Project What is the Augustana Story?
Preferred Citation Interview with Lillian Nelson, 2009, in MSS 291 Oral history interviews, Special Collections, Augustana College, Rock Island, Illinois.
Transcript [0:00] J: Lindsey has a topic sheet for you. These are a list of topics that, through our research we found information about and topics we would like to ask you about. Um, if at any time, say we ask you about college life and something comes up about your husband Harry, feel free to jump in and talk about him. [Lillian and Lindsey laugh] J: That is totally fine. We are here to listen to you. This is not a permanent or concrete thing. J: So, um. Well ya. Um, we are ready to go we just… L: Life before college? J: What’s that? Oh ya, we just have to say a couple things for the record. L: Oh ok. [laughter] J: So we are at…First of all, do you prefer to be call Mrs. Nelson or Lillian? J: Lillian? L: It doesn’t matter. I’ve-I’ve told the Alumni Office to call me Mrs. Harry Nelson other wise other people wouldn’t know my name. J: Awww L: I have been gone for a while they recognize my name I guess, so either one works. J: Ok, well we are here with Lillian Nelson here at her apartment in Davenport, Iowa. I am Jeff Lackaff. B: I am Lindsey Bell J: And we will be talking to her about her life, her husband’s life, and their role at Augstana College. So ya well. Ya start definitely. [1:25] B: We are kind of wondering, have you lived in the Quad cities your whole life? L: No B: No? L: No [1:31] B: Alright, Um, What was life like before College? L: Ok, uhhh, I was born in Princeton, Illinois. B: Oh ok. L: And uh my Father was a farmer. And I went to college just at the end of the Depression. B: Ohh L: All of his crops had been wiped out that year by the drought and then the jinch[?] bugs finished off the job. So he had no crops that year. He had three children to grow to college. J: Geez L: He heard about buck wheat that would grow a short period of time. J: Ya L: So he drove out to Iowa from Princeton, Illinois. And found a place where he could by buck wheat seed, planted it and harvested it in the snow. J and B: Oh wow! L: It’s that hearty! So you can imagine the respect we have for buck wheat pancakes! [laughter] L: So um so that’s what happened but he sent us to college but tuition was a hundred and twenty five dollars. Each semester. B: Really! I don’t even want to tell you what it is now! L: Oh I know what it is because I just got three thanks you’s from the scholarships he [Harry] has. He has three scholarships this year so that’s great. So, I know that helps. J: Oh ya L: So, uh we were going to come to Augustana. We made an appointment to come down here and its kind of a funny story in the history of Augustana. We came here and the fella who was supposed to meet us didn’t show. B: Oh no! L: So my father said that’s all it means. Then we made an appointment to go to Knox. The president came to our farm and visited with my family. J: Oh wow [laughter] L: And he was an Eastern gentleman. Ya know a very classic old man and he came and visited with my folks, my mother was in the garden working and…it didn’t make a difference to her. My father knew a person who had graduated from Knox and was very much impressed. So we all went to Knox instead of Augustana. B: OH L: I am a Knox graduate. J: I have a friend at Knox right now and she loves it. L: Is that right. I enjoyed it at Knox. We had, we got a good education. [3:55] B: Now for the record what did you major in? L: I majored in mathematics B: Good for you! I couldn’t do it! L: Is that right? [laughter] J: I’m not a math person. That’s why we’re history. L: My father loved mathematics, and so did my mother. And so I suppose they were happy that I majored in mathematics. Anyway, I graduated from, now you probably want to know how I met Harry. B: Uh, a little bit yes. J: Go for it! [laughter] whatever you feel like saying. L: I belong to the old Augustana Lutheran Church. Which had a very active Luther League, are you familiar with that at all? J: Um, a little bit. L: Do you have any connection with Augustana? Uh, Augustana Synod? Swedish? J: Yea, a little bit, yeah. L: Okay well, I’m steeped in that [laughter] and so did my husband, well anyway, uh, every summer; many of us in Luther League would go to Luther League Bible Camp, in Lake Geneva. B: Oh! [laughter] L: Before that at Fox Lake. Which is up in that area. Well, anyway, um, a group of us who were high school kids there were, do you know who Bob Carlbrum[?] is? J: I do not. L: He’s the, he’s on the Board of Directors at Augustana. B: I, I think I know that name. L: His mother and her friend and my sister and I became very close friends through that connection. J: Oh, that’s nice. L: And we were at Augustana, the camp. And it so happened there was an Augustana quartet, the old Augustana quartet was there to recruit students. J: Oh, cool! L: So we got well acquainted with them on our way home, we decided to stop at one of their homes in Rockford. And while we were there, my husband, Harry, happened to be this person’s roommate in college. He had just gotten a job teaching in Cambridge High School, and we met for perhaps about an hour, and that was it. B: That was it! [5:51] L: Five years later, when we were both at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, for graduate school, I, we were walking around the, they have a kind of college opener party, the first weekend, and I saw this guy and I thought, gee, I think I know him! [laughter] And I said, “aren’t you Harry Nelson from Rockford?” And he said, “yes, but I don’t recognize you!” [a ton of laughter] So he, um, he says to his buddy, he says, “ya know, uh, I really wasn’t very good to that little girl, I better try and make up for it”, and it so happened that the next day, he was coming out of the cafeteria, we all ate in the same place, he was coming out as I was going in. So the next day, he came a little later so we ate lunch together. J: Oh! L: And we started dating that summer. J: Oh! B: Very nice! L: Isn’t that fun? J: That’s great! L: So, that’s how we met and that’s uh, I suppose I should tell you, the reason-going back to college life, Harry [pause] was working here for his father in a grocery store in Rockford, a little neighborhood grocery store. He saved his money and was going to buy a car…and this is 1928, and his father says, ‘you know, it’ll, you’ll have to have insurance, and you’ll have to have gas, so you can, you’re pretty dependable, you can use my car. And, um, he decided to leave his money in the bank. The next year was 1929, and I think you know what happened [referring to the Great Depression]. J: