Main Menu · Search ·Current Issue ·Contact ·Archives ·Centennial ·Letters to the Editor ·FAQs
For more alumni web resources, check out Harvard Gateways, the Harvard Alumni Association's website
Grandine at the time of his ordeal by apple. |
Editor's note: Joseph D. Grandine '44 graduated from Harvard in 1943 and received a Ph.D. in chemistry from USC in 1949. He spent much of his working career designing, programming, and using computers. This essay is from his as yet unpublished autobiography, "Life Revisited."
I arrived at Harvard one week early, late one Friday afternoon in the fall of 1940. I was 17 years old, and entering a world almost entirely unfamiliar to me. The eldest of seven children on a family farm in northern Wisconsin during the lean years of the 1930s, I had never experienced anything like the urban environment in which Harvard is located. My work experience, apart from milking and field and garden chores, consisted solely of taking orders for and delivering the freshly dressed chickens that my family produced and sold to residents and stores in the "city" of Crandon (population 1,600), located two-and-one-half miles from the farm on which we lived. Such modern amenities as electricity and automobiles I had experienced during my schooling, but none of them existed on our farm. My only nights away from home had been visiting with my aunt, a teacher in the middle of the state, and camping with the Boy Scouts.
At my mother's suggestion, and over my father's objections ("Don't set the boy up for disappointment," he had said), I had applied for one of the two Harvard National Scholarships awarded that year in Wisconsin, and had been granted an "all expense" scholarship to attend Harvard College for four years. My parents and I were delighted with this opportunity, for Harvard has a magical name even in Wisconsin, and a good college education was the goal set for me and my siblings by our parents, despite the lack of resources to help pay for such a thing.
After reading that all written assignments at Harvard were required to be typewritten, I picked and sold strawberries in order to pay for a portable typewriter. My parents had scraped together another 25 dollars to help me get started on my college career. My mother heard that the son of one of her friends was going to start a new job as an engineer in Boston, and arranged for me to ride with him, sharing the expenses of the trip. Neither of us could afford even the cost of a roadside cabin for overnight stops, so we traveled until the driver was tired, rested beside the road, and continued when he was ready to drive again. In this manner, we traveled the twelve hundred miles from northern Wisconsin to Cambridge in about three days. The driver stopped when we came to the Harvard Stadium, and I got out, with my typewriter and suitcase. We said our good-byes, he continued on his way to Boston, and I was on my own.
I had no trouble finding my way across the Charles River and up the street to Harvard Square, following my progress on the map of Harvard College which had been sent with my notice of admission. Nor was it difficult to find the entrance to Harvard Yard, and, once inside, Matthews Hall, where I had been assigned a room for my freshman year. Inside Matthews, I found a directory indicating that my room was number 52, on the top floor. Meeting nobody of whom to ask permission, I climbed the stairs and found the door of room 52 open, with the key lying on the bureau. The room was actually a small suite, with two small bedrooms, each with a single bed, and a study between them which contained two desks, two chairs, and two bookcases. I soon discovered toilets and showers at the ends of the hallway. After making use of the latter, I put my suitcase beside one of the beds, and my typewriter beside one of the desks, and sat down to read the letter of instructions I had brought with me.
According to this letter, I was to report to the bursar's office in Lehman Hall, to sign in, pick up my identification, and receive the first installment of the "spending money" included in my scholarship. Map in hand, I descended to ground level and followed the map and the path to Lehman Hall, only to encounter a sign on the door, saying "Hours 8:30 to 4:30, Monday through Friday." It was Friday, and it was 6:30 p.m. The 25 dollars with which I had left home on Wednesday had shrunk considerably from paying for half of the gas and oil for the automobile, and from buying sandwich materials and cold drinks along the way. Indeed, less than five dollars remained, to meet whatever demands might be placed upon it. With two full days, three nights, and eight mealtimes to pass before the bursar's office would reopen, economy was definitely in order. I returned to my room and reread the instructions and informational pamphlets which had been sent to me in Wisconsin. I found that freshmen all took their meals in a common dining room for their use, but nowhere could I see it stated where this dining facility was located. Nor was the map any help, giving the names of buildings only, with no indication of their function. Being unfamiliar with telephones, it did not occur to me to use one to try to find out this vital piece of missing information.
The promised land, shown here in Grandine's day. HARVARD UNIVERSITY ARCHIVES |
Instead, I walked around Harvard Square, looking for a food store where I could buy some bread and cheese and milk. Dismissing cafeterias and restaurants as too expensive for my present financial state, I discovered only a fruit stand, where a large apple cost 20 cents. Investing in two apples, I returned to my room. After filling the glass I found on my bureau from the bathroom tap, and setting one of the apples aside for breakfast, I sat at a desk and enjoyed my first meal at Harvard.
Saturday and Sunday were long, lonely days, spent exploring most of Harvard with the aid of my map. I located but did not enter the Fogg Art Museum, the University Museum, Memorial Hall, the Mallinckrodt Chemical Labs, the physics buildings, Widener Library, the Law School, and even the Business School, across the river not far from my point of arrival. But nowhere did I come across anything which I recognized, by name or appearance, as a freshman dining hall. So I continued to patronize the fruit stand in Harvard Square, which fortunately was open seven days a week, and dined on apples and water in my room, morning, noon, and night. By Monday morning I was $1.60 poorer in pocket, and rather hungry in stomach.
First thing on Monday morning, I was at the door of Lehman Hall waiting for the bursar's office to open. When it did, I presented myself, signed the appropriate documents, and received my student identification card. By asking as casually as I could, I learned that the freshman dining facility was located in the Harvard Union, outside of Harvard Yard and a short distance down the street from the Fogg Art Museum. I had passed this rather imposing building several times in the preceding two days, but its entrance was set well back from the street, behind imposing gates, with only a walkway giving access. It bore no indication of its function, and its external appearance had certainly not invited closer inspection.
By the time I had finished at Lehman Hall, it was after the breakfast hours listed in my orientation booklet. At lunchtime, I ventured inside the gates, along the walkway, and up the steps to the entrance of the Union, where the door was opened for me by a uniformed attendant who, in response to my question, said, "Lunch is being served, sir." Across the lobby in which I now stood, I could see through the entrance to the dining room the tables covered with white tablecloths. When I showed my student ID and entered the dining room, I realized that waitresses were standing around its perimeter, except for some who were waiting on the few who had arrived before me. Having read in my instructions that coats and ties were required at all meals, I did not suffer the embarrassment of being rejected, but was soon presented with a menu containing a wide variety of foods. Being careful to avoid anything with apples in it, I ordered a filling lunch, which turned out to be tasty as well. I also learned, by observation, that unlimited second helpings were available. In fact, I had a second lunch myself.
Well fed at last, I walked back across the Yard to Matthews Hall, and began to feel at home in my new environment, and any lingering doubts about the wisdom of having come to Harvard disappeared. I was glad I had come.
~ Joseph D. Grandine