immigrants in the class of 1954. The other, Sigmund Franczak, spent most of World War II in a Nazi concentration camp in Poland and later in Germany. He was separated from his family and did not know if they survived. An American Army Captain arranged to adopt him and he went to high school in St. Charles, MO. He was accepted to Wesleyan on a scholarship studying pre-med.
Sig spent a lot of time trying to locate his family. During his sophomore year, he finally heard they were all alive. He and his adoptive father arranged for them to move to Middletown where his father got a job.
Most of the student body at Wesleyan during the early 1950’s came from small New England towns. Sig and I were the first immigrants they ever met. During Freshman Orientation, the university president, Victor Lloyd Butterfield, told the class that the aim of a Wesleyan education was to acquire a liberal arts background so we could return to these small towns and become community leaders. My goal was different. I originally planned to become a marine lawyer which required Law School and practice it in a major port city like New York or Los Angeles.
The student body at Wesleyan was also very turn-of-the-20th-century, ‘old-style’ Republican. During the 1952 Presidential Primary season, a mock primary was held. 79% of the students voted for Robert Taft, a staunch Ohio Republican conservative Senator. Except for one black classmate who later became a federal Judge and three black students who arrived in 1955, the campus was anything but diverse. In fact, diversity was a concept that was not on the minds of the Wesleyan Faculty, administration, or student body. It was a New England, white, Protestant campus.
I auditioned for and was accepted to the chapel choir, a plum assignment that paid $1 per hour, and simultaneously enabled me to meet the college chapel requirement (10 per semester). I also tried my hand at debate, and found the faculty member in charge a phony and dropped it.
My English professor, Dr. Cowie, told me after a month of classes that I had absolutely no writing ability. Thus, he was transferring me to a special English class to improve my writing. Colloquially, it was called “Bonehead English”. I discovered much later that it was a game-changer for me and one of the best things that could have happened. I took the course both semesters. It was taught by a Dr. Cochran who tutored us individually as well as in class and did a great job.
By the middle of the fall semester, my academic performance was not good and I received a warning letter of impending probation. Although I applied myself more rigorously, I could not turn it around and ended the semester on probation. That meant I had to drop my extra-curricular activities. I filed an appeal to continue with the choir because I earned part of my expenses that way and it was approved.
The choir experience was a good one. To balance it, ladies from Middletown participated. We went on local tours with them. However, the men’s section also did an annual joint home-and-home engagement with a choir from one of New England’s many women’s colleges. Some of my choir-mates met their wives that way.
One cloud on the horizon was the Korean War. I observed my fellow students of all classes facing draft notices. They chose instead to enlist in Officer’s Candidate School (OCS). Many left Wesleyan during the middle of the semester and returned to complete their studies after I graduated. I estimate 15% of the student body departed that year to Navy or Air Force OCS schools.
As an immigrant, I was required to register for the draft. If called up, I had the choice of being drafted and receiving citizenship quickly. If I declined, I would be ineligible for US citizenship. A system of deferments for science and engineering students and professionals was established during the summer of 1951. Such deferment was at the option of the local draft board. My draft board deferred me until age 35 when my eligibility for military service expired.
When the second semester started in 1951, I resolved to improve my grades and compete for the prize of “The most improved freshman.” I worked hard studying in the library to avoid distractions. The only memorable thing that semester was that in the biology class, we dissected a baby piglet. Biology labs for the freshman course were all on Wednesdays, and that evening all campus fraternity houses served roast pork for dinner. It was no accident.
During some party weekends, I periodically worked as a bar tender at fraternity parties. The job had a downside. Some of the Wesleyan men drank too much and one or more passed out while their dates watched frantically and hysterically. One of the tasks of the bartenders was to calm them down. Moreover, whenever dates came to Wesleyan on weekends, housing was usually found for them in local private homes.
At closing time, the dates of these passed out boyfriends were escorted to their temporary homes by the student bartenders because Middletown was not known as being a university-friendly community. It was mostly a Catholic working class community (Middletown had three Catholic Churches, one for those Italian descent, one for those of Polish descent, and one for those of Irish descent). Town-gown relations were abysmal. Often, stranded dates didn’t know their way back to the private home where they stayed. I started a system of logging the local addresses of everyone’s date early in the evening while their Wesleyan hosts were still sober.
There were recriminations and finger pointing when the guys sobered up. Most of us who bartended were accused of spiking drinks to “bird-dog,” go to bed, or ‘make out’ with their dates. The recriminations arose because next morning some of these ladies delighted in teasing these guys with exaggerated stories. I often told my compatriots, there’s nothing desirable, romantic, or amusing about a partly stupefied, half-drunk woman.
The semester ended and my GPA went up from a D plus to a B plus. However, another classmate earned the “Improved Freshman Prize.”
Because Wesleyan was small, it lacked certain course offerings. I was interested in taking anthropology and sociology courses and attended summer school at Northwestern University during the summer of 1951 to do so. It was a great summer and I enjoyed the coursework. I met one graduate student in the dormitory, Frank Hoodmaker. He was earning a MS degree in geology and I looked at his books and found them of interest.
Over the summer, I concluded that if I went to summer school the following summer and took a lab course each of my remaining semesters at Wesleyan, I could earn enough credits to graduate in two more years.
During the fall of 1951, I took a third semester of ‘bonehead English’ and chose geology for my lab science. I don’t recall what else I took, but the geology course changed my life. I did very well and chose to major in it. That meant a complete reorganization of my course work. It ended my plan to graduate in 1953 because I had cognate science courses to take, and complete a major from a late start.
The ‘bonehead English’ course was taught by a visiting professor, Charles A. Muscatine. Muscatine was an English Professor at the University of California, Berkeley (UCB), earned all his degrees from Yale, and was an internationally recognized Medievalist. He refused to sign a loyalty oath and under California laws of the time, he was fired. Wesleyan offered a visiting appointment and he stayed until the California law was repealed three years later (See Chapter 14).
Muscatine was particularly irritating. He kept lording over us that he was a Yale graduate and implied a Wesleyan education was inferior. He acted as if he didn’t want to be at Wesleyan, although to earn his livelihood, he was fortunate to have a job there. I crossed swords with him a few times in class but I earned a B plus. I was happy that I did not have to take another course with him. Little did I know then that I would visit him at his office at UCB in 1970 (Chapter 14).
Overall, my sophomore year was a great year and I scored high grades in all my courses. I decided not to pledge at DU and instead joined the independent counterpart to fraternities, the John Wesley Club.
During my sophomore year, I competed for a campus wide public speaking prize, the Parker Prize. I intended