Yeah. L: He lost all his money. And his, then uh, I think it was either a year, two and a half, two and a half years later, he got twenty-seven percent back. After the banks opened up…and so his dad says, “well now what do you think you’ll do with that money?” and he says, “I think I’ll go to college” B: Oh! L: And that was a real shocker, because no one in the family had ever gone to college, but he did, got good grades in high school, and so his dad says, “well, if that’s what you want to do I, uh, you’ve got enough to get started and so I’ll help you”, if his dad sent him a ten dollar bill and he only needed five, he sent five back. B: Oh! That’s so nice! J: Yeah! L: He worked in the cafeteria J: Okay. L: And, uh, if they, I think it was thirty-five cents a meal, and forty cents if you had dessert. And if one of his friends had to clean up, and so if there was desserts left they could have the desserts. [laughter] [8:42] J: Where did he go to school again? L: He went to Augustana…well actually a lot of Rockford people come to Augustana, and it was a lot of the people from their church had come here and they kind of talked him into it. [laughter] So he came here. J: It’s a good school! B: Yeah! We definitely like it! L: So he, um, but he came in the middle of the year, so he only spent three and a half years here. B: Oh, wow! L: Yeah, he graduated as a member of the Runic Honors Society. B: Good for him! L: So…uh [long pause] where do we go from here? [9:18] J: Um, I would just like to ask you a question about Harry, so Harry graduated from Augustana College L: Yeah. In 1935. [9:24] J: And then, went to Madison after that? L: Well actually, he, when he sang in the choir. The choir went on a tour when he was… [9:32] J: The Augustana Choir? L: Yep. J: I’m in the Augustana Choir. L: Are you really? J: Yeah! L: Good for you. And he went on tour, and he, before he went, he had been offered a stipend and a scholarship to go to the University of Illinois to study engineering. J: Oh, wow! L: And, when he came back from choir tour he still had the scholarship, but he didn’t, the stipend was taken away, they couldn’t afford to do that. So Dr. Cederburg[?], his advisor, you’ve probably heard of Dr. Cederburg? He was a math professor way back. He says, “you know, you can get that anytime you’ve had practice teaching, so why don’t you look for a teaching job?” And he liked teaching, so he stayed in and decided he’d not bother with, with engineering school, and so then he went to Madison, for five summers and got his masters in mathematics, so then he studied pure mathematics. I think he had in the back of his mind always to come back to Augustana, to teach, I think that’s what he wanted to do. [continuously moved her cup on the saucer] [10:39] J: Awesome, awesome. Well, um, could you tell us a little about um, his decision to come back after you guys meeting L: Oh, yeah, he was, he taught in Cambridge for, I think two years in high school, then he was offered a job in one of our Augustana Lutheran Academies and Junior College, Luther College in Wahoo[?], Nebraska. B: Okay. L: And uh, so he, he went there and taught for five years. The last year he was there, he was acting president [giggling] because the president had resigned, so then he went to teach math and you know, in a small academy and college, there was a lot of extra curricular activities so he did all kinds of things there and, he uh, supervised the Debate Team, and the Missionary Society, and he didn’t do any coaching but he went along with the coach, and was kind of a faculty advisor. He was manager of the choir, took the choir on tours, all those things at Luther College. Then uh, he was offered a job at our five year school at Gustavus Adolfus. B: Oh, okay. L: So he went there to teach, and during the war [World War II], well, um, the last year, we were only at Luther, then we were married, and then he went to Gustavus, and the war had been declared before we went, so it was in the Fall of forty-one. And, I remember sitting at the table, you know, Pearl Harbor was bombed. J: Yeah. L: And uh, we were at Gustavus all during the war, and then, you know there’s quite a bit of rivalry between Augustana and Gustavus. B: Yeah. L: But not so much anymore. Kent Barnds spoke to us at St. Paul’s Church the other day, talking about how there was cooperation now [laughter] I don’t know how far that cooperation goes, but anyway, there was quite a bit of rivalry, and Dr. Fryxell, it was right after the Chemistry professor had died during the year, and Dr. Cederburg[?] was getting very elderly, and he says, “we can’t afford to have something happen to Dr. Cederburg and not have anybody here in the Math Department” J: Yeah. L: So he offered Harry a job to come, and Harry had just been offered a, a leave of absence, leave of absence to… J: Sabbatical? L: Sabbatical! To work on his, on his Ph. D. He’d gotten his masters degree on the campus of Madison. And, he had gone to Madison and really liked Madison, wanted to get it, get it there but they said, “well what is your ambition” and he said, “I’d like to continue teaching in a small Lutheran college,” well then, you really aren’t a good prospect for you know, they want him to strive to teach at a university, he says, “uh, I like a small college”. So anyway, um, he gave up the idea of going to uh Wisconsin. And then Dr. Fryxell called him and asked him if he would consider coming to Augustana. And of course that’s what he wanted. He says, “I have just been given a leave of absence to study for my Ph. D.” and he says, “I don’t know where I’m going to do it now because I think I’ve given up on Madison”, and Dr. Fryxell, he says, “you know we’ll do the same thing for you, we’ll give you a part-time job”. So he taught, um Monday, Wednesday, Friday at Augustana twelve hours, and then drove to Iowa City, Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday and worked on his Ph. D. and then at the end of that time, then he took the year off, um, as a sabbatical from Augie to go to Iowa City and spent the whole year there. And while he was there, uh, remember there were kind of a scarcity of math teachers. And the head of the Math Department at Iowa says, “would you please, please, take do one of the uh one of the Advanced Calculus courses?” And Harry says, “I really can’t afford to, because the college is sending me here and paying half my salary and all that”, and he says, “you cant afford not to”, he says, “we can pay you very well” and so he went and took his courses and taught this one class. B: Oh, wow! [15:19] L: [giggling] And I remember my mother was very ill at the time and she was spending