The Michele Regenold ’89 [and] Kevin Cannon ’02 illustrated story: “Get the Lead Out” [Page 20] in the summer issue of The Grinnell Magazine is brilliant. It tells a lively and vivid story of a great scientist who improved the lives of everyone on our planet — and he was a Grinnellian.
Letters to the Editor
Fall 2019
I immediately recognized the inset photo on Page 16 of “Then and Now” in the Winter 2018 issue, historic and contemporary images of the Quad dining hall. My mother, Phyllis Miller Lawrence ’48, has it displayed on her dresser. She’s the one looking right at the photographer, as if the picture is of her alone and everyone else is just background.
She distinctly remembers the occasion. It was Thanksgiving of 1944 [not 1950], and the government had declared that college students were not to travel home for the holiday to keep the trains free for the war effort. She remembers the meal was better than usual and that students were to dress up. She also recalls exactly what she was wearing — a black velveteen jumper that my grandmother had sewn for her and a white crepe blouse.
I was thrilled to see this familiar image in the magazine, as was my mother, but we wanted to correct the date for the archive. I have my own happy memories of the Quad and am glad that it still serves as a venue for special events and more memories.
Regarding the item in the summer edition of The Grinnell Magazine about a memorial honoring our deceased veterans of all wars since the Civil War [Page 5], this is clearly an entirely worthy and important project.
Reading about it, however, raised a question in my mind. Is there ever a thought or recognition of those Grinnell men and women who fought those wars, who were in most cases forced by the draft to leave college, enter service and spend precious and dangerous years in far-off places?
I entered Grinnell in the fall of 1941 as a freshman at the age of 17. Two weeks after I turned 18, Pearl Harbor was attacked. By the end of the following school year, the College was almost emptied of male students and drained also of a significant number of female students.
Most of us in service spent the next three years or so in faraway places, out of touch with families and loved ones, except for censored mail stripped of any mention of our location or activities. At least for those serving in the Pacific theatre, there was virtually no leave, no R and R, and little expectation of going home until the war came to an end, estimated to be years away.
Grinnellians were certainly represented in those remote places. I accidentally ran into three people from Grinnell in those years overseas, one in New Guinea and two in the Philippine Islands. I did not know them well, but running into someone from college was almost like running into one's own brother. Acquainted or not, we had a perfectly wonderful hour or two.
At age 21 or 22, I commanded a 160-ton ship manned by a crew of 14 (ages 19 to 33) and one other officer. What an experience for an Iowa boy who had only seen salt water just once in his life. It was dangerous. We lost one of our crew at Leyte Gulf, a nice young man from Norwalk, Connecticut — the worst day of my life, so far.
However, on the plus side, the experience enabled me to go to law school on the GI Bill, something that would have never been feasible otherwise, mostly for financial reasons. A rewarding career followed — 38 years of law practice and 12 as a judge. A good enough trade-off, as it turned out.
I so enjoyed your summer issue of The Grinnell Magazine. When I graduated, I moved to [New York City] and my next-door neighbor was an activist on gasoline lead and ended up with her picture in Newsweek. I had no idea of the years of work that went into the science behind her demonstration. Thank you for the article on Clair "Pat" Patterson [“Get the Lead Out,” Page 20] — and I really enjoyed the comic format. Great artwork, too! Please do keep it up.
Spring 2019
A couple of years ago I posted a blog [grinnellstories.blogspot.com] devoted to appearances of Grinnell and Grinnell College in modern fiction: Stuart Kaminsky, Robert Heinlein, and Ray Bradbury all make mention of Grinnell. Kaminsky and Heinlein both had personal connections to the College, but what Bradbury’s was I don’t know.
Later I encountered Grinnell references in several of John Grisham’s books: Runaway Jury (1994), Testament (1999), and Last Juror (2004) all mention Grinnell College. What I haven’t learned is what Grisham’s connection is to Grinnell. Were it just one mention or were Grinnell paired with similar institutions, I might conclude that it was happenstance. But the frequent mentions and the characterizations indicate that he knows something — or someone — at Grinnell.
