Of Pens, Perseverance, and PhDs
Continuing on the Memory Keeper thread from the last entry, another treasure I have from my folks is a small box of items I pulled from my mom’s cedar chest. Mom stored her most valuable (to her) possessions in that chest, and going through it after her death was very poignant. I’ll save most of the contents of that box for another day, but one item deserves a story all its own—not so much for what it is, but for what it represents—the memories it keeps.
My mom graduated from high school in 1939 at the age of 17. Most of her teenage years happened during the Great Depression, and life was pretty tough for everybody. Fortunately my grandfather had a job, working at the bakery he would soon come to own, and the family made do as so many did.
As a graduation gift, Papa bought my mom a fountain pen—a Sheaffer pen. I have no idea what it might have cost in 1939. I would imagine it was a nice pen, and my grandfather probably paid as much as he felt he could. Kids didn’t get cars for graduation presents in those days! (They still weren’t getting them when I graduated from high school in 1972 either!)
My mom talked about having been given the pen as a special gift for graduation, that she used it all during college, and would go on to say that our dad had used it as well—working on his dissertation.
And therein lies another tale. . . .
Daddy started college about the same time Mom did. He was at Berry College in North Georgia; she was at LaGrange College in West Georgia. He enlisted in the army when the war broke out, served his time overseas, and then returned home to finish up his Bachelor’s Degree at the University of Georgia, in Athens. Mom had completed her degree at LaGrange and decided to enroll in graduate school at UGA the same year Daddy started there. They met in the registration line.
Daddy finished up his Bachelor’s Degree there and stayed on to get his Master’s Degree in Business as well. By this time, my folks were married. Daddy’s next stop was the University of Virginia to work on his Doctorate. By 1952, Daddy was working on his dissertation—and using that pen.
As would be true for all of their married life together, Mom worked side-by-side with Daddy, helping him any way she could—typing, editing, drawing figures, etc. She kept her parents, brother, and sister apprised of the progress in those nearly daily letters back home.
From Saturday, February 16, 1952, Mom wrote:
Jere and I have been quite busy lately trying to get a good bit of his statistical data ready for his thesis. He has set March 15th as a sort of deadline in which to finish this part so we both still have plenty of work to do. He has really got to work if he finishes this June. So far we just don’t know if he will make it or not. If he doesn’t finish in June I am sure he can do it by August unless something happens.
He missed his deadline. Not due to lack of effort on his part or lack of support from Mom, but because one Saturday night the day after his March 15th self-imposed deadline, the building on the UVA campus where he kept his dissertation work burned to the ground.
From Sunday Night, 3/17/1952, Daddy wrote:
I don’t know just what we told you of the fire. The building burned late Saturday night and was a complete loss. Only a few files from one office and a few rifles from the Army ROTC office were saved. All of my dissertation was destroyed except my outline and an article I translated from German.
It was mainly statistical tables and charts which constituted my biggest loss. They are the basis of everything I’m doing and will have to be re-done. However, a large part of these were purely experimental and won’t have to be re-done. So we could be a lot worse off.
Apparently, the insurance company paid him $110 to cover his losses. And true to his indomitable spirit, he added:
I don’t remember if we wrote you this or not, but I did get one compliment out of the fire. Dr. Vining, my major prof, has said that most dissertations aren’t worth the paper they are typed on. Since the insurance company is willing to pay me exactly the value of this paper for mine, I figure that is “proof” that mine is better than average!
They were able to recreate the charts and tables, streamlining and improving them along the way. By the fall of 1952, only finishing his dissertation and a final exam stood in his way to get his PhD. By this time, he had gotten his first teaching position at the University of West Virginia, in Morgantown. So he taught and he kept working on that dissertation. Mom helped with the charts, and her sister, Priscilla, came up and helped as well.
He finished the dissertation, passed his final with flying colors, and on June 15, 1953—a year later than he’d planned—he officially became Dr. Jere W. Clark.
I have no idea how much that pen was used in writing the dissertation. I know my mom treasured that pen, and treasured it enough to keep it safely in the old cedar chest for decades. It was a memory keeper for my Mom—of a father’s love and pride for his daughter, for a wife’s love and pride in her husband, and for the husband’s perseverance and accomplishment.
Art thou a pen, whose task shall be
To drown in ink
What writers think?
Oh, wisely write,
That pages white
Be not the worse for ink and thee.
—Ethel Lynn Beers
© Melissa Clark Vickers 2014
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April 18th, 2018 at 6:37 pm
So touching, Melissa!