Note: Don first wrote his
autobiography in the fall of 1937 as a class assignment when he
was a senior at the University of Iowa. Then, many decades later,
he typed another autobiography. The second one was ragged (he was
92 when he died), so I suspect that had something to do with its
repetitions and lack of focus. Some events are repeated, and some
things are in more detail in one document than the other Thus, I
have not retyped that second autobiography. I have melded the two
together in this document – Bonnie Dodge, Don’s daughter,
February, 2017.
It
was on a cold January morning that I, Donald William Dodge, was
born: January 27, 1914, at 132 North Frederick St., Oelwein,
Fayette Co., Iowa. My parents were William Jacob Dodge and Bertha
Alice Buchanan, and they were of moderate means. Their parents
were unknown to me. My father’s place of birth was unknown to me.
I’m also unsure as to his occupation then. I know he once operated
a grocery store with “Windy” Wandell and once had an agency for
Dodge cars.
When I was about
three, we lost our home in Oelwein. I think my father had borrowed
money on it to invest, possibly in Montana land. I think he
mortgaged it to Jake Schaum. Anyway, he couldn’t pay for it. I
understand he got a job at John Deere in Waterloo. Our first house
in Waterloo was a nice two-story attractive home at 404 Fowler
Street. We lived there when the First World War concluded. It
seems we lived there only a short time, possibly less than a year.
We then moved to
an unattractive two-story house at 222 Beech Street. It was
minimal housing. No inside plumbing, no furnace, no electricity.
It was cold and bleak. I went to kindergarten in Waterloo.
Dorothy, my sister, lived with us continually until long after we
returned to Oelwein.
When I was five
(1919), we moved back to Oelwein. I think we lived a short time in
a rented house at the northwest corner of North Frederick and 6th
St. Northeast. I recall that we lived there when the piano factory
burned down. It was warm. Oelwein had no kindergarten, so the
other kids my age were already in second grade when I started the
first. I was always one grade behind others my age.
My earliest memories are, logically
enough, of emotional extremes to which my childhood experiences
carried me: the fondness for the huge collie dog we adopted, my
great delight in a bag swing which my dad made for me, the jolly
birthday parties of my own and neighborhood children, the ice
cream cones and popcorn which I was occasionally allowed to buy
from a vendor’s wagon with its jingling bell, and for the
unpleasant happenings which I shall never forget. There was the
time I ran a nail through my foot, the terrifying collision of my
coaster wagon with a truck, and strangely enough, my first hair
cut and resultant loss of my long blond curls.
My grade school
experiences were very much the same as those of any average
childhood. My interests were centered in the usual games of
football, baseball, and marbles; my associations were fairly well
balanced with both boys and girls of about my own age. Although I
never skipped any grades, my marks were always very high, not
because I was offered any reward for superior grades, but because
I took pride in maintaining a better than average ranking in my
class group. Except for the thrill of being presented with a fine
new trumpet so that I might join the school band, none was greater
than that I experienced upon reaching the age of twelve so that I
might be eligible for membership in the Boy Scouts. This
organization held my interest until I became of high school age,
when I became associated with high school groups and Epworth
League activities. Notwithstanding the fact that I was light in
build, I went out nightly to take my beating on the football field
and got a big kick out of it—it did not matter so much that I made
only a second team letter.
As a youth it
seemed that I was allowed to do almost as I pleased, within reason
of course, but as I consider it now, I realize the apparent
freedom I enjoyed was permitted me because the friends I chose and
the things our group did were not, as a rule, outside the approval
of the parental mind. Had I become associated with the wrong
group, I have no doubt I would have had my mind changed very
quickly. The usual spankings were administered to me only
occasionally, nearly always by my mother, for I feared the more
severe punishment my father might mete out and avoided mischief
when he was about. Inasmuch as my father has always been an
obstinate man by nature and my sister, seven years older than I,
very much like him, quarrels were not infrequent between those two
and my mother and me. One result of these experiences was that,
rather than involve myself in arguments about the home over any
differences which might arise, I kept quiet and avoided such
difficulties by either settling down to a good book or by leaving
the house to meet my friends some place. This trait, I know, is
still with me, for although I invariably maintain my own opinion
in my own mind, I avoid any malicious arguments by declining to
comment until the point at hand can be treated in the light of
logic and reason, in which case I will argue with anyone, if I
consider my opinion more correct than his.
