Contributions to the tribute of Edrey Smith Albaugh

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The family of Edrey Smith Albaugh uploaded a photo

Thursday, September 28, 2017

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Thursday, November 11, 2010

975 Memorial Drive, Suite 201 Cambridge, MA 02138 617-576-1522 ahunterdupree@gmail.com 2010 Annual Letter to Oberlin Class of 1942 Dear Classmates: The world and national events that are swirling around us now are not quite as epic making as Pearl Harbor, but they are sufficiently dramatic to make us think back to that day, December 7, 1941. About three o’clock that Sunday afternoon the 12 of us who were living at the Beacon House on Woodland Avenue, Oberlin, Ohio, were reading the Cleveland Plain Bealer and listening to the radio, where Sammy Baugh was throwing touchdown passes for the Washington Redskins. Parker and Creighton were, as usual, playing two handed bridge. Then the word came over the radio: Pearl Harbor had been attacked and the American battleships had been heavily damaged. The world would never be same again. On the morning of December 8, 1941, snow was falling on the village of Oberlin. I found Professor Robert S. Flecher, the historian of Oberlin College, in his little office in the Greek Revival House behind Severence Laboratory and we talked for an hour. A horse-drawn snow plow was the only movement we could see in the whole village. Mr. Fletcher looked out the window and said: “It is all peaceful and quiet, but it will not stay that way.” On January 29, 1942 I reached my 21st birthday and was legally free to hitch-hike to Cleveland and investigate joining the Navy to become a deck officer. When I got through the long lines, the recruiting officer gave me some forms to fill out and then said: “Hold up your right hand.” I was in. The great advantage was that all of us who signed up that day would be guaranteed to finish our senior year before being called to mid shipman school for training as deck officers. We would change, and Oberlin would change, but not before we had graduated. The first six months of World War II was disaster for the Allies, as Hitler’s Wehrmacht pushed on to the outskirts of Moscow, and the only possible response on the Oberlin campus was to give lectures to us students. The model was Reinhold Niebuhr, who in Finney Chapel thundered from the dome of his great head: “This is an essentially tragic world.” Professor Nathaniel Peffer, of Columbia, assured us that the Japanese battle fleet was build of scrap metal from the United States. The great liberal theologian of the Oberlin Graduate School of Theology, Walter Marshal Horton, focused on the amount of killing going on by both sides in the Soviet Union. When I told him that I had joined the Navy he said: “Remember that Descartes was in the army when he wrote the Discourse on Method.” Within the week after Pearl Harbor the President of Oberlin, Ernest Hatch Wilkins, addressed the whole student body gathered in Finney Chapel. He chose as his text a passage from an obscure Old Testament prophet: (as I remember it) “What so ever thy hand find has chosen for you to do, do it with your might.” When I heard President Wilkins say that, I thought that it was pretty weak. As the war went on for four year, however, I came to feel it had a deep wisdom. The gift of the unchanged senior year to the class of 1942 came to an abrupt end with our commencement on May 26, 1942. Before we scattered to the world of war we had one last dance at our Senior Prom, mine with our classmate, Edrey Smith (Albaugh). She would head to her home in Chicago, only a few blocks from By Lyon’s. I would return back to my home in Texas to await a call from the Navy that would not come until October 5, to report to Notre Dame University in South Bend Indiana, for Midshipman School. Unknown to the world, a chemical laboratory for the refinement of a previously undefined element soon to be named plutonium, had been established at the University of Chicago. The young chemist from the University of California, Berkeley, in charge of this work, Glenn T. Seaborg, was on his way to a Nobel Prize for Plutonium. On October 14, 1942, Glenn Seaborg entered into his account of Edrey’s Hiring: "Our secretary, Mrs. Kvidera, is leaving us because of pregnancy, so we are in the process of looking for a replacement. Today Perlman and I interviewed an attractive 22-year-old girl, Edrey Smith, who graduated from Oberlin College this spring and will soon finish a secretarial course at Moser Business College here in Chicago. She lives with her parents in the Beverly Hills section, a few miles from the Laboratory in the southwesterly direction. We are very favorably impressed and immediately decided to offer Miss Smith the position. Although she seems interested, it is clear that she is somewhat non-plussed by the guard arrangement, our unusual looking laboratory with its strange odors and unfamiliar looking equipment and perhaps by the appearance of the people she saw. This is indeed a strange environment to her, far from the business-type atmosphere that she imagined she would work in now that she has prepared herself as a secretary. She will finish her secretarial course in a week or two and then plans to take a short vacation before starting to work. We are hopeful that she will decide to come with us, despite our unusual work atmosphere, because she will obviously add so much to the place." (Seaborg, Glenn T. The Plutonium Story: The Journals of Professor Glenn T. Seaborg 1939-1946, Columbus, Ohio: Battelle Press, 1994.) Edrey would disappear from me for the rest of the war and by 1944 married Fred Albaugh, who later went on to become the director of the whole Hanford Works of the Atomic Energy Commission in the state of Washington. One of their sons went on to become the current Executive Vice President of The Boeing Company and President and Chief Executive Officer of the Boeing Commercial Airplanes business unit. Shortly before she died I wrote in a letter that she should be listed among Oberlin’s greats in science in World War II. Whenever I got serious, she always considered me ridiculous. Her answer was: “I was just Glenn’s secretary.” My wife Betty and I had the pleasure of representing the Class of 1942 in a meeting with President Marvin Krislov of Oberlin on October 27th in Boston. The campaign which he envisions for the next 25 years included: 1. Strengthen Oberlin’s historic commitment to inclusion so that highly qualified students have the financial resources necessary to access an Oberlin Education. 2. Increase the number of endowed professorships to attract and retain the best faculty members for continued pre-eminent teaching, research, and performance. 3. Build on Oberlin’s extraordinary excellence and innovative spirit. 4. Launch the Green Arts District initiative to help transform the college’s theater and arts venues, and position Oberlin as a national arts destination and leader in creating vibrant post-carbon communities. The Alumni Magazine would love to have news from the class of 1942. With all good wishes, Hunter

