This Maize! This Blue!
LIENE KARELS article "Which Maize? Which Blue?" in the Fall '96 issue poses a problem in an area where our company, X-Rite Inc. of Grandville, Michigan, makes its living. I wrote Steve Director a while back about this and he has, I presume, forwarded the correspondence to you. I would be very much obliged if you would put me in contact with Ms. Karels. X-Rite wants to help you with the problem of establishing standards for the official Maize and Blue—and do for you what we are doing for Coca-Cola, Nike, Ford, and any number of other organizations which have an interest in specifying and maintaining a particular color shade for their products or packages.

Do not be surprised if other executives of X-Rite contact you---your problem has generated a lot of excitement at the company. (In case of apprehension, our test is completely nondestructive and poses no threat whatever to the integrity of your reference samples.)

Rufus S. Teesdale '43E Director, X-Rite, Inc. Grandville, Michigan

Ed. note: The letter above led to the following communication in mid-January, 1997:


THE UNIVERSITY of Michigan colors are now embodied in permanent form. U-M alum Rufus Teesdale saw the article and offered the services of his company, X-Rite, to help conclude Prof. Warren Lombard's 1912 mission of rendering the school colors in permanent form. He and Bob Santine met with me and Marjorie Barritt at U-M's Bentley Historical Library, where they used their hand-held spectrophotometers (one ignores the surface shine, the other takes it into account) and plotted numbers on an industry-standard scale (the LAB scale). They'll take those numbers back to a variety of their divisions and give us the standards in RGB (red, green, blue for computer screens) and CMYK (cyan, magenta, yellow and black for four-color separation schemes in printing), as well as the plotted colors. These codes can ultimately be turned into permanent color tiles, which would be the icing on the cake.

Liene Karels U-M Millennium Project Ann Arbor

IT PLEASED me to read that the University is appreciating the important role of food ["The Food Semester," Fall 1996 issue]. Especially because my first culinary experience took place at Mosher-Jordan. One evening, thanks to the dormitory floor-kitchen, Lillian Rosen, my then roommate—who knew how to cook—and I prepared a dinner ourselves.

Among other extravagances, steak and strawberries were on the menu. Part way though our preparations, Miss Dudley, the dormitory major-domo, came screaming up the stairs.

Angrily she demanded, "What are you girls doing!" What we were doing, was frying onions. Unhappily, the odor had permeated all of Mosher-Jordan—or at least all of Mosher.

Amazingly, this casual venture presaged my subsequent culinary career.

Helen Worth '35 Ivy, Virginia

When the late Pamela Harriman was sworn in as US ambassador to France, the New York Times's Nadine Brozan reported that Harriman had attended the pioneering Helen Worth Cooking School, which was then in New York City but is now in Ivy, Virginia.

Harriman missed a class on "the low-calorie way to make souffles with only egg whites," Worth told Brozan. Worth said she was sending the recipe to Harriman because "it would be dastardly to go to France without it."

Worth, author of the acclaimed Cooking Without Recipes and Hostess Without Help, was sending the information not because she expected Harriman to be "in the embassy kitchen whipping up souffles for the parties," Brozan said, but because Worth firmly believes that "you can't say to a cook, no matter how much you are paying them, that you don't like something. You must be able to say, 'I want it done this way.'"—Ed.

'Whose Web This Is . . .'
I WAS running around the Web and came across the alumni mag for a college in Michigan (I'm sure it's sacrilege not to know which one—I do apologize), but was it yours that featured the story about the student with three degrees who jumped off Hitler's balcony? I loved it! The guy is a true treasure.

Bridget Metzger Writer, University Development Office The University of Texas at Austin

That was, indeed, our Web site with the Fall 1996 cover story on Buck Dawson '43, '48, '54. Others may visit it by going to http://www.umich.edu/~newsinfo/ and then selecting the Michigan Today button.—Ed.


MY WIFE and I think it is very interesting to come to campus and watch the students fly through this difficult computer age. We love to just watch the kids as they function and get caught up in campus life. Both my wife & myself were not privileged to attend college so when we see our son trying to get through this School of Natural Resources and Environment, we are overwhelmed with it all! That is why just this past weekend we observed the U-M home page for the first time. When we read about the possibility of a newspaper called Michigan Today, we began to think, is there any chance of us getting this through the mail, is there a cost to us parents? We are retired (both) and poring over whatever we can to supply our son.

James VanderPloeg Wyoming, Michigan

Michigan Today is delighted to put you and any other parents of U-M students on our complimentary mailing list.— Ed.