With the dark
days following 1929, my father, who was a partner in an automobile
agency, lost everything he owned and even had to assume the
organization’s debts left when the other partner skipped town. I
never had an allowance. I had to earn whatever money I needed. I
was always selling something. My sister baked doughnuts which I
sold out of my coaster wagon to neighbors. I also sold vegetables
from our garden. I found many things I could sell in Salesman’s
Magazine.
My mother had pains in her abdomen for
quite a long time when I was about 16, but we could not afford
medical attention for her. My sister had a lady friend who was an
osteopath. He treated her with a liquid he claimed would dissolve
her gallstones. Her gall bladder ruptured. My father’s credit was
bad. She was taken to Mercy Hospital in Oelwein. A surgeon from
Waverly operated, but she shortly developed infection and died a
few days later. That was in October, 1931, my senior year of high
school. A greater sorrow I have never known than the loss of one
so irreplaceable. Soon after that, my sister secured a position as
assistant advertising manager on the local newspaper, largely due
to the influence of N.R.A. and my father returned to the
occupation of his early manhood, that of cement contractor. To me
fell the continuance of the household duties of cooking and
cleaning, not by choice but rather through necessity.
When I was about 17 I had my first date,
with Blanch Sinclair. She invited me to have a soda at the Ark
Candy Kitchen. I did that, but nothing came of it. A strong
influence on me was the fact that I had fallen in love with
another student two years or one year my junior. Her name was Ruth
Cross. I became aware of Ruth when I saw her at a basketball game
in the Oelwein H.S. gym. She was with Kermit Shaw. I flirted with
her and she with me. She lived with her brother Howard Cross and
his wife. She told me her parents were both dead, though I was
told years later by her brother Howard that was not so. I never
learned why she lied about that.
Ruth called and
invited me to an ice cream social on the lawn of the Lutheran
Church. After the social I drove her to a parking place south of
town. We parked and I kissed her. She responded favorably. Thus
began a seven-year romance. We were constant friends and deeply in
love. That was my last year of high school, so we saw a lot of one
another in school. On July 1, 1932, after my graduation, we
finally went all the way and gave in to love. It was utterly
hopeless.
I was one of the first mid-year
students. I was graduated in Jan. 1932, but the school board
allowed us to go to grade 13B for an extra half year of high
school. That was because the Great Depression was on and no jobs
were available. I took some courses I had wanted but could never
fit into my schedule. Physics and chemistry were two of them.
I had graduated
from Oelwein High School with the highest grades of any boy in my
class and at once began to plan to attend Cornell College, the
school which my sister had attended, and was very pleased to have
a personal visit of a Cornell representative who outlined how I
might, for a minimum outlay, attend college there on a scholarship
which they offered me. I did not know then that it would not be as
easy as it sounded.
I collected
bills for a plumbing contractor. On Saturdays I worked for Ned
Richard’s grocery from 7 AM to 9 PM. My wages were a sack of
groceries worth a dollar. I also delivered handbills for various
merchants including some surrounding towns. On weekends I ushered
in the Grand Theatre for free admission.
In asmuch as my attitudes and
personality traits had always been those of my mother, in contrast
to those of my father and sister, my mother’s death seemed to
precipitate my desires to follow my own interests. The outcome was
that about the time my father secured a subcontract for some
paving work away from home, I had already accepted a contract to
direct the Urbana High School band. Our band director at Oelwein
H.S. was also director for the Urbana school band, 32 miles south
of Oelwein. In June of 1932, when I graduated, he was leaving for
a new job. He offered me his job in Urbana for $8.00 a week. I
jumped at the opportunity, although I had no training or
experience for the job.
I had about 65
students in the Urbana High School band, both boys and girls. The
first chair clarinetist, Clell Hoon, was my helped at each
concert. We did that the morning of the day of the concert. I used
my dad’s 1930 Essex each time to drive to Urbana. After Clell Hoon
and I selected the music for the concert, I had lunch at a café on
the north side of a downtown street. Then I rehearsed the band in
the gymnasium. I played trumpet with my right hand and conducted
with my left hand. I had never done that before. The concert was
played on a remodeled hay rack which was towed to the middle of a
street in the center of downtown. It lasted about an hour. About
twice I rented the ballroom on the third floor of the bank
building for a dance after the band concert. I played the dance
with my six-piece band from Oelwein. I had to pay rent on the
hall. It was hot; few people came. I lost money, so I gave up.
The concerts in Urbana went so well I
decided to organize a band in Oelwein and play concerts there too.