some time with us and she says, “How can Harry sit there and work?” He did not have the advantage of a computer B: Oh! L: And all of, and all of his research work was computation. He was trying to study the uh, resistance of air J: Okay. L: The stone dropping meteors and the Air Force was interested in it, so when he got to Iowa City, this man in Astronomy was like, “You’re just the person we need, somebody with a math background to study this problem.” And so the Air Force knew that they could send up rockets but they didn’t know what the air, resistance of air would be to it. And his thesis, you can’t even understand it! [laughter] I would show it to you, but it’s, it’s all, and he would sit there and work, and he had three, if you know enough about math, he had three unknowns and two formulas ya know? So then there you’re stuck. J: Yeah. L: And so he kept working and working finally he called um, Ed Hamming [?] in the Geography, have you heard of Ed Hamming? J: I’ve heard of him. L: Yeah, he was in Geography, and he said, “Ed, uh would the ground be frozen in Arkansas” because he was working on this particular meteor that they had found and knew about it. And he says, “No I don’t believe so” he says, “maybe that’ll help me!” He was working on it falling on a frozen ground because it fell in the winter time, and probably this ground wasn’t frozen [laughter] over the hump! So anyway, he kept working on, with this third unknown that he couldn’t figure out, and that’s what it was all about. B: Wow! L: And he spent…and so that’s how he ended up at Augustana. [17:18] B: Now, we have seen, I believe you’re an honorary graduate of Augustana? Is that true? L: Um, yes, yes, isn’t that something? [17:27] B: Yes! How did that happen? L: Well, I suppose because my husband graduated from Augustana, all three of our children did. B: Oh, wow! L: Yeah. And so I, I was, I’ve been a little bit disappointed in Knox, they don’t do anything for their alums like Augie does. And so, um, I suppose being involved with the alumni, you know, Harry’s class would come back and he was very active in the Alumni Association, and so they decided I should be an Augie Alum [giggles] and so that’s how they made me an Augie Alum. B: Good! J: That’s awesome. [18:10] B: Yeah, it is! [pause] And you were talking about, I know we brought up the Endowment Society earlier and you had written that about it, um, what else did you say you were involved in? L: Well, right now I’m on the board of the Augustana Historical Society. My husband was, very much the old uh, Augustana Swedish Institute was here it combined with the uh Historical Society. So he was very much involved in that. One day he said to me he said, “You know,” my major, my minor was History, and he says, “You know more about history than I do”, he says, “I’ve kind of had to absorb it” [laughter]and he says, “You should be on this board more instead of me.” And so that’s, that’s what the rest of them said to [laughter] so he stayed on the board as an advisory while he was still able to. B: Oh, wow. L: And that’s how I got to be on the Board and now that’s one of my interests. And when they needed a um, the Historical Society Board publishes kind of a newsletter quarterly. And we didn’t do it for awhile, we didn’t have anybody that could do it and now they’ve picked it up again, so they’re doing it. And they’ve done a lot about Esbjorn and his related work. And I think you got one, were you on the choir tour last year? J: Yes, mhm. L: You got that book on Esbjorn, okay. That was, that was written especially for the choir tour. J: We were able to um, we went to the church where he preached at. L: Oh, did you really? [excited] J: And um, we went to uh, we were at his grave right next to his church, and L: Oh were you really? J: We were with the uh, son of the pastor of that church. He got to tell us a little more of the history on the Swedish side, which was very, very nice. L: Well we, uh, they’ve also published a historical bulletin on what he wrote, what Esbjorn wrote about his work in Sweden, so we got a lot of those [laughter] so then, uh they wanted, when they were going to dedicate the women’s building to Emmy Evald, Emmy Carlsson Evald, and I remember her in a way of my mother was very active in the Women’s Missionary Society which she founded and was president of all fifty years or something like that, and I had happened to be president when we celebrated our hundredth anniversary of the Endowment Society and so I had written a history up to that point and so they asked me to add to it, so that’s what that was. B: Nice! J: Interesting. B: Sorry! If you need to take a drink we’ve just been hounding you! J: Go for it! L: Am I giving you more than you want? J: Oh no! This is amazing! L: Okay. B: Thank you very much. [Lillian takes a drink from her cup of cider] [21:11] L: So, uh I suppose my experience with Augustana [takes another sip] had been connected with my family. You know, since I was interested in a way in that I had been a part of the old Augustana Synod which founded Augustana. And, here’s one more thing I should say, that I should have mentioned when they were recruiting people [clears throat] excuse me! J: No worries! [chuckles] L: When they were recruiting people to Augustana, the uh thought amongst the people in Princeton was that if you went to Augustana, you went there to marry a preacher [laughter] and so a lot of girls didn’t want to go and marry a preacher [laughter] that was in the back of our minds as well. I don’t imagine, the historians had ever gotten into that side of it [laughs] B: It’s interesting to hear, though, the recruiting process then as compared to now when we, I work in the Admissions Office and all the mailings we give out L: Oh! And the things that you have to do, I know Kent Barnds [Vice-President of Enrollment] real well, he lives real close here, did you know that? B: Oh, no I did not! L: Yeah, he lives right up here on Fifty-third street. So and I know his family, do you know his little girls? B: No, but I have seen them once or twice. L: Oh, they are precious! [laughter]And, they, so I know Kent and know all the requirements, I don’t think I could make it into college now [laughter] B: I’m sure you would! L: Oh, well I suppose they needed people to fill up the colleges and maybe our restrictions weren’t as much, I don’t know. But, we didn’t have to do anything, we just signed up! [laughs] J: Man [pause] whatever works, right? L: I guess that’s right [laughter] okay [23:26] J: Well, uh, was there anything else, um about your experiences with Augie that kind of stand out to you? L: Well yes, I suppose a lot of