Frostiana, Continued
I ENJOYED the fact that U of M's new President invoked Frost at the beginning of his work, and especially the coincidence of Frost's great-grandson now serving as a professor at Michigan. One possible connection between the campus and one of Frost's more famous poems is mentioned in Mordecai Marcus's book The Poems of Robert Frost - An Explication. The commentary on "Acquainted With the Night" reads: "The poem was probably written in Ann Arbor, Michigan, more of a city setting than a New England town would have been. If Frost did indeed write it in Ann Arbor, that is an additional reason for seeing its 'luminary clock' as a real tower clock rather than as the moon."

The lines referred to (sans punctuation) are at the end of the poem: And further still at an unearthly height/One luminary clock against the sky/Proclaimed the time was neither wrong nor right/I have been one acquainted with the night.

I had quite a laugh thinking that it was perhaps Burton Tower that inspired this image, rather than a New England church steeple's clock, but we mustn't be too certain. A poem published earlier by Frost, "I Will Sing You One-O," powerfully uses the image of a golden tower clock.

Harry Forbes '81 MBA Wrentham, Massachusetts

We had space in the printed Michigan Today to reprint only the first section of the poem Harry Forbes cited, but present it in its entirety below.—Ed.

I Will Sing You One-O

It was long I lay
Awake that night
Wishing the tower
Would name the hour
And tell me whether
To call it day
(Though not yet light)
And give up sleep.
The snow fell deep
With the hiss of spray;
Two winds would meet,
One down one street,
One down another,
And fight in a smother
Of dust and feather.
I could not say,
But feared the cold
Had checked the pace
Of the tower clock
By tying together
Its hands of gold
Before its face. . . .

Then came one knock!
A note unruffled
Of earthly weather,
Though strange and muffled.
The tower said 'One!'
And then a steeple.
They spoke to themselves
And such few people
As winds might rouse
(but not unhouse).

They left the storm
That struck en masse
My window glass
Like a beaded fur.
In that grave One
They spoke of the sun
And moon and stars,
Saturn and Mars
And Jupiter.
Still more unfettered,
They left the named
And spoke of the lettered,
The sigmas and taus
of constellations.
They opened their throats
With the furthest bodies
To which man sends his
Speculation,
Beyond which God is,
The cosmic motes
Of yawning lenses.
Their solemn peals
Were not their own:
They spoke for the clock
With whose vast wheels
Theirs interlock.
In that grave word
Uttered alone
The furthest star
Trembled and stirred,
Though set so far
Its whirling frenzies
Appear like standing
In one self-station.
It has not ranged
And save for the wonder
Of once expanding
To be a nova,
It has not changed
To the eye of man
On planets over
Around, and under
It in creation
Since man began
To drag down man
And nation, nation.

Robert Frost
(from "New Hampshire." 1923)


'Whom the Computer Hath Joined . . .'
I WAS going through our mail today and was surprised to find my husband's copy of Michigan Today addressed to Mr. and Mrs. Howard Heideman. Although I am referred to as Mrs. Howard Heideman on invitations and other formal types of mail, I am usually called Eileen Levitt Heideman, Michigan State University Class of 1971, a Spartan through and through! My blood runs green, and a little hot when I saw the Mr. and Mrs. on your computerized address. It's not that I don't recognize how wonderful your institution is; I even applied to and was accepted to your university when I graduated high school. It's just that I chose MSU then and still do! I'm also a current employee of Michigan State. So please take my name off your mailing list, before someone I know sees it and wonders why I've made an uncharacteristic switch. One Wolverine in our house is enough!

Eileen Levitt Heideman East Lansing, Michigan

I WAS delighted to see the letter from M. Susan Montgomery in the Winter 1996 issue. I share her sentiments exactly. Why should my husband's name be included on the mailing label? He has no connection with the University of Michigan. I'm sure no harm was intended. It's just that when you have lived through a time when women didn't have an identity separate from their husbands, you get defensive about even the little things.

Linda Howe '70 San Jose, California

I JUST received Michigan Today addressed to "Mr. and Mrs. William J. Roberts."

Being not subject to mental blackouts, I'm quite sure that I'm not married. In fact, I never have been married. The Mrs. William J. Roberts of the address does not exist, never has existed and, unfortunately, probably never will exist. I'm sorry to have to inform you of this, because my finding a wife much younger and far more prosperous than I've ever been is the only way I can see that I'd ever be able to send children to Michigan, but putting her name in my address is not likely magically to bring her into existence. Thanks for trying.

William J. Roberts '63 BSE Clinton Township, Michigan

We hope this note from alumnus Roberts will result in the traditional fairy tale climax of romance and marriage. If it does, he has promised to let Michigan Today cover the wedding. See the article which describes our mailing-label snafus.—Ed.


I WANT to thank you for the fine piece by Linda Robinson Walker on Buck Dawson in the Fall issue of Michigan Today and the note about the reunion and search for missing yearbooks.

