Badger Love Stories - 1940s
One evening in February 1938 I was studying in my Tripp Hall dormitory room when I received a phone call. It was from Mickey, a girl from my home town, Milwaukee. She inquired if I was busy Saturday night to which I repled that being flat broke, I had no plans. She said that her sorority was having a scavenger hunt party on Saturday and she wondered if I would like to have a date with a cute sorority sister of hers. I assented.
The following afternoon I went up Langdon Street and introduced myself to Minette Barlow, ('38). She proved to be true to Mickey's description. On Saturday night we went scavenger hunting together. I remember little about the hunt except that one clue took us up on Bascom Hill to the Observatory and that our team were not winners.
Minette and I dated from then until I graduated and found a job. 66 years ago in November 1941 we were married. Some scavenger hunt prize, right?
Robert S. Goldsmith '41
While I was at a NY Wisconsin Alumni meeting,we were talking about our experiences at Madison.I told them of how I found my first girl friend.I went to an all male High School and College and while I dated I never found what I considered a girl friend.At the U of W as a graduate student,I visited with a friend the rather new Elizabeth Waters female dormitory.As we were walking through the visitors floor,I heard familiar music,Tchaikovsky's 5th symphony my favorite classical music.I entered the music room and I saw an attractive student listening to the recording.I introduced myself to her,Caroline.I got to know and found her an intelligent straight A student who liked cultural events that I also liked.We became fast friends and were together until she graduated and I remained in Madison completing my graduate degree.We kept in touch for a while and then I heard that she had married.I am a widower and one of the alumni suggested that I get in touch with her.I asked how.He picked up the phone and called the alumni association in Madison and sure enough they had her name and address.I wrote to her and found that she remembered me after all these years and was a widow.We started emailing each other and she suggested that I come to see her in Mass. I came up and we had a wonderful time remenicing.We regularly email and she will be visiting her son a lawyer in the Spring and we are planning seeing each other again.
Jack Cooperma MS'43, PhD'45
During WWII the medical students and the nursing students at UW went to school year round. They enjoyed relaxing and swimming at the Liz Water's pier during their time off.
On a hot July day in '43 I (a nursing student) was at this location -- both studying and relaxing. In order to get my attention, a young medical student picked me up and threw me in the water. I came up laughing and he thought I was a good sport. A coke date that evening was the start of a romance that ended in marriage in August '44. 63 years of a wonderful adventure!
Margaret Prehn Nielsen '45 and Bill Nielsen MD'45
Well, it was about 1000 years ago, 1946 or 47. The war (WW 2, of course) had recently ended and the campus was filled with a wonderful mixture of people from all over the country and from all walks of life, including young veterans getting their shot at a college education because of the GI Bill of Rights, often the first in their family to do so. And that was equally true of me, a girl from the Bronx, NYC, who never realized what a sheltered life she had been leading until she landed as a junior on the shores of beautiful Lake Mendota, and met the world. (I thought). I too was the first in my family to "go out of town" and to go to college.
So during that glorious time, what date do I remember most vividly, even now, in my very advanced years? A tall, thin, very handsome, very charming Texan. I had never met a Texan in my life. I felt like we were characters in a movie and John Wayne would soon come loping along. We had gone out on several very pleasant dates and were now eating at the counter of a restaurant. I cannot remember what we were talking about that led to his comment between bites of his sandwich, but he casually said, "Oh, those dreadful Jews. I can recognize them a mile away. I can smell them too."
I choked on my food. When I recovered I calmly said, "Really? How do you recognize them? " He gave some vivid details, none of them flattering. Then I said, "So how come you don't know you're sitting next to one?" He literally couldn't comprehend what I had just said. So I had to spell it out. " I'm a Jew. Can't you smell me?"
He looked like he would faint. To his credit, he was overcome with shame and regret. We talked for hours and it turned out he had never met a Jew in his life. He was repeating what his father had said again and again when he blamed his business failure caused by the Depression on the Jews. Neither of them had ever had any contact with Jews.