things, he, we met some famous astronomers that he brought to campus. It was, Augustana was in a good spot. The National Science Foundation were doing a lot of seminars for and they would choose people at colleges from Business, and the aca-you know so all sorts of life. And Augustana was here, a small Lutheran college with a Ph. D. in Astronomy so he got, Harry got invited to a lot of seminars we’ve spent, [pause] um one at Princeton University and one time at Arizona, he’d go for six weeks the whole family who go and spend these seminars, one in Washington D.C. in American University, one in Arizona at the University of Arizona, and um, lets’ see, he had just been invited to go to Berkley and we spent some time in that observatory uh, there when we were invited to go to Indonesia and so he had to turn that down [laughter] we um Bart Bock[?] was a famous astronomer and I just found one of his books that he had given given to Harry and he even put my name on it and before he wrote about a biography of Schaply[?] who also came here as a Phi Beta Kappa lecturer so that was great, and of course the highlight of course was when Neil Armstrong was here. Harry really has, has uh James van Allen to thank for that because when he decided to see the space program was new and very much in the minds of people and he would like to have had a seminar and he wrote to van Allen if he would come, provided, you probably heard of him, van Allen, University of Iowa, he was the van Allen belts in the clouds, yep, and uh, says, “Harry if you pull that off, I’ll give your blank check, I’ll come any day you could work it out” and so he um, Ed Olson from the Field Museum who was the curator, meteorology, and um, we had Roll Fryxell[?] who was had discover mmamasman out in Washington as he was Dr. Fryxell’s son, and he was a very famous, person out there, and we had another man who was in uh space work who did the designed the maps that they used for walking on the moon, and that was Thor Carlstrom[?] who at the time was I think working for the government out west. And so he came here for that seminar, and then when Neil Armstrong came and they asked him, “why did you come?” and he says, “It just looks like it was such a well-planned program that I wanted to be a part of it” so that was, that was a fun… [27:08] J: What year was that? L: '27 uh '72 J: Amazing! L: 1972 so that was a, that was pretty much a high spot, and then when Harry came here the first year to teach, he was walking home one night, he taught evening school, we lived up on 38th street, he was walking home I don’t want to get to far away [reffering to the microphone placement] he was walking home and he says, “you know Augustana have an observatory,” and he looks up and he says, “it would just be nice if they would have that for just something extra” and so that was in ’46 and in ’69 it was dedicated, but um, Dr. Riley, who that he had worked under at the University of Iowa when he wrote his thesis, had told him, he says, “there’s a man connected to John Deere who has an observatory on the edge of Moline. And he says, “you should contact him,” well he got to be very good friend of Dr. Carl Gamble. And, when Carl Gamble was making out his will, he contacted Dr. Bergendoff and he says, “if I give my observatory to the college,” he says, “I like the things that Harry does, and he promoted what did I want to say? Popular astronomy, not theoretical, and Harry was not really involved in theoretical astronomy, he says, “I can understand it and I can explain it to somebody else, but I don’t have, I don’t enjoy that kind of research,” so he could, you know, read it, and interpret it, and that was Carl Gamble’s theory too, he wanted to make it popular so he gave his, when he died then he gave his telescope, so that was kind of an impitous to build something on campus, not having it out in the country, he needed, you know, you need it on campus and it’s really a pretty good spot. J: Yeah. L: They picked a good spot and the planetarium you know, won a lot of awards yeah. I should give you one of the, do you have a copy of Harry’s [pause] book that he wrote about astronomy at Augustana? B: Um, I had checked it out from the library. L: Oh, did you? B: However, they only let me keep it for so long so I’ll have to check it out again. [29:50] L: I can give you a copy you can have for awhile, you won’t have to check…anyway, where were we? He started planning this, well then we were approached, would he be willing to go to Indonesia as a visiting professor aid to underdeveloped countries so that’s what the program was and you see the Indonesians had been ruled by the Dutch for 300 years, and then in 45 they declared their independence like a lot of the outlying countries did, you know after the war, so they sent all the Dutch home and the Dutch see to it that they were the only professors there, so the Indonesians needed some help and so he went out there for two years, and when he first got the invitation, he read it and threw it in the waste basket, [laughter] and then he says, “you know, this sounds kind of interesting,” he says, “I think I’ll take it home” so he brought it home and he had it all crinkled up then I said, “where in the world is Java, Indonesia?” he says, “I don’t know we’ll look it up on the map, out in the South Pacific”, and I said, “well what do you think?”, and he says, “Well I thought it might be kind of interesting,” and I said “if you go I’ll go” and so we did, a lot of people thought we were crazy taking 3 young children with us, but we did. And I supposed that was the reason our son went into the Peace Corps. Because he was in high school at the time and our daughter was in jr. high, and our younger son was in kindergarten. B: That kind of goes along with travel for you we had seen some, um travel having to do with him, Harry wanting to see some eclipses? J: The research said he was real big into studying eclipses around the world. [31:56] L: Yeah, that’s right, we’ve seen them all over the world and it developed. Well the first one we saw was up in Wisconsin, at uh, [pause] oh boy, I cant come up with the name, I will in a minute, but the Popular Astronomy Club went up and that was the first one we saw, and then it got to be, you want to see the next one, you got to see the next one, and our son was, by this time our son had graduated from Augustana was in the Peace Corps. First of all in the Phillipines, and then transferred to Taiwan, and we wanted to go out and visit him, in Taiwan, Harry had a leave of absence to visit planetariums in different parts of the world. And so we, and then we wanted at the same time there was