Barbara Eberhard's Blog - Posts Tagged "neuroscience"
Dad's Lifelong Passion
Today, I again found new things about my dad. Well, not new in his ideas, but new in his professional life, which I'm writing about in my biography of him.
In 1969, Dad testified to the following in front of a Senate subcommittee: "The final point I made in my testimony which I submitted for the record and which I would like to repeat because I think it was not stressed enough today, is that when we begin any of these processes of regulating the processes of building homes, we ought not to just measure whether or not materials are adequate and whether or not buildings are structurally sound but we ought to measure whether or not these buildings meet man's need, whether or not the people who are going to live in them have their physiological, psychological, and sociological needs being met. Mr. Chairman, we are abundantly ignorant about how to do that. We really don't know how to measure man's needs in that sense."
Dad, from the time he started at the National Bureau of Standards, and possibly before that, was a proponent of "performance-based building standards". I knew this about him, because it's one of the things that a lot of the people I've talked to about Dad talk about. Because it made Dad something of a pariah in the building industry.
You see, most building codes prescribe the size of things. They are engineering based. Dad advocated for performance-based standards; that is, not prescribing how things should be done with the size of things but rather with what we are trying to accomplish with the things. Moving toward these kinds of standards was a change in thinking. It's part of what made Dad a maverick.
But what I didn't realize until now is that Dad's push for performance-based standards was an early indication of his desire to measure how the built environment works for the people who use it. Not just to make buildings better by measuring the outcomes of their use, because that makes more sense than prescribing the walls have to be so thick, etc. But to produce better outcomes for the people using those buildings, whether they are homes (as in the case of his testimony here) or churches or schools or hospitals.
This passion, as science progressed, was what he was trying to accomplish with his last career move - the Academy for Neuroscience for Architecture (ANFA). To use this new science, neuroscience, to measure human's interactions with architecture, to improve the built environment for human's use.
Maverick indeed.
In 1969, Dad testified to the following in front of a Senate subcommittee: "The final point I made in my testimony which I submitted for the record and which I would like to repeat because I think it was not stressed enough today, is that when we begin any of these processes of regulating the processes of building homes, we ought not to just measure whether or not materials are adequate and whether or not buildings are structurally sound but we ought to measure whether or not these buildings meet man's need, whether or not the people who are going to live in them have their physiological, psychological, and sociological needs being met. Mr. Chairman, we are abundantly ignorant about how to do that. We really don't know how to measure man's needs in that sense."
Dad, from the time he started at the National Bureau of Standards, and possibly before that, was a proponent of "performance-based building standards". I knew this about him, because it's one of the things that a lot of the people I've talked to about Dad talk about. Because it made Dad something of a pariah in the building industry.
You see, most building codes prescribe the size of things. They are engineering based. Dad advocated for performance-based standards; that is, not prescribing how things should be done with the size of things but rather with what we are trying to accomplish with the things. Moving toward these kinds of standards was a change in thinking. It's part of what made Dad a maverick.
But what I didn't realize until now is that Dad's push for performance-based standards was an early indication of his desire to measure how the built environment works for the people who use it. Not just to make buildings better by measuring the outcomes of their use, because that makes more sense than prescribing the walls have to be so thick, etc. But to produce better outcomes for the people using those buildings, whether they are homes (as in the case of his testimony here) or churches or schools or hospitals.
This passion, as science progressed, was what he was trying to accomplish with his last career move - the Academy for Neuroscience for Architecture (ANFA). To use this new science, neuroscience, to measure human's interactions with architecture, to improve the built environment for human's use.
Maverick indeed.
Halfway - Sort Of
As of today, I've written Dad's biography through 1972. He was born in 1927. Which means I've written about 45 of his 93 years. Almost halfway through his life.
Except that his working life was only part of those 93 years. Granted, Dad worked until he was well into his 80s; the last consulting he did was for the Brain Institute in 2010.
