Jacob
Douma
After graduation in May 1935, I took a long train ride through the south. When I got to
the Mississippi River in New Orleans, the river was in flood. The train was broken
into four-car sections. Each section was towed on a trestle to put the four cars on a barge,
and the barge carried the cars across the flooding Mississippi River to land at New
Orleans.
I didn't know what the heck I was getting into because one place the water was one foot
over the rail where we had to go to get to the barge. Well, we made it on the barge all
right, and New Orleans was right straight across the river, but this barge went up river
and kept going up river. I said, "Where are we going? This barge doesn't go to
Mississippi, Vicksburg, does it Vicksburg is about 200 miles upstream. The
said, "No, we've got to do this because the current's so fast, when we start to cross the
river, the current will carry us back where we started from, right at New Orleans. And
sure enough, that happened.
Then I took the train up to Vicksburg, and I remember Joe Johnson met me there. He had
graduated from the University of California a year before I did. He took me to a boarding
house where he was staying. I arranged to stay in that boarding house. The next day I
got a ride with Joe to the Waterways Experiment Station, located about ten miles south of
Vicksburg. He took me into the director's office. The director then was First Lieutenant
Falkner. Now the director is colonel, four military grades higher. I introduced myself,
and said I received his letter about a job for me here in Vicksburg.
He said, "Well, yes, we have some jobs. He said, "What job did I offer you? How
much did I offer you?" I said, "0.00 a month." He said, "Where did you come
from?" I said, "California. He said, "God damn. Anybody who comes to this God-
forsaken place deserves a raise. I'm going to raise you to 0.00 right now. He was
a native Californian. I found out later that the Federal Government had raised the salary
for the job I was offered, with the grade of Gauge Reader Pro-tern, to 0.00 a month
since the date of his letter to me.
So when you left the University of California to go to WES in 1935 you were going to do
a type of research work with which you already were familiar?
A:
Yes, that's right.
Your decision was more a factor of how much money they were going to pay you than
what you were going to do?
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