sister and her husband, who had borne all the expenses and the sadness of seeing Mother weaken and die at their home, were also bewildered and we had little time for mutual talk. Little did we realize that my sister June too would be gone before the next Christmas.

The shock to my father must have been devastating, but I was too down on my father to care, because of the past miseries I had seen him inflict on the family. But I should have tried to ease his sorrow more than I did.

On October 6, 1931, my father wrote the following note to Mama Cal: "If you have believed that at times I did not show the devotion to her which would indicate a deep affection, I can only say that the fact that she stuck by me through all, showed that she knew that my love for her was stronger by far than appeared to many who were older than we, to many far wiser than we." He enclosed a poem he had written at Mt. Hope Cemetery where Mother is buried:

She lies but dreaming there,

In the chamber of the blest.

Underneath the myrtle where,

They laid her down to rest.

Her beauty sleeps in gladness;

Children's dreams attend

To dissipate all sadness,

For death is not the end.

9/5/31

My bitter childhood experiences, on account of my father's incurable habit, led me to hate him and even at times to consider doing away with him. Now I see I was not the sympathetic son I should have been. Perhaps I could have helped him reform had I tried.

My father then lived on the upper floor of an apartment building in Hyde Park with another male friend—under rather miserable circumstances, I am ashamed to say. His two brothers and I helped him, but his habit prevented us from giving too much or it would have been spent on more liquor; at least that was Gene's theory. I know I did not send very much—just enough, I thought, to keep him in food. Before he died (1947) he visited us several times in Chatham where he would stay for several months and then go back to his old haunts. He was happy at our home and really enjoyed the children—Bob and Steve—when they were in their early years. He died in what must have been painful circumstances. I left things too much to Gene to look after him, which he did, but I have since regretted that I was not more concerned.

My life resumed at the little lab in Summit, somewhat more soberly than before. I went out more and went into the City more. It was on one of these occasions that I attended the party that was to make me a family man.

It was one of those Barrow Street get-togethers. Gerry and Art had arranged a party to celebrate the move of the Physical Review and its editorial staff to New York. The guests of honor were the "boss," as they called John Tate, Editor of the Review; Madeline Mitchell, editorial secretary and later his wife; and a tall good-looking girl who they referred to as "Willie." Lots of others were present but I managed to have conversations with Willie and decided I wanted to see more of her.

### A Wife, a Home, and Children

It wasn't long before I was taking Willie on trips around New Jersey on the weekends when we were both free. She soon met most of my friends and was quickly adopted by both the Ericksons and the Jordans. It was returning from one of these visits to the Jordans' apartment in Nutley that we decided to get married. I asked and she accepted.

Gerry, who had married a girl named Marguerite, agreed to be my best man and the father of an old roommate of Willie's, a Presbyterian minister, was delighted to conduct the ceremony. Dr. Arms not only did this, but with Mrs. Arms took us afterward to a wedding breakfast they had kindly prepared for everyone in their home. Madeline, Willie's close friend and associate at the Review, was maid of honor. We drove away feeling very fortunate to have such friends and headed for Willie's hotel on 38th Street to pick up her meager belongings, which included an ironing board too large to go into the car. With this dangling on the outside we dashed through the Holland Tunnel to the one-room apartment we had rented in East Orange. Then we left on our honeymoon. It was September and things had changed drastically for both of us in only a few months.

Had not both Willie and I had jobs, we might not have been bold enough to enter into marriage because this was the bottom of the Depression. Soon I was working only four days a week, Fridays being free for me now. Consequently, on Fridays I would accompany Willie to the city and spend the day at the New York Library, studying up on polymer chemistry while she was on the job. Then we would come home together, stop at the store for groceries, and cook our supper.

It was during this time that we found we were staying close by to another old school friend of mine and his wife who had also come east. They were Roy and Amelia Dahlstrom and soon we were joining them and two other Chicago alumni in happy times together. Roy was an independent cuss who insisted on going around the world with Amelia before starting his job with National Lead in Brooklyn. He ended up in charge of research and had much to do with National's success in titanium oxide pigments. Roy, Al, Hubert, and I all got our Ph.D.s from Chicago at about the same time and knew each other there. It is remarkable that three of us have had careers in chemistry and now have gone on to retire. Unfortunately, Hubert was forced to retire early because of a congenital disease which left him blind. He died when he was sixty-two.

In 1934, Willie and I decided to move to Summit so that we both would not have to commute. One good effect of the Depression was that there were plenty of apartments waiting to be rented at a very low price. So we had no trouble finding a three-room apartment at 133 Summit Avenue, right next door to the Medical Group. We acquired a garage and a new car also. Now I could walk to work but there was a price to pay. I had to do the shopping and as it turned out the cooking, at least during the week. It wasn't anything elaborate, but it was wholesome. My best dish was German fried potatoes, the constant repetition of which probably helped induce the gall bladder trouble I acquired later.

A year passed quickly and it looked at first as if we would not have a family, which we both wanted. However, with the aid of the Medical group, it shortly appeared that we would indeed have to prepare to be parents. We had moved down one floor in our building and this would make it easier when the baby came. But we were looking further ahead and had seen lots in the Edgewood section outside of Chatham (the next town to the west) that we very much liked the looks of, should we decide to build.

Bobby was born on October 26, 1936. From the start, he acted as if he would go places and soon we had to resist his demands for service because he was getting overweight. We felt cramped more than ever now in our apartment and pushed plans for building. We bought a lot (just over the Chatham City line) from the Karolyna Realty Company, headed by Mr. Oscar Williams, who had lost all in the crash and now was trying to recoup by selling his wife's property as lots. We talked him into a piece 100 feet wide (he had made the lots only 60 feet), contracted to pay $2,200 for it, and went ahead with plans with an architect named Schmidlin.

Soon the house was out for bids and a building contract for a seven-room frame house with a future bedroom over the garage was given to a Mr. Bradley, who was on the verge of bankruptcy that spring of 1937 and was happy to have work for his idle men. He put his entire crew to work and by July it was done enough for us to move in. I paid $6,000 in cash, which surprised Bradley. "Where did you get that money?" he asked one day. "Saved it," I said and I could see he didn't believe me. Not in these times. Since the total cost was $8,500, I took a mortgage for the rest and soon paid that off too.

Forty-Two Edgewood Road was a good location, but it was only after we got in that we saw the huge amount of work that had to be done. We had left most of the grounds in its natural state which was mostly brush, bushes, and trees. We had no idea that we had built on a terminal moraine; the glacier had piled up countless rocks around us, although we did notice the hardpan during the tedious excavation. We had also seen water and had insisted on a drained basement. But we did not notice the stream that had cut diagonally through our lot. I was to struggle with this problem for many years to come.

Edgewood was mud when we moved in, but within a few months it was nicely paved as we had been promised, and things were looking up. We were the third house to start in the section and the second to be completed, but the next year neighbors were coming in fast and we were convinced we had been right in picking our spot in spite of the rocks, hardpan, and water. The trees, tall swamp oaks, and dogwood were beautiful and kept the house delightfully cool all summer. It was a beautiful street; everyone agreed on that.

Our home on Edgewood Road will always be full of treasured memories for me. The rapid pace of life in the suburbs made the years go sliding by. Weekends there was work on the grounds: gardening to be done, weeds to be pulled, gutters to be cleaned, leaves to be raked, trees to be trimmed or removed, and rocks—always rocks—to be extracted. There was painting and caulking and work on the cars. Inside there was maintenance or work on some project such as the porch enlargement or a room to be added. These jobs and the demands of the children, as well as neighborhood parties, entertaining friends or relations, accounts to keep, work brought home from the office, reading to be done, and just eating and sleeping, helped to make thirty years pass like the wind.

Now certain events stand out: The births of our other two sons, Stephen and John; the time I was scalped by the limb from a large oak tree I had felled with the help of neighbors; the fall Bob had out of the dogwood (we saw him flash by on his way down past the dining-room window); the time we noticed that John had fractured his skull on a fall from his baby seat; the discovery that Steve had had polio; the construction of our basketball court; the time Bob said "look Mom no hands" and ended bleeding on a driveway rock; Steve racing on his bike out onto the Shunpike hitting an auto and bouncing off onto Gee's fence; John winning the backstroke race at the Fish & Game; the "boys" early morning practicing on the piano, piano, piano; the time Steve and Rich got into my can of varnish in the basement and varnished Mom's towels and sheets drying there; the time I had the explosion in the basement helping one of the boys prepare oxygen; the time Madge and Charley Huebner were knocked out simultaneously by their garage door; the time we built the drainage ditch out of forty old water heater shells I bought for $30; the many troubles with our septic tank; the building of the basement playroom and our first TV; the times we went to the [Great] swamp blueberry picking and the job of cleaning afterward; the blackberry patch under the high-tension wires; the tree house in the woods; the hurricane of '38 when we lost several big oaks; the time they cleared most of the big oaks out of the woods during the War; the building with Steve of the "little house;" the many sand boxes for the kids; Dinsmore shooting the squirrel off our rock from his front porch; Sid Frazer crawling home from Dinsmores' parties; Rothenbergers' grand affairs; the doings of the Nordenholts; the accidental death of Russ Hubbard; the loss of young Roberts in the War; the story of Bill Klomp and the Severiens; the time Steve found the diamond ring; the escapades of Steve and Richie Young; the time Norm ate the pansies; the many vacations at Green Pond; the mess caused when the sewers went in; Steve's accident with Bob's car; the time Mom burned the woods; the time Bob left home; the day baby boy Steve walked to town "to find Grandpa;" the great snowstorm; the cozy times around the fireplace, and of course Thanksgivings and Christmases with their grand meals—thirty years of them. In between these events, the boys went through the local schools and away to college and Willie and I managed to travel both at home and abroad and survive it all.

I have had only two really close calls in automobiles so far during my fifty-five years of driving. Either could have been fatal to me or to the persons involved. One was definitely my fault, or would have been had we hit. This was on the main street in Nutley when I suddenly decided to make a U-turn for some reason. A quick glance had shown no car behind but there was one on my left side in my blind spot. Had I hesitated one second I would have been hit amidships but I cleared the car by inches.

The second casualty was worse. I was going through West Summit on my way to the Lab on a Saturday morning in 1962 when it happened. The busy street was lined with parked vehicles and I was going along at the speed limit of 35 mph. All of a sudden I saw a brown object hit my car and next a head of hair come through the windshield. I had hit a girl about 16 years old and since she rolled off beside the car limp, I assumed her dead.

All traffic stopped and a crowd gathered. I looked at the girl, who was in shock. Her face was covered with what appeared to be a white goo but there was no blood. I made some remark about it and the person with her who later said he was a doctor remarked, "She's having a convulsion, you damned fool!" Actually she wasn't. She had been eating an ice cream cone, it turned out later. Fortunately, I had a witness in the oncoming lane of traffic who saw the girl, being chased by her boyfriend, dart across in my path from behind a panel truck. I had no warning. The fortunate thing was that I was driving the VW and she was hit on the backside by the sloping front part. Her heavy hair cushioned the blow on the windshield so all that happened to her was that she was knocked out and badly bruised. I was, of course, much relieved when I found out that, but I was so shocked at the time I could not drive home.

It was after a trip to Alaska and back in 1967, when we arrived home to an empty and forlorn house, that we decided it was best to put the Edgewood period of our lives in its box and start anew. I had just retired and the boys were now grown. If ever we were to do it, the time was now. So that fall of 1967, we put our home on the market and in a few weeks it was sold. I think the family was taken aback and Willie soon regretted the act, at least for the time. But new events had been set in motion and we were to leave New Jersey for good to make new lives in Florida.

### I Become a Polymer Chemist

During the years from 1937 to 1967, I had been an overtime plumber, carpenter, mason, electrician, mechanic, roofer, painter, gardener, and accountant, not to mention investor. But I was being paid for doing research at Bell Labs and in fact I did consider that to be my main duty and occupation, putting in fifty to sixty hours per week, to say nothing of my dreams about my lab's problems at night. This was my career and I worried about it while liking it tremendously and telling myself all the time how lucky I was. I never thought of salary except to consider it a steal and a gift, and with the hope it would continue.

Soon after starting with the Labs, I realized that if I was to make a name, I must publish—and to publish, one had to have an expertise. I had to build this expertise around things that were important to the telephone, and with my job being focused on insulating materials and processes (a rather lackluster subject), I was forced to analyze it into basic terms. I decided I would become a polymer chemist, do polymer research, and (hopefully) publish my work. In fact, I was encouraged in this by Mr. Williams and in 1934, I was chosen to report on my work and attend lectures offered at Cornell by Professor [J. R.] Katz of Amsterdam, who had gained attention by discovering that natural rubber (when stretched) produced an X-ray diffraction pattern like that given by a rotated crystal. I had published one piece of work on the reactions occurring in vegetable oils during heating in air and oxygen and this had given my superiors some hope that I might be able to extract something useful from these lectures and laboratory work.

So it was in the fall of 1934 that I packed up and went to Ithaca. It was already beginning to feel chilly when I disembarked from my berth that October morning, and it was not long before I began to remember how cold a frame house can get at this time of year. I had been fortunate in finding Miss Walbridge (the same good high school teacher who had guided me to the University back in 1921) working in the engineering library across from the Chemistry building. Through her I obtained lodging with a Mrs. Heller, who owned the former architect's house on Stewart Avenue, part way up to the campus. She had given it over to students who did all the work for their room and board, but she made the rules. It was a convenient, if cool abode for me and a very interesting experience.

I soon met Professor Katz and we became especially close, probably because he knew I was from Bell Labs and in part because Katz was so odd and eccentric that few of the others were attracted to him. Professor Katz had a Ph.D. in Chemistry and an M.D. in psychiatry, but he had ceased practicing the latter. Some said he should have tried it on himself after his strange movements became known. For example, he would walk directly across street intersections in a fog and without a change of pace, in complete disregard of traffic. This would send motorists scrambling, and if I happened to be near, me rushing to stop him. I had heard he was a vegetarian, but when one day I happened to be lunching with him and he came through the line with six salads and nothing else, I couldn't believe it! Later, when I had forgotten this and we were having him to our apartment in Summit for supper, Willie prepared her best meat dish and a fancy dessert for him. But undaunted, he turned down everything and settled for a whole head of lettuce on which he munched while we ate the goodies. In spite of all this, though, Professor Katz managed to get enough grad students (including myself) to set-up his primitive X-ray equipment, or rather what was left of it, for he had insisted on shipping all the glassware from Holland. It was mostly pulverized in transit. Katzie's (that is what the students called him) groans could be heard up and down the hall each time a box was unpacked. If it hadn't been for E. W. Hughes, later a professor himself, and a few others, the X-ray lab would never have gotten off the ground.

Not only was Katz's equipment primitive, but so was his theoretical background on X-rays. I had had a course at Chicago on X-ray crystal analysis and one from Compton on X-ray theory, and even that meager training was enough to indicate to me that we would need to motivate ourselves if we were to get much out of Katzie's course. Katzie did have a certain special knowledge on polymers though, and that (with what he knew of X-ray analysis) did set him apart. So we did learn from him. After all, that is why he had been chosen to give the Baker Lectures. (I still have in my possession a number of letters from this odd gentleman.)

The two months that I had to spend at Cornell went by rapidly. I did manage to do some laboratory work on a synthetic rubber-like product called "Thiokol" which had just been invented by Dr. Patrick. He and his assistant at the University of Missouri had been looking for an antifreeze for automobiles. The Thiokol Corporation was formed to exploit this product. This company still exists today, having greatly expanded its operations. Later Katz and I, with help from Dr. Patrick on the constitution of the sulfide polymers, published a paper on our work done at Cornell and continued by me at the Labs.

On my return from the Laboratories at Cornell, I enlisted the help of Bozorth and Haworth of the Physical Research Department, who were familiar with X-ray analysis and had the latest equipment. With a new Cu-anode tube, I was able to improve on the patterns I had obtained with Katz's old equipment. I also did some work on irisin (a form of starch) with Katz, which was not very illuminating. After that, we each went our separate ways and I saw Katz only at science meetings.

In order to continue my X-ray studies of polymers, it was necessary for me to go to the New York laboratory because we had as yet no equipment in Summit. This was very inefficient and I soon prevailed on the Labs to purchase new equipment for us in Summit. We had new personnel now and were engaged in synthesizing polymers, which we thought would tell us a lot about the fundamentals of these materials. We hoped this background would enable us to select the kind of materials we needed for insulations and structural plastics for use in the Bell System. The X-ray structural work was a vital part of this research, and with the aid of Charley Erickson and Norman Pope, I pushed these investigations forward. Later Carl Frosch and W. O. Barber joined in this work.

Carothers at the DuPont Lab had discovered a whole new concept in the organic synthesis of polymers and we saw the chance to subject these to our X-ray methods. Our familiarity with mechanical and electrical properties of polymers, we decided, would supplement the X-ray data and therefore help us correlate polymer properties with their structures. Then we could devise the kind of materials we wanted for telephone purposes, rather than have to take what nature offered. Now, nearly forty years later, the organic materials used in the Bell System for cable and wire insulation are wholly synthetic, and molded plastics based on synthetic polymers have taken over in every kind of telephone apparatus.

In 1937, Erickson and I published our first paper on the X-ray structure of the synthetic polyester fibers we had made. We established a one-to-one correspondence between the repeating units in our polymers with the units derived from our X-ray patterns. Later papers with Carl Frosch extended the investigation to other polymer structures, and it was shown that regular coils formed in some chain molecules when they were in the fully extended form. In others, folded and tilted chains were deduced from our X-ray observations. Our suggested helical form for polyisobutylene was the first found for a synthetic polymer and foreshadowed the Watson-Crick structure for DNA.

Here it may be of some interest to note how our Lab and DuPont's just missed making a major discovery. Charley Erickson had had in mind for some time making a polyester from terephthallic acid, which in fact had also been cited as an example in one of Carothers' basic patents on nylon (but which to our knowledge had never been successfully made). It was not until years later in the late '40s that our organic chemist John Howard—later to be killed in a tragic street accident in Vienna, Austria—prepared such a polymer and coaxed some primordial fibers from it. The molecular weight of his polymer was too low and the fibers were weak and worthless for any use, so the project was dropped! Nevertheless, these primitive fibers were the forerunners of the now common Terylene polyester, which was developed later into a valuable commercial product by the British chemists at Imperial Chemical industries.

Baker (the same W. O. Baker who went on to become president of the Laboratories in 1973) and I first identified hydrogen-bonded layers of amide groups in crystalline polyamide (nylon type) polymers. Later, we extended this work to the cellulose esters, which were coming into use as plastics for the combined telephone set. Crick and Watson soon made this H-bonding famous in their model of DNA. By the time the Second World War had come upon us, our group in fact had developed a reputation for our contributions to the knowledge of polymer structures in general, and for the elucidation of the relation of these structures to the properties these materials exhibited in their practical forms as plastics and rubbers. You might say we laid a molecular basis for understanding the materials, which were rapidly becoming of great importance to the telephone plant.

It was partly because of this reputation and partly because we at the Labs were outside the rubber industry that Mr. R. R. Williams, our Chemical Director, and I were chosen to go to Washington D.C. during the rubber crisis, which developed in 1941 as a consequence of the German submarine blockade. Mr. Williams was chosen to head the research activities and he in turn asked me to assist him in that work. Mr. Jeffers [William Martin Jeffers (1876-1953)] had been appointed Rubber Czar and had been given a direct mandate from President Roosevelt to spare no cost or no time in solving this problem. Our part in this is a separate story, which I will take up later.

### Scientific Societies

I had never been a joiner, but had no objection when it came to accepting a Phi Beta Kappa key at the time of the awarding of my B.S. degree, or accepting membership in Sigma Xi when I received my Ph.D. These were essentially automatic. But I was anxious to join the American Chemical Society (ACS). It offered the chance to keep up in my field and I was all for that. Besides, the meetings offered the opportunity to meet others in my same field of interest. So soon after joining Bell Labs, I became a member of the ACS, to which I have now belonged for fifty-seven years. The ACS is the largest scientific society in the world, with over 150,000 members. It provides local, regional, and national meetings on a regular basis. National meetings, which cover over twenty-five different specialized groups, draw as many as 5,000 to 10,000 attendees. Bell Labs recognizes the value of these gatherings and foots the bill for those who can profitably attend. Local meetings are arranged for by a separate set of officers. Our Jersey section varied in attendance from 100 to 500 or more.

The American Physical Society (APS) operates in much the same way as the ACS. Both societies publish outstanding journals in their respective fields. It was through the APS that Willie and I met and joined forces in 1932. Willie worked on the editing of the _Physical Review_ , the main journal of the APS, from 1929 to 1935, moving to New York City in 1932.

Bell Labs was always a supporter of the work of the societies. It looked with favor on employees serving on committees and in other capacities, and gave liberally of the time and secretarial services for society work. However, as I found out, being an officer put a strain on one and sometimes meant giving up one's own research for a time. You could find yourself torn between loyalty to job or to the society or to science itself.

The first ACS meetings I attended were those of the New Jersey Section. There were about 100 attending but the number was growing. Soon we moved the meetings to Elizabeth, New Jersey, and we became the North Jersey Section. I became a national councilor representing the Section. Later in 1942, in the midst of the war, I became chairman of the Section, much to my surprise. About the same time I was chosen Chairman of the Paint, Varnish, and Plastics Division of the ACS. With Ralph Ball of Celanese and Mike Elm of the New Jersey Zinc Company, I helped to enlarge the Division and plan national meetings. As Divisional chairman, I was particularly interested in seeing that papers on polymer research (which were being presented in at least four other divisions) were brought together in one forum. This we accomplished, establishing a "Polymer Forum" consisting of selected papers and speakers; a program which was rotated among interested divisions each year. This arrangement worked well for many years. It avoided the jealousies that would have arisen had a separate Polymer Division been organized at that time.

Over the years, I have been fortunate in the number of national meetings I have attended. At the time I had no doubt but that these were of considerable value to me and my job. This was especially so when I was active in the polymer research work during the '30s. Most of these meetings have faded in my memory now. But two I do remember because I never thought the powers in the ACS would let the very proper Society let its name become besmirched in the manner it did on these occasions.

The meeting I remember so well was the one held in Kansas City in April 1936. I presented a paper on the X-ray structure of Gutta-Percha. Heretofore the national meeting—in fact all meetings of the ACS—had been very proper and clothed in an academic atmosphere. Imagine my surprise when I walked up to the mezzanine of the headquarters hotel only to see a strip burlesque show in progress. I had seen such shows in my youth at 63rd and Halsted Street, but nothing like this. Almost-naked girls performed all sorts of provocative acts on the floor, and there, staring and taking it all in, were crowds of our members, all males, even including the editor of our Industrial and Engineering Chemistry journal! "How could this be?" I thought. To understand what had happened, one must know that at that time Kansas City was ruled by the powerful Prendergast machine. The next noon I was to find that all the waitresses in the hotel were bare to the waist and some were sitting on customers' (ACS members) laps. Obviously the entertainment committee, as well as those who regularly arranged the details of our national meetings, were completely taken in. They got what the bosses thought they needed. This was the way things were done in Kansas City. The complete story of what happened there on those opening days was never written. It was a dark mark on the leadership and best forgotten.

The other occasion I experienced was similar to the above but had a private rather than a political motive behind it. To understand it, one must know what the commercial side of the rubber business was like in those days. Natural rubber is a marvelously versatile material. In the '30s, rubber occupied the place that both rubber and plastic materials do today. Because rubber can be compounded with so many different pigments, fillers, softeners, anti-oxidants, etc., there were many more small companies marketing products than today. There was money to be made and the sales forces were out in force to influence buyers in any way they could. Kemp, my boss at the time of which I speak (probably 1938), and I had just finished dinner with four or five of Kemp's old rubber friends. The telephone company was a major buyer of all kinds of rubber additives and the business was sought after avidly by these outside suppliers. Few of them realized that we in the Bell Labs hadn't much to do with who bought from whom, but we did have a say in the materials specified for many big uses, and that may have been enough. In any case, when one of these fellows invited us and one of the others to his room for liquor, Kemp reluctantly accepted. We were offered smokes and drinks, which we politely turned down. Then without any warning, five gauzily-clad young girls swooped into the room and landed on the laps of all present, including Kemp and me. It didn't take much to figure out what our host had in mind. And it didn't take long for us to get up as gracefully as we could under those circumstances and find the door out. Afterwards, Kemp explained to me that I had just experienced what went on quite a lot within the Rubber Division of the ACS, which had never wholly joined the organization. It had a fair portion of technical sales members, the rest being more serious chemists interested in rubber chemistry. I was moving in a different direction into polymer chemistry. But as I will tell later, I went back into the rubber business when the War came and threatened our natural rubber supply. By then the nature of the technical meetings had changed. Companies no longer had big entertainment budgets and the marketing people were no longer a threat.

Those reading the just-described events should not extrapolate them to the whole of our scientific society influences. ACS and APS programs were and are, even more so today, very effective organizations for disseminating information in their field as well as for promoting wholesome and lasting friendships. Wives of members and women scientists, growing in number, are not neglected. Women's programs are provided and wives are welcome at banquets when special persons or events are celebrated. Some of the best gatherings of this kind to which the wives of members were invited were the "Gibson Island Conferences," which have had a profound influence in promoting science in its various aspects. I will devote some space here to describing them.

The Gibson Island meetings arose out of the private initiative of Professor Neil Gordon at the time, about 1933, when he was a professor of chemistry at Johns Hopkins University. Gordon got the idea of a summer school, at which recent developments in chemistry could be discussed. But his concept was very different from the ordinary idea of a summer school. "School" was not a proper description. It was to be a restricted group of scientists who would be well-prepared to discuss in advanced terms important area of chemical research. And most importantly, it was to be conducted in pleasant surroundings away from the ordinary concerns of the laboratory, with its fumes and distractions. Formal presentations would be held in order to focus the subject matter, but during a week-long stay, which included the wives of invitees, considerable flexibility was allowed for golf, boating, swimming, tennis, or just sitting. The whole idea was to get top people to meet and know others in their field.

The first meetings (early in the 1930s) were held at Virginia Beach with resort surroundings. They were an immediate success and were expanded to the Gibson Island Club, which was located about twenty-five miles south of Baltimore on the west side of Chesapeake Bay. These initial meetings were small—about thirty scientists and fifteen wives—and invitations came from Professor Gordon. But once a chairman and vice-chairman had been elected by the group, these officers served for the next year's group. The first meeting I attended was strongly oriented toward Polymers so I was delighted to be able to go. I was fortunate to be able to attend these meetings for over ten years, during which they expanded both in number held each summer, (each on a separate subject), as well as the number attending, though this has been held close to 100 or less. Presently there may be as many as four weekly meetings being conducted, usually at small colleges in Vermont and New Hampshire (with a few now at western colleges). As originally provided, the attendees sleep and eat and assemble together on quaint and attractive campuses, if less plush than those memorable Gibson Island seminars.

Without meaning to downgrade the present gatherings, which are rightly named now as the "The Gordon Conferences," their expansion resulted in the loss of much of the original concept—which, whether intended or not, was discriminatory. The exclusive Island was private. You had to enter across a small causeway that served very well to prevent unwanted persons on the Island (such as news people, for instance). Professor Gordon wanted no one to be restricted in his remarks by snooping reporters. It was 1934 and the Club which controlled the island was in need of the money that the Gordon Group would bring. They had a fine clubhouse with a restaurant and an annex (where rooms were available for our number but no more), a golf course, tennis courts, a marina and a boathouse where we could have our meetings. Everything was perfect. We did have a little problem when some little boys, resenting our intrusion, once peppered our meeting with some ripe tomatoes, but this was soon attended to since regular Club members welcomed us. We ate together in a separate part of the dining room, but had the same sumptuous food. A pinnacle was reached on Thursday nights when everyone was treated to the most unbelievable buffet of seafood I have ever seen. Preceded by ample drinks—the famous Baltimore mint julep especially—and ended with homemade ice cream (self-served with copious fresh blueberries on top), the meal was one you would never forget. Picture all of this luxury, we in our tuxedos and long dresses, dancing to the waltzes of a ten-piece band out in the open breezes on a spacious dance floor over the Bay. To this day, the Conferences maintain this custom on Thursday nights. I wonder how many know it had its origin with the Gibson Island Club. Other customs have not survived; for example, it was observed in those early days that the group would be led by the Gordons in a procession to our meals. Neil Gordon also saw to it that the group who retired to the bar in the evenings closed shop before midnight. If some like Emil Ott or Walter Smith made too much noise, Gordon had only to walk through silently in his pajamas and robe and things quieted.

Among some of the notables that attended the early meetings on the Island were the following: At the 1935 meeting there were Wallace Carothers of nylon fame; Onsager, Nobel Prize winner in physical chemistry from Yale; Tiszelius, an expert on proteins and also a Nobel Prize winner; Kramer of DuPont, known for his work on the ultracentrifuge, and many others. At the 1936 conference I remember how impressed I was, meeting Baekeland, the originator of Bakelite, then in his eighties. Herman Bruson, who held important patents in acryloid coating, was there from Rohm and Haas, as was Howald, the inventor of Formica. The aging chemist from Johns Hopkins, Emmett Reid, gave an excellent talk on sulphur chemistry at one session. As the conferences grew in size, more ordinary people like myself attended but there were always enough notables to make the meeting very profitable for all.

Not soon forgotten will be the week on rubber and rubberlike polymers chaired by Tom Midgley. He had achieved fame and wealth (Ethyl Corporation) from his invention of tetraethyl lead as an antiknock agent for gasoline. Mrs. Midgley lent her considerable charm to the meeting at the evening meals. Tom Midgley spared no ends to have everyone who could contribute new knowledge. I remember him talking on the long distance phone to Professor Mack of Ohio State, urging him to come by the night train to Gibson Island—all expenses paid—and to bring his molecular models. Mack did come and was put on the program. The Midgleys also saw that we all enjoyed ourselves during the off-times from the lectures. It was common for them to order mint juleps for everyone on the clubhouse lawn before going into the evening meal.

In 1939 there were such notables as Carl Marvel from the University of Illinois; Kienle of General Electric; Hauser of MIT, the rubber expert who with me was to investigate the Jean Process for producing rubber during the war; and Paul Flory, then of Esso Labs and later at Stanford (a Nobel Prize winner in chemistry).

That was the week that Blake of Simplex Cable and I had a room above a bunch of all-night poker players who were still there in the morning when we went to breakfast. One turned out to be Thurston of Cyanamid who was to be the guest speaker that very morning! The week of 1942 was especially notable for the presence of Peter Debye, the Dutch physical chemist and Nobel Prize-holder. Debye had refused to help the Germans and had somehow escaped to this country. However, he could not get into the atomic bomb project because of close relatives in Holland. This turned out to be our good fortune, since Williams was able to get him to do research on synthetic rubber to which he made important contributions.

Debye was not only a good theoretical and experimental scientist, but also very good company. With his characteristic chuckle, he always saw the humorous side of everything. One story I can vouch for is about the time he missed the bus to Gibson Island, one very hot July day. He didn't want to spend the time waiting for the next bus in the hot Baltimore Terminal if he could avoid it. It would be several hours, so he began looking around for a cooler spot outside. Seeing a number of derelicts propped against a shady wall in an empty lot, he reasoned that they, of all people, had solved the problem of the heat. So with his book he took up a position among them, and that is where we found him when it came time to take our bus.

By 1942, the AAAS [American Association for the Advancement of Science] had purchased the Symington House (the summer home of the Steel Symingtons). It had a big library that was now filled with scientific journals and volumes for our use. There too, Debye would hold late night discussions on current problems and their solutions. He always had a new approach to suggest. Just before he died, I had a brief visit with Debye at Cornell. He was preparing for a lecture tour for which he was in great demand, but as always, he had time to talk to an old friend, though I only knew Debye through the Gordon Island meetings.

An entire book could be written about the Gordon Conferences. They have undoubtedly been a major factor in spreading scientific knowledge. They have promoted lasting friendships and close personal appreciations among scientists, such as no meetings had ever done before. I will just mention two more personal reflections.

