Delmer Goode Oral History Interview, June 12, 1979

JL:... a shucking. All right. Go ahead.

DG: Yes, a binder would cut the grain and gather it in hunches and automatically bind them with what is called binding its sisal, heavier than this, good and strong and tie a knot in it so here would be a bundle. And those bundles would be dropped off just as fast as...So when you shuck you go along and pick up the bundles and gather them together and make a kind of a teepee of the bundles. And then build around it up to a certain size so it will be kind of a, it's called a "shuck", a teepee shaped pile with the good grain open at the 00:01:00top and and able to resist rain. It could rain and not do any great harm because the husks around the grain would protect the grain and so on. It would stay in a "shuck" unless it was stacked. Sometimes they used to stack the grain, but usually they would, well, they would do that in order to save time but not always. Sometimes they would just drive around and pick up the "shucks" with a "hay rack". Do you know what a "hay rack" is?

JL: No.

DG: It's a big flat. Like a truck. Flat topped thing on which they could stack these bundles after taking the "shucks" apart, you see, and taking the 00:02:00bundles into a thrasher and the thrasher then would chop them up and thrash out the grain and put the grain this way and the straw this way. Well, now it's done by combines. I've never had any experience with a combine. It's all different, but in those days the "shucking" was done by men and you had to learn to build a "shuck". It wasn't so hard to learn but you had to be careful to build a good "shuck" because if a real rain with wind would come up if the "shuck" wasn't solidly built together it would be blown down and the grain would get on the ground and spoil.

JL: Hmmm.

DG: Part of the art of farming. It's called farming...

JL: Mr. Goode where we left off last time was you were just beginning to start at the University of Minnesota in 1911 and I understand that you attended for four years. Can you tell me what you studied and what your goal was when you went there?

DG: Did I mention that I waited on table that year?

JL: No.

DG: I got a chance, I think that's worth mentioning, I got a chance during the summer and took it because money wasn't plentiful To earn my meals, by waiting on table. That is my breakfast and my evening meal. I had to look after my own lunch. It was at a boarding house run by a widow and it was for faculty people. Some of those faculty people were teachers in the Minneapolis 00:04:00schools, but many of them were professors at the University of Minnesota and one professor, who later was my major professor, brought his wife to dinner each evening. They were expecting a child and he was relieving her responsibilities. But, the meals were served by the lady of the house had all the food around her and the pile of plates that she would serve the plates for each person from and then I would carry the plate to the person for whom the plate was intended and during all this I overheard, of course, the conversation. The table conversation. They had a rule they mustn't talk shop so they were educated people talking on topics of social and intellectual interest and 00:05:00academic interest and it was quite an education to me to get these kinds of intimate sidelights of faculty people including public school teachers, who were interesting too. Well, that was the way I earned my meals in my sophomore year at Minnesota.

JL: How did these discussions have an effect on your life?

DG: Well, it deepened my intention to go on and work for a bachelor's degree, of course, because I was associated with people who had degrees. Many of them Ph.D. degrees. There was a chemistry professor there. An English rhetoric professor and various others. Different ages.

JL: Your intention was still to get a degree to teach? You still wanted to continue teaching?

DG: Well, I wasn't necessarily planning to teach. I was thinking to get an education and when I finished which was some years later and got my degree, I remember writing in a letter, "here I am I've got my bachelor's degree. What now?" I didn't have any real program at all. I didn't have any plans to do graduate study. I didn't have any plan to marry. I wasn't involved with anyone for marriage at all but I got a chance, I'd been teaching, I'd been a principal, and I got a chance to take a principal ship of a school at the end of 00:07:00this year. My sophomore year. I got a chance to no, I'm jumping now, I'd better keep to that and not talk about my bachelor's degree now. But that was the way I was even when I got my bachelor's degree I had no I wasn't absolutely committed to teaching. Getting that way though and I became that way but after this sophomore year that's all I had money for. But I went. I got a principal ship in northern Minnesota at a place called Pine River. It was a school larger than the one in North Dakota that I had been in before my sophomore year and it turned out to be a very challenging experience. I started there as principal of the school but it grew from six teachers, besides myself, 00:08:00to 14 teachers, besides myself. That is, the faculty doubled because during the time I was there, three years, and during those three years the school advanced to becoming an accredited high school which meant that students who graduated from that school and had a diploma from it could enter the University of Minnesota and other colleges without examination. I told you the other day how everything I did I had to pass a state examination in anything to get credit because I was in a non-accredited school. But an accredited I high school had the right to give diplomas which admitted to University of Minnesota 00:09:00and to other colleges.

JL: Wasn't it unusual for a sophomore in college to get a...

DG: To get a principalship?

JL: . . .principalship?

DG: Well, I was 20 when I went to Omimi and I was there two years and so I was 22 when I entered as a sophomore and I was 23 when I got this job up there this one I'm talking about where we got to be an accredited high school. So, yes, I was rather young.

JL: You must have been responsible for getting this accreditation?

DG: Yes, the man who was really the school board up in northern Minnesota there, (the district was a very large district) and there were three members on the school board and one of them was a resident in our town of Pine River, the 00:10:00others lived in other towns where there were other schools. This man had been recommended by the previous principal who had been a classmate of mine at Moorhead. But, this man told me after I had been there in Omimi a couple of years, I guess, he sort of confessed to me that when he met me he didn't think I could handle the job. See, I was 23 years old and I didn't look old for my age. I was in a sense mature for my age, but, I; didn't look (Chuckle) very mature and he doubted if I could handle it. But as it turned out I did. I was there for three years and, of course, in the three years I became three years older. So, when I left, now during the three years that I was there apart from the fact that the school grew we added teachers and we had a new building completed and the old building we first vacated but before the year was out we were using a good part of the old building. We established new departments in the high school, for instance. A 00:11:00manual training department in the old building and so on. So we were using two buildings and as I said, at the end we had 14 teachers besides me whereas we had six besides me when I went there.

JL: How did you feel about teaching for the rest of your life at that time?

