AR Life in Oberlin

Life in Oberlin

Upon my arrival in Oberlin in the summer of 1931, Dr. Lynd and Mrs. Clara Jones received me with open arms. Their home was a brown, two-story house with a shingled exterior. It was situated at the edge of town, then the last house at the west end of College Street. But Oberlin was a small town of only about 5,000 inhabitants, so that their house was still not at all far from the Oberlin College campus. It sat upon a large lot that also accommodated a barn and Mrs. Jones' flower garden as well as fields beyond the old barn.

I was given a comfortable, furnished north-facing room on the upper floor of the house, with an adjoining screened room for sleeping quarters facing both north and east. A small two-burner range provided me with the means to prepare my meals and the adjoining bathroom was available for my exclusive use.

The Oberlin College campus and the small business section of this town, which had grown up around the college, were within easy walking distance up College Street. As used here, “the campus” was a large rectangular lawn-covered block of land with many old elm trees, including the ancient “historic elm” at the corner near the business section of the town. The only construction on “the campus” was the memorial Arch, a commemorative monument honoring Oberline martyrs who had lost their lives in the Boxer rebellion in China in 1900. Other college buildings were arranged around the periphery of the campus, and included many venerable structures like Peter’s Hall, the Warner Conservatory, Finney Chapel and the Carnegie Library. First Church Congregational was located across the street from the north-east corner of the campus, and Wright Laboratory, the home of the zoology department, was the former Second Church, which had been remodeled for instructional use.

Climatically, Oberlin, carved out of the deciduous forests of eastern North America, was entirely different from that of localities in which I had resided in California. In its four season annual cycle of winter, spring, summer and autumn, its climate was more like that of the Ukraine which I had come to know during childhood. But the summer humidity was far greater than I had ever experienced whether in the Ukraine or in California. At times, it seemed quite oppressive and debilitating. But the remnants of forest that could still be reached within easy walking distance, were a delight to explore, both for the variety of new trees and shrubs and wildflowers, but also for the birds, moths and butterflies.

In many ways, Dr. and Mrs. Jones were like parents to me, not only providing me with a home, but also serving as role models and friends. Dr. Lynds Jones was a widely known ornithologist and an early pioneer in the development of the discipline of ecology. So it was a special privilege to be invited to come along when the Joneses took their car out into the country, including such special places as the Vermillion River or the shores of Lake Erie, some twenty miles to the north.

The summer soon came to its end and the opening of college marked the end of leisure and relaxation. The registrar was not pleased with my having been credited with two high school units in German, which I had earned by examinations. So, I was required to get an appointment with one of the professors of German to get his verdict on the propriety of this matter. And when later I went back to report to the registrar’s office, after a conversation in German with Professor Domonkos and reported that he had said, “You can have three”, the reply was,
“Well, you can’t have that, I’ll tell you that right now!”

Professor Robert A. Buddington was the chairman of the Zoology Department as the director of my work as acting Curator of the Museum of Zoology and Anthropology. The other faculty of the department included Dr. Hope Hibbard, Dr. Robert S. McEwan and Dr. C.G. Rogers. I was given an office or workroom on the second floor of Wright Laboratory, and the zoological specimen display cases of the museum were arranged around the periphery of the large lecture room that had once been the sanctuary of the former Second Church. The anthropological specimens were displayed on the walls of a lecture room that had been fashioned out of a portion of the earlier balcony of the old church. My workshop on the second floor was next to the anthropological display room at the corner of the building. I was given a free hand as to deciding what needed to be done in caring for the museum.

With the time remaining free on my schedule, I enrolled in a couple of courses in zoology, and in Latin, a language requirement of the college that I was not permitted to avoid, even though I grew up with German and Russian, had now learned English, and had also had one year of instruction, first in Spanish and then in French.

Life settled down to the school year routine. I now had a salary and was thus able to begin repaying the Dycks in Pasadena for the room and board with which they had provided me for one and one-half years.

During my first year inOberlin, Lucille was a sophomore at Chaffey Junior College in Ontario, California. Although at our parting in Upland during the summer, she had very definitely said “goodbye” to me, I continued to write to her, telling her about the desirable features of Oberlin and of my continuing feelings toward her. She responded by replying to my letters and her interest in transferring to Oberlin College grew. Her formal application was accepted, delighting us both.  And so, in the summer of 1932, Lucille undertook what was then by far the longest journey of her life. She left Ontario, California for Oberlin. At the train station I was, of course, overjoyed to meet her and for a few days, Dr. and Mrs. Jones also provided her with a room in their large house.

