AUGUSTANA COLLEGE 1946

AUGUSTANA COLLEGE 1946 - 1950

The interview at Augustana went well. We met Dr. Kesnar, the former director, and had a long talk with him regarding the pros and cons of the position. He didn't paint too bright a picture so we hemmed and hawed most of the night, getting precious little sleep. The Lutton placement bureau had notified me of this position and now I wondered if I really wanted it. In May, I had been offered an assistant professorship in music theory at the University of Southern California, but I thought I would get "typed" solely as a theory teacher and would get "stuck" in that field. Earlier in the year I had written Dean Kuersteiner at Florida State University (they had changed the name from State College for Women and went coeducational that I wanted to feel free to accept an administrative position if one became available. He replied that since my interest had changed from violin to composition, he was prepared to have me head the newly formed area of graduate studies. The administrative position at Augustana won out, I was offered the directorship and we started looking for housing. First however, President Bergendoff asked if he might have a character recommendation from a Lutheran church pastor since Augustana College was supported by the Swedish Synod of the Lutheran church. I gave him the name of Reverend Karl Brener, pastor of my old church in Toledo, who apparently gave me a fine recommendation. At Eastman I had talked with Arthur Larson, head of the placement bureau there, who said, "Karl, if they can find a Swedish candidate, you won't stand a chance." Of course they couldn't, so I was in.

Housing at that time after the war was difficult to find, but we succeeded with the help of the college in renting a two room apartment in Moline next door to Rock Island. This we occupied for a year and then moved to the home of Mr. and Mrs. Beckstrom within a stones throw of the college. My teaching duties were a class in analysis, one in composition and the conductorship of the college orchestra. With the orchestra, the first order of business was to rehearse the accompaniment of Handel's "Messiah" for the gala Christmas performance by the Augustana oratorio choir directed by Henry Veld, the darling of the Augustana community. His 70 voice Augustana Choir was famous throughout the Midwest. When I first heard this choir at the opening convocation of the school year, I had to pinch myself to ascertain the validity of the experience. The compelling warmth of this choir left one with a satisfied feeling of personal involvement. Understandable then it was clear why Henry Veld was held in such high esteem. I also began to understand why Kesnar, the former director, painted a rather bleak picture for me. He resented the adulation accorded the choir and the exaggerated place it took in the image of the School of Music. My point of view was the opposite with the feeling that, if you have something good, be glad and foster it. Kesnar had a reputation for swearing. After several episodes of this, he was called to the president's office, where he was told such conduct was not tolerated, or else. He promised to mend his was and, as the story goes, appointed a student in the orchestra to act as his stooge to the affect that, when he became uncontrollably overwrought, he would point to this student who then stood up and said, "Damn!" Talk about obeying the letter of the law. The orchestra I inherited was woefully lacking in 'cellos and double basses. With Chris helping out in the violin section, we were off to an interesting start, that is, I started to plan for a remedy to the situation. I needed an addition to the faculty a 'cellist who could also teach piano to fill out a teaching load. I wrote to our friend, Lugi Silva, the brilliant 'cello teacher at Eastman and he warmly recommended Helena Bryson, a fine pianist as well as a very good 'cellist. The problem might be, he said, that she was a catholic. I took this information to president Bergendoff who said there would be no objection although he added with a twinkle in his eye, "I doubt if she could become an upper echelon officer in this institution." Helena accepted the position and we looked for her to join our School of Music Faculty in the Fall of 1947. She was all we had hoped for in this position and we soon became fast friends.

