Monmouth Wedding
By the summer of 1921 Dad had recovered his voice and accepted a call to the Pawnee City, Nebraska United Presbyterian Church. For financial reasons he chose to go directly there and sent for Mother and me. Rev. J. Dales Buchanan was to marry Helen Huey in Monmouth, Illinois and we planned to be at the wedding. The Peters Creek Church members helped us pack and trucked the furniture to the railway station. Mother and I left after a few days with my grandparents in Buffalo Village. Then we stopped for a few days in Xenia, Ohio with Grandmother Hutchison on our way to Pawnee City some 1800 miles distant in the 1918 Model-T. At Elm Grove, W.VA. the right rear axle broke and the wheel rolled over the bank. A garageman came out and put in a new axle on the side of the road but we were late getting to Uncle Ernest’s. When we were trying to get on to Monmouth the left rear axle broke about six miles out of Peoria, Illinois and by the time it was fixed it was getting dark so a farm family took us in for the night. This must have been very difficult for Mother for she was always suspicious of strangers but I recall that the family was trustful for they went away for the evening to a church affair leaving us alone in the house and the next morning they declined to take anything for our meals and lodging and even sent us on with some fresh muskmelons. Not many families would do that these days. I also recall that they had a cute daughter about my age.
At Monmouth we had a week until the wedding. I was to be an usher and wear my first full dress suit in the West Side Church wedding. Helen was the daughter of the pastor. Her sister Ruth was bridesmaid and Bruce Buchanan the best man. During the week preceding the wedding two events were to fashion my future. First; Rev. J. Dales B. Buchanan and Helen were going to spend a year at graduate school in Edinburgh University in Scotland and they felt anxious about leaving Aunt Ella and Cousin Lulu in Monmouth when neither drove Aunt Ella’s Ford. Dales conceived the idea that I might stay with them and drive, mow grass, shovel snow, tend furnace, etc. for room and board. Instead of taking my last year in a new school in Pawnee City maybe I could enter Monmouth College. Somehow he persuaded Mother and took us to the college admissions office. They said that they could not admit me without a fourth year in English and History but maybe I could take them at Monmouth High School, in which case, they could admit me as a “special” student and change the rating after I successfully completed the English and History at the high school. Monmouth High School agreed and that is how I came to never got a high school diploma.
Before leaving for Pawnee City Mother took me downtown and bought me a new sweater and Blacks. We left the rest of my clothes, not needed for travel, at Monmouth when we went on to Pawnee City.
Mother and I arrived at Pawnee City on a Saturday after crossing The Mississippi River at Hannibal, Missouri by ferry and the Missouri River at Falls City, Nebraska. The next afternoon my parents put me on the Burlington Railroad for the overnight trip back to Monmouth. I was not to return to Pawnee until Christmas. It was a new adventure but I can not recall any reluctance on my part.
Meeting Jean
The second eventful happening was hatched up by Cousin Lulu. She thought I should know some Monmouth students and it would be a good idea to take me to Biggsville, Illinois where Rev. William N. Lorimer had a daughter that would be in my class as well as an older daughter in the Junior Class. Therefore, one evening they packed a picnic lunch to eat along the way and we reached Biggsville about 5 P.M. The older girls were at a Fall Festival and Rev. Lorimer went to bring them home to see the visitors. The girls were reluctant but came bringing with them their friends, it seemed like a dozen. They were all dressed alike in middy suits. I was in my element but slightly overwhelmed. Little did I realize then that one of the girls would be my future companion for over fifty years. Mother knew the Lorimers and I recall seeing the girls, Billie a babe in arms whenever they visited their Grandfather Knox at the North Buffalo United Presbyterian Church in Washington County Pa. Rev. Lorimer had been a classmate of Dad’s in Xenia Theological Seminary and North Buffalo had been Rev. Lorimer’s first charge. He had roomed and boarded at Dad’s Uncle Will’s until he married Anna Knox who sang in the choir. Lucille and Jean had been born in the North Buffalo Parsonage on Brush Run.