After a hard day of meetings and sports and the long evening session, during which the wives usually played bridge, everyone would gather to say goodnight at the Club bar room. I will never forget the comic performances that Walter Smith, director of research for Cabot Carbon Black Company, put on after a few drinks. Smitty would act these scenarios out, giving both sides of a dialogue. His depiction of an imaginary roommate who wore a truss was tops and received many encores.

There were other studies in personalities, too. It should not have been difficult to predict who of our members would advance to top positions in their various companies. If signs of independent behavior are any criterion, I would have picked Bob Swain, who became Executive Vice President of Cyanamid, and Shailer Bass, who became President of Dow-Corning. Swain would sit reading the _New York Times_ after breakfast while others talked science, but he never failed to be bright and sharp at the sessions.

### A Big Move: Solid State Physics

A year in Washington (1942), had been enough for Williams, who had more important work to do both at the Labs and in connection with his continuing work on nutrition. I was left in charge of the rubber research and commuted home to Chatham every weekend. By the spring of 1944, I could see my job was ending and I asked to be returned to the Labs. This I did July 1, 1944.

But things were not to be the same on my return. Mr. Kelly was soon to become president. (Mervin Kelly replaced Oliver Buckley, who was ill, in 1945. Kelly had received a Ph.D. in physics from the University of Chicago.) The War was winding down. While Williams had been away, Robert Burns, Assistant Chemical Director, was implanting himself in firmer control of administrative affairs. More importantly, one John Townsend, who had headed a materials group in the Apparatus Department and had been a constant irritant to many of us in the Chemical Department (including me), had begun swinging around his not inconsiderable influence. This resulted in the retirement of Mr. Williams in the spring of 1945 and the installation of John Townsend and Robert Burns as Co-Directors of the expanded Chemical and Metallurgical Department.

I was still to be in charge of plastics, having refused to share this honor with one of Townsend's men (W. W. Werring, who I met on a tour to Yugoslavia in 1981). But there was a condition: J. R. (as we referred to Townsend) was not only to oversee what I did, but he was also to be in charge of plastics work with me. It was quite obviously a slight, but I went along with this situation, still attempting to carry on my research work on polymers. I was obviously on trial under two bosses, neither of whom had much sympathy for me. I was being forced to conform to the old engineering code of approach, dictated by the apparatus end of the business, and it was difficult for me to swallow the kind of formalism that went along with it. In trying to get me to accept the initial dual arrangement J. R. uttered some pleasant sounding phrases to the effect that "my great chemical insight would meld with his engineering skill to make a great team." I was to be made an engineer by one J. R. Townsend—or was I?

Burns was helpless in this area, but would not have been inclined to do much anyway. I became stubborn and after a few tiffs, I was marked for dumping by J. R., with Burns agreeing. That was in 1947. Williams had seen the light some years before, and had advised me to leave. In fact, I considered a job about that time with Union Carbide, but did not really go after it. I was later (1948) offered a job by Jesse Hobson, who was heading up the Stanford Research Institute. I even went out to California, but returned unenthusiastic about the prospects. This was a great disappointment to Burns, who hoped I would go.

So in 1948, I was dumped ignominiously into a group headed by Leland Wooten, but still under J. R. and Burns. This dealt with the chemistry of electronic materials to which my experience in polymers had very little relevance. But Wooten was kind enough to allow me to continue (for a while at least) with my polymer activities, since I still had quite a stature there and had several papers in the publishing stage as well as society and governmental committee connections. At the same time, it became clear to me that I would either have to change my field soon or leave Bell. I rather thought it would be the latter and wrote a number of my friends outside, in order to feel out the possibilities. But after a heart-to-heart talk with Ralph Bown, one of the Lab's vice-presidents, I decided I would undertake new activities along the electronic line, but still involving chemistry. Although I did not transfer departments at that time, I was essentially in the development department under Neil Priessman and had nothing to do with J. R. or Burns, which pleased us all. In that group, I was to bring what talents I had to bear on the problems of solid state diodes, which were then made from silicon and germanium.

I was alone, stripped of all my assistants, and Aaron Burr! I found great receptivity for my services in the diode group and made many close friends there. I became intrigued with the semiconductor field, studied it, and since the transistor appeared just about that time, invented by my close friend, Walter Brattain [1902-1987], I found myself working with germanium and discovering things about its surface that were of interest to him and others in the physical research department. The result was that I soon joined a new group under Bruce Hannay and Joe Burton, who, after Wooten's tragic death, now headed up a new semiconductor research department out from under J. R.'s influence.

My career in polymers, extending back over twenty years, was thus ended, but my slowness to leave the Labs, though I did not know it at the time, was to put me in a position of some prominence in the new field I had entered so late.

### Diffusion: Fast and Slow

After discovering some strange surface phenomena as a result of my work on diodes, I became interested in a thermal effect that Scaff and Theuerer had found in germanium crystals a few years before. I soon made the important observation that the effect involved a very fast diffusion inward of some contaminant in our Lab tap water. A short time later I found (with the help of J. D. Struthers, who was familiar with radiotracer analysis) that the contaminant was in fact copper, a common element present in tap water, although in extremely low concentrations.

I was beginning to feel better after my shabby experiences with J. R., and resolved now to put all of my efforts into the semiconductor field. This required concentrated study as well as considerable detailed lab work. Fortunately, I had a good grounding in physics and I found that my chemical experience gave me a special advantage. In 1951, I was finally given a young assistant, John Ditzenberger, and we proceeded to show that diffusion was a very feasible technique for introducing active impurities into germanium and silicon to produce solid-state devices.

Later, with a summer student named Hans Severiens (the son of a very close friend of ours who was studying at Columbia), I undertook the investigation of lithium diffusion into silicon. This work was published by the two of us in the _Physical Review_ and stands as a first in its field.

With diffusion now becoming a common technique, Ditzenberger and I showed that thin junctions could be formed and controlled on the surface of silicon slices. With the help of Gerald Pearson first and Daryl Chapin later, we together perfected what came to be called the Bell Solar Battery, which was capable of an unprecedented 6% conversion of solar to electrical energy. Later work improved the efficiency of our cells up to 11%, but this was on rather small areas. After work by the development department at Bell Labs (under Ken Smith) had been in progress for a while, an efficiency of better than 10% on commercially produced cells was achieved. Commercial cells at present (1980s), are produced in the range 12 to 15%, and 18% have been obtained as the highest. This is close to that theoretically possible, about 22%. For this work, Pearson, Chapin and I received the City of Philadelphia prize in 1956 and later in 1963, the Wetherill Medal of the Franklin Institute.

In a letter dated March 7, 1951, I had attempted to get more support for my work on diffusion. The letter was written to my close former associate, Ad White, who was then Director of Research. In it I pointed out my view that "one of the present weakness in the research program planned for germanium is the almost entire lack of emphasis on p-n layers made by diffusion," and underlining this, proceeded to give my reasons for my confidence in diffusion as an important method. But I guess I was overruled, because we went on as before until the publicity provided by the Bell Solar Battery in April 1954 brought everyone into the act. Today (1989), the diffusion method is still of industrial importance in the semiconductor industry.

Often since retiring (1967) and thinking back on my work during this period, I fault myself for not having been more aware of the grand electronic possibilities that were then staring us in the face. Some of the wild sketches in my notebooks show that I was somewhat concerned, but there were always more pressing scientific questions to be settled. I refer in hindsight to the great development that has happened through the conception of the integrated-circuit chip. This conception of etching or engraving into the surface of a silicon wafer—the equivalent of a bread-board set of electrical components—was first carried out in 1954 by Gilby of Texas Instruments. It was later developed further by Robert Noyce and others at Intel. (Noyce is generally credited with its reduction to practice commercially.) The reason I fault myself is that here we had in 1951, several years before, the means of producing such etched chips with our diffusion. Furthermore, as I have pointed out in this history, I had been privileged to an education in photoengraving method—just the kind which would allow such circuitry to be etched into smooth plates of silicon with surface barrier layers of opposite electronic types.

It would be presumptuous for me to say that I had the integrated circuit concept at this time. However, it is not too much to expect that if we at the Laboratories had had more contact with those struggling with such circuits, we would have had all of the ingredients we needed to make this advance. How close we came is shown by a p-on-n etching (in one of my lab notebooks) of the word "Bell," engraved in silicon.

Our most important scientific work during this period was the determination of the diffusion properties of the group III and group V elements in germanium and silicon. The help of Katherine Wolfstirn [born 1924], who had now joined our group, proved invaluable, not only because of her chemical knowledge, but also because she was expert in radiotracer analysis essential to research of this kind. The expertise of John Ditzenberger was likewise much appreciated in this work.

It was later in 1955 that Ditzenberger and I discovered electrical changes in silicon crystals which took place on heat annealing at 500 degrees. We were instrumental in perfecting a staining technique for displaying p-n junctions which came into wide use. I also inadvertently furnished a lead to workers at the Signal Corps (W. Kaiser) that pointed to an oxygen impurity in grown silicon crystals and that turned out to be the cause of the above mentioned annealing effects. After proof of the oxygen present in quartz-grown silicon by Kaiser and Keck, Frank Doleiden and I showed that oxygen entered into solid-state reactions with other impurity elements in a diffusion-controlled process.

Some of my most important scientific contributions were made in cooperation with Howard Reiss and Frank Morin of the Labs. We explored in a novel manner many solid-state reactions in silicon, important in semiconductor chemistry and physics. The ion-pairing reactions of lithium with the group III elements was a classical work in this series and its detailed publication was one of the longest monographs in the Bell System Technical Journal annals. These results, as well as those on diffusion, were included in the book "Semiconductors," edited by Bruce Hannay of the Labs and published as Monograph #140 by the American Chemical Society in 1959.

By 1959, I did not have to worry whether J. R. and Burns had misjudged me; maybe they had done the right thing by unfrocking me after all; none of these things would have happened had they not. At the same time, it was not without some silent glee that I witnessed J. R. himself become the victim of a defrocking, if at a pleasantly high level. President Fisk finally succeeded in banishing him to our American Siberia (Albuquerque) as some sort of materials mogul for the Sandia Corporation. Evidently he was not too well-tolerated there either, since he soon ended up in Washington doing some standardization task. Last I talked to him—which took some courage on my part and maybe his too—he was writing a "very important" book with a "Harvard Professor." I don't think it ever appeared though.

During this time, Howard Reiss and Frank Morin (who had left the Bell Labs for U.S. Steel) returned and left again to take executive positions with North American Aviation in California. The work on silicon, insofar as research was concerned, had moved into development now and so new fields were being scanned for us to turn our attention to. My own view was that silicon would never be replaced as the semiconductor par excellence for most purposes. But there was a growing desire, especially after some success in Germany by Siemens, to look more carefully into the "compound" semiconductors and, in particular, to the most promising of these, namely gallium arsenide (GaAs). Jim Whelan had been growing thin crystals of this material by a new floating-zone method developed by Henry Theuerer of the Labs and was dishing out microscopic pieces of it to those he thought could find out the most from them. I prevailed on Jim to let us have some and as a result, he and I worked for many years together on GaAs problems.

We investigated thoroughly the properties of copper and lithium in GaAs, as we had done for Ge and Si before, and found many new effects. Kathy Wolfstirn was very valuable in this work, since radio copper was used as an investigative tool. We also acquired Hall Effect equipment so that we could correlate our radio results with electrical results on the crystals. Herb Allison ran this apparatus for me.

I must insert a word about Kathy, because she was an exceptional assistant. When she was first suggested to me for the work we had in mind, I was dubious that she was physically equal to what it required. It took only a very short time, however, to change my mind. She proved that she was not only able to endure much more than any of us men could, but in addition, she possessed an encyclopedic memory that was invaluable when it came to looking up data.

Kathy had German and Irish in her heritage, a combination which may explain her thoroughness and her happy spirit. She had a wonderful sense of humor, which livened things up when the going was slow.

This was the case once when she presented me with an algebraic solution to the "copper-doubling" effect we had found. I pondered over this for some time, but finally determined that she had proved that a = a by a roundabout set of equations. Another time, she had me thinking my chemistry had backfired. We routinely carried out an electrolytic sharpening process on our tungsten probes, using an alkali solution. One day, I asked Kathy for a new wire since the old probe was too short. For the life of me, I could not point it. Only by means of a magnet did I find she had given me an iron wire—on purpose?

The biggest hoax that Kathy ever pulled on me was a "ticket fraud." I casually mentioned one time I would like to go to New York to see _Hello, Dolly!_ She arranged with my wife, Willie, for her to "win" two tickets to the musical. The idea was we two were to go to dinner in the Village and then on to the show. Imagine my surprise when Kathy turned up at the restaurant and hosted us to the meal and the show.

Kathy's dedication to her work was almost unbelievable. Frequently, when a batch of radio Cu was in, she would stay all night. I am sure she has the Labs' all-time record for the number of hours continuously worked in one stretch. There was nothing she would not undertake. One time I caught her transporting a huge electromagnet, weighing perhaps at least 500 pounds, by pushing it on a heavy cart from the attic to the elevator and down to the third floor lab. Kathy always claimed she owed her unusual strength to the heavy lead ingots that she had to use as shielding in her radioactive work.

We found out many interesting and useful things from our diffusion work. We applied fast-diffusing radioactive elements (and non-radioactive ones as well) in a novel sort of way to discover new things about semiconducting crystals. Many of the studies lacked the degree of quantitative definition that most physicists are accustomed to, and at times our conclusions were admittedly speculative and frowned on by some journal reviewers. One of the more interesting discoveries was what we called "the copper doubling effect" in gallium arsenide, already referred to. This is not too easy to make clear to a layman, but we thought it was neatly explained by the presence of free double vacancies (places in crystals where the atoms are missing). We argued that the effect also required the presence of some impurity, most probably oxygen, in our crystals. The latter was not proven during our time, but I understand that later work did find enough of such impurity.

A word about gallium arsenide. It was considered the nearest competitor to silicon, as I have mentioned. Yet in spite of how much work was done on it by ourselves and others, it never gained application. Only recently, through the use of thin film and photo techniques, has it made a place in high frequency transistors (FET's). (I think it is interesting that after my retirement, Dr. Edward Herold of RCA told me that they, at RCA, concentrated their efforts on GaAs, thinking they would "leap-frog" over Bell and IBM. That, however, never happened because silicon still held first place.)

I am glad that GaAs has finally come through and become technically useful, if in an unexpected way. We felt that if we could learn enough about Jim's crystals someday, we would break GaAs out of its slump, because it has fundamentally many unique characteristics. We had learned a great deal from our Li investigations of GaAs and showed that these findings were generally applicable to other 3-5 semiconductors. We worked with Hans Queisser on the photoluminescent properties and I think added new techniques of working with these semiconductors. For example, our organic etch, based on bromine and methyl alcohol, became widely used.

It is also gratifying that GaAs (in slightly modified form) is finding important application as the sending and receiving element (semiconductor lasers) in the new extension of communication—using glass fibers. Perhaps the copper wires, on which I did my first work at the Labs, will become a thing of the past.

My publishing career extended over into my retirement, since much work had been in progress in the lab up to that date. I hated to see this work "go down the drain," so to speak, and may have been a little too confident that it was publishable. However, it was my contention that there ought to be some place for articles in current research where good experimental data could be made available to others, even though only speculative conclusions could be drawn from them at the time. Evidently the reviewer of my last submitted work felt otherwise, so this part of our work will never see the light.

However, I cannot end without reflecting that this "solid-state" period of my research career was one of the most absorbing. Semiconductors was a frontier. It brought into focus a great variety of scientific disciplines and experiences. The days would slip by rapidly, as time proves too short to try out all the ideas. Then nights would only be a continuation of the drama. I would dream pictures of atoms moving about and rearranging themselves in crystals. All I can say is that my poor assistants were patient beyond expectation during this period. They had to be agreeable always, even though some of the undertakings were obviously dreams and not well thought-out plans. My family, too, deserves thanks for their patience with me during this time.

Nor should I leave these scenes without expressing gratitude to the many dedicated people in the secretarial staff who suffered through office problems, seldom receiving credit—arranging visits, reminding me of meetings, typing unreadable writing, handling correspondence, often a very onerous job when I was an officer in one of the societies, arranging transportation, calling home, and doing the many necessary jobs paralleling the technical work. More or less in order of time, these were: Archie Kemp's secretary, Miss Tedesco: R. R. William's secretary, Mary Kelly; secretary-at-large for the Summit Lab, Jane Otto: as well as Ruth Oliver, Elizabeth King, Jane Howell, Fran Morrison, Elsie Crean, Sue Leaks, Carol Kordalski, and all those anonymous ones in the typing pool who struggled with our publications.

Without the "Staff," as they were called, no scientist at the Labs would have been able to perform at all. The secretaries were one branch of this help. But the others were just as crucial to whatever success we had. The maintenance staff, the shop mechanics, Spindler the glass blower, and —especially for us who published—the marvelous drafting and reproduction services. Some of the names here include Tom Crowe, Hasbrouck, Yates, Rector, Mike Long, Insull, Charity, Gaughran, and others. Among the librarians, Miss L. E. Smith, head of the West Street library, and Misses Morris, Tangen, Denio at Murray Hill stand out during this period.

The period 1945 through 1948 was a particularly bad time for me. I had just returned to the Labs where, as I have mentioned, a major reorganization of the work on polymer research and plastics was underway. This affected my future and it was a time when I pondered whether I would leave the Labs, something that would be a poor ending to the vision I had always had of the place. Besides, I was in other activities, both in and out of government. I was soon forced to change my whole field of specialization from polymer research to solid state physics. Already in 1948, I was attending meetings on this subject, while at the same time conducting government panels and consulting with those in my old government rubber job who had replaced me there. I had ACS connections I was trying to keep. As I look back now, I was foolish _not_ to resign from some of this responsibility, particularly that on the Chemistry Panel (see below) under the new Research and Development Board (RDB) where I was chairman of a sub-Panel on Elastomers, (SPE). This became particularly thorny and I will spend a little space on it.

### Post War Consulting

After Harry Truman was elected to the Presidency in 1948, there was a major reorganization of the military research and development program. The RDB was created under Lee DuBridge with Eric Walker, secretary. About sixteen different divisions were selected and corresponding committees and panels were appointed. I was asked by Butch Hanford, a chemist friend, to serve on the Chemistry Panel. My new boss at the Labs, Leland Wooten, agreed I should serve, so I accepted. It turned out that I got in the middle of a hot debate.

It all came about in the following way. Our military strategists apparently were concerned that the USSR might decide to launch a land attack into Alaska. It was known that very few of our rubber-like materials would retain their properties under the low temperatures existing up there. It was regarded as essential that research be done on new polymers designed to withstand arctic conditions and that all applications, including tires, be reviewed. Our sub-panel (the Elastomers Sub-panel of which I was chairman) was asked to look into the situation, particularly with the purpose of avoiding duplication among the Services (Army, Navy, and Air Force). I had, only a short while before, served on an Ad Hoc Committee on Arctic Rubber with Harry Fisher of the U.S. Rubber Company and Norm Shepherd of American Cyanamid. In our report, we had recommended that a separate research group be set up, perhaps in the universities, and that private companies be enlisted to solve the applications problems, as they do now, but on a more efficient basis. Now it seemed this same problem had returned. But the Elastomers Sub-Panel was charged with reviewing all of the service contracts for R&D, not only Arctic applications. This proved to be a monumental task—one which I should have realized could not be done by us civilians giving only part-time attention. True, I did have the services of a full-time staff person, Dr. Samuel Manion, but this was not going to solve a deep-seated problem, i.e., the selfish way the Services viewed these assignments.

I had not realized how bitter the feelings were among the Services, but did so immediately at our first meeting. Each of the Services wanted to continue to duplicate work and equipment, contending that its problems were unique. The Board, of course, wanted to combine as much of the program as possible under larger, more manageable contracts. The ONR, Office of Naval Research, wanted to separate basic research from the applied. As chairman of these meetings which lasted, as it turned out, through 1948 and 1949, I came in for criticism by some for "showing favors." Fortunately I had two other civilians on the panel, both experts in the elastomer field, who agreed with what I was doing. They were Ben Garvey, formerly of Goodrich but later with Sharples Chemical, and Al Carter of DuPont. At one meeting, the minutes of which were being recorded, we were attacked personally by the member from the Quartermaster Corps, who used vile language. That didn't help matters but taught us civilians that perhaps much of the trouble with the military programs was the lack of a strong hand from above.

We three civilians on the Panel ultimately, after more frustrations, decided we had done all we could. We prepared a report, summarizing what had been done and recommending what we thought should be done, and resigned. We sent in our report to the Secretary of the Research and Development Board, Eric Walker, on November 28, 1950. I am sure that we did some good in clearing the air and that the Services themselves profited from our discussions. The report was brief and clear and I still think effective. But I felt rather bad leaving the situation in an unsatisfactory ending. As I look back on it now, I think that the higher-ups in the Pentagon were the ones that should have straightened out the Services' conflicts and we should have had to give only technical advice. This episode with the Elastomers Sub-panel marked the end of my service to the Government.

My attendance at the meetings of the ACS and my participation in active research came to a stop when we entered the war and I went to work on synthetic rubber for the government from 1942 to 1944. This synthetic rubber activity is reviewed in a separate section below. While I was able to continue some of my Society functions after the war period, 1945 to 1951, I still was not able to do much Labs' research because of the other government commitments mentioned above and the unsettling nature of the reorganization of the plastics work at the Labs. Then, as I have mentioned, beginning in 1947, at the urging of Ralph Bown, Labs V. P. of research, I gave up these plastics and polymer responsibilities entirely and took up the study of solid state physics (with the view of contributing to the rapidly growing area of transistor electronics). My entrance into this new work (1950) was helped greatly by my association with Neil Priessman and his group, especially M. C. Waltz, R. R. Blair and J. R. Flegal. I also began attending technical meetings to accelerate my learning in this area. Some of the associations made with attendees at these meetings, in particular the conferences held by American Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (AIEE) in the early '50s, proved valuable. At one of these meetings (Durham, New Hampshire), I was initiated into a life membership in the "Transistor Society," which consisted of a forceful bending over while beer was poured on your head by one member and salt was massaged into your hair by a second.

### International Conferences

By the 1950s, with capable assistance from John Ditzenberger and Kathy Wolfstirn, I had gained some prominence in the diffusion processes we had developed for use in producing electrically-active layers on silicon and other semiconductors. Through the use of gases and evaporated layers of chemical compounds containing active elements, we were able to produce thin planar layers of pn and np junctions, the essential layers for integrated circuits and for solar batteries. The process was very simple, involving only heat. I remember once in a seminar when Bill Shockley first heard of this, he asked how large a piece we could make. Facetiously I replied, "With a big enough silicon supply, we could do acres." Now, with some of the large solar-powered satellites, this has become a reality.

As a result of the publicity we got from this work (together with Gerald Pearson and Daryl Chapin in the case of the Solar Cell) and other contributions, I was fortunate in my last years with the Labs to attend several international meetings. Willie accompanied me on all except for the one in Ghent. Willie is in a better position to tell about these meetings in England, France, and Germany than I, especially the social interactions. Here I will only touch on parts of these experiences that are still fresh and I hope accurately remembered.

The first such meeting was held in Munich, Germany in 1959. It was an annual meeting on semiconductors under the auspices of IUPAC, the International Union for Pure and Applied Chemistry. My old professor, W. Albert Noyes, was there and sat in the front row when I gave my invited talk on silicon. This was a most memorable gathering of scientists from all over the world—a meeting in which the Germans did everything possible to entertain and impress, and incidentally, to make amends. Willie and I were among those invited to the palace banquet and then to the opera in the newly rebuilt area of the city. The meetings were held in a huge amphitheater, which could be divided by moveable separators into rooms of suitable size for each group session. Invited lectures were given in the large auditorium which could seat 500 to 1,000. A large screen behind the podium was extra wide so that not only one's slides could be shown, but also a running translation of the speaker's text could be presented for those unfamiliar with the speaker's language. This was novel and unusual and represented considerable preliminary work on the part of the planners.

Willie and I returned to Europe on two other occasions, each time to attend the official meeting on semiconductors held by another arm of UNESCO (United Nations Scientific and Cultural Organization), namely IUPAP, the International Union of Pure and Applied Physics. The first of these meetings was held in Exeter, England in 1962, where I presented a paper on Gallium Arsenide. This was our first meeting with the communist countries represented. The Russians attending were watched closely for defectors, except for trusted ones like Vul, Vavilov, and young Keldysh whose father was then head of all science in the USSR. This was a time to meet scientists from other western countries and, of course, to meet our English hosts. We stayed in a dormitory of the college and were aghast at the poor food they expected the students and us to subsist on. It was unbelievably bad. David Copperfield could not have been much worse off.

The other meeting we attended was held in Paris in 1964. I went ahead of time to attend a special meeting of the semiconductor group held in the old castle of Royaumont, a medieval abbey about thirty miles from Paris. I gave a paper on the copper-doubling effect in gallium arsenide, which elicited some comments from Seeger, the well-known German metallurgist. He thought we were right in suggesting that divacancies were operating. This was a very good meeting and I had a chance to talk with many of the authors of papers I had pored over. A very fine banquet was catered the final day. The only drawback were the toilets which, as in medieval times, were all connected by the same open trough, running along the wall of the building.

Later I moved on to Paris where I met Willie in a hotel near the Louvre. The technical meeting itself was mostly on physics but there were semiconductor papers, too. The prize was taken by Hopfield and Thomas of the Labs, who presented their beautiful work on pair spectra caused by the recombination of holes and electrons. I remember the meeting best for the wonderful evening we had in a French restaurant with Walter and Emma Jane Brattain, the Herrings, Pierre Aigrain and his wife, and some others. Aigrain was science chief to the French government and saw that the restaurant stayed open as long as we desired, into the late hours.

My last trip to Europe was made alone at the request of NATO. It was to participate in a week of lectures before a large group of students and others from the NATO countries, as well as from several countries behind the iron curtain. The lectures were held in Ghent University in Ghent, Belgium. Lecturers came mostly from the U.S. and England. Hans Queisser, now a professor at the University of Frankfurt, Jim Patel, and I were the three chosen from the Labs. (Hans later became a research director in the Planck Institute in Stuttgart. We had a surprise in 1985 when we met one of Queisser's Chinese associates on a bus going to Lichtenstein.) We all were put up at the old St. George Hotel, built in the 12th century, where each room had a ceiling that only stopped at the top floor. My lectures were on diffusion and related topics and were well received, except that I was not speaking loud enough at first. All the students, mostly men, were very attentive and seemed to get a lot out of the talks and notes. I hope so, because a lot of work went into them. The sessions ended with a banquet supper for the lecturers and a guided bus tour to Ostend and back for everyone, which was historically very eye-opening. I know of no place in Europe where one can feel so immersed in old Europe as in Belgium, especially Bruges and Ghent.

We generally think of the Europeans as ahead of us in social matters, but I might mention one incident that happened during my stay in Ghent that would contradict this. Two women instructors had attended my lectures and I had met them at a tea. One day I was late at the cafeteria and came up behind them in the line. When we had paid our checks, I asked if I might join them. They sheepishly nodded a 'yes' and I found myself the only man in a section of the dining room occupied entirely by women. It suddenly struck me that I had done something quite uncustomary when I saw the reaction from the men in the other section. It reminded me of our own former "white-only" restaurants or the separate bathhouses for blacks at the beach.

After each of the trips to Europe that we made together, Willie and I toured the western European countries. We covered Germany, Austria, and Italy in 1959; France, Germany, Austria, and Yugoslavia in 1964; England, Norway, Sweden, Denmark and again Germany in 1962; Yugoslavia, Italy, and Greece in 1980; and Germany in 1981. Details of these trips have been recorded by Willie separately.

### The Government Synthetic Rubber Program

Let me go back now and pick up my story in early 1942 at the Labs. Pearl Harbor was the stroke that put everyone on a war basis. Outside demands were already being made on President Oliver Buckley by military and civilian organizations. The telephone system itself was faced with serious materials and supply shortages. As civilians, we faced immediate rationing of gasoline and tires.

I felt complimented in the fall of 1942 when our Chemical Director, R. R. Williams, asked me to join him in an assignment he had just been given in Washington D.C. Through Oliver Buckley, he had been asked to organize the research part of a program, which was to make our country independent forevermore of imports of natural rubber from the Far East. President Roosevelt had issued dictatorial powers to William M. Jeffers, head of the Union Pacific Railroad, to achieve this end. It turned out that Mr. Jeffers had also put Ray P. Dinsmore, Vice-President in charge of research for Goodyear, in charge of the entire Research and Development division of the program. All of Dinsmore's organization, as well as the operations and construction divisions of the project, were to be under the Office of Rubber Director (ORD), with Jeffers as head.

For some perspective, let us look briefly at the situation our country was in. The Baruch report had ably summarized the stark facts. The U.S. consumed 400,000 long tons of natural rubber each year. It all came in by ship from overseas. Now with our shipping strangled by the German blockade, we would be lucky to get 90,000 long tons through. We did have a stock of some 400,000 tons, because we had seen the pinch coming. But war demands would use this up rapidly. Obviously the country had 1) to reserve this stock for the highest priority items, 2) to impose rationing, not only of rubber but of petroleum, which would be necessary to make synthetic rubber and 3) to initiate immediately a crash program to produce synthetic rubber in huge quantities.

When Williams and I arrived in Washington, we found ourselves in the midst of the organizing process. What was to be done first? Dinsmore, who was directing things, had an office and was besieged. We soon found that Dinny, as he was called, while a most affable and pleasant chap, was not going to get us an office and staff; we had to do that through the bureaucracy. So we set out first to learn as much as we could about the status of synthetic rubber research by a whirlwind visit to every company laboratory and university department that might have the information.

We learned very early in our new jobs that the four rubber companies and Standard of New Jersey were in fact parties to a private agreement known as the "December 19th Agreement," which provided for a sharing of rubber manufacture know-how among them and which swore them all to maintain secrecy outside of that circle. One of my first assignments was to report on a meeting of this group. But as I entered the meeting room, I was forced to sign an agreement to secrecy myself. When Williams heard this from me, he was furious and immediately went up the line. Almost as immediately, the boom was lowered on Dr. Weidlein, who was chairing this meeting, and I was allowed to take out my notes and report back to Washington on the business of the meeting. However, it was some time before the Government succeeded in opening up the December 19th group meetings to other companies. Finally, a consent decree against Standard of New Jersey was obtained. Just before this axe fell, Esso magnanimously "gave" its patents "free" to the American people, in full-page announcements in the newspaper. Indeed, Jeffers was the boss.

It must have been evident to the large rubber companies and Standard Oil that the choices of the kind of synthetic rubber and the process to make it were very few. Little was known about any of the synthetics, and the quantities that were needed restricted the chemical nature to petroleum raw materials. Before the War, Standard, in particular, had obtained exclusive rights to the German buna rubbers (especially the Buna-S-type based on styrene) in exchange for Standard's patents on hydrocarbon cracking. Most, if not all, of the rubber companies also knew of the German work and had had samples of it. It was the most advanced of all the synthetics.

We in the ORD soon came to realize that time was not going to permit us much change from the synthetic rubber formula that the Germans had already arrived at. In fact, by March 1943, it was clear that we would have to rely on a Buna-S like that of the Germans, but with some modifications in order to meet the special requirements of the processing equipment in the American factories. This processing was geared to take large batches of natural rubber and to work them into stocks, suitable for tires and other rubber goods. So the Buna-S we made had to conform to the stiffness and working properties of natural rubber.

Most serious of all, we not only did not have the plants to produce the rubber, but neither did we have the plants to make the raw materials, styrene and butadiene, that went into the rubber itself. This required enormous quantities of steel for construction and a large chemical engineering effort as well. Jeffers saw to it that the steel was there. As for the engineering, we were fortunate to have a large supply of construction and chemical engineers in the country.