I put together a 30-piece band from the high school band. I got
permission from the school board to use their instruments and
library. We gave concerts every Thursday evening in Rock Island
park. I solicited and received the generous aid of local
businessmen and approving residents. I collected 50 cents from
everyone I could. I paid the band members 50 cents per concert if
they also played the rehearsal. If not, I paid them 25 cents. I
kept the rest of the money I collected. It was never very much.
The most money I ever made with the band came from playing at the
Fayette Co. fair in West Union. We played for the “free acts.”
They were the acrobats and performers who entertained. I got more
money for that than anything else. The concerts ended in August
1932. These positions were the source of the greatest pride to me,
for I was only eighteen and very much interested in music, but at
the end of the summer, I found that not only were my savings
inadequate to see me through a year of college, but that I was
needed to help my father in his work.
Reconciling myself to staying out of
school for a year, I finished the fall working with my dad,
returning home to use my savings to help decrease the family debt.
Employment at home that winter was not to be found, so in order to
put my time to good use, I enrolled in Ethel Cook’s Secretarial
School in Oelwein to pursue the study of shorthand, working for my
tuition by cleaning the school rooms, and in the evenings I
attended night school for adults, taking a course in bookkeeping.
The following summer of 1933, I repeated
my enterprise with the summer band concerts with even greater
success and pursued a desire to play the piano by taking weekly
lessons. At the end of the summer, I again found myself unable to
attend college on my meager savings; once again I spent the fall
on the paving crew, returning to finish secretarial studies. I
graduated the next spring. I was then an expert secretary with 120
words per minute capability in Gregg Shorthand and 65 words per
minute in typing. Another classmate (Isabelle Cook) and I got a
job reporting word-for-word the Elk’s state convention proceedings
in Oelwein. It was a very difficult job which took three days.
Then it took about a week to transcribe all our notes and type the
results. I was then available as an expert secretary, but there
were no jobs.
My romance with
Ruth Cross continued by correspondence when I was working away
from home and blooming anew when I returned. Naturally enough I
had thoughts of marriage, but one ambition, one determination,
would never permit serious consideration or commitment on my part
to that end. That determination was to go to college and establish
myself before I ever accepted the responsibility of making a home.
Mid July of 1934 I had been trying for
two years to find a way I could go to college, but even though I
had scholarship offers, I could not find the money I needed to add
to the scholarship offers to go to college. I had about given up
hopes of going to college when an event occurred which changed my
life forever. One day in July 1934 on a hot summer day, my
childhood friend asked me to hitchhike with him to Iowa City. He
was Richard Smith, Jr., who lived at 317 N. Frederick and was my
closest friend. We visited the employment service at the
University of Iowa, and I found that I could start to work at
once, accumulating meals by washing dishes at the University
Hospital. Overjoyed to think that at last my chance had come, I
immediately took up my residence in Iowa City. It was July 22 that
my sister drove me to Iowa City to begin the grand adventure of my
life, going to college. I cheerfully worked my nine hours a day in
slop and suds, thinking only of the end to be gained.
The fact that I
was without proper clothing and had only $3.00 with which to begin
my college life did not bother me until I found my application for
fee exemption and part time employment had been rejected, as the
committee explained to me when I appealed to them in person,
because I had not sufficient funds to be able to stay in school
for even a semester. So determined was I that I could do it,
somehow, that they agreed to give me the opportunity as a “good
scholarship risk.” Confidently, I felt my biggest problem solved,
and during my first semester supplemented my board job and S.R.E.
by selling neckties and occasionally playing in a student
orchestra.
I had lots of countercard merchandise
which I had bought to sell. Such things as shaving accessories,
styptic pencils, bandaids, aspirin tablets, etc. I also had three
AM radios and punch boards to sell. Gradually I sold off all that
stuff. Then began the biggest single problem I ever had in
college, how to get enough money to keep going. The need for money
was constant. It was a daily problem.
Financial difficulties were only a small
part of my worries in that freshman year, however. In spite of the
fact that I took my studies very seriously, I found it exceedingly
difficult to once again engage in concentrated study and was not
aided in this respect by the fact that my living quarters in the
Field House dormitory were anything but conducive to
concentration, with seventy other fellows in one long room and
only one overcrowded study section. My best friend (Don Johnson)
and I moved across the street to the Quadrangle dormitory. That
was much better for me though more expensive. For the next six
years, I thrived. It worried me somewhat also that I was not in a
position to take part in social activities on the campus, partly
because I had not the time, but mostly because I could neither
afford the date nor the clothes to appear neatly dressed.
