#2: Introduction
Five years of study during 1955-1960 in Chemistry at the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg, Manitoba, provided a Bachelor of Science degree (1957) followed by a Master of Science graduate degree (1960). Appendix I provides details about this sojourn through my life.
One of my classmates was able to forge ahead more quickly and thus consider advanced graduate work one year earlier than I could. While we were still in Winnipeg, Russell Prysazniuk told us he wanted to do his Ph.D. in the USA. He had already found a person he was considering working with. In 1959 Russell asked me whether we would be interested in taking a trip south to Ames, Iowa so that he could visit the Department of Biochemistry at Iowa State University in Ames, Iowa, in order to meet with Professor Dexter French. We had a car, a new 1958 Meteor in need of exercise, and Russell didn’t.
Plans were made and the trip happened.
While Russell and Dr. French conversed privately Susan and I wandered through the Chemistry department hallways. It was a Sunday and we didn’t expect to meet anyone in particular. To our pleasant surprise a John Wayne like character did intercept us and introduce himself as Professor Glen Russell. The man was tall and square shouldered. He had a welcoming demeanor but didn’t smile. When further conversation developed and it became obvious that we also had an interest in doing graduate work in the USA, Dr. Russell strongly invited me to consider coming to ISU.
This first friendly encounter and subsequent offers of support for a research assistantship cinched our decision to move south in 1960 to begin graduate work with Dr. Russell and his group. The move in May to arrive on June 1st was more or less uneventful.
Selected details of our lives growing up in Manitoba previous to the move are told in a book of 50 stories called: “I Chose the 1938 Plymouth” (sample chapters) published, December 2008.
There is no chemistry in that book. It begins here.
