Raphael "Ray" Nies, August 16, 2016

KATE RANIERI: So, what I'll be doing, is I'll ask you really broad questions and then let you just talk

RAY NIES: Okay, Okay

KR: Susan will come behind and perhaps ask you other questions.

RN: Okay

KR: Okay, and so, don't worry about anything. If you forget, don't worry about it.

RN: Well, because everything is right you know [referring to a book]. So, every

KR: We moved it, give it back

SUSAN FALCIANI MALONADO: Yep.

RN: Actually, what, you know, I mean, I can go ahead and ask a question. I can --

KR: Okay, okay, and again, you pronounce your last name? "Nyse" or "Niece".

RN: Answer what

KR: Your last name

RN: Nice, N-I-E-S.

KR: Right, I'm just making sure for the pronunciation.

RN: Right

TONY DALTON: Before we started everyone's phones off? [inaudible]

KR: Jim, your phone's off?

JIM RANIERI: Yah, Yah. [laugh]

KR: We're looking to see if everyone's phone are off [laugh]

JR: Mine is in the car

KR: Yours is in the car, oh, you're good. [laugh] All right, so today is August 16th, 2016 and we're interviewing Ray Nies. We're here in North Carolina. And we'd like to start by thanking you very much for being with us for allowing us to be in your home and for sharing your stories. You're appreciated. I'd like to begin way back when you were in high school. Think when you were in high school. What was it that made you decide to go to college? To Muhlenberg college?

RN: Well, when I graduated from high school in 1941, uh, that's only, what, eleven or twelve years from the depression in 1929, and my father, we lived on a farm. And so I was a farm boy from, uh, fifth grade on, and I graduated in '41. And at that time, I really wasn't ready to go to college. I didn't know what I wanted to do. And it just so happened that we were at war in Europe at that 00:02:00time. And, in December of 1941, Pearl Harbor was attacked.

And in the meantime, in the summer of 41, I got a job, a big, with a construction company from Philadelphia [cough] working at, on a large supply depot in Marietta, Pennsylvania. And, uh, I was hired as a laborer, carpenter's helper. So I worked at that job into the fall of '41 when the assistant superintendent of the job came to me and told me that he wanted to take me away from that particular work, and made me a timekeeper on a highway project that he was in charge of that was out skirting this, out skirting this pro -- this 00:03:00project.[throat clear] And so, I said, okay, so I went to work with him and worked through the winter. And in the meantime, this same company got a large contract in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania for a Navy-supplied depot, the company, construction company was Brannan Stewart out of Philadelphia. And so, the fellow that I was working with was going to be, take the same job in Mechanicsburg and he said that he wanted me to go with him to that job before the other job was complete. And so, I did. I agreed to do that and, of course, my age, I was only 18 years old at the time and I said, "I don't know that whether, Charlie, I don't know whether I can handle that. I'm only 18, you know."

He said, "I know, I know how old you are. I know that. I know you can do it." And he said, "I'll be around and able to help whenever you need help."

So, he gave me the job, the new job as the new project as a labor foreman, had 20 men working under me building a, a bridge that had to be done on that project because again, a road that had to be changed and outskirted the community, project. [cough] And, uh,, [cough] so, I stayed there for through the winter, now '42 and into the early spring, and so I went home one evening and talked to my parents about it. My dad worked on the same project, so we traveled together. He was a colle --, a foreman in another area of work. I told him that I was, I 00:05:00didn't know that I wanted to stay with this kind of work and I want to go to college. I had to go to college somewhere.

Course the answer was where, where do you want to go? And I said, well, I don't know. I thought about architecture and going to Penn State and then [chuckle] a little bit concerned about math because I wasn't real great in math. But I mean, I manage--, I got through it all right. But I know that an architect near it required a lot of math and that course would. So, my mother's two brothers and my cousin were all graduates of Muhlenberg. And my, my, my two uncles, her brothers, knew Haps Benfer for very well. And she you knew Haps Benfer, and so she said, Why don't we go over to Muhlenberg?"

I said, "Okay, we can do that." So, I took a day off and she and I drove to Muhlenberg and met Haps. And I guess we contacted them in advance that we were coming in as he remembered her. She remembered him because he played football with my uncles. And, and, uh, so we spent the day there and he told me what Muhlenberg would do for me. They gave me a little financial help and, in the meantime, I had earned enough money through out that working here that I could pay my own way for two years, probably tuition.