Still, I think it's a pretty significant accomplishment to have covered so much of Dad's life. The early chapters, about his childhood, are solely from Dad. He talks about growing up in Louisville and the time he spent on Long Island as a child. He mentions two significant women: his mother and his Aunt Minnie. These two strong women had a profound influence on Dad. His mother, who was a working nurse, nursed Dad through two bouts of rhematic fever as a child. After one of them, Dad had to learn to walk again, having been laid up in bed for months. Aunt Minnie was his refuge, I think, from the complexities of his family, with the seven children and his father, the pastor. Dad lived with Aunt Minnie and her husband, George, during his recovery and "loved her more than life itself".
After his childhood, the rest of the chapters are a combination of what Dad had written in his autobiographical notes and his book "Extraordinary Events in My Life". Interestingly, the stories in each are similar, but not quite the same. I've added my own research, as well, of course. And am including articles, obituaries, and interviews, as well.
So, as of today, the biography covers Dad's career through his tenure as the first-ever dean of architecture at the State University of New York at Buffalo.
But I have to use the term "sort of" because the years from 1972 through 2010 are many and include several more of Dad's "careers" - from the American Institute of Architects Research Corporation to the Brain Institute.
Importantly, I see the thread of Dad's career, not only in terms of being a research architect and pushing always for the science and art of architecture to get better. But also in terms of his desire for "evidence-based design" and ways to measure the built environment's impact on humankind, which culminated in his fascination with neuroscience as a possible avenue for doing just that.
For those who might be reading these blog entries, I will say that I still haven't read my way through all Dad's papers. I have started to archive the articles I've used, and as a result, can see some progress through the myriad of material in that way.
But I've got a long way to go. Even if I am halfway done - sort of.
Except that his working life was only part of those 93 years. Granted, Dad worked until he was well into his 80s; the last consulting he did was for the Brain Institute in 2010.
Still, I think it's a pretty significant accomplishment to have covered so much of Dad's life. The early chapters, about his childhood, are solely from Dad. He talks about growing up in Louisville and the time he spent on Long Island as a child. He mentions two significant women: his mother and his Aunt Minnie. These two strong women had a profound influence on Dad. His mother, who was a working nurse, nursed Dad through two bouts of rhematic fever as a child. After one of them, Dad had to learn to walk again, having been laid up in bed for months. Aunt Minnie was his refuge, I think, from the complexities of his family, with the seven children and his father, the pastor. Dad lived with Aunt Minnie and her husband, George, during his recovery and "loved her more than life itself".
After his childhood, the rest of the chapters are a combination of what Dad had written in his autobiographical notes and his book "Extraordinary Events in My Life". Interestingly, the stories in each are similar, but not quite the same. I've added my own research, as well, of course. And am including articles, obituaries, and interviews, as well.
So, as of today, the biography covers Dad's career through his tenure as the first-ever dean of architecture at the State University of New York at Buffalo.
But I have to use the term "sort of" because the years from 1972 through 2010 are many and include several more of Dad's "careers" - from the American Institute of Architects Research Corporation to the Brain Institute.
Importantly, I see the thread of Dad's career, not only in terms of being a research architect and pushing always for the science and art of architecture to get better. But also in terms of his desire for "evidence-based design" and ways to measure the built environment's impact on humankind, which culminated in his fascination with neuroscience as a possible avenue for doing just that.
For those who might be reading these blog entries, I will say that I still haven't read my way through all Dad's papers. I have started to archive the articles I've used, and as a result, can see some progress through the myriad of material in that way.
But I've got a long way to go. Even if I am halfway done - sort of.
Notability Questions
When I first started writing about my father, John Paul Eberhard, it was to - unfortunately - put together his obituary.
I had actually written an obituary for our mother first, as she died first. She was in hospice for 10 days, which gave me a chance to think about what to write and to do a little research about her. That obituary was published on the Ever Loved website when she died on April 12, 2020. I knew when I wrote Mom's obituary that the only people who would really be interested were family and friends.
However, when I started writing Dad's obituary - shortly after Mom's - I had the idea that, because Dad was well known in his industry, the obituary might get shared more broadly. And therefore, it should probably be reasonably accurate. It also proved fortuitous as Dad ended up dying only two weeks after Mom. I think I've written about that before.
