
KP: How did you end up rooming with Vince Kramer?
HN: There was a fellow from Bordentown, by the name of Tom Wylie, who graduated a couple of years before me, and Tom was a member of Phi Gamma Delta, but he didn't live in the house. He had a room on the third floor in a boarding house next door. I was with Tom one particular day and we went next door to the Phi Gamma Delta house and that was my initial contact with Phi Gamma Delta. That was my initial contact with fraternities, and that was my initial contact with Vince Kramer. He was there on this occasion and so Tom Wylie said, "Hey, Vince is coming in, why don't you come in?" and so forth and so and so, so that is how the whole thing started. So Vince and I matriculated the same year here and went into the house. He was the only person that I knew, that I had met, and so forth, and we just teamed up and decided to become roommates, that's all. It worked out great.
KP: We have interviewed Vince Kramer and his interview lasted about six hours. Do you have any recollections about him?
HN: I think, rather than to answer that question in the light of a college student, I would rather answer it in this way. After the war was over, and others in our class have talked about this from time-to-time, Vince really surprised us, in the manner in which he had become worldly. He had learned so much, particularly about history, and even until this day, he will tell you all about the Russians, the Germans, the political aspect of Nazism or Communism, and so forth. You ask him, "Why did such and such happen as far as," take like the Bosnia war over there? You ask him questions about the ethnic groups over there, and so forth, and he will tell you. Not only give you an answer, but he will tell you the political aspect behind it. He is well-mannered and he went all through as a career officer in the Marine Corps, but that enabled him to go to service schools like the General Officers' School. To be in the infantry in the Army, it would be like Fort Benning, in the Infantry School, and so forth. He is very, very knowledgeable.
KP: And he had not been that interested in history before?
HN: No, I never saw anything that would indicate such.
KP: When I interviewed him, he knew a lot of history. You could tell.
HN: We even kid today, something will come up, and he will make some answer, or some remark, or something like that, and I will say, "You didn't learn that in Rutgers."
KP: You really thought that he was changed by the war.
HN: Oh, yes. Everybody will say the same thing. He has mellowed. He is more serious, though always a great kidder and still funny. He changed, he really did. Maybe we all did, I don't know. You don't see yourself as somebody else does.
Here is a link to application form for Vince Kramer scholarship.
This is from a later graduate of the forties, whose graduation was delayed, as was many others's graduation, by 'matriculation' into the armed forces. This is from an interview with D. Robert Mojo, '49. 'KP' stands for 'Kurt Piehler' below:
KP: When war was declared, you were waiting for your number to be called. You figured that you would be drafted at twenty-one.
RM: Yes, yes. I was at Rutgers, and, of course, some had left, or were in the process of leaving, and then, I was called up. I joined a fraternity, Phi Gamma Delta, became a Fiji, and ... some of the upper classmen were in the process of leaving when I joined the fraternity, and, incidentally, fraternity life, in my experience, was one of the greatest things that ever happened to me. ... It prepared me for the Army, in a sense, and I made friends that I have to this day. When we go East, we get together with fraternity couples that we got to know then, and it was just a marvelous experience.
KP: How long were you there the first time?
RM: One semester, and then, of course, when I returned, after the war, we picked up where we left off. Our house had been rented to another group, and they had a fire, and the house was destroyed, and so, when we returned, we had no house. We met in ... a dorm for a while, and then, rented a house, 15 Union Street, and then, eventually, bought another house, which is, I think, still there now, on 78 Easton Avenue. I think it's 78. I'm not sure of that, either. [laughter]
KP: Did anyone from your high school go directly into the service? Was there a rush to enlist in West Orange?
RM: There probably was.
KP: However, among your friends, you all intended to go to college first.
RM: Yes. ... As I say, we had no idea we were going to even be in the service, and then, all of a sudden, when the age limit came down, then, we were drafted.
KP: Your favorite professor at Rutgers was Donald Cameron. How did you get to know him?