So, I decided that's where I would go. So, the plan was the start in August of '42 when the, which is what I did. I continue to work until, oh, three or four weeks before going to college. And I went over earlier in August, and that's all 00:07:00indicated here in this story [referring to his book]. [cough]

And so, uh, that was, I was a freshman. Of course, I was a year older than most all the rest of the freshman. Uh, we, uh, we went through the first semester and sometime during that, I guess the latter part of the first semester [cough], the, uh, government, I guess, contacted Muhlenberg concerning the V-12 program and announcement was made that there would be representatives from the Navy and Marine Corps on campus to explain the program, and so forth and, why it was coming and why they wanted to have it, and what benefits the college would get from it, and also the students and, of course, at that time, most of the small 00:08:00colleges were pretty destitute as far as a student body were concerned, particularly the male schools. Because boys at either been drafted or they enlisted, which was this case at Muhlenberg. And so, this was going be a great help for the college as far as bringing students in because they could to explain how they would bring students in from other schools. Because some schools course couldn't handle it. They had to go to schools that could handle this program with the, uh, [you know] accommodations and so forth. And Muhlenberg was able to do that. [cough]

And, uh, so, uh, the announcement that was made as to what students would make a 00:09:00choice between Navy and Marine Corps. [cough] And that there would be an enlisted, an officer, enlisted man and an officer from each branch of service on, on the campus at all times. If the program went into effect in that the students would continue with their college education. But along with that, they would get some military courses that they, that the Marine Corps or the Navy required. And of course, there was a separation of Marine Corps were going to be all billeted in West Hall, which I forget what we call it now. But at that time, that's where Haps Benfer lived. He and his wife [cough] and, and that would be the Marine Corps barracks, you might say. The Navy lived over in, I guess, a couple of the other halls, I forget where, just where. And so that was it was accepted. And then the students were asked to sign up at a certain time. The 00:10:00sign-up which branch they elected to go in. And, uh, so, [clear throat] I -- I didn't want to go into the Army and I wasn't interested in the ships being on the water nor was I interested in going in the air. So, I only had one other choice and that was the Marine Corps. And so, I was kind of taken by Marine Corps anyway.

And my father served in World War One in France in the Army. He was commissioned by General John Pershing after the war was over in France. I have a picture. I'll show you my office after and a --

So, I figured out I'd go into the Marine Corps and, uh, so on December four, December 14th, 1942, I enlisted that with our enlistment date. And from then on, we finished the rest of the year. And in July, I guess, July of' 43, I think, 00:11:00the program went into effect when we became actual members of the service and we're being paid and were issued uniforms. And the, uh, uh, enlisted men and officers were on campus. And our program, again, of course, we had to take a couple military courses. We learned to train; we learned, each branch learned something about that particular branch of service. And, uh, I was there for, I guess a year and a half [clearing throat] and the some of the boys that were brought in from other schools had a little more college than some of us, or vice versa, we had a little more than some of them so that the time that they would 00:12:00be Muhlenberg, for instance, varied because of their previous college. And there was a stipulation with the services that you would spend so much time in college and then you would go on to a boot camp, whether it was at Great Lakes or whether it was uh, uh, Parris Island for the Marine Corps. And so, I was there for about a year and a half, I guess. And then of course, went on with the group in my same area of education, length of education, went on to Parris Island to boot camp. And, uh, the other boys went on the Great Lakes. And were still some remaining, but not too many because people had left two or three times.

Some had some community college for two years already. And so, their time there 00:13:00was, was less because they had already had that education. So, education with the military courses that they were learning and courses and ah this was Officer Training, supposedly, and ---

Uh, I went on to boot camp and my days at boot camp, well, boot camp, Marine boot camp at Paris Island for us, that is for, not only for the boy went from Muhlenberg, for the boys went from any others college was a lot different than if I'd just walked off the street and join the Corps. Because, first of all, when we got there, we knew a lot about the Marine Corps. We had uniforms, we'd been trained, we had all our physical examinations, dental and other things. We had our hair cut. We had, we were Marines except that we hadn't been to boot camp yet. And so, the boot camp for us, at least for me, I don't know if 00:14:00enjoyable is a good word, but it wasn't tough, because and those officers, the officers that each platoon got and the enlisted men had an easy job because they're training was almost half of what it would've been had we not had previous training from college. So, that, uh, our life at boot camp, as I said again, was for me was, uh, it got irritating, frustrating at times, like it's expected to be, but it wasn't real tough and so, uh, our training went on and on until we finished boot camp and went on to Camp Lejeune.

And we got training there and our training continued on, of course, during this time the war was changing in both Europe and in the Pacific. And the, the rules when we finished in, in, uh, Camp Lejeune were transferred on to Quantico, which is the last stop before you get your commission.

And there's training course became rig, more rigid each, each stop, each, each place. And so, we got to, uh, uh, Quantico, we had different kinds of training than we had at Camp Lejeune. And we had, uh, we had field training which we didn't get much of at Lejeune and we had a lot of weapon training at cam--Quantico. And it got to the point that when those -- those candidates at Quantico, if you've failed one ex, two exams, you were out of the program.