DG: Well, I think I can say this this comes right now in part of my experience at Omimi. One of the departments that we introduced we got an agriculture teacher. We had had a part time agriculture teacher when I went there. This was a rural community; practically all of the students were living on 00:12:00farms. It was a consolidated school and we didn't have buses in those days. It was horse and buggy days but we had five different horse and buggy kinds of buses that brought students to school, and so we introduced agriculture to help them be better farmers if they, many of them, would be farmers. And at least part time and or go into it. The first man we had was a graduate of an agricultural high school connected with the University of Minnesota but he didn't have a degree. Well, when we were in the direction of becoming an accredited high school we had to have our high school teachers all, at least, 00:13:00with bachelor's degrees. So, we needed to get an agriculture teacher with a degree. And, as a step toward that the state inspector of Minnesota had a program of special grants for schools if you would, for instance, introduce in your high school a department of agriculture and get an accredited competent teacher for it you would get state aid for that agriculture department. Practically support the department out of state money. Minnesota was, in those years, rather rich because it had iron mines, you know, and money from the iron mines was going to education. And, they had this program of state aid. Well, in order to qualify we had to have a man with a bachelor's degree and so 00:14:00on. I was advised, as a step towards that, to take some work in agriculture during the summer. I was doing my junior year work during summers during these three years that I was at Pine River. And, I went to summer school every summer.

Well, one summer in second summer, in preparation for the introduction of a regular agriculture department, I was advised and did to take work in agriculture at The University of Minnesota over in the College of Agriculture and teach some agriculture, myself. The fact that I had been born and raised on a farm undoubtedly was a factor in that but I took work, two different years 00:15:00in fact, in the College of Agriculture and it turned out that I could use that as a technical minor towards my bachelor's degree in liberal arts. So, I didn't lose any time on that, but I taught agriculture one year. The idea was that I could do it as well as this younger and more poorly prepared man who wasn't a college graduate. He had taken this agricultural high school work. So, I did that.

JL: What were some of your favorite courses at the University of Minnesota?

DG: Well, agriculture was not a favorite course, although I was coming to that. 00:16:00This matter of decision. I'll answer that other question in a moment. But, during the courses I took in this agriculture minor, as it turned out to be, were some general agriculture, a course in dairy husbandry, a course in farm management and farm-well, it would be called agronomy now. I forget just what it was called. I took three courses. Regular college level courses. And the one in farm management led to a job offer. After I had finished this work it must have been about the time that I was going back to get my own degree because it must have been after we had our agriculture teacher at Pine River. But, the professor, I think he was head of the department, in the College of 00:17:00Agriculture in Farm Management wrote me. He said the United States Department of The Office of Education or the United States Department of Agriculture one of or some national office was with Federal money was establishing extension work in various agriculture fields and he asked me if I'd be interested in a position. My salary at Pine River, at that time, was $1,300.00 and he said the salary for this job would be $1,800.00. So here was a $ 500.00 differential. And he said, the reason I offer you this and I'm 00:18:00sure I could have got it because it was new and they didn't have men really fit to take the jobs. They were picking around the best ones they had. He said, the reason he thought of me was he said, "I often have students who are good in the theory of farm management and or they may be good in the drawing of plans and one thing another." We had to draw plans of farmsteads and crop rotation things and all and that drawing part, he said, I was good. I was good in both and that's why he thought of me because someone else would be good in one and deficient in the other and so on. Well, I had that decision to make 00:19:00but I wrote back to him. I said, "I believe I'm committed to education, to public school education, and I don't believe I want to leave it." So, in a sense, I had made a career choice.

JL: What year was this?

DG: This was in 1916. No, '15. 1915. So, I stuck to it. I went back. Now, I did three summer terms at Minnesota, two of them out on the farm campus and one on the main campus. During this time one of the courses I took was English composition. I know, I took that in the summer and I took these agricultural courses and I took some others. I'm not sure, without reviewing. I won't take time to just guess what they were, but I remember I took a course in English composition.

JL: What for?

DG: And probably a literature course. I think I took a literature course.

JL: Briefly in those years who or what influenced you, to finally in 1915 decide that you wanted a career in education?

DG: Because I liked it. I was teaching. And I liked it. I liked particularly high schoolers. But, when I became a superintendent I had to supervise the grade school teachers. I would go into their rooms and observe their teaching and make suggestions for them and when we became an accredited high school increasingly I did that. I would, oh, I'd set rules for them to make plans. Weekly plans for what they were going to teach and report to me. So that they were on the job and I knew they were on the job. They felt 00:21:00responsible to me. Well, I enjoyed that and contact with their work and I was interested in the class work that I visited but my really stirring experience was teaching in the high school and I was teaching English.

JL: What was your rapport with the students?

DG: My what?

JL: Rapport?

DG: Oh, I was quite good. For instance, the first fall that I was at Pine River a boy of high school age came in. Called on me and he was very irate. He wasn't in school and I found out later that he had had a real fight almost, with my predecessor. They had some kind of a difference and he was very soured on the school. He didn't have any intention of going back to school. 00:22:00But he said, "But here right near the school I have a patch of onions and I'm depending on that onion crop for my spending money this fall to buy my winter clothes." That sort of thing, and the kids they were getting in there and damaging his onion patch and we had a long talk and it ended up, of course, I was able very easily to stop the kids from running in there. They were just being thoughtless. But, he decided to come to school and the usual thing was in schools that I was in this had been true up in North Dakota too. The boys came back to school or stayed in school because of their interest or loyalties to me. I was attractive in a sense. Boys who would tend to think they had 00:23:00outgrown school or something of this sort. I helped to get things. We, at Pine River, we organized some athletics and so on. So they had something to come for.

JL: What made you so attractive?

DG: I was interested and then, I guess, I'm a kind of a contagious personality. I liked the subjects I was teaching. I LIKED them. Teaching English, for example, and I liked to write, I taught composition courses and I made them work. I made them write two themes a week. Things like that. But, I made them like to write because it was interesting to me and they'd read each other's themes and so on and become interested in writing. And books that we read we used to discuss and they found out that I was interested and so forth.

JL: What made you different from other professors that were also interested but not so popular?