RM: He was a Phi Gam, and so, that's how I'd gotten to know him. ... He was a very, very good fraternity man, as well as a wonderful person, and he eventually became the chief librarian, and he taught English. I had him in basic freshmen English, and I'll never forget the first time that we were assigned a book report, and [it was] one of the few times in my life when I didn't prepare for a book report. It was supposed to be an oral book report and I thought, "Well, I probably won't be called, because my last name is M, and it'll take him a while to get there, you know, and I'll get ready for it tonight, and, ... by the next class, ... I'll be ready." Well, sure enough, he called on me and I stood up. I gave the name of the book and the author, and then, became speechless, and he looked at me, and he said, "Mojo, sit down," [laughter] and I can still remember the feeling of utter despair, and that was the last time in my college career that I wasn't prepared for an assignment. [laughter]
The privations and horror of the war understandably caused a significant reordering of priorities on the part of returning veterans, as recounted by Carl Woodward, Jr.:
[A]fter the war, World War II, Rutgers just mushroomed. I mean, all of these veterans came back and they were all over town here, going to school and really studying. My fraternity, Phi Gamma Delta, [had been] always on the borderline of whether you're going to be on pro[bation] because you're poor scholastically, or whether you're into some mischief or something when I was in school. When they came back, the first graduating class after the war we had eight Phi Beta Kappas. [laughter] And that's the difference. These guys were older. ... They had a goal in mind. They were going to get it. And, of course, it was the federal money, the GI Bill, that was helping to subsidize that. It was a great thing. Really. Put these kids ... through college after they went through what they did ... in the war.
Speech by H. Kenneth Fish at Norris Pig Dinner 2011:
I pledged Phi Gamma Delta in the Fall of 1941, just before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. The times were different then.
My Class of 1945 had 500 students. Rutgers had less than 2000 students. Attending chapel was compusory then, on Sundays and once during the week. One could get excused from Sunday chapel. There were 19 active fraternities on campus, each of which made an enormous contribution to the quality of life on campus. We were one of the largest, with 50 or more brothers and pledges.
The fraternity house was then located at 586 George Street, and very convenient to the quad where most of the pledges lived. I was in Hegeman 2 along with several other pledges. Quite a few more were living in Hegeman 4. A fierce but friendly rivalry developed between these two houses.
Back in 1941 no woman, not even my Mother, was allowed in the dormitory except on Sunday afternoons. Women were allowed in the fraternity house in the common rooms, that is the two living rooms and the dining room, which were on the first floor. On party weeekends, such as the weekend of the Junior Prom, women took over the house but then the brothers and pledges were not allowed above the first floor. On those weekends some artful brothers were seen taking mattresses to the basement for their own comfort, and I believe, pleasure.
At 586 George and after the end of World War II at 15 Union Street, the brothers had rooms in the house for study and dressing but all of them slept in a common sleeping room located on the third floor at 586 and on the sleeping porch at 15 Union. No women were allowed in those rooms and no alarm clocks were allowed either. Pledges had the duty to wake the brothers up at the time they wanted to be awakened, whether it was 6 AM or 10 AM.
The brothers who lived at 586 George had breakfast in the house; most pledges did not. Nearly everyone had lunch and dinner at the house. The meals were, as I recall, rather good. We had a married couple, Apple and Ralph Jackson, as cook and chief housekeeper living with us and they were much respected and loved. I suspect that we didn't pay them what they were worth. They left shortly after the US entered the war and had a son shortly afterwards. I believ they returned a few years after the war and after the fraternity had taken up residence at 78 Easton Avenue.
I loved dinnertime at the fraternity, except when I was called on to sing a Rutgers or Fiji song. I am not blessed with a good voice, and can rarely sing on key, and I think some of the brothers exploited my weakness for their own entertainment. When called on to recite some piece of history of the fraternity, I did quite well. We wore ties and jackets to dinner and were required to watch our manners. Once every two weeks or so a faculty member was invited to dine with us and if you were asked to sit at the table where he sat, you were expected to enter into engaging and relevant conversation. Not always an easy thing for young freshmen to do but good experience for life after college.
