A Force for Change , livre ebook

A FORCE for CHANGE
A LOT OF CLASS . Members of the Purdue University Class of 1950 never forgot where they got their start and have continued support of their alma mater through the years. Their crowning achievement, and perhaps the greatest achievement by any Purdue class, was the donation of funds for a major lecture hall equipped with the type of technological wizardry that made this generation so great. For the project, the class raised $1,050,000—the largest single class-gift in the university’s history. This photo shows class members at the April 21, 1990, cornerstone ceremony. In 1995, the class added to the hall when it dedicated a statue it had commissioned that shows how students looked on campus in the late 1940s. In a further effort to show how they thought and felt and to tell the unique experiences of their lives, the class commissioned this book.
A FORCE for CHANGE

the    CLASS of 1950
John Norberg
Purdue University West Lafayette, Indiana
Copyright © 1995 by Purdue Research Foundation, West Lafayette, IN.
First printing in paperback, 2019. All rights reserved. Unless permission is granted, this material may not be copied, reproduced, or coded for reproduction by any electrical, mechanical, or chemical process or combinations thereof, now known or later developed.
Paperback ISBN: 978-1-55753-966-3
Epub ISBN: 978-1-55753-950-2
Epdf ISBN: 978-1-55753-949-6
Grateful acknowledgment is given to the Purdue Debris yearbooks of 1946 through 1950 for use of photographs and illustrations. Articles in this volume are reprinted from the Purdue Exponent; the Journal and Courier, Lafayette, Indiana; United Press International; and the Associated Press with permission.
Printed in the United States of America
Book and jacket design by Anita Noble
Designed and produced by the Office of Publication, Purdue University
This book was brought back into circulation thanks to the generous support of Purdue University’s Sesquicentennial Committee.
Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file at the Library of Congress

