with Luther Monroe Reeves, Jr., also known as Dutch, class of 1928, conducted by Marilyn Summers on April the 13th, 1995 at Mr. Reeves' home. The subject of this interview is student life at Georgia Tech. Mr. Reeves, thank you for allowing us to be here today to conduct this interview with you. Let's begin at the beginning. 

Tell me why Georgia Tech? 

Why did you come to Georgia Tech in the first place? 

Well, to give you a little background, I grew up in Woodstock, Georgia. My dad was chairman of the Board of Education for the school area in that area. And he was responsible for getting the principal there, Dr. Booth. And Dr. 

Booth encouraged my dad to send me off to college by reason of his feeling that I was very proficient and good in physics and mathematics and things of that kind. 

So along that line he suggested that we come to Georgia Tech and that my sister was married, living in Atlanta, which was a convenient place for me to live with her and be enrolled in Georgia Tech. 

Do you remember coming to see the school before you started? 

Do you remember coming to see the school before you started? 

No, nothing more than I was coming back and forth to Atlanta on many occasions and could visit the campus at a distance or driving by there on North Avenue. 

How old were you? 

But at that particular time, somewhere in the neighborhood of 12 to 14 years of age, my dad frequently would come to Atlanta to buy various items, and of course at that particular time the campus wasn't very large and not very many buildings, by the way, and you could view the whole thing, riding along North Avenue almost. Is that adequate? 

And so you came and registered for school. Registered in 1924. 1924. Incidentally, I was only 16 years old at that time. 

I might just comment and go back to my high school years, and at Woodstock there was only three of us in the classes, a girl and two men, myself and another man. And I actually took two grades in one year. Oh boy, it was almost like tutoring. And in high school. The reason being, the professor wanted to keep us occupied. 

And And when we run out of something, he'd have us memorize the counties in Georgia, or the kings and queens of England, or something of that nature, or capitals of all the states. And I developed a pretty good memory. 

I can still quote some of those things, like Georgia Applin Bacon, Bolling Banks, Bartle Ben Hill Brooks, Brian Brooks, you just go right down. You can remember all that, huh? 

A lot of that stuff. And the high school, my final year in high school was at Cannon, Georgia. We didn't have it last grade at Woodstock. And we had a mock faculty meeting, and I was supposed to be the principal. 

And my opening statement was, I behooved, it behooved me as a gentleman to expatiate profoundly on the excruciating subject. There's a malevolent mob, denunciates the magnanimity, social propitious of equity. I went on like that for about a half hour. 

And they thought you were ready for tech then, huh? 

I made it a practice of memorizing a lot of things, but sometimes my memory is not good enough to go back and tell you what I memorized. 

Well, once you came to school, was it hard for you, or how did you find the classes? 

I didn't have too much difficulty. I had a little trouble in chemistry and physics. I don't know why, but I just didn't come through. and I had to repeat on, well, a physics particular subject. Other than that, I sailed through pretty good. 

Do you remember any of your teachers? 

I remember most all of them that taught me, that I was involved with. I want you to tell me about some of them. I was delighted to be in Dr. Roy Mundoff taught analytical equations, I believe it was, or something like that. And I was very impressed with them. I made 98. They graded us in those days with numbers. They didn't use the alphabet, and I come through pretty good. You see this thing here, the complete record of some of the things I did at Tech way back in 1928. Wow. And so Roy Mundoff was a good teacher. I beg your pardon? 

Was Roy Mundoff a good teacher? 

Oh, he was brilliant in my opinion. Incidentally, all the instructors and the professors I had were tops in my opinion. 

Well, tell us about some more of them. Who else did you have? 

Dr. Morton taught calculus. Incidentally, I made good grades, by the way, as I recall. And one student one time, one day, I said, he is making different symbols, teaching math, you know. And this student asked him, how do you illustrate infinity? 

You know what Dr. Martin did? 

I mean, Dr. Martin, I'm sorry. 

He got up and took a piece of chalk, there's a blackboard all around the room, and he went around the room about three or four times, and he threw the chalk out the window. He said, now, if you start this line without any beginning and without any end, that's infinity. Everybody could understand that. He actually said that in the class, infinity. Another, I might mention what other professor I was impressed with, Dr. Perry in English. he would frequently get almost out of this world. He'd get up and quote some verse like flower in the cranted wall, you know, and he'd quote all that. Then he'd lean back and look up in the air and he said, Gentlemen, that's a beautiful thought. Let us dwell upon it. That's actually the words he'd say. And did you? 