Dad's obituary then became the basis for an article to try to get him into Wikipedia. Now, like most of you, I've always thought Wikipedia was open to any editor, meaning anyone could update any entry. I guess I assumed there would be some kind of control over changes, but Wikipedia also seemed to be "open".
So imagine my surprise when my first draft of an article on Dad was summarily - and probably rightly - rejected. First, the Wikipedia editors - who are a real thing - didn't like that I was Dad's daughter. They prefer that entries come from folks interested in a topic, but not so close as a child. Second, they didn't like my "flowery" language. I talked about Dad being innovative; they didn't like that. I talked about Dad being a visionary; they didn't like that. Third, and most importantly, they didn't see anything about Dad's career that was "notable".
The question of notability is an interesting one, therefore. I did finally get Dad into Wikipedia on the strength of his having be awarded the LaTrobe Prize by the AIA, a biennial $100,000 prize, which was co-awarded to the Academy of Neuroscience for Architecture (ANFA) to help fund/start the organization.
But the more I dig into Dad's history and career, the more I would argue makes him notable.
One thing he did early in his career was argue for and find funding for the creation of the National Conference of State Building Codes and Standards (NCSBCS).
Before that, he helped drive the development of the first computerized hotel reservation system, in a joint project between Sheraton Corporation and Hilton Hotels.
He testified before Congressional committees at least twice that I've found so far, once on the funding of the National Science Foundation (NSF) and once about plans to create the National Institute of Building Sciences (NIBS).
Dad was the first-ever dean of architecture at the State University of New York at Buffalo (SUNYAB), where he started a new concept in graduate school programs to give the students practicum experience as well as classroom instruction at the Buffalo Organization for Social and Technological Innovation (BOSTI), patterned after Organization for Social and Technological Innovation (OSTI) in Cambridge, MA.
He essentially created the American Institute of Architects Research Corporation (AIARC), which had been a sort of "holding company" within the AIA, but hadn't actually done any research. When he left, AIARC had grown to 60 people with a budget of $10 million.
And then there's ANFA and the LaTrobe prize, and a couple of books and, and, and...
But there are other instances of things that, I would argue, make Dad notable.
Perhaps the most interesting one is that there are 21 boxes of his papers, writing, correspondence, drawings, and everything else career-related at the American Heritage Center at the University of Wyoming. "Officially established in 1945, the Center now holds over 90,000 cubic feet of historic documents and artifacts in more than 3500 collections—placing the AHC among the largest non-governmental archives in the nation." AHC had contacted Dad in 1981 wanting to see if he would be willing to have them be the archive of his papers as part of their Contemporary History collection. Dad was both "flattered and dismayed" by the request, because he didn't think he was at the point of his career where archivists would be interested in him. However, he sent off papers in 1982 and then more and more throughout his career. The original inventory I have from 1984 said the archive contained 13 boxes. Now, in 2023, it's 21 boxes.
So, Wikipedia, I would think that Dad being one of only 3,500 collections at a place called the "American Heritage Center" would also qualify him as being notable. And, in fact, there's a hyperlink to his collection at AHC on the Wikipedia article for Dad.
So there.
I had actually written an obituary for our mother first, as she died first. She was in hospice for 10 days, which gave me a chance to think about what to write and to do a little research about her. That obituary was published on the Ever Loved website when she died on April 12, 2020. I knew when I wrote Mom's obituary that the only people who would really be interested were family and friends.
However, when I started writing Dad's obituary - shortly after Mom's - I had the idea that, because Dad was well known in his industry, the obituary might get shared more broadly. And therefore, it should probably be reasonably accurate. It also proved fortuitous as Dad ended up dying only two weeks after Mom. I think I've written about that before.
Dad's obituary then became the basis for an article to try to get him into Wikipedia. Now, like most of you, I've always thought Wikipedia was open to any editor, meaning anyone could update any entry. I guess I assumed there would be some kind of control over changes, but Wikipedia also seemed to be "open".