The first Friday evening at Monmouth College they had a “walkout” and “watermelon bust” to help folks get acquainted. I was paired off with Gladys Morrison and Jean was with John C. Allen. My status as “special student” proved to be a good thing as it made me conscious of my deficiencies so that I think I tried harder, volunteering when I knew the answers, and thereby avoiding being called to recite when I did not know the answers. At any rate I passed the high school courses after finishing the assignments and became a Sophomore in the 1922-1923 school year.
Aunt Ella took John Hill and Paul Ransay as paying renters. Paul and I became fast friends and when Aunt Ella went with Lulu to Northfield College in 1922 where Lulu served as Dean of Women, Paul and I moved into Kilgores at Sixth St. and Boston Avenue. Other roomers were Roderick Smith, Harold Sherwin, Erwin Douglas and Edson Smith. Paul and I were close until he left his senior year to help his mother keep store after his father died. We ate at the Ten-Twenty House operated for students by Mrs. McCracken at 1020 Broadway. She was the widow of a missionary with three children in college.
The boys were always glad to find gullible freshmen. There was a tree in Monmouth Park called the “wiener tree” because that is where we held wiener roasts. One day the boys told one of the freshmen that the reason the wieners were tough was because there had not been enough frost and – Would you believe it? – – He believed it!
The college had chapel every day at 11:45 AM. to 12 M. President McMichael was very understanding of students but when he was away from school the Bible Professor Rev. Ross Hume would conduct chapel. He was longwinded and the boys would drop books and marbles which would roll down the sloping floor and make a noise when they hit the stage front. One day they rigged a phonograph in the pipe organ and played dance music during the service. Rev. Hume never changed the length of his prayer perhaps because he thought we needed a bit of extra religion. We were seated alphabetically with me between Eva Agnes McNight and Leona McKennon.
Once a month we had Vespers in the auditorium on a Sabbath afternoon and the towns people were invited. One Monday one of the Freshmen was digging a large hole beside the sidewalk at the front entrance to the auditorium. He said he was trying to find a set of false teeth an old lady had lost when entering the auditorium the day before for Vespers and she was offering a $5.00 reward for them. It was all a joke on him and no old lady had lost her teeth there.
Soon after school started the freshmen were given red-and-white beanies to wear until after the hazing period ended at the end of the first semester. Freshmen had to bow and step aside for upperclassmen. Girls had to wear simple clothing, go without makeup, etc. The pole scrap was a traditional fight when the Freshmen tried to tear down the Sophomore Class colors on top of a thirty foot greased telephone pole and replace them with the Freshmen colors. The fight would be announced by the tolling of the Eighth Avenue United Presbyterian Church bell. This was looked forward to by the boys equipping themselves with Jock straps and durable tear-resistant clothing. When the bell tolled at a not previously announced time, the students rallied around the pole and the fight started. The girls circled the scene to urge their classmates on. Sometimes the freshmen won and sometimes they were not successful but the class that ended the fight with the least clothing still in place was really the winner. Long before Judy attended Monmouth College the pole scrap had been discontinued as too dangerous as frequently students were injured.
Covered Bridges
We had to write a composition everyday in Freshman English. Paul and I were assigned to the same class under Professor (Skin) Maynard. One of my compositions was about covered bridges which we thought fondly of as part of our heritage in Pennsylvania. “Skin” ridiculed the idea, apparently never haying heard of covered bridges, and I never forgave him for that. What was wrong with imagination anyway? In the spring of 1922 we had our revenge. “Skin” started to tell us how he would soon have ripe everbearing strawberries. Everyday he would report on their progress. He lived next door to Aunt Ella where we roomed and Aunt Ella went to bed at an early hour. Soon every night Paul and I quietly picked “Skin’s” everbearing strawberries and had them with cream and sugar before retiring. “Skin” never could understand why his strawberries never got ripe enough for picking.