Dawson entertained the crowd at the banquet with interesting reflections about his career and the part the yearbook played in launching it; however, your story captured the experience and spirit of Buck best of all. Congratulations.

David A. Friedo U-M Student Publications Ann Arbor

I WAS pleased to receive the latest issue, but the printing was so faint I found it most difficult to read. Please ink your presses! Thanks.

Annette Rich '50 Washington, DC

THANK YOU for sending me the article on artificial bone growth stimulation, which I had requested. Indeed, you not only sent the article, you sent the entire October 1995 back issue. An unexpected—but welcome—surprise! As I thumbed through the rest of that back issue, I got to read all over again another fine article, on Nubia. All this is proof not only that I read and re-read, but also that I enjoy your Michigan Today publication. Yours is a niche that the typical rah-rah alumni magazine does not fill—and indeed, does not even try to tackle.

Thomas L. Wooding Fort Wayne, Indiana

President Bollinger
JUST WANTED to let you know that I thought the interview with President Lee Bollinger was superb. The questions were penetrating and elicited responses that were fascinating. Journalism at its best. I have circulated it to a number of friends.

James C. Westin '66 Law Kalamazoo, Michigan

IF BOLLINGER "walks the talk," his presidency may go down in the annals of the U. of Michigan as an outstanding one. I was particularly impressed with his evaluation of strategic planning, preferring "real substance with real participation" instead of the pie-in-the-sky abstractions of academia.

I wasn't as impressed by his response to a question about affirmative action. If he means he is eager to make a case for a continuation of that program, I'm deeply disappointed. There is little to be said in its favor. The main beneficiaries are those who wear $400 tailored suits and keep the pot boiling. Real honest acceptance of all ethnic groups is the goal to be achieved, not another form of discrimination.

Regardless of Clinton's efforts to make college the goal of all young people, there are many who should go to other specialized types of training other than university or college. Why not help those secure training and education who show promise and don't have the means irrespective of gender or ethnicity?

Gerard M. Freeman '50 Rackham Candler, North Carolina

THE WINTER 1996 issue arrived in yesterday's mail and, as I am wont to do, I began to peruse it last night. This time, however, instead of just glancing quickly through it, I found myself reading most of the articles, beginning with that about the University's new President (the first that I knew of Lee Bollinger's appointment—sometimes news does travel slowly to these parts).

Ironically, after finishing the latest issue, I chanced upon the June 1996 issue while going through a pile of accumulated mail (my wife complains that I never throw anything out) and found especially interesting the article by Bara Zetter-Sapir about her search for the artist of a particularly haunting work, as well as the letters section.

Keep up the good work.

Marc H. Hoffman '71 Boca Raton, Florida

Driving With Caution
MICHAEL BETZOLD'S article "The University of Automobiles: A Century of Connections" (Winter 1996) points out the growing interdependence between U-M and the auto industry. Betzold's article lauds this synergy and quotes Profs. David Lewis and David Cole to the effect that the University has "maintained its independence" and "retain (ed) its integrity that is crucial to its reputation."

I would have liked the article to be more cautionary. There was one time in the University's history when General Motors, working through a crusading anti-Communist governor, Kim Sigler, and the University regents, killed a promising program run by the U-M Extension Service for auto workers, and had its director fired, this over the objections of U-M President Alexander G. Ruthven and his administrative staff. Anyone interested in the details can find them in "The Worker's Education Service," pp. 99-113, Summer 1976, Michigan History or in my book, Alexander G. Ruthven of Michigan, Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1977, Chapter 12, pp. 207-217.

Peter E. Van de Water, '70 PhD Canton, New York

WE APPRECIATED the opportunity to learn more about new President Bollinger, and are stimulated by diverse articles on a variety of information. We have no quarrel with the size, format or type. Keep up the good work. We are brought up short, however, by "The University of Automobiles": It may just be faulty memory, or a technicality. I attended the University first from 1939 to 1943 in the forerunner of the Aerospace Department, the Aeronautical Engineering Department. During those years Prof. Walter Lay taught automotive courses and supervised an automotive laboratory. Was this a part of Mechanical Engineering Department, or was it actually an automotive engineering department? During this wartime experience most of the instructors oversaw related additional tasks bearing directly on the war effort. I believe Professor Lay may have worked with Professor Vincent, who was in Metallurgy.

If the existence of an Automotive Engineering Department at that time has been inadvertently overlooked, Michael Betzold may wish to know. If, indeed, there was no separate department, then you can at least see why I raise the question.

G. Donald Hollinshead '43 BSE, '47 MSE Springfield, Pennsylvania

The Automotive Engineering Lab was part of Mechanical Engineering. When a new lab was built in 1955, it was named in honor of Walter E. Lay.—Ed.