He wanted to know what he could do to make it up to me. Of course, nothing could make it up to me. But I made him promise to read Ruth Benedict's new book Patterns Of Culture. Which he did. And once he did that, I felt I had done my best to inoculate him. And I never spoke to him again.
Instead, I continued my life enhancing adventures at the U of W with the marvelous variety of people I had the good fortune to meet. Much later in my life, I married a Jewish New Yorker who had fought during WW 2 as a replacement in the famous Texas 36th Infantry Division. When he first arrived, a few of the guys checked his head to find " the horns". To their surprise, they didn't find any, so that took care of that. My husband is an honorary citizen of Texas. I guess what goes around comes around.
Lynne Rhodes Mayer '47
Way back in the dark ages of 1947 I was having lunch with a long time friend in the Rathskeller. My friend had stopped to talk to someone as she came toward me and told me that it was Bill Varnum and he had just returned from Monhegan Island where we had been weeks before, and he had pictures of our good friend. So got up, went over and introduced myself and asked to see the pictures. That started an on-going chat and eventually marriage. I always told our children I'd picked up there father in a beer hall!
Jane Varnum '48
I lived on North Mills Street one block South of University Ave while attending The UW from 1946 through the Spring of 1949. I found my true love and wife next door in a rooming house for girls who put their hot cooking on their kitchen window sill to cool. She was not a UW student. This location was about 6 feet from my bathroom window which was open frequently. The food smelled so good, that my roomate, Ken Becker and I, let the ladies know that we were open to an invitation for dinner any time. The offer came and I proposed to Lorraine Iverson on Valentine's Day 1948. We were married in Stoughton, Wisconsin on September 11, 1948 and lived together 59 years till her death in June 2007. Those old rooming houses on N. Mills Street are all gone now with new University buildings in there place. My roommate Ken Becker and I were Army Air Corps combat officers in Europe in World War II. I was a bomber pilot and Ken was a Navigator. Ken now lives near Lodi, Wi. and I live in Schaumburg, IL. near Chicago. We were both 1949 graduates from The School of Commerce, which is now The School of Business. We are still here and in good health in our eighties.
Bob Cummings '49
Schaumberg, Illinois
The following afternoon I went up Langdon Street and introduced myself to Minette Barlow, ('38). She proved to be true to Mickey's description. On Saturday night we went scavenger hunting together. I remember little about the hunt except that one clue took us up on Bascom Hill to the Observatory and that our team were not winners.
Minette and I dated from then until I graduated and found a job. 66 years ago in November 1941 we were married. Some scavenger hunt prize, right?
Robert S. Goldsmith '41
While I was at a NY Wisconsin Alumni meeting,we were talking about our experiences at Madison.I told them of how I found my first girl friend.I went to an all male High School and College and while I dated I never found what I considered a girl friend.At the U of W as a graduate student,I visited with a friend the rather new Elizabeth Waters female dormitory.As we were walking through the visitors floor,I heard familiar music,Tchaikovsky's 5th symphony my favorite classical music.I entered the music room and I saw an attractive student listening to the recording.I introduced myself to her,Caroline.I got to know and found her an intelligent straight A student who liked cultural events that I also liked.We became fast friends and were together until she graduated and I remained in Madison completing my graduate degree.We kept in touch for a while and then I heard that she had married.I am a widower and one of the alumni suggested that I get in touch with her.I asked how.He picked up the phone and called the alumni association in Madison and sure enough they had her name and address.I wrote to her and found that she remembered me after all these years and was a widow.We started emailing each other and she suggested that I come to see her in Mass. I came up and we had a wonderful time remenicing.We regularly email and she will be visiting her son a lawyer in the Spring and we are planning seeing each other again.
Jack Cooperma MS'43, PhD'45
During WWII the medical students and the nursing students at UW went to school year round. They enjoyed relaxing and swimming at the Liz Water's pier during their time off.
On a hot July day in '43 I (a nursing student) was at this location -- both studying and relaxing. In order to get my attention, a young medical student picked me up and threw me in the water. I came up laughing and he thought I was a good sport. A coke date that evening was the start of a romance that ended in marriage in August '44. 63 years of a wonderful adventure!
