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Chris Fenwick
Thomas C. Fenwick
1944-1950 College Years You can not tell the story of Dad in College without knowing a bit about his Navy experience. He entered the Navy on June 1944 at the age of 17 years old. He entered the ROTC program so that he could continue schooling and become a Seaman as soon as he turned 18. Mind you in June of 1944 he was barely 17.
By November of 1944 he was writing home about how he didn't feel well. By December he was being rushed to a Navy hospital. He was diagnosed with Rheumatic Fever, a disease of the heart, and at one point he over heard the doctors telling his mom in the hallway, "He will probably die." Dad wasn't one to be told the odds were stacked against him. The doctors told him, "You need to lay perfectly still, if you move your arms or sit up, you will die. We will feed you, we will bathe you and we will clean up after you." For 6 months Dad layed perfectly still in bed. He use to tell stories of how he would make up games in his head to help the time pass but the hardest thing was not knowing what was going to happen. Long story short? He spent a year and half in the hospital. When finally discharged he was still only 19 years old.
I've never known a whole lot about my Dad's college years except for the results. My Dad had told me that he had graduated from USC with two degrees in engineering, one in electrical and one in mechanical, and he did it all in 4 years. His final semester he carried 36 units and passed them all. Recently on vacation Beth and I were passing through Pasadena and talking on the phone with my mom and she said, "you should go see the house that Dad lived in during college." As it turns out, this opened up a whole slew of details that I had never heard. Dad had told me that after being discarged from the hospital and from the Navy he traveled back to Illinois with a General. This man had been really helpful to Dad and sort of 'took him under his wing'. He had shown Dad how, by filling out all the proper paper work, Dad could actually be paid to drive the General from California back to New Jersey. Since Dad was going back to Chicago, where his parents lived, a slight detour to Jersey seemed reasonable, at least since he would be paid for the extra miles.
Dad told me that the old General was a very interesting guy and that he very much enjoyed the drive with him but when they got to what the turn off to Chicago the guy told Dad to get out and catch a bus home. Dad said, "yea but, I'm suppose to drive you all the way to New Jersey." to which he replied, "Don't be silly young man, get out and head home, your family wants you home." This is all stuff I knew. What was new to me was what my mom told me on the phone that day that we were driving up to 2568 Page Drive in Altadena. Mom told me that after Dad got back to Chicago that he soon got sick again. Not as bad as the year and a half he spent in the hospital while in the Navy but bad enough that his doctors told him that he couldn't continue to live in the damp climate of the north. My grandmother then decided that she was going to move to southern California with my Dad who was now just 19 years old. She bought the Page Drive house and Dad enrolled in the local city college to take some classes.
He was only able to take classes in the mornings becasue he was too weak to go all day. For my Dad's first year of school my Grandmother actually drove him to school, driving him as close up to the door of the class as she could so he wouldn't have to walk far. Because my Dad was so weak and couldn't put up with the kind of rough housing that could come with college age kids my Dad would wear a suit and tie every day in order to set himself apart. Even a college kid is less likely to suddenly tackle another guy dressed in a suit.
At the end of this year of school Dad transfered to USC and joined a fraternity. Mom tells me that he had made his case known to the fraternaty boys and they respected him, both for his fragile health and for the fact that he was a vet. This was the late 40's and many returning war vets were going to school.
This is all stuff I had never heard before, and all this, just because I was driving thru Pasadena.
© Chris Fenwick 2006 |
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