Yeah. Did you dwell upon his beautiful words? 

Well, that's just a couple of items there. I don't know whether I can... Did he encourage you to memorize things? 

I think that would... that may be one reason that I continued trying to memorize things. For instance, this is not related to educational things, but the... well, I have to stop and think what I'm going to say. 

Well, Professor Perry was very good with what he did that you admired him. Absolutely. Who was your chemistry professor? 

Well, Dr. Boggs and the other one, I meant to bring the blueprint down here in case I could refresh my mind. I can see these folks a lot of times, but I can't pull their name out of them. 

Well, it was a long time ago. Oh, yeah. Tell us about Dr. Boggs. 

Well, the thing that impressed me that he was very meticulous about telling you what he wanted done and how he wanted done and when he wanted done, all like that. And I tried to perform the experiments exactly like he asked us to, you know. And I think I did pretty well because I got a passing grade. He didn't blow anybody up or anything. 

But I guess I would have to have the blueprint down here to go with these different ones. Do you remember any of them having nicknames? 

Yeah, that was a common thing. Some of them it wasn't very good to do. Tell me which ones you can remember. 

Well, let's see, Morton was called Froggy Morton. He had baggy eyes on him and they called him Froggy. Not to his face now. No, no. 

But he was generally known as. 

But he had the nickname of Froggy Morton. And let me see if I can think of one or two more. That sounds like a blues player, Froggy Morton. Yeah, well, I think one or two that I prefer not to call. 

Now, you have a nickname, Dutch, that's in the blueprint. Yeah, but most of them called me by Luther, you know. My name was, but a lot of the fellas there that I knew intimately called me by my nickname. 

For instance, Julian Jettman and, let's see, well, I was trying to think of another architect, but I'd have to get the diagram there and pick him out. 

But I've actually done design work for him as an architect since I left Tech. And Clement Ford was the other one I was trying to think of. He designed a lot of beautiful houses out here in Atlanta, and I did the electrical design for him. Tell me how you got your nickname. 

Barton? 

How did you get your nickname? 

We had, I come from a family of eight children, and of course I was named Junior, Luther M. 

Rees Junior, but we always had a maid, and the maid was the one that somehow or another Started calling me that and it just stuck way back when I was only big enough to talk real good. And it's been with me ever since. 

So right through school you stayed Dutch, huh? 

Yeah. See, my dad always arranged to have maid service. 

Eventually he built a little additional room in the back of our home and the maid lived right next door to us. We got integrated before you folks did. 

Well, Dutch is a nice nickname. 

Well, it's not too bad. We can call you that. Oh, it's fine. As opposed to some of the professors who you don't want to call by their names. 

Well, what was it like to go to school in 1924? 

Did you go all day? 

Well, I tell you, of course, let me start with the freshman class. I think it was 600 or 700 or 800 of us, and it wound up as only 280 of us who graduated. And the, I don't know what you'd call it, but some of them just didn't make it, didn't continue. 

Now, I was, when I lived on Cherry Street, like I mentioned a while ago with my sister, I could walk to class and come back and eat home for lunch. Oh, you did go home for lunch. 

Now, for a few years, a year or so, she didn't live there. And I would manage to have a little extra money to buy my lunch across the street. They had a little eating place over there, you know. Do you remember the name of it? 

Well, you'll have to just have to have it. Was it the Yellow Jacket? 

I believe that was the name of it, yeah. Did you happen to know Frank Gordy? 

I knew him not intimately, but I knew him as such. I knew him when I see him. Did you ever eat any of his hot dogs? 

Well, let me comment briefly. 

I never did form any real close friendships with the people, not living in the dormitories and not being in any of the clubs or honorary groups as such. 

But I picked out only two or three that I could say I was real close with. 

Tom Eaton was one of them in the electrical group, and he is from Little Rock, and the other fellow was from that area. 

Well, you'll have to forgive me. I can't pull the names out all right. Did you go to classes all day long? 

What I did from a class standpoint, we got our schedule. And some of them you'd finish, say, in the morning and wouldn't have anything in the evening. Other times you'd have the classes all day. 