When Williams and I returned from our scouting trip, we found our departments still in a state of confusion. The ORD did have the newest and about the only air-conditioned building in Washington all to itself (the New Municipal Center Building), and soon we each had well-furnished offices. Down the hall from us, we could hear Jeffers' booming voice every time the door opened and they threw some lobbyist out of his office. As usual in situations such as we faced, there was the jockeying among individuals to gain more jurisdiction than the job intended. We ourselves were not quite sure where polymer research began and ended. Dinsmore was satisfied with his divisions of research, process development, equipment development, and product quality under Prutton, Elgin, and Kixmiller. Dinny was experienced as an executive. He observed the rule: "Keep an open door and a closed mouth," insuring the latter by means of a permanent pipe clutched in his teeth (removed only to smile). He knew that if he listened to complaints long enough, they would be solved for the most part by the passage of time. Prutton was a professor from Case, who later became V.P. of Food Machinery and Chemical Company. Joe Elgin was a professor and head of the Chemical Engineering Department at Princeton. Kixmiller was from Northwestern. Only Prutton seemed to think he should be in Dinny's job. Dinny's method worked, though, and each group settled down in its own sea of work. In addition to the above, there was also the rubber compounding section under Evan Boss from the Columbian Chemicals Company.

Williams immediately busied himself with getting the contract work established, especially by enlisting universities who could be of help. Initially we had a program of about $300,000 a year, a piddling sum by present day standards. This included the best organic polymer chemists in the country (outside of the chemical corporations). We also had contracts with the four rubber companies and Esso Labs and later with several of the larger chemical companies. This pushed the total to something over a few million dollars per year in 1942 dollars.

I traveled a good deal, mostly in regard to the technical aspects of the overall program, as well as to attend meetings of Rubber Reserve (ORR) which was already in place. (Rubber Reserve was a quasi-government organization that was responsible for the actual building of the rubber plants as well as for the continued production of the synthetic rubber.) Considerable office work was building up, too. We had our own technical meetings to arrange, personnel had to be hired, there were committee meetings to attend, letters to be answered, and other special jobs sent down from the top had to have attention. We soon had three female secretaries and two male assistants, one for me and one for Williams. Since we were gone a great deal of the time, we would load them up with dictation and assignments and rush off, hoping that the letters would be done and the tasks completed on our return the next day or so. Sometimes we would take the sleeper out late one night and return the next afternoon. One week I was on a sleeper every day (or rather, every night) and for one who sleeps poorly on the road, it was a big drain.

I expected all of these inconveniences when I accepted the Washington job. However, I had no idea that along with all of these duties, I would spend a night in a Washington whorehouse, spend a weekend in the Hollywood mansion of Mr. Blumberg, President of Universal Pictures, be condemned by a well-known radio commentator, spend nights on sleepers just to find a place to sleep, and nearly get thrown out of the window of a New York skyscraper. More on these experiences later.

Williams was lucky in being a "dollar-a-year" man, which meant that the Labs paid his usual salary. I became an employee of Uncle Sam—one of those detested civil servants. This was costly to me because I not only lost out on the Labs' raises, but I also found that my $8 per day expense allowance for meals and hotel was too little. But I did get one concession, if you can call it that: My home base was my home in Chatham rather than my office in Washington D.C., which meant that my commute to Washington did not have to come out of my own pocket. Besides, I could write all the rail tickets I wanted and the Government would pay. (Only occasionally could we, during the war, command air travel.) But with this small per diem, I was forced frequently to choose a bed on the train (which was free), rather than arrive and take one in a hotel, which would come out of my per diem. The rail pass was handy in other ways, too. Once, when I could not find a bed in Washington on my arrival from home, I got back on the train and rode to Jersey City and back in a berth just to have a place to be, really, because I slept very little.

The crowds on the Pennsylvania trains out of New York City in those days were beyond belief. I remember once when about twenty of us were all jammed in the men's room. (The women's room was taken over also.) To shave, you would reach between several neighbors, each stripped to the waist, to get some water on your shaving brush. Then, lathered, you waved your face around to get fleeting views in the common wall mirror. I was in the process of doing this once when it dawned on me that the neighbor I was elbowing was A. B. Clark, one of our Labs' V.P.s.

Almost as bad as the traveling, was the accounting for it to the civil servants. Travel was handled by bureaucratic clerks who considered multiplying red tape a war effort. This was one of the annoyances that would make Williams boil over. I remember once when one of these, an officious female, came into his office with his travel voucher, interrupted and said, "Mr. Williams, we cannot reimburse you for this trip because your route was not continuous—it had a gap in it. How did you get from Buffalo to Rochester?" At first Williams was polite, "A friend drove me in his car." With her rejoinder, "But you will have to fill out an additional form to that effect or we cannot honor your rail expenses," I could see a red line creeping up Mr. Williams' neck because he was engaged in more important matters and could not care less. Shortly after, I saw the clerk leave in a huff.

While Williams was kept busy attending to the organization of our Branch and letting contracts with universities, I was occupied mostly by office matters. I had letters to write, with the help of our secretary, Viola C. Dornhoefer, and meetings of our Polymer Research Policy Committee to attend. Early in the game, Williams had organized that committee and the important Polymer Discussion Group. The latter involved considerable work for me and Lester Friedman, my assistant. This involved transporting top representatives of our contractees to three-day meetings every three months for presentations and exchanges of research results. The meetings proved very successful. Since often fifty or more attended from the outside, and about an equal number from government agencies, we met mostly in New York City hotels where, unlike Washington, space was available. We had to prepare summaries of these meetings in progress reports due monthly to the ORD Board. Papers presented before the discussion group had to be duplicated and filed (CR-Reports).

After Williams left in early 1943, I had to assume much of his duties, since I inherited his title as Chief of the Polymer Research Section. This greatly increased my traveling, but since Williams had let all the contracts, no more of these were required. Occasionally he and I would cross paths. I recall the Thanksgiving Day we spent in Akron together. It was tough for us not to be home with our families and I recall we went to a baseball game after a very unexciting meal and attended an evening movie to fill our time.

I have not yet told how I spent one night in a Washington whorehouse. This is how it happened: I came in to the Union station from home late one Sunday night (August 1942) to be ready for a meeting in the Pentagon early Monday. I hailed a cab and went to the usual Continental Hotel—no room. Walked to the Dodge resort and said I need a hotel, "Do you know where I can get a room?" "Sure," came the reply. I saw the city go by, I knew not what part, and didn't much care. "Here we are" said the cabby. I paid up with tip and walked into a rather nondescript building, not too fancy, "Not really fancy at all," I thought on closer view. "Funny how many service men there are around the entrance," I said to myself as I approached two girls, sitting at a desk. "Have you got a room?" I Inquired. A lengthy pause; then a look at my weighty briefcase. Perhaps a thought that "this guy may be plainclothes" caused the nearest girl to say, "Yes, we have a room. Show him 204." and she gave her partner a wink.

Room 204 was about as drab a cubbyhole as I have ever seen. An iron bed with a hard mattress and a clean tight sheet almost filled it. There was nothing else. The window was wide open, but the effect was zero on the temperature which had risen to about 85 degrees from the hot summer sun. It was now nearly 1 a.m. Should I stay or not? I decided I had to if I was to be any good at all in the morning. Carefully I pulled out my pajamas from my briefcase, hung my clothes on the only two hooks, and looked for the "room." It was fortunately, just opposite and I entered. The urinals were livid with roaches. I drowned a few. Back in my room I was tempted to dress. Where would I go? "No! I don't give a damn, I'm tired," I thought, and I threw myself on the mattress.

I slept a few hours, probably three. Thought I heard something, but could only hear traffic outside. Slept again and woke with the light pouring in the window. It was six. I'd had it—sleep, that is—all I was going to get. I dressed carefully, inspecting my clothes for roaches and things, walked out and heaved a sign of good riddance. No one was at the desk when I passed and down on the Avenue I found a cab. "To the Pentagon," I said.

Once before I had slept on a hotel balcony most of one night, and I remember a time at the Continental, when I had been lucky enough to get a room, the manager called. "You know, Mr. Fuller, we are very crowded and I wonder if you would object to a cot in your room." He saw that I hesitated. "Oh, I will vouch for this fellow," he said, "He is an old customer and he is OK, you can be sure." "Send him up," I said with some hesitation, recalling my whorehouse experience. But he turned out to be a normal citizen in distress like myself.

It is amazing how little complaining went on during these wartime conditions. Ordinarily, everyone would have been tearing their hair out about the inconveniences and injustices. Perhaps [Senator Pat] Moynihan is right about the influences of "rising expectations" on our behavior. But back then, nothing was "rising;" we just held our breath and hoped things would not get worse.

Such were the times in Washington during those days of 1942, 1943, and 1944. Williams was evidently also experiencing trouble finding accommodations, because he came to me one day with the brilliant idea that we rent a room and have it always available. He proceeded to find a room in a large apartment on the 7th floor of a tall building at 1616 16th street N.W. It was sublet to us by a Mrs. Katherine I. Kitts. I only used it three or four times, once when Williams and I were there at the same time.

Mrs. Kitt's apartment was always a mystery to me. We had keys to the outside door and to our bedroom but had to walk through a number of halls and rooms to get to ours. One could get lost. I remember coming home one night late and finding an old man sleeping on a cot in one of the halls. Frequently I heard a buzzer ring during the night, presumably for the outside door. I wasn't sure what was going on. Then on leaving one morning, I saw a dish on a table near the front door with cards in it. I took one and suddenly it became clear. I read: "Mrs. Katherine I. Kitts, Deep Enema Treatments." As I left the apartment, I mused as to whether the customers got from their treatments what was implied by Mrs. Kitts' initials: K.I.K. There were many ways of making a living during the war.

We had twin beds in our room and one time I remember we came in late and promptly folded. R. R. Williams was a great smoker and about 3 a.m. I woke up thinking the room must be on fire; the smoke was so strong. I didn't let on that I was awake and through the dim light I could see R. R. pacing up and down, letting out clouds of smoke. I recalled that the day before, he had had an argument with Colonel Dewey, who had just taken over Jeffers' job as head of the Office of Rubber Director. I surmised that R. R.'s insomnia had something to do with that. This guess must have been correct because the next day R. R. proceeded to write a long letter to Dewey, putting down on paper why he, Williams, opposed Dewey's idea to build a pilot plant and run it under the ORD. Not only would it cost millions, but also it was not the kind of activity that was germane to our R&D purpose. Besides, it seemed to infringe on the Rubber Reserve's territory and we could use the money better for research.

Dewey was head of the Dewey & Almy Chemical Company (later acquired by Grace) and a trustee of M.I.T. He was a big, imposing man and attracted considerable attention, which he seemed to enjoy. For example, to show his serious concern with the job of our Office, he strode in everyday carrying a workman's lunch pail. I also heard on the side that "no future administration was going to accuse him of any favoritism or wrong doing." To make sure, Dewey was having all of his files microfilmed to take with him when he departed. While Dewey may have had his faults, he did have the backing of his organization.

Williams took his proposed letter to the Research Board and gained the concurrence of most of us with his view of opposing Dewey's idea to construct a separate government facility. At the meeting the following day, we argued about it with Ed Gilliland, the chairman appointed by Dewey to push his plan. When the vote was taken, the majority was opposed. Since it was a weekend when we adjourned, we left it up to Gilliland to communicate to Dewey our decision, because he was going ahead with the plan the following week. To get each Board member's approval of the wording, Gilliland sent telegrams to each of us at his home on Sunday. I still have my copy. It must set some sort of record for it contains 1,240 words; Ed had sent the entire letter he was preparing for Dewey to each of us for approval.

However, none of this did any good, because Colonel Dewey went ahead with his plan as if the Board did not exist. The building and pilot plant was constructed next to the Firestone property in Akron. It was finally purchased by Firestone, probably part of an original plan.

Williams and I did less traveling as we went on into 1943 and, as I have stated, he left the Washington job shortly after Colonel Dewey came in. Most weekends now, I was able to be home. But I would leave Sunday around 10 p.m., take the Lackawanna to Hoboken, the Ferry to Barclay Street Manhattan, walk along the waterfront on the Hudson to the Jersey Central Ferry, take this across the river again to the Jersey City terminal, and board my sleeper (the 1:02 a.m. train for Washington). Often I would see Bill Shockley, now of transistor fame. He was consulting then for the Defense Department, figuring out ways to outwit the German subs. I didn't know Bill well then and we just nodded to each other. The transistor was not to be for five more years.

Our train got in at 7:30 a.m. I went to the cafeteria in the Home Loan Building for breakfast, reading reports as I ate. Shortly after 8, I was in the office going through the accumulated mail and planning the work of the day. One of the girls, usually Jean Bauer, came in around 9 and the others, Viola Dornhoffer (my secretary) and Lester Friedman (my assistant), rushed in soon after. You could hear Jean some distance off because she wore chains of cheap jewelry that rang out in chimes when she walked. I know one time she was stopped by Ed Gilliland and called down for buying the stuff when the country was so short of brass. She was a miner's daughter from West Virginia and I guess she thought she was helping the home industry.

Miss Dornhoffer was a very rapid typist and had been with the civil service for many years. I didn't learn for some time, though, that she was not taking shorthand at all when I dictated, but was using her own abbreviations! No wonder my letters were different when I went to sign them.

Lester Friedman was from Atlanta, Georgia. He was turned down by the draft and wanted to help in Washington, so he left his father's store. He was not a scientist and this resulted in many boo-boos at first, but he gradually worked in and was most useful with the meetings. We also had another employee, Dr. Frederick Brewer. He was supposed to keep track of patents on rubber, which was not much of a job. Being German, he was not let into the more sensitive work and I guess he was too old for the draft. Anyway, he was the cause of some trouble when Jean Bauer reported him for going through the files in our office one night when she came back unannounced. I think Williams smoothed that one over. After the war, Brewer went to work for Armstrong Cork and, I was told, rode around the Pennsylvania countryside stiff-backed with one arm in his jacket like an old, Prussian officer, which perhaps he had been.

Office work never appealed much to me. I worked hard at it though, often into the night until 11 p.m. Sometimes I would get out for a leisurely lunch with Joe Elgin or Evan Boss. But often, no one was around or we had to grab a bite in the building. This was most depressing, since our restaurant consisted of a table (dispensing coffee and wrapped sandwiches) placed at one end of the police gunnery range in the basement, with a few chairs and tables at the other end. To make matters worse, the whole room was black, including the ceiling. We did have air conditioning, though, and that made up for lots of other things, especially when not even the hotels had it that stifling summer.

In addition to our regular duties, each of us in the ORD had to do special service, on occasion. The American public, both directly by the effects of rationing and indirectly by the constant bombardment by the media, was really stirred up about the rubber situation. As a consequence, letters were pouring into the ORD with all sorts of suggestions. These, no matter how far-fetched they sounded, were taken seriously by our top people because (1) they knew what a furor the press would stir up if we should miss some public suggestion which later turned out to be important, and (2) they had no way of telling when a powerful political figure might be behind the suggestion. Most of these letters could be politely answered, hoping that would be the end of it. For example, one lady wrote that while cracking the eggs for breakfast, she had noted how elastic the egg membrane was. It occurred to her that it would be excellent substitute for the natural rubber used for condoms and she wondered whether the Office had considered this.

Some of the letters, however, required more careful consideration. In such cases, one of us "experts," to whose province the matter seemed most closely related, would be given the job of reporting on it. I remember Ed Gilliland had quite a time with patents for the production of butadiene, which some dentist had obtained and wanted royalties on. Another outfit had Prutton trying to figure out what it was they had made as a rubber substitute from coffee. I managed to keep out of most of the obviously crackpot problems. But I did get involved in two, and to disentangle myself from them took quite a while.

One of these involved a patented process for making natural rubber synthetically from isoprene, a liquid available from petroleum. Actually, the patents pertained to hydrocarbons in general and not to rubber, but the presumed inventor had talked some executives of the Lion Oil Company into setting up a small plant at one of their locations nearby in Newark. The "inventor" was a Dr. Zobel. He had sent samples of his rubber to us and indeed we had found them identical to the natural product. Rubber-like products from isoprene, termed "polyisoprenes," had been known for a long time, but so far no one had succeeded in producing natural rubber from it. Consequently, I was asked to investigate the process further.

I found Dr. Zobel in a small office at the plant. He was a big man with an impressive presence; I would say about fifty years of age. He was very businesslike, and since I asked to be shown the process and it was cool outside (as it can be in May in New Jersey), he went for his coat. I was surprised—because it was not _that_ cold—to see him come back wearing a long fur coat which hung down to cover his feet. It was the shaggy kind and looked like it was made out of a dozen or more fox or coyote pelts. He proceeded to show me a number of stills, which presumably served to separate isoprene from some other petroleum fractions. These led to a pipe which emptied into a large open vessel. A smaller pipe also led to the vessel and I inquired what that furnished. "Glacial acetic acid," Dr. Zobel said. I remembered that glacial acetic was supposed to convert isoprene into polyisoprene, so this made sense. The only question was, how did Zobel insure that it produced the regular chains of polyisoprene which constitute natural rubber? No one had done this yet, the closest being the Russian rubber, in which sodium was used as a catalyst. (The Russian rubber was not natural rubber structurally either, but it was closer to the real thing. It was not until 1955, when G. Natta of Italy improved on Karl Ziegler's catalysts, that true natural rubber was duplicated.) Dr. Zobel assured me he needed no special agent. I asked for a sample of his product and back in the office was given a cut off: a large piece he assured me came from his process. However, I noted that the large sheet was of the precise type that was often sold as natural rubber, namely a calendered crepe.

Back in Washington, I had to admit that I had been given natural rubber, but I was unconvinced Dr. Zobel could make it since it did not come out of his kettle. Later efforts to get some of this also failed. So the answer to Lion Oil was that the Government would not give them financial support to build a plant based on their model.

However, this was not the end of the matter. I got a call from Dinsmore who convinced me I should meet in the Lion Oil offices in lower Manhattan and tell my part of the story. I had to sacrifice part of my weekend at home, but I appeared at their offices where about six angry executive-type men were waiting. I told them that polyisoprene rubber did not have to be natural rubber, but I don't think I convinced many. Then two more men, leading Dr. Zobel, who even though it was warm was still wearing the fur coat, came out of another room and confronted me. "You tell Dr. Zobel what you told us," said the moderator. Zobel said he had heard that before and it was all "baloney." I got a little mad myself, and seeing that the two men with Zobel (who I surmised had promoted him to the others) were shouting me down in a threatening fashion, I looked out the window at the long drop down to the street and asked to be excused. I was shown the front door, and what happened afterwards I do not know, but I do know that Lion Oil never got a government contract on the process.

The second experience was really a marvelous involved episode, one fit for the Hollywood setting it occurred in, and it could stand much more telling than I can devote to it here. But I will try to give enough detail to keep the flavor of what I treasure as a rare experience.

Nowhere were the people hurt more by the rubber rationing than in California, where everything moves on tires. The motorists there were elated, therefore, when wealthy Mr. Blumberg, president of Universal Pictures, announced that they had a new process invented by a Mr. Jean (whom they were sponsoring), which would make the country free of the rubber shortage. In its simplest terms, the Jean Process claimed to turn one pound of natural rubber into two and then to turn the two into four, and so on, much as one would breed animals. There were two prerequisites though: 1) The Government would have to agree to turn over natural rubber to Jean from its stockpile. This would be returned with an equal amount as dividend. Conceivably, only a few tons would be needed as an initial "seed." 2) The Government would finance the construction of the plants, which Jean would operate for Universal Pictures.

Already they had a pilot plant working. They had convinced someone in authority to give them enough natural rubber for a trial and had made tires from their product and had shown that they were as good as tires from natural rubber. To be sure, they had not gotten double the amount of rubber they had started with. The "appreciation," as they called the increase, was something like 10% (instead of 100%), but they attributed that to the very crude facility they had built.

ORD was dealing with big names now and an investigation called for more than one person. Samples had already been in our hands and for all intents and purposes, it behaved like real rubber. But then it should; we had given them that to start with! The real question centered on the amount and nature of the "appreciation," and this was slippery to pin down. Others agreed that such an increase over the weight of the original rubber did occur, but all rubber compounders knew that you can add fairly large amounts of various adulterants to natural rubber without affecting its rubber-like characteristics, up to a point. After all, many manufacturers had been getting away with this for years! And some additives are essential for some uses. For example, modern tires owe their durability and toughness to the incorporation of rather large amounts of carbon black.

We could not get to the bottom of the process Jean was proposing without knowing its details, so Colonel Dewey decided to dispatch not only someone from the ORD, but his own independent man as well. Perhaps he did not have much faith in his government employees, entrepreneur that he was. He chose Professor E. A. [Ernst] Hauser of MIT, whom I knew, and me as the ORD representative. "One optimist and one pessimist," he remarked. But it turned out that in this case, Hauser was as pessimistic as I was. Unfortunately, I had already expressed a negative opinion, because on the face of it, the idea of "breeding" rubber from rubber struck me as dumb. Besides, we were very busy and I hated to be diverted by what seemed certain to be a false lead.

Hauser and I went out to California separately. I shall never forget that trip. It was my first long flight in a modern plane. I had flown before when I worked for my uncle, but that was many years ago and only a short distance. My reservations were made and I boarded the DC-3 in Newark, I think. The plane had come in from Boston and I found no difficulty finding a window seat, because all the passengers in the plane seemed to be asleep under blankets, mostly on the floor. I soon learned they were ferry pilots, whose job it was to fly the new war planes from the factories in California to our Allies in Europe. They were very tired and would soon be returning on another trip.

The plane was dark and we flew at only about 5,000 feet. Outside it was clear so that the lights from the towns and cities below shone brightly. The moon reflected on the lakes and rivers as we headed west. I shall never forget that sunrise, as we came swooping down somewhere in Arizona. I don't think I slept but two hours. We refueled and took off. We flew right over Meteor Crater, that big round mile-long-diameter hole in Arizona, and on to Los Angeles. A short time later we landed at Burbank, the end of our journey. It had taken 28 hours.

I went to the hotel, found that Hauser had checked in but was gone. I left a note saying "let's get together for breakfast," and went to bed at 8, I was so all in.

I was awakened by the ringing telephone at about 7:00 a.m. It was Ernst and we soon were talking about our mission. He had already been at the "plant" at Universal City the day before, and said he wouldn't spoil things by trying to describe how unbelievable it was. But he said he had a lot more to investigate. So far he hadn't found any secret pipes leading—in rubber, in solution, or as latex—into the batches being "appreciated." However, he seemed more skeptical than I thought he would be, and we both guessed it would be unlikely that the new process would gain approval.

Soon we had a big Cadillac limousine come for us and we were quickly deposited at one of the private residences reserved for actors working on the lot, but this one was assigned to the use of Mr. Jean, the inventor of the Jean Process we were there to find out about.

William Jean was a nice enough fellow, middle-aged and reserved, and we got along fine. He was obviously not crazy. He was self-educated, knew very little about chemistry except what he had picked up experimenting. He held several patents for catalysts to produce butylenes (Strictly butylenes comprise 1- and 2- butene; these are singly unsaturated compounds —hydrocarbon—and cannot form natural rubber.) So far the Government had only allowed him a few hundred pounds of natural rubber to work with. Now he was to convince us that he deserved much more.

He drove us in his car, which had his "synthetic" tires on it, through Universal City—an Oz-like place with colorful sets scattered about where famous films had been made. Soon we entered what I thought must be Greece. Actually it was the set used to film "The Boys from Syracuse." There, among the great Grecian columns, was Jean's "factory." A huge canvas tent had been stretched as a roof over the various crude pieces of equipment. Noisy machines, operated by unprotected moving belts, seemed to be everywhere. Now and then you could see operators through the fog of steam and fumes. The odor of gasoline was so strong that I wanted to run for safety. Moving closer into the odor, we were shown the "appreciated" rubber, the product being produced before our eyes. Several men stood before a huge revolving cylinder, (it turned out to be a large sewer pipe), slopping around gobs of sticky rubber. Now I knew where the gasoline smell was coming from. The men were, with the help of the hot cylinder, drying off the butylene solvent in which the natural rubber had been induced to multiply itself, thus producing more natural rubber. That was what had to be checked. The idea was simple enough. It was the way they were doing the job that was so frightening.

The way they were doing it? It was as Hauser had remarked, "unbelievable." One has to realize that a movie company has, in its warehouses, objects to fit any purpose. One has also to realize that the purpose does not have to be real; it only has to seem so to the movie viewer. They have some of the best improvisers in the world, these movie people, and they must have had a good portion of them working for Jean.

We started at the beginning. Here were drums of mixed butylenes, the source of the gasoline odor. They were being dumped into a big wine vat, the kind made of wood that you see in brewery scenes. It was up on a high platform and had a wooden spigot on it. This served to control the flow of the butylenes into a most fantastic mixing machine. Here, Bill Jean stopped to tell us how in the beginning, they could not get the spigot on the vat to work. They called the mechanic who had installed the vat. "Oh," he said, "I didn't know you wanted a hole in it; I thought you just wanted to shoot the scene."

But the mixer! It was an exact duplicate of your kitchen eggbeater, only twenty times as big. The gears had been sawed to order and the rings of the beater were cut from a large sewer pipe. It was working, too; at least it seemed so. Rubber, previously swollen in the butylenes, was put in this beater, together with more butylenes from the vat, plus an undisclosed catalyst, probably a peroxide. This was stirred to a smooth solution while warming the bowl, which looked like a Grecian urn. I asked if they weren't afraid of fire. "We had one in the mixer and it burned a big hole in the tent," said Jean. "But the Fire Company foamed it out." I shuddered, as I thought about the two men at the cylinder and wondered how they, soaked as they were in gasoline, could have escaped.

In fact, it was difficult to see why everything didn't blow up, because the steam machine, which was furnishing heat for the cylinder and was essentially a boiler on wheels, was gas-fired and not very far away. When I pointed it out, Jean remarked, "Oh, it's perfectly safe. These machines have been used for years to warm the ponds and lakes for drowning scenes and the like. Actors don't relish cold water, you know."

The final stage in the process was oven-drying. This was a critical step; the longer the final rubber plus the "appreciation" was dried, the less was the appreciation, because more of the butylenes were driven out. Jean said he was getting about 30% appreciation now instead of 100%, but was confident that a larger, more efficient plant would give the latter figure.

It was time for lunch, and since the batch of rubber just prepared was going to be taken over to the test lab nearby, we were asked to go along. Nothing was too good for the rubber, it turned out, for a big shiny Cadillac drove up and the big smelly batch of Jean's processed rubber, belching fumes of gasoline, was put in with us in the back seat while Jean and the driver rode in front. The batch was to be taken to the compounders for use in tires tests after we were dropped off at the restaurant for lunch.

Eating on the Universal lot was like being in Disney World. Strange characters occupied all the tables surrounding us. Right at the next table were a pair eating with "blood" smeared all over their faces—a view which was not very pleasant for enjoying one's meal.

Back at Jean's office, we asked more questions and then suggested that we go to our hotel, since everyone seemed tired. It was in fact New Year's Eve and we hadn't realized it. Hauser and I washed up at our rooms and had dinner together. We were still astounded by what we had seen and didn't quite know whether to laugh at it all, as we were doing, or whether to feel sad at the genuine efforts Jean and the others were trying to make in the name of patriotism, not knowing really anything scientifically sound about what they were doing. Jean had based his idea on pure analogy, a very risky thing to do in science. He had noted that mother of vinegar, when placed in alcohol, was able to convert it to vinegar. So, he reasoned, why not use natural rubber to seed his butylenes and have it teach them to be rubber? He tried it and it seemed to work. He had more "rubber" than he started with. Theoretically he figured he should be able to double his seed and be able to take the first generation rubber and use it as seed for a second, and so on ad infinitum! It didn't work quite that way in practice, but then "nothing is perfect."

Both Hauser and I agreed on what we thought was actually happening. Jean's butylenes were unsaturated hydrocarbons of the vinyl type. They themselves would polymerize to rubberlike masses under the influence of peroxide and heat. Natural rubber was known to be very reactive because of its diene structure also. It was entirely reasonable both to expect some of the butylene polymers to form in the rubber in Jean's process, as well as for some to react with the natural rubber. In doing this, they would not be producing the natural rubber molecule at all, but they would remain, in part, to increase the original weight after the non-reacted volatiles had been removed. Hence the "appreciation." Both of us were of the view that this would not improve the properties of the original rubber any more than could be done by compounding it with plasticizers and pigments, as was already the practice. In a word, Jean's explanation did not hold water and a simpler procedure would accomplish the same results.

New Year's Eve or not, we were both tired and after a while went to our rooms, knowing that we were invited to the Blumberg's at 1 p.m. for afternoon dinner on New Year's Day.

The chauffeur called for us at our hotel at 12:30, as he had been instructed. It was only a short drive to the Blumberg's sprawling country-style home in Hollywood. There had been a party the night before, we were told, and the Blumbergs and Foxes would be out shortly. In the meantime, we could sit in the chairs around the pool, in the sun only California could provide at this time of year. Instead we walked around. In a large open barn-like structure at the back, we could see all sorts of decorated buggies and conveyances, which evidently had been used during the festivities of the night before. Ernst went on walking, but I thought I would go back and sit. Very soon, a very elegant-looking lady, about thirty-five, came out in a black velvet gown that fitted tightly around the bosom and waist and then drifted to the ground, in a trail. "I'm Rebecca Blumberg," she said. I introduced myself and we were exchanging the usual pleasantries, when she jumped up with a start and said, "Oh, I almost forgot. I didn't collect my eggs this morning. How unpatriotic of me." With that she trailed over across the end of the pool to one of the most elegant chicken coops I have ever seen and came out with two eggs. "Excuse me. I will give them to the cook," she said, and disappeared inside. About the same time, I got a wave from Hauser at the door to come. He was with Mr. Blumberg and the Foxes and Mrs. Blumberg soon joined us.

It was a pleasant gathering and Mr. B. apologized for getting us away from our families at this time of year. But, he said, "It is for a good cause. I have put a lot of money in it and I am willing to put in a million more if it will help our country." I am sure he meant every word of it and was sincere, even if he was misinformed. Fox didn't say very much except to praise the great job Jean was doing and how badly he needed support. I learned afterward that Fox was a big stockholder in Universal, and he had some sort of war assignment in the War Production Board (which handled everything but rubber). He had sold Blumberg on the idea of Jean. Perhaps he had visions of big returns for Universal in some way. I don't know. But he seemed to me to be overly concerned.

The dinner was elegant. I had already made known my plans to leave on the plane that afternoon late, and Fox insisted on driving me to the airport, since I had all my things with me ready to go. Hauser decided to stay and see more. After all, he was having a good time and perhaps he was right. I learned later that he had Universal make a movie of the tent with Jean showing how his process worked and how it would solve the rubber crisis. I never did see the film though, and now that Hauser is dead, I probably never will. But Hauser was like that.

All the way to the airport, Fox pleaded with me to turn in a favorable report. I was polite but promised nothing. I had already made up my mind that it would be a waste for the Government to use any but a token amount of its natural rubber stockpile in Jean's process. I wrote my report on the plane and turned it in a few days later. I couldn't help reflecting as I wrote it, "Thank God for our country's chemical engineers, who are working on the right solution to our rubber problem."

Hauser's final report for the Government evidently agreed with mine and in spite of much pressure, did not yield to Fox and Blumberg. But the matter did not die easily. Several months later, Upton Close, the radio commentator, broadcast a "Close-Up" in which he lambasted the government investigators for turning down Jean's process and announced that one, Hawley, of Minneapolis, had backed Jean there with $250,000. Hawley had 300 million dollars' worth of government contracts, so maybe the Government was paying after all. However, Jean needed natural rubber, and that he was not going to get. Things gradually died after that but not before a few speeches were given in Congress. All of which makes one wonder whether, without a basic grounding in science, the businessmen and the legislators can ever make good decisions in science-related areas. Perhaps we should include the newsmen in that, too.

As I have already described, I had my own work to do and although these special jobs were fascinating in a way, I was glad to get back. But my tour of duty in Washington, I could see, should be ending and I would have to start thinking about how I could make an exit. I knew the work would have to go on for many years under some permanent agency, but I had no desire to stay with it.