During the 1932-33 school year, Oberlin College celebrated the first one hundred years of its existence. But it was during my first year, 1931-32 in Oberlin, that the junior class, which be tradition published the college annual, the HI-O-HI, had created an outstanding commemorative volume that eloquently expressed the feeling of antiquity in its special content, large size in its heavy, embossed leather-like covers. This I was able to share with Lucille to introduce her to Oberlin.

By the time Lucille moved to Oberlin, we had already decided to get married. Dr. and Mrs. Jones were very supportive of this idea, as was Dr. de Laubenfels in Pasadena, as well as my sister and brother-in-law, the Dycks. Dr. and Mrs. Jones frequently invited us on various outings in the country, roaming even as far as marshes on the shores of Lake Erie near the city of Sandusky.

When school started in the fall, Lucille had already chosen sociology as the subject of her major. She was also fortunate to find a home and to earn her room and breakfast with a dentist, Dr. Barnard and his wife, who had an aging mother requiring companionship and care.

As our junior year progressed, it seemed logical and sensible for Lucille and me to marry while still undergraduates at the college. I had a job sufficient to pay my living expenses and even to retire my earlier indebtedness. Lucille’s legal guardian, her mother’s brother Louis Harms, heartily approved of our marriage. And Dr. and Mrs. Lynds Jones were most agreeable to have us share my living quarters in their home. But in the college catalog it was stated in very clear print that “Students who engage in clandestine marriage will be automatically severed from the College, and can only be reinstated by vote of the Board of Deans”.  I had a part-time job with the college, the loss of which would deprive me of my financial independence and, lacking that, our marriage would be impossible. And I would surely lose my job and this financial independence if I were to be “severed from the College”.

So it occurred to us, and in this we were encouraged by Dr. and Mrs. Jones, to ask the Board of Deans in advance whether they would indeed reinstate us. Several of the deans, whom we approached about this matter during the spring semester of 1932, felt that under our circumstances that would be a decidedly sensible thing to do. They were most supportive of the idea. The only negative holdout among the deans was Miss Anna M. Klingenhagen, the dean of women in the College of Arts and Science. It was her conviction, as she told us, that we would be unable to study if we were to get married. Shortly before finals during that spring semester, the Board of Deans convened for several meetings discussing our plans. Apparently, the majority could not win over the objecting Dean of Women, and since the board was determined to make their decision unanimous, our petition was denied. And so Lucille and I had to postpone our plans for one year.

Our senior year art oberlin, or at least the final semester, passed uneventfully. For me it was an easy year. Although many hours had to be spent on my part-time job, I had taken enough coursework during the previous two years to allow me to complete my graduation requirements with a light course program and to select more courses that I especially enjoyed. During the spring term, I registered in General Botany, a subject that in spite of my zoology major, I had not yet touched. That course, and an enjoyable course in tree identification or Dendrology, in which Lucille joined me, were taught by Professor George Jones. Lucille was now making her home with a kind elderly lady, Mrs. Porter. We were able to see each other quite often.

One of the totally unexpected surprises of that last semester at Oberlin was my election to Phi Beta Kappa, the venerable and prestigious scholastic honorary society dating back to December 1776.

With a major in zoology, I was headed for a professional career that clearly required advanced study beyond the college degree. So I, and other graduating seniors, as well as John Mohr, who had transferred to Oberlin to earn his masters degree, were applying to various universities for admission to graduate studies. During a conference with Dr. Buddington, he informed me that there was an opportunity to apply at Brown University, that the stipend for a part-time teaching assistant would include fees and a $600 per year salary, “About what you have been getting here”. At that point, I said that this would be better than my present compensation, since here at Oberlin I had paid all the course fees out of my salary earnings. At that point, Dr. Buddington really appeared stunned. Not only did he say that through the years my compensation was to have included all the course fees. He immediately communicated with the financial office of the college to indicate that a misunderstanding had occurred and that a mistake had been made. He also requested that I be reimbursed for the $450 or so that I had paid the college in error during the past 2-½ years. Unfortunately, too much time had elapsed and the restitution on earlier transactions was declared impossible. I was, however, refunded the fees I had paid upon registration for the spring term, when I was carrying only seven units of class work.