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Erma Beadles Patterson posted a condolence

Saturday, January 31, 2009

Mrs. Albaugh was a lovely, gracious lady I met when I had the good fortune to have Jean (Jeanne then) in my third grade classroom 1962-3. She and your father were wonderful caring parents. I enjoyed visiting with them at conferences. Jean, I remember you so well and loved having you as a student, as well as e-mailing some time ago. Hopefully we can connect again. My deep sympathy to you and your brothers/families.

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Nicki Boasen Denny posted a condolence

Friday, January 30, 2009

Kind, gracious, humble, gentle, sweet, genuine, hospitable, sincere and engaging are words to describe my memories of Mrs. Albaugh. She always welcomed me into her home and extended friendship and interest towards me throughout my high school and college years. When I moved to Vancouver we tried to stay in touch but years passed before we met again. Five to six years ago I had the pleasure of visiting her in Kennewick, Wa. We caught up on each others lives, laughed and shed some tears. She was a remarkable lady and I'm blessed in witnessing her love for family and her caring ways toward others. I deeply regret not having opportunity to see her after her move to Vancouver. To Jeff, Jim and Jeannie: Your mom's memory will live long in my heart. Words fall short of expressing comfort to you, but my hope is that God's peace will replace your heartache with warm and loving memories of your precious mother. With deepest sympathy from a long ago friend, Nicki (Boasen) Denny

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Larry Hull posted a condolence

Friday, January 30, 2009

My mother, Betty, was a good friend of Edrey;s over the last several years. Edrey was an unbelievably strong person as she showed so many times as she battled her lung problems. I visited Edrey several times at Cascade Rehab center and SW Washington Hospital and she was always upbeat and cheerful. Mom and I wish we could have know Edrey when she was a healthy woman. My mom does not have time for people she doesn't respect, which happens to be most of the world, and she really enjoyed Edrey's company.

Edrey Smith Albaugh

1920 - 2009

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