But when I lived on Cherry Street, wasn't that Cherry right by there, I'd just go home and wait until the next class and go there. 

Did you have any shop classes? 

Do you remember those? 

I had a machine shop and drafting and this little electric motor I built was in the machine shop. The bike test was too heavy for me to pick up, by the way. And you still kept it. Yeah. And, of course, the different labs, you know, you had different labs that we were in. 

And, of course, the electrical, well, I had these test areas, you know, and this blueprint There's got one picture of me in there showing me standing by there with my slide roof sticking out of my pocket. You remember your slide roof, huh? 

Did you remember Uncle Heine? 

Oh, yeah, yeah. He was a famous person, you know. Everybody loved old Uncle Heine, you know, and he was friendly to everybody, you know. And on the physics, I mean the Spanish class at Dr. 

Crenshaw, I don't know if you've heard his name, but I'm going to give you a little background on my Spanish now. 

After I left there, I helped in the missions operation over at First Baptist Church and I had a Spanish group and they tried to get me to talk something in Spanish and I said, I said, well, I can't say too much Spanish, but I can smile in Spanish. So... Show me how. I'd just smile, you know, and I'd open up. And every time they'd see me coming, they'd smile back. 

So we'd change smiles over there for months and months. 

Oh, I could say amigo, you know, and different things like that, and muchas gracias, and different Spanish words, but I got when I couldn't say any sentence, I'd just smile at them. Did you take Spanish more than one year? 

No, it was just one year and one year. I don't know why I choose that. You know, they had French too, you know. 

You could take French over there, but somehow or another, I thought if I ever needed anything, I might need some Spanish. 

But incidentally, in most of my classes I took, I didn't have to stand that final exam. 

You know, in those days, if you made a certain grade, you'd be exempt from the final examinations in the class. Like I mentioned before a month ago on the math finals, I made a high enough grade to be exempt. That's wonderful. I wouldn't have to make the final test. 

So you didn't have to stay up all night then and study, huh? 

You had it beat before then. Yeah. 

Well, that's good. That's really good. Am I still photogenic over there? 

Yes. You're looking beautiful. Everything's fine. Tell me a little bit about your social life. 

Not at school, but what did you do for entertainment? 

During what, while I was at Tech? 

Well, I tell you now, up until the last year or so, I was so busy studying and trying to make my grades, I didn't have much social life other than I went to church. 

When we lived in West End, I went to West End Baptist Church and associated with a few people like that openly in groups, not with dates or anything. I just didn't have anybody to date, I guess you'd call it. 

But when I got in the, like I mentioned a while ago, stayed over an extra year as graduate assistant, the fellows that I was supervising their lab work wanted to appeal to me and they'd make dates for me. And one fellow in that, J. C. Timmerman had a date he called Anna Glass, I believe it was, something like that. And she had a sister named Polly. 

And he'd make a date for me to Polly to go out to East Lake Country Club and have dances and all that stuff. They were trying to appeal to me, I I think, to give them good grades, you know. 

So beyond that, a few little trips like that, that's all I could do. My future wife wasn't around at that time, you know. You were still really young. Yeah. I was waiting, I think. 

Do you remember some of the famous buildings that we know now were being built, like the the Biltmore Hotel and the Fox Theater and some of those. 

Do you remember any of that going up? 

Yeah, I remember the Fox Theater being completed back in those days, and I think the Biltmore was finished somewhere right before I came to Tech. 

Did you ever visit those buildings? 

Well, not at that particular time, but later on I took my dear wife to the billboard. I think it was a, well, she says no over again, I think. 

But anyway, we went, I'll have to just pass that up. Do you remember your graduation? 

Yeah, I remember that. Definitely. There was a Baptist church across from the Capitol that's no longer there. And they had their, what do they call it? 

Convocation. 

They had all the students over there and they They have a name for it, you know, when they have them all and have a—I'm sorry that word don't pop out of my mind, but we all went over there for a—it wasn't exactly a commencement sermon, but they had a name for it. 

Where were you actually graduated from, though? 

The graduation ceremony is, let's see, I'm going to have to guess, but I think it was held in the Fox Theater. 

I believe, I may be wrong now, but I think, does that sound reasonable or not? 