One of the institutions to which I had applied was the University of California at Berkeley. This school was then already a very prestigious university, and Lucille and I really wanted to get back to California. But I was not the only Oberlin graduate applying to Berkely and John Mohr was certainly one of the others. As the spring semester was approaching its end, we graduating seniors seeking admission to graduate school were becoming increasingly anxious and uneasy. So, during a Saturday morning at Wright laboratory, the conversation turned to this matter, and John Mohr announced that he had been accepted for a teaching assistantship and to the Ph.D. program at the University of California. We certainly congratulated him and rejoiced with him, but as I walked home that noon, I was a bit depressed, believing that the prize at Berkeley had gone to someone else. The joy was therefore great when, upon opening my mail, I discovered that I had also been accepted by the Zoology Department at U.C. Berkeley. My job was not a standard teaching assistantship, but requiring two-thirds of my working time was designated as “custodian” of the Zoology Department. It involved culturing microorganisms, collecting laboratory and research materials, preserving and injecting anatomical specimens and caring for the small department museum. Since my employment was to consume two-thirds of my working time, my classroom registration was to be limited to only six credit hours per semester. The job was to begin on the first of July, and required me to be in possession of a car.

Graduation at Oberlin College in 1934 was scheduled for the morning of June 19 in Finney Chapel. Lucille and I planned to get married as soon as possible after we had the baccalaureate degree in our hands. Prior to this day, I had already bought a 1929 model A Ford, both for our drive to California, and as a requirement for my work at Berkeley. Lucille and I drove to Elyria to get a marriage license and to buy a ring. Mrs. Clara Jones volunteered to serve a wedding breakfast for us. My brother Dick (Dietrich) at that time was employed by the Sun Rubber Company, lived in Akron, Ohio, and accepted our invitation to the wedding. And Dr. Richards, the minister of the First Church (Congregational) agreed to marry us at the parsonage, his home.

Clearly, the morning of June 19th was full of activities. With other graduates, we donned our black robes on the campus near the entrance to Finney Chapel, and to the tolling of bells, marched in for the graduation ceremony including, it seems, an address by Professor Kemper Fullerton “Dare to Live Dangerously”.

Immediately after the ceremony and the conferring of our degrees, Lucile and I made our way to the parsonage, together with Mrs. Clara Jones and my brother Dick. Mrs. Richards presented Lucile with a beautiful bouquet of lovely blue and white campanulas, and Dr. Richards performed the wedding ceremony. Mrs. Jones, my brother Dick, Lucile and I then returned to the Jones’ home. In addition to Dr. Lynds and Clara Jones, Dr. George Jones and Mary Jones and their three children joined in the celebration at the wedding breakfast so graciously served by Clara Jones. Our Ford car was already loaded and packed. We said our thank-yous and goodbyes, and away we started on our long honeymoon, a trip by car, via Yellowstone, to California. Before that day was over, we had already left the state of Ohio and reached a little motel to spend the night in Indiana.

The second day of travel brought us to the Mississippi River. Before crossing that mighty stream, we accepted an invitation at a bed and breakfast accommodation in a private home in Illinois.

On June 21, the third day, we crossed the Mississippi on a very long bridge and continued west into Iowa. As our journey continued we traversed South Dakota, crossed the Missouri River, and reached the Badlands as well as the Black Hills on the Wyoming border. The highlight of our honeymoon itinerary was Yellowstone National Park where we reveled in the sight of Old Faithful, the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone River, Yellowstone Falls and Tower Falls, Mammoth Hot Springs with its fantastic limestone terraces, and the many wonders of the geyser basin. The geysers as well as the numerous bears, deer, ospreys and other wildlife made our stay in the wonderful park an everlasting memory.

From Yellowstone, we made our way south to the Great Salt Lake and Salt Lake City, seeing the Mormon Temple and visiting the tabernacle. After Salt Lake City, our route lay to the west, past the lake and across the great salt desert that, on a hot summer day, was white as snow. We made good time across the lonely straight stretches of road across Nevada, reaching the California border after nightfall, where we celebrated our return to our home state under a bright full moon. The next day, we crossed the Sierra Nevada mountains on Bonner Pass. Then we drove down the west slope into and across the SSacramento Valley. We succeeded in reaching Berkeley before the end of June, so that I was able to report for work at the University of California on Monday, July 2, 1934.