P URDUE U NIVERSITY 1949 ( FRONT ENDSHEET ). Bottom center, Purdue Memorial Union; above union, Heavilon Hall (with pointed tower); top right, Ross-Ade Stadium (horseshoe-shaped area); just below stadium, Lambert Field House; below field house, temporary Quonset-hut classrooms and FWA chemistry labs; upper left, Chippewa and Seneca men’s temporary dorms. (Photographer unknown)
P URDUE U NIVERSITY 1995 ( BACK ENDSHEET ). Bottom right, Purdue Memorial Union; above union, present Heavilon Hall; left of union, Stewart Center and Hicks Undergraduate Library; left center between Stanley Coulter and Recitation halls, Class of 1950 Lecture Hall (light roof); top right, Ross-Ade Stadium; right of stadium, Mollenkopf Athletic Center and Mackey Arena (light roofs). (Photo by Vincent Walter)
To the Class of 1950,
to the spirit of a generation that is shining still,
to a devotion that believes all things are possible—
thanks for your memories.
CONTENTS
PREFACE
Introduction
chapter 1
“I wish you could turn back the clock”
Remembering how it was
Reece McGee   Lew Wood   John Hicks Earl Butz   John Foley   Robert Peterson Bob Topping   Tom Wilhite
chapter 2
“The loneliness is disappearing”
Some who added the feminine touch
Elynor Erb Richeson Sarah Margaret Claypool Willoughby Kris Kreisle Harder Sally Papenguth Bell   Mary Zenger Byers
chapter 3
“Times were very tough”
The Great Depression’s lifelong effects
Kenneth Johnson   Gordon Kingma Norman Coats   Mauri Williamson Jim Rardon   Duane Williams   Gene Egler
chapter 4
“We had a ton of guys playing”
On the gridiron and the court
John DeCamp   Bob DeMoss Angelo Carnaghi   William Butterfield
chapter 5
“I told her I’d give her a call”
Boy meets girl
Billy Christensen   Ros Grindy Christensen George Benko   Mary Lou Kull Hopkins Fred Hopkins   Doris Roberts Benko Jack Martin   Fern Honeywell Martin Arthur Hansen   Nancy Hansen   Virginia Warren William H. Warren   Larry and Jane Martin Lane
chapter 6
“I was an aviation bug”
Some were flyboys
Jim Blakesley   William Moffat J. Warren Eastes   Richard Wann
chapter 7
“Everybody was going”
Into the Army, Navy, and Marines
Maurice Wann   William Hufferd Harold Michael   Bob Mitchell   Erwin Michalk Charlie Sanchelli   Bogdon Mareachen Robert Sparks   John F. W. Koch   Jim McCarty Bill Popplewell   Jim French
chapter 8
“Look at all those free people”
The African-American experience
Sally Papenguth Bell   Winifred Parker White Frieda Parker Jefferson   L. Orlando Starks
chapter 9
“It was a fantastic time”
From radar through space
Bill Rose   Warren Opitz Frank Holt   Joseph Eng
chapter 10
“Like riding a roller coaster down”
The night the bleachers collapsed
Bill Creson   John DeCamp Mary Lou Kull Hopkins   Fred Hopkins
chapter 11
“We had a great wrestling team”
Hoosier hysteria goes to the mat
Arnold Plaza   Joe Patacsil   Waldemar VanCott
chapter 12
“I never did go home”
Students from faraway places
Tsung Wei Sze   Pedro Castillo
chapter 13
“Now it’s your turn”
From college to Korea
Herbert Spoelstra   Bill Creson   Saul Meyer Bob Stauber   Thomas J. Hahn   Lew Wood Virgil Grissom: As told by Norman Grissom and Bill Head Bill Keefe   Richard Freeman
chapter 14
“They could do anything they wanted to”
College, careers, children, and careers
Eleanor Scheidler McNamara Katie Dittrich McMillin   Patricia Bagley Ross Barbara Sutton Thoennes Mary Titus Houston   Marilyn Garrett Zack
chapter 15
“Back home again in Indiana”
Memories of more Purdue athletes
William Darley   Lou Karras Dan Wawrzyniak   Abe Gibron
APPENDIX
Purdue University, West Lafayette Campus 1949 Purdue University, West Lafayette Campus 1995
INDEX
PREFACE
Did you ever think of our lives and history as a jigsaw puzzle?
Looked at individually, our lives are like pieces of a puzzle, scattered in confusion on a table. Each piece, while interesting in size and shape and color, has little meaning by itself. But something fascinating happens when you take an individual piece and look at it in relation to the others. The pieces begin to fit together. They form small patterns, then images. After awhile, many images come together before you. When you finally fit all the images together, you get a clear picture of the significance of the hundreds of individual pieces.
This book is a jigsaw puzzle. Almost a hundred lives are featured here. Each one taken alone is interesting. But considered individually, each life gives you no clear image. Only when all the lives are read and examined together does a true picture of history emerge.
These are the stories of the Purdue University Class of 1950. They could be stories from any American college campus that year.
These are the stories of people who grew up during the Great Depression. These are the stories of people who fought in World War II and the Korean War. These are the stories of those who stayed home and did what they could, while their sons and brothers and lovers were far away involved in the fighting. These are the stories of people who went to college during an idyllic time and who graduated into a world of promise and heartbreak.
These are stories that will never happen again. The world and its people have changed too much. Our culture is too different for these life events ever to be repeated.
These are important stories. The only way we can understand ourselves and where we are today is to look at where we have been. The only way we can see our own picture clearly is by putting together the jigsaw pieces and completing the puzzles that come before us.
The stories told here are in the words of the people who lived them. This is an oral history. It is not intended to be scholarly. It is intended to be like a fireside chat—a talk between people in a living room—such as President Franklin Delano Roosevelt delivered on radio when the Class of 1950 was young.
So imagine yourself at the end of a day, relaxing before the soft, dim embers of a warm fireplace with a person from the World War II generation, a member of the Purdue University Class of 1950. What was it like to grow up in a home without water and electricity? How did you feel when you went off to war? What was your music like? Where did you fall in love? How did you become the person that you are today?
Put together the jigsaw puzzle.

Purdue taking in record new group
The process of taking in a new class of freshmen at Purdue University, preliminary to the formal opening next week of the fall and winter semesters, continued Thursday. The campus is overrun by a record invasion of 2,863 freshmen, the largest group of first-year students ever to register at the university. The class represents less than one-third of the 10,000 to 12,000 students expected to register.
A four-day orientation program for freshmen began Wednesday…. A welcome reception for wives of students was held Thursday morning in the Union building, sponsored by the Undergraduate Dames Club….
For Thursday evening, a smoker for all men students was scheduled in the Union building with the Student Union Board as host, also a style show at the same time for women students, also in the Union building.
J OURNAL AND C OURIER , L AFAYETTE , I NDIANA , S EPTEMBER 12, 1946
Introduction
They came from all over the country that September of 1946—from cities and farms, from seacoasts and mountains, from the northern steel mills and the southern cotton fields. They came from midwestern towns where people knew their names.
They came, too, from the hot far-reaches of the Pacific, from islands and beaches where their friends had bled and died. They came from the rolling fields and deep forests and blown-out cities of Europe, from sights and sounds that still flashed and rang in the dark corners of their minds. They came from foreign lands, from Ch