Perhaps it was the latter deficiency
that aroused my interest in selling tailoring for men. At any
rate, it was very soon after that that I, in my orange corduroys
and high school sweater, was making what seemed to be an effort in
vain to sell such a line to my campus acquaintances. Without a
suit of my own or even presentable quarters from which to work, I
found myself handicapped to the point that I was about to return
the sample line, by demand of the company, with only one sale to
my credit, when I secured the order for ten sport suits from Cecil
Golly and his campus orchestra. That day to me was the turning
point of my early life, for it gave me that slim, oh so slim,
toehold that was so essential to beginning an upward climb; it
meant that not only would those earnings permit me to buy a new
suit, but also that, armed with such a fine possibility for
advertising myself and my line, I could persuade the students to
give me their trade.
Truly this
marked a new era for me. Soon I was able to buy a second new suit,
shirts, ties, and other essentials. My supervisor in my work at
the University Hospital began to notice me and very soon after
that I stepped from the job of a typist to the position of cashier
for that institution, working evenings, Sundays, and holidays.
About that same time, I became interested in improving myself
physically and began working out with the gymnastic squad at the
invitation of one of my classmates.
Since the end of
my freshman year, everything turned out much better for me than I
could ever have hoped, considering that I never received any
financial assistance from home, partly because of my own
determination to make my own way and partly because of an
insufficiency at home. In retrospect it seems impossible that I
did it. It wasn’t easy. But somehow I just kept going.
Determination had a lot to do with it. It took a lot of dance
jobs, suit sales, odd jobs, and ingenuity. I quit my job as
assistant cashier in the University Hospital. That meant I no
longer got to eat free or had an assured monthly income. That
income was never enough. I was always looking for something more.
Somehow I always seemed to manage without going into debt. I never
had a significant loan and completed my seven years of college
free of debt.
My summers were
spent working full time in the offices of the hospital. During the
school year I utilized my spare time for my gymnastic activities,
becoming Captain, and promoting my tailoring business, exceeding
the $5,000 mark by my senior year. My interest in music was
temporarily held in abeyance, except as a source of income as a
member in a school orchestra, but I had every intention of
continuing the study of the piano, solely for my own enjoyment.
Due to the
particular demands of my employment, I was not able to spend more
than three days at home at one time since I first came to the
university. As a result, the only love I had ever known dimmed to
but a spark and another took its place. This I consider for the
best, inasmuch as we agreed that the years of separation caused us
to grow apart and that, though we truly loved, we would no longer
be compatible as life companions.
That I had to
work for everything I had in school I shall never regret; I am
sure that I am better off, not only for the experience I gained,
but also for the initiative I was forced to develop. I tried to
maintain a normal balance in my college interests, never losing
sight of the social side of life after I once gained my footing.
With the experience I had in meeting people in over-the-counter
transactions selling my tailoring line and a thorough background
of commercial studies, I felt ready to assume the responsibilities
of a place in life when I graduated.
In 1938 I got my BSC degree and was a
graduate accountant. Don Johnson graduated with me in accounting.
In the spring of 1938 the two of us hitch hiked to Chicago to look
for work. There were no jobs. And no one came to interview. I
decided to stay in school where I could make a living. Law school
seemed the best choice, so I became a lawyer. I got my JD degree
in 1941. By that time I was about to be drafted. I had applied
months earlier to be a special agent of the F.B.I. It was July
when I finally got my appointment. Very worrisome waiting. I was
to be in Washington in a few days.
The FBI training
program was very intense but good. We went to classes.
Note: Don’s 1937 autobiography ended in the fall before
he graduated with his undergraduate degree, and the second
autobiography ended abruptly as he began to recount his FBI
training. I believe he must have been writing this shortly before
he died. Don went on to marry Martha Royer in 1941 in Baltimore,
Md., where he was employed with the FBI. He had met Martha, a
nursing student at Iowa, while he was in law school. His work took
him to service in Tampa, Florida, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, and
Phoenix, Arizona, for the next several years, and two children
were born: Dick and Donna. In 1946 Don left the FBI, and they
moved to Cedar Rapids, Iowa, where Don was hired as an attorney
with the firm of Simmons, Perrine, Albright, Ellwood and Neff. He
continued working for the firm until 1955, and two more children
were born: John and Bonnie. Don left the law firm in 1955 and took
employment with Collins Radio Co. (later Rockwell). He worked as a
government contracts administrator until his retirement in 1981.
Don maintained his lifelong love of music, playing piano and organ
for his own enjoyment, and sitting in on trumpet with area
musicians. He continued to play into his 90’s. |