an eclipse in the Sahara Desert, and Harry wanted to see that one so he wrote to a fellow that just got a telescope and showed him what we were going to do and he says, “Have you bought your tickets yet?” and Harry says, “No.” “well if you would buy your round the world ticket from me you could sign in with this eclipse trip.” Well, it turned out to be a fabulous eclipse because it was in the Sahara Desert so no clouds, so anyway, the fellow that was leading it was from the University at Berkley, and he was a character, he was doing anything but astronomy. He was sacking up with the gals on the trip. Everybody was really disgusted with him. So when they got back, and were making reports to the tour director, they says, “the trip was fine, but the tour director was terrible, but there was another fellow on the trip by the name of Dr. Nelson who really knew his astronomy and got us through this trip.” And so they were out in the middle of the desert, the Sahara desert, and this fella didn’t know how to track where it would happen, and Harry says, “well if you know if he had a [laughter], so he told him and then this, this fellow who uh was the tour director, he called Harry and he says, “Harry, I am thinking of charting a plane to see an eclipse over Purth[?] Australia, over the Indian Ocean,” and he said, “would you be interested, and Harry said, “I’ll have to think about that,” and he told him what it was, all your expenses would be paid and he got right back and says, “I”ll be happy to go” and so he uh, I was involved with another organization, so I didn’t get to go along on that one, I don’t know if I would’ve or not because it was kind of kind of iffy whether or not they’d be able to see and they had forecasted that the ground would be, there would be complete cloud cover, so that’s why he was going to charter a plane hoping to fly above the clouds to see it. That meant, the plane had to have a certain speed, it had to be calculated so that they could get to the eclipse at the right time, so they circled around it and the funny part of it was, Harry said, “well, do you know enough about eclipses to know uh the diamond ring?” J: The Corona? L: Well, there is a Corona, but you know there are mountains on the moon. And the last light that comes through looks just like a diamond ring J: Shines. L: Anyway, he saw this and this diamond ring was lasting such a long time, and he says, “oh have I miscalculated” and all of a sudden he realized that they were flying in a plane at 600 miles an hour and the pilot said to him, he says, “We’re going to get there I think, I forget, how many minutes ahead of time,” and he says, “what should I do?” and Harry says, “well how long will it take to circle around it?” So and that’s how they worked it out, so they didn’t circle before they got to it so that they could see it in all it’s glory. [36:40] J: Now, you talked a little bit about the Popular Astronomy Club that Harry was involved in. Could you tell us a little bit about that? L: When I mentioned that Dr. Riley[?] introduced him to Carl Gamble. So he went out to see Carl Gamble, and Carl Gamble says right away he says, “Harry you like to make Astronomy popular so that people can,” “ so if you’ll come to astronomy meetings, so if somebody” and there’s always somebody who brings up some far out questions in those science groups and he says “if somebody brings up something and he’d say “well now that’s pretty technical, and I’ll let you talk to Dr. Nelson about that [laughter].” You better warm up your cider! [talking to Jeff] J: I will be right back. L: Have a cookie. [37:20] B: Would you like to take a break? L: Yeah, let’s do that. [taking a short break to refill our cider, Lillian made sure we ate cookies] L: We were talking about the Astronomy Club, want to talk about that? J: Yeah, that’d be great! L: Um, (pause) [37:34] B: Did he have any favorite, um, memories with the club? J: By doing research, I found out, he, if I’m right, he was the second president? L: Yeah, following Mr. Gamble. J: Yeah, he followed Mr. Gamble. L: Yes, and he was president as, long as he could do it, and then Mel Peterson[?] took it over. And, um, [pause] I suppose, he, [pause] I’m trying to think of anything special. We had picnics at the observatory where he was out. It was, they had a beautiful home. Up on a hill, above the Blackhawk Road. B: Oh. L: And um, the Astronomy Club always had a potluck supper. So we had a picnic out there before hand. J: Those are fun. B: I love potlucks! L: [laughter] Yeah I do, too. And um, [takes a sip of cider] I suppose the important part was his connection with Carl Gamble. Carl Gamble was a John Deere Executive. He was head of the shredder works [?] in Moline, and he used to set up his telescope out on the Oak Wood Golf Course where he was a member. [laughter, and a visitor at the back porch waves at us] Come in, come in, Gloria! [pause] Come on in, Gloria! Guess what we’re doing? G: What are you doing? L: Oral history! [laughter] We’re doing some oral history! G: Oh! Oral history of what? L: Of Augustana. G: Oh, how neat! L: Yep! Gloria,this is- G: I didn’t have boots but I followed the footprints, oh the snow! [laughter] L: They came in that way too! G: Don’t get up, I’ll just leave it- L: Okay, just leave it there. B: Thank you! L: Thank you, Gloria! I’ll see ya! G: Buhbye! B: Bye! G: I’ll see if I can jump through those footprints [laughter] L: Um, his connection with Carl Gamble, he was an Eastern man and was a real gentleman. You know, white hair…he always dressed up, and he was really, I suppose his friendship with Carl Gamble was what he enjoyed, I think the most. B: Good! [pause] Um, interestingly enough, I, my dad graduated from Augustana, and his room mate in college had Harry as a professor for Calculus. It was, um, my dad’s room mate’s first term at Augustana, and he said, “Harry was the smartest man he had ever met” and he also said, “it was the hardest final he had ever taken at Augustana” [laughter] L: You’ll enjoy this, this doesn’t have to go on the record, J: Do you want it on the record? L: No. J: Okay [turned off recorder for a brief story from Lillian] L: Joy, he did that for almost two weeks at Christmas time. J: What star was that? L: The Star of Bethlehem. Yeah, it’s a combination of what might have been the Star of Bethlehem, and tries to pinpoint the date and I’ve got a copy of it. [41:03] J: He did this as like a seminar for the students? L: Uh, no he did it every night he did it in the planetarium and showed how it could’ve been in conjunction with the stars and planets. Or um, they don’t do it anymore, they do it a little different now. They have