oral history interview with Edwin H. Smith, class of 1947, conducted by Marilyn Summers on August the 12th, 1997, at Mr. Smith's home in Atlanta. The subject of the interview is Mr. Smith's life in general and his days as a student at Georgia Tech. Mr. Smith, thank you so much for letting us come and visit you here in your beautiful home. We're so happy to be here and we're looking forward to hearing your story. Are you ready to begin? 

I'm ready, Yes. 

Okay, let's go. You want me to start from when I was born? 

Right. I was born in Charlotte, North Carolina. And we lived in, my folks lived in Myers Park at that time. 

But when I was a year old, we moved six miles out of Charlotte to a residence on Carmel Road. We were city folks in the country. 

There were two other city folks, our next door neighbor and across the road neighbor, and everybody else were farmers. 

So we moved out there in 1922, and Dirt Road, now I don't remember this, but there was no power down the road. 

Now, we had power in our house because we had an emergency generator set. 

What did your dad do for a living? 

He was a civil engineer, graduated from the University of Missouri. 

So we had power. I can remember the power company building the line, power line down the street. 

It was actually a co -op, not as we knew it later on or know it today, but the neighbors paid for it and built that line. Duke Power Company built it and later bought it, but I can remember them building it. We had the, we had a county phone and later we had a city phone. 

Now the city phone, there was a four-party line. 

Now, the county line with the, uh, with the hand crank generator was about 11, 12 party line. 

But we had, we had both for a while. Uh, icebox, but later on a refrigerator. 

But our house, uh, our house was open house on the nights of prize fights from all the neighbors from miles around coming to listen to the prize fight on the radio. Horses, buggies, old, old automobiles, our yard was filled up with them on prize fight night. 

From Charlotte, when I was about 11 years old, 11 or 12, we moved to Knoxville, Tennessee, because dad was with TVA. 

I guess he was the engineer on the city of Nars, which I, I went to county school for two or three years and then the folks put me in the city of Charlotte school up through about the sixth or seventh grade. When they moved to Knoxville I was at a junior senior high school. Should be able to tell you the name of it, but I can't. 

And then we were in Knoxville two or three years, and then we moved to a town in North Carolina of Reedsville. 

Reedsville was not the county seat of the county, but my dad was with Public Public Works Administration, and they had about 15 schools that they built in that county at one time. 

I was in Regisville High School, then we moved to Durham, North Carolina, which I was in Durham High School, and from Durham, we moved to Atlanta, which I went to, Atlanta Powers High School. 

You got around quite a bit, didn't you? 

I did, and that affected my life and my kids' life because I was not going to move while our kids were in school and didn't. 

So they stayed here and the whole neighborhood moved. 

When did you land in Boy's High? 

Was that your, like, 10th grade, 11th grade? 

Probably was, I think next year in Boys High, it could have been the 10th grade, it could have been the 11th. Somewhere along that period I decided I wanted to go to Tech. 

Do you know why? 

What made you think that? 

I guess from my dad's engineering experience, but you know, it was here. 

I had had chemistry, But I had not had physics and didn't have a job, didn't have money to go to school anyway, so I stayed in school an extra year to go take physics. And then we moved to Greensboro, North Carolina, and I finished one course in physics at Greensboro. Oh, my goodness. 

But it was transferred back to Boise. 

Do you think if you had moved to some other city, you would still come to Tech, or do you think you came to Tech because of the proximity? 

After I'd been living in Atlanta, I would have probably come back to Tech. Because you had heard of it and you were comfortable with it. Yeah, comfortable with it, and of course we were sort of associated with it. And in Bars High, we took the first class in math at Georgia Tech was college algebra at that time. 

At Bars High, we took college algebra, of course, based on the same book that was always used at Tech. 

Well, that gave you a heads up, didn't it? 

It sure did. That sure did. 

So the first math courses of college algebra, I had done, I had worked the problem. I had my book, my notebook. That was nice. That was nice. Which was a big, big boost. 

What were your, what was the first time you ever came to the Tech campus? 

Do you remember that? 

Was it as a high school student at Boys High? 

It'd be as a high school student. 

At times, I remember going to one football game as a high school student, and one time was after marching in a parade or something on the downtown, we marched out and right on into the south stands. 

So you already had established some pretty good feelings about being there. That was a, this was, you were going to enter Tech in 1940, is that correct? 

That's when I, yeah. This was a bad time in the world. Were you aware of what was going on in the world? 

Oh, yeah. Oh, yes. I mean, you know, my older brother was not drafted. He did not, but he was subject to the draft. 

The other people, older people, you know, were being drafted. 

That's the reason my dad was at Fort Bragg, to double, triple size of that fort, you know, temporarily. And, oh yes, we... You were aware. 