Because now, as the war, uh, as United States seem to get an edge in the Pacific, the Marine Corps and the Navy, I don't know what happened in the Navy, but in the Marine Corps, the, the need for extra and more officers was, was being cut to back. And so, our, the stipulations for the candidates was becoming harder, more stringent because they, there wasn't a need to put all the guys through the service and give them a, a commission if they weren't going to be needed.

And so, if you pa, failed two exams, you were out of the program. Well, we went through the program for a while, and then that changed to one exam, as a region, the Pacific was coming toward Japan, so forth. Well, I failed an exam at 00:17:00Quantico at last, in the last. I failed machine gun. And it was a time when you had to take a machine gun and dismember it and then put it back together again. And a lot, some of these were done, had to be done in a dark because jungle fighting, don't have a lot of lights to do things. You don't do in the daytime. So, I failed machine gun. That meant that I was out of the program. And I would join another list of other people that did the same thing.

And we were we were there for a short time and then put, taken as a group and shipped out to Camp Pendleton, in Oceanside, uh, California. That's the Marine base in California on the West Coast.

And we spent time there for a little while and then we left Camp Pendleton for the Pacific, not knowing where we're going.

And in the meantime, the two bombs were dropped in Hiroshima and Nagasaki [clearing throat] and, of course, we learned about that. It turned out after we were out in the Pacific for a while, several days, I guess it was, [clearing throat], we learned that we were going to go to Guam. And Guam at that time, probably still is, is, well, it's under the rule of the States now, but at that time was, uh, jumping off spot for the all of the Pacific, uh, uh, experiences and all these, they, they stored a lot of equipment there and it was just the main stop point for people going and coming into that area. So, we got, we went to Guam and we were at Guam for I guess, I think I've written here somewhere, a 00:19:00week or two, something like that.

And then we were, and we were boarded a ship and were headed towards Japan to be part of the occupational forces. Not, again, not knowing the war, the war had been signed, and they were on the Missoura, [USS Missouri?] with McArthur and Japanese, Hirohito, I guess it was. Sign the -- the peace and surrender documents, but [cough] we were, we were still on the way to Japan.

We went to Nagasaki. And, uh, we spent, forget how long, you know, if I mentioned in the book or not, but I guess we were there for less than a week or maybe a week with the devastation was horrible. And, uh, [cough] from Nagasaki, 00:20:00we went there again, not knowing that all the Japanese in the Pacific knew that the war was over because there were, they had found after, after the surrender had been signed documents they still found for several weeks, Japanese that had been holed up in caves and what not, that they didn't know that the war would over. It so happened that one, one Marine was killed on Guam by a Japanese. It came out of the woods somewhere. And so, we went to Nagasaki ready to, for all conditions, because the main reason we went was to make sure that the place was secured and, uh, that, that the Japanese government understood that we were coming there for that reason.

And so, we went on to Japan and to, uh, the Island of Fukuoka that's where we spent, I spent 11 or 12 months there and, uh, [cough] I was, uh, I was in a motor pool there -- in the military police and I was in charge of the motor pool. [cough] We'd spent, I said, we spent I think we got there in, in August and left the following July, er July and October, I forget, but there again, I referred to it in the story and then shipped back to States. We were told we're going take the long the circle route, which meant that we would, instead of docking in San Diego, we would be going all the way around the horn through the 00:22:00Panama Canal, which we did.

We were on the water for 30 days and docked in Morehead City in North Carolina. And then I went back to Camp Lejeune for some casual, just casual training and discharged there in July, I think it's July of '46. I have to get those papers out there to get the real dates. But that's basically my career in -- through the V-12 program.

And, uh, I said I, I, I guess if I had to say whether I enjoyed it or I didn't, I enjoyed it because I didn't have anything else to compare with when, I mean, I was an 18-year-old kid gone in to the service, which I wanted to do. And I chose 00:23:00the service I wanted to go into. I wasn't drafted and so I had to make the best of what came to, into my life. And I tried to do that and I made some friends. And, uh, the third, fortunately, I wasn't, I didn't see any combat. And, uh, I guess I'm a believer and I believe that -- that -- that may have been ordained for my life. I don't know, but there's so many things that have happened to me in my life from that time on that would indicate to me that that was probably one of the first things that happened because, uh, that was the way my life was to be planned. I didn't plan my life. That's the way it turned out. And there 00:24:00are so many other things in my life that have happened to me and that have occurred that that I didn't plan either that have turned out to be to my advantage.