YOUR WINTER issue ("The University of Automobiles") states that the football coach "during the 1930s and early '40s was Harry Kipke." As a freshman in the fall of 1940 (Harmon's last season), I will bet a bunch that Mr. Crisler was at the controls. Bennie Oosterbaan coached the basketball team and later was Crisler's replacement. I hung around the field house quite a bit that fall, avoiding freshman PT by attempting to throw the javelin for Chet Stackhouse (frosh track coach). Fine man! Anyway, saw the other coaches there from time to time. In spite of an occasional "elderly moment," I will vouch for all of the above.

Allen Mundt '47 BSF Reno, Nevada

Your memory is worth betting on: Crisler succeeded Kipke in 1938.—Ed.

Prof. Leroy Waterman
THE ENCLOSED clipping from the Winter 1996 issue ("Nazarene Connections") concerning Prof. Leroy Waterman captured my attention and my memory of his wonderful courses in the History of Religion and the Bible. I took his courses in the summer and fall of 1942, when most men were in the military, where I soon joined them. Waterman's classes were small, with 15 to 20 students, mostly women. He sat on a raised platform behind a little table in one of the Angell Hall classrooms and delivered in a quiet voice some of the most exciting lectures of my college career. I regret the loss of my class notes. All I have left is the memory of that fabulous teacher and a few notes from my diary, like the one below:

3 December, 1942 (Thursday) Ann Arbor: Professor Waterman said again today that man's primary interest was in reality. His effort to grasp reality is the most important thing in life his ultimate goal. Does man personalize this reality? Or is the only reality personality? I must ask him.

Professor Waterman was approachable, so after class several students frequently gathered around him to inquire further about the observations and conclusions he made from his studies of the Bible and other religions. I bought one of his books, The Song of Solomon, whose poetry he insightfully interpreted as a nationalistic plea.

John A. King Webberville, Michigan

What Was 'The Dykstra Tragedy'?
MY ATTENTION was attracted to the letter to the editor by David M Valentine '60 BBA, '61 MBA (Winter 1996). He seemingly has an ax to grind when he says he'd love to see the editor have the intestinal fortitude to relate to the tragedy of Gerald O. Dykstra instead of extolling the virtues of two most recent Michigan presidents. I am a "shirt-tale" relation of Gerald's, and I would like to know about his tragedy and am interested in hearing what happened to him. I have Gerald's book A Belated Rebuttal on Russia (1928) and am rereading it.

Ileta Nicolai Schutt '24 Ed Fredericksburg, Texas

Emily Wolcott
I AM writing in regards to the article "Emily Wolcott's Freshman Year" (Fall 1996), with the hope that I may be able to obtain additional records from you. Although not a direct descendant, Emily was a third generation aunt of mine. My first generation aunt and my father's sister, Cora Edith Sasman (1891-1996), also attended U-M, was a member of Phi Beta Kappa and graduated in 1925. Cora was born the second of four children to Fred and Ethel Sasman on a farm outside Black Creek, Wisconsin.

After graduation, she worked as a private secretary in Chicago for an investmen banker, Mr. Haskel, and later worked for the US Department of Agriculture. During World War II she was "on loan" as secretary to the director of the Transportation Division of the US War Production Board. Upon retirement in 1946, she moved to Madison, Wisconsin. She died one month past her 105th birthday and included the University in her will. Thus, with your article, I am aware of two relatives who attended the University of Michigan. I am wondering what additional interesting information regarding these two women might be available.

Robert T. Sasman Wheaton, Illinois

The U-M's Bentley Historical Library was unable to discover more information than that which you supplied. We did find two photographs of Cora Sasman in the Michignanensian, however, one of which is published here. The second part of our article on Wolcott


I RECEIVED several wonderful phone calls from other '40s alums [in response to her letter in our Winter 1996 issue—Ed.]. We discussed the time-consuming hike Black students had to make to the "Negro" district of AA to get to their rooms or to get hair-cuts. We remembered sitting in at the fancy restaurants on the quad and how careful we had to be to pair Black with whites but never men with women. We told each other about the terrible letters of "recommendation" we found in our U-M files and the successes we achieved despite these roadblocks. I look forward to reading the responses MT receives.

I am therefore delighted that you printed my letter. After I finally saw it in print, I realized it had two typos that significantly distorted my meaning.:

• end of para 3: Putting the first note "*Jewish girls may live here" in italics and not the second "**Colored girls may live here" suggests that I consider anti-Semitism more important than racism, which is far from the case.

• end of para 6: should read, "My Ministers says we are all brothers." The omission of the br- suggests that the landlady and her minister are "others." too, for example, Black. This deprives my white Christian landlady of the credit she deserves for renting to a Jewish woman, and suggests that U-M was enlightened enough to approve of a rooming house for white girls that had a "Negro" landlady.

Maxine Spencer '48 Berkeley, California