Engineer Memoirs
and food. The only other things needed were books and tuition money. These basically
were the reasons why I went to the University of Illinois. This arrangement lasted for
two years until my brother graduated. It worked out very well.
As a matter of interest, the total amount of financial help my parents were able to give
me was somewhere between 0 and 0 in the four years, most of which was in the
first year.
Q.
Do you remember what the tuition was back then?
A
Tuition was 0 a year for out-of-state students.
Q ..
So you had to do something else to get that money?
A
Well, throughout my four years, I worked during the summers. After my older brother
graduated, I moved to a rooming house. I waited tables in a sorority for my meals.
During my senior year, I had a job under the New Deal program called the National
Youth Administration [NYA], and I worked in the materials lab at the university for
one of the professors. The actual work was in stress corrosion of steels. This was also
a part of the work I did for an undergraduate thesis. Then I borrowed some money
from the university program. So summer work, work during school, and minimum
borrowing with a small amount of help from my parents provided the opportunity for
a college education.
Q.
And so your major emphasis from the beginning was on mechanical engineering?
Engineering with mechanical as the basic program.
A
The Choice of a Military Career, 1938
Q ..
Now, it's
to me that very shortly after you graduated from the University
of Illinois you began a military career as a result of a professional examination. I was
wondering then how this came about.
A
I was in the ROTC program at the University of Illinois for four years.
Q ..
You had Corps of Engineers unit in the ROTC?
A
In the ROTC at the University of Illinois, there were infantry, field artillery, coast
artillery, engineers, signal, and cavalry.
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