I think it wasn't open yet. It opened in 1929. 

Wasn't it? 

Wasn't it? 

Could it have been at the President's house or maybe out in front of the tower? 

Did you ever go to the President's house? 

Not in those days. I wasn't. 

Do you remember that? 

How about the YW? 

The YMCA, I mean, the YM building? 

No, no, it didn't take place there and like I mentioned in the beginning, I was I was so little involved in clubs and fraternities and things like that that I believe I'm just going to have to pass that up. You remember your graduation, you just don't remember where it was. Yeah, I got graduated, I can put it that way. Your mama and your daddy came. Oh, yeah. And then you made a decision to stay on another year in that. 

Yeah, the thing being me, being 20 years old, A, of age, and the fact that I wasn't exactly sure what company I wanted to make, apply for a job, you know. I got this offer there to remain as graduate assistant. At the same time I decided to do that, I took some graduate courses in commerce. That was before Commerce was moved from Georgia Tech over to Georgia. And I thought maybe some of that would be of value to me when I got under way, you know. And uh... 

So you were a graduate assistant and still a student at the same time then? 

Did what now? 

You were a graduate assistant working. Oh, yeah. And you were also a student taking some classes. That's right. 

And what I might mention in order to supplement my meager income, I got a job with the Carnegie Library on the evening from about 6 to 9 on the English Avenue branch. 

I know where you know where a bankhead goes, leaves and goes out of town, English Avenue was a branch, Carnegie Library, and I worked from there from 6 to 9, Monday through Friday. I don't recall exactly how much I received, but I received it. 

How did you get there from the campus? 

Well, at that time, in my senior year, I managed to borrow enough money to buy me an automobile. 

I had one of these little, you know, the tech Ford that, what did you call it, they got a name for it? 

A Model A or a Model T? 

Yeah, well, they got a name for them, you know, they got the rumble seat and everything back there. You wouldn't believe it, but in those days you could buy a car for $6,700. 

And I managed to take what money I was making as a graduate assistant and at the Carnegie Library to borrow the car. And, as I remember, I got enough to finally pay it off. 

So you had your own wheels when you were 20 years old. Yeah. 

And this, I've got a replica of the tech model up there on my, I don't know where you noticed it, up there on top of the TV set. My automobile looked almost like that one. It had a top that you could let down if you wanted to, you know. Convertible? 

Yeah, convertible. 

But it was a two-seater with a rumble seat, you know. 

So the girls must have thought that was pretty nice. Yeah, I would. That's how you got to Eastlake then. That did a little attracting, but I managed to not be taken in because I wasn't ready. 

But that still made it nice that you could pick up and deliver, couldn't you? 

And it's astounding what automobiles sold for back in those days compared to today. $600 you said, huh? 

You mean you bought one that was brand new? 

Oh, yeah. Brand new. Brand new. Yeah. There weren't very many cars on the campus in those days. No. And most everybody had walked over there. See, the buildings were in a cluster. 

You'd take the double E building and the administrative building and the library and and the shop building, and the infirmary, and the mechanical and civil building across the street. That was it? 

Well, there was the— Knolls dormitory. 

Well, the chemistry building down there and the textile building were back there. 

But it was all in that little cluster. Do you remember Grant Field? 

Oh, yeah. Yeah. Did you ever go to any football games? 

Oh, yeah. My wife and I, after when we got married, we managed to go every year with season tickets. 

But when they started requiring one of these little extra heavy money to get good tickets, I just had to give it up. Did you go when you were a student, though? 

Oh, yeah. Yeah. Do you remember going when you were a freshman and you had to wear a rat cap? 

Well, I think so. I followed along and did what everybody else tried to do. 

So you did have a rat cap in those days. Yeah. 

But for some reason or another, I didn't get involved too much. There wasn't many of us around now, for one thing, you know. I mean, compared to what it is today. And I'm, I have a little difficulty remembering any detail for you on things, but. Wait, you were a fan of the Golden Tornadoes they were called in those days? 

Oh, yeah. 

Do you remember if they were a good football team? 

Did what now? 

Were they a good football team? 

Oh, absolutely. 

Bob Durant, you know, was the quarterback, and he's the man that I tried to help coach and keep him on the team. And I remember Roy Regal running the wrong way, you know. Oh, you do. And out in the Rose Bowl. I do remember. Did you ever know any of the musicians, the band? 