And so, I look at that time at Muhlenberg those -- those days in the V-12 program, when I came back after getting out of the service, I came back for my junior and senior year, which we're exceptional as far as, I mean, it just had a great time. We, we were absolutely, we are reunioned with guys who had gone into the service and, uh, everybody came back basically were the same age. We all are in the same class. We're going to graduate at the same time. And we had, I, I belonged to the ATO fraternity, we all lived in the house and, uh, we were quite 00:25:00active in intramural sports and we had a couple former athletes in the fraternity and we just had a great time.

And, uh, of course, I don't know what, how your history goes because you remember the Tobacco Bowl in Lexington, Kentucky. Well, we went to that and I was the manager of the football team when Ben Schwartzwalder was there, and then Bud Barker came as our basketball coach and our first basketball team that went to the Garden. I went with that. I was with them and that was Doggy Julian took them to New York and, and then back again to send the second year [cough]. The trip to Lexington was quite odd because first of all, we are playing Saint Bonaventure, which was a northern school, and Muhlenberg was playing Saint Bonaventure. We got there. People would try to find a house, some place to stay 00:26:00at a rooming house or somebody said, we were from, Muhlenberg, what's that? Muhlenberg, what's Muhlenberg was, whether it was a house, a dog or what, you know, so, but they have two northern schools go to Lexington, Kentucky in the heart of the south, almost, was kind of a, was an odd thing to begin with when we knew that when we went, and of course history shows that that was the case. We, it wasn't a great big crowd, and people that were there came only because they wanted to see a football game. There weren't a lot of fans, you know, and so there was never another Tobacco Bowl game, but we won 26 to 25.

And, uh, it was just a great time and we had a lot of great times. It, my, my 00:27:00days at Muhlenberg before and after the V-12 and including the V-12 were, they were just happy days. All of them. We spent lot of time I went to a summer school one summer because I graduate, I majored in geology and [clear throat] I had to spend a summer school there because the courses offered were only given in the summer. So, we spent a lot of time at Cedar Beach swimming down at the pool, pond there, pool. And we did that in the service too and it was just a great time for me and uh, of course, all kinds of memories both for, for V-12 and for my college days too. So that's about, unless you have other questions. That's kind of, I won't say a thumbnail, but that's, that fills in probably more 00:28:00than most of my, the activities as far as that program was concerned. But my days, as I said, my days at the Muhlenberg were all wonderful. I, [cough], when I was a freshman, we had this house party or dance.

So, I invited my sister to come and I got her a date. And ah she met her future husband there. And so, [clear throat] uh, uh, they lived in Allentown. He went on to Temple Dental School after Muhlenberg and became a dentist in Allentown. She's lived there for 40 some years where she lives on North 24th Street.

KR: Real close to the college?

RN: Yeah.

KR: Do you remember your letter writing?

RN: What?

KR: The correspondence that you had with Gordon Fister and John Wagner? The letters that you wrote, do you remember?

RN: During service, you mean? No, I wasn't much of a, my writing really didn't, although I did write some letters, but I didn't write many letters in the service. I, had a couple of interesting situations when I was at, particularly when I was at boot camp. I don't know whether, how much you know about those, those days at, but at boot camp, you weren't allowed they get packages from home because they didn't want you get a lot of sweets, and stuff. And they didn't want, they inspected or checked everything we got. My mother, as I said, we grew up at a farm, I grew up on a farm. She made some dandelion wine and she sent, she sent this to me in a package, but she packed it in bread or a loaf of bread. 00:30:00She put a jar and put bread around it. And so, when the package got there or there again, basically because we were the kind of recruits that we were, they didn't expect that we're going do anything out of the ordinary. And so, I got the package and was able to get the wine. At that time, I was, we were on for a week on the rifle range and happened to be in a winter times, the wine came in handy. It was a small jar. Course she couldn't put a big jar in.

And then another incident happened to me on the rifle range was that there were various ways of -- of firing at targets. And we were on long range firing one day and while I was lying on the ground and one of the DI's, that's Drill 00:31:00Instructor, came up and he said, Nies where did you learn to shoot like that? And I said, I used to hunt with my father, rabbits, and pheasants. Well, it turned out that this DI was from my hometown and I never knew it. And he wrote a letter to his former employer who knew my father. And, uh, so, he told Mr. Rich, who his employer was to tell Ray Nies that his son is in boot camp with me and he's done real well, you know, something like that. And so, I never knew anything about that, of course, until I got home. Somewhere, I think I have the letter, but right now I couldn't find it probably. But that was, you know, a 00:32:00kind of odd thing to happen at that particular stage in my Marine career, you know, [cough] but, uh, it was a [cough] I would say it was a good life.