We were aware, and you saw in the news, you knew what things were going on in England, in Germany, in France, in Poland. You saw it in the newsreels. I mean, you knew that, you knew that the, you knew that the world was in turmoil. 

Kept hoping that we would not be in it, but I don't know why we figured, because then you know it's coming. 

So you started bravely, hoping that you were going to be able to finish the same way, just routine. Right. Hoping the world wouldn't go to pieces on you. 

Now, I had to talk my way in as co-op. 

So to get in a co-op class, you had to be in the upper third of your high school class. Did you fit in that upper third? 

Well, the co-op department said I didn't. Uh-oh. 

So I wrote them back and told them there's no way they could figure out with my record. Whether you did or you didn't. 

Well, I was in the upper third of the class or not. 

But they accepted my grades. And took you on. It took me in. Do you remember the first few weeks of school, what it was like? 

Oh, yeah. 

What was it like? 

Your folks had moved already by that time, is that correct? 

Yeah, I can say that I left them in Greensboro, and they were headed to somewhere. They were headed to Fort Bragg, and I was headed to school. 

So you were living in the dormitories? 

So I moved into the dormitory. 

Now, I came into the dormitory, co-ops came in on Sunday, the regular students came in a week ahead and had a week of orientation. I wonder why that was, do you know? 

They did things slower than we did. We came in on Sunday. I felt bad about it, but I treated my roommate bad that night. I came in on Sunday, threw my stuff in the room, and went to see a girl I used to take. 

Now, he was a timid boy from Jefferson, Georgia, and was scared and never left the room to go get anything detailed right. Aww. I felt bad about that all of a while. 

But on Monday, we had to completely get processed, which, you know, you had to pay your dues. You had to get your picture made for the annual. You had to get your schedule, which was no problem on schedule for co-ops. There was about 100, pretty close to 100 boys in my class. 

The top 25 in the alphabet, one schedule, the next 25, the bottom 25, we had, you know, that's your schedule. We all took the same. 

So you didn't have to choose anything. 

Had no choice, had no choice of professors, no choice of subjects, no choice of anything, this is your schedule, and it made a real close, you know, with the boys I went to school with, I spent the day with them school, and of course we spent the night at the dorms, which we were mixed up, we were not alphabetical in the dorms. 

But you got to know everybody fairly well then because you were exposed to them quite a bit during that time. I would say yes. Obviously, we didn't get to know everybody. 

What did you think of the classes? 

Were you ready for them? 

I was more ready for them than most people. Thank goodness. Thank goodness. 

My roommate that I was talking about, he couldn't work ten algebra problems in an hour without just standing. He couldn't do it in an hour. 

But you had to make him think about everything he did in algebra. 

But he couldn't work, he could not work ten problems in an hour with his background. He had no chance. 

So that made you feel like you really were lucky then? 

Oh, I was definitely lucky with both math and chemistry. Did that young man make it? 

No. He flunked out. No, he flunked out. 

Just about if you flunked math as a co-op, you were out because it was such a big part of your total hours. 

When we checked in to, you know, like on Sunday, by Wednesday night we had a rat court. Co-ops still had hazing. By Wednesday night we were supposed to know the Ramblin'' Rack, the Alma Mater. I guess that was all the songs we needed to know. What was a rat court? 

Explain that to me. That's when the upperclassmen talked to it that you knew things. 

So they literally called you all together? 

Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah. 

We would, you know, Clyburn saw them in an L-shape, and we were in that outside, I guess behind Clyburn. 

Did they test you? 

I mean, did they make you sing it or say it? 

They made you, they had us sing it, and of course if you just sort of mouthing it, they'd come around and put their ear up close to you. 

So they wanted you to know every word. Right. And also on football games, you could not be in the dormitory during a football game. You had to be in the stands? 

If you weren't in the stands, you better be away from school. Were you wearing your rat hat at that time? 

Oh, yeah. What happened in a rat court if somebody didn't know the song? 

Oh, that was a couple of paddles. 

So they had actual paddles that they paddled to it? 

Absolutely right. Not real rough. 

But an incentive to learn. That's correct. 

Now, if you did not wear your rat cap, of which I don't remember one co-op, they would cut the boy's hair in the shape of a T. You mean just clip a T right out of their head? 

No, then leave the T. 

Oh, leave the T? 

Cut all the rest of their hair off? 

No, it'd go from about ear to ear and then out towards the front. Was anyone foolish enough not to wear their hat? 

Yes. Some of them were. Did you ever see anybody get a T cut? 

I didn't see it, but I didn't see it actually being done. 

Oh, but you saw the results? 

I saw the results, and Clown and Dome were just about as quiet as you could be when that happened. 

So how often did they hold these courts? 

Oh, the rat courts were about the first, about once a week, but Wednesday nights for pretty close