For a number of years we entertained the idea of an addition to our family. We tried, but to no avail. The possibility of adoption was our next thought especially after we had settled down into our new surroundings in Rock Island, Illinois. Accordingly we registered with the county adoption agency in the Fall of 1946. We were told it might take a long time for the right situation to resent itself. Luck was with us and the right situation did arrive, forcing us to make a decision rather quickly. The Dean of Men at the College, Harry Johnson, who was a member of the board of directors of the Moline Lutheran Hospital, notified me that a mother had given birth to a baby girl at the hospital and had left, putting the child up for adoption. Before notifying the county agency, the hospital, through Dean Johnson, knew we were interested and wanted us to have this opportunity. Imagine our excitement and curiosity upon first seeing this special baby. Should we take her? The inner anxiety was experienced by the realization of the great responsibility we would take upon ourselves. Finally however, we did say yes to this beautiful infant, but 7 days old. Now what should we do? We had no nursery in our rented house, but could arrange one in a few days. Therefore, we asked the hospital to keep her for several days until we could prepare for the grand event of welcoming this new being into our midst. My music faculty rose to the occasion and held a baby shower for us. The men, including Henry Veld, also attended. In most births, the parents have nine months to prepare for the new arrival. We, on the other hand, had to be ready in three days. Chris went to the hospital to attend a demonstration class in infant care and the baby the nurse chose for demonstration purposes was our own Elaine, for that was the name we were to give her. The big day arrived and we took our baby from the hospital. She was ten days old then and cost us the sum of about $35.00, the cost of the three days extra stay. Our life style changed in that much of our attention was focused on the little one, with visits to the baby doctor, washing diapers and preparing milk bottles.

With all my teaching assignments, together with the responsibilities of the directorship, I was glad Chris was able to take over some of the violin teaching. One of the theory teachers became pregnant and I had Chris take her place and teach one section of Freshman Theory. This involved a neat arrangement of one of us being at home to take care of the baby. I managed my time so it wouldn't conflict with Chris' teaching assignments. Since the house we rented was only a block away we could slice any difficulties pretty thin. Several times we would pass each other on the way.

The area we were in was known as the Tri-Cities, formed from Rock Island and Moline on the Illinois side of the Mississippi river and Davenport, directly across on the Iowa side. Hence the community symphony was known as the Tri-City Symphony Orchestra. Extra players for the concert were from the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and the conductor was from the Chicago School System. Chris was asked to join this orchestra when they heard of her availability and she was a valuable asset to them.

At the end of our second year at "Augie" we decided to buy a house, one which was for sale on the hill just above the campus. It was a one story two bedroom home with an extra unheated room off the kitchen. The price for this 80 year old cottage was $6,000 and the college took over the mortgage. The basement had a dirt floor and a coal furnace with a draft control upstairs. A bit primitive but feasible for our youthful abilities. In fact we set to work to test these abilities by wallpapering and painting several rooms plus modernizing the kitchen to a certain extent. The, to rest from our labors, we decided to take a two week vacation to the lake district of northern Wisconsin where we enjoyed some swimming and boating. All this with great attention paid to our ten month old daughter, Elaine, who was growing beautifully. The days passed quickly and we soon found ourselves in our new Rock Island home where we finished the decorating and accumulated enough furniture to start us off in our new venture as owners of real estate.

As director of the School of Music I was responsible for bringing performing artists to the campus on a concert series. Chief among them was the Paganini String Quartet at which time they premiered by "Recitative, Variations and Canzona," the result of composition activity at Pioneer Lake, Wisconsin several years previous to their performance in November 1949. Another artist I brought to the campus was 'cellist Luigi Silva whom we knew well at Eastman. He was the teacher of Helena Bryson who was an Augustana faculty member. Helena was a frequent visitor at our home and became closely involved with little Elaine. She loved children and said she wanted quite a number of them. Being of the catholic persuasion, we advised her to date boys from St. Ambrose College in Davenport, Iowa just across the river. This she did and later married one of them. They moved to Omaha, Nebraska where her husband was the head of music at Boy's Town. As she wished, they had quite a number of children, now all grown and, as far as I know, they are living happily ever after. About my third year at "Augie," Chris and I became interested in performing music for two violins. We did quite a little research and accumulated a rather sizable number of compositions for this medium. It resulted in our presenting several concerts of this music with the expert assistance of Brynolf Lundholm of the Theory faculty and of course Helena Bryson who was a fine pianist. She was also of invaluable assistance to me to strengthening the 'cello section of the college orchestra as was Chris among the first violins. At one of our orchestra concerts we featured Mendelssohn's "Reformation" symphony, a fitting offering at a Lutheran college.

