Mother was born on August 4, 1907 in Johnsonburg, Elk County, Pennsylvania. Her father paid in full the amount of $15.00 to the doctor.
Her first day of school in Johnsonburg was September 1, 1913, and she attended Johnsonburg schools until her graduation from high school. Her father signed nearly all the grade school and high school report cards sent home monthly. Four years of Latin, four of mathematics, and four of science were included in her high school curriculum.
Her high school Baccalaureate Service on Sunday, May 31, 1925 and the Commencement Exercises on June 4, 1925 were both held in Long's Theater. Mother was the valedictorian, and her father was secretary of the school board and handed out all the diplomas. The class was composed of 45 members, and the class officers included Mother as Secretary Treasurer.
Mother shook hands with President Calvin Coolidge during her senior class trip to Washington, DC.
As a child, she took piano lessons for a few years. One sister, wrote in a letter (soon after Mother's death) that she remembered Mother taking care of her and reading stories to her while they sat around a gas stove.
From another sister’s letter "One thing I remember when you were in high school, you would sit at the table, our battery radio was on, and study. Mother didn't see how you could study and listen at the same time, but you always came home with good grades -- also you came home late for supper because you practiced basketball."
In a letter dated October 3, 1988, Mother mentioned playing volleyball on her high school class team. "We did not have as many players as some, think we just let as many as wanted to play, we were champs- maybe we did not get in each other's way."
The family attended the Methodist Church, then known as the Methodist Episcopal Church. There were summer camps sponsored by the Pennsylvania Sabbath School Association. The Bible., Christian Living, and a wide variety of courses were offered. Besides study, other activities were swimming, games, camp songs, and worship time.
High school girls went to Camp Caledon, North Gerard, Erie County, Pennsylvania. There was a
$3.00 registration fee, and the balance of $17.00 was paid on arrival at the camp. This included room, board, and tuition. The cost of books was extra. Mother went here in June 1925, and again in August, 1926. The program for post high school youth was at Camp Kanesatake, Spruce Creek, Huntington County, Pennsylvania. Mother attended this camp in August, 1928, and August, 1929. The cost for this was the $3.00 registration fee plus $20.00 paid at the camp.
Mother received an Elk County Scholarship for $100 per year for four years, plus a scholarship awarded by the Penn State Women’s club for $50 annually. I recall her saying that her father promised each of his four children two years of college.
in 1927 on. May 19, a Scholarship Day was held at Penn State. At this time, Gladys was one of three women out of the twenty-nine students who were awarded Honor Society Council Medals, She took 17, 18, and 19 credit hours a semester, and took mathematics class notes in ink.
She rode back and forth to State College on a train and in a letter to my sister dated April 29, 1975, described it like this: "That trip to State College was roundabout. The train took us through Ridgway and St. Mary's to Emporium Junction. Then we went to the other side of that station that had a train that went to Lock Haven, it came from the north, I think. I can still hear the conductor calling out Driftwood' and Sinnamahonig which he made longer than it is, almost like a song. Then there was, Renovo, which sounded like 'ran ovah.' At Lock Haven we took another train that went to Milesburg, and backed into Bellefont. Then we rode a bus to State."
Mother had a big gray trunk, one side for hanging clothes, the other with drawers, which she took to college. While there she lived with her cousins who had a rooming house in State College, Pennsylvania.
In later years, Mother sent her yearbook back to the college in response to a request. She had a copy made of the page with her picture. Her nickname was "Gladie" and the activities listed were the track team, the Sophomore Class State Scholarship for Elk County, and the Tri-County Club. She was also a member of a social club, which had affiliated with the Gamma Phi Beta Sorority by the time of her marriage.
Mother received the Bachelor of Arts in the Curriculum of Arts and Letters from Pennsylvania State College on February 12, 1929. Upon receiving her bachelor’s degree, she began work on her master's degree and was an instructor of mathematics for five years at Penn State. She belonged to the honorary mathematical fraternity, Pi Mu Epsilon, joining on December 12, 1930. She was also a member of the honorary physics fraternity, Sigma Pi Sigma.
Mother attended summer school at the University of Chicago in 1930, 1931, 1932, and 1933. She received her Masters of Arts Degree from Penn State on June 8, 1931.
Mother met Daddy in the summer of 1932. He also spent summers at the University of Chicago. The story is that they met on a double date. Daddy was the roommate’s date. The roommate married Mother’s date. They kept in touch until Mother’s death. Mother's mother had sent her a birthday cake and a party developed in her honor - with the cake- to Lake Michigan.
Besides studying, other things to do were swimming in Lake Michigan, shopping at Marshall Fields, and visiting the Field Museum of Natural History. The Adler Planetarium, Americans oldest planetarium, opened in 1930.
Mother and Daddy were married in the family home in Johnsonburg, and the ladies of the Methodist Episcopal Church served a wedding dinner after the ceremony. The pastor of the church, performed the ceremony on Tuesday, August 29, 1933.. They went to Niagara Falls on their honeymoon.
It seems I remember Mother or Daddy telling that Mother learned to drive a car in Chicago. Her parents did not own a car, and Daddy borrowed a car from his brothers to drive-on the honeymoon and on to Norman, Oklahoma.
After their marriage she continued her interest in mathematics by taking courses at OU: 6 hours, first semester 1933-1934; first semester 1934:-1935, another 3 hours; and 3 hours first semester and 3 hours second semester, 1938-1939, and all A's. (Three children were born in this time period.)
Johnsonburg, Elk County, Pennsylvania is a small town on a hill. The main industry was a paper mill. You had to be careful if you wanted to hang clothes outside to dry, as a layer of black particles would settle on them. Daddy liked to tease Mother that when they were coming around the curves close to Johnsonburg that you could smell a distinct odor, and Mother would know that she was almost home.
