My brother found and scanned this ID card from the US Penitentiary at Lewisburg, PA, where my father taught Existentialist philosophy to prisoners like Jimmy Hoffa and Morton Sobel.
Why was my father teaching contemporary religion when he was a professor of engineering? Well, he spent a year on a fellowship at the Pacific School of Religion in Berkeley - the grant was to allow people in the sciences to study any aspect of religion they liked. My dad got into Kierkegaard in a big way. He then went on to earn his Ph.D. in structural engineering at Virginia Tech, and landed a job at Bucknell University right out of grad school. Hence the Lewisburg, PA location.
"Atom bomb spy" and Communist Morton Sobel became a longtime family friend because of Dad's prison work. Helen Sobel used to stay with us when she'd travel by bus from New York City to visit Morton. In later years, when Morton was out of jail and we would visit them in New York, I was disappointed by his answers to my political questions. Communism didn't sound so great to my 14-year-old mind. And my brother never got a straight answer to the question: "Did you do it?" (i.e. pass secrets to the Russians). Doesn't change my feeling that the Rosenbergs were electrocuted for political reasons.
Jimmy Hoffa only attended Dad's class once. Guess he didn't think Kierkegaard was The Man.
Why was my father teaching contemporary religion when he was a professor of engineering? Well, he spent a year on a fellowship at the Pacific School of Religion in Berkeley - the grant was to allow people in the sciences to study any aspect of religion they liked. My dad got into Kierkegaard in a big way. He then went on to earn his Ph.D. in structural engineering at Virginia Tech, and landed a job at Bucknell University right out of grad school. Hence the Lewisburg, PA location.
"Atom bomb spy" and Communist Morton Sobel became a longtime family friend because of Dad's prison work. Helen Sobel used to stay with us when she'd travel by bus from New York City to visit Morton. In later years, when Morton was out of jail and we would visit them in New York, I was disappointed by his answers to my political questions. Communism didn't sound so great to my 14-year-old mind. And my brother never got a straight answer to the question: "Did you do it?" (i.e. pass secrets to the Russians). Doesn't change my feeling that the Rosenbergs were electrocuted for political reasons.
Jimmy Hoffa only attended Dad's class once. Guess he didn't think Kierkegaard was The Man.
What a treasure!
One of the regrets of my adult life is that when I was taking part in the Civil Rights movement I never pushed the envelope hard enough to get arrested... even once for the record. Sounds as though your Dad was principled enough to push the envelope regardless of how it looked.
Posted by: Hootsbuddy | December 04, 2007 at 04:03 AM
Your dad sounds like a fascinating man!
Posted by: Donna | December 04, 2007 at 12:18 PM
Let me be clear. Dad never went to the penitentiary as an inmate. Look at the ID - it says CHaplain, crossed out, with "proffessor" typed in. He was teaching pro bono in the prison.
My mother, however, did go to jail, in Lynchburg VA in 1961, for felony trespass committed during a sit-in at a drugstore lunch counter.
Posted by: Leila | December 04, 2007 at 03:51 PM
14 40 or any age communism sucks and commies are scum.
Passing A-Bomb secrets is no big deal. Yeah Right. The traitorous communist filth got off easy.
My brother was killed by filthy communists.
Posted by: I hate traitors | December 13, 2007 at 12:47 AM