So imagine my surprise when my first draft of an article on Dad was summarily - and probably rightly - rejected. First, the Wikipedia editors - who are a real thing - didn't like that I was Dad's daughter. They prefer that entries come from folks interested in a topic, but not so close as a child. Second, they didn't like my "flowery" language. I talked about Dad being innovative; they didn't like that. I talked about Dad being a visionary; they didn't like that. Third, and most importantly, they didn't see anything about Dad's career that was "notable".
The question of notability is an interesting one, therefore. I did finally get Dad into Wikipedia on the strength of his having be awarded the LaTrobe Prize by the AIA, a biennial $100,000 prize, which was co-awarded to the Academy of Neuroscience for Architecture (ANFA) to help fund/start the organization.
But the more I dig into Dad's history and career, the more I would argue makes him notable.
One thing he did early in his career was argue for and find funding for the creation of the National Conference of State Building Codes and Standards (NCSBCS).
Before that, he helped drive the development of the first computerized hotel reservation system, in a joint project between Sheraton Corporation and Hilton Hotels.
He testified before Congressional committees at least twice that I've found so far, once on the funding of the National Science Foundation (NSF) and once about plans to create the National Institute of Building Sciences (NIBS).
Dad was the first-ever dean of architecture at the State University of New York at Buffalo (SUNYAB), where he started a new concept in graduate school programs to give the students practicum experience as well as classroom instruction at the Buffalo Organization for Social and Technological Innovation (BOSTI), patterned after Organization for Social and Technological Innovation (OSTI) in Cambridge, MA.
He essentially created the American Institute of Architects Research Corporation (AIARC), which had been a sort of "holding company" within the AIA, but hadn't actually done any research. When he left, AIARC had grown to 60 people with a budget of $10 million.
And then there's ANFA and the LaTrobe prize, and a couple of books and, and, and...
But there are other instances of things that, I would argue, make Dad notable.
Perhaps the most interesting one is that there are 21 boxes of his papers, writing, correspondence, drawings, and everything else career-related at the American Heritage Center at the University of Wyoming. "Officially established in 1945, the Center now holds over 90,000 cubic feet of historic documents and artifacts in more than 3500 collections—placing the AHC among the largest non-governmental archives in the nation." AHC had contacted Dad in 1981 wanting to see if he would be willing to have them be the archive of his papers as part of their Contemporary History collection. Dad was both "flattered and dismayed" by the request, because he didn't think he was at the point of his career where archivists would be interested in him. However, he sent off papers in 1982 and then more and more throughout his career. The original inventory I have from 1984 said the archive contained 13 boxes. Now, in 2023, it's 21 boxes.
So, Wikipedia, I would think that Dad being one of only 3,500 collections at a place called the "American Heritage Center" would also qualify him as being notable. And, in fact, there's a hyperlink to his collection at AHC on the Wikipedia article for Dad.
So there.
Citations
Today, I spent the first hour of "writing" updating the endnotes in Dad's biography to be formal citations, instead of just hyperlinks to websites or my notes so I would remember where the information came from. I haven't done formal citations since graduate school in 1985. And there was no such thing as websites in those days. So, I actually wasn't sure how to do website citations.
I had been kind of hoping I could just find some app that would go through all the websites and convert them to citations. To be honest, such a thing may or may not exist.
But instead, I used Grammarly. It worked very well for articles and books I'd found through searches.
The only challenge I've found has been, while a lot of the entries on the websites have attribution for the author, many do not. Grammarly didn't have guidance for when there's no author. It also wanted me to put "n.d." for no date, which seemed odd to me. So, I used my best judgment about how to cite a more "generic" page. I think I've gotten to a good place, but it was a bit of a guess.
Another thing I'm going to have to look up is how to cite from personal correspondence or interviews I've conducted. Again, I've come up with my own format for these things in the absence of other sources; Grammarly doesn't have anything on this kind of source material. The reason this is important is I'd like this biography to eventually get published by a publishing house, so I'm trying to do things in the "right way", to make the manuscript look professional - even though I'm obviously not a professional biographer.
