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College and Beyond

(Written February 1998)

1943 – what a mess the world was in that year! War was raging all over Europe and all over the Pacific.

I remember so well one especially sad day in February of that year 1943 when my brother Jim left home to be inducted into the army. Jim and several other local boys had assembled at midmorning on the steps of the Town Hall. Village officials were giving farewell speeches. The buses that were to take the boys to Fort Niagara were parked nearby. Many townspeople lined the sidewalk across from the Town Hall. Among them were my father and I. My mother was too distraught to leave the house for this last good-bye. It was a dark, dreary, drizzling day. My brother’s face reflected the weather. Jim had always been prone to homesickness. Our hearts went out to him as he stood there in the rain – a picture of misery and unhappiness. Standing next to him, in utter contrast, grinning from ear to ear was his good friend Eugene Pfohl who was eager and happy to be army bound. For three years Jim was in the army and served in some of the thickest battles in the European Theater. (But that is his story to tell). His unit was the first to arrive at Nordhausen and released more than two thousand prisoners of the Holocaust they found there. He came home in 1946 unscathed but greatly matured. He went away a Jimmy and came home a James. His friend Eugene, however, never made it home. He was killed in action over Germany.

I was 17 years old and graduated from St. Mary’s High School in June of that year 1943. Unlike my male classmates who were immediately snatched up by Uncle Sam and put into the armed services, my life was relatively unaffected by the chaos in the world. My future led directly to college.

By the fall of 1943 our large family had shrunk into a rather small family. Only my younger sister Dorothy and I were still living at home. Both of my brothers were far away – Francis in a Jesuit Seminary in Maryland, and Jim overseas in the army. My oldest sister Marie was married, but living nearby. My other sister Margaret was away at nursing school.

My parents saddened by the absence of so many of their children were anxious for me to stay close to home. So I opted to go to D’Youville College in nearby Buffalo. This was a Catholic college, one hundred percent female student body and a faculty made up almost entirely of nuns. There I was, practically in a nunnery, not an eligible man in sight (they were all off fighting in the war, remember). I enjoyed probably four of the happiest years of my life. Getting a college education, establishing close friendships that are thriving to this day, and not worrying a whit about whether or not Mister Right would come along. Romance and marriage were put on hold for the duration of the war and my education.

My major in college was mathematics – quite an unusual choice for females fifty years ago. There were only three math majors in our graduating class of 68 gals. I had always found mathematics to be challenging and satisfying – and so I went for it. I did well, graduating "cum laude" in June 1947.

In April 1947, during Easter break, my mother treated me to a week in New York City as an early graduation present. At that time my brother Francis was teaching at Brooklyn Prep so he knew his way around the city. We took in all the sights. However, I cringed the day he showed up with tickets for a Brooklyn Dodger baseball game at Ebbets field. I didn’t know too much about baseball those days, and I’m sure my mother knew even less. My brother was very excited about it, mostly because the tickets were in the first row right behind the Dodgers’ dugout. Little did we know that this was to be one of the most momentous games in the history of baseball. It was the day and the game when Jackie Robinson integrated baseball’s Major Leagues. Many times before and after the game I could have reached out and touched him as he leaned over the dugout to sign autographs for the fans. I never bothered to get an autograph or even save my ticket stub or program from that momentous game. Pretty dumb of me, huh?

In September of 1947 I was accepted as a Teaching Assistant at Syracuse University and graduated from there with a Master’s degree in mathematics in June 1949. There was absolutely no comparison between my college years at D’Youville and my graduate years at Syracuse. D’Youville had a total enrollment of about 300 students – all female. Syracuse University was bursting at the seams with returning GI veterans. When I started there in 1947 the enrollment was close to 15,000 students with a ratio of about 7 men for each woman. I taught college algebra and trigonometry to classes in the engineering school. These classes were made up almost entirely of male students. Almost all of them were veterans and a good deal older than me. I was also a math tutor for the athletic department. These were younger fellows who those days needed at least some credits in math to stay in college and play sports. They may have been whizzes on the basketball court or on the football field, but they didn’t know beans about algebra. It was quite a challenge for me to shepherd them through their final exams in math so they could continue to excel in sports.

During the summer between my first and second years at Syracuse I was fortunate to land a job at Cornell Aeronautical Laboratory located adjacent to the Buffalo airport, and only about five miles from my family home in Lancaster. The Lab for this summer internship had selected thirty-three graduate students (only three of them female). I found myself in the Flight Research Department. I was astounded by all the mathematical procedures that were needed to get an airplane up in the air, and then to keep it from falling out of the sky. I had found my niche, and it had found me. When September came and it was time for me to return to school for another year I was told that a permanent position would be waiting for me at the Lab when I received my Master’s Degree the following June.

So, in the summer of 1949, after 18 years, my formal education ended and my career began in the Flight Research Department at Cornell Aeronautical Lab. I enjoyed six years of interesting and profitable work there. The world was on the brink of the computer age – but it wasn’t quite there yet when I could have used it. All our research problems had to be solved by long cumbersome calculations and graphs. I considered it a fun job and enjoyed going to work everyday. I bought a car even before I knew how to drive. It was a 1940 Ford coupe. It was the love of my life until, would you believe it, Mr. Right himself (also known as Bill Smith) walked into my office one day. My life was never the same again.