DG: Oh, I don't know. Who does. You don't know. I wouldn't want to necessarily represent myself as popular but I'm sure I was popular because I still hear from pupils that I had at Pine River. I had a letter just the other day and I saw a letter from a girl that I don't think was ever in my class. But I was the head of the school and she always writes at Christmas time. So, always I've had good rapport. I think that's a more modest way to say that. That I always had good rapport with students. I don't ever remember having any real 00:25:00trouble with students.

JL: This includes women girls also?

DG: Oh, yes. Girls too. I didn't understand girls as well as boys. But, I think I was liked as well by girls. I used to hear from girls. Most of them have died now. But, there's this one girls, that I speak of, Edith Boran is her name now, and Lloyd McBride that I heard from the other day. He's well on in is seventies. He was about, oh, eight or nine years younger than I. That's all. I was young too, you see. That may have been one reason they liked me but then most of the teachers that they were used to there were young teachers.

JL: What had you heard about educational opportunities in the west when you were going to...

DG: I hadn't even thought of it. I knew that E.T. Reed who had come from Moorhead out here had taken a position out here. But, I just had the vaguest idea of what kind of a position it was. And, I heard about some people who have got to Puget Sound in the Seattle and Tacoma area. I heard about Washington. Washington was just becoming to be a new state. But, I'd never thought of going out west until after I got back from World War I.

JL: How did World War I affect your life?

DG: Well, it took me out of my next job, of course, we're skipping the fact that I graduated from the university. We're skipping some other things too. I think we should join up. To finish my junior year I had had three summer terms but that wasn't enough to give me senior standing and I had to get in. 00:27:00Five summer terms could have done it and the way I did it was to go to the University of Chicago where I could take a full quarter of summer work. The result was, and I did that, that I was able to enter after my three years at Pine River I was able in the fall of 1915 to enter or re-enter the University of Minnesota as a senior. I had enough credits to be a senior. I was at Chicago the whole summer. At Chicago you can see how my interest were shaping. The work I took there was a full quarter in the area of Elizabethan drama. That's English. And then I took a course in history of sociology which was really a graduate course. I had to kind of fight my way in it, but 00:28:00the one teaching that course was Albien W. Small who was one of the authors of a text book in sociology that I had studied at Moorhead and I wanted a course with Albien W. Small. So, I, got in that and then I took a course in English drama oh no English novel and then two courses, one the first half of the term, in, oh, oh, English drama, English novel and then oh, this was a whole term. The first half of the summer I studied a course in short story. Short story and the second half special articles. The writing of special articles.

JL: Sounds like you like literature and English?

DG: Oh, yes. Yes. You had to kind of fight your way to get into these courses. The man who taught the course was himself an author and he required that you already have written some short stories or special articles. Well, or at least have material. Well, I told him about my three years experience in a high school and I made my case and got in. But, most of them in the course were actually writing short stories or special articles and submitting 00:30:00them for publication. They were writing them for publication and some of them had already published articles. So, it was a pretty rigorous course. But very stimulating and very interesting and I got. I did quite well in that. I won't brag to you about my grades. But, I did, I got a good slate of grades at that summer at Chicago. Well, that was shaping up so that I had decided, by that time, that I was going to change my major from economics to rhetoric. At Minnesota the English Department did not include written English. Written English and public speaking. Oral English were in a separate department called the Department of Rhetoric and Public Speaking and I was enjoying writing 00:31:00more than I was literature although I enjoyed it too. And, of course, I enjoyed writing in the literature courses. So, I decided that I would major in rhetoric and that's what I majored in. Well, I...

DG: O.K.?

JL: Yes.

DG: The high school at Omimi that I took was just part of a high school when I took it and I developed it into a full-accredited high school. But, it was all new and I felt that I would like to be superintendent of a school system where they had a high school for a good many years and I got a chance to go to Clarkfield where there was a small high school that had been accredited for 00:32:00many years. Clarkfield, Minnesota and there I went. I had quite a contingent of teachers. We had more teachers at the end than we had when we started. I was pretty good on expanding and...

JL: You were a good administrator also.

DG: Well, I was interested, yes. Well, I always have been. I see beyond the I'm not satisfied. If I see an opportunity why I like to fill it where I can. So I was there two years and then World War I came. You wanted to get into World War I. Incidentally though, after World War I and I came out here I was offered the job at Clarkfield to go back to it. I had come out here and I'd been here for several months and I wasn't committed to stay here and they 00:33:00offered me the job to go back. That I'd left before I went into the service. But, I decided they raised my salary here and I had become interested. I'd have enjoyed going back. Sometimes I wished I had. But, I didn't. Well, anyway World War I came. I didn't volunteer in war service. I have the greatest distaste for war. Everybody has for that matter. I can't imagine anyone really liking war. But, we were in war and I felt that the danger the threat to the world's future that was the German attack on was too serious to take anything but serious and so I felt that I'd have to be in it. No doubt. 00:34:00But I wasn't eager to get in it and when I got my draft number I planned to just let nature let the government take its course but the county superintendent in the county where Clarkfield School was located interceded. Said it would be too bad to take Mr. Goode away from this school and he's just started. I'd put in a year before the war started and so she got my call deferred until the summer of 1913. That is I put in two years at Clarkfield as superintendent. Then I went. And...

JL: You were called [unintelligible].

DG: I was called. Yes, I was called into military service. First to Camp Grant and went through all kinds of drilling and marching and all that sort of thing.

JL: You were in the army?

DG: Yes. Army. Army. Yes, and then before long, this was in July or late June, late June that we were taken. Those of us recruits were taken to Camp Grant in Illinois, Rockford, Illinois, and after a time we were assigned and I was assigned to an artillery outfit. And then I was at Camp Grant about a month when this happened and we were transferred then from Camp Grant to an 00:36:00artillery camp up in Wisconsin. Camp Robinson is what it's called and I spent about two months in this artillery camp. Well, within the artillery regiment I was very shortly assigned to headquarters company of this regiment and they had sized me up, I guess, as not for combat duty directly but for the headquarters company which was kind of a top group for the regiment with various functions and one of the sections was a telephone section and they put me in 00:37:00that and it made me, for a time, something like a telephone operator, you know. At which I was not good and we had to learn to operate telephones field telephones. I wasn't particularly good at that, but they thought I would be. Anyway, that's the way I spent my time. Preparing for overseas duty and in the early part of September we were given training for what was called "getting on the ship that would take us overseas" and we had a lot of drill because it had to be very precise. They had to know, when we got on a ship, a transport, we would be going through submarine danger. The Atlantic was infested, 00:38:00theoretically at least, with German submarines and we could be blown up and we went in a convoy.