As far as the main job of producing a synthetic rubber in quantity was concerned, by May 1, 1944, it was evident that the country would be in the clear. The Baruch report had recommended that we prepare to produce a million tons per year. That goal was in sight. The raw chemicals required for the Buna-S type rubber, (labeled "GR-S" by the Government), were butadiene and styrene in the ratio of about 3 to 1. By 1944, thirteen government and several private plants were producing butadiene from butylenes from gas and petroleum, at the rate of 400,000 tons per year. Six government plants and one private plant were producing over 200,000 tons of styrene. Butadiene and styrene were combined catalytically to form rubber in so-called polymerization plants. Sixteen of the scheduled seventeen polymerization plants were operating in 1944, with a projected capacity of 750,000 tons of synthetic rubber. In addition, provision was made for 75,000 tons of special synthetic rubbers like Butyl, Thioko, Neoprene, and Buna-N.

It was clear that the goal of the Baruch Committee was to be reached soon. Considering the tremendous amount of steel fabrication and construction, the skill in engineering design, and the organizing ability that went into this project—to say nothing of the chemical engineering required to insure this scale of production—the government program on synthetic rubber approaches a miracle, surely one of the seven wonders of the world. I still remember the amazement on the face of an important natural-rubber producer from England, when he was shown the Institute Plant in West Virginia and told that it alone could produce all the rubber grown on English plantations: 100,000 tons per year.

We couldn't point to figures to show what our research program had accomplished—this seems always to be the case in research. There can be no doubt, though, that we earned our chevrons in many ways. We helped to obtain the best rubber from the plants, we ironed out problems in the emulsion process by bringing a better knowledge of how it operated, we helped train many people for the industry, we brought in the expertise of the university people, we provided extra insurance that we could overcome serious fundamental problems should they arise, we helped to break down the barriers that prevented cooperation among various industry laboratories, and we broadened the knowledge of what the rubberlike state is in terms of chemistry and physics. We unfortunately didn't succeed in synthesizing natural rubber; we tried. Perhaps what was done helped in this accomplishment by the Germans and Italians a few years later. Now natural rubber can be produced chemically, if we want. But it must come from our petroleum reserve.

Personally, I felt that my tour of duty of almost two years of extremely demanding work was my contribution to the war effort. It did not help me with my future; if anything the opposite. I had lost valuable time from my own research. I had lost touch with developments at the Laboratories. The later events, which I have described, were probably going to happen anyway. The only question is, would they have been so drastic had I been on the scene earlier? Then again, perhaps it was better to sink all the way, as I did, because then I could make a cleaner break. But I didn't know, when I returned to Bell that July, that all the acquaintances I had made and all I had learned in the polymer field, would be pushed aside soon by the abrupt change about to engulf me.

All of these events were happening back in 1941 to 1944. I have already told about my experiences after I returned to Bell Laboratories after the war—how greatly things had changed. I have only now to tell about my last days with this wonderful organization.

### Retirement

The last five years of my active scientific life were spent in an attempt to apply chemical thinking to problems of semiconductors. I was particularly interested in applying what we had learned about the movements of certain atoms into and out of crystals, i.e., diffusion, as a means to investigate interactions between atoms and vacancies (places where atoms were missing), as well as to elucidate the mechanism of the formation of clusters of atoms or of vacancies in crystals. But the work was tedious and slow, and the result may not have justified the effort. In any event, my time came to leave before I could complete this endeavor. I have always felt bad about that.

My leaving was quiet, as I desired it to be. I have always believed that "goodbyes" should be gotten over with quickly, especially permanent goodbyes. In the Bell System, everyone knows he or she is going out at sixty-five and that is it. (Unfortunately Congress has overturned this company rule.) Mementoes are good, but big parties—where you know what is being said is only partly so and where so many are there because they "have" to be—are better reserved for a chosen few. I was very fortunate. My last closest associates were there; no speeches were given and the parting was as painless as such parting could be. The memory book, which generally falls to the secretaries to prepare and who seldom get any good mention for it, was presented and I appreciate that. Most treasured of all were the two volumes prepared at great sacrifice of time by Kathy Wolfstirn, my long-time laboratory technician and collaborator. One contains all of my publications; the other, my patents.

Although I was officially discharged on the last day of April 1967, I had so much work in progress that I was allowed to stay on a few weeks longer in my office. This eased the abruptness of the trauma of leaving. But then it was brought back again, once I had transported all of my papers and files and books home, because I had to decide what to throw out and what to save. With great pain I departed with thousands of cards on which I had abstracted numerous scientific articles and books. One set comprised the complete translation of Professor H. Staudinger's book from the German, which I had done on my Fridays during the Depression in the New York library. There were reprints, letters, Society and Committee files, files from the days spent in Washington, reports I had written, clippings from magazines, notebooks, and drafts of papers published or never published. Painfully, I parted with nearly all of this material. So recently treasured, suddenly its value had decreased to essentially zero!

Shelves of books likewise lost their essentiality. In my case, I attempted to pick out the ones I could not bear to dispose of. I still had half left. Later, I could pare the ones I really would use down to one-quarter. Finally I retained about one tenth, and most of these were my older textbooks from college, of sentimental more than informational value.

I suppose that many who retire do not go through this shrinking process, but live with all they are able to salvage from the past. I feel differently. I want only enough of my books and papers to remind me of my past scientific efforts.

The greatest myth about retirement is that you will have time hanging heavily on your hands. Those who are bored are the ones who have never had their minds expanded in the first place. The active ones—either mentally or physically—, still remain so during retirement and actually find they have less time than they had before for all they want to do. This is partly because each activity takes longer than before. One's reactions are slower. You find yourself sitting more in doctor's waiting rooms. You get more junk mail. You shop slower. You find many more odd jobs that have to be done. You don't see as well, so you do more things over. But it is important that you have one or two mainline pursuits (whether it is writing, a community activity, church, college courses, systematic reading, gardening, outdoor sports, or engine repair) into which you desire to throw most of your free time, if any. Once in this state, you never become bored because you are always rushing through the necessary day-to-day tasks to get to your main pursuits. You constantly look back on your working years with amazement for the accomplishments of that period. "How did I ever do it?"

When you have been one, like me, who has spent his working days researching in narrow and special fields of science, retirement offers the chance to expand into neglected areas. There are so many of them, even if you confine yourself to the fields of science (to say nothing of literature, history, economics, psychology, politics, the skilled arts, and a host of other subjects). I had always held a passing interest in philosophical topics and have done a fair amount of reading in philosophy. I continued partly in this after retirement, but except for the classical Greeks and the 19th century English and American thinkers—and excluding some of them, too—I must confess that most of philosophy seems to have been attempts to define just what it is we humans would most like to know. Most of the important questions still remain.

Of course, I still make a feeble attempt to keep up on the new developments and advances in my old fields of polymers and solid-state chemistry and physics. Rarely do I go into the specialized journals on these subjects, however. I also try to keep abreast of the happenings in science and medicine broadly. The media (e.g., the _Scientific American_ , _Science Magazine_ , the _American Scientist_ and, more sporadically, others available in the library), serve me for this purpose. But I rely mainly on books relating to the particular subjects I am interested in at the time, in order to gain a deeper understanding. Biographies of noted contributors to science are especially useful. Often such biographies are found in magazines, such as the _New Yorker_. These have to be sought out.

Certain special subjects hold most interest for me and I am always looking out for information on them. These are: writing and contributions in genetics, the mechanism of evolution, the mechanism of the origin of life on earth, advances in solid-state electronics, and contributions to the basic theories of chemistry and physics. I think the reasons for these special interests probably are because at some time or another, I thought I had some pertinent ideas on them or simply had the feeling that these stood out in importance above others. For example, pertaining to the origin of human life—or for that matter, of any life on earth) I, of course, subscribe to the theory that chemical structures form in the primordial "soup" which are capable of self-reproduction.

One can set up plausible reactions of substances we know must have been present when the earth was formed that will result in long chained protein-like molecules, or molecules of nucleic acids, growing competitively in such a soup. Through chance, one of these becomes capable of reproduction, such as DNA, or a protein capable of forming DNA. Or alternatively, we may postulate that one kind of DNA or similar molecule is formed more rapidly and more efficiently in the soup than the others. This would be the chemical evolutionary phase. The problem comes when the first biological feature, namely the cell, must be formed. One has to postulate some sort of an emulsifying process at this point, followed by a cellular stage of evolution. But without continuing this speculative argument, we would probably agree that life had begun when "reproduction" first occurred. The activity I have roughly summarized is now a full-fledged field of research.

Even though, as I have said, you will find retirement a very busy time, there will be times when you will think about your past. While I think there is seldom little pleasure in looking back, there may still be time for lessons to be learned from it. I am sure that those who worked with me did not always approve of what I did. Some may have complained. One gets the feeling that most of the personal problems will never be known, but that they surely could have been reduced by the application of more patience.

In looking back, too, it is well to reflect that for most of us and surely for me, we owe much to luck—good luck. If you still have your wife as I have, you are indeed lucky. The fact that my good wife successfully completed her job of raising a fine family during our active years has made possible this satisfying retirement. The fact that she is still around makes it more satisfying.

Analyzing human character, especially self-analyzing, is a difficult and uncertain process. According to behaviorism (as advanced by B. F. Skinner, Professor of Psychology at Harvard; much revered and much despised), we are controlled in the way we act solely by the influence of our environments, by the way they reward and punish. However, the same environmental influences, it should be pointed out, can produce different results in different individuals, if only because of their different genetic make-ups.

In my own case, while I would have accepted probably higher and higher posts in the Labs had they been offered, the facts are that I never went beyond department head. Why? The chief reasons, I think, are (1) I was not able to muster an impressive presence and (2) I lacked confidence, not arguing strong enough for my positions, backing down too easily under opposition. To these two main reasons, others could be added. (3) I often lacked diplomacy, saying what I thought. (4) I disliked being boss and telling others what to do. It was difficult for me to delegate authority and not be in on the doing. In a word, I liked the action and disliked sitting at a desk, although I could do this and enjoyed doing it if it was solving a problem not having to do with people.

But it was not for these deficiencies that I was stripped of my service stripes by Townsend and Burns, as I have related above. I was not an outstanding executive to be sure, but it was insubordination that got me into trouble with them. I was caught up in a battle between two departments, J. R. [Townsend] was looking for a scapegoat and I obliged. But I could not swallow his committee system of doing research and that was it. As things turn out, I made out fairly well in the end, thanks to the fine people in the Labs. I considered myself lucky to have been able to do what I did and to have had the fun I had doing it.

It is not possible to recount every detail, every event, and every thought in one's life. Almost every day we think of new things that we had long forgotten in our past—life is that complex. So what I have recounted is defective in many ways. One of the biggest omissions is the many delightful vacations we had as a family and the many trips that Willie and I have made over the years, both in our Airstream trailer and in conjunction with business. It is my hope that Willie will take up her pen and typewriter and produce a separate record of these memorable events in our lives.

## Epilogue

While it is true that nature hides behind the safety of large numbers and in that sense can be said to never take chances, this cannot be said of individuals. For each of us is the product of a unique inheritance and a unique environment, both of which involve chance. Our inheritance involves chance through the shuffling process of the genes supplied by our forebears. Our environment involves it through the dynamics of our very existence. Like the molecules of a gas, our course through time depends on the jostlings along the way, which are random and unpredictable. There can be no doubt that chance still plays the crucial role for each of us.

Thinking back to that time when I nearly fell under that streetcar, I see it as chance that the conductor saw my plight in time. That chancy bounce of the baseball nearly ended my career before it had begun. It was chance that I had an uncle who interested me in scientific things and that I had Mabel Walbridge as a physics teacher to make me get into college. Chance that Howard O'Brien's stubbornness about our low pay made us both quit General Chemical Company. Chance that I had that important meeting with Dr. Williams, which resulted in my thirty-seven year association with the Bell Labs.

Cowper, the poet, may be right in one sense: that man has created a more risky environment for himself by his reasoning:

Reasoning at every step he treads,

Man yet mistakes his way.

Whilst meaner things, whom instincts leads,

Are rarely known to stray.

Of course, Cowper is wrong, "meaner things" are also subject to chance and, in fact, lead riskier lives than we humans. Contrary to what Cowper implies, we are, through science, steadily improving our understanding of ourselves and the world about us, and so are reducing the number of unfavorable outcomes resulting from chance.

It was no act of chance that I retired from my job at the Bell Labs, however. When my time came, it was a rule that one had to retire at age sixty-five. In the many years since that date (1967), I have often reflected on just what my role on this earth was. What is anybody's? Invariably I come back to the same conclusion: to seek truth and understanding, as avidly as possible, concerning ourselves and our surroundings; to pass on though each generation, the knowledge from our endeavors.

THE END

# II - Willmine Works Fuller

##  Editor's Introduction

Section II contains the two pieces written in the 1980s by Willmine Fuller, "My First Eighty Years" and "Memories of History." They add a social perspective to some of the events that Calvin describes in his memoir. Willmine writes about her family background, her Minnesota childhood, her move to New York to work after college, marriage and family, and her many volunteer activities. In addition, she describes her reactions to important private and public events that occurred between her birth in 1909 and the 1980s.

Willmine, while satisfying the expectations for a married woman with children of her generation, also exemplified the values of a later generation with her independent views and actions. She showed leadership ability starting in her early years as a Girl Scout, achieving the highest rank of Golden Eagle, and as a single woman working in New York. As is evident in her writings, she held strong views and was not afraid to express them, even if they were unfashionable and family members and others disagreed with her.

Community service was important to Willmine throughout her life. She was a Red Cross first-aid instructor during World War II. She was elected to and served two terms on the Chatham Township Board of Education, one as president, and was the only woman at the time. Commenting on this, Stephen Fuller says: "I was in grade school so this was in the early fifties, [so it was] even a bigger deal. I also thought that going out on her own to nighttime meetings with five other men with my father being comfortable with this, spoke well of him, too." In addition, she worked for sixteen years as a surgeon's assistant, an unusual role for a volunteer. A high point was her participation in the 1960s in the successful effort to keep the New York Port Authority from draining New Jersey's Great Swamp to build a new international airport.

Willmine remained an activist even in her later years, within her retirement community and at the state level. Stephen Fuller says, "Her...big accomplishment that is often forgotten was that she was a founding member of FLiCRA—the Florida Life Care Residents Association. She helped to get legislation passed to protect the investment of residents of Florida's life-care communities against loss of their assets when the life-care facilities they had bought into went bankrupt. This was during the Savings and Loan Crisis in the late 1980s. She served on the Board of Directors, opened an office in Tallahassee to lobby for protection of older residents in the state, and then took this idea national and assisted other life-care communities in other states to get similar legislation passed. She was a major force in starting a national movement."

Stephen adds, "She [did]...not toot her own horn...[but] she certainly was a force to contend with when she made up her mind to do something."

Ann L. Fuller, Editor

## My First Eighty Years

#### by Willmine Works Fuller, 1989

_Omni Gallia est divisa in partes tres_. So wrote Caesar. That is how I would divide my life. The first part was preparation for life (my youth), spent in Minnesota. The second part (the productive part), I lived in New Jersey, and the third and last part, retirement in Florida. I will attempt to sketch in the following pages a life of just under eighty years that has been happy, healthy, and comparatively free from problems.

Yet, one problem which came to me early was my name. I didn't like it. No one knew how to spell it or pronounce it. My mother [Marie Chilton Works (1879-1974)] in a moment of madness made a pact with two schoolmates that each would name her first daughter after her husband.

Neither my mother nor her two friends had at that time met the men they were to marry. The first married a man named Alexander—thus a daughter, Alexandria. The second married a man named George—her daughter was Georgia. I was the last one and my father was William Works [1876-1947], and my name Willmine Works. In the course of the years I was nicknamed Willie and fortunately married a man whose last name was more to my liking, i.e., Fuller.

My father was raised on a farm in a small town in western Minnesota. He was the first person in his town to attend a high school, which was in a town twenty miles away. He went on to the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis, where he graduated from the College of Dentistry in 1901. My mother, Marie Chilton, was also raised on a farm about forty miles from where my father lived. She was educated to be a teacher at Moorehead Normal, and taught for several years before she met and married my father. They moved to Duluth, Minnesota, and six years after their marriage I was born. Five years later my only brother, Robert, was added to our family.

My mother had ideas of her own about education. She taught me at home for my first two years and at just six I entered second grade. To this day I remember being led into a classroom, large enough for forty children. Both first and second graders were in the same room under one critic teacher and several practice teachers. This also was a Normal School. Mother had done a good job with my reading and arithmetic (I can't remember not being able to read), but where she had failed was in drawing. When Mother and I entered the class, a drawing lesson was in session. An easel stood at the front of the room with a bunch of carrots with all the fern-like leaves still attached, draped over the easel. The second grade was all quietly drawing the carrots. I had no idea of how to draw even one carrot. I had only been taught to stay within the lines in a coloring book.

I have always loved to read. As pre-teenagers we girls acted out the books we read. My favorites were the "Little Colonel" series. I remember sitting astride a limb of a tree and pretending I was the Little Colonel riding her horse. In that same big tree two or three of us would sit by the hour, sewing doll clothes for small china dolls, four or five inches long. There was no TV, no radio, and I can never remember being bored.

Duluth was a very narrow and long city, stretched out along the north shore of Lake Superior. They used to say Duluth was one mile wide, twenty-eight miles long, and one mile high. The hills were very steep. In spite of this we had marvelous transportation. For a nickel one could ride all over town, transferring from car to car. Every so often two of us would take our Easter baskets with a sandwich and a cookie in them, and go for a ride that lasted several hours.

In the winter there was a hill half a block from my home where the sledding was exceptional. In our backyard we made a ski-jump about two feet high. Four blocks away was an ice skating rink where we had a membership. We were able to skate from Thanksgiving to Easter.

During the summer my mother often took my brother and me to visit our grandparents [Timothy Wheeler Chilton (1849-1925) and Elizabeth Amelia Ryder (1853-1937)]. Being on a farm for a vacation taught us many things we wouldn't learn in the city. The farmhouse was large and there were always several aunts, uncles, and many cousins visiting. Fifteen to seventeen people used to sit down for meals, which Grandmother cooked on a wood stove. There were nine or ten cows in the barn, and Grandmother used the cream from the cows to make delicious ice cream each Sunday. The ice came from an icehouse where it was preserved in sawdust. Grandfather had chopped the ice out of the lake in huge slabs during the winter, and carried it home on a sleigh drawn by horses. Grandmother also churned butter, made bread, and raised all the vegetables in a big garden. There were pigs, lambs, and chickens, and we had a banquet three times a day.

Since my father liked to fish and swim, we needed transportation to get out of the city. So my Dad bought a car, a Maxwell, when I was five years old. I remember so clearly our first trip in it. We left my baby brother at home, and Mother, Dad and I started out. All the neighbors stood in their yards and watched us go, waving good-bye as we went proudly down the street. Dad had had a couple of lessons, but he was not very confident. He had driven several miles when he made the wrong turn and found him in a dead end street. He thought he had put the car in reverse to back up, but alas, it was in a forward gear and we crashed into a tree. We sadly and shamefully went home on the streetcar.

My father taught me to swim when I was very young. My mother never learned to swim and always worried about my brother and me when we were in the water. Her continual worrying and calling from shore, "Will, don't let them go out so far, they will drown," made us both want to show her how good we were and we soon became excellent swimmers.

My greatest problem in growing up was my height. I grew to be 5'8" by the time I was twelve years old. I was taller than my mother, my father, and my brother. I did not like to take our customary Sunday afternoon with them. Dancing school was awful. The little boys came just up to my bosoms, and I sat on the sidelines wishing I were home. I used to be infuriated when my mother's friends would say, "How tall you are getting, Willmine."

Girl scouting was comparatively new in those days. At twelve, I joined the first troop to be organized in Duluth. The leader was a single lady, a professor at the Teachers' College. Her hobby was birds, and many of my Saturday mornings were spent searching for new birds for our list. The trip usually started at dawn and ended with the group cooking big breakfasts. The competition in scouting delighted me. I went through the ranks earning many "proficiency badges" which have helped me throughout my life. There were badges in cooking, canning, sewing, child care, first-aid, and home nursing, to name a few. I had fifty-seven badges and was awarded the highest rank in Girl Scouting, the Golden Eagle. One of the exciting events in my life as a scout was to be invited to a tea given for Mrs. Hoover, later to become the First Lady. At that time she was the president of the Girl Scouts in the United States. I was picked to present her with a bouquet of roses.

Boys did not play a part in my life in my younger years. I was too busy with my scouting. In my senior year in high school I became a junior scout leader and also a counselor in the Girl Scout camp.

My health was excellent and except for a few childhood diseases, I was never sick. But I had one terrible problem. I was most allergic to poison ivy. When I had it, it put me to bed; eyes swollen and a mass of blisters. I would swear never to go near it again and for several years I would stay out of the woods, but then I would become careless and have to take to my bed again.

When I was seventeen, a few days after my high school graduation, my uncle (who was a professor at West Point) invited me to visit for a month. That was his present to me. My present from my father and mother was the railroad ticket. At West Point with all the beautiful parades and uniforms I woke up to the fact that there were boys and men in the world.

My uncle was a colonel and he produced a captive set of dates to escort me to the hops, teas, and many functions. On the top of the hill above the Academy was a reservoir where we swam each afternoon. I, to my shame, allowed a cadet to teach me to swim. There was a large rock on Old Flirtation Walk. It was supposed to fall down and roll into the Hudson if a young lady was not kissed as she walked past it. I took the walk, the rock is still there, and I received my first kiss from a man.

In September of that year I went to the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis. The cost for the average school year at the University was $750. My father put the money in a checking account for me and said, "Spend it wisely. It must last all year." I lived in a dormitory with a friend who had lived across the street from me in Duluth. By that time the boys had grown up to as tall or taller than I was. I got my first high heels that year. I joined a sorority and loved it, and my last three years were lived in the sorority house. My major was history and I graduated prepared to teach history, science, or math to anyone who wanted me. No one did. It was 1930.

I had had a bad experience in high school that affected my practice teaching. I had been asked to take a small part in a history production. I memorized my part and said it perfectly to my parents and the teacher. But when I stood up on the stage and looked down on the 2,200 students, I froze. I couldn't speak, I couldn't move. It seemed like hours that I stood there, mute. Finally, I turned and walked off the stage. When I did my practice teaching, I was so frightened; I leaned against the desk and never moved for the forty-five-minute period. I could speak and explain my beautiful charts, but I could not make my feet move. That I suppose, is the reason I did not become a teacher.

While I had dated casually my first two years at the University, I fell in love in my junior year. In my senior year I wore his pin.

My family, who had always been supportive of me in all my endeavors, surprised me by moving to a small town twelve miles by water from Seattle on Puget Sound. The property and house had belonged to my father's parents, and at their death it came to him. He suddenly decided he did not want to spend the rest of his life in cold Minnesota. Out west he could fish and garden most of the year. My parents sold our home where I had lived nineteen years, packed up, and went west. I joined them when school was out. I was allowed to go back for my senior year, but I had to spend my summers with them. As I look back on it, I cannot have been an easy person to live with, as I was mourning my love in Minnesota who it turned out was having an exciting time dating other girls.

At the end of the summer after graduation with my parents' consent, but against their wishes, I took the train back to Minneapolis. I found a job within two days selling bras and girdles in a big department store. I was given the junior department with the thought that I would bring in University business. One of my old roommates and I found a big room, in a boarding house just off campus. Breakfast cost $0.15, dinner $0.50. We ate lunch on the campus for $0.35. Our room was $30 a month for the two of us. If we needed transportation, the streetcar cost $0.05 or we could walk.

However after a few months as a sales girl, I was offered a job in the Physics Department on campus. I was to do proofreading and copy editing for a group of physics magazines. A physics professor (John Tate) was editor and a fine person to work for. We would work long hours to get our issue out on time, and then the next day we would go on a picnic, or he would say, "You girls go out and have a game of golf, it's too nice to stay indoors."

My romance had broken up. He was in another town, trying to get started as a dentist. I was on the campus where there was fun to be had.

In the spring of 1932, the American Institute of Physics was organized in New York City. Madeline Mitchell and I were transferred to New York, she as Editorial Secretary and I as her assistant. There were nine magazines which we published, all in the field of physics.

Can you imagine the excitement of two young women arriving in New York City with good jobs? And best of all, we knew about twenty young bachelors who had obtained their doctorates at the University of Minnesota.

We arrived on Easter Sunday in the midst of the Easter Parade. Madeline and I had a two-room suite with bath in the Sutton Hotel. A week later we were entertained by one of our many friends. It was at this dinner that I met my husband-to-be. I knew then, and Madeline and I discussed it that night. Cal and I were married five months later on September 17, 1932.

§§§

New York was an exciting place to live, or so I thought when I first arrived. There were many new experiences. My job was a good one, and going to work was fun. I could walk, as it was only one-and-a-half miles, or ride the trolley. The Madison Avenue trolley was open-air on all sides and one rattled along merrily, taking in the sights. My office was halfway between 5th Avenue and Madison Avenue., running from 38th to 39th Street. That meant I was around the corner from Franklin Simon's, Lord and Taylor's, Ovington's and only a block from Tiffany's. Lunch hour was a busy time of browsing in the stores.

There were all the usual things for newcomers to see: the Empire State building which had just been built, the Staten Island ferry (only $0.05 to ride out past the Statue of Liberty), the Metropolitan Art Museum, Central Park and many others.

I met Cal at a party given by Gerry Willard, who had been in the Physics Department at the University of Minnesota. He was now living in a basement apartment (with a fireplace) in Greenwich Village. A few months later, Gerry became our best man and the following year, Cal returned the favor for him.

Cal had a car and on weekends he showed me the countryside, Connecticut, New Jersey and even Coney Island.

Cal and I soon discovered that we had much in common, including a love of the outdoors. On my suggestion, we bought a frying pan and kettle, and cooked picnic dinners in the parks of New Jersey.

On my birthday, my roommate, Madeline, took me to my first Broadway show, _Show Boat_. I still thrill to its haunting music.

At that time Cal was living and working in Summit, New Jersey, which was a long way from 56th Street and 1st Avenue, Manhattan. We saw each other on Wednesday nights for dinner and on weekends. I didn't tell him until later, but I had him as a part of my budget for those free dinners. It wasn't long before we knew we were in love, and had plans for our wedding on September 17th, which was the first time I could get away for two weeks of vacation.

We spent weekends apartment hunting in New Jersey and settled in East Orange, which gave us each an equal train ride. Our studio apartment had one large room, with not only twin beds coming out of the wall, but also a table and two benches. This we were able to rent for $40 a month. We budgeted $30 a month for food (which did not include lunches), and the agreement was that I would use my salary to pay for only the expenses which would end when I stopped working, such as commutation and lunch money; the rest would be saved to pay for a baby if one should happen to come.

My parents were perturbed that I was marrying someone they had not met and had known such a short time (only five months), but Cal had just turned thirty (I was twenty-three), and I thought anyone that old must be very smart.

We were married in Brooklyn at the home of a Presbyterian minister, Dr. Arms, who formerly lived in Duluth. His daughter, Peg, had been one of my dear friends when we were growing up—and still is. She came to our 50th wedding anniversary party six years ago. After the ceremony, Mrs. Arms had a wedding breakfast for us. The only ones to help us celebrate were my roommate Madeline, who was my maid of honor; Gerry Willard, Cal's best man; Dr. and Mrs. Arms; and my friend Peg. After the breakfast we started out for Green Pond, a lovely lake in north Jersey, where we spent a week at the Lake End Hotel. The weather was beautifully warm and we swam, paddled a canoe, and hiked for a week. The second week we went to Washington, D.C., doing all the touristy things, and then it was back to work.

Cal did the shopping and cooking because he arrived home first. He did not know how to cook except to make Campbell's tomato soup, but I wrote out a list for him in the morning and gave him directions for cooking. If he forgot, he used my cookbook. As I said before, he was very smart, but sometimes our food was quite unusual.

Our first Christmas, we invited Madeline to join us. We had a tree all trimmed when, on the morning of December 24th, we received the tragic news that Cal's only sister, June, had died of pneumonia. She was twenty-eight years old and left four children—9, 7, 5, and 1. Cal left immediately for Chicago on the train. One of our friends (Walter Brattain) lived only a few blocks away and Madeline and I were invited to his home for Christmas dinner. He later won the Nobel Prize for Physics for his part in discovering the transistor.

The next year we moved to Summit where I did the commuting and Cal walked to work at a small branch of the Bell Telephone Laboratories.

In the spring of 1934 my brother, Bob, received an appointment to the Military Academy at West Point. In June he came out from Seattle to visit us and about July 1st we drove him to the Point to commence four years of military training.

A few days later Cal and I took off by train for the west coast where Call would meet my parents for the first time.

In the fall of '34, Cal was sent by the Bell Labs to Cornell University for two months to do some post-doctoral work. I couldn't go, as I could not leave my work. He came home twice and I went up once to visit, but decided then I was going to stop working. In case he had to leave again, I wanted to be free to go with him. I also wanted a baby and thought if I stopped rushing around I might conceive.

To our great joy we became parents of a boy, Robert, on Oct 26, 1936. We were still living in an apartment and decided we needed a house for him to grow up in. We did a lot of searching and finally settled on a piece of land on Edgewood Road in Chatham. We drew up plans and soon we had our house built. We moved in the day Bobby was nine months old. At the time we said, "This is our last move," and we lived there for thirty years. Our house was in a new development, full of large oaks and dogwoods (there were twenty-eight dogwoods on our lot).

Young people moved in around us, mostly newlyweds, and in a few years there were many children. On September 17th, our eighth wedding anniversary, our second son, Stephen, was born. The war started soon after that and Cal was sent to Washington, D.C. to aid in the development of synthetic rubber. He traveled from one end of the country to the other, coming home each Saturday afternoon at 4 p.m. and leaving on Sunday night at 9 p.m. He slept several nights each week on the train. I stayed home, raising two boys and many vegetables.

During this thirty-year period in Chatham, I participated in many volunteer activities. There was "Bundles for Britain" where we tailored coats, jackets, and shorts for little English boys. Then I got into Red Cross work and became a first-aid instructor and an air raid warden. Since my experience in high school when I had frozen on the stage, I had not attempted to speak in public. But when I took the Red Cross Instructor's course, I had to speak. The course ended my stage fright and I no longer had any trouble speaking. When my boys were the right age, I became a Boy Scout leader and was Cub mother for each of my three sons. There was always PTA work (nineteen years of it) and that led to the Board of Education to which I was elected for two three-year terms. Between times I was a Pink Lady, working as a volunteer at our hospital for 16 years in the operating room.

I take umbrage when the younger generation of women asks what I did with my time. I cooked, cleaned, sewed, chauffeured, tutored, picnicked, and played with my kids, besides giving to the community.

John was born on September 16, 1946, missing out on our anniversary by only a few hours. I did not expect a girl, and we called him Johnny in the months before his birth. I had the proud attitude of a Chinese or Japanese mother who has many sons. I also have always said that when you get your training with one sex, it is easier than having to change over. I have thought from observation that boys are less difficult to raise than girls. They certainly don't sulk as much. John was in the first year of the baby-boomers. He was the darling of his two older brothers who were going through an anti-girl stage at ages ten and six. They called him "The Beauty."

Having Steve's birthday on our anniversary and John's the day before meant that we either had two parties in a row or, as the boys grew older, one party for both. By the time we had finished all the birthday parties, we were too exhausted to think of celebrating our anniversary. One party that I remember well was quite a disaster. We had planned to cook frankfurters in the fireplace in the backyard. Steve was helping us get ready by preparing sticks for cooking the franks. When the knife slipped and sliced his finger very badly, Cal and Steve took off for the doctors and I ran the party for the neighborhood boys. They returned from the doctor just as the party was breaking up.

The time went by so fast. Everyone on our beautiful street was our friend. Our children grew up together, and then the street began to change. The kids went away to college; next there was a rash of weddings and then retirements. Some of our neighbors moved away, some died. Suddenly it was 1967. Cal was sixty-five and had to retire. His birthday was in May and on May 10th we started on a camping trip, which would include many United States and Canadian national parks, and a trip across the Alcan Highway to Alaska. After a three-month trip we returned home to find grass growing in the driveway and the gutters full of rotting leaves.