a canned light show, they call it, they do mention it some, but it’s not he did it for, I think he had, and you’d be interested in this! He did it from memory I mean he had an outline, but he, our daughter said to him, she said, “Daddy, what if when you get a cold you can’t do this, we don’t have a copy of this,” so she made a, she made a tape of it [laughs] she sat there and made a tape, and then Gloria’s daughter, by the way, wanted a copy of it, and we didn’t have a copy of the Star of Bethlehem her, and that was after Harry had retired and after he had developed Parkinson’s, and her granddaughter wrote and said, “they had studied astronomy” and she wanted a copy of the Star of Bethlehem. And so, Lois was determined that she was gonna get it for her, so she got the tape and sat down at the computer, and would listen to one paragraph then typed it all, because she says, “I wanted it in exactly Daddy’s words” and, because he had a bit of a Swedish accent, he said he didn’t, but he did [laughter] you could tell, but anyway, it was kind of nice I like accents anyways [laughter] well anyway then, there was one little place there was a glitch in the tape, and so she said to him, that was after we had moved here, we were sitting here at the table and she says, “Daddy, can you fill this in?” and he looked at her, and he says, “I don’t believe I can, Lois, I just don’t remember it,” and he would have spells like this, Parkinson’s would affect his memory a little bit. And after the meal was over, I could bring, he lived in the medical center because he required quite a bit of help more than-that’s why I moved here, I thought I could take care of him in our home in Rock Island, but we had a big ten room house on a corner lot, with sidewalks and two lots. And when he no longer helped me, it just got to be too much, and he required, he wasn’t sleeping well at night and so neither was I, and so I was up all day and all night and so the kids said, “Mom, you’ve got to give up” so we had to, and the doctor said, “he fell, and had a bad injury” we thought he had broken his hips and back, and fortunately, he hadn’t, but it was a bad fall, the doctor says, “Okay, I’ve warned you now, you have to make some of the arrangements, I wont release him to you at your home, so,” [laughter] I didn’t have to make the decision that we had to do something. And so we were living here, and he says, “I don’t think I can”, and after the meal, he said to Lois, he says, “Do you still got my old outline?” and she says, “Oh yeah, Mom saved that” so we got the outline, he said, “well, go get that”, and he looked at that and he read right through it. And it came back to him. So it took him awhile to you know comprehend just what he was trying to do, but that’s what it was. B: That is amazing! L: Yep! That’s right. So in ’80, I don’t remember that particular name, some of the names, I do, but not all of them [referring to Lindsey’s father’s room mate]. [44:38] J: Wow, now you said, um, I just picked this up, you said he had a Swedish accent? L: I think he did a little bit. J: Was that from his parents? L: His grandparents, his parents came from Sweden. They were immigrants, he was born in Rockford. But his grandmother lived with him when he was young and she could not, she did not understand English. J: Oh, geez! [laughter] L: His mother went to school and learned English, but his grandmother, you know, the grandmothers didn’t. And so he had to read the Swedish newspaper to her. And, she made him read it correctly and pronounce the words right, so he was quite fluent in Swedish. J: Wow! L: Yeah, and we went to Sw-we were in Denmark, somebody said to him, “Where did you learn your English?” [laughter] J: That’s awesome! B: So funny! L: Yep! So that’s where his accent came from. [45:41] J: Very, very interesting. Could you tell us just a little bit more about Harry’s involvement in the astronomy program? L: In Astronomy Club, or the program? J: The program at Augustana. L: The program at Augustana. Yes. I could probably do it better by letting you hold on [gets up and walks into the other room] you can turn it off. [recorder is turned off] L: I thought I had a… B: Wow. [talking between interviewers] L: [coming back into the room with a book and two pamphlets] Is this the book that you had checked out? B: Yeah. That’s the book I had checked out. L: [flipping through the book] this gives a, um, [pause] I think there had been some courses way back, but when he came here there were, I don’t think there were any. [flipping through book still] And because he had written his thesis in astronomy, with, you know, kind of mathematical applications in astronomy, so, I suppose he started it, and then he of course wanted to have a planetarium, then they discovered that, many times skies were clouded over, and that’s when they added the planetarium. So that they, if somebody came in for a program, they could give them a program. You so they could look though the telescope. J: I have done that a couple of time where they would have open houses and they will have the telescope and the planetarium open. L: That’s right, they do that. J: My astronomy class I took an astronomy class last term and we had a couple of classes in the planetarium showing us different, the summer triangle and the planets from different uh… L: Angles J: Ya there you go, thank you! [47:59] L: Another trill was to see the southern cross when we were in Indonesia. You see we were in the southern hemisphere and you can only see that in the southern hemisphere. So that’s, its kind of like the North Star here. Well I, you know, in those days it was easy to get another class started or another department started. Easier than it is right now, they are adding things now, I cant believe. B: I know. I was on a board last year uh the Educational Policies Committee that helped decide what new class that were going to be approved. There were a lot of new ones. J: Was this class on it? B: What? J: Oral History. B: Oh yes I think it was actually L: Now is this through the history department? B: Yes since it is kind-of a brand new way of… J: We are the guinea pigs L: Well, and really it is a shame that Margaret Almstead[?] isn’t still living, who taught Math and Latin at Augustana for many years. She would know a lot. And when Harry was at Gustavus, Inus Rundstrum[?] was a early graduate from Augustana, she went to Gustavus and taught math for 50 years and when Harry came she said, “if you stay here for 50 years Augustana will be the math department will be taken care of for a century.” [Laughter] then I forgot to tell you that when he [Harry] was up for this job at Augustana