And there again, I was blessed because I didn't see any combat so that I didn't have that that part of my military service was I guess you could say was missing, which was alright I mean, it was through no fault of mine, but that's the way the game played out. And, uh, it was because of the program. If I had not been in the V-12 program, who knows what, what could happen, you know, or where I would have been or I may not have been the Marine Corps. You know, I 00:33:00have been drafted. You know, probably not, I probably would have enlisted. But, you know. So, you know, your life goes through a lot of different changes and not always change that you wanted or that you make. There are choices you might make, and, uh, I guess in my case, I made a right one that time. And so, [throat cleared] that's, that's about my story as far as that program is concerned, but I can tell you lots of stories about others. You know, I, my second time in the Marine Corps, but chuckle] that's, you know, that's not what you're interested in, so.

KR: Well, there's [inaudible]

SFM: Would you like to take a break now, or I can get you a glass of water, or something? Your story is amazing.

RN: Well, I was, [pause], I went back to work when I get out, as I mentioned. Went back to work. I was working [cough]. I went to college, finished college then. But this book has up my whole life in it. So, but I went to work in, uh, 1950 in New York. Uh, my, my best friend and fraternity brother worked for his father who had a business in New York a long-time business. Uh, and they asked me to come join the business because they were interested in, they needed somebody who is knowledgeable about construction work and I'd already done that. My father was a contractor, so I knew a lot of that kind of construction. And so, I went to work in New York in May of 1950. And at that time, this company was asked to serve as a representative for a firm in Chicago, who made a product 00:35:00that they wanted to begin to try to sell in the metropolitan area. And so, they came to us to see if we would be their representative in the metropolitan area. And, and we always say we, the company decided they would do that. Well, who are we going to put on that part of the business? It happened to be me. And so, in order for me to find out about that business it meant I had to go to Chicago and commute back and forth a couple of times, and learn, stay out there for a week and learn their business and learn how they did, made the product and so forth. And then come back and then search out the metropolitan area in New York City particularly, and try to sell it. Well, that, that happened in throughout May, 00:36:00June, July.

August, I get a letter from Uncle Sam. We, in August of 1950, if you recall, the United States went to war in Korea. And, so, on August in 1950, Ray Nies gets a notice from Uncle Sam, because I was in the reserve, to report for active duty. And, so I just started this new job. Uh, uh, both my boss, the man in Chicago, and a couple other people wrote letters to the government to try and get me deferred or get me out. And of course, several age, several years had pass and my age and I, you know, and so at any rate, they gave me three-month deferment. But again, that put me into December. So, in December, almost the same day in the December of 19, uh,1950, I was back in the Marine Corps.

And, uh, [cough], I went to back to Camp Lejeune, stationed back in Camp Lejeune. Now I was in, in the service with all 99% of the fellows were all ex-veterans from World War II. Everybody in my platoon was a World War II veteran, except for one boy in Western Pennsylvania. [Cough] And so, we had a lot of stories, some of them were married, some of them had children and some of them wore glasses. [chuckle] I'm, uh, you know, [chuckle] when I joined the Marine Corps of course you could wear glasses, if had more than two teeth missing, you couldn't get in, and that was stringent reserve requirements. But so those days were frustrating because I just started a new job and imagine that 00:38:00company had to make a lot of changes in order, because I wasn't there and they had to have somebody else do that job that wasn't trained to do it. But when I left the job, the boss told me that I should not worry about my job because it's work waiting for me when I come back.

Well, while I was in Camp Lejeune I went, I went into the carpenter shop. That was my job, I was Sergeant, when into the carpenter shop. And we were notified one day by the officer in charge that we were going to, uh, build some knock-down buildings here and ship them down the Puerto Rico because the 2nd Marine Division always does their maneuvers in the Caribbean every spring. And 00:39:00so, we were going to make the buildings in North Carolina and knock them down, take 'em, ship them to, to Camp Lejeune, to, uh, a, to Puerto Rico and erect them down there. And then when a division comes down, you will come back on air boat, on their ship, which is what we did. So, we spent, I don't know how many months making these, these, uh, building the buildings and have them prepared to reassemble when they got down there. And of course, we add more work to do there. So, he spent couple months on Vieques Island, north in Puerto Rico, which is across from the mainland. And, uh, did, did a job there. We were there, uh, I think it was maybe August to October or something like that [cough]. Uh, I came back and now it's, uh, '51, I think 1951 and, uh, in mean time, uh, when I was 00:40:00in north ah -- Camp Lejeune, and a lot of these fellows traveled home on the weekends. And I found out that at that time my folks had already moved to Harrisburg and we lived in Lancaster County, originally, that's where the farm was. They, we moved to Harrisburg while I was in the service. And so, I went home to Harrisburg, because several of the guys that were in my, uh, company and, Italian went to Harrisburg area. Some of them lived in Lebanon, some of them in Harrisburg, some of them, you know four or five fellows lived up there 00:41:00and two or three of them were married, so they try to get home as often as they could. So, when I found out that they travel on the weekends, I said I, might as go with you because what am I going to do here all weekend?