It was a choice of staying home and taking care of our home, or selling it and traveling. We put the house on the market and in two days it had been sold. In six weeks we had disposed of our old furniture and our books, and we were on our way to Florida with a small U-Haul behind us. We would find a new life and make new friends in this third part of our lives: retirement.

§§§

We were lonely the first year. Cal tried to entertain us by showing all the slides we had taken over the years. When there were pictures of our old home in Chatham with our family, I cried. As we lived only two blocks from the ocean we walked a lot on the beach and swam a couple of times a day.

The first year of retirement is hard, both on men who have lost their work and women who have an "empty nest," but by the end of that year we had adjusted to it. We made friends; I became an active Republican and started editing the newsletter for the Republican Women's organization. I went to adult education classes and took courses in writing and Spanish. I met many people in my classes and some of these became my friends.

We bought an Airstream trailer and spent a couple of months each year camping. We crisscrossed the United States, visiting my brother and mother in California and our children who were living in different parts of the country. John was at the University of Washington getting a Ph.D. in Archeology, and spending summers doing fieldwork. Our son Bob became the president of Oberlin College, and we conveniently parked our Airstream in the back of the presidential mansion. Steve was living in the middle of Washington, D.C., and when visiting him we had to store our trailer many miles away. He was a professor at George Washington University and later became the head of the Department of Urban and Regional Planning.

During the thirteen years we had the Airstream, we camped in forty-nine of the fifty states, missing only Hawaii. We wore out two tow cars with 93,000 miles on one and 89,000 on the other. We flew to Europe many times, both before and after retirement, and (until a few years ago) we went on our own. Sometimes we bought a car so that we could visit out of the way places. One summer we went camping in Yugoslavia, Austria, and Germany. We made a trip to the Orient and two to Europe with a tour group, but we prefer being on our own. Our last trip was to Switzerland where we bought Holiday Passes and rode trains, buses and boats. To add to our enjoyment, our oldest granddaughter, Karen, was a student at the Graduate Institute of International Studies. She proved to be an excellent guide, showing us all the places of interest in Geneva.

One trip to Europe came as a great surprise to us in December of 1981. My husband was chosen to receive of one of three Krupp awards, which would be presented in Essen, Germany. We had just returned from a trip to Greece and found notice of this award in a large stack of accumulated mail. Cal, Gerald Pearson, and Daryl Chapin (two other Bell Laboratory scientists) were to be honored for their invention of the Solar Battery back in 1954 by the Krupp Foundation. We flew to Germany and were treated as VIPs for our week's stay. An eight-ounce gold medal was presented to my husband as well as a surprisingly large monetary award. I carried the medal home pinned inside my bra. Because it is pure gold we do not dare leave it out for display and keep it in our safe box at the bank.

Back in 1978, Barbara Bush, now our First Lady, spoke to our Republican Women Aware Club about China. President Bush had just been ambassador to China and was working for the nomination for the presidency in the 1980 election. She sat next to me at lunch and I thought her charming. At the end of the meeting, the local photographer took our picture—Mrs. Bush standing behind me with her hand on my shoulder. I prize this picture very much even though it is just cut out of a newspaper.

In 1986 a life-care retirement home, Indian River Estates, was built in Vero Beach. We were among the early residents and moved in before the buildings were completed. There are now six buildings with over 500 residents. Our apartment had two bedrooms, two baths, a living room with dining area, and a kitchen. We are served breakfast and dinner in a large dining hall.

I thought that perhaps time would hang heavy on my hands with no cooking, but I am as busy as ever. I am the floor representative for twenty-four apartments (about thirty-five people) and serve as the secretary for the Board of Representatives. I am also co-editor for the sixteen-page newsletter, "The Current," which comes out once a month. Between times there is chorus practice, bridge, swimming, and walking.

One of the biggest advantages of this place is the great number of talented and interesting people that we meet and who have become our friends.

Our children with their wives and our grandchildren come to visit us. John is now married and has one son and a wife who is an attorney. John is a TV producer.

Back in 1982, our family had a reunion at Steve's home in Annapolis to celebrate our 50th anniversary. Steve had written to our many old friends and relatives asking if they would send old pictures or reminiscences of time they had had with us in years gone by. My daughter-in-law, Betty, gave me a lovely large album in which I could put all these mementoes and cards. This is one of my dearest possessions. My sons gave me a mother's ring, an opal in the center for Bob with Sapphires for Steve and John on the sides. In 1987 (our 55th anniversary) our family again assembled and presented us with a VCR machine. This has been a great joy to us because Cal can tape programs for us to hear at our convenience that occur while we are at dinner or even after we have gone to bed at night. How wonderful is the science of electronics!

My children have asked me which stage of my life I would repeat if I could choose. I don't know. I was happy growing up. I was happy in my marriage and as a mother. Now I am happy in retirement with my husband and our new style of living. I have been one of the lucky people who have had nearly eighty years of happiness, a loving husband, three dear sons, three lovely daughter-in-laws, eight grandchildren and many friends. Who could ask for anything more? I have been truly blessed!

This has been written to give to my three sons on the occasion of my eightieth birthday, which they plan to celebrate on June 8th of this year.

Added in October 1989: Each year the American Association of University Women in the State of Florida holds a writing contest. I sent this in the early part of 1989, and received a fifth place. I also received a second place in the short story class.

## Memories of History

#### by Willmine W. Fuller

### Part I

Part I written by Willmine Works Fuller for her children and grandchildren during the summer of 1982 for the occasion of the Golden Wedding Anniversary (September 17, 1982).

Most of us, when we are young, are not interested in asking questions about how things used to be. We are busy thinking about the future, not the past. But as the past gets longer, and the future shorter, we find ourselves wishing to know how our parents and grandparents felt when big events took place, i.e., when history was made. We can read in biographies and history books how the heroes and statesmen felt, but unless our forefathers kept diaries which were preserved, we are in ignorance about their feelings.

My parents went through an era when the first telephone, electric and gas lights, bicycles, automobiles, and airplanes were invented, but I grew up taking these wonders for granted and never thought to question. Now it is too late.

Among our ancestors were people in the Plymouth Colony and the Massachusetts Bay Colony, one who fled this country to Canada because he was a Tory at the time of the American Revolution, grandfathers who fought at Gettysburg, a grandmother whose family owned Bedloe's Island (the site of the Statue of Liberty), and a grandmother who stood along the railroad tracks in Illinois and watched the Lincoln funeral train go by. My husband's grandmother [Jemima Lothian Souther] was born in Hoboken, New Jersey at the time of the Civil War and later she and her family went through the Chicago fire. I had grandparents who traveled by oxcart to western Minnesota and who worked on the railroad for the big sum of one dollar a day. These facts I know, but what were their feelings? Did these relatives realize they were making history and that someday their children would like to know more? So now, in my later years I will try to set down some of my memories to pass on to my children and grandchildren.

One of my first historical recollections occurred in the summer of 1914. My father took me on a little expedition to the western end of Duluth, Minnesota to inspect some land that he was thinking of purchasing. This section was called Gary and had steel plants. The workers were immigrants from central Europe—Hungary, Bulgaria, and Romania. Our trip was suddenly aborted when the workers poured out of the plant into the streets, yelling, chanting, screaming, and parading. The mob was a most frightening sight to a five-year-old. I have never forgotten this first day of World War I.

The following year (1915), as we traveled by train to Seattle, we observed airplanes—the first I had ever seen—flying over the wheat lands of Montana. They were piloted by Canadian flyers training for the war in Europe. I rushed from one side of the train to the other to keep these planes in view. They did not fly very high but skimmed low over the fields.

1917 brought us into the war, and uncles and cousins went to fight. We went by train from Duluth to Frazee in western Minnesota to say goodbye to my uncle, Ed Chilton [Edward Chilton (1890-1968)]. I remember the train pulling out and Uncle Ed waving to us and then Grandmother cried. He was her baby. We walked to a nearby store and Grandmother [Elizabeth Amelia Ryder Chilton (1853-1937)] went into a dress fitting room to sit alone to compose herself. Uncle Ed came back safely, but not until late 1919, as he was an engineer and helped rebuild bridges over the Rhine at Cologne.

Grandfather [Timothy Wheeler Chilton (1849-1925)] had a large map of Europe on his kitchen wall with colored pins on it to show the battle lines. Names such as Verdun, Lille, Ypres, and the Marne became household words, not to be used again until World War II. I watched as he moved the pins to show an advance or a retreat.

For the first time, daylight savings time was used and there was much screaming and complaining by farmers who said cows could never become accustomed to the change in time for the milking. My grandfather, a farmer, kept his watch on God's time and cursed the Democrats for the change.

Butter, meat, sugar, flour, and eggs became food items which were extremely hard to get and everyone looked forward to the end of the war as a time for eating well again. If I left any food on my plate, I was told that the poor little Belgian or Armenian children were starving and it was sinful for me to waste food. Even then I couldn't figure out how a bite or so left on my plate could help the children so far away in Europe.

In November 1918, the Spanish influenza epidemic swept the country. Many people died and all the hospitals were full. Schools were closed and turned into extra hospitals. I remember my mother wearing a Red Cross veil and going to help out in these makeshift hospitals.

Then came November 11, called Armistice Day, and the war was over. All work stopped and everyone paraded in the streets. An effigy of Kaiser Wilhelm was hung and then burned. Bands played and everyone joined in the singing. We rejoiced that the fighting was over and that the boys would come home, but also because we would now be able to have sugar again. My father took us to eat in a cafeteria after the parade and I had my favorite meal: baked beans, sauerkraut, and chocolate pudding.

During the war, the shipyards in Duluth worked around the clock building ships to carry supplies, mostly grain, to Europe. They were camouflaged with many colors of paint put on at angles. We would watch them from our second-story windows as they sailed down our lovely blue Lake Superior. They certainly looked silly.

My mother was friendly with a lady named Mrs. MacGiffert. She was head of the Red Cross in Duluth and because of this, had two Russian orphans who were staying at her home on the way across the country to a more permanent home. Since I was about the age of these two little girls, I was invited to come to play. During the afternoon I spent with them they told me about how the Bolsheviks had hung their father from a lamppost. They had seen it. Their mother died soon after with the flu. This was too horrible for me as a nine-year old to bear and I went home early before the refreshments. We had gas lampposts on our corners and for some time whenever I passed one, I visualized the orphans' father.

There was much discussion in the next year about President Wilson. Never before had a president of the United States left this country. And to think he was proposing to entangle us in the League of Nations. What about the Monroe Doctrine? The isolationists won and we didn't join. Our Congress did not ratify the Versailles Treaty, which included the League of Nations.

You may wonder why a child would remember all these details, but my father carried on a history and political lecture each night at the dinner table, and I grew up aware of what was going on in the world. In those days, children did not speak unless spoken to.

While my state of Minnesota had been dry for some time, we bordered on Wisconsin which was wet, and Duluthians who wanted a drink had only to take a streetcar and ride across the river to find a bar in Superior. The 18th amendment ended all that and by January of 1919, the country had Prohibition.

The 19th amendment was ratified in August 1920, and women then had the right to vote in all elections. In Minnesota, women had the right to vote in school board elections and mother had proudly voted for many years in elections concerning the schools. Grandmother Works [Della Belding Works (1856-1923)], who lived in the state of Washington, had been able to vote for years. Western states were more progressive. 1920 brought the Harding-Cox election and women in all states took part for the first time. Mother walked on air as she went to the school to cast her first presidential ballot. We stood outside the curtain as she voted. She was cross when she found out that her candidate had not won and felt she had wasted her vote.

Shortly afterwards, the Teapot Dome Scandal erupted. This involved the Secretary of the Interior, Mr. [Albert B.] Fall, and others who had ownership in oil properties in a dispute with the government. A cousin of my mother's was the secretary to the Secretary of the Interior and was convicted and sent to prison. It seemed unbelievable in those days that officials of our government could be corrupt.

In the summer of 1923, while on his way to Alaska by ship, President Harding died from food poisoning. It was rumored that perhaps it was foul play because of the scandals of his administration.

President Coolidge, who replaced Harding, came to Wisconsin to fish several summers. Each morning he was driven to Superior, Wisconsin to the high school which he used as a summer office. It was one of our favorite outings to ride the streetcar from Duluth to Superior, and stand along the curb to see the President and Mrs. Coolidge leave by open car. He never smiled or waved, but she was very gracious and seemed like a lovely queen as she waved to us. At one time my friends and I made Mrs. Coolidge our model to imitate, particularly in our use of language. We had a test for slang: "If you were invited to the White House to meet Mrs. Coolidge, would you use that word?" Now, these words were not four letter words or swear words, but such mild words as "peachy," "keen," and "jiminy." We put a penny in a box if fined. At this time I do not know what we did with the money.

One time Mrs. Hoover came to our town. Not only was she the First Lady, but she was the president of the Girl Scouts. One of the ladies on the Girl Scout Council who owned a mansion had a reception for her. Those of us who were Golden Eagle Scouts were invited to serve. Imagine my delight when I was picked to present a sheath of roses to the President's wife. Unfortunately I cannot look back on a stylish or elegant dress for this occasion as we Girl Scouts wore our khaki uniforms festooned with merit badges.

Toward the end of my freshman year of college at the University of Minnesota, one of my high school friends invited me to spend the weekend at Carlton College in Northfield, Minnesota. The news came through that a young Minnesota aviator was flying the Atlantic, solo. It seemed as if everyone in this small town was as emotionally involved in this flight as if he were personally acquainted with Charles Lindbergh. The news came through, May 27, 1927 that he had safely landed near Paris. Our enthusiasm knew no bounds and we reacted as the great crowds in Paris did—with cheering.

The Great Depression took over during my last two years at the University. Some of my classmates dropped out, and fewer girls were able to afford to pledge and be initiated into my sorority. The Minnesota iron mines on the Mesabi Range were doing so poorly that it was said, "Grass would soon be growing between the street car tracks in Duluth." My family sold our home and moved to the west coast to a small town near Seattle, Washington.

Poor President Hoover! He took so much blame and undeserved criticism. The country turned against him in 1932 and elected Franklin Roosevelt. His inauguration was the last one to take place on March 4th. The 20th amendment changed it to January 20th to shorten the time when both outgoing and incoming presidents were powerless. The economy of our country was in a horrible state.

I had just been married in September of 1932. My husband had had his working time cut from five and a half days a week to four days, and while there was actually no cut in the hourly rate, a loss of one and one-half days in pay makes a big difference. But food was cheap as were apartments. Loin pork roasts were 13 cents a pound, the rib end, 11 cents.

Many banks failed and a great number of people with mortgages lost their homes. On March 5, the day after inauguration, the bank moratorium was called by Roosevelt. All banks in the country closed for a ten-day period, as I remember it. Some of these banks never reopened and the depositors lost everything. Our bank did reopen and our savings were safe. However, a $1,000 bond we owned lost its value and we sold it for $3.00.

We did not suffer as most people did. We started our married life with our small income and lived within it. We both had jobs, good health, and were happy. Those of our friends who had started out a few years before us suffered because they had mortgages, babies, and only one job. One of the couples we knew, after paying the mortgage and the insurance, taxes, etc. and a minimum for food, had $4.00 left to spend on clothes, newspapers, and miscellaneous for the whole year. They also had a small child.

Roosevelt told us in his inaugural address, "The only thing you have to fear is fear itself."

We had saved $500 and invested it in a $500 gold-backed government bond. It was called a "baby bond" both by the United States government and by us because we were planning to use it to pay for our first baby. Roosevelt, during the moratorium, called back all gold and devalued the currency so that while our bond still was a $500 bond on paper, its spending value was only $250. That was a prime example of inflation by the Democrats.

In December of 1933, the 21st amendment was ratified and there was no more Prohibition. We celebrated New Year's Eve for the first time with legal wine. Hard liquor was not yet available.

Although the spirit of our country was to stay within our borders and to forget the rest of the world, events were occurring in Europe which we could not ignore. I remember my first knowledge of Hitler. We had occasion to attend a sailing of the German ship, the Berengaria. The young cabin boys and ship's officers stood at attention and all "Heiled" Hitler with their right arms held up high and stiffly in salute. Next, we heard that he had become Chancellor. I read part of "Mein Kampf," but it all sounded silly and unrealistic—I did not finish it.

We heard radio broadcasts and read of events in Germany, which made us worry and started many an argument. When Hitler rearmed the Rhineland, when he occupied the Ruhr, when he started to build an air force and navy, I, from my safe haven in New Jersey, would argue that France and England should have stopped Germany. My father-in-law and I argued every day on these subjects.

The Spanish war came along: Germany armed Franco's men and the Soviet Union supplied the Loyalists, i.e., Communists. I was in favor of neither group. I remember one Sunday morning listening to the radio and hearing the bombs exploding and the gunfire in Madrid. I felt that I was listening to a movie and that it would all be over when we tuned it out. I wished the war would go away. I didn't understand it.

We listened on the radio to Hitler giving a speech. Since it was in German we only understood a word here and there. He was addressing a Nuremberg Rally, and he screamed and yelled and sounded as if he were insane.

In 1936 I realized for the first time that there was great anti-Semitic feeling in Germany. I had broken a cup and saucer which had been a wedding present. It was fine German china. (I was pregnant with my first child and awkward—I tripped over a door sill.) I tried to replace the china at Ovington's in New York, but that was not possible. Ovington's had declared a boycott on Germany because of Hitler's treatment of the Jews. As I look back on it, there was not much in our papers about the treatment of the Jews in Germany. I remember nothing about concentration camps, but I suppose people who were Jewish had relatives in Germany who were being oppressed, and those few who escaped brought out news of those who were in the concentration camps. But except for a few instances, we did not know of this until after the war. To get back to my china, when the war had been over many years, I went to Germany with a saucer in my hand, and went into almost every store in Munich looking for my china. I finally found someone who remembered it, and who told me that this china had come from Bayreuth, which is now in East Germany, and that the Americans had bombed the china factories and all the patterns were destroyed.

Hitler took over Austria in March of 1938. Austrians had always driven on the left-hand side of the road, and Hitler ordered the change-over to the right-hand overnight. (Probably the only good thing that Hitler ever did.) We imagined what a horrible traffic jam it must have been.

My only brother graduated from the Military Academy at West Point in June of 1938. My parents came from the West Coast and we drove up from New Jersey for this big occasion. The commencement speaker was our President, Franklin Delano Roosevelt. He gave a most serious speech about the situation in Europe. Many of us had tears in our eyes knowing that a number of these fine young men would go to war and not return.

At this time Neville Chamberlain was the Prime Minister of Great Britain. He was so conservative he never went any place without his umbrella, and the cartoons always showed him with an umbrella in one hand. He was called "the great appeaser." In September of 1938, Chamberlain went to Germany, and along with France, signed a treaty allowing Germany to take over the Sudetenland from Czechoslovakia. There was great worry because Czechoslovakia had been made into a country from a part of the old Austro-Hungarian Empire in the Versailles Treaty and had been guaranteed safety by the allies of World War I. Great Britain was preparing for war. Trenches were dug in the parks of London, and sand bags filled. Some children were sent to the country where they would be safe, and some were even sent to the United States and Canada. We turned our radio off the last thing at night and turned it on the moment we awoke. I remember lying in bed one Sunday morning with our little two-year old son between us and hearing Chamberlain's famous speech as he returned from Munich to London. He said, "There will be peace in our time."

We were relieved to hear this because we knew that if France and England went to war, we would soon become involved and neither France, England, nor we were prepared. This gave us a breathing space. But our sense of "peace for all time" did not last long. In March of 1939, Hitler took over the rest of Czechoslovakia and in August he signed the non-aggression pact with the Soviets. He then called on Poland to hand over the Polish Corridor to Germany.

We were all pretty sure that this was the final straw and that war would come soon. In early September my husband and I and our friends, the Watermans, were driving to Boston to a meeting of the American Chemical Society. We had the radio on the entire time, because the war news was coming in so fast. But I think we were all relieved to think that finally the years of appeasement were over when France and Great Britain declared war on Germany. Hitler had to be stopped.

We all grieved for the poor Poles as Hitler's tanks swarmed over the Polish countryside. In a few weeks Poland fell and Russia and Germany carved up Eastern Europe. I knew then why I had always hated and feared the communists.

The first few months of the war were called the "phony war." But then came the invasion of the Low Countries and next, the fall of France. We suffered through Dunkirk as if it had been our own defeat.

Just at that time we had our first peacetime draft registration and the young husbands of our street went off to sign their names. I do not know of any who resisted the registration. Our papers were filled with the pictures of the French refugees fleeing Paris on the roads to western and southern France.

Many pushed baby carriages with all their possessions in them. Right then I swore never to part with my baby carriage, but to have it ready in case the Germans came, and in later years in case of atomic war.

I gave birth to my second son in September of 1940 on the day which (we afterwards learned) was to have been the invasion of Britain by the Germans. A few days later, I dissolved in tears in the hospital. I wept and wept and could not stop. Those pictures of the refugees, the draft, the thoughts of one war after another every twenty years or so—why, my little son would be just old enough for the next one.

A few months later, "Bundles for Britain" was organized. A group of ladies in our town met once a week to sew for the British children. One of our number had rebuilt an old barn into a guest house which we took over. We arrived at 9 a.m. with our bag of lunch and a portable sewing machine (if we owned one) and sewed all day long. The Ping Pong table was the cutting table. One lady whose husband was employed in a woolen wholesale house kept us supplied with wool. Another lady, who was an expert, did all the cutting. Some pinned, some basted, and some of us sewed. I had joined up imagining all the cute little girl dresses I would make, but I was never allowed to do that. Since I could tailor, I made little boy's overcoats and shorts, which was a more monotonous task.

Next I became involved with teaching Red Cross. Back in my youth I had had a first-aid course with the Girl Scouts, so I took a refresher course. However, this was different. We were taught to improvise—use newspapers for an arm splint, use a broom or skis for a leg splint, take off a door for a stretcher. We, who lived on the East Coast near New York City, thought it would be only a matter of time before we were in the enlarging war. And now looking back on it, it seems hard to believe, but many of us thought that once the U.S. was in the war, we could expect to be bombed. The railroad went through the middle of our town and while we were not an industrial town, there were many near us, and bombing was not very accurate. All of us thought that railroads were bomb targets. I next took an advanced first-aid course and then the instructor's course.

I began teaching first-aid before we were in the war to many teachers in schools, in and around our community. One of my most interesting classes was at the Convent of St. Elizabeth. This was not only a convent, but a high school and a college. It also was on the railroad and had its own station. It was said that "anyone flying over and seeing all those buildings along the tracks would be sure it was a factory or military installation." The teachers were, of course, nuns, and I went once a week for about ten weeks to teach them first-aid. I lectured for an hour, gave quizzes, and then spent an hour on practical work. I usually took someone with me to be my model; as you can imagine, no nun would have a splint put on her leg or a bandage on her head. They were a wonderful group, and watched carefully so that they could practice on each other when alone. Sometimes they had some of their school children come to be their practice victims. In those days we taught the old type of artificial respiration with the victim face down on the floor and the first-aider kneeling astride, and I as teacher would proclaim, "In goes the good air, out comes the bad air," while making the rounds to correct my pupils' technique. Can you imagine twenty nuns on their knees all giving artificial respiration in time to my chant!

When the class was over, a nun served me with a linen napkin, a plate, a glass of juice or ginger ale, and a cookie. They sat in a circle and watched me eat. They were not allowed to eat with outsiders and would have felt bad if I had refused. They knitted, crocheted, and even tatted while I ate, and talked of their school children, laughing and joking about things which had happened in their classes.

The summer of 1941 I took my two sons—the older one just under five and the baby, ten months—and went by train from New York to Seattle by way of New Mexico and California. My husband stayed home, partly because he is very smart, and partly because we were to be gone six weeks and he had to work.

As our train traveled through Texas and New Mexico there were many times that we were shunted on to a siding for several hours. We always ran late. Large military maneuvers were taking place in the southern states and we saw many troop trains. This came as a surprise to me, as I had not realized how great our war preparations were.

I visited my uncle in New Mexico. My young cousin had just graduated from college with a commission of 2nd lieutenant. He left while I was there for boot camp with the Marines. My uncle, who had retired a few years back from the army as a colonel, received orders to return to duty. He was not young, so he taught military tactics at a University and later became the director of a camp for German prisoners in this country. While still speaking of my uncle, Colonel A.W. Chilton [Alexander Wheeler Chilton (1886-1985)], I add that back in about 1914-1915, he had taught Dwight Eisenhower English at West Point.

When I arrived at my parents' home, I found that their town had nearly doubled in size. They lived outside of Bremerton, Washington on Puget Sound. The Bremerton Navy Yards were one of the largest ship yards in the country. In the past, visitors had always been welcome, but now the yards were off limits to anyone who did not have security clearance.

While traveling with two small children for 10,000 miles may not be a vacation, it was necessary for me as I had not seen my parents for three years, and as it turned out I would not see them again until 1945.

No one will ever forget Pearl Harbor Day. I suppose everyone who is old enough to remember knows exactly what he was doing at the time the news came through. I wish I could say that I was listening to the symphony as so many people were, but I, along with the rest of my family, was taking a Sunday afternoon nap. One of my neighbors called me to give me the terrible news and I woke my husband and father-in-law. We sat absolutely stunned. It was not to be believed. Why, the Japanese envoys were at that time in our capitol having talks with our state department!

On our street there was a group who could get together and have a party on the slightest pretext, so we were not surprised to have our neighbor call us to say that the group was gathering at his house. It was a pretty serious gathering that evening. These were the young husbands who had registered for the draft. Some were reserve officers. Our host said he was going to telegraph the President to say that we must declare war on both Japan and Germany. He wasted his telegram because Germany declared war on us the next day. One of our neighbors (after a drink or two) said, "I'll be in the trenches by Christmas, so I'll buy my wife's Christmas present tomorrow." It was amusing to us that in the next few weeks he bought into a heating oil company and when his draft number came up he claimed essential service, i.e., driving the oil truck to make deliveries. One of our older neighbors had a son who was in his senior year at Amherst College. He came home for Christmas and joined the Marines. He went in as a private. He had his last leave on Mother's Day and came home by train, standing up all the way from Paris Island. Bill and his parents walked up the street on Sunday afternoon telling us all goodbye. It was a final goodbye, as Bill was killed at Guadalcanal just a few months later. That, more than most events, brought the war home to us. A letter came from his commanding officer before the official notification from the War Department. There was nothing for us to say to those parents except to cry with them.

In early January, 1942, a Dutch family by the name of Severiens arrived on our street. The father was an executive in a Dutch shipping company. Just before Holland was invaded, he and his wife with their two young sons were sent to Java to run the company there. They left their home and furnishings in Holland to the Germans. They lived in Java two years and left on the last ship, leaving their furniture for the invading Japanese. Their new car sat on the dock as the ship pulled out.

Hans Severiens was now to run the Dutch shipping company from New York. Their younger son was five, the same age as my older boy. The two boys played together and my son taught "Jappie" English in about a week. I heard him call my son a stink-pot just a week after he arrived.

Later in November, a man in the same company had come from Java to the U.S. on a business trip. His wife had remained in Java since he expected to be gone only two weeks. As it turned out, it was four years before he heard anything about her, whether she was alive or dead. Bill came to live in an apartment near us and was a frequent guest in all of our homes. The thoughts of his worry for his wife were too terrible and we tried to share our family life with him.

On December 8th, unidentified planes came in over the Atlantic and air raid whistles were blown in the Eastern part of the U.S. Children were let out of school and bedlam prevailed. As far as I know, the planes never were identified.

First-aid squads were formed and for a time I rushed out when the whistles blew. Then I lost my full-time maid, Rayola, who went to work in a factory for several times what I paid her. She still sends me Christmas cards and is now a grandmother. But without Rayola, I was no longer free to do the volunteer work I had been doing.

Spring came and with it the talk of victory gardens. One of our citizens donated a piece of vacant land for our use and each gardener had a 60x60 foot plot. It was a mile from our house and I bought a bicycle to save gas. My husband built a seat behind for Stevie to ride on and Bob had his own small two-wheeler. I had a basket in front to carry my garden supplies.

I had never had a garden before. I planted a variety of vegetables with a book in one hand and a hoe in the other. I put in twelve broccoli plants and the rabbits ate the leaves. I planted twelve more and on the advice of a friend put mothballs around them to discourage the rabbits. The first twelve plants grew new leaves and prospered, as did the second twelve plants. We had enough broccoli for a small village, so I canned it. Have you ever eaten canned broccoli? It was awful, and in the fall of 1945 after the Japanese surrender, we emptied it all in the humus pile.

In early 1942, my husband was asked by the government to work on synthetic rubber. Rubber, as you know, comes from plantations in Java, Indo-China, and now with the war on we didn't have enough. The Office of the Rubber Director was in Washington, D.C., but Cal was to help coordinate the research work on synthetic rubber. This involved bringing together the work in a number of universities and rubber companies all over the country. For a year and a half Cal was a weekend husband with his weekend beginning at 4 p.m. on Saturday and ending at 9 p.m. on Sunday. He was given a book of blank tickets and wrote his own travel vouchers to almost any place in the United States. His per diem was $8.00, which was to cover hotel, meals, taxi cabs, etc. Of course it didn't, and in Washington, D.C., especially, it was practically impossible to get a room. Cal spent most nights on trains. He went regularly to places like Akron, the Universities of Illinois, Chicago, Minnesota, Cornell, and California.

By Saturday afternoon, he would arrive home worn out, and did not want to go any place or do anything. I, on the other hand, had been with our two children all week and had not been any place except to my garden. I would have liked to have gone out to dinner to avoid thinking of our ration points. He had eaten the past seventeen meals in restaurants or on the train and all he wanted was a home-cooked meal. It was frustrating, but far better than having him shot at.

We all had ration books. We had one for gasoline and one book for general things such as meat, coffee, sugar, and shoes. There were classes for gas. You were either A, B, or C. A person with an A-rating got lots of gas. He might be a doctor or a policeman, someone who needed to drive a lot. We had a C book, which meant very little driving. We walked and rode bicycles. We formed car pools. Five of us ladies had a grocery pool. Each day from Monday through Friday, one of us drove to town and the other four were welcome to come along if they had errands to do.

We were lucky with the shoe coupons. Although we had very few of them, we had two fathers who bought shoes rarely and they gave us their coupons to use for our growing sons who needed shoes too often.

There was a lot of blood donating. Plasma was needed for the wounded soldiers and many of us could give blood without noticing it. The Blood Mobile would come around regularly to a central place such as a church, and a group of us would go together. Sandwiches and coffee were served and it was like a party. Those of our neighbors who could not give blood (for various reasons, such as pregnancy) kept our children for us. I gave two gallons during the war and never had any ill effects except to be unusually thirsty for a few hours.

Because my brother and I had grown up in Duluth, Minnesota, where it is cold, snowy, and very hilly, the army decided that he should be in the Mountain Infantry and become a ski trooper. He was sent to train at Colorado Springs. In due course we received a letter written on a ship near the Aleutian Islands in Alaska. It was the night before the invasion and in the early morning he was to go over the side of the ship, make a landing, and hopefully drive the Japanese out of the island of Kiska. To his great disappointment, the Japanese had disappeared, and here were all these trained men ready to fight and no enemy. Six months later, someone in authority remembered where our boys were and brought them back to the United States. I remember Bob saying, "I've been in the army for nine years and never had a shot fired over my head." But that was soon changed when he and his men were sent to Italy where they could use their mountain training.

Meat, even with ration points, was hard to come by and the butcher stores would have no meat at all by 9:30 a.m. One morning four of us took chairs and a small table and got to the store before 7:00. We sat there on the sidewalk, just in front of the store, right on Main Street, playing bridge for two hours until the store opened. A newspaper reporting driving by saw us and it was in many newspapers all over the country, even in the "Stars and Stripes" which my brother Bob read in northern Italy. When he saw the Chatham dateline, even without names, he said, "I bet that's my sister."

The war years rolled on. 1943 brought the invasion of Africa and Italy. Place names like Casablanca and Tobruk, Monte Cassino, and Anzio. Names to be remembered and visited years later when peace had come.

On June 6, 1944, we heard that General Eisenhower had invaded Normandy. Our telephones rang with the great news. We now had hopes that everything would turn out all right.

