The Iowa Stater
May 1996
Iowa State during the Depression
Editor's note: In this sesquicentennial year for Iowa, we thought our readers might enjoy one alum's reminiscences about his days at Iowa State during the Depression.
Tuition was but $75 per quarter, and a fee exemption via a B or 3.00 average grade brought it down to but $18 per quarter. The reverse side of this was that in 1936, the stock barns were paying 22 and 25 cents an hour. When Franklin D. Roosevelt's National Youth Administration Act came in, it brought 30 cents and later on 35 cents, so we took all of the hours of employment we could get, but they were limited.
In 1936, after working three years farming with Dad, I took off for Iowa State and found housing at 2210 Lincoln Way, just across from the Memorial Union. Dad Jacobs was our landlord and six of us ate, studied and slept in three basement rooms. We did light housekeeping and in my sophomore year, I became manager of this "Owls Club" and so planned menus, set work shifts for cooking-dishwashing and cleaning up, bought groceries, assigned duties and shared in costs. That year, 1937, we lived on $4 a week rent and $4 a week eats. We'd sometimes offer to be ushers at concerts, games, etc., in order to attend without cost.
One of our fellers told us to never take a girl to a movie, but if we had funds, to go twice ourselves! Iowa State girls were as hard-up as the guys and so we had many tennis, bicycle, hiking and picnic dates. Iowa State did have dorms for frosh girls, but none for men and so we lived where we could.
ROTC was on campus, and with it a small plane-flying program. Frosh girls lived in Memorial Union and one day, a student pilot was accused of buzzing Memorial Union É turned out girls could sunbathe on the roof out of sight of passersby, and he had discovered this.
I could not myself afford fraternity life, even the Farmhouse, but was active in ward system (non fraternity) work. Working with Dean Helser, we devised a tutorial system for ward guys. Those who could, made small payments. Tutors volunteered their time for those who could not afford it.
We also devised many a sock hop dance between ward men and dorm women. One device to get sociability started was about the second dance, to ask each girl to kick off one slipper, which was stacked in the dance floor center. As the dance began, guys flocked in, got a slipper and danced with the girl whose slipper matched it.
-- Robert H. Ortmeyer ('40), Des Moines, Wash.
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