Nothing more than just casually seeing them. 

You knew who Frank Roman was? 

Oh, yeah, and he had a nickname of Pop, you know, I believe he called him Pop Roman, wasn't that right? 

Was it Wap Roman then, instead of Pop. And everybody sang the Ramblin'' Wreck? 

Oh, yeah, yeah. I tried to sing a little, but I wasn't too good at singing. 

But at football games? 

Oh, yeah. Everybody's good at football games. 

But I think, incidentally, the emphasis on athletics is just, well, a little beyond me because I'm not athletic. I never did. I played basketball, as you see, when I was over at Ackworth when this so-called artist drew me up. That's cute. 

What happened, I'd come over there without my clothes to, you know, trunks and so on, and they pressed me into service, and that, he claimed the way I come out on the court. I loved your shoes. I was one of the forwards on the Woodstock team playing Aquarius. 

Okay, okay, Mr. Reeves, tell me a little bit about Dr. Britton. 

Do you remember him? 

I remember him definitely, and one reason I remember him a little extra, my dad being interested in education as such, he took the liberty every time he'd come down to visit me, which was most every week from Woodstock, he'd actually go to Dr. Britton's office and go in and talk to him, and Dr. Britton would invite him in. And I wasn't president, by the way, but he would in turn fill me in on some of the comments that Dr. Bretton welcomed him just like he was a brother. 

But he was a little, I guess forward is the word, and taking Dr. Bretton's time. 

But he never did refuse to see him, and he went in to see him most every time he come down. He saw as much of Dr. Britton as he saw of you. Yeah, well, Dr. 

Britton seemed to think a good deal of him for some reason, but they kind of hit it off, as they say, out in the country. 

They kept you in line then, didn't it? 

Yeah, and I was a little concerned, by the way, that my dad was taking Dr. Britton's time. 

But after all, I was only his son, you know, and I just let him go his way and I went mine. 

But that was an unusual thing. 

I never did question my dad because he was a man of his own thinking, you might say, and it wouldn't do for me to be too inquisitive. 

It's a good thing you got good grades, isn't it? 

I've come through all right without any problem, but that was an unusual thing to go in and talk to the President. He did that on several occasions now. He might not have done it every time he come down. 

But I was impressed with Dr. Britton being a type of man that would be willing to spend a little time with a man like my dad. Was Dr. 

Britton open to the students talking to him? 

The best I can tell, I never did have any occasion to go into myself, but he was well thought of and well liked, and I never heard any derogatory remarks about him at all when when I was a student. 

And he was very, well, I hardly know how to explain the way I feel about the man, but I do know he was a very distinguished educator. And so far as I can tell, everybody thought of him and thought well of him, you know. 

Do you remember Dean Griffin, George Griffin? 

I remember him primarily as a neighbor and just the fact that he thought enough of me to, as a neighbor, to give me that portrait of himself over there on my desk. 

Do you remember him when you were a student at school? 

You know, I have a little difficulty recalling exactly, but I'm sure I saw him several times. 

He, I think he was, he was there I think about two years before I graduated, before I enrolled at Tech. I believe I'm right, about 1922, somewhere back in there. 

But he was well-loved, and Wallace's book upstairs, you ought to read some of the wonderful comments that Wallace made about him, Dean Griffin. 

You knew him as a neighbor? 

Pardon? 

You said you knew him as a neighbor? 

A neighbor, primarily, yes. He lived on the street? 

Yeah. 

He was the second house from the corner up there where it was being remodeled and, of course, he passed away, you know, some time ago, and we had no particularly definite social relations with him, but we were very neighborly as such, you know. 

And I left most of my neighborliness by my wife to do most of that, and I got busy trying to make some money. 

Speaking about you making some money, I understand that you had a hand in some of the building construction at Georgia Tech. I did this electrical design on three, I feel like, three wonderful buildings. 

Which buildings are those? 

The first one was the chemical engineering and ceramic engineering building. And the second was the first phase of the student center. And the third one was the drawings I showed you on the chemistry building. 

And the one I take a great deal of pride in is the chemistry building because it was illustrated it in the magazine by General Electric Company, Industrial Power Systems. 