So, I did that of course in one of those trips, I met my future wife at the Presbyterian church in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. She, she graduated at Boston University as a physical therapist and came to Harrisburg and worked for the Harrisburg Dauphin County Crippled Children's Association. And then she belonged to that church, was very active in the young adult group and so forth. And, of course, I had been there too and played, played softball on our team and basketball and what not. And so, [cough] when I came home, I would find out from 00:42:00my parents what the young group was doing on a sat --, particularly that weekend waiting for me, when I came back. And it's going to say they hadn't the information. So, I would join night group was Saturday. I would get home on a Friday night, it would be Saturday morning about one o'clock, I will join that group.

And on one snowy [clears throat] weekend, my mother said that they were having a sledding party at the Harrisburg Country Club, one of the members of the church, uh, was also a member of the country club. And so he said that the young group, she grew up there and do their sledding is -- is, I don't know if you know, by Harrisburg Country Club, but it's kind of a rolling, and a lot of it was great place ago sledding. And so, she, of course they, they were going to plan to be up there. And so, I said, well, maybe I will. They go up they go to that. So, I 00:43:00decided that we met there on a snow bank, so happened that the snow was by eight or nine inches deep at that time and, it rained and it frozen on the top, so there's a pretty heavy crust. So, you could ride on that crust, if you start up a certain area, you could ride for a long way down, wind your way. Well, it was decided they were gonna get down one hill and up another grade on the other side. Well, she didn't get the word on that, until she came down and went behind the hill downhill [clear throat] well the bottom of the hill was a small stream, like there are on some golf courses, a little bridge over it. Of course, the bridge was not big enough to carry a sled over, but I said this is trouble, I 00:44:00could see this right away. I cause I knew exactly what was going to happen, and that she was going to get down there and she was going to hit this ditch, and the sled will go into the crust and she'll go out over the sled, [inaudible] exact. So, I went down, followed her down and that's exactly what happened. And her face look like hamburger, I mean it was pretty well chopped up. So, we got her, and picked it up. Minister took her and his wife, took, took her to their house and she spent the weekend there. And next weekend I, I came home again and wanted to see how she was doing. That was my first introduction because I didn't know her at this sledding party. I just knew that she was a new member there and I'd never met her before, so from then on 63 and a half years later, why, that was--

KR: What's your wife's name?

RN: What?

KR: What is her name?

RN: Nan N-A-N, not Nancy, just Nan There's picture on the table right there. But she's, ah we had, she had a pretty extensive training in and also, she worked at Harrisburg, and when we became engaged I got our job in New Jersey because we decided on when we wanted to get married. So, I said no reason for me to drive in New Jersey of the Harrisburg so I said why don't I get, why don't we get a job in New Jersey for you? So, I found a job in Ridgewood, New Jersey, and, uh, Bergen County cerebral palsy center, which is quite, uh, I don't know if elite 00:46:00is a good word, but there weren't many around and that, it was a fine center where it was strictly for cerebral palsy. And so, I went to that center one day when I was on my, I travel around a lot in my job. So, I stopped in there one day to see if there was, if they needed then a physical therapist, and I spoke to the director and very nice woman and she's she, accepted my visit there and said that, while after I told her all about Nan, then she said, well have her send me a resume and possibly a visit here to talk to. Well, we did all that, and she had her come visit. She, she gave her a job and so we moved her to New 00:47:00Jersey, and, uh, she lived in Ridgewood and, uh, that was in, I guess, in the spring of '52. We were married in June of '52 in Harrisburg in the church where we met. And, uh, by that time, we had already had a house and the living at our house ready to live in and, uh, our first child was born in '54, son. 14 months who later second child, little girl and, uh, I worked for that firm for, [cough] for 29 years and then went to work for another firm when they change hands. [cough] And, uh, it was of that company that I did the traveling in Europe. So 00:48:00that's, uh, so we lived there until 1982 in three different houses, and, uh, [clears throat] moved down here in '82.

KR: Ooh. Amazing story, really.

SFM: Well, we went back to Muhlenberg after your service. Do you remember in 1948, there was, the Ad building burned down?

RN: Oh, yeah. Yeah.

SFM: Were you there?