while we were still at Gustavus they couldn’t understand why we would consider going to Augustana so he was [can’t understand]. One of the pastors used to say, “if oh lets see if the people had a chance to stay in St. Peter or go to heaven they would stay in St. Peter.” [Laughter] And it was really the town had absolutely nothing except the college. So I don’t know why it was, they were loyal to St. Peter. [50:26] B: Now, you had three children? L: Yes B: All of which attended Augustana? L: All graduated B: Now was it because of Harry that they all went, or was it… L: We gave them the choice. Ya in fact our daughter was the only one who considered maybe going to the University of Iowa. She was dating a football player from Rock Island who went to the University of Iowa and was playing football so she kind-of wanted to go to Iowa and she considered it and at the last minute she says, “Daddy, I don’t think I want to go to Iowa can I still go to Augustana?” Well then it was pretty late for registration but he pulled some strings I suppose. [51:11] J: Did any of your children take a class with your husband? L: Uh ya, oh have you seen the picture of the five Nelson’s in his class? B: No L: Oh shoot! Most of the archives, most of these are in the archives. And its there in there and it’s, I have a lot of duplicates but I didn’t get them out. Both of our sons took and our oldest son majored in math and our younger son really majored in Biology but he took a lot in math. And the year when Harry had his sabbatical when we went on this trip our younger son did the planetarium shows. Ya, so most did not take any math the two boys did and they are math majors. J: I hear sometimes kids will go to a school where their parents are teaching and will try there hardest to just stay away from those classes. L: That’s right. And a lot of Augie kids did that too. They did not want to go to Augustana where their father was a teacher. And I remember our oldest son was a PUG and the PUGs were not having to good of a reputation at that time and they were, ya know, and they would build floats they actually build, and evidently they would steal lumber from construction places. And so Allen says, oh Ronny says, “I’m out of this, I don’t want to be involved in that.” And so they really took it pretty well I think. J: That’s good. [Phone Rings] [53:00] J: Lets see uh, is there anything else um, your experiences at Augie or your Husband’s experiences at Augie that you would like to tell us. Like was your husband involved in any clubs or sports at Augustana? L: Yes he was when he came her he was a baseball player and the three years he was at Augustana they did not have baseball. But he often helped timers at the track meets. He was a faculty representative for many years on the athletic board which meant he had to check grades and that sort of thing. Ya know some schools have trouble they have ineligible. Somebody came to him, I think they came to Kink, Kinchu[?]. No it was Hearld Sindalious[?]. Do those names mean anything to you? Hearl Sindalious[?] was dean for a number of years. He now has Parkinson’s and hes in bad shape. It’s a shame because he such a brilliant fellow. Uh, but anyway they said to one of the other athletic directors said, “whats Augie going to do when you get caught?” and he says, “ we aren’t, we don’t have to do anything wrong” and they never had and they checked you know to see if the grades are up and so that people are eligible and we don’t have any hanky panky. So he was on the athletic board for a number of years and when does, who’s that coach when Harry was in school in ‘35, Shorty Almquist[?]. Does that name mean anything to you? [54:47] J: What sport? L: Football. Shorty Almquist. He was here in the 30’s so, he was here for quite a while. Anyway he was Shorty’s statistician. B: Oh really! L: So he was quite involved in, very interesting. We went to all the football games and all the basketball games. There’s a good one tonight did you know that? B: Yes I know. I saw the bus pull up. L: Did you really? I have to work out someway I had to miss the retired faculty meeting this afternoon when the athletic director the new fellow, uh Cccc. What’s his name, he is brand new because there are… [Lillian leaves the table to go check on information] B: Don Umland? Is that not him? [speaks very quietly] J: I think that’s intramurals. L: Oh I guess I didn’t keep it because I couldn’t get a ride to the meeting anyway he was speaking for the retired faculty and that’s always fun. And Marylyn[?] who is retired lives in Bettendorf and she often goes but she didn’t go today and I think dag goneit I usually ride with her. And then my my kids say, “Mom you don’t have the car you don’t have that expense you could hire a taxi.” But there aren’t any taxis in Davenport to get over there. They would probably charge me 5 dollars to get there and 5 dollars to get back and so then you wonder is it worth it and yet I have been thinking of somebody who could be a driver and take me to these things but I haven’t worked it out yet. B: If I go to a basketball game coming up I’ll give you a call. L: Ok well I’ve got a ticket but I can take two people. I can take myself and someone else. The Steve Bahls sends the retired faculty a guest ticket to go to athletic events. B: That’s nice! J: Very good! L: Let’s see, what else do we got? [56:51] B: Well is there anything else that you would like to bring up that you feel like you haven’t covered yet because we are coming to the end. L: I suppose ya. I suppose our favorite travel memory I don’t know which was the most, the one in Africa when we went on the safari as well as seeing the eclipse. That was terrific! It was fun to go back to Indonesia to see one [an eclipse] and our daughter has kept up on the language very well. And she and her girlfriend it, we were stationed in Jakarta[?] which is the main town of Indonesia but the eclipse was in central Java. And so we had flown there to see it. We were going to fly back, and you could be bumped from your ticket, and our daughter and her friend were both bumped. And so they came to Harry, “How can you get us back on that plane?” and so he called in the…Lois still knew her Indonesian very well, and so she talked herself into getting back on the plane because the military had taken her seats. And so he, they can always get around something you know, and so, she got back on. [laughter] So those [pause] um, let’s see, [pause] hm, I’m trying to think, I, our eclipse trips were interesting because he met so many famous astronomers. And one [eclipse] we saw from a ship out in the middle of the Pacific yeah, and there were