GRACELAND COLLEGE

There were a couple of the Dexter girls that had been to Graceland College, our church college at Lamoni, Iowa. Just a little while before Graceland started, the fall after I graduated from high school, these two girls kept nagging at me, "Why don't you go to Graceland?"

So I finally decided to go to college. Lawrence McCauley was a young man who was a new convert to the church. He hadn't finished high school, but he decided that he'd like to go to Graceland. They had academic training there where he could finish high school.

Maurice Clapp had a sweetheart back in the East. He decided that he would like to go along with us.

In the meantime, Dad had wrecked the old 1921 car that he and mother had driven to California. The motor wasn't hurt; the running gears weren't hurt; the frame was bent some but the body was demolished. He had the fellows down at the garage take the body off and put on another and then it was just a strip-down. I'd been driving that around. When we decided to go to Graceland, we went down to the wrecking yard and got an old Model T body to put on it. That's what we drove back to Lamoni, Iowa.

Maurice Clapp, Lawrence McCauley and I went to Lamoni, Iowa, to Graceland College in the old Model T. The old engine had a lot of miles on it. About every day or at least every other day, we'd have to pull off along side the road, take the pan off and fix the connecting rod bearings. We managed very well, though.

When we got to Independence, Missouri, Hiel and Anna had decided to go to Graceland. They were living in Independence at the time. Maurice took the bus on to Lamoni and Hiel, Anna, Mac and I, with all our gear and paraphernalia, started out for Lamoni in the middle of the afternoon.

The roads then weren't paved like they are now. They weren't blacktopped; some of them weren't even graded. We got up somewhere around Bethany, Missouri, and it started raining. It was dark and we got stuck so we just stayed there all night--right there.

We got into Lamoni the next morning and went to the college and got our enrolling done. The trouble was, I got there with no work preassigned, and I had less than one hundred dollars in my pocket. I went to see N. Ray Carmichael who was in charge of student finances and asked him if there was any chance I could still enroll.

He said, "Oh, we'll manage somehow."

So, I paid what I could and got a job just working at anything that was available. I worked on the school farm picking corn, putting up hay, hauling in silage and so on. I fixed the furnace, cleaned dorms and mowed lawns. I was only supposed to work three hours a day but I averaged better than five hours a day before I got through. Our pay was graded; medium wage was twenty cents per hour, above average you got twenty-six cents per hour and below average you got fourteen cents an hour. I got twenty cents all the way through. I was just average. I managed to get through one year at Graceland. It was a real good experience.

The old Herald Publishing House in Lamoni was made into a dormitory. The students who lived there were called the "Herald Angels." When I first went to Graceland, I was housed in Marietta Hall which was right behind the main administration building. During the Christmas vacation, Patroness Hall, the girls dorm, burned down; we had to give up Marietta to the girls. A ways off, about a half a mile across the field, was what they called the "Pest House." It was where they had, in the past, put people who were sick or quarantined. It was a big, old farmhouse and it wasn't in use. They put a bunch of us boys in the Pest House.

Lawrence McCauley was in Herald Hall and Harley Butler was his roommate. Lawrence was getting tired of it because Harley wet the bed all the time. They each had their own bed but Harley would wet the bed until the mattress got so stinking that Lawrence would throw it out the window. Then Harley would have to go hunt another mattress. I was staying in the Pest House with Everett Boyd. We switched around, and I went and roomed with Mac and Harley went to Pest House. So that is how I became a "Herald Angel."

Pataha Samuella was Tahitian. He stayed in Herald Hall just a few doors down from me. He and I got to be quite chums. He gave me two strings of shells from the Islands. He gave me one right away and the other string when I left Graceland. I still have them. He was in the academy going through high school. That's what Lawrence did, too. He got his high school diploma and then went on through college--Lawrence did and I think Pat did too. I got Married.

I remember one nice spring Sunday afternoon we were out in the yard. There were two sticks lying there. I had laid one across the other and was sitting on it just as you would a milk stool and was talking to the boys. Dwight Hurshman came along and kicked it out from under me. The stick went up through the seat of my pants and tore a big hole. That was the only pair of good pants I had. So, I went back into the dorm and got one of the quilts that Mother had sent with me that was a patchwork quilt made of old pants and stuff. I hunted up a piece of material that matched as well as I could. I cut it out of the quilt and patched the seat of my pants. Mother had to patch the quilt when I got home.

There were a lot of things that happened at Graceland but nothing very important.

In the meantime, Hiel decided to take the engine out of the old car and fix it so it wouldn't have so many loose connecting rods and also work on the crank shaft. He completely worked it over.

Anna became pregnant so Hiel decided he couldn't go to school anymore and he'd have to get a job. He quit school and decided to go to California. He didn't have a dime. He ask me if I had any money he could borrow. I had a five dollar gold piece that I'd been saving as a trophy. I gave Hiel my five dollar gold piece. He started to California but Anna stayed at Graceland. I don't know all the details, but it wound up that Hiel and Claire both went to California. Claire had quit school in Washington so they both went. They were riding the freight train--riding the rods and Claire got arrested. I don't know just what happened.

When Spring time came and school was out, Mac decided he was going to stay in Lamoni. I wanted to go to California so I wrote to Dad to send me some money. I said, "Send me sixty dollars to come home on." He had to borrow the money from Clara A. Johnson for me to come home on.