Everybody has a Story: No bicycle, but a scholarship ride to college.
By Catherine Hathaway Waller,
Orchards (Clark County), Wash.
Wednesday, Dec.1, 2010
Vancouver, Wash., Columbian Daily Newspaper
The year was 1930 and I was 11. My family lived on a remote 900-acre farm in Glenwood, 35 miles north of the Columbia River Gorge. I was the eldest child in a large family with a younger sister and four younger brothers. My father was a heavy equipment operator at J. Neils Lumber Company and my mother tended to the household duties. The farming chores were left to me, my siblings and my mother when my father was working at the mill.
We didn’t have much, but we were a happy family and knew the value of work. My mother’s plan for me was to attend college, but none of us knew where the money would come from.
There were no shopping malls or big-box stores in those days. Families like ours that lived in the country relied heavily on purchasing everything, from socks to tractors, through the few mail-order catalogs that came yearly. We were so excited when the catalogs were delivered that we pored over every single page.
One Montgomery Ward catalog caught my mother’s attention. In it she spotted a notice about a special program that would create a college scholarship in your name and send 15 percent of the price of items purchased in your name to the college of your choice. She helped me complete the necessary application packet and we sent it in.
In return, I received from Montgomery Ward special forms that would need to be completed and submitted with each purchase, in order to provide a credit towards my newly created scholarship.
Mother spread the word of my scholarship to her friends and I told my schoolmates. Family friend Amy, postmistress and store keeper, was instrumental in letting folks know how they could help me. In addition, our treasured neighbor Mr. Kuhnhausen, who routinely drove a cattle truck to Portland, helped immensely. On certain return trips, he would stop at the Portland Montgomery Ward store with his empty truck and load the large farm supplies and equipment that he and the neighboring folks in the Glenwood Valley had ordered. He always took the extra time needed to fill out the forms required with a purchase to credit my scholarship account. He and others were worried that I wouldn’t receive any of the scholarship money at all, since over the next few years we received notices from Montgomery Ward that the sales incentive was dropping from 15 percent of the price to 10 percent and then to 5 percent.
At one point we received a letter from Montgomery Ward stating they would give a brand new bicycle to anyone in the scholarship program in exchange for their accrued scholarship dollars. The exchange was tempting — not knowing if I would ever see any of the money anyway — but my mother was adamant about sticking to the program. Only one other student in the Glenwood Valley was involved in the scholarship program and he chose to take the bicycle.
7 years of good luck
For seven years my family and neighbors filled out the forms that detailed their purchases and sent them to Montgomery Ward in the hopes of increasing my scholarship. I turned 18 and looked forward to college. My mother thought Linfield College in McMinnville, Ore., was the best college choice for me. I was not sure of my field of study but trusted my mother’s advice as to where I should attend. In the fall of 1937, my mother helped me pack up my possessions in a large trunk and drove me to McMinnville in the family truck.
Before we left my father said, “The money won’t be there.” I was worried my father was right but hoped he wasn’t, since we would just have to turn the truck around and head back home. Without a scholarship, there was no money for college.
When we arrived at Linfield, we went directly to the admissions office and inquired about the scholarship. Neither one of us could believe it: the money was there. Even the college treasurer, Jimmy, was surprised each year when the $450 needed for tuition, books, room and board arrived. I decided to major in education and the Montgomery Ward college scholarship covered all four years of my degree. I was used to working long hours on the farm so I was able to supplement my scholarship by working in the school cafeteria for 35 cents an hour. In addition, my parents provided support by sending me $6 each month along with a little note with news from home.
I graduated from Linfield in 1941 with a degree in education. Montgomery Ward even sent me the $150 remaining in my scholarship account after my graduation. Some of my early teaching positions were in the small Oregon towns of Ukiah, Moro and Helix, and later in Sunnyside, northwest of the Tri-Cities.
I know I could have ended up with a shiny new bicycle, but at the age of 91, I am thankful my mother knew the value of a good education. It still amazes me that the combined extra effort of my family and dear friends helped me obtain an education that provided me a career, adventures and friendships to last a lifetime.
=Two other stories which mention Montgomery Ward scholarships:
http://www.kansas.com/2010/06/16/1362551/aero-engineer-kenneth-razak-dies.html
Aero-engineer Kenneth Razak dies
By Beccy Tanner
The Wichita (Kansas) Eagle
June 16, 2010
“He went to the University of Kansas on a Montgomery Ward scholarship program that his mother enrolled him in. She saturated Trego and Gove counties with order blanks so that 5 percent of each person's order from those counties was credited to her son's scholarship account. In 1935, he had enough money to pay for his first year of college.”
http://articles.orlandosentinel.com/keyword/chicago-study/recent/5
He Always Finds Time For Working With Clocks
By Marian Ludlow
The (Orlando, Florida) Sentinel Staff
Oct 30, 1988
When giving a child a plaything, one never knows how it might affect his future. In Les Barker's case, he was given old clocks to play with during the Depression when his father could not afford toys. Clocks became his hobby and eventually his business. Born in Kentucky, Barker went to Berea College for one year on a Montgomery Ward scholarship and then transferred to Chicago to study electrical construction …”