In December of 1944, our neighbors (who had lost their older son, Bill, at Guadalcanal) got the news that their younger son, Jim, was missing in action at the Battle of the Bulge. We grieved with them for ten days and then got the good news that Jim had been taken prisoner but had escaped and crossed back through the German lines and was safely back with his own regiment.

While I had never voted for Roosevelt, I felt bereft when I heard that he had died in April of 1945. He had been our president for over twelve years—all my voting life. We knew the war was about over in Europe and that Hitler's forces were collapsing. I think most Americans felt sad that Roosevelt could not have lived a bit longer to see the end of the war.

My brother at this time, we knew, was some place in Italy. As soon as the war was over we received from him a three-part day by day account of the last month of the war as fought by the mountain infantry around Lake Guarda up in northern Italy. Years later we visited the area and drove around the lake. It was most mountainous with narrow roads along the sides of the mountains where one looked down to the lake many hundreds of feet below. This was up near the border of Switzerland and my brother and his ski troopers ended the war up in the best ski country in Europe.

Truman took office and proved to be a good leader. V.E. day came on May 7, 1945, and Germany surrendered at Rheims. We celebrated with a big party on the street. One of my neighbors, Mary Schneider, was unable to attend, because she went to the hospital and had a baby girl. She already had two sons, and for some foolish reason I thought I might someday have a girl, too.

With the war about over, I decided I must again make the trip west to Seattle (with no detours this time) to see my ailing father. Bob was nearly nine, and Steve was just under five. Again their father stayed home—the war was still on and he had to work. I had heard that it was very difficult to travel by train, and that getting a meal in the dining car was nearly impossible. I went prepared with a suitcase of food. Only two meals a day were served in the dining car, so we got off the train at stations and bought milk and fruit. With what I had in my suitcase the children managed very well. This time we had many unexplained military police on our train as we rolled through Washington State. Before we returned home we had learned that the plant that made the heavy water used for the atomic bomb was located in Hanford, Washington, and the police were to keep any curious spies from jumping off the train.

I was in my parents' home when news came of the atom bomb at Hiroshima and then a few days later at Nagasaki. We couldn't understand why the Japanese did not surrender after the first bomb. You, at this time nearly forty years later, cannot comprehend how we felt then about the Japanese. For years they had destroyed, bombed, killed, starved, raped, and murdered the people of China, Korea, Java, Singapore, and the Philippines—and even when we were not at war with them, they bombed our own Hawaii. We knew that without the Bomb, hundreds of thousands of American soldiers would have been killed (as well as many Japanese) in the taking of the islands and forcing them to surrender. We did not love our enemy in 1945.

I traveled back to New Jersey, arriving on V.J. day: August 15, 1945, the day the Japanese surrendered. The next day, all restrictions were lifted on gas and we started on my husband's vacation by driving here and there to places seventy-five or one hundred miles away—places our children had never seen. The Atlantic Ocean was one of them. Such a joy to have unlimited gas again.

A few weeks after the end of the war, our Dutch friend, Bill Klomp, received a telegram from the Red Cross saying that his wife, Coe, whom he had not heard from since November, 1941, was in a Japanese prison camp, and would be flown to Holland early in October. Bill was beside himself and had a wonderful party at our most prestigious nightclub, the Chanticleer. We girls all wore long dresses—the first time since the beginning of the war, and it was a gala affair. Bill had a photographer take a picture of us, which I have in my album. We all look so young and happy, it makes tears come to my eyes. He bought a lovely ring for Coe and set sail for Amsterdam to meet her.

Coe Klomp was normally a tall and typically stout Dutch housewife. She was in her middle thirties. When he met her in 1945 she weighed seventy-five pounds and her hair had turned snow white. He soon was back in Chatham with her and from her we heard firsthand what prison life under the Japanese was like. It was pretty horrible. While in prison, one of the other prisoners who was Australian taught Coe English, and they exchanged language lessons to keep sane. She spoke excellent English but with a mixture of Dutch and Australian accents. Taking her shopping to a supermarket made us realize how easy our war had been. The sight of the piles of oranges and food made her just stand and gaze with her eyes as large as saucers. Poor Coe died a few years later as the result of her four years of captivity on a starvation diet.

If there was any history in 1946, it escapes me. We were busy having our third son, John. However, my brother was sent back to Europe in the fall of 1946 to head up the military police in Berlin. His wife and two little girls followed in a few months.

In 1947, both my father and my husband's father died within two weeks of each other—they were the same age, having been born in 1876. My father was a veteran of the Spanish-American War, and his father [Warren Works (1847-1920)], who died in 1920, a veteran of the Civil War. It seemed as if with the passing of these old soldiers, a chapter of our history had ended. In our family we had always celebrated August 13, which means nothing to most people, but it was the anniversary of the battle of Manila Bay. The 13th Minnesota regiment, to which my father had belonged, always met on this day. My father had enlisted when halfway through the University of Minnesota and had fought in the Philippines from 1898-1900.

Hiss and Whittaker Chambers hid papers in a pumpkin in 1948 and it all sounded like a spy story.

My mother went to Germany in early 1948 to visit my brother and family and to help usher their first son into the world. While she was there, the Russians imposed the blockade of Berlin, hoping to force out the French, English, and Americans. The airlift was organized, and for nearly a year food and coal were flown in. In November, my mother was flown out on one of these cargo planes, sitting in a bucket seat with coal dust all around her.

One night, during 1948, my husband came home from work all excited about a new invention which he said was on a par with the invention of the wheel. He swore me to secrecy until the news would be released at a press conference in the next few days. The day of the press conference came, and the New York Times gave this wonderful invention a paragraph on the back page. Three Bell Labs scientists had invented the transistor: Walter Brattain was a near neighbor in our car pool and his wife was an old roommate of mine. The second inventor was John Bardeen, who was to leave the Labs afterwards for the University of Illinois to do other important work which brought his second Nobel Prize. Finally there was William Shockley, who has recently been the subject of much publicity because of his participation in the sperm bank. The transistor has far reaching effects: in making possible small radios, which are used all over the world; in telephone communication; and most important, in modern computers. A few years later (1956), these three men went to Stockholm to receive the Nobel Prize in physics.

About this time we brought into our home life a television set. My husband built a recreation room in the basement. It was pine-paneled and had a tile floor. There were two studio couches and enshrined on one wall was The TV. All the children in the neighborhood reported at 5 p.m. to watch "The Lone Ranger." Through the back door, across the kitchen, and down the stairs they marched —the only sounds heard from above were the sounds of galloping horses and gunshots.

### Part II

#### Written in March 1983.

After the tension of the war years, the period of the '50s seems to me to have been a time of little history. Perhaps my memories of this time are few, because as the mother of three boys, I was overly involved in PTAs, Cub Scouts, School Board, and many hours in the kitchen trying to fill the stomachs of my sons.

The times may have seemed peaceful because of a president who was loved by an overwhelming majority, who had been asked by both parties to represent them, and who had been a hero to many of us during the World War II years. General Eisenhower became our President in January of 1953.

Amidst all of the inaugural celebrations, Ex-President and Mrs. Truman quietly departed by themselves and took a train back to Missouri. It has always seemed very sad to me that there was no one to bid them farewell, and no one even knew they had gone. As we look back on the events of his seven years in the presidency, we realize that he will probably go down as one of the Greats.

However, at that time we were euphoric in having Eisenhower in the White House, the first Republican in twenty years. To have both houses of the legislature with him made it a time of peace—at least to start with.

In 1949, the U.S. had withdrawn all the occupation forces from Korea. A few months later in June of 1950, the North Koreans invaded South Korea. The Security Council of the United Nations authorized the U.N. members to support South Korea. While fifteen other nations sent troops, the brunt of the fighting was carried out by U.S. soldiers. At the time all this took place, the Russians were having a temporary boycott of the U.N. and thus were not there to veto our plan to send aid to South Korea.

The Korean War touched our neighborhood very little. We knew only two young men who went to Korea: Gibby Taylor, who was the son of one of our near neighbors, and Donald Malm, whose father worked along with Cal at the Bell Labs. We knew, of course, of our friends' worry for their sons, and were happy when their year of service was over and they could return home.

One of the highlights of the war was the controversy between General MacArthur (who was leading the U.N. troops) and President Truman. MacArthur was all for pushing right through the 38th Parallel. Truman felt otherwise, and relieved him of his command and called him home. I suppose this was wise, but at the time I thought the North Koreans should be driven right back up into China. While the war ended in July of 1951, settling the terms of the peace treaty dragged on for two years. Finally, an armistice was signed at Panmunjom in July, 1953.

In 1954, Senator McCarthy brought charges of communist subversion against many people, some of whom were in high places in the State Department. Many actors and actresses were investigated. Oppenheimer, the main force behind the A-bomb, was accused of leanings towards the communists. Senator McCarthy conducted what has since been called a witch hunt. He was finally judged as not sane and censured by the Senate.

The senate hearings were televised and since it was a "first," Americans watched and held their breath from hearing to hearing. For the first time, the American people were seeing their government in action.

I remember vividly one late afternoon when my young son with his friends came to the basement door and called down in a pathetic voice to where I was sitting in the rumpus room, my eyes glued to the TV set. "Mom, we've been to every house on the block and all the moms are watching their TVs. When can we see the Lone Ranger?" Dinners were often late until the hearings finally ended. One character who was brought in as a witness was a mobster called "Thumbs." It turned out that he was living in Short Hills (only a few miles from us) as a respected member of the community. A phrase which became most common was, "I'll take the Fifth." Until that time, I imagine, few of us knew what the Fifth Amendment was.

In the spring of 1954, Dr. Jonas Salk started to inoculate children for polio. Second-graders in schools in many parts of the country were selected to be "Polio Pioneers". Our school was picked, and it was with great joy that I signed the release for our youngest son, John, to receive the inoculation against the dread disease.

About this time in April of 1954, my husband, Calvin Fuller, along with two other scientists, D. M. Chapin and G. L. Pearson, invented the solar cell. Because the press had missed the boat on the transistor discovery, and also, I suppose, because the idea of free electricity from the sun sounded as if Utopia were near, this invention received overwhelming publicity.

We had driven down to Washington, D.C. to the National Academy of Sciences where the invention was displayed before the media. A few days later we drove on to Florida for a vacation. Upon our return my husband found a mountain of mail piled up. Papers in all parts of the country had given the invention front-page coverage along with pictures of the inventors. Friends of ours from all over had sent us clippings and congratulations. A movie was made showing the solar cell and the three inventors. It was called "Our Mister Sun" and was shown on nation-wide TV. It was also shown in all the schools where our children saw it. Now, our grandchildren are seeing it and trying to convince their classmates that the young man shown is really their grandfather. See [ http://techchannel.att.com/play-video.cfm/2011/4/18/AT&T-Archives-The-Bell-Solar-Battery]

As a result of this invention, the City of Philadelphia awarded the three inventors the John Scott Medal on June 15, 1956. John Scott had come to this country in colonial days as a very poor man. He made a fortune and left it to reward "the most deserving" or those who did something for the good of mankind. We used the award money to take a two-week's vacation in Bermuda.

Again in October of 1963, we were called to Philadelphia by the Franklin Institute where my husband and his colleagues were given the John Price Wetherill medal for the solar cell invention. By this time it was being used to power satellites and space capsules.

To get back to U.S. and World History, in 1954 public school segregation was banned by the Supreme Court, but it was not until September 1957 that President Eisenhower ordered troops to Little Rock, Arkansas, to quell the mob and protect those children who were being integrated.

This came at a time when Cal and I were taking a vacation at Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. The owner of our motel, attempting to make all his guests feel welcome, held a big oyster roast. He invited friends from town as well, and we found ourselves in a group of hotheaded South Carolinians. Along with the many oysters, a great deal of beer was consumed. All the arguments heard before about the "War between the States" were brought out again. There wasn't a Southerner there who was going to allow the South Carolina schools to be integrated. Our host admitted to being a colonel in the New Confederate Army and told of the great supply of arms that was stored in Myrtle Beach. Drills were held weekly, and South Carolina was to be ready when the time came. We returned to the North, wondering about when the uprising was to occur. As far as I know, it never did.

To the chagrin of most Americans, the Russians launched Sputnik I in October of 1957. However, only a few months later in January, 1958, the U.S. joined the space age with Explorer I. Six weeks later Vanguard I, which had my husband's solar cells on it, was launched. It broadcast for six years on the power from the solar cells.

In the fall of 1959 we made our first trip to Europe. Cal was invited to be a guest speaker at an International Conference given by the state of Bavaria in Germany, under the auspices of the United Nations in an effort to make friends again with the world.

On our way we stopped off in London for a few days and stayed in a hotel which fronted on Hyde Park. One evening, as we left our hotel to go out to dinner, we saw huge crowds of people standing along the street leading to the Marble Arch. We inquired as to what was happening and heard that President Eisenhower was to come down the street in a car on his way to the American Embassy, which was only a short distance from us.

As we stood waiting in the crowd, we overheard the English people talking about our president with such love and admiration that we felt proud to be Americans. The English remembered the war years and were extremely happy to have him come back. When his open car came down the street, he was standing up with his arms raised in the "V for Victory sign." A tumultuous cheer went up, and as the car turned to the left to go into Grosvenor Street, all the crowd surged into the street, screaming, "Ike, Ike." It was a very emotional scene, and one we will never forget.

We spent the next ten days in Munich where we could see many changes caused by the war. There was the Mountain of Munich, a large hill of rubble caused by bomb damage. The people, working as volunteers, had collected masonry, bricks, cement, etc. from all over the city, piled it into a mountain, and were growing grass to cover it.

Many of the streets where whole blocks had been wiped out, were twice the width they had been. In an effort to look prosperous, some show windows, filled with merchandise, were only a few feet wide with just a board wall behind them to hide the hole in the ground left by the bombs. The station was not completely repaired, and we walked a long distance out to board our train.

The impressive part to us was the opera house of the Residenz, which had been completely rebuilt. All the beautiful chandeliers, pictures, statuary, and hangings had been hidden during the war in a salt mine. When we saw it, it looked as it had years before when the King of Bavaria owned it. The people of Bavaria had voluntarily taxed themselves by raising their postage fees to put on this conference and to try to make the world forget the sins of Hitler.

On this trip we returned to the U.S. by ship. The morning we were to land I was up before dawn, standing at the prow of the ship waiting to see the Statue of Liberty. I was so moved that tears rolled down my face as we sailed by. I thought back, too, to my Grandmother's family who had had their farm on Bedloe's Island back in colonial times, which is now the site of the Statue of Liberty.

In 1960 John Kennedy was elected and took office in January of 1961. He told us that with effort we could put a man on the moon, and a few years later, in 1969, we actually did. It was an earth-shaking achievement.

In the summer of 1962 we were invited to an International Conference in Exeter, England. I flew over alone, two days in advance of my husband, in order to pick up a Volkswagen in Brussels in which I drove back to London to meet Cal. On the way, I drove through Flanders Fields and thought of the old poem I had learned at about age eight or ten:

In Flanders Fields the poppies grow

Amidst the crosses, row on row.

It was just as in the poem; the poppies bloomed everywhere in wild profusion, and in between were many rows of crosses.

I also drove through Dunkirk and remembered what this now peaceful road had looked like in the newspaper pictures that I had seen in 1940.

Every little town in France that I drove through was festooned with flags and buntings. I wondered why, and then I realized I was driving on July 13, and the decorations were in preparations for Bastille Day, July 14.

I reached Calais and drove my car onto the ferry. It was about 6 p.m., and the Channel was as calm as a millpond. In only a few minutes out from shore, I had the thrill of seeing the "White Cliffs of Dover" in the distance. This day had made me remember so much history. I was sad to think that I was alone and had no one with whom to share it.

In Exeter we found a Roman Wall built in the time of the Caesars. We saw the famous cathedral built about 1100. The carvings on the pews showed elephants, and I have since wondered who among the wood carvers 800 years ago had seen an elephant. I was thrilled to drink mid-morning coffee in the coffee house where Sir Francis Drake had planned his famous sea battles with the Armada.

After Exeter we went to Bath, built by the Romans in 44 A.D., then to Glastonbury where legend has it that Joseph of Arimathea took the child Jesus to keep him safe. Joseph planted his cane there which had been cut from a thorn bush. The cane sprouted and now many thorn bushes bloom prolifically in this area. King Arthur and Queen Guinevere are supposed to have been buried here. There were only ruins of the monastery at Glastonbury, as it had been ruthlessly destroyed, not in World War I or II, but back in about 1648 by Cromwell at the time of the Reformation.

We traveled on through England, Norway, Sweden, Denmark and then came down to Germany where we stood by the barbed wire fence that goes from South Germany, north into the Baltic Sea, and separates East and West Germany. On the east side of the fence, a few hundred feet back was a tower with armed guards in it looking at us with binoculars. The beach was empty except for hundreds of seagulls basking in the sun. On our side of the fence was the town of Travemunde, a popular seaside resort with many tourists sunning themselves on the beach in quaint bath-chairs. The contrast was most moving.

Our middle son, Steve, and his bride had graduated from college in June of 1962. In September, with all their worldly goods in a U-Haul, they started off for the University of Mississippi where Steve was to do graduate work. To our consternation, James Meredith and our son were to be enrolled at the same time. Meredith was the first black student to attend "Old Miss." It took Federal troops and marshals to get Meredith in. Steve is a great camera enthusiast and he was right in the middle of things, taking slides here and there with tear gas all around.

Toward the end of October, the Russians were building missile bases in Cuba. John Kennedy ordered a blockade of Cuba and the Cuban missile crisis was upon us. I particularly remember the details of this tense week. My daughter-in-law had purchased some very fine plaid wool in England which she had asked me to make into a bathrobe for my son as a joint birthday present from the two of us. English woolens came in narrower widths than American material and this was only 36" wide. My son, Bob, is extremely tall. On October 23, I sat working on the bathrobe and listening to the radio. His birthday was October 26. I was attempting to match the plaid and piece the sleeve under the cuff as I listened to the continual worsening news coming from Washington. Finally, in exasperation I snarled, "Why am I doing this when tomorrow I may be dead and Bob in New York certainly won't need a bathrobe if a missile strikes us?"

I bundled up my sewing, got into the car and drove to the bank. I withdrew $100. Now, remember in 1962, $100 had over three times the purchasing power that it has today. I went into the supermarket and bought $100 worth of groceries, all in cans—juices, milk, vegetables, fruit, bread. Everything had to be in cans so as not to be spoiled by the bomb fallout. I bought two thirty-gallon garbage cans in which I planned to store water. I bought oil for my hurricane lamp and batteries for my flashlights. I went home with the station wagon piled high.

Underneath our den was an unfinished section of the basement, and in this four-foot high crawl space I expected to live with my husband and our youngest son, John, who was in high school—our only child left at home.

Well, thanks to John Kennedy, who bluffed the Russians, we did not have to live in the basement or have a missile directed at us. Eventually we ate up our canned goods and I used one of the garbage cans to pack my dishes when we moved to Florida five years later.

For not quite three years, John Kennedy was our president. His period was a romantic time which many compared to King Arthur's Camelot. His youth and his keen interest in the arts, science, music, and literature set the tone of his presidency.

It was with great sadness that the nation received the shattering news of his death on Friday, November 22, 1963 in Dallas, Texas. A neighbor called me only minutes after the assassination. The radios and TVs had only news and speculations about the shooting. All regular programming was discontinued and there were no commercials. Within hours, Vice-President Lyndon Johnson was our new president, sworn in on the plane to Washington.

A few hours later, Lee Harvey Oswald was captured and put in jail. On Sunday, November 24, as I stood in the doorway of my kitchen with my eyes on the TV while preparing lunch, I watched the police bring Oswald from the city jail to take him to a more secure place. As I watched, a man, later to be named as Jack Ruby, rushed up and shot Oswald. I was horrified. Of course we saw this shooting many times over as it was replayed on TV, but to see the actual murder as it was taking place on one's TV screen was truly the height of violence.

The following day, John Kennedy was buried. The nation mourned. No schools were open, no one went to work. I believe the grief of the nation was mingled with shame that this could happen in our America.

### Part III

#### Written in March 1983.

The '60s were a period of protests. There were marches protesting the violations of Civil Rights, against the war in Vietnam, and in my locality we had a protest and march to save our Great Swamp. History books will tell of the Civil Rights protests and the Vietnam War, but the March for the Great Swamp is one I took part in, so I will write about it.

Sometime in the early '60s, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey decreed that the beautiful Great Swamp, which is the head waters of the Passaic River and which stretches for about ten miles from Chatham to Morristown, New Jersey, would be turned into an international airport. The swamp would be drained and filled in, and the airport would come within a mile of our new school and within two miles of our home. The area surrounding the swamp is lovely and contains many beautiful homes.

My sons would go out into the swamp and camp on one of its islands. They would return after two or three days, very smelly, but feeling as if they had gone back into the America of a hundred years before. My husband and I picked blueberries by the gallon there each summer. There were deer, raccoons, muskrats, snakes, and a great number of birds. It was hard to believe that New York City was only twenty to twenty-five miles away.

There were meetings in neighborhoods, schools, and town halls to protest what we considered to be the destruction of our community. Money was collected to fight it, but the consensus was that we were bumping our heads against a stone wall. "When the Port Authority decides on a project, the Port Authority gets its way. You can fight City Hall, but not the P.A." That was the general opinion.

New York and New Jersey had formed this Authority to control the Hudson River and the waters they shared in common. The Port Authority built the bridges, tunnels, and airports which served the two states. One man, Tobey, had controlled the Authority, and when he wanted something, he got it.

As we saw it, the noise of the planes was going to make it impossible to use our new three- million dollar high school, just completed. The traffic and businesses connected with an airport would be the end of our charming, old-fashioned town.

The Governor of New York, Nelson Rockefeller, had agreed to the airport. The Governor of New Jersey at that time was Mr. Meyner, and he was about to agree because it would bring much money into New Jersey.

We were desolate, but we had one thing going for us. Within four or five miles of our town lived some of the richest men in New Jersey. There were presidents of many big corporations, and also some capable lawyers and politicians lived near us. Money flowed in and we decided to engage legal counsel.

A march on the New Jersey capital in Trenton was organized, and we chartered busses to go in—after all, Trenton was sixty miles away. Hundreds of housewives rolled into Trenton by bus and car from our area and marched into the state house (where the legislature was sitting) to deliver the petitions signed by all our communities.

My oldest son, Bob, was very scornful of our protest. He told me in no uncertain terms that we were backward, standing in the way of progress, and that we would regret each year that we delayed the new airport.

Well, we won. Governor Meyner turned down the airport. Our representative in Washington, Frelinghuysen, lived in the concerned area, and he, too, put pressure on our governor. Within a short time the committee had bought up all the land in the Great Swamp. Then our influential citizens went to Washington and presented this land to the country as a National Wildlife Preserve. Congress accepted it, and now it is safe for all time.

Fifteen years afterwards, the son who had criticized me had occasion to revisit this area. He rented a car and went out to the Great Swamp where he and his brothers had so much enjoyment as young boys. It was as wild as he remembered it. A few catwalks and nature trails had been added, but it was much the same as when the Indians camped there in the 1600s. He, by this time, had become an environmentalist. He wrote me, "Mom, you were right about the swamp. How great it is that it has been preserved. I was wrong." What sweeter words can a mother hear?

Certainly, there are many gaps in my written history. Each year has its headlines which make history, but they are only newspaper items in my life and do not directly concern me. 1965: Malcolm X is shot, Martin Luther King is arrested in Selma, Alabama after demonstrating against voter registration, Blacks riot and burn Watts. 1966: Debakey implants artificial heart for the first time in Houston. 1967: racial violence in the Detroit area and Newark, New Jersey, only ten miles away from our town; North Korea seizes our ship, the Pueblo, and holds eighty-three navy personnel as spies; Martin Luther King is slain in Memphis. There is so much violence that sometimes I am ashamed to be an American.

On May 1, 1967 my husband retired after thirty-seven years of work at the Bell Telephone Laboratories. Within a few days we were on our way to Alaska in our VW camper bus. By early June we were bumping along the dusty, rocky, Alcan Highway at the 45 mph speed limit, listening to the radio news. Israel and Arab forces were battling out the six-day war. Since we were about twelve hours behind Israel, by the time we started to drive each morning, they had finished another day of war. After six days, Israel had occupied the Sinai Peninsula, Golan Heights, and the East bank of the Suez Canal, and we had arrived in Fairbanks.

In June of 1968, we traveled north from Florida for our youngest son's graduation from Cornell. On our trip, we stopped for two weeks in our old town of Chatham, New Jersey and stayed in the home of some friends who were in Europe.

When we had lived in Chatham, one of my pleasures and dissipations had been to listen in the middle of the night to the Long John Neville radio program. As I lay there listening on June 5th, the program was interrupted to announce the shooting of Robert Kennedy in a Los Angeles hotel. It was about 3 a.m. Eastern time. He had just won the primary nomination for president in California. I quickly awakened my husband. Our absent hosts had a little-used TV in the basement which we turned on. There we sat in pajamas and bathrobes the rest of the night, warming ourselves with hot chocolate.

Robert Kennedy, to me, the best of the Kennedy brothers, died the following day. A few days later we sat through the funeral in New York, and watched the train carrying him to Washington, D.C. to be buried near his brother Jack. To this day I cannot listen to the song, "Mine Eyes Have Seen the Glory of the Coming of the Lord" without thinking of that day and that poor wife left with ten children and with another one on the way. Women who can go through such ordeals must be of a special kind.

In January 1969, Richard Nixon was inaugurated president. Back in 1960 he had narrowly been defeated by John Kennedy. It was said that if Illinois had voted legally instead of throwing the ballot boxes in Lake Michigan, Nixon would have been president. I have often wondered if that narrow defeat and the cheating in the 1960 election brought on his trickery in the 1972 election.

Early in 1969 we purchased an Airstream trailer, and in mid-April set off for California. During this trip of 9,000 miles, we visited a number of historical spots, some of which were quite surprising to us. Our first night out we parked at Suwannee State Park up in North Florida. To our amazement there were earthen fortifications left from the Civil War. We had never realized that the Northern army had come so far south. A few days later, over in southern Louisiana, we stopped in Evangeline State Park. There stands the large spreading evangeline oak tree which was there when Evangeline came in the Arcadian Exodus from Canada, sometime about 1750.

In San Antonio stands the Alamo. I had read about the Mexican war in 1848, but somehow I had expected the Alamo to be a lot bigger. It had been a mission, and a few Americans who wanted Texas to belong to the U.S. had been besieged there. "Remember the Alamo" was a slogan as was "Remember the Maine;" both used to stir us on to a war. Finally all the Americans in the Alamo were killed, Davy Crockett among them.

A month later, on our way back to Florida, we camped up in Rocky Mountain National Park near Denver. I read in the Denver newspaper that the Air Force Academy was to hold graduation exercises in two days and that tickets were still available. We hitched up and drove south to Colorado Springs which is only a few miles from the Academy. To our surprise we found that one whole side of a huge stadium was available on a first come, first seated basis. (It did face east into the rising sun.) Since the ceremony was to be at 9 a.m. in the morning, and not too many people were willing to get up so early, we had seats on the fifty-yard line by arriving at 8. We had found out the preceding day that the speaker was to be our new president, Richard Nixon. An open car entered from one end of the stadium and circled the field. In it were President and Mrs. Nixon, accompanied by daughters Patricia and Julie (whose husband, David Eisenhower was with her). I remember thinking, "This is like a dynasty; young David will, in fifteen years or so, take over as president." But that is all changed now. The president received a tremendous welcome. Everyone cheered in the stands and stood up as he passed.

We drove on East through Kansas on Interstate 70. A sign said, "Abilene, twenty miles." My husband said, "That's where President Eisenhower is buried and where his library is located." About a mile off the interstate we found a compound which contained the boyhood home of Eisenhower, a chapel with his grave, and a large library-museum to house his papers and memorabilia. This is the only presidential library that I have seen and I was impressed by the many mementoes that are saved by presidents—for example, the birth announcement sent by Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip on the birth of one of their children. It may have been Andrew.

A few days later we stopped off for a couple of hours at Vicksburg, and wondered how, with this city taken by the Yankees in 1863, the South was able to hold out another two years.

In July 1969, Armstrong, Aldrin, and Collins landed on the moon. We listened one night to Armstrong's famous words, "One small step for man; one giant leap for mankind." I had grown up reading the Book of Knowledge. How well I remember the schematic drawing of trains leaving the edge of the earth with little captions under each train, telling how long it would take to get to the moon, the planets, and the stars. Now, something that had been just an imaginative picture was true and we were listening to an astronaut speak from the moon to us in our own living room. We marveled at the triumphs of science and technology.

One of the extra benefits of living near Cape Canaveral (where most space and moon shots originated) was that we would walk to the beach, three hundred feet away, and stand waiting with a small radio in hand. We would hear the last seconds of the countdown: 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, blast off! A few seconds later, we could see the space capsule (looking like a large electric light bulb, if it were day, or a big roman candle at night) ascend into the zenith with its vapor trail behind, and then we would watch it slowly disappear. When it first became visible, we could hear the sigh of wonder coming from the crowd, and then the clapping of hands and cheers. In later years the crowd became more blasé, but still they would come to watch.

In the first years of space travel, the landing was in the Pacific Ocean. We watched it on TV holding our breath and, along with many others, we breathed a sigh of relief when the astronauts came back safely. It was like having a member of our family return from a hazardous trip.

July 1969 was also the time that Ted Kennedy pleaded guilty for leaving the scene of a fatal accident in which Mary Jo Kopechne was drowned at Chappaquiddick. Because he was a senator, he received only a two-month suspended sentence. Ah justice! However, this affair to date has cost him the presidency, I believe and I hope it will continue to do so.

### Part IV

#### Written August and September, 1983.

[Editor's note: Toward the end of Part IV, Willmine comments on current events. In the summer of 1983, U.S. fear of the Soviets was at its height with President Reagan referring to the Soviet Union as the "evil empire." The debate about nuclear energy had assumed importance with the 1979 accident at Three Mile Island, but the world had not yet experienced the 1986 Chernobyl accident or the 2011 Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster. Willmine shares the attitudes of many Republicans of the time, but was also an independent thinker whose views evolved. She makes fine distinctions between her pro-American political beliefs, conservative economic philosophy ("save, don't spend"), and progressive social views.]

The first years of the '70s were a period of shame for this country. In June 1972 there was a break-in into the Democratic Headquarters, instigated by the campaign committee of the Republican Party. In the spring of 1973, the five men who had made the break-in were tried and found guilty. Nixon accepted the responsibility but not the blame for Watergate, as the scandal soon came to be called. His chief advisors (H. R. Haldeman and John Ehrlichman) resigned and Nixon fired John Dean, his legal counselor.

Televised hearings were started by a Senate investigating committee with John Dean as star witness giving evidence against all the White House advisors to save himself. Day by day this story of the cover-up of the Watergate burglary and unethical practices used by the election committee unfolded. The hearings also disclosed that Nixon had recorded on tape the meetings in his office and telephone conversations.

E. Howard Hunt, besides being one of the Watergate burglars, was a mystery-story writer. He sent his wife to Chicago to deliver money to someone. The plane crashed and she was killed. One exciting piece after another was added to the story: the entrance into the office of Dr. Lewis Fielding, who was psychiatrist to Daniel Ellsberg (who leaked the Pentagon papers); Ulaskovitch, a retired New York policeman, who found his pay in a telephone booth in an envelope stuck to the bottom of the shelf; Rebozo, President Nixon's friend, who had trouble accounting for $100,000 in his safe box; and others. All these items were more exciting to hear about in the televised testimony than E. Howard Hunt could have conceived of in his mystery plots.

The time came for us to leave for the North as we did each summer in the Airstream. But this year, because of the energy crisis and gas shortage, we went only as far as Georgia. Also, I had a commission from a camping magazine to write an article on the camps in Georgia. But we had driven only thirty miles when I said to my husband, "I don't know how I can stand missing the Watergate hearings. I think we should buy a small TV. Sears Roebuck is only a short way from here."