In the school year of 1949-50 the University of Illinois announced a national composition competition for a performance on a concert of the University of Illinois Contemporary Festival. Having no new piece to present, I cannibalized the last movement of my symphony (my doctoral thesis), called it 'Dance Overture," and presented it for the competition. Three pieces were chosen to be performed for the judges and mine was one of them. The concert took place on the Illinois University campus on March 3, l950 with John Kypers conducting. The judges were Aaron Copeland and Otto Luening and the works to be judged were by Earl George, Owen Reed and Karl Ahrendt. The magic moment arrived and the winner was ..........Earl George. Anyway, I'd like to believe it was a close decision. I've heard very little of Earl George since, but Owen Reed has done very will for himself at Michigan State University over the years. The party after the concert was most interesting with the opportunity to meet the judges. Otto Luening held forth with marvelous stories delivered in a fascinating way. Aaron Copeland would remember my name in a later decision concerning the MacDowell Colony where he was a member of the selection committee. Matters at Augustana were going well enough for me. Nevertheless I had that curious inner feeling that I had one more move to make. Little did it dawn on me it would be so soon. The agenda of events at the end of the 1949-50 school year began to accelerate. I made application to the MacDowell Colony in Peterborough, New Hampshire for a residency during the month of August and was accepted I feel because Aaron Copeland had so recently heard my work. For the first part of the Summer I taught in the Summer Session during which time the Korean was broke out. Several World War II veterans on the G.I. bill were in the class and I made the announcement to them saying, "Here we go again boys." Also during this time I received a call from Casey Lutton in Chicago, notifying me of the vacancy for Director of the School of Music at Ohio University in Athens, Ohio and wanted to know if he could submit my name for the post. The present Director, Thomas Gorton, was going to Kansas University as Dean of Music,the musical chairs syndrome in operation again. I had known of the position at Ohio University three years earlier from Flora Sharappa on the faculty there and whom I knew at Eastman as a student. It was much too soon to make a move after only one year on the job so I had to decline any interest at that time. But now it was different and I arranged to have Earl Seigfred, Dean of the College of Fine Arts, visit us in Rock Island. This result was the Dean saying, "I'm satisfied, now we would like you to visit us." Fortuitously we had to travel East to the MacDowell Colony and arranged to stop in Athens for our visit. The drive was made in a new car we had just bought, a Plymouth sedan, replacing our old Hudson which we had to keep for 10 years because of Word War II. With the outbreak of the Korean situation we were afraid it would be difficult to obtain a new car. Consequently, we hurriedly bought the Plymouth the last car they had in the showroom.

In Athens we met the music faculty who were teaching Summer School and earlier Dean Seigfred had called for us at the Berry Hotel and introduced us to Dr. John Baker, President of the University. I remember well little Elaine walking with us and president Baker turning to me and pointing to Elaine, asked, "Is this all?" Upon my affirmative answer, he said, "You've got to do better than that." Latter association with him bore out the fact such a remark was rather typical of him, a kind of drill sergeant approach. Poor little Elaine was quite overwhelmed at the luncheon given for us by all the white tablecloths and shining tableware and promptly spilled some soup on the table. After all she was not quite three years old. That night we had a big discussion: Should we cast our lot with Ohio University? One of the big pluses was the fact that the School of Music offered the Master's degree and another was that this situation was definitely more challenging. So we decided to say yes to the invitation to become the new director of the School of Music of the College of Fine Arts at Ohio University.

Having been accepted at the MacDowell Colony for the month of August, we continued on from Athens, Ohio to Peterborough New Hampshire, the location of the Colony. Chris and Elaine found a room in the vicinity and I was housed in men's quarters at the Colony. I was assigned a fine studio and proceeded to get down to work on a composition which eventually became "Johnny Appleseed" for orchestra, the score and parts of which found their way into the Carl Fisher Rental Library. I soon became acquainted with some of the other colonists, Milton Avery, the well known painter, Hyde Solomon and Gregory Prestopino, both painter, Nicolai Lapotnikoff and Arthur Cohen, composers and last but not least Victor Candell, a painter who we got to know very well. A group of us would gather at the local town snack bar for lengthy discussions of the current national art and music scene. At that time, there were arguments of the value of the music of Stravinsky versus Bartok.