Well, they had to know who was on each ship so we had our order number and we had drills what they call "gangplank drills" to get us ready to go on this ship and finally we were taken, by train, to a camp in New York on Long Island. Camp at Hemstead, on Long Island called Camp Mills awaiting transportation. On our way they took us by way of Niagara Falls. We saw Niagara Falls, which was new to most of us. Well, we were loaded on that ship and every day we had gang plank drill which, not drill, boat drill it was called and that was that 00:39:00gang plank was to get on the boat. But after this was when we were on the boat we had this boat drill. Everybody was lined up with the idea of that if our ship was torpedoed there would be life boats and I was put on the boat detail which would have been to help soldiers get into life boats in case we were torpedoed. I think what would have happened would have been I might have helped many to get into boats but there wouldn't have been any room for me by that time. I didn't think of it at the time, but as I look back on it I imagine I would have perished in the open Atlantic and I wouldn't have been in any boat. Anyway, although we were in this constant danger we were in a convoy. We were surrounded by boats that were guarding, watching for submarines and all that sort of thing and it took us 12 days to cross the 00:40:00Atlantic. But, it was very adventurous, but we got across and we landed at Glasgow. In Scotland. On our way the last afternoon we could see Ireland. I told you that's where my mother's parents came from. They came from Ireland. But I didn't set foot in Ireland. We just saw it off to our right as we skirted along north of Ireland.

JL: What were you feeling at the time? Do you remember?

DG: Feeling of Ireland?

JL: No. You're going overseas.

DG: Well, we didn't spend our time thinking. Or we maybe dead tomorrow or even today. No. We didn't spend our time that way. The flu epidemic hit us on the boat. I'm sure that some of the times that we were lined up on deck there as we would have to be in order to put into life boats if we're that 00:41:00lucky. I'm sure part of the time there were burials because I never knew how many, but I'm sure there were some deaths from flu and after we got to France I was pallbearer for a buddy who died of flu in France. Well, we landed at Glasgow and we sat foot on the soil of Scotland, but that was about all because we were loaded almost immediately into a train. A passenger train, and spent that whole day, which was Sunday traversing the length of England. From Glasgow down to Southhampton which is on the English Channel. We got there after dark and were taken to a camp where we slept that night. We didn't have anything very good in the way of food on that trip but we saw parts of England, 00:42:00you see, because we were in open passenger cars and could see out. Very little stopping. And in the next morning we were able to a man from Northwestern University who was in our outfit said, "Out here is Salsbury Plain." Right with this Southhampton Camp and Salsbury Plain is where Stonehenge is, you know. We didn't see Stonehenge. I never have seen Stonehenge excepting on television and movies but we were there quite a little while in this English camp and...

JL: What rank were you?

DG: I was a private and never anything more. Just a private. I'd have liked to, and I would if I'd been in longer, I might have been a first class private but I didn't get that far because I was in the service only a little over seven months. But we sailed in September and when we landed from South Hampton we were after there they were waiting for a chance to get a boat and to get us across the English Channel into France and so they finally loaded us into a boat one evening and there wasn't room to sleep. I slept on kind of a shelf that I found where I could fold myself up and sleep some but it was quite an adventure, but it got dark. Everything was dark, of course, our ship was kept as dark as possible. When we were on the Atlantic everything was kept as dark as possible. All the portholes were sealed up and covered over and all that. 00:44:00But, the next morning we looked up thinking we'd be in France and here we were back in Southampton and we were told, this happened while I was asleep, but someone who was up on deck said, we were sailing along crossing the channel but all of a sudden there was a flare of red light ahead of us and our ship immediately turned around and went back and here we were back in Southampton.

JL: What?

DG: Back! In Southhampton. (Chuckle) So we had to wait a few days more but that time we crossed. Evidently, either there was a submarine in the channel that they had detected or there were mines that had to be got out of there or something. Anyway...

JL: What were the conditions on the ship?

DG: Conditions? Well, the conditions on the ship that we crossed the Atlantic in was an old passenger ship and the crew were very profane. They swore all the time and they were very cranky. They weren't nice to us. They were sailors and we were soldiers and all that, you know. And it was greasy and moldy and the food was only fair but we just took that in stride. I wrote a poem about it. Metagama was the name of our ship and here's the poem. "Musty, moldy," some kind of places, "rusty, moldy, "not greasy places Every -- it was an acrostic: M E T A G A M A. "Musty, moldy, greasy, places / Every porthole sealed and 00:46:00bolted / Torture, graven on our faces / As the vessel rocked and jolted / Grasping crew profane and crabby / Armed with myriad ways to taunt us / Marmalade and rabbit, flabby / Awful memories to haunt us."

That was Metagama. That marmalade, rabbit, flabby that was rabbit meat that had been cooked by steam and it was pretty flabby.

JL: (Laughter).

DG: (Chuckle) Anyway we got across the Atlantic. Well, we got across and landed in the early morning in France at a Cherbourg. C H E R B O U R G. One of the French ports. The first sight I saw, looking out on the sandy shore, was what looked like a man walking on water It looked just like a man walking on water! I found out afterwards that what it was it was sand so water soaked that in the morning sunlight it looked like water although it really was just wet sand. And here he was walking along nicely. So, I saw a kind of a miracle before we landed in France. Well, we were landed and very quickly marched into a train and that was our experience on what were called box cars. Box cars were especially painted of 40 Hommes. H O M M E S. Figures 40. 40 Hommes and 8, the figure 8. 40 Hommes 8. Hommes 40 Chevou (horses) 00:48:008. 8 horses or 40 men. And we were 40 men and we were loaded 40 men in a car. It was awfully crowded and there were no comforts whatever. Just a box car and no windows. There was a door we had to open part of the time. Well, we rode all day. There was one place we stopped for kind of a rest and I guess there was food given to us. I don't know whether the food was handed to us out of the boxcar. It must have been. Anyway we did have some lunch and I 00:49:00guess we must have had some breakfast. We didn't starve but the real miserable fellows were the fellows who smoked and who got out of smokes and I remember some of them on our train when it was stopped this time middle of the day was next to a freight train or some freight cars that were on a sidetrack and some fellows discovered some green tobacco, baled up, being shipped on a boxcar and they got out and took some of this tobacco. They were just crazy for something to smoke.