Likewise, I'm struggling with how to do repeat citations. Grammarly and other editorial sites said you can use "ibid", which I remember from college and graduate school, if the citation is one that immediately follows the same source. But I remember "opcit" for when it was a citation of a source used before but not immediately above. And neither Grammarly nor other sources had this. Instead, they recommended "Reference #, Page #". I suppose that will work, but it means I have to wait until I'm done with the writing to know what the Reference # should be.
Bottom line is I've converted most of the endnotes to actual citations at this point. But doing so definitely took me back to almost 40 years ago.
I had been kind of hoping I could just find some app that would go through all the websites and convert them to citations. To be honest, such a thing may or may not exist.
But instead, I used Grammarly. It worked very well for articles and books I'd found through searches.
The only challenge I've found has been, while a lot of the entries on the websites have attribution for the author, many do not. Grammarly didn't have guidance for when there's no author. It also wanted me to put "n.d." for no date, which seemed odd to me. So, I used my best judgment about how to cite a more "generic" page. I think I've gotten to a good place, but it was a bit of a guess.
Another thing I'm going to have to look up is how to cite from personal correspondence or interviews I've conducted. Again, I've come up with my own format for these things in the absence of other sources; Grammarly doesn't have anything on this kind of source material. The reason this is important is I'd like this biography to eventually get published by a publishing house, so I'm trying to do things in the "right way", to make the manuscript look professional - even though I'm obviously not a professional biographer.
Likewise, I'm struggling with how to do repeat citations. Grammarly and other editorial sites said you can use "ibid", which I remember from college and graduate school, if the citation is one that immediately follows the same source. But I remember "opcit" for when it was a citation of a source used before but not immediately above. And neither Grammarly nor other sources had this. Instead, they recommended "Reference #, Page #". I suppose that will work, but it means I have to wait until I'm done with the writing to know what the Reference # should be.
Bottom line is I've converted most of the endnotes to actual citations at this point. But doing so definitely took me back to almost 40 years ago.
I May Be Done
At least with the first draft of Dad's biography. Today, I finished the principal writing on the book. I have a proof coming from Amazon.
In last week's blog on Rich People's Problems, I talked about wanting the book to be between 300-350 pages. Dad's biography is less than 200 pages right now. But I feel as though that's okay, because I feel as though I said what needed saying.
Now, the process will be for me to do an edit. I've ordered a paperback version, which I can use for the edit. But also will give me a sense of what the biography looks like. I've never published in color before, so I will be curious how that works, including the photographs throughout the book.
And I will also send the biography out for review by the people I interviewed. I've never done that before, either. Never let others review what I've written. But I've never written a biography before. And I'm not an architect or a neuroscientist. So, while I think I've gotten things right, I need the experts to review. Also, most of these folks worked for Dad - some several times. So, they will have a different perspective that way, as well.
I'm nervous as hell.
In last week's blog on Rich People's Problems, I talked about wanting the book to be between 300-350 pages. Dad's biography is less than 200 pages right now. But I feel as though that's okay, because I feel as though I said what needed saying.
Now, the process will be for me to do an edit. I've ordered a paperback version, which I can use for the edit. But also will give me a sense of what the biography looks like. I've never published in color before, so I will be curious how that works, including the photographs throughout the book.
And I will also send the biography out for review by the people I interviewed. I've never done that before, either. Never let others review what I've written. But I've never written a biography before. And I'm not an architect or a neuroscientist. So, while I think I've gotten things right, I need the experts to review. Also, most of these folks worked for Dad - some several times. So, they will have a different perspective that way, as well.
I'm nervous as hell.
Nerves and Reviews
I sent Dad's biography off today to the folks I had interviewed for it. There are 11 of them.
It will be interesting to see what their response is. I started with Dad's "autobiography" which was notes and pieces he'd written about his life. He'd also written a book called Extraordinary Events of My Life, which is also heavily referenced.