Our Airstream had come with an antenna, but we were scornful of people who went camping and had to watch TV. We made our own entertainment—hiking, swimming, looking at birds, etc. But our values had suddenly changed. Normally, when we decide on a purchase, we discuss it for days, we shop around, and read consumer's magazines to find out what is the best brand to buy. But this time—no. Within minutes we were in the Melbourne Sears store, buying a small TV that would work on a car battery or regular electric current.

Our trip became regulated by TV hearings in Washington, D.C. We set the alarm for 5:30 a.m. By 6:30 we had had breakfast and were on our way. We were pulling a trailer, which loaded weighed about 5,000 pounds, so we drove about fifty miles an hour. We stopped at camps about a hundred miles apart. About 9:30 we would pull into a camp, register, and find a spot to camp. There are certain chores such as leveling the trailer, putting up the antenna, and hooking into the electric that have to be done, but by 10 a.m. (when the hearings commenced) we would be sitting on our divans, eyes glued to the new TV.

So we journeyed through Georgia, until one day we had to drive further as we were to spend a couple of days with our nephew and family who lived in a suburb of Atlanta. That day we parked at about 10:30 a.m. in a shopping center, just off the freeway, only five miles from our destination. There, we put up our antenna, enjoyed our "hearings," and even cooked lunch, before finally driving on to our relative's home.

That October, I flew alone out to California to visit my mother and brother. A few days before I left, I was asked by the Florida Republican Women's Federation to be a delegate to the National Convention in Los Angeles. They would pay my convention expenses and my transportation, since I was already planning a trip to Los Angeles. I hated to refuse, but I could be gone only a short time, and that time I needed for my mother. So I did not attend.

Agnew was the main speaker at the convention and he assured the delighted delegates that he had had no part in any of the Watergate scandals. He was completely innocent, he said. The delegates were all extremely loyal Republican women. They stood on their chairs, cheering and applauding him. I read about all this in the Los Angeles papers and was glad I had had no part in it, because the next day, Oct. 10, back in Washington, D.C., he resigned as Vice-President. He was tried in Federal Court in Baltimore for evasion of income tax on $29,000 he had received in 1967 while governor of Maryland. He was fined $10,000 and put on three years' probation.

I do feel, though, that Gerald Ford served the best interests of this country in giving Nixon a blanket pardon. How horrible it would have been to have a one-time president in jail and how our prestige would have suffered among foreign nations. However, I do believe that it was this pardon which caused Ford to lose the election to Jimmy Carter two years later.

The early '70s were also a time of stress and sadness for many of our young people. The Vietnam War certainly brought this to a head. Our young men were subject to the draft; to give two years in the service of their country. Many, rather than do this, went to prison or escaped into Canada. This was brought home to us with our youngest son, John. Our two older sons were married and so were not eligible, but John, who was a graduate student at the University of Washington, was single and was drafted. John is a conscientious objector. All his life he had been non-violent. He did not participate in contact sports. He swam and skied. I had never known him to fight with his two brothers, and if there was quarreling in our neighborhood of many children, John did not join in it. Letters were written to his draft board, and John went before them to plead his case. Finally, after much worry on his part and ours, he was classified as a CO. Vietnam was a costly defeat.

One day my husband called my attention to a news item about reverse discrimination. Allan Bakke was going to take his case to the Supreme Court. He was a graduate engineer working for NASA, and wanted to become a physician. He was rejected by the University of California Medical School, and people of minority races were accepted who had scored lower in the entrance exams. The University had a quota for racial minorities and took them regardless of their scores. The case was of great interest to us because Allan Bakke's mother was my sorority sister and we had been roommates in college. Allan was the same age as my second son, born in 1940. We followed the news eagerly and were pleased to see the decision by the Supreme Court in June 1977 that the quota system is banned in college admissions. Allan entered medical school that fall and four years later he graduated. This year he completed his residency.

Jimmy Carter (I never feel comfortable calling a president Jimmy) was elected president in November of 1976 and in January 1, 1977, hand-in-hand with wife, Rosalynn and daughter, Amy, he walked down Pennsylvania Avenue to the White House. I suppose it is too soon to tell, but it certainly looks as if Jimmy will not go down as one of our "Greats."

During his presidency, my oldest son Bob met with Carter on the subject of world hunger, and was invited not only into the Oval Office, but into the little room behind it which has Truman's sign, "The buck stops here." I will never forget the excitement in his voice when he called me and said, "Mom, you will never guess where I have just been."

The First Lady Rosalynn tried to act as co-president and attended weddings and funerals as our country's representative. At one time she even toured South America, a diplomatic job usually taken on by a member of Congress or the cabinet. But Rosalynn and Jimmy were a devoted couple and she shared in all his decisions.

On March 29, 1979, we were informed by a jubilant press of the great nuclear plant disaster at Three-Mile Island near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. I don't suppose that any story has ever been built up to such heights. Hysteria was heightened by the exaggerated accounts given on TV, radio, and in the newspapers. We were involved slightly in this hysteria because our triplex apartment was owned by a lady who had lived about sixty miles from Three-Mile Island. She had just passed on and the triplex was in probate. Her stepdaughter and step-grandchildren (all adults) packed into cars and fled the area, arriving twenty-four hours later in Florida. Asking us for the keys to their late step-grandmother's apartment, they were almost hysterical, telling us how the radiation had burned their throats so that they couldn't speak above a whisper. They related how a man they knew well, an inspector, had entered the plant and had not been seen since. Everyone, simply everyone, had had to evacuate, even people like themselves who lived fifty or sixty miles away.

If one depends on the media, the truth about nuclear energy is hard to come by, but so far not one person has died from radiation from the nuclear plants. No one died at Three-Mile Island or has died at any other nuclear plant. Nuclear energy is the safest of all types of energy, and those people who oppose it are standing in the way of our ever achieving energy independence.

We hear regularly about coal mines in West Virginia, or Kentucky caving in or exploding—"100 plus miners are dead." It is announced on the news. Sorrow is felt for the miners and their families, but no one says, "Ban all coal mines."

Just this summer we visited a small dam in North Carolina. Fifty-five men were killed in the building of it. This past spring dams burst in California and Colorado. Many people lost their lives. No one wants to prohibit dams except a few environmentalists who wanted to save a snail darter which now is found in many other streams. Black lung and acid rain cause many deaths, but there is no great outcry. We will not suffer, but our grandchildren certainly will from the lack of nuclear energy owing to these misguided agitators who protest the building and working of nuclear plants. With a little reading and understanding of science, these irresponsible people would become convinced that nuclear energy is the safest. As for radiation, an individual gets more radiation in a crowded elevator or even sleeping in a double bed with a partner, than by standing next to a nuclear plant.

In November of 1979, the U.S. and the world were shocked by the taking of the U.S. Embassy in Iran along with fifty-two hostages. Since earliest history, ambassadors and their families and staffs have had diplomatic immunity. I remember reading about the rights of ambassadors in my Latin class when I studied Caesar. For the Iranian militants (so-called students) to do this under the protection of Khomeini was a direct insult to the United States, and our prestige in the world suffered greatly. This and the failure of our rescue attempt were certainly part of the reasons that Carter lost the 1980 election. The hostages were returned to us early in the Reagan administration. Carter's term was coming to a close, or so many of us hoped.

I have been an active member of the Republican Women's Club since coming to Florida. Over the years we have had many nationally-known political speakers at our club meetings. In 1980 we had Barbara Bush (Mrs. George H. W. Bush), now wife of our Vice-President, but at that time George Bush was a candidate for the presidency.

I was editor of our club newsletter and the photographers from our local paper took a picture of Mrs. Bush standing next to my chair and speaking to me, a photo I value. But the convention decreed that it was to be Reagan and not Bush for the Republican candidate, and so in November, 1980 Ronald Reagan was elected president.

Only a few weeks after his inauguration, the country was shocked to hear that there had been an attempt on the life of Ronald Reagan. I was watching TV when the program was interrupted to say that someone had shot at our president. I tuned in on cable TV, which always has the latest news. Within minutes we were watching the shooting of the press secretary, the secret service man and the President, although at that time we did not know that the President had been hit. Over a year afterwards in 1982, John Hinckley, the attempted killer, was given a verdict of guilty because of insanity.

In September 1981, Reagan appointed Sandra Day O'Connor to the Supreme Court, the first woman ever to be on the court. I think women thrilled to this all over the country—to think that a woman who had had three children could rise to such a high position.

That fall in late September and October, we toured Yugoslavia, Italy, and Greece. We were in Thessaloniki, Greece, standing in front of our hotel, waiting to take a city tour when we learned that Anwar Sadat, President of Egypt, had been assassinated. He seemed to us to have been such a good man, such a worker for peace, and his death was a great sadness. It was still more upsetting, because for two days we did not get to hear any of the details. I am sure this was covered on the Greek radio, TV, and newspapers, but alas we knew no Greek. When we reached Dubrovnik, Yugoslavia, we met an American who had just flown in from Germany. He had a _Herald Tribune,_ which we avidly read to tell us about Sadat.

Upon our return to the United States, we found that my husband, Calvin Fuller, had been awarded the Alfried Krupp medal (plus its honorarium of 100,000 DM) by the Krupp Foundation in Essen, Germany. A month later, we flew back to Europe for the ceremony. We were entertained in the Krupp castle, der Hugel, where Kaiser Wilhelm II, Hitler, and most heads of state of the twentieth century had visited. The Krupp Company had made munitions and manufactured steel for cannons, guns, submarines, etc. for several hundred years. Their munitions had actively figured in World Wars I and II. Even though the Krupp Company suffered some severe losses after World War II, Alfried managed to retain a sizable personal fortune which, at his death in 1967, was turned over to a foundation.

The Krupp Foundation is dedicated to the support of the Arts and Sciences, and this year (1981) the awards were to scientists who had contributed to discoveries in the field of solar energy. We felt that the Germans were trying hard to show the world that they were not warlike, but interested in peace and science for the betterment of the world.

For the past few years the Bell system, American Telephone and Telegraph Co., had been under fire from the Attorney General's Office for breaking anti-trust laws. Early in January 1982, AT&T agreed to give up all the twenty-two Bell System companies. The mother company (retaining Long Lines, Western Electric, and Bell Labs) would then enter more competitively into the data processing, communications, and computer businesses. This was of great concern and also interest to us because of our AT&T holdings, both for ourselves and grandchildren, and of course because of Cal's thirty-seven years of service at Bell Labs. The final date for divestiture is January of 1984.

Somewhere in this history of my reactions to events, I must mention Women's Rights. The Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) was proposed by Congress and sent to the states for ratification in 1972. The constitution says that three-quarters of the states must ratify an amendment within seven years. At the end of this time, women prevailed upon Congress for a three-year extension. This was deemed illegal by many people. In the meantime, a few states that had previously voted for the amendment wanted to change their vote to "no," but this was not allowed. June 30, 1982 was the last date for ratification and three states were still needed to ratify it, so the amendment died. Florida did not ratify.

I have mixed feelings about the amendment. Certainly, I want every right that a man has. According to the 14th amendment, ratified in 1868, all persons born in the U.S. are citizens, and no state shall make any law which shall abridge the privileges of said citizen, nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty or property without due process of law.

Now, that seems to cover all my rights, since I certainly consider myself a person and a citizen, but I remember back in 1920 when my mother cast her first vote in Minnesota (although my grandmother had voted in the state of Washington for many years).

I was angered and upset when my husband had to sign for property that I owned and wanted to sell in the state of Florida. Without his consent in 1964, I could not have sold the property, which had been given to me by my father. The law has changed since then, but in 1970 my friend Florence Moulton had to have her new husband of only two weeks consent to the sale of her home which her first husband had willed to her, and which she had agreed to sell before her marriage to Moulton.

Until a few years ago, a woman in Florida could not get a credit card without her husband's signature. One of my friends who had just become a widow had her credit cards taken, although it was her inherited money which took care of the family. However, I did go out about five years ago and got a credit card without the consent of my husband. Most rights of women will be taken care of if they go to court, but most women do not have the money to do this.

At present the biggest bone of contention is that women are not given equal pay for equal work. So during the past years of controversy, I have straddled the fence, agreeing in theory, but not ready to fight for it. I hate to see the Constitution burdened by an extra amendment when we already have the 14th.

However, I feel that President Reagan better come over to the support of the ERA if he wants to be elected again. I feel he has done a good job of appointing women to high office: Jeane Kirkpatrick, Ambassador to the United Nations; Elizabeth Dole, Secretary of Transportation; Margaret Heckler, Secretary of Health and Human Services; and Sandra Day O'Connor, a Justice of the Supreme Court. He has appointed as many women in two years as Carter did in four years, but for some reason women are against him. In addition, there is Sally Ride, the first woman in America to go into space.

My biggest complaint is Reagan's stand against abortion. I seem to be at odds with a great part of the Republican Party on this. I feel that the decision for or against abortion is the right of every woman, not judges, congressmen, presidents, doctors, or even husbands. I believe that in cases of need, the state should pay. It is much cheaper to pay for an abortion than to raise a child on relief. Certainly, when tests indicate a child with a birth defect, or there has been rape or the mother's life is endangered, no one should question the woman's right, but some do.

I have written many letters about this to Congressmen and Senators, and state representatives.

I also feel strongly about prayer in the schools. If parents want prayer for their children, they can pray with them at home at the breakfast table, or let any child who wishes, make a silent prayer at any time he wants, whether in school or on the football field.

I add a bit of news which will go down in history as one of the most atrocious, heinous, and horrendous crimes ever committed by a supposedly civilized nation. I refer, of course to the Russian murder of 267 people in the Korean passenger plane [crash of flight 007 on September 1, 1983].

For the past forty-five years I have argued vehemently with some members of my family about the untrustworthiness of the Russians. It started before World War II when I argued with my father-in-law when Russia signed the non-aggression pact with Hitler and so became one of the big causes of World War II. I have been accused of seeing a communist under every bed, and as I read back through this "history," I am sure this belief of mine comes out plainly. But this outrageous act confirms all I have ever thought—we cannot and should not trust Russia. They will betray our trust on every treaty we sign with them, as they did on SALT I. They treat their own countrymen without dignity or compassion, so why should we feel that they would honor an agreement with us.

I do not agree with some of the extreme rightists in this country that we should recall our ambassador and ship out all the Soviet diplomats. Our only hope for peace and preventing war, and obliteration of mankind, is to keep the line of communications open, but let us not enter into a treaty where we "give away" our defense while they in their usual untrustworthy way, keep and develop theirs. I hope Americans will not forget this outrage.

## Conclusion

From my study of history in college, I learned that no one should try to write history until a long period of time after the event. I have found that, as I look back on events of fifty, forty, thirty years ago, I now have a broader perspective on them. Characters I thought were all bad, I now see as having merit. In particular, I point out Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt, and Harry Truman. At the time that Eleanor Roosevelt was our First Lady, the only thing I gave her credit for was resigning from the DAR [Daughters of the American Revolution] when they wouldn't allow Marian Anderson to give her concert in the DAR Hall. [Editor's note: Willmine's mother was a member of the DAR.] I now see her for the great person she was. It took at least thirty years for me to admit to FDR's and Harry Truman's good points. We give Truman great credit for the Marshall Plan, Eisenhower for our long period of peace and prosperity, Kennedy for his firm control of the Cuban missile crisis and the handling of Russia. In the future, we may look back on Nixon for his China policy—the establishment of a diplomatic relationship with China.

It is still too soon, I think, to judge or to have a perspective on, the accomplishments or otherwise of Carter and Reagan.

This is the conclusion of the history of my times as it has affected me, a period of nearly seventy years. But that does not mean that I won't add another chapter ten years from now. The last word may be yet to come.

# III - Appendices

## Appendix 1: Important People in My Life

#### by Calvin S. Fuller

Everyone owes a big debt to other people for the shaping of their lives. We are most lucky if we have good associations, but even bad ones, as I have attempted to show in the account above, can have beneficial effects.

Of course, our parents are most important. I was very fortunate in mine. Both my mother and father taught a code which would be considered applicable today. My mother taught us to be happy in the face of adversity; that one was punished or rewarded right here on earth for the way we lived our lives. My father, too, tried to teach us not to take life too seriously, and yet he emphasized the need for learning and the appreciation of history and literature.

I was also fortunate to have young grandparents and to live in close contact with them for many years. From them I learned about the value of good manners and polite consideration, as well as the harm that can result from too much family pride.

In most cases, one's spouse is also of major importance and—as was fortunately so in my life—this must be counted as a factor equal to or greater than one's blood relatives. Here, however, I want to go into a little more detail about some of the "other people" who I feel influenced my behavior and thinking. Much of this had already been covered before in the body of this memoir, but I felt more could be said.

I had ten uncles and one aunt, and I knew one great aunt—Aunt Daisy, my grandmother Fuller's sister [Dara Wiley Harmon (1863-?)]. Aside from Aunt Daisy, who would stand out anywhere (she used to strangle me with hot mustard cloths when I had a sore throat), two of these uncles had decisive influence on me: Norman G. Souther and Eugene W. Fuller. Norm was only four years older than I so he was like a brother, but the situation was much better because we did not compete, as brothers would have. Gene was about thirteen years older than I so his influence came later in my life than Norm's, for it was then that Gene and I were in close contact.

Norm was the "baby" of the Souther family and so got the most attention. He also had shared the experiences of most of his other brothers and had no doubt listened to the numerous projects for making money that Papa Cal was always bringing up for his boys' consideration. As a child, he was rather pale and thin and much too serious. He played, but he seemed to regard play as an enterprise; something to complete and accomplish. Without doubt, as I saw him grow, I thought he was the most knowledgeable of the boys I knew. He didn't have any really close friends, although he had many playmates; in fact, nearly all of the boys of his age were in awe of him. For he was, at age ten and twelve, doing things grown-ups would do. He was an excellent craftsman—knew how to use tools, to make models, to invent things. He learned early to read Sid's electrical magazines and took the Gernsbach publications to heart, especially "The Electrical Experimenter." He did chemical experiments, incubated chickens from eggs, made magnets, built airplanes, and even tried to fly himself off the top of the porch. And he was serious about all he did. It was business with Norm. I am sure that someday he thought he would become great and have lots of money.

I assisted Norm in all he did and came to learn nearly everything Norm knew. He built—no doubt with help from his brother Sid, who was taking electrical engineering at Armour Institute—one of the more powerful radio sending stations in Chicago. Before that we had built various stages of radio receivers and had received messages from all over the U.S. All sorts of radio hams knew Norm and he had callers come to discuss radio with him. He had a huge antenna that stretched three long parallel wires from the back roof peak out to a high pole in the backyard near the alley. Inside, he had a powerful Thordarson transformer with a rotary-spark gap that was a marvel to see and which gave off that odor of ozone so characteristic of "sending" rooms of those days (about 1916). That was before ozone was known to be so poisonous.

Norm never gave up radio. It became his life. He was the first to take a receiving set in an airplane (according to Sid, who in the 1960s told me that Norm rode as a passenger in an open cockpit plane in advance of the plane in which Wiley Post was to make the famous flight to his death). Norm was to receive radio messages along the route and report, which he did. But the weather turned cold and in St. Paul they removed him from the plane, nearly frozen to death.

Then Norm opened a retail radio store in Hamilton Park on 72nd Street. This was shortly after he was married. He sold radios, many of his own construction, and did repairing. But he was a bad bookkeeper and, as before, he failed, probably losing more of Papa Cal's money. Later, he divorced and moved to Marshall, Missouri, where he remarried. I lost track of him, I am ashamed to say. We both were so interested in our own affairs then that we never corresponded. Norm established one of the first radio schools in the country [around 1944] and became well known in Kansas City for supplying competent radio technicians to the industry. He sold the school before he died of cancer in 1948 (from the ozone?).

Such was the story of Norm in brief. Now these many years later, I recognize his importance to me in getting me started in a technical career. Had he not left school in his junior year, had he not been so imbued with the kind of success that the men of the 1890s taught, he might well have become a scientist of note.

Nearly everyone is influenced by teachers. In our day, teachers were older women for the most part and some indeed had great influence on me. In grade school I had respect for (and therefore learned from) all of mine. But one lesson that stands out is that from Mrs. Hartigan, our Irish grade school principal. In her office and her presence you came under a spell. I was to see Mrs. H. only once, when out of curiosity I had that boy stick his tongue on the iron fence at school that cold winter day and it stuck. I learned at once that in real life you do not take advantage of people who are physically weaker than you (e.g., shorter). Mrs. H. hated bullies.

High school was different. There, one teacher stands out above all the others as having had a real and crucial part in deciding my life. I had always wanted to be in science, specifically chemistry. I had been greatly stimulated by Norm and by the library bookshelf on popular science: With Men Who Do Things, which told about famous engineers, inventors, etc.; Edwin Slosson's book Creative Chemistry, which told what chemists were doing; and, of course The Microbe Hunters.)

But it was not until I took physics from Miss Mabel Walbridge that I was inspired. The daughter of a Cornell professor, Miss Walbridge had been sent to the University of Chicago where she had taken a Master's in physics—quite an accomplishment in those days (1890s), especially for a woman (1). She was a demanding teacher and most of the students avoided physics because of the work she required of them. But from her you learned physics and about science. She breathed the subject, often conducting extra sessions after hours for those as interested as I was. I was not her best student; Phil Rudnick was. She tutored both of us for scholarship exams and, as I have told elsewhere, Phil decided on math so I represented our school in the national exams in physics. That is how I managed to go to college. Mabel Walbridge was the reason, for surely I would not have made it without her coaching and the incentive that she inspired in me.

One's classmates in high school often can also influence one's future outlook. I only recall one student that impressed me—this was a boy, Harold Moberg. It was because I found out he worked as a grocery clerk every day after school and weekends, and still was top of our class. This showed me that one could handle two jobs if need be, and that most of us waste ungodly amounts of time. This helped me to hold on later in a similar situation. Harold eventually became a top officer for the Great A&P Company.

Then there was my other uncle, Gene Fuller, who was the Fuller family's youngest. Like Norm, he was probably favored as a child. He was able to attend Dartmouth College in those early years (before 1900), but that was because he showed early promise. Though he did not finish college, his interest in literature, poetry and writing never left him and he became a competent part-time scholar. In addition, he was a businessman; a manager with a good sense of what business was about. He made his aerial photography company grow and expand into an industry (Chicago Aerial Industries) before he left to do what he had wanted all his life—write literature and travel.

Gene married but had no children; instead he looked at his nephews and nieces as his family—his responsibility in their parents' absence. I think he felt close to me on account of my father's problem. He got me a summer job with him at James Levy Inc. after he returned from the war (World War I), and later at the B&G battery plant. When he sold his company, he saw that each of us got well paid for the shares that he had given us earlier. He and I always had a common interest in philosophical things and we corresponded regularly. I think Gene was most understanding and of appreciative of the human condition and of the sad plight of the world. He strengthened in me the qualities he possessed in such abundance.

University professors are supposed to be among the most influential people that scholars come in contact with. I can't say mine were, except in their professional ways—and there they shone brightly for the most part. A few (like Arthur Compton and Forest Ray Moulton) stand out, again because they showed that learning can be fun as well as work. Professor Slaughter, who taught college algebra, was also this type and I credit him with getting me to see math in a fairer light.

Some students I met did more for me through common discussion than most of my professors. In this respect, Al Shaw and Gerry Willard in physics and Joe Jasper in chemistry stand out.

I mentioned how I continued to work at full-time jobs all through my college attendance. The six years I spent at the Chicago Tribune had to substitute for the time I would have had in college being influenced by students and faculty. But I am not sure at all that the job experiences didn't benefit me more. At the General Chemical I owe a large debt to Albert Wahlgren, the self-made chemist in charge, who taught me the personal responsibilities that go with doing chemical analyses, as well as what was good technique (and what was bad; that's something I never would have learned at college).

At the Trib I saw much of life in the raw; the moods and feelings often bitterly expressed by lower-middle-class young men. I learned—particularly from Alan Coke, the young foreman of our group—what real sacrifice meant when you were the sole family support, and what dogged determination can do. I am sure Alan went on to big things. Most of the others, both the good and the bad ones, would drift with the tide. But I learned that some very good persons could be found in this setting, just as well as in the college. For example, the Hanna brothers, who were very helpful to me at the Tribune, taught me a lot about practical behavior.

When I entered on my final career, I was 29 and almost too old to be influenced—so I thought. Then I met R. R. Williams, our Chemical Director for the Laboratories. Williams not only was a serious student of science, but he saw science in the service of man. He looked over a broad horizon and always regarded research as the way to cure society's ills. He was unbending in his moral beliefs, straightforward in his dealing, and ruthless when he smelled foul play or questionable motives. He stood behind his men, but he expected them to be upright, to play fair, and to work with imagination. He took my part in many pinches and taught me a lot about seeing through to the underlying basics in complex situations, especially where personal pride or profit might be a factor. I know of no one whose influence on me was greater during this long period, except my wife.

Willie was what I needed to make me anywhere near whole. I was shy from early youth and always tended to remain in the background. I made friends, but I did not seek broad acquaintances. I needed to expand when I took my Labs job or I would never get far in science, except as a recluse. Willie was the opposite; she made friends easily and saw that we got to know the families at the Labs as well as in the neighborhood. I needed this, since I was getting into technical societies and organizations where I had to visit, talk, and feel comfortable in crowds. This was one thing. More important was the way Willie herself could help by setting a good atmosphere and a tasty table for our families and our friends. Thus, what advance I made was due to her, and that I did not go far as I might was because of me. But rising in an organization is not all. I had always wanted a nice family and Willie gave it to me—three fine babies who grew into three fine men. And in the course of it, I had a very full and happy life.

(1) [Editor's note: Mabel Harriet Walbridge was born on June 4, 1871, in Mystic, Quebec, Canada to Alexander Walbridge and Harriet Eliza Taylor. She earned an A.B. from McGill, 1897, and an A.M. Cornell, 1906. Her thesis was entitled: "The Hall Effect of Tellurium." She was enrolled at the University of Chicago from 1905-13. According to the records of the University of Chicago, she may have earned a teaching certificate, but no degree. She died after 1960, likely in Ithaca, New York.]

## Appendix 2: Advice, Whether or Not

#### by Calvin S. Fuller

[Note: This appendix was likely written between 1986 and 1989.]

Although in other days the old have been respected for their wisdom, today's elders are seldom consulted for their views and if they are, their advice is seldom followed. This may be just as well, because in these fast-moving times, most old brains are not as well informed as are the young.

There is one area, however, in which all old people are better informed than the young, and that concerns how it feels to get old; what occurs bodily and mentally. There are also lifelong conclusions that the old come to out of long or unique experience. Isn't it strange that the young seldom, if ever, inquire about these?

Had any asked me, here are a few admonitions I would have given:

1. Get into work you like, work hard at it, and don't worry about monetary return.

2. Never judge your own capabilities, let others do that.

3. Avoid dogmatic positions, especially in print.

4. Never instantly take a dislike to a person on the basis of looks or first actions.

5. When something is crystal clear, you may be sure you are close to a delusion.

6. The arrogance of man is beyond belief. Cultivate humility.

7. Patience is still the greatest virtue.

8. Teaching is the riskiest of all professions—you are continually being proven wrong. Be prepared to change.

9. The idea that old people have lots of free time is a myth. They just move and think more slowly.

10. Plan on needing twice as much income after retirement as you think you will need.

11. Do dirty jobs immediately, but let people problems soak for a while.

12. Another myth is that people are wiser and more knowledgeable the older they get. Actually, after 70 they've forgotten what they once knew and have difficulty thinking logically.

## Appendix 3: People, Things, and Inventions We Could Do Without

#### by Calvin S. Fuller

[ _Note: This appendix was likely written between 1986 and 1989._ ]

  * The guy who thought up omitting the page numbers on magazine ads.

  * Car drivers who try to trap you behind slow trucks on the highway by plugging the passing lane.

  * The guy who invented the 3-way plug for the 2-way outlet.

  * The waiter who rudely interrupts you at dinner when you are telling your favorite story.

  * The computer that thanks me for closing my car doors.

  * The person that buttons up all the buttons on my shirts after washing them.

  * The guy who stuffs all the loose ads into the Sunday paper.

  * That guy's brother who inserts all the application blanks between every other page of my magazine.

  * That guy's sister who puts the Table of Contents on a different page each month.

  * That guy who places the Pepto-Bismol and Preparation H ads with my evening meal.

  * Clerks and waiters that call me "dear."

  * Doctors and dentists who address me with my nickname.

  * What happened to the "NO TALKING" signs in the libraries?

  * The person who calls at mealtime.

  * The guy who invented the non-soak glue on labels and envelopes.

  * The fellow who thought up one-way turnstiles in the drug stores.

  * The credit card flasher who is always at the check-out counter.

  * The guy who invented the un-openable breakfast food, sliced meat, and cheese packages.

  * The merchandiser who puts 2 or 3 items in a sealed package when all you want is one.

  * The lazy bankers, brokers, agents, etc. who staple the blanks you are supposed to fill out.

  * The fellow who gives you the fluorescent tubes in open-ended containers so they slide out after you leave the store.

  * The shirt people who eliminated the extra pocket and made the remaining one more shallow.

  * The suit people who eliminated the vest and charged you more.

  * The same people who later put back the vest and charged you more.

  * The guy who thought up the proportional warranty for tires and batteries. You get nothing, they get the old one.

  * The non-stop music in the doctor's and dentist's office when you're feeling lousy anyway.

  * The merchant who gives you unreadable receipts.

## Appendix 4: Pointers

#### by Calvin S. Fuller

[ _The original was handwritten in a small notebook and presented to Robert W. Fuller in September 1952 as he entered Oberlin College._ ]

Sections:

About Learning

About College

About People

About Manners and Culture

About Behavior

About Subjects

Things to Work on and Improve

Things, no need to Improve

Small Points

Morality

Remember

Bob:

I would like to give you final advice on _every_ topic as you enter college. This will never be done by anyone because nature never intended that the younger generation, or any generation, learn all (even if it were possible) in its lifetime. You will realize this if you have sons.

What a father may hope to do is to play a little part perhaps in helping his son adopt the proper _attitude_ toward learning.

That is what these few notes, which have helped me at times, are intended to do.

Dad.

Who is wise?

He that learns from everyone.

Who is powerful?

He that governs his passions.

Who is rich?

He that is content.

Who is that?

Nobody.

\- Ben Franklin

### About Learning

Most people are born with a burning desire to learn—to learn about life and matter around them. Relatively few, however, _continue to learn after college._ Without constant learning all through one's life, one cannot attain full happiness and maintain it into later years.

Colleges are places where one may devote full time to learning for a limited time. Many students make the mistake of believing that in college they are _preparing_ for life, when actually they are really being given the _opportunity to live_ a most wonderfully revealing four years.

"The student cannot stop. In the pursuit of knowledge the paths lead out into the infinite." — _Frank Crane_

Study is but one part (although a very important part) of learning.

Maintain a curious attitude about things. Be _slow_ at deciding and stating your views on broad questions.

At college you should work out methods of learning which will stay with you the rest of your life.

Learning is not the accumulation of facts so much as acquiring habits of work and habits of thinking, which enable one to attain one's objectives.

Learning is hard work, but like other activities, once a stride is reached and maintained, it brings a glow of accomplishment and becomes fun. Expressed another way, "Success is easier than failure."

Do not pound on a problem too long if the solution does not come. Go for a walk, go on to another subject, or attack it in the morning. Nothing helps like a new grip.

Set yourself high (yet attainable) objectives for stated time periods. But having attained your objective, do not cheat yourself out of a carefree recreation of some kind that in itself can be instructional, and _better_ than just plain play or amusement.

One who feigns understanding is losing a rare opportunity to learn.

Things learned involuntarily are only half-learned.

A good student is never bound by assignments.

In learning, as in life itself, it is a good plan to complete definite objectives. Your courses are, when completed, objectives attained. Each assignment is an objective. Completing a work list is completing an objective. Big objectives are made up of little ones. But to do one's best work, one must be sure the objectives are worthwhile. To wish that one had gone after another objective, instead of the one attained after a number of years' work, is a sad error unless (as is often the case), what has been learned is also useful.

### About College

College presents a rare opportunity for:

1. Gaining knowledge from experts in all subjects.

2. Learning how to enjoy oneself (to amuse oneself).

3. Learning about people and how to associate with them.

4. Making life-long friends.

5. Building health and learning athletic skills.

6. Learning how to mix study, work, and play in the best way.

7. Hearing and seeing capable people in action.

8. Hearing and participating in useful discussions.

9. Helping to form a permanent philosophy of your own.

10. Helping to decide what career to pursue.

At college you are one of a _selected_ group. Do not mistake this group as a cross-section of all life in the USA, although you will find diverse characters present. Proper summer work, trips, and visits will help perspective. Reading also helps, but not like experience.

College was the best investment I have made in my life.

There will come times when you will feel overfull mentally (like an over-trained athlete), and you will require diversion. The answer to this is properly mixing athletics, activities, and plain hard study.

At college, as in all walks of life, you must go after what you want if you are to get it.

Try to find out by constant inquiry of yourself: What part of the world's work can you do the best?

College should enable one to find resources within himself.

### About People

Do not show disgust at others for:

1. Not thinking as you do.

2. Not having consideration for you.

3. Lying or cheating or dodging work.

Take them as they are, and leave them so. All deserve politeness from you, but you do not have to be like them or live with them (thank goodness!).

If you unfortunately get into a bad situation and have the advantage, you can improve it by keeping your mouth shut.

People love to help. Asking simple assistance is one very good way to meet new friends. This does not mean one should be "gabby."

You will find people good and bad, slippery and square, shady and honest, stolid and weak. Learn how to behave fairly toward all.

Being on a team is perhaps the quickest and best way to learn the difference between high-class teams and players, and those who only think they are good. The same applies to life.

The sane person looks carefully at all sides of a question, even experiments himself to test his ideas, before he decides important questions.

Remember, all people were not brought up like you—some were brought up better.

First impressions of people are generally false.

Things that cause people to act are: pleasure of physical and mental activity, pleasure of mastery, pleasure of serving another, pleasure of company, pleasure of being someone of consequence (sense of approval).

A balanced person is at home with or without people. Extroverts cannot be happy alone, nor really can introverts, either. No one can. But remember, the most valuable advances in the world have come from solitary work.

"How much alike people are in general outline, but how different in detail!" - unattributed

### About Manners and Culture

Dress well and act well.

Don't talk about yourself. Be quiet and ask questions.

Rude manners exact payment.

It is just as easy to be polite as rude and a thousand times more profitable.

It's hard to mend a bad break in your conversation.

"Life is not so short but that there is always room for courtesy." - Emerson

Be strict with yourself, but lenient toward others.

It takes self-possession to listen to a man telling a story about which you really know the inside facts, and not to contradict him when he deviates from the truth, but it is the wise thing to do.

If you don't know, say so.

When new persons (man, girl, boy, woman) arrive in your group, the first order of business is always to introduce. If you are inadvertently thrown together with someone you don't know for a time, introduce yourself. It makes things go easier.

Try to be last when with a group, men or women. "You first," is a good practice.

When in small company, eating habits mark one more than anything else. Do not start before others. Hold up dessert for others. Pass things to others first. Eat with mouth closed and minimum of noise. Don't talk with mouth full. Keep your chin clean.

The ill-feeling and bad temper that is engendered by having to wait, whether for late people, late trains, slow lines or what not, can be largely avoided by carrying your reading or work with you. My old professor once said that he owed much of his accomplishment to the use of odd moments. He had the useful ability to concentrate or to work problems in the oddest places and in the midst of a hub-bub.

One's capacity to carry heavy loads in life generally increases up to middle age. Some people learn to carry only meager loads without becoming distraught like an 18-year-old. But it is a sign of culture to be able to carry heavy loads of sadness, problems, and mental work (even though pressed by unexpected demands), and to still appear outwardly calm, happy, and natural.

It is the rare person who keeps hidden his own pain, fatigue, or sadness to be pleasant to others.

### About Behavior

When asked to perform before a group, be sure (and this takes experience and good judgment) that your performance will have a good final effect. This will be so if you really have something to contribute which you sincerely believe in and regard as a contribution. To sell to others, you must be sold first.

In most cases, it is better to come to conclusions slowly. There will come a time when decisions must be made, but this time is late, rather than early. Don't draw up your course of action too early.

Be slow about giving dogmatic opinions or ultimatums—infinitely slow about the latter.

Adopt an objective attitude, i.e., leave out yourself when sizing up a situation and think only as if you were a single, isolated mind considering a problem.

Do not hesitate to associate with the leaders as well as the lesser lights. They both are interesting and turn out to be human.

The kind of a boy you are is shown by how you treat your mother.

Humans are naturally lazy, some more than others. The hard trick is to be able to smile and keep one's temper, even when sudden unexpected pressure develops after one has worked oneself nearly "punchy"!

Talk moderately and with thought. Men who can think and talk clearly to the point are few.

Let people take precedence over everything else when they call or you are introduced. To avoid interruptions (unwanted), be obviously busy, but politely so.

To politely squeeze out of an uninteresting date is an art. Be sincere and hold a strong unwavering position. Do not always agree to be available at anyone's call. Don't be led, be frank. Know what you want.

The adventurous individual will go ahead when every nerve in his body is crying to quit.

It's okay to be tenacious of your convictions; you should be, but recognize others may have different convictions.

Forgive everyone every night before you go to sleep. Grudges hurt you. Remember your health is most important; without it everything else loses importance. Keep fit! Even geniuses would do better with better bodies. Get proper rest and recreation. Eat correctly and not in nervous haste. (That is very bad.)

"Laugh and stay young." Study tends to make one serious. The more study, the more serious. So don't forget to laugh.

"Happy is the man whose body is his partner." - F. Crane.

Sometimes it is better to read a book or hear a lecture than to go to a poor movie.

Constant pursuit of fun is not the way to happiness—it is found only through work and self-denial.

Cultivate the thrill of health. Train your mind to keep your muscles fit.

At sixteen, it's hard to understand parents; at twenty-five you wish you had tried harder to understand.

### About Subjects

The first two or even the first four years of college should cover a diversity of courses with the objective of finding out one's best capabilities and interests.

No one today can be considered educated who does not have a fair acquaintance with the sciences, particularly the basic sciences of physics, chemistry, and math, as well as the methods and philosophy of science.

Do not study subjects out of fear of failure or of the professor, but study out of curiosity.

Some subjects are dull. Try to find out why.

In the fundamental sciences, particularly, many of the concepts are difficult to grasp. Reading many versions of the concept in different books will be of great help to understanding.

The chances are very great that you will go on to graduate work after college. A firm and strong mastering of the _fundamentals_ will make later courses much more understandable and problems much easier.

A subject to be grasped and used must be organized.

You will hear about "liberal subjects" and "scientific subjects." This is wrong. A liberal subject is any subject which will broaden and deepen a man's understanding of his environment and background. And chemistry, mathematics, and physics do this as well as any other subjects. Besides, they provide rare training in rigid logical reasoning.

Religious behavior, i.e., bowing to a higher power, is natural and sensible. Man still does not know much—he has not solved the mystery of what life is, for example. Is that alone not enough to justify a humble feeling toward some great power or God?

Have you read the Bible? It's a bestseller.

### Things to Work on and Improve

You are blessed with good health; treasure it. The most successful people have learned how to accomplish just as much without putting themselves under torturing pressure. A good athlete builds up slowly to an easy rhythm. A good boxer "rolls with the punch." The human body is a marvelously rugged machine, but requires freedom from _nervous pressure_. Eating fast and racing needlessly about are just such pressures. Better be late and think on the way.

Impatience is a virtue and a sin. It is all right to be impatient with oneself (such as about eating habits), but impatience with others is disastrous to good relations.

Seek a better balance between mental work, physical work, and mental and physical play. Try a new balance and change it if necessary, but stick to it for a time.

Rush mentally if you wish, but when it comes to talking or playing, avoid rushing. Haste makes others nervous, too.

Go into activities, newspapers, clubs, musicals. This is where your best friends will be made. Do not be too self-effacing. Leaders persuade others to their way.

Try to develop more aggressiveness of the graceful sort. If your views are worth anything, they are worth sticking up for.

Learn to have fun as you go along.

The difficult capability to acquire is that of getting lots done without appearing rushed yourself, or rushing others.

Be less scornful of others. All persons (fortunately) are not built to the same pattern; do not expect them to fit one. If you feel you are imposed upon because of others (and you will because you will pass some who appear to be holding you up) either turn off on another course, or wait for the proper time and politely make an exit. Expect that you will have to make up for the deficiencies in others if you want to adopt the higher speed through life and reap more from it.

Avoid telling others how _you_ do things. Do them your way and let others (all others) judge whether your way is better.

Do not gossip about others unless it is about their good qualities.

About speech: One talks mainly to

1. Gain information.

2. Give information.

3. Persuade someone.

Therefore, the way we talk (i.e., the impression we make on those we speak to) is important in order to achieve these ends. This is why one should speak slowly clearly, with proper tone, and proper choice of words. A crisp, clear speaker indicates an active, thinking brain.

Develop more self-confidence. Anyone can walk over a plank on the ground, but raise it 50 feet in the air and 9 out of 10 will refuse to walk it. In studies, athletics, activities, music, say to yourself, "I can do it." You learn by trying.

### Things, No Need to Improve

All virtues require good judgment as to how they are applied.

You possess a valuable drive to get things done. But use it on your problems and your opponents in the sports arena, not at the dinner table or during social conversation. Nor let it interfere with doing a high-quality job when that is required.

Some time spent alone in quiet thought about one's good and bad qualities is profitable in guiding one's future behavior. Review unsatisfactory experiences and analyze them to see whether a different behavior on your part could have brought about a more favorable result.

### Small Points

Get a notebook (one herewith) to chronologically record rough notes. Not for lecture notes, but for on-the-spot mementoes of all kinds: names, assignments, book titles, addresses, miscellaneous thoughts, things to do, etc. Date it.

Believe most of what you hear until you have checked it—unless it's gossip; then don't believe it at all.

Attack every lesson with vigor and zeal; relate it to the whole course. All study should be done to accomplish an end, e.g., an assignment, a book, a problem.

Self-recitation or self-examination is a most valuable aid to study.

_Logical_ memory, by seeking _relationships_ , is the best basis for memory, which itself is the basis of reasoning.

98% of the things people worry about do not happen.

When you meet other men, always look them agreeably in the eye and shake hands as if you meant it. Nothing so marks a person as a _limp handshake_. It gives the impression of a limp mind.

As with boys, meet girls as if you meant it. Of course, shake hands only if offered and then more delicately.

When writing, read back over what you have written frequently. This will serve to provide a unity to the work.

It helps us all when another makes good, just as it harms us all when another goes bad. It, therefore, behooves one to help others advance (but of course not to one's own serious detriment, although some people, like teachers, spend their lives helping others). It particularly should be evident that brothers should help one another.

Be a good loser, but try hard to win.

Aim to get people's names straight the first time. Develop a memory for them. Write them in your notebook.

One who sups only for the purpose of consuming food misses a large part of the real pleasure in dining, because dining is really an occasion to indulge in stimulating conversation. Interesting companions and good food make a fine, healthful period of relaxation to be looked forward to. One must, however, learn to rise above the animals who could not possibly think with food before them. Many people, too, are like this; they are unable to engage in thoughtful table conversation and eat at the same time. Or if they do talk, it is with a full mouth or with an empty plate. Dining enjoyably with others is an art to be cultivated. The goops and gobblers soon find themselves eating alone. Did you ever stop to figure that one person eats approximately only 71,000 meals in his lifetime? This is 30,000 hours or about 3 years—or should be at least this. Therefore, unless one enjoys and profits from each meal, one's time soon runs out. Good dinner talk with _stimulating_ companions is enjoyable and healthful, as well as profitable.

### Morality

Questions of morals are the toughest and most baffling of all. This is because the same act may be considered moral under one set of circumstances, while immoral under others. Thus, to kill is immoral when it is murder, but hardly so when a victim, certain to die, is begging for the mercy of death. Rape is immoral, but the sexual act is moral under other circumstances.

This uncertainty of moral code leads to much of the pain and misery of youth in the way of frustrations, feelings of guilt, and feelings of inferiority. A large part of this trouble can be relieved by the adoption of a proper _attitude_ toward morals.

The best _general_ rule is to label as immoral those acts which harm one's own or someone else's physical, mental, or spiritual well-being.

Immoral acts arise out of the misapplication of natural human drives (or out of their frustration). Thus, to forcibly confine a person may lead him to commit bodily harm to his captor, because imprisonment denies the captive the right to move about freely, which is natural.

Some of the human drives that cause persons to commit immoral acts when they are denied, prevented, or affronted are:

1. Want of food.

2. Sex desire.

3. Want of companionship.

4. Desire to learn.

5. Freedom to travel.

6. Feeling of personal pride or position.

7. Sense of righteousness.

8. Need for fun.

Of all these, the sex drive is the most disturbing and upsetting to the young, healthy person. It can seriously interfere with one's aims unless one knows what to do. Recognize that others have faced this problem and successfully dealt with it. There are few facts that are helpful:

1. It takes considerable power of will to curb natural drives.

2. Sex desires are subject to close mental control and stimulation. This is why one's associates can be important. _Continually_ keeping one's mind on any subject can be degrading; this is particularly true of sex.

3. Keeping busy—particularly keeping up physical exercise and sports daily—will leave little time and less inclination to dwell on sex subjects.

4. Nocturnal emissions are natural and serve to relieve some of the sexual pressure.

5. Cohabiting with girls to relieve sexual pressure is bad for the following reasons:

a. It does not relieve the desire except temporarily. Instead it tends to become a habit.

b. Boys who practice this may suffer no physical harm, but they all feel a sense of guilt.

c. It is disturbing in a worse way than any other to one's program in college.

d. If the girl is decent, then marriage (with all that entails) may result.

e. If the girl is decent and marriage is not at all the prospect, or if she is indecent, being in school with her would be embarrassing.

You will naturally want to know the details about sex and all that goes with it, but be sure it is from a reliable source. Many boys feel they are authorities when they just want to talk or brag.

Jokes are all right in their place, but they can be overdone. They are when they interfere with school.

Your position on the subject of sex should be strong and fixed. When others, if they do, try to influence you against your will, be firm and stick to the convictions you have come to by good logical thought.

The other sex also has its problems. It is your responsibility to help not only yourself, but to act in such a manner that you show you always can have fun without inviting trouble.

One who is confident in his knowledge about sex and who has control of himself need never feel inadequate or embarrassed when in a crowd, mixed or unmixed.

Remember, "Home ties are never broken."

§§§

He slapped me softly on the back. "I knew you'd understand someday, son," he said.

## Appendix 5: Presentation for Induction into the National Inventors Hall of Fame

### by Ann L. Fuller in Akron, Ohio on May 2, 2008.

I thank the National Inventors Hall of Fame on behalf of the family for this honor.

Calvin Fuller was an old-fashioned man of science, whose eye was on the process of doing research and not on any possible fame. He came from a family with limited means. During the six years it took him to get earn a bachelor's degree from the University of Chicago he worked full-time at night at the _Chicago Tribune_ , on the paper's rotogravure section. He then went on to earn a Ph.D. in chemistry at the University of Chicago. From there he became a research chemist at Bell Telephone Laboratories, where he spent his entire career. During World War II, he traveled to Akron to work on the development of synthetic rubber. He never forgot his humble roots and continued to live a simple existence centered around work and family, even when his financial circumstances changed. He loved the collegial atmosphere of Bell Labs and marveled that he was actually being paid for going to work daily to do scientific research.

I met Calvin Fuller in 1959 when I married his son. I knew him as a supportive family member, as well as a champion grower of tomatoes in his New Jersey garden. He, with his wife, Willie, encouraged their children and grandchildren to achieve academically. All three of his sons, two of his daughters-in-law, and one grandchild earned doctorates, most of them in science.

Calvin Fuller did not think in global terms. Nor did he see his work as a way to make money. He was a practical man fully involved in problem-solving, the epitome of an inventor. While he knew that the solar cell might have some applications in the telephone industry and later in space, he did not live to see how important an invention it would become, playing a part in everyone's daily life.

[Editor's correction: Calvin worked full-time throughout college and graduate school. He was employed by the _Chicago Tribune_ from 1924 to 1930, coinciding with both undergraduate and graduate years of his education. During World War II, Calvin traveled to Akron and many other places as part of the Government Synthetic Rubber Program.]

## Appendix 6: Calvin S. Fuller Biographical Sketch

Born: Chicago, Illinois May 25, 1902

Died: Vero Beach, Florida October 28, 1994

Education:

Chicago Public Schools.

University of Chicago

\- B.S. 1926

\- Ph.D. Physical Chemistry 1929.

Family: Married September 17, 1932 to Willmine Works. Three sons: Robert, Stephen, and John. Eight grandchildren.

Career:

General Chemical Company, Analyst, 1920-24

Chicago Tribune, Analyst, 1924-30

AT&T Bell Laboratories

\- Physical Chemist, 1930-42

\- Plastics Chemist, 1944-50

\- Chemical Physicist, 1950-67

U.S. Government, Office of Rubber Director, Chief of Polymer Research, 1942-44

U.S. Department of Defense, Consultant, Research and Development Board, 1945-50

Professional:

American Chemical Society, 1930-emeritus

Sigma Xi, Phi Beta Kappa.

National Councilor ACS, 1938-42.

Chairman, North Jersey Section, 1942-43.

Fellow AAAS. Chairman Gordon Conference, 1945 on Polymers.

Science Committees for the Department of Defense, 1945-48

Chairman Division Paint, Varnish and Plastics ACS, 1943-44

Publications: Among the more important technical papers are the following:

Papers relating to Polymeric Compounds:

Fuller, C.S. and Frosch, C.J., 1939, X-ray investigation of the decamethylene series of polyesters, _J.A.C.S._ , v.61, p.2575.

Fuller, C.S. and Frosch, C.J., 1939, Further investigation of the chain structure of linear polyesters, _J. of Phys. Chem_., v.43, p.323.

Fuller, C.S., 1940, The investigation of synthetic linear polymers by x-rays _,_ _Chem. Reviews_ , v.26, p. 143.

Fuller, C.S., Frosch, C.J., and Pape, N.R., 1940, X-ray examination of polyisobutylene, _J.A.C.S_., v.62, p.1905.

Baker, W.O., Fuller, C.S., and Heiss, J.H., Jr., 1941, Macromolecular properties of linear polymers I, _J.A.C.S_., v.63, p.3316.

Papers relating to semiconductors:

Fuller, C.S., 1952, Diffusion of donor and acceptor elements into germanium, _Physical Review_ , v.86.1, p. 136.

Fuller, C.S., 1952, Copper as an acceptor element in germanium, _Physical Review_ , v.87, p.526.

Chapin, D.M., Fuller, C.S., Pearson, G.L., 1954, A new silicon p-n junction photocell for converting solar radiation to electrical power _,_ _Journal of Applied Physics_ , v.25, p.676.

Fuller, C.S. and Severiens, J.C., 1954, Mobility of impurity ions in germanium and silicon _,_ _Phys. Review_ , v.95, p.21.

Fuller, C.S. and Ditzenberger, J.A., 1956, Diffusion of donor and acceptor elements in silicon, _Journal of Applied Physics_ , v.27, p.544.

Fuller, C.S., 1959, Interactions between solutes in germanium and silicon, _Chem. Reviews_ , v.59, p.65.

Fuller, C.S. and Wolfstirn, Katherine, 1963, Acceptors in donor-doped gas resulting from li diffusion, _Journal of Applied Physics_ , v.34, p. 1914.

Honors:

John Scott Medal, 1956

John Price Wetherill Medal, 1963

Alfried Krupp v. Bohlen u. Halbach Prize, 1981

Photovoltaic Founders Award IEEE, 1985

New Jersey Inventors Hall of Fame, 2006

National Inventors Hall of Fame, 2008

## Appendix 7: Calvin S. Fuller Obituary

### Bell Labs News of 11/14/1994

Calvin S. Fuller, formerly a chemist at AT&T Bell Laboratories and co-inventor of the solar cell that made the space program practical, died October 29 at his home in Vero Beach, Florida. He was 92.

With his Bell Labs colleagues, Gerald Pearson and Daryl Chapin, Fuller invented the first practical device able to convert sunlight into useful electrical power. The device was demonstrated at Murray Hill in 1954. In 1962, solar cells provided power for AT&T's pioneering Telstar communications satellite—the first time that solar cells were put on board an operational space vehicle.

After joining Bell Labs in 1929, Fuller's early research was on organic insulating materials, plastics, and synthetic rubber. In 1948, Fuller began focusing on developing semiconductor devices. He earned 33 patents during his career, including one for a technique for infusing impurities into the surface of a silicon wafer. This discovery led to the development of the solar cell, which earned him the John Scott Medal from the city of Philadelphia in 1956 and the Wetherill Medal from the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia in 1963. He also received Germany's Krupp Prize and medal in 1981. Today the solar cell is used to power a wide range of devices from calculators to satellites.

Al MacRae, director of the Skynet® Satellite communications Laboratory in Holmdel, describes Fuller as a hero who helped pave the way for modern satellites. "I was in awe of him when I arrived at Bell Labs," says MacRae. "The impact of solar cells on the satellite industry has been immense. Without Fuller's contributions, the effective, inexpensive satellite communications we have today would not have been possible."

In addition to his 37 years at Bell Labs, Fuller served as head of synthetic rubber research during World War II in the Office of the Rubber Director, and later consultant to the U.S. Defense Department's Research and Development Board.

Fuller is survived by his wife Willmine, three sons, Robert, Stephen, and John, and eight grandchildren.

## Appendix 8: Suggested Further Resources

#### Books and Booklets:

Gertner, Jon. _The Idea Factory: Bell Labs and the Great Age of American Innovation_ , Penguin Press, March, 2012. A portrait of Bell Telephone Laboratories, the research and development wing of AT&T, which made seminal breakthroughs from the 1920s to the 1980s in everything from lasers to cellular telephony.

_The Story of the Bell Solar Battery: Harnessing the Sun_ , PE 110, published by Bell Telephone Laboratories Booklet Rack Service, 1958

Perlin, John. _The Silicon Solar Cell Turns 50_ , National Renewable Energy Laboratory, NREL Report No. BR-520-33947, August 2004.  http://www.nrel.gov/education/pdfs/educational_resources/high_school/solar_cell_history.pdf

#### Oral History:

_Interview of Calvin S. Fuller by James J. Bohning_ , Center for Oral History at the Chemical Heritage Foundation, April 29, 1986.  http://www.chemheritage.org/discover/collections/oral-histories/details/fuller-calvin-s.aspx. Transcript available. The  Center for Oral History at the Chemical Heritage Foundation, which is administered by CHF's  Center for Contemporary History and Policy, aims to create a collection of comprehensive, professionally edited interviews with leading figures in chemistry and related fields.

_Rubber Matters: Solving the World War II Rubber Problem_ , Chemical Heritage Foundation Online Exhibit.http://www.chemheritage.org/research/policy-center/oral-history-program/projects/rubber-matters/default.aspx

#### Video:

_The Bell Solar Battery (Bonus Edition)_ ,  http://techchannel.att.com/play-video.cfm/2011/4/18/AT&T-Archives-The-Bell-Solar-Battery, AT&T Technical Archives, April, 2011. A 1954 video, with introduction by George Kupczak of the AT&T Archives and History Center, available from the AT&T Tech Channel.

#### Genealogy:

_Genealogy of Some Descendants of Thomas Fuller of Woburn_ , by William Hyslop Fuller, 1919.

Calvin Fuller was a 6th great grandson of Thomas Fuller of Woburn (1618-1698). The Fuller family can be traced back to Redenhall, Norfolk, England.

_A Pioneer History of Becker County_ , http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~mnbecker/ch20.php. History of Burlington Township, Becker County, Minnesota. Timothy Wheeler Chilton, grandfather of Willmine Works Fuller, moved to Becker County from Canada in 1868.

Both Calvin Fuller and Willmine Works Fuller had ancestors who settled in Massachusetts in the seventeenth century and participated in the great events of U.S. history. Abbreviated family trees, prepared by the Editor, are included in the photo sections. Further Information and documentation is available on genealogy web sites such as www.ancestry.com and www.familysearch.org .

# IV - Photographs

## Calvin S. Fuller: Growing Up (1906-1918)

Calvin Nathaniel Souther, Calvin's grandfather, (1857-1936)

Jemima Lothian Souther, Calvin's grandmother, (1860-1943)

Calvin with grandfather, Eugene Corydon Fuller, (1844-1914), c.1905

Caroline Wiley Fuller, Calvin's grandmother, (1844-1916)

Bessie Souther Fuller, Calvin's mother, at 16, c. 1897

Calvin, Bessie, June, and Julius Quincy Fuller, c. 1916

Calvin Fuller and his sister, June, c. 1910

Eugene White Fuller, Calvin's uncle, (1888-1967)

_Catherine Rowe Fuller, Calvin's aunt, (1895-1989), at airfield, c. early_ 1920s

Norman Gilbert Souther, Calvin's uncle, (1898-1948), c. 1914

U.S. airmail flight with radio built by Norman Souther (r), 1926

## Calvin S. Fuller: The More Serious Years (1918-1930)

Calvin Fuller in 1920

Calvin attended Francis Parker High School, 1916-1920

Mabel Harriet Walbridge, Calvin's high school physics teacher

Professor William Draper Harkins, Calvin's Ph.D. advisor, courtesy of the Special Collections Research Center, University of Chicago Library

Kent Chemistry Laboratory, University of Chicago, 1928-29, courtesy of the Special Collections Research Center, University of Chicago Library

Calvin as photoengraver (r) at Chicago Tribune, 1920-26

Calvin Fuller in 1930

Calvin's mother, Bessie Souther Fuller, with two grandsons, c. 1928

Calvin's sister, June Fuller McKinlay (1904-1932) with her children, Calvin, Helen June, John, and Alan, 1932

Calvin's father, Julius Quincy Fuller with grandson, Robert, c. 1938

## Calvin S. Fuller: The Productive Years (1930-1967) and Later

### Marriage and Family

Engagement of Calvin Fuller and Willmine Works, Nutley, New Jersey, 5/30/1932

Calvin (r) with Hubert and Hazel Jordan, Hudson River at Weehauken, 1931

Calvin with car, early 1930s

Marriage of Calvin and Willmine, with attendants, Gerry Willard and Madeline Mitchell, 9/17/1932

New Year's Eve party at the Willards' Greenwich Village apartment: Gerry Willard (front center); Art Ahearn (back row, to left of Willmine and Calvin), 1932

Calvin early in married life, c. 1932

Willmine early in married life, c. 1932

Calvin and Willmine at Lake Surprise, New Jersey, 1933

Willmine Fuller, 1935

Fuller home for 30 years: 42 Edgewood Road, Chatham, N.J. (with grandchildren, Woody and Amy Fuller, in foreground, 1995)

Julius Quincy Fuller, Calvin's father, with grandson, Robert, Chatham, c. 1941

Fuller family: Calvin, Stephen, Robert, Willmine, and John, 1947

Fuller family: Stephen, Robert, Calvin, John, and Willmine, 1951

Calvin and Willmine harvest tomatoes and beans in their Chatham, N.J. garden, 1950s

### Work

Robert R. Williams, Bell Labs Chemical Director, 1941. He hired Calvin in 1930 and also worked with him in the World War II Government Synthetic Rubber Program.

Calvin worked at Bell Labs, Summit, New Jersey from 1931 until the Labs moved to Murray Hill in November, 1941.

Calvin Fuller (r) with colleagues Carl Frosch and Frank J. Bondi, 1939

1966 View of Bell Labs, Murray Hill, New Jersey, courtesy of AT&T Archives and History Center

Inventors of the Solar Cell, Gerald L. Pearson, Daryl M. Chapin, and Calvin S. Fuller, 1954, courtesy of AT&T Archives and History Center

Energy/power Solar Battery component, 1954, courtesy of AT&T Archives and History Center

Calvin with tube used for preparing silicon for the Bell Solar Battery, 1954, courtesy of AT&T Archives and History Center

Calvin controlling heating current through strip of silicon, 1957, courtesy of AT&T Archives and History Center

Page from Calvin Fuller's lab notebook, dated 7/28/1954, courtesy of AT&T Archives and History Center

Calvin with Carl Frosch and Lincoln Derick with an early diffusion furnace, 1955

Calvin lecturing at an international conference, c. 1950s

Calvin Fuller, Daryl Chapin, and Gerald Pearson receiving the John Scott Medal from the City of Philadelphia, 1956

Calvin, Willmine, and Stephen Fuller examining the John Scott Medal with the Pearsons and Chapins, 1956

Gerald Pearson, Calvin Fuller, and Daryl Chapin receiving the Krupp Medal, 1981

Calvin Fuller's Induction into the National Inventors Hall of Fame, (Ann L. Fuller, presenter), 2008

## Willmine Works Fuller: Before 1932

Chilton Farm, Detroit Lakes, Minnesota, late 19th century

Timothy Chilton (1849-1925) (l) and Amelia Ryder Chilton (1853-1937) (r), Willmine's grandparents, with daughter, Caroline Auxer, and grandson, Lloyd, c. 1908

Warren Works, Willmine's grandfather, (1847-1920)

Della Belding Works, Willmine's grandmother, (1856-1923)

William and Marie Chilton Works, Willmine's parents, at their wedding, c. 1903

Willmine and brother, Robert, with their father, William Works, c. 1915

Willmine and brother, Robert, with their mother, Marie Works, c. 1921

Willmine Works, 1931

## Calvin and Willmine Fuller: The Later Years

Calvin and Willmine Fuller, Chicago, 1959

Calvin and Willmine with their first grandchild, Karen, Chatham, 1960

Calvin and Willmine, Memphis, 1964; they drove this VW camper to Alaska in 1967.

Calvin and Willmine camped in 49 states in their Airstream trailer, starting in 1969.

Calvin with grandson, Benjamin Calvin, Oberlin, 1970

Willmine and Calvin with granddaughter, Stephanie, 1977

Steve, Betty, Stephanie, Elizabeth (in arms), Willmine, and Calvin Fuller, 1982

Calvin, Willmine with granddaughters, Stephanie and Elizabeth, in Ford Camper, Annapolis, 1983

Calvin and Willmine Fuller's 50th Wedding anniversary, Annapolis, 1982

Fuller family: Adam, Noah, Steve, Bob, Terry, Amy, Woody, John (back); Willmine, Karen, Ann, Calvin (front), Lake Tahoe, 1990

Calvin, Willmine, with son, John, and grandchildren, Amy and Woody Fuller, Vero Beach, 1992

Fuller family celebrating Willmine's 90th birthday: Karen, Betty, Claire, Bob, Adam, Terry, Ben, Elizabeth, Amy, Steve, Willmine, John, Woody, 1999

Willmine on trip to Antarctica, 1998

Willmine with Karen, her first grandchild, receiving her doctorate, Seattle, 2000

## Acknowledgments

I would like to thank the various people, who contributed to this project: David J. Caruso. Director of the Center for Oral History, Chemical Heritage Foundation, for providing a copy of the transcript of Calvin Fuller's 1986 oral history interview; Woody Fuller for typing the manuscript, a job requiring much dedication; Max Phillips for making a recording of the original for use in correcting the transcript; Rebecca Selin for typing parts of the appendices; Dick Baznik for help with the photos; Claire Sheridan for her editorial suggestions and careful proofreading; Susan Bateson for raising questions that clarified the reasons for publication; Karen Fuller for her valuable guidance; and Elisa Cooper for designing the cover and preparing the manuscript for publication.

I also thank the following people, family members and others, who provided photographs for use in the memoir: John Fuller, Stephen Fuller, Robert Fuller, Claire Sheridan, the Special Collections Research Center of the University of Chicago Library, and George Kupczak, Area Manager of Archival Collections, AT&T Archives and History Center. I am especially grateful to Norma Souther Ward for making it possible for us to include pictures of her father, Norman Souther, who was such a formative influence on Calvin Fuller.

Ann L. Fuller, Editor