RN: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think, I think I referred to it in here [referring to the book] Yeah. Well, that was one, I was, that, I was the night before the commencement, I think. Yeah. Yeah. Actually, it didn't burn down, but they actually it didn't burn down, but they were able to save a lot of stuff, you 00:49:00know records and what not, fortunately was on the top, rather than on the bottom. You know -- Yeah, Muhlenberg has, holds a lot of memories for me. As I said, my two uncles went there, I don't know if you've ever heard the name of Reisler, Walter Reisler. He for years he had he had records at Muhlenberg. He, he played football and my Uncle Carl Reisler who was a Lutheran minister, played football, and he's the one that played with Haps Benfer, well, they both new Haps but, Walter was after Carl several years. Then my cousin Carl's son Frank, my cousin graduated in, uh, '41, I think.

KR: So, what can you tell me about Haps?

RN: Haps?

KR: What do you, what are your memories of him?

RN: Haps is a great guy. He, I'm trying to remember, oh, this just came to me. His wife's name was Mabel and he had a son. He may have had two sons, but I only knew one. And they lived in West Hall. They, he was the Dean of Freshman, and Admissions Officer Director, [cough] and, uh, but they lived in West Hall as kind of a mom-and-pop arrangement for freshman with West Hall was, was indicated as the freshman dorm. I mean, if you went there, the freshman, that's where he lived for their first year. And, uh, he would come, he, he would, you know, we didn't, I didn't know if we have a bell or not but about ten o'clock was. That was a time when lights were out, and you should have been studying, you know, he would come around, come around on his pajamas, you know, knock on the door and 00:51:00say okay, maybe stick his head and, you know, and say everything OK now, and visit all the rooms of all a of the freshmen. And on several occasions, uh, people would get down and Mabel would have something, you'd get something to eat, you know, that kind of thing, and he would just laugh. I mean, it was a father, father-mother arrangement as far as he and Mabel were concerned. And their, their son, I can't remember his name right now, but he was several years older. He was already, he may have been a senior when I started, something like, three or four years older than I was. [cough] And, uh, so, Haps was just a, he was a fixture at Muhlenberg, I mean, as far, I don't know how long he was there but a long time and, uh, [clear throat] anybody that went to Muhlenberg for 00:52:00those, those years, knew him and knew about him and he probably knew all of them too. You know, and, uh, so [unintelligible], he was there, how are things goin', how'd you do in English today. That kinda thing, he was always around.

KR: We have old film footage that Shankweiler made. Dr. Shankweiler, of Haps, wasn't it Haps in the dorms? They're playing piano, serving tea

RN: Yeah there was there was a piano down the first floor. And the well, what did we call that room when we went in [inaudible] there are two steps went up around stairway the second, third, floor and, uh, what do you call that. It was the entrance area you know and, uh--

KR: Was it like a reception?

RN: Yeah, like a reception hall at the main steps you went in, and, of course, in the V-12 program, and that's where the Marines lived in that -- in that hall. We came down there and we all assembled out front as a, as a platoon, out front. And we, marched over to the Commons for meals and, uh, we marched around the, around the campus. You know, we were either training or marching and close order drill, that sort of thing.

KR: You were talking about marching to the Commons, that's now called Walson Hall.

RN: Yeah. I know there's a, there's I forget the name. It's probably changed the name a couple times since I was there.

KR: So, what was it like eating in there in the Commons?

RN: Ahhhh it was okay? I mean, you know, we didn't have a lot of choices, but, uh, of course, when I was a freshman, when I went to Muhlenberg, I had a car. But your freshmen, we were not allowed to have a car for the first semester, so I took it to my uncle, my uncle Carl's house. He lived in Temple, which is on the east side of Reading, probably what, ten miles or whatever it is, but they lived there. And so, he said, bring your car over here, keep it here, and you can go home at Thanksgiving. So, after the holidays, I got my car and I was able to have it in school again until, of course, by that time I had already joined the fraternity, and so I was able to use the car, parked it over at the fraternity house, and then, then, I didn't, I didn't eat at the Commons anymore. I ate at the fraternity house. So, I only ate at the Commons, uh, I ate at the 00:55:00Commons probably what, that first semester, I think it was it, I think it was the first semester, but it was fine.

KR: And you marched to the Commons, marched class where you were in training?

RN: Yeah, oh yeah, we, yeah, we, well, weren't necessary, we didn't march to class because everybody didn't have the same class at the same time. So, but we did march to the Commons and we marched to any activity that the group was going to attend all together, we marched.

And our, and the name of the [laugh] sergeant, the enlisted man's name was Pugjak. He was, I guess, Polish, but P-U-G-J-A-K, I think it was, Sergeant Pugjak. The 1st Lieutenant's name [unintelligible] for some reason I don't have 00:56:00that down. I don't know why, why I didn't record it, but--

KR: But what about Tyson? Dr. Tyson?

RN: Levering Tyson?

KR: Yes.