Well, I didn't smoke so I didn't suffer at all. But some of them did. They had smoked when you could buy cigarettes on the ship, on this Metagama ship but they had run out this long time in England and so on they'd run out of smokes. But, that wasn't one of my troubles. Well, we were on-that in those boxcars 00:50:00I forget now how many hours but it was all day long. I guess I have a note somewhere how many hours, but it was all day long, I guess, it was after dark when we got to the camp. An artillery camp in southern France. South of Bordeaux. It was called, well, it had a name but the railroad station there was La Teste and there was an artillery range there. That's why we were there. Well, we spent the rest of our time then in artillery training. I went to this telephone school. The training was not good. See, we had 00:51:00never been in a major war and we lacked officers who would have been the proper trainers but they didn't know much themselves and although we had good officers that we respected, as I look back on it especially I as a teacher know that, the teaching we got to run these telephones the nearest we would have got we of the telephone detail would have got would have been to get out somewhere in the combat zone and relay messages and make connections and one thing and another. I don't know what we'd have done because we never got near the front. We were about, in France, we were about as far away from the front as we could get. That wasn't designed but that's where there was an artillery range. And 00:52:00that's where we were and we never got to the front. I don't know whether it was because the war ended. We got to France the middle of September and by November 11, of course, the armistice came. There was a false armistice in this country several days before and there was in France too. A rumor that the war was over and we had a big "hullabaloo" celebration, really believing the war was over. We found out shortly that that was false and as they did here, oh, they went wild here and when the war really was over the celebration was nothing like it was on this false armistice.

JL: (Chuckle)

DG: But, anyway when the armistice came, in our case, this false thing came on payday and, of course, that was the time when men had money and that's one reason we had a big time. But, when the real armistice came it was fairly quiet. We were happy. But, then plans began--what will we do? Of course, most of us wanted to go home but the brigadere general of the brigade, an artillery brigade, that we were part of was a bachelor and a career man and he knew there was going to be or heard there was to be an army of occupation to go into Germany to keep order and one thing and another and he wanted to get into 00:54:00that. And he would have been glad to take his whole brigade into the army of occupation. But, our colonel and our captain, colonel of our regiment and captain of our company, were both men with families back home. They wanted, like the rest of us, to get home so they began to maneuver and work to get us back home, not in the army of occupation.

JL: Did you still want to go back and be the superintendent at...

DG: Of course, we wanted to go back. What say?

JL: Did you want to go back and continue being the superintendent?

DG: Oh, well, I wanted to get home. We weren't thinking about that. We didn't know what we'd do. We wanted to get home. (Chuckle) And so our colonel and our captain, both, were working together and to get us home and they found that if we could get, our outfit our regi-ment, to Bordeaux by the day before Christmas we could be shipped out for home on Christmas day. Well, we were 25 miles from Bordeaux and we had all of our equipment that we had to dispose of before we could get on a ship. So, we were put on a hike from our camp, 25 miles, and in a rain as it turned out to be a rainy day and we had to carry 00:56:00everything in the way of equipment that we owned. Some of it things that we never had used and never would use.

JL: How many pounds was that?

DG: I don't remember now. But, it got more because of the rain, you know. Because it wasn't waterproof. So we had a hard time but we...

JL: What were you carrying?

DG: Well, blankets and we didn't have guns in the headquarters company. We didn't have guns. I had a rifle at a time but we gave it up-When I was transferred to Headquarters Company the rifle was taken back. I don't know if we had any arms or not but we didn't have any arms. But various kinds of 00:57:00equipment. I don't remember it all now, but I know it was heavy. There were blankets and gas masks and rain coat, winter coat and an extra pair of shoes, socks, underwear, extra uniform. Things of that sort. Quite a lot. All reasonable. But heavy.

JL: What impressions did you get of the countryside in France?

DG: What?

JL: What impressions, as a soldier...

DG: Of France?

JL: Yes.

DG: Well, I could tell you quite a bit about that if you want me at this stage before we leave France. We're marching now. Plodding along this 25 mile hike to Bordeaux but we can just leave that and I can tell you a little about 00:58:00what I did in France. Or do you want it?

JL: I just want briefly any impressions that stand out.

DG: All right. All right. Our camp was, of course, in a kind of a rugged part of France where there was land suitable for artillery, you know, firing cannon and so on, so it wasn't a choice part of France and but there was some woods around. I used to, when I was free, go out into a woods into pleasant spots.

JL: How did the French people treat you as a soldier?

DG: Well, I took every opportunity I got to go on leave. We could have weekend leaves and I took every opportunity and I had quite a number particularly after the armistice and so I went on leave many times to a town called La Teste which was near our camp. It was within walking distance. Once I walked it so I know it was three or four miles, but there were other times when you could get a train to go in. Well, when you'd go on leave you'd get a room. There wasn't much in the way of hotel service. You get into a private house and I used to go on leave especially with a friend who could speak French. He was a graduate of Columbia University, a graduate in architecture, and he could speak 01:00:00French and it was very fortunate to be able to go on leave with him and he and I were good friends. So, although I went sometimes alone, I often went with him and would be with him then during the leave which helped, for instance, in ordering meals. We'd get in in the early afternoon maybe and we'd be there overnight. A 24 hour leave and we'd order our evening meal and maybe our Sunday dinner. He could do it in French with some woman who'd run a hotel or restaurant and I used to love hearing the orders for our meals. I couldn't understand them but I could talk with him and so on.

JL: Well, how did the French people treat you?