The third floor of Wallace Hall was divided into four meeting rooms: one for each of the Literary Societies – Philo Mens, Eccritian Mens, ABL Womens, and Aletheorean Womens. Meetings were held monthly and gave good experience in “Robert’s Rules of Order” debating and oratory. They provided some social life with parties and an annual river trip. The literary societies were especially important to the students who did not join fraternities or sororities.
My first date was with Jean Rife from Philadelphia. She was suggested by Aunt Ella, who knew her father, Rev. Rife. Every week Aunt Ella or Cousin Lulu would suggest a girl to call for a date and they frequently suited Jean Lorimer but I did not want anyone to tell me who to date so I took out Nellie Hum from Pawnee City, a senior who embarrassed me when she lifted her dress to adjust her garter in public. Closing time at the dorm was 10:45 P.M. on Fridays; 10:15 Saturdays and 9:15 Sabbaths, if you took a girl to church.
Inseparable!
February 22, 1922 was a world-shaking day for me. The College had a banquet every Washington’s Birthday. This year Komatsu, a Japanese delegate to the New League of Nations and a Monmouth College graduate, was to be the speaker. His wife in native costume accompanied him. I always credited Margaret Ballentyne, a committee member, for arranging the place cards but at rate I found my place card beside Jean Lorimer. I recall she had a low-necked pink dress with an interesting mole on her back. Of course, I walked her back to the dormitory and from that time on it was only Jean and I. We were almost inseparable.
When we went on the Philo River Trip we left Monmouth for Burlington by train. A motor driven launch had been hired with a flat bottom barge. We were taken North on the Mississippi to an island for a picnic lunch; then South to Crapo Amusement Park below Burlington for the afternoon. Jean’s sister, Edith was with Bob Clendenin and they doubled with us. At the caterpillar ride the attendant stepped on the air button blowing the girls skirts over their heads and I discovered for the first time that girls wore colorful long bloomers. I sorrowfully recall taking home a small sugar bowl from a restaurant as a souvenir. I have always regretted it. Some of the boys had ukeles they played as we floated back to the landing by moonlight. There were no portable radios or tapes in those days.
Roderic Smith and I did not go home for Easter vacation. Before Jean left for Biggsville she said “Why don’t you and Roderic borrow Paul Bay’s bicycle (a motorized bike) and come down for dinner Saturday?” I considered it a moke as the roads from the edge of town were mud, but Roderic wanted to go so we asked Margaret Ballantyne to let us know if Jean was serious. Margaret was going down to Biggsville during the week. It ended up we went. I was to make additional trips almost every weekend Jean went home.
Roy Hofstetter went down on the train to Kirkwood to see his date and future wife, Annabelle Hill. One night I waited too long at Biggsville to hear the train whistle and just reached the station in time to swing up on the back of the back platform which I rode to Kirkwood where I dropped off and boarded the passenger coach. The last coach was a Pullman sleeper car with the door locked. Roy said, “Where did you come from”?
One year Marjorie Root had a Washington’s Birthday Party at her home. Kenneth McBride and his future wife Margaret Hunsche double dated with Jean and me. Jean and I decided to rent a carriage with horses. Kenneth and I arrived at MeMichael Hall dormitory dressed in colonial costumes to get Jean and Margaret. Jean and I were Martha and George Washington. We thought we had the most original idea.
I had become active in the college YMCA through the influence of Roderic Smith. There was to be a college YMCA conference immediately following the close of the second semester. I saw it as an opportunity to see Jean again so I went with about fourteen others to the conference. Sherwood Eddy was one of the speakers.
Track and Radios
I had gone out for the cross country and track teams. I found my 11-second 100 yard dash was not fast enough and changed to the mile run which team I made although I never won better than a fifth place ribbon at intercollegiate competition. At the Lake Geneva Conference they organized a field day and I signed up for the cross country event. I did not know how far it was around the lake as you could only see one bay, which I thought was the entire lake. I found it to be some twenty miles and we limped home about dark. The tents were on platforms with steps and the next morning I had to slide down the steps.