RN: By the time I graduated I got to know him pretty well and I was a freshman, because I had been a lot of sports in high school when I was a freshman as he had a JV basketball team, JV football team, my roommate as a freshman was there on scholarship to play football, Doug Costabile. He later became a surgeon in New Jersey. And, uh, at any rate, and his brother was there at Muhlenberg a year older than he was a sophomore. Doug was a freshman. I might, --he was my roommate. We got along famously, was just a great kid. And course, he and I 00:57:00joined a fraternity same time because his brother was a rush chairman at the fraternity. And so, we joined the fraternity and, uh, what were we talking about?

KR: Tyson.

RN: Dr. Tyson? Yeah. I got to know Dr. Tyson because as I said, I was trying out all these sports. Well, I came from a small high school, there were 46 in my graduating class. And so even though we had great teams, I couldn't really compete with some of the kids that came there, because now these kids have come from other schools and they had a lot more. I never played football. Our high school didn't have football, so I was a novice, as far as --. But I went for the team because the coach was a fraternity brother. He graduated several years 00:58:00ahead of -- he'd been a graduate several years when I got there. He said, "Ray, why don't you come out?

I said, "I never played." Ernie Fellows was his name. And so, he said, "Come on out." He said, "I'll teach you some things."

And, well, so I did. I went through the season as a, in the freshman football team. Same thing happened in basketball. He was also the basketball, JV basketball coach, a freshman basketball coach. And so same thing happened there. And, uh, so, I got that experience. And then when I came to baseball, Doggie Julian was the baseball coach. He was also the football coach. And, matter of fact, he was the basketball coach [chuckle] coach of three sports. Basketball, football, baseball. Well, Doggy Julian was a semi-pro baseball player. Very good, very good ballplayer. He came from the Coal Regions, I forget the town, 00:59:00but, you know I played a lot of baseball. I play more baseball in high school than the other two sports because we played more. I can play more years. But at any rate, [cough], he said, "You gonna play baseball?"

And so, I said, "Well."

He said, "Come out for the team. Will you play?"

I said, "Yeah, I'll play." So, I, went out for the team. I played first base in high school, but I got out for Muhlenberg, they already had a first baseman, who was a junior. And so, he said, "Well, first base, well I've got first base taken care of, I need an assistant catcher. I need a second catcher." The catcher, at the time, was Jack, uh, he was from Ramsey, New Jersey. He was a catcher. He was a junior and I was freshman, I said, "Okay." So I became the assistant catcher. So, I went to the season in, in my Ciarla will indicate the season we had, I 01:00:00think. It may not indicate it was my freshman year. Right. But at any rate, uh, so I played those three sports, varsity baseball and freshman basketball, football, of course, the year went by. And then the next year I didn't go out for any sport because I realized, you know, that competition, I, -- I was gonna waste my time really and then went back, actually went back into the V-12 program again next year. And so instead of doing that, I got, I got close to some of the basketball and the football and became manager.

So, I got pictures out there, of the teams and big newspaper articles and so forth. I could show you, you know, the team that went to Madison Square Garden. I don't have, a couple of pieces I have going to Lexington, I think. But, uh---

But so, I got, and it's not really an answer to the Tyson question, but I got to know him because we were a small group and Dr. Tyson got around. He got around to meet the kids and so forth. But my one, and I mention it in here, [chuckle], when I graduated in 1948, I'll never forget it, I get up, I came up on stage and he had my diploma. He said, "Oh Ray, it's been a long time hasn't it?" Something like that. And that he knew, he knew my uncle, he knew my uncle Walter, and they 01:02:00had become friends. And so, he knew that I was a legacy, when I went there and Haps knew that. So, I kind of, if there was, if he kind of had a hand in it, I guess I did when I went there to start with. So, even though I was a year older than my class, uh, that didn't make any difference, as it, it really helped. As a matter of fact, because it helped as I came back because now I join up with the guys who were sophomores when I was a freshman because I spent a little more time there than they did. And so, it all worked out. We all got back together again. So, uh, that's, that's about, you know, through the fraternity. I got to know people in Allentown. We had a wonderful group of guys there, and, uh, just 01:03:00an interesting time in intramural sports, and, of course, we spent lot of time at Cedar Crest.

KR: I bet. [laugh] I want to ask you about one more person you met or knew Paul [interruption]

RN: Gebert

KR: No, Paul Candalino.

RN: No, I just knew, Paul Candalino was, uh, uh, president of the student body. I just knew Paul to know him. I didn't know anything about him, I'd say, hi Paul how you doing, and he'd say, hi Ray. I didn't know if he had a brother, sister, 01:04:00where he lived there, anything about him. I just knew him because he was a student at Muhlenberg and president of the student body, and he was an athlete.

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