DG: Well, then we would room. Once I roomed in a hotel and they were all right. One incident I could tell but I'll skip in connection with this hotel but I usually roomed in a private home and they were very nice to us. The private home where I stayed a number of times sometimes with this friend of mine and sometimes alone. Her husband, she had a little girl, her husband was in the service and after the armistice he was released and came back and I met him. I remember arriving after he had returned home and the family, the wife 01:02:00and the little girl and one or two friends or relatives were seated around a table drinking wine and the little girl had her little glass. I suppose it may have been watered wine but she was having wine and they were very nice to us and it was a great thing to get to sleep between sheets because, of course, we had nothing but blankets in camp and I don't remember anything but pleasant relationships with the French. I had a codebook that I could use. A phrase book it was called that I could use in a shop to point out anything I wanted to 01:03:00look at or buy and they would read that and we got along fine. You were able to buy and I got so I knew how to use French money.

JL: Hmmm. So you didn't feel any animosity from the French at all?

DG: Oh, no. We were allies, of course. This man that had got back from Germany he'd been in a German prison camp and he showed us some old dried up bread that he had saved that it looked more like sawdust than bread. It was a kind of a gooey dry stuff. That was the kind of bread they had because the poor Germans were starving themselves. They didn't have enough wheat for themselves and they didn't give their prisoners any more than they had to. But 01:04:00the French were friendly. Well, one bit of friendliness which happened to me that's worth mentioning because this architect friend, who spoke French, when he was on leave he would take a sketch book along. He was something of an artist being an architect and he would sketch interesting things and one day he was sketching an interesting tree or shrub or something in a park and a French man came and engaged him in conversation and finding that he could talk French 01:05:00they got quite well acquainted and it ended up by this man inviting him the next time he was on leave to have dinner.

I was the buddy and we had Sunday dinner in a French home. This man was the mayor of the town. The town was a town of about 6,000 people and this man was the mayor and his daughter was married to a doctor who was practicing in the town. Of course, he may have been in the service. I don't know. But, he was an educated man, you see and he had a very beautiful home. So, we as 01:06:00guests we were received very hospitably.

JL: You didn't find that the French were depressed or...

DG: Depressed? Well, of course, they were all gloomy like this lady whose husband was in the service. She didn't know whether she'd ever see him again and all that. But, she did. He looked very wan and all. The one whose husband had come back from a German prison. But this home where we were entertained, we were company. The dinner, I don't remember if it started out with a soup or not, but it was quite a formal meal. There was a kind of an entry course which was a kind of a stew. Very delicious. I always have 01:07:00admired French cooking and I enjoyed this very much although I was told by my friend afterwards he wasn't sure it might have been tripe. And if I'd known it was tripe I might not have enjoyed it as much, but it was delicious anyway and I did enjoy it. It helped to fill us up in early part of the meal but then there were some chops. I don't know some kind of meat. Pork chops or lamb chops. Some kind of chops. Kind of a second course; very delicious. Well, cooked and served with some vegetable. Some kind of a bread. Then came the main course which was a roast chicken and chafing dish was brought in and placed in the middle of the table and then a kind of a flat dish placed over 01:08:00the chafing dish around it but flat and a sauce, fat and sauce on that plate, and for basting the chicken. The chicken was already roasted but it was put on the chafing dish and heated up, you see, and the hot sauce basted over it by the host. By the way, the host's sister, his wife was dead, but his sister an oldish lady was at table with us. She was a kind of a hostess. But he as host ladled this sauce over and turned the chicken over and around and so on, warming it up so that when he carved it why we'd all receive hot portions of roast chicken along with a proper bit of accompaniments, vegetables and so 01:09:00forth. And we had wine with our meal. I don't remember so very much now, but I know when we came to after dessert and I don't remember what the dessert was, but we had a dessert.

A young man by the way was serving this meal and he was in a kind of uniform. So it was quite ceremonious and then after dessert we were offered coffee and would we like coffee a rum? And that's coffee with rum in it and I'd never had coffee a rum but I said, "Yes, please." And I had coffee with rum in it. That was an example. Well, after the meal was over the, I'm not sure that the 01:10:00lady didn't excuse herself before we had the coffee a rum. I don't know, but anyway after dinner we were invited to go on a drive and we drove out into the countryside in a carriage that had us facing each other and then a driver's seat up front. And the driver was the man who had served our dinner to us. And we sat on one of these seats across from our host and he took us around the countryside on a beautiful drive and then at the end of the drive he dismissed the carriage and took us into a kind of a bar and offered us a drink. It must have been some kind of a liqueur, like Benedictine or something of that sort. I don't re-remember what it was now but it was my first taste of anything like 01:11:00that. We had a nice talk with him and then we departed and he went back home. Well, that was an example of, I don't suppose there were very many, certainly no privates, in the whole American expeditionary force that had anything better than that and very few that had anything approaching it.

JL: Good. That's great,

DG: That's a French family life such as it was. Well, it was kind of bleak family life because practically every man who could carry a gun, in France, was in the army.

JL: O.K. Why don't we get back to you leaving the country finally and you were going home. You came home Christmas day 1918?

DG: Yes. Yes. Yes. Well, we'll go back to that. Well, we got to Bordeaux very tired and all, but our morale was wonderful because we knew if we got there we'd get on that ship and we were going home and that was what we wanted and it was a wonderful Christmas present. We didn't have any Christmas tree or anything but we did get on the boat Christmas morning. Well, before we did that we had to turn in all of our equipment. Practically all of our equipment because that had to be handled separately. Shipped separately. We would fill a transport. This boat was a transport but it had been a commercial ship for transporting merchandise but it had been turned into a transport. Most of the decks were filled with bunks, you know. Double and triple decker's and all that and we got on this ship. Well, I was so tired 01:13:00from that walk that (our eating facilities that were at a table that was raised up. No chairs you just stood up like to a counter and ate your meal from a high level and we had to go through what you call a cafeteria or buffet line and get your meal and then go to this high table and eat it.) I just could hardly stand and enjoy my meal and so I got my meal and went over to where I could lean against the wall and sit down, leaning against the wall, and eat. I did all my meals that way because it took me days to get over the effects of that walk, but I didn't have a thought of murmuring about it. I didn't. I 01:14:00was happy.