interesting lectures, and interesting people and that. [long pause] You asked, getting back to our kids taking, being in Harry’s class. At one time he had, Doug Nelson, do you know Doug? Math Department? B: Yes, okay. L: That’s Harry’s nephew. B: Oh really? I, he spoke at the opening convocation this year for the first-years coming in. And I spoke as well, but he was the first speaker at the convocation I remember that. [laughs] L: Oh? Doug, and Doug’s brother, and uh, Ronny, and Allen. Let’s see, Doug, and Allen and, no, this was before Allen I guess. Ronny, and then [pause] Jean Anne, who is his [Harry] niece from Rockford. Let’s see, Ronny, Doug, Gordon, Gord [?] and Jean, five! And the publicity man at Augustana took a picture of them, and he was kidding, he says, “If this gets in the AP you’re taking me out for a steak dinner” [laughter] and Harry says, “If it gets in there, you’re taking me out!” And they never settled it, but it did get in the AP, and we got pictures from all over the country about they had. It may take me too long to find it but I’ve got to search. I’ll find one for you because I’ve got a lot of copies. [60:26] B: So his nieces and nephews attended Augustana. Was it, it was because of Harry that they attended? Or were there other reasons? L: I think it probably was. I think it was. He was kind of the idol of the family because he went off to college. And he, he and his, Doug’s father were very close. And it was kind of [?]. And then when Doug took over Harry’s job as head of the Math Department, that was shortly before his father died. That was a real thrill for his brother, yeah. So, yeah. [61:12] B: Anything else? L: I’ll think of things I should’ve mentioned, I suppose after you’re gone. [laughter] B: Yeah, we understand. L: I probably have your phone number, I could look it up, I have a directory, so if I think of something, or if there’s something you think of that you want to ask me. B: Thank you so much for this! J: We had a great time! L: Well, it’s been fun for me, and [can’t understand] we like to relive these things. He [Harry] had a wonderful life, he was wonderful. And Dave [musician that wrote a song for Harry] has really caught the greatest of his life, he was wonderful to live with. [61:57] B: And what band was he a part of? L: The Highway Men [band from the 1960’s]. B: Just making sure that I got that- L: I’ll play the, Michael Row Your Boat, maybe that will, J: Yes! L: You want to hear it? J: Yeah, I’ll stop this. [Lillian plays more music by the Highway Men] L: Yes, he was Henry Veld's business manager, for the Handel Oratorio Society for I think eight years, until just before we went to Indonesia. [62:12] J: Did he [Harry] used to sing in the choir? L: He sang, in the, but he managed it, and one time, one of the soloists from New York, and he was a big shot, he thought he was quite the stuff. And so he asked, told Harry, “Harry, would you go down to the hotel and get my New York Times for me? I forgot to bring it, and I want to read during.” And Harry says, “There isn’t time, no thank you, I can’t do that.” He wouldn’t go down to the hotel to get the New York Times for him. So we had some pre-madonnas sometimes. A lot of them are. That’s right. And yeah we had some, we had one night we had a party where we always had a party after the last, uh. J: Messiah? L: And Henry Veld could have it at their home and we would have it at our home. And one night, it was snowing and we had these soloists from New York. And some of the choir members then came and serenaded us, and they carried lanterns. And these New Yorkers stood there with tears in their eyes. Because they had never seen anything like that except in picture books. And we were just so impressed with that, with that serenade with some of the members of the choir. It wasn’t the whole choir, and they carried a lantern and it was a beautiful sight. We came up from Henry Veld's home. [63:58] J: Did you sing in the Handel Oratorio Society? L: No, I did not. I have music in all the members of my family. My grandson has sung, “A Mall in the Night Visitors” [?] as a little boy. And he did it for a symphony orchestra in [don’t know] as well as the boy choir in Maryland. And now he just graduated from St. Olaf and is now the Assistant Director of the Minnesota Boys’ Choir. We have lots of music in our family. [64:31] J: Do you know how many um, your husband performed the Messiah by any chance? Because we, every year, in Messiah, because I sing Messiah every year, and Dr. Hurty[?], do you know Dr. Hurty? L: Oh yes! J: He, our first rehearsal, he asks for people to stand up for the many years, you know five years, please stand up, and I think it’s up to forty some years people have been here singing that. L: Oh I don’t suppose he sang in it that much. Because he really didn’t have time to go to the rehearsals after he came back here. So he didn’t sing in it very much after he came back. So I don’t know how long. J: Okay. L: But our younger son sang in the choir and our older son played in the band. You couldn’t do both at that time. So he was in the band, and Lois, [pause] the boys said she has a better voice than they do, but she was in theatre. And so she wanted to do theatre, so she would. But she sang in the Oratorio, but she didn’t sing in the choir, did not try out for the choir. She didn’t have time. B: You can’t spread yourself too thin. L: That’s right. Well you can take this [Harry’s book] for awhile. I think I’ve got more copies. I don’t know, I think I’m getting kind of low. But, is this the one that he made a mistake in signing? [pausing to read the signature] Yeah, I think he didn’t like the way this turned out. So Carlstrom [?] got a different one. B: Well thank you! Yes, I will definitely get this back to you! L: Well, it’s no hurry, and maybe I have more you know. B: But still J: We’ll be in touch. L: You probably don’t need it as much as I do. J: We’ll be in touch. B: And we have one more form to fill out. L: Oh, is that right? B: Sorry! J: Here’s a pen for you. L: Okay, so what’s this? J: That’s uh, the release L: Oh for Jamie! J: Yes [pause] all we’ll need, is, we’ll just need you to print your name stating that, “I, Lillian Nelson, give” L: And print it here? J: Yes. [Lillian takes her time to fill out the form] L: And now you want a signature I suppose? [pointing to a line for the interviewers to sign] J: That will be for us, and if there is anything [pausing] oh, yes, signature at the bottom. B: Sorry! J: Yeah the first line right here, and we can fill in the rest. And if there’s anything that you do not want us to release to special collections? L: I don’t think so? J: Okay.