OBW was the only one of the five siblings to go to college -- mainly because a woman in Richmond, Ill, the
nearest town saw potential in him and offered to loan him money (at 6%) to go to college.
When OBW was at Beloit College, he lived at Professor Wright's house and shoveled coal (as was mentioned) toward the rent. He later transferred to Univ. of Wisconsin, graduating as a chemical engineer.
Sometime after he married mother Marjorie in 1920 (I didn't know that date), they moved to Niagara Falls, NY where he worked for the Carborundum Co. -- and I was born there in April, 1926. They drove across country with me in a clothes basket when I was just 7-8 months old, landing in Lompoc on a rainy night in December, 1926.
He worked as a chemical engineer for how long I don't know, but became plant manager shortly before WWII, perhaps about 1940-1941. He was plant manager when Johns-Manville won the Army-Navy "E" award for good health and environmental and other safety practices (before our current laws) as part of the war effort. OBW was most proud of that -- they got it more than once during the war and it took a lot of ingenuity to get it -- labor was short and all kinds of problems like that.
I don't remember how much of this was in his writings, but these come from my memories as a kid growing up. He worked and saved regularly to have the funds to send all three of us to college and build toward retirement, and still have a good life in little Lompoc.
I think I have a picture of Marjorie teaching Sunday School to preschoolers that might be good for the blog. She taught that class for some 40 years at the Lompoc Presbyterian Church -- and OBW got J-M to donate the land that the present church was built on -- And I think Roger recorded many good things about OBW in the anniversary trip he wrote up so well. I presume you have a copy of that -- as well as I presume you have a complete copy of his writings??