Pledges and indeed brothers were encouraged to participate in sports or other extra-curricular activities at the college. During the years I was on campus, many Fijis were in the Glee Club, which meant that the singing after dinner was really a treat. Since I was not an athlete, I was encouraged to try out for basketball manager. Of course, I got the job along with two others, for the senior manager was a Phi Gam. My job was to referee scrimmages of the squad and on the nights of games to purchase grapefruit and cut them up so that the players could suck on them during the game to quench their thirst. I also kep time with a manager form the opposting team. I must say that during the game againsts Princeton in 1942 I was tempted to stop the clock so that Rutgers would have time to score a few more points. But I didn't. Brother Bob Bunnell was on that team. We had a fair year, but basketball wasn't played at the fast pace it is today.
After Pearl Harbor, many of the brothers and pledges volunteered as night air wardens at the Raritan Arsenal.
Our fraternity had over 50 members when we started the academic year in September of 1942, but the brothers soon began to be drafted and in early 1943 over half of the brothers were in the service.
I left in April, before the school year had ended. The only good thing about being drafted at that time was that I didn't have to take final exams, yet received full credit for my courses, but not the grades I had hoped for. Have you ever heard of ASTP, the acronym for Army Special Training Program? As students were being drafted and were leaving campus, GIs were arriving to study special subjects, principally math and languages. The program meant employment for the faculty too.
As you may know Phi Gamma Delta suspended operations during the war years 1944 and 1945. The alumni rented the house to the Sammies and the house burned down in a tragic fire, so when the Phi Gam veterans returned after the war, we had no house. Through the good offices of the college we found 15 Union Street and were able to rent it for a reasonable amount, and we were back in business. The house was considerably smaller than the one on George Street, and could only hold about 15 of us. It had no kitchen and most of us took our meals at the university dining hall. I think it only had two bathrooms, so most of us relied on the facilities at the gym for our showers. In the European Theater during the war we would be lucky if we had a shower once a week, so I don't remember it being a problem for most of us.
We had a great group of brothers and were successful in pledging a particularly fine group of men, many of them veterans of course. All were serious about finishing their education as quickly as possible and getting on with their lives. The college operated on an accelerated schedule. I graduated in September 1947 and actually entered law school before my graduation.
But we were serious about enjoying the social side of college as well and we had many happy times together. We were damn proud to be Fijis. It was an exciting time to be on campus. The war was over and all of us felt lucky to have survived. We cared about each other and worked well together as a fraternity. Those were truly happy days, some of the happiest of my life, and I am sure the other brothers felt the same way as I when I say that.
As an example of the happy times we shared:
George Coombe and Bill Huber, who graduated in January of 1947, entered Harvard Law School in the January class. I joined them in September. Rutgers football team played Harvard that year in Boston, and the whole fraternity drove up to Boston for the game, camping out at the YMCA, as well as in George and Bill's room and in my room. Two brothers slept on the floor of my room. Rutgers won. To celebrate we all went to Scollay Square, a place where every sailor arriving in Boston spent quite a bit of time and money. We saw Sally O'Keefe twirl her tassles from every point on her body.
Further evidence that Phi Gamma Delta is not for college days alone:
Many brothers from the classes of the war years come together every Fall for a tailgate party and a football game, the Fiji flag flying high overhead. The Fiji spirit runs high in the classes of the 40's. One year over 20 of us with spouses showed up for the Miami game, with many staying to the bitter end, and we paid a visit to the new house at the time.
We were the lucky ones. Some of our brightest and best were not so lucky.
John Huntley, Class of 1942, was killed in action in France on July 12, 1944, shortly after D-Day. John was President the year I pledged.
Ellis Millard, a happy-go-lucky guy with a big smile that was sure to brighten your day, served in the Air Force, [ed: at that time a branch of the Army] and was killed in action in the Aleutians [Alaska] on December 6, 1944.
Cliff Pangburn, a prince of a guy, President during my Sophomore year, was killed in France on June 23, 1944, 17 days after D-Day. He was awarded the Bronze Star for bravery under enemy fire.
James Mettler, my roommate in my Sophomore year, was killed in action in France on August 6, 1944. Jim was an engineering student and studied late into every night long after I had turned in. Jim could do 20 or so one-handed pushups, by the way. He was a farmer's son, and one of the most honest persons I have ever known.
These are the guys every one of you here tonight would have been pround to call 'Brother'.
Thanks to David Farkouh for sharing this with us.