But much of what I've got in the biography is based on articles about my dad, books and magazine articles that he wrote or helped to write. And then my interpretation of what he was saying in those pieces and their impact.
Flavored throughout the biography is also tributes from various people that Dad knew in different stages of his career. I tried to spread them pretty evenly, but also use them where they related to the topic at hand.
I talked to my husband about how best to elicit reviews. I could post the file to a single directory or just email it - I chose to email it, figuring that getting to my Dropbox or Google Drive might be too much for some of these folks, who are older than I am! (We're not the tech generation). I also wondered whether it made more sense to share the Word file or a PDF. Eric's insight was that a PDF would allow people to comment, but not wordsmith. And that they might see the Word file as asking them to do "too much", whereas the PDF would be "friendlier". Because I do collaborative documents for a living, I'd actually been thinking about the Word file, which would have been a nightmare to track comments in - assuming people had left tracks changes on. So, the PDF is actually - from my perspective - easier. So, I'm glad Eric thought it was the right path to take.
I also shared the cover I've designed. If I'm successful in getting a publisher for the biography, I would assume they would want to develop their own cover. But for the purposes of self-publishing - at least to start - I wanted to have a cover that I liked. I used one of Dad's drawings on the cover (attached here), which I also think is poetic.
I've already heard back from two of the reviewers that they are excited to read the biography. I can only hope that they are still excited when they finish it.
It will be interesting to see what their response is. I started with Dad's "autobiography" which was notes and pieces he'd written about his life. He'd also written a book called Extraordinary Events of My Life, which is also heavily referenced.
But much of what I've got in the biography is based on articles about my dad, books and magazine articles that he wrote or helped to write. And then my interpretation of what he was saying in those pieces and their impact.
Flavored throughout the biography is also tributes from various people that Dad knew in different stages of his career. I tried to spread them pretty evenly, but also use them where they related to the topic at hand.
I talked to my husband about how best to elicit reviews. I could post the file to a single directory or just email it - I chose to email it, figuring that getting to my Dropbox or Google Drive might be too much for some of these folks, who are older than I am! (We're not the tech generation). I also wondered whether it made more sense to share the Word file or a PDF. Eric's insight was that a PDF would allow people to comment, but not wordsmith. And that they might see the Word file as asking them to do "too much", whereas the PDF would be "friendlier". Because I do collaborative documents for a living, I'd actually been thinking about the Word file, which would have been a nightmare to track comments in - assuming people had left tracks changes on. So, the PDF is actually - from my perspective - easier. So, I'm glad Eric thought it was the right path to take.
I also shared the cover I've designed. If I'm successful in getting a publisher for the biography, I would assume they would want to develop their own cover. But for the purposes of self-publishing - at least to start - I wanted to have a cover that I liked. I used one of Dad's drawings on the cover (attached here), which I also think is poetic.
I've already heard back from two of the reviewers that they are excited to read the biography. I can only hope that they are still excited when they finish it.
Putting Mom in Dad's Biography
As I've written about before - many times - I'm just finishing the writing for a biography of my father, John Paul Eberhard.
As Dad's career is what makes his biography of interest, that's what the book is mostly about.
However, my parents married in college and were married for nearly 70 years. They died within weeks of each other, as is relatively common for people who were married that long.
So, I wanted to make sure to include my mother in my father's biography. The question was how?
In the early years, it is easier. I talk about their college years, how they met in 1948 and married in 1950, when Mom was 19 and Dad was 23. How they met is not known precisely. But they were both active in the Lutheran Student Center, which is known from pictures I found on Ancestry. So, that seems the likely way they met.
Dad mentions Mom in his autobiography pieces, which start most chapters of his biography, especially when he's just starting out. Apparently they lived on an inheritance Mom got from her grandfather in some of the early, lean years. I have the paperwork from the inheritance, and it wasn't more than a few thousand dollars. While things were cheaper in the 1950s, they also had three children by 1956. Dad also mentioned that he and Mom ended having to "buy" a strip of land for one of the houses Dad designed, because the survey - that Dad had done - was a little off and the newly built house encroached on the property next door. Knowing my parents, that had to have been a hard conversation - both for my father to admit fault and for my mother to agree to use what little money they had to cover his mistake. Yikes.