I stayed on the track and cross country teams thus avoiding ever having to take gym. Cross country meets were scheduled to wind up on the track oval around the football field between halves of the football games and I got to make several trips to other colleges in our conference. I could make four miles in a little more than twenty minutes.
Other than scheduled college affairs there was little social life. About all we could do was go to the family Bijou Theaters. We saw our first talking picture called the Vita-Phone one at the Bijou. Otherwise, the pictures carried captions and were accompanied by appropriate organ music played from a brightly lighted console at the side of the stage. Harold Lloyd, from Burchard, Nebraska, just a few miles West of Pawnee City was a popular screen comedian.
Radio was becoming popular and “Amos and Andy” were favorites. Radio sets were unattainable or too expensive so Paul and I took “Radio Telephony” and made our own sets. We started with one tube WD-11 through WD-12 and 301-A tubes with three stages of radio and three stages of audio frequency amplification, with speakers replacing headphones. We had several antennae at Kilgores. I made Rev. Lorimer’s first radio and took one home for my parents. They were the only ones they had for several years.
I made good use of the radio experience later when I was teaching science and repaired the neighbors radios. The dry battery-operated sets were replaced with trickle chargers with storage batteries and finally rectifiers. I recall we were quite proud when we got KDKA from Pittsburgh at Monmouth.
Phi Kappa Phi
When Paul Ramsay left at the end of our Junior Year I was left minus a roommate and went to live a Mrs. Patterson’s where Glen Evans had roomed. A Freshman, Wendall Findlay, from Santa Anta, California was also there and later we double dated with him and his future wife, Florence Smith from New York. Wendall had never seen snow before. He soon accepted an innovation to join the Phi Sig Fraternity. I was influenced then to accept an invitation to join the Phi Kappa Phi (Big Eight) fraternity. I never quite understood why I was invited unless it might have been because I never had any grade, except one, lower than a “B”. Most of my “Big B” brothers seemed to have more money than I. Many were sons of townspeople. I roomed with Irwin (Tubby) Whiteman from Biggsville. Bob Downey, son of the minister at Freeport, Pa. was a member. He worked his way through college at the city library and later became president of the Pittsburgh National Bank. One time Bob and I decided to buy a secondhand Ford. I was supposed to be the car specialist and after we got it back to the frat house we found a spot of oil on the drive and examination showed the crankcase had been cracked. When the seller refused to refund our money (I had written a check on my account) I stopped payment on the check and left the car.
Initiation into the fraternity was strenuous but interesting. I recall one assignment was to bring in three live mice. I succeeded in getting one at Mrs. Patterson’s but failed to catch the others. Another assignment was to wear SCAB underwear and bark at the moon from the top of the pole used for the pole climbing contest at the time the dormitory girls would be returning to their dorms after prayer meeting held each Wednesday evening. After a long search to find the prescribed type of underwear, the girls were entertained. We also carried paddles and presented them to our upperclassmen when we met and dutifully leaned over presenting our posteriors for a whack.
Our fraternity won the prize in the 1924 Homecoming Parade. We fixed up a Ford touring car with the top down and a handle like a baby buggy. Several squalling babes fraternity brothers) rode in the carriage and I with two others rode giant kiddie cars following their mother. I ended up with blisters. Of course, we had won other prizes including ones for the best decorated house.
Paul and I ate our meals at Mrs. Lynn’s and her other boarders were professors. Throughout the last three years including the time after I moved into the fraternity house I continued to eat there. The reason was we liked the stimulating conversation of the professors. I idolized W. S. Haldeman, the head of the Chemistry Department in which I majored. He came from Pine Grove, Pa., won a scholarship while at Kutztown State Normal School to the University of Pennaylvania where he won a fellowship to Harvard. Following Harvard he had served three years at McMurry College before coming to Monmouth in 1920. He is the only man to win the American Chemical Society Award for the distinction of having the largest percentage of chemistry majors take graduate work leading to PhD. or M.D. Degrees. The percentage exceeded those attained by such prestigious institutions as the Universities of Chicago and Pennsylvania. He even tried to get me to accept a possible appointment to a fellowship at the University of Illinois but the salary was only $800. and I wanted to get married. Other suggestions he made were a teaching assignment at Oklahoma A.& M. College and one in a Virginia college. He stopped to see us at Cressona, Pa. years later on his way home from an award ceremony in New York City.