The online Scarlet & Black knows no reference to him except in a series of bestseller lists; the online alumni directory knows no Grisham. So I send this letter to the magazine, wondering whether any Grinnell grads out there know John Grisham or know how he came to know about Grinnell? Contact me at kaiser[at]grinnell[dot]edu.
Thank you for including my notice about my first photography exhibit. I’m a 67-year-old woman, just concluding a career as a religious studies/English professor. So as I turn from my 40 years of teaching and scholarship, I’m excited to be learning a new skill and a new medium for expression — photography. I’m the owner of Free Spirit Photography LLC, and my first exhibit, Defy the Machine, paired images of horses with political images by a colleague.
My turn toward photography was previewed by the Grinnell Activism exhibit (2012) that I curated with David Hechler ’72. He did video and text; I did the images. We supplied the archives with a treasure of original materials from the 1969–1973 era.
I like having the “Artists and Scholars” section distinguished from “Classnotes.” It gives rightful prominence to Grinnell’s ongoing body of creativity. But, I’m very disappointed that you didn’t print one of my photos with my note. Would you reconsider?
Once again I write to mourn the recent loss of another member of Grinnell’s English department in the 1970s. I was saddened to learn of the death of Ed Moore [“In Memoriam,” Page 50, Winter 2018). His grace, humor, and fearsome intellect created memorable introductions to the humanities and Shakespeare in his classroom. His upper-level seminar in Shakespearean studies ranks among the top three seminars of my undergraduate and graduate career. He had high expectations of his students, tempered by his sense of humor. My classmates remind me that when he called the roll, he would recite my full name, Anne Brickey Barriault, as if he were amused by its sound. His students were certainly inspired by the sounds of Shakespeare under his careful guidance. Rest in peace, Ed Moore, and thank you.
“What did you want to be when you were nine years old?” That’s how I started many career-counseling sessions back in the ’70s. Invariably, the initial response was gloomy. “Well, I wanted to be a transatlantic Concorde plane pilot, but heights make my nose bleed.” We would then set about to translate the nosebleed scenario into other air/space related possibilities and their requisite aptitudes and skills. Had lots of success but no research to bring me counseling notoriety.
So, “Blind Turns and Cryptic Crossroads” [Page 18, Winter 2018] warmed my heart, as if I needed credibility beyond Grinnell alumni status. What does being a French major have to do with career development? Contemplating career goals can seem to be a pretty, foreign exercise — no?
As a usually proud alum of Grinnell College, class of 1984, I was shocked and appalled to read [in The Des Moines Register] that the College is fighting the unionization efforts of its students and potentially threatening the organizing rights of college students across the United States. Such action couldn’t be further from Grinnell’s proudest traditions of promoting social justice. When Debra Lukehart, a Grinnell spokesperson, argues that unionization undermines the College’s core educational mission and inserts priorities that are “economic, not educational, into learning outside the classroom,” she misses the boat. To paraphrase the U.S. Supreme Court in its Tinker v. Des Moines School Board decision from 50 years ago, students don’t shed their rights to economic justice at the schoolhouse gate. On a practical matter, less than two percent of Grinnell’s operating expenses go toward student salaries. Is spending hundreds of thousands of dollars in opposing unionization really worth the risk of alienating donors and alumni who expect more from our alma mater
Editor’s note: For context, for the 2016–17 school year, institutional grant aid to students comprised about 27 percent of Grinnell’s operational budget.
Fall 2018
I support the recommendations on climate impact, sustainability, and divestment as presented in The Grinnell Magazine Summer 2018 issue. What could be better than reducing the College’s carbon footprint? The electric utility that serves Grinnell College offers an optional program through which all (or a portion of) the College’s electricity could be renewable for a reasonable additional cost.
More than two decades ago I led a team that developed such a program for Minnesota electric cooperatives. At that time no other utility in Minnesota or Iowa offered such a program. Now most of them do. That program is easier and more cost-effective, and therefore more likely to succeed, than having the College try to develop its own renewable resources. Over time the College could add electric vehicles and electric boilers, replacing fossil-fueled vehicles and boilers, thus becoming even more renewable. It’s a way to take action that is less showy but more substantive than some of the alternatives.