And the so-called GE engineers said that our design, of course with their help, by the way, was a little better than the double E building over there, which was designed by a robbering company. I don't mean to overstate that, but I'm just quoting what they told me. 

So you're real proud of that work? 

See, we went into the system of not only bringing the primary service to the building on the ground and ductwork, but we had what we call double-ended switchgear in the building. We have two voltage systems in it. We got that. We got the book, did we not? 

Yeah, we got all that. Okay. 

You were telling us about some of the specific systems in the building? 

You were talking about some of the systems that you put in that building. 

We have what we call voltage stabilizers in there for experiments where you have to have a very delicate maintaining of voltage service to the labs. 

And that was something that was illustrated in these drawings that I couldn't begin to tell you verbally without going over there and talking about the drawings. That's very technical. It's just interesting that you take a lot of pride in your work with the building. 

Yeah, that's one of the happiest remembrance of my engineering career, the fact that I was able to do these three projects at Georgia Tech. 

And I have other designs that I'm just as proud of as such, but I feel a little stronger about these at Georgia Tech. For instance, I might just mention briefly, I did the lighting for the Cathedral of St. Phillips. And not only the interior lighting, but the flood lighting outside. And that has been, I've received quite a number of compliments on that. It's beautiful. 

And the special lighting specialists out of New York came down to review the approach to the lighting system, which I incorporated in there, along with the controls. 

And I also duplicated that same job up at Swanee, where they have a cathedral that's almost a duplicate of St. Philip's. How wonderful. Mr. Reeves, you were the first member of your family to go to Georgia Tech, right? 

I was the first one. 

But you've had a lot of people from your family follow you. Is that not so? 

Yeah, relatives as such primarily, like nephews and nieces and what not. Granddaughters? 

And I might comment our family had six boys and two girls in our family. 

And my dad was interested in giving all of them a college education, but not all of them followed through with it. My oldest brother went to, well, up in where the governor comes from. Young Harris. Young Harris. Young Harris. And then my second brother was primarily a farmer and a landowner and things like that. He didn't follow through. 

And then my third brother, Pierce, who lives not far from me, he graduated from a business college in Atlanta. Do you feel good about your Georgia Tech? 

Oh, absolutely. 

I don't know how I can adequately express myself, but I'm honest with you that I think it measure up with any technical school throughout the country. I would select Tech over MIT. That's my feeling about it, of course, you know. Are there any other memories about Georgia Tech that you would want to share with us? 

Let's see. I mentioned a few comments about Dr. Perry and Dr. Morton. It's a strange thing to me. I just can't pull anything out of my head at this point. 

Well, that's okay. We just want to thank you very much for the things that you did tell us. 

Well, this has been delightful, and I appreciate y'all being patient with the old man. Yeah. 

What do you think of as the major accomplishments of your life? 

Well, getting this lovely girl to be. I think so. Your wife, and how about your three daughters, too? 

Well, yeah. I specialize on daughters. 

I asked the preacher, I mean the doctor, about this one, and he said, I was complaining about how old being a girl, and he said, well, they're worth more. And he was absolutely right. We know that. Incidentally, when our first baby was born over at, what's the hospital? 

Crawford Lawn. Oh, Crawford Lawn. 

I was pacing up down this car, and he come in there, and they told me they had got a fine baby girl in there, Charlotte, the first one, and he said, I looked a little bit worried, and he said, you quit worrying, I never have lost a husband yet. That's the very word he told me. Yeah, I want you to tell me about these things you made here. Let's look at that. In the wood shop. Pardon me? 

Do you want me to videotape you? 

No. I would like you to be sure to take his photograph, though. Don't forget that. We're just going to put this down. Tell me what these are. 

This is the, they have a lathe and they have to turn out these round ones, you know, and you get a piece of wood and they give you an illustration, show you how to... And this is the actual one you made? 

I put that on the wood lid and turned it around. What's this? 

That was just supposed to be a tech tee, as I recall, something like that. 

But you actually made this in your shop class. Oh, can we borrow these? 

You can take them. 

Oh, I'm not going to take them until I can bring you the loan form, but I'll call you, okay? 

Can I do that, Mrs. Wheeler? 

No, we can do that. Down it will. Before you leave, let me show you about that one that fell over there. These are the actual prints of that chemistry building and the equipment you were just telling us.