Margaret Prehn Nielsen '45 and Bill Nielsen MD'45
Well, it was about 1000 years ago, 1946 or 47. The war (WW 2, of course) had recently ended and the campus was filled with a wonderful mixture of people from all over the country and from all walks of life, including young veterans getting their shot at a college education because of the GI Bill of Rights, often the first in their family to do so. And that was equally true of me, a girl from the Bronx, NYC, who never realized what a sheltered life she had been leading until she landed as a junior on the shores of beautiful Lake Mendota, and met the world. (I thought). I too was the first in my family to "go out of town" and to go to college.
So during that glorious time, what date do I remember most vividly, even now, in my very advanced years? A tall, thin, very handsome, very charming Texan. I had never met a Texan in my life. I felt like we were characters in a movie and John Wayne would soon come loping along. We had gone out on several very pleasant dates and were now eating at the counter of a restaurant. I cannot remember what we were talking about that led to his comment between bites of his sandwich, but he casually said, "Oh, those dreadful Jews. I can recognize them a mile away. I can smell them too."
I choked on my food. When I recovered I calmly said, "Really? How do you recognize them? " He gave some vivid details, none of them flattering. Then I said, "So how come you don't know you're sitting next to one?" He literally couldn't comprehend what I had just said. So I had to spell it out. " I'm a Jew. Can't you smell me?"
He looked like he would faint. To his credit, he was overcome with shame and regret. We talked for hours and it turned out he had never met a Jew in his life. He was repeating what his father had said again and again when he blamed his business failure caused by the Depression on the Jews. Neither of them had ever had any contact with Jews.
He wanted to know what he could do to make it up to me. Of course, nothing could make it up to me. But I made him promise to read Ruth Benedict's new book Patterns Of Culture. Which he did. And once he did that, I felt I had done my best to inoculate him. And I never spoke to him again.
Instead, I continued my life enhancing adventures at the U of W with the marvelous variety of people I had the good fortune to meet. Much later in my life, I married a Jewish New Yorker who had fought during WW 2 as a replacement in the famous Texas 36th Infantry Division. When he first arrived, a few of the guys checked his head to find " the horns". To their surprise, they didn't find any, so that took care of that. My husband is an honorary citizen of Texas. I guess what goes around comes around.
Lynne Rhodes Mayer '47
Way back in the dark ages of 1947 I was having lunch with a long time friend in the Rathskeller. My friend had stopped to talk to someone as she came toward me and told me that it was Bill Varnum and he had just returned from Monhegan Island where we had been weeks before, and he had pictures of our good friend. So got up, went over and introduced myself and asked to see the pictures. That started an on-going chat and eventually marriage. I always told our children I'd picked up there father in a beer hall!
Jane Varnum '48
I lived on North Mills Street one block South of University Ave while attending The UW from 1946 through the Spring of 1949. I found my true love and wife next door in a rooming house for girls who put their hot cooking on their kitchen window sill to cool. She was not a UW student. This location was about 6 feet from my bathroom window which was open frequently. The food smelled so good, that my roomate, Ken Becker and I, let the ladies know that we were open to an invitation for dinner any time. The offer came and I proposed to Lorraine Iverson on Valentine's Day 1948. We were married in Stoughton, Wisconsin on September 11, 1948 and lived together 59 years till her death in June 2007. Those old rooming houses on N. Mills Street are all gone now with new University buildings in there place. My roommate Ken Becker and I were Army Air Corps combat officers in Europe in World War II. I was a bomber pilot and Ken was a Navigator. Ken now lives near Lodi, Wi. and I live in Schaumburg, IL. near Chicago. We were both 1949 graduates from The School of Commerce, which is now The School of Business. We are still here and in good health in our eighties.
Bob Cummings '49
Schaumberg, Illinois
Events
- Twin Cities - 2008 Football Viewings - August 30
- Around the World - November 4
- Red Shirt Fundraiser - November 10
- Egypt - November 13