JL: (Laughter)

DG: I was on this ship. During the voyageorer, it had taken us 12 days to cross the Atlantic when we were in a convoy but it took us only about half that time to get back because, of course, we could sail right along There were no submarines to molest us. The war was over, but on this ship I met a fraternity brother that I never knew at Moorehead but I got acquainted with. There is a fraternity at Moorehead called the "Owls". A local fraternity and this fellow, his name was Carl, Carl Walker, and we found out someway that we had both been at Moorehead and we were both "Owls" and so it was very nice. 01:15:00We had many meetings on the ship. There were, of course, hundreds of men on this ship and we didn't see each other all the time. We weren't bunking anywhere near each other but we had many meetings that we enjoyed very much. After we got home I never had any further contact with him. I don't know what happened to him but I don't suppose he cared too much what happened to me either, but we had a nice time while we were together.

JL: So when you got home you went back to Minnesota then?

DG: Yes. We were landed at Camp Mills from which we had shipped and during that time we had, while we were waiting to be taken back to Camp Grant where we were going to be discharged, we had, I think, two opportunities to go to for I 'think they were called 20 hour leaves overnight anyway in New York. And I 01:16:00had one, at least. I think I had two and I enjoyed those. They gave to men in uniform free tickets to plays and you had to pay the tax. There was a tax on the ticket, but the ticket itself was free, and I went to the New York Hypodrome, it was called, and there I saw Will Rodgers perform with his lasso, you know, and his twirling of it and so on. And I saw a play. In fact, the play was an actor that I had seen in Minneapolis, years before. We were given some treats of that sort.

JL: I know that you came to O.A.C. in 1919.

DG: Yes.

JL: Tell me about the process of deciding to come out here.

DG: All right. We were taken to the camp in Illinois to be discharged. On our way we had a stopover in Chicago. We were part of the 86tn division which was the Black Hawk Division. Camp Grant was the camp it was in and there was a big statue, in Camp Grant, of "Black Hawk" an Indian Chief, and in Chicago although we were only a part of the Black Hawk Division we were the what they called the "cadder" of the division. The records and so on were with us 01:18:00and so they had a big parade in Chicago. We paraded down Michigan Avenue and all that. We had quite a time and a big meal at an exclusive club called the Hamilton Club, in Chicago, where we had a big dinner. Our shoes were cleated, our uniform shoes, and the ballroom of that beautiful club had a polished floor and we weren't allowed to go into that ballroom because we would have damaged the floor but we could look in. But the rest of the building why we could go around and we had a great meal but that parade was quite an adventure and, oh, my we were returned soldiers and their own men. The Black Hawk Division and all that, although I was from Minnesota not from Illinois, 01:19:00I was part of that. And the general of this Black Hawk Division was General Martin who later himself came to Oregon and became governor of Oregon. I shook hands with him once after I got out here in some kind of a line up. He was there and I told him that I was in the Black Hawk Division. I got special greeting from him. Well, we were discharged at Camp Grant and lit out for home and I went back to my home in South Haven, Minnesota, where my parents lived and this was in the middle of January, 1919 and I registered with a teacher's agency to get a job because I wanted to get into a teaching job if there was any opening right away.

JL: How do you think the war changed you?

DG: Well, I'm not so aware of it myself, it gave me more of a global outlook because I crossed the Atlantic twice and I'd never seen the ocean until that experience. That was one thing and the I had experiences, especially in France, then I had experience with my fellow soldiers and I got acquainted with military ways which didn't charm me but interested me.

JL: But, you still wanted to teach so you signed...

DG: Oh, yes I wanted to teach and I thought probably, I didn't think I could get a super intendancy in the middle of January. It could have happened but it wouldn't be likely too and so I asked for a position that I was fit to fill from this teacher's agency. I think it was the Fisk Teacher's Agency. Well, they found there were a number of openings. One of them was in, the first, was in Casper, Wyoming. A high school position and it was quite an opportunity although it sounded pretty wild to me and I wasn't sure that I would fit into such a community, although Casper is quite a town now, it would not have been a bad place to go to and then the other one which was a firmer offer the high school at Tulsa, Oklahoma had an opening in teaching English. And they offered it to me and I would have got $200.00 a month the rest of the 01:22:00year. March, April and May and they finally called me up and said, we must have an answer. Meanwhile I had used E.T. Reed, who had been my teacher at Moorhead as a reference and he found out that I was looking for a job and he also knew I had done some editorial work for this "Owl" Fraternity. I had established a quarterly, by the way, that I edited for promoting the silver anniversary of the "Owls" which would be coming up in 1926 and he had got acquainted with me as an editor as well as a former pupil of his at Moorhead. 01:23:00And when he found out I was looking for a job he thought, "Well, maybe I ought to be a good candidate for him." He needed an assistant.

So he worked up a scheme. They didn't have any money budgeted. But he got them to budget some and they gave me an offer out here to come and be an assistant editor. But, all they could pay was a $100.00 a month and I had this offer of $200.0.0. a month at Tulsa. And when they told me at Tulsa that they just must have an answer I decided I would try Moorehead. I realized that if I took the Tulsa job I'd earn $600.00 in three months, but if I took the Corvallis job I'd earn $600.00 in six months so I'd have to because I would still be free to take a teaching job or school job in the fall in September. So, I came 01:24:00out here with the understanding that I would have no commitment beyond six months. With August I'd be free if I wanted to go elsewhere. Well, I came and I was quite taken with things here. Of course, Mr. Reed is a former teacher and a wonderful man. He did everything. He met me or tried to meet me at the train. He met the wrong train. In those days, Corvallis had ten trains a day to and from Portland. Each way. Ten each way and I took one from Portland and another one that had the same schedule but arrived in Corvallis but at a different station and he met the wrong station.

JL: (Chuckle)

DG: But, he finally tracked me down at the Julian Hotel here where I had registered and he cancelled my registration and took me out to his home and he kept me several days as a guest in his home until I found a room. I was a bachelor, you understand.

JL: Do you remember your first impressions?

