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Herb with Dick Lee and Freddie Baldasti, waiting to tee off; Walt Baldasti behind camera. |
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Mary and Herb, 1954-1956
Herb's Journey to Stanford
Photos posted June 10, 2006
© 2006, Herbert E. Lindberg
It's just a few days until our 50th wedding anniversary and for a long time now I've been thinking of the years when Mary and I met and fell in love. I'm sure Mary has similar memories, but not the same; this is a one-sided story of a two-sided event.
My journey to find Mary began in June, 1952 when I graduated from the Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago and drove to Culver City, near the ocean west of Los Angeles. I was part of the first group of Howard Hughes Fellows working toward a Master's degree in engineering, half of us at UCLA and the other half at the U. of Southern California. I went to SC.
All of the Masters Fellows on this program did well, and many formed the backbone of Hughes Aircraft and its many spin-offs for years to come, including Ramo-Wooldridge, TRW, Litton Industries, and many more. However, during the two years while we worked for our Masters' degrees we made plenty of time for sports and parties. I partook enthusiastically:
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Herb with Dick Lee and Freddie Baldasti, waiting to tee off; Walt Baldasti behind camera. |
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| Another day of golf, probably at Fox Hills. |
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Our group graduated from SC in January, 1954 but I still had the itch to continue schooling. Following parting advice from a professor at Illinois Tech, I applied to Stanford for a fellowship in Engineering Mechanics. I thought I might have a slim chance because I had finished at the top the Mechanical Engineering class at both Illinois Tech and SC. I was pleasantly surprised when I was offered a LaVerne-Noyse fellowship to begin at Stanford in September, 1954.
The fellowship was $1500 for three quarters, which had to cover tuition, books, room and board, and beer with whatever was left over. Tuition was $250 per quarter (remember, that was 52 years ago) and graduate students were boarded in a World War II Army hospital barracks called Stanford Village, about three miles north of campus. My barracks building was called Terman Hall, and Mary's next door was called Sterling Hall.
| My room in Terman Hall at Stanford Village. This is essentially all of it. |
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When I opened the door to this room I thought, "Wow, the bedroom's small; maybe the living room is larger." When I stepped in I found that's all there was: about the size of a prison cell, with a bunk bed, a small table, and a tall plywood box (out of view in the right foreground) to hang my clothes in.
Last year (2005) the Stanford website sent a notice to alumni asking for old photos and I sent them this one. It was posted on their website soon thereafter, with text pointing out that the only amenity was the small table, and no computer. The IBM PC didn't come along for another 25 years, and it wasn't ubiquitous for another 10 after that.
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Sitting rooms like this were in the middle
of the barracks buildings on each of their two stories. |
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After the shock of seeing these primitive living quarters compared with our digs in Los Angeles, my spirits were lifted in the following days by taking a self-guided tour of the campus.
| Campus center from Palm Drive. |
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Closer view of Memorial Church (Mem Chu) |
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Inner Quad, taken from Hoover Tower. |
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Lake Lagunita and boathouse from Junipero Serra Blvd., Hoover Tower in background. |
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Mary has a story of how she came to Stanford but at this point her pictures are buried in a huge box of old photos that we don't have time to sort before our wedding anniversary.
Mary and I meet in the next series of pictures. Click on the leftmost link below, here and on the remaining three pages on Herb and Mary's romance and marriage.