After that first job, after Dad went to MIT for grad school, his autobiographical pieces don't mention Mom again.
But I do.
I wrote a bit about where we lived, as my parents moved often, at my father's behest and for my father's career. This topic became a source of some contention late in my parents' marriage, when they lived in a fancy apartment building in Pittsburgh when Dad was at CMU with a doorman and an elevator man. Mom HATED that there were people who knew her every move coming and going to the apartment. She also struggled because most of the families in the building used maids for their laundry, and Mom still insisted on doing their laundry herself. The move to Asbury was also a source of conflict, especially when Asbury built an iron fence around the property. Mom said she felt like she lived in a prison. The fence isn't that high, but you did have to use a card to get the gates to open.
I also included my mother in referencing a bit of her schooling and career. Mom had gone to grad school herself when we lived in Buffalo, presumably not the least of which was because she could go for free as her husband was dean of the school of architecture at SUNYAB. But I do mention, and I think it bears repeating, that my mother not only completed her undergraduate degree, even though she'd gotten married before graduation, she also earned a master's degree and worked throughout her life. As far as I know, she didn't work when my siblings were little. But she went back to work when I was a child and worked until her 60s.
So, in the end, it was important to have my mother mentioned in my father's biography. And, yes, when I created the Index of People (for people mentioned other than my father), she's the person who shows up the most often.
As she should be.
As Dad's career is what makes his biography of interest, that's what the book is mostly about.
However, my parents married in college and were married for nearly 70 years. They died within weeks of each other, as is relatively common for people who were married that long.
So, I wanted to make sure to include my mother in my father's biography. The question was how?
In the early years, it is easier. I talk about their college years, how they met in 1948 and married in 1950, when Mom was 19 and Dad was 23. How they met is not known precisely. But they were both active in the Lutheran Student Center, which is known from pictures I found on Ancestry. So, that seems the likely way they met.
Dad mentions Mom in his autobiography pieces, which start most chapters of his biography, especially when he's just starting out. Apparently they lived on an inheritance Mom got from her grandfather in some of the early, lean years. I have the paperwork from the inheritance, and it wasn't more than a few thousand dollars. While things were cheaper in the 1950s, they also had three children by 1956. Dad also mentioned that he and Mom ended having to "buy" a strip of land for one of the houses Dad designed, because the survey - that Dad had done - was a little off and the newly built house encroached on the property next door. Knowing my parents, that had to have been a hard conversation - both for my father to admit fault and for my mother to agree to use what little money they had to cover his mistake. Yikes.
After that first job, after Dad went to MIT for grad school, his autobiographical pieces don't mention Mom again.
But I do.
I wrote a bit about where we lived, as my parents moved often, at my father's behest and for my father's career. This topic became a source of some contention late in my parents' marriage, when they lived in a fancy apartment building in Pittsburgh when Dad was at CMU with a doorman and an elevator man. Mom HATED that there were people who knew her every move coming and going to the apartment. She also struggled because most of the families in the building used maids for their laundry, and Mom still insisted on doing their laundry herself. The move to Asbury was also a source of conflict, especially when Asbury built an iron fence around the property. Mom said she felt like she lived in a prison. The fence isn't that high, but you did have to use a card to get the gates to open.
I also included my mother in referencing a bit of her schooling and career. Mom had gone to grad school herself when we lived in Buffalo, presumably not the least of which was because she could go for free as her husband was dean of the school of architecture at SUNYAB. But I do mention, and I think it bears repeating, that my mother not only completed her undergraduate degree, even though she'd gotten married before graduation, she also earned a master's degree and worked throughout her life. As far as I know, she didn't work when my siblings were little. But she went back to work when I was a child and worked until her 60s.
So, in the end, it was important to have my mother mentioned in my father's biography. And, yes, when I created the Index of People (for people mentioned other than my father), she's the person who shows up the most often.
As she should be.