DG: Of Corvallis?

JL: Corvallis.

DG: Well, I started wrong. I got off at what is now this depot that they are trying to save. It was a Southern Pacific Station. I came on what was called the. Southern Pacific Electric Train to Corvallis and I got off there but I turned the wrong way and pretty soon I found campus. I was following Monroe St. and I came to what was obviously campus or a park and I thought, well, I wanted downtown. I wanted to find a hotel, so I turned around, and I went back the other way and I followed right along on Monroe St., I guess, and 01:26:00found the Julian Hotel which is on Monroe St. And it was the main hotel at that time. It's when I registered. So, my first impression of Corvallis was a little bit of the campus.

JL: (Chuckle)

DG: Which is nice to think about. That's what I really was going for. Well, Mr. Reed took me out that evening. I went out to a restaurant. There's a clothing store. There now but it was a place called A's & K's in the Masonic Building on 3rd St. and Madison and A's & K's is a kind of a confectionary. They served light lunches, not meals, and I ordered a sandwich and some coffee and a dessert maybe and had a little repast there and then went back to the hotel and when I arrived there, here was Mr. Reed and he said, he had met me at 01:27:00the wrong depot and all, but he said, "Let me cancel your registration there and I want to take you out home." So, he took me out in his car out on Brook Lane where I spent almost a week until I found me a room on Park Terrace.

JL: Did you have the impression that Corvallis was a large town or what...

DG: Well, to me it was quite a town because I had been in school like in Moorehead. Moorehead was a town, especially Fargo and Morehead were quite a population center. They are right across from each other on the Red River. I'd had some experience of town life there an then I had been at the University 01:28:00of Minnesota two years. Three years counting summers and at Chicago one summer so I had some tastes of cities and I'd been in New York, but I had actually lived in nothing but small places, so Corvallis was, to me5 quite a place and I was quite impressed with Corvallis and I was impressed with the campus here. It impressed me. It was Called Oregon Agricultural College, but it impressed me as an institution patterned after a university because there were these schools. There was a School of Agriculture and a School of Home Economics and a School of Engineering and a School of Commerce and so on. All these schools and they were scattered around and so on and I thought of a 01:29:00university. This is like a university and to be sure it was. That was my first impression of the campus and the buildings, were and, oh, just a fraction of the buildings that exist now. I can hardly believe myself how few buildings there were compared to how many there are now, but it was enough to be impressive even then. Agriculture Hall, I think, had a wing added after I came, but it was an impressive building then. Home Economics had two wings added. It's main central portion and then a west wing was added and engineering a number of new buildings.

JL: So, you were associate editor...

DG: Well, I was just an editorial assistant to start with but they pretty soon made me assistant editor and they increased my salary to $1,800.00 a year, which was $150.00 a month, right away. Effective July 1st. So, I got in my first six months more than the $600.00 that I counted on I got more than that. But not too much.

JL: What did you think of the administration? The Kerr administration?

DG: It was very wonderful. If you get me into that stage you'll find me in perspective with some criticism of Dr. Kerr. But I had during my time, during his life and all I had nothing but admiration for Dr. Kerr because he was a great man and a very able man and he had great vision. He followed, I'd 01:31:00rather discuss that in more detail and hardly mention it now, but, he followed a philosophy of the separate land grant institution of which this is one. A philosophy that was too limited and time has proved that it's true, but he built it up into a great institution. The largest institution in the state and he was a great builder and he was a magnetic man because of the vision he had. He wasn't inspiring in the sense of being a spellbinder speaker. He was a forceful speaker and he knew what he meant when he talked and he made you know 01:32:00it and you were impressed with him but he didn't just sweep you off your feet. He wasn't that kind of a speaker, but he was very effective and he knew how to handle people and he was easily the main college president of the STATE during ALL the time that he was the head of this institution. No doubt about that!

JL: In what ways did you know President Kerr?

DG: Well, E.T. Reed under whom I worked was very close to President Kerr. President Kerr knew that he wasn't the kind of speaker that people wanted part of the time and E.T. Reed was. E.T. Reed was an eloquent speaker. A real speaker and he was a he had a Harvard degree as well as a degree from the University of Minnesota and he had oratorical eloquence and so when Dr. Kerr 01:33:00needed someone to represent him as a speaker he often would send Dr. or Mr. Reed out. Mr. Reed filled many positions. In addition to that he depended on Mr. Reed to see to it that every document, every bulletin, everything in printed form, that left the campus here was in proper shape and that's what the real position of college editor as Mr. Freed was called was. It was to see to it that every official publication was worthy to bear the imprint of Oregon Agricultural College. Later Oregon State College and now Oregon State University. The same philosophy holds. That office or position has grown, 01:34:00of course, to be a far more important one than it was then. But, it was very close to the president. He would call Mr. Reed in often and Mr. Reed actually prepared under Dr. Kerr's, sort of, guidance the reports. The official reports of the institution and some of his speeches. Well, I had to help on all that, so I was drawn in quite early into contacts with Dr. Kerr. Quite early although my initial contacts were mainly with Mr. Reed. But, by, oh, by before 1930 and by 1930 I had got so that Dr. Kerr knew me and had had guided me in some projects that I had done. Had been assigned.

JL: Dr. Kerr, would you say he was a very popular man with students and faculty then?

DG: Well, he was highly respected. Highly respected because every~ body on the faculty knew that he was able and that he was a real getter. You'd call him a go-getter in more popular language, but he was very skillful in getting money for the institution. If he had applied his skill in a little wider area he would have been better than he was. But, he was very wonderful.

JL: What do you mean by that in a wider area?

DG: Well, that comes to this matter of the scope of the separate land grant institutions. Do you want me to discuss that? There's room for a little more is there? Well, all right. The land grant institutions, as they were planned, and I have a book that I want to introduce to you shows how they were planned by a man in Illinois and he called them "industrial universities." They were intended to fill a function in the industrial area that the old type of colleges had filled for law, medicine, theology and the polite professions including teaching, college and university, professorships, that sort of thing. But, they weren't doing anything for people in the industrial occupations and these universities, and that's what he called them, "industrial universities..."