A second powerful influence was that of another of Mrs. Lynn’s boarders, Economics Professor David Fleming. I still think he was one of the best and took all the business and economics courses I could work into my schedule.
Mrs. Lynn took care of us like a Mother and one year when I had a cold she talked me into going to a chiropractor. The Palmer School of Chiropractic Science was at nearby Davenport, Iowa and well advertised by their strong radio station WOC. The “doctor” practically broke my neck, laid me on a bench and walked on my vertebrae with his knees and wanted me to sign up for twelve treatments. I never went back but I did take his advice to take a cold bath every morning. We did not have a shower at Kilgores so I would fill the tub the night before and plunge into the cold water the first thing in the morning. My cold did get better inside of a week and I continued the cold baths.
A freshman named Breckenridge from Clarion, Iowa joined us at Kilgores for one year. He was a football player. Breck was tired from football in the evenings and couldn’t study. One evening he got into a pillow fight using my pillow and got it soiled. Since I didn’t like that I waited until he had fallen asleep and then squeezed a washcloth full of icy cold water in his face. He woke up like a shot. I ran for the bathroom and slammed the door. Breck came right through the door. I remember Roderic Smith ringing his hands and saying “Don’t kill him!” We had to replace the door.
First Airplane Ride
Monmouth had been selected as the first service stop west of Chicago on the transcontinental air-mail route. The airport was called the mid-western. A student was employed as a watchman. Paul Ramsay and I went out to visit him and see the airplanes. Some men had been repairing one and were ready to try it out. They invited us to take a ride. Paul declined but I put on the helmet and goggles and climbed in the forward seat of the open cockpit. Everything was fine until the pilot decided to give me a thrill and turned several loop-the-loops and flew away upside down. This was my first airplane ride. It was about 1923. The field was on North Main Street beyond the present Meling’s Restaurant.
One of the requirements for graduation in Chemistry was three years of German. Professor Haldeman thought the German scientists were so advanced in science that we should be able to read German articles even before they were translated into English. Therefore in my Sophomore year I was enrolled in Fraulein Barr’s German classes along with others mostly from German-speaking homes. This made it very hard for Re to look good and Fraulein Barr made me look even worse. She would stand at the door and call to me when he would see me with Jean between classes “Besser Spat als nie.” if She thought I was wasting too much time with the girls. She even told me after class I might as well drop the class. She must have been a good judge of character because instead of quitting, as I don’t know why I did not, except that I wanted a major in Chemistry, I worked even harder and ended up with a “B” in a German minor I could even converse with Judy when she took German some thirty years later. Fraulein Barr let me know after my last class that she had once dated my Dad in 1892 and I believe she wanted to help me partly for that reason.
Journalism
I think the third professor to have the greatest impact on me was Professor Luther Robinson of the English and Philosophy Departments. I did not take well to English Poetry or even English Prose but took to Journalism. For awhile I thought of being a newspaperman. Professor Robinson gave me an assignment to write bi-weekly a feature article for the Monmouth Atlas the daily town paper and a bi-weekly book review for the Monmouth Review, another daily town paper. I did them in alternate weeks. They were good enough to be published under my byline and I was quite proud. Jean has some of the yellowed clippings yet. Dr. Robinson assigned the topics.
I remember one feature article to be on a female impersonator who had retired in town after a career on the road. I got the article but was propositioned in the process and now I believe it was then that I had my first experience with a homosexual. I never told Dr. Robinson. No one ever talked about such things in those days.
