________________________________________________________________________Richard S. Kem
Engineer Memoirs
Major General R.S. Kem
Early Years and West Point
Q:
I'd like to start at the beginning--when you were born, where, and something about your
parents.
A:
Well, I was born 9 August 1934 in Richmond, Indiana. My parents, Charles and Janice Kem,
had grown up in the vicinity of Richmond, Indiana, which is in Wayne County. They lived in
Williamsburg, Indiana, which is five, six miles north of Richmond. My father had gone to
Indiana University Dental School; my mother to Earlham College, which is in Richmond.
When he began his dental practice, it was just across the Ohio line in New Paris, Ohio; and
so they were living in New Paris at the time, but that community used the Richmond
hospitals, which is why I was born in Richmond.
So, that was 1934, and we lived there--I don't know how long, two or three years, and then
my parents moved to Richmond and lived at 25 Southwest Fourth Street, and Dad practiced
dentistry in Richmond. He had practiced before in New Paris and a little bit in Richmond.
Then he moved all of it to Richmond. In about 1941 we built a home, or we were building it
in '41, and we moved in '42 into a home on the outskirts of Richmond, 1000 Henley Road,
and I really spent the rest of my boyhood growing up in that home. It was just outside the city
limits, so we went to county schools. I went to Riley School and Riley Junior High School.
Q:
Is that James Whitcomb Riley?
A:
I think so.
Q:
I know he's a Hoosier, but I wasn't sure where he was from.
A:
I'm sure it is. He may be from Greencastle. I'm not sure.
But then, come the tenth grade, Riley School students went on to Richmond Senior High
School. I then spent my three years in Richmond Senior High School, graduating in 1952.
Q:
How did you get interested in going to West Point?
A:
Well, I didn't really know a lot about West Point, knew very little. One day my father
suggested that perhaps I should consider it, about the time I was beginning to look toward
college, two years away. I guess he suggested it because I really wasn't yet into that mode of
looking on to colleges, but for West Point you need to do that earlier than you do for other
colleges. He indicated that I had to go through the congressional process, so I wrote my
congressman, Ralph Harvey.
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