My book review on “Between The Testaments” I used for my class in Old Testament History under J. Dales Buchanan but it did not satisfy him until I expanded it from the half column used in the Monmouth Review to twenty type-written pages.
Electric cars were common during my college years as they may become in the near future. One garage specialized in servicing them and nearly everyone financially able had an electric for town use.
During all my college career I continued to attend the Ninth Avenue Church which Aunt Ella supported. I taught a Sabbath School Class and one time tried to sing baritone on the male quartet.
I gained considerable work experience. Aunt Ella left town after which I acted as her rental agent and made minor repairs as they were needed to her properties. One time I even put on a new roof. One year I worked at the Dodge Garage. Another year I worked for the Marsh Implement Company readying Massey-Harbison Farm tractors, harvesters etc. for delivery. Gordon Marsh was married to my to my father’s cousin Alys (Gabby) Marsh and Jean and I were frequent guests of.theirs at 419 North Third Street as was Judy when she attended Monmouth 1961-1965. I made a sandbox for their three-year old son, Hugh. Edgar was born while we were there.
When Rev. Dr. L. Dales Buchanan returned to Monmouth College as Bible professor in our junior year he bought a large home on West Broadway. It had a large barn which he did not want so I tore down the barn and used some of the lumber to construct his garage. Dales and Helen had us as guests frequently and their eldest daughter was born our senior year.
Close Calls
I had two near disastrous experiences. The first occurred at a football game in 1924. I was just leaving the fraternity house when Lawrence Stice, son of an Illinois State House Of Representative and a fraternity brother saw me. They came to a screeching stop and offered me a lift to the game. I did not realize they had been drinking. Lawrence had the car filled with coon skin-coated, pennant-waving fellow brothers and coeds. We drove to the country where they produced a jug from a brush pile before proceeding to the game. When we arrived after the start of the game and parked with a flourish, we climbed over the knees of various faculty members to reach our seats in the bleachers. The college had little control over the town students. The next morning I was called to the Dean’s Office and was asked to name the source of the liquor. It was during Prohibition. Yielding to peer pressure, of course, I would not tell and I spent a week expecting to be expelled. How great the reaction of my parents would be.
During the last week of our senior year, we had the use of Rev. Lorimer’s Red Coupe and one day Jean and I were taking her used books to Wertz Bookstore to sell as second-hand books. When we came out of McMichael Hall a beautiful orange-colored Siamese cat was on the shelf back of the seat and would not go so we left it there and drove downtown to the store. When we came out of the store, the cat was gone. We thought nothing of it and figured it would find its way home. However, the owners of the cat filed charges saying that I had stolen the cat and papers were served on me. I thought I was going to jail but Dean Phillips arranged for me to graduate when I placed $25.00 bail (a large bail in those days) in escrow with him. So I escaped having my parents see me not graduate after coming from Pawnee City, Nebraska for commencement. Later Dean Phillips mailed me my $25.00 after the cat returned to its owners. It had probably been courting a girlfriend.
The new gymnasium was completed sufficiently for our senior class dance in 1925 but the other facilities were not ready for use. Some of us men felt that we should have at least one swim in the new pool so after we took the girls to the dorm one Friday night we took our swim. It was cold and dark but exciting. We never thought that the water might be polluted.
One year I helped build a couple of figures representing two lovers, out of snow, on one of the campus stone benches. The snow did not melt for several days. We were proud of our “art”. There is a photograph of it somewhere.
I should tell you that Dad followed what I think was an unusual way of supporting me. When school started he gave me a lump sum for the year which I deposited in the checking account at the Monmouth Trust and Savings Bank. I had to learn to budget my money and I never wrote home for it. That was it. In my junior year I drew savings from my building and loan account in Pittsburgh to pay for Jean’s engagement ring. Roderic Smith helped me select the ring. When I left home in Pawnee City in the next Pall, Dad said “You have more money than I so you can use your money for the last year.” I don’t know how much my first three years cost but I kept a careful record my senior year and it came to about $750.00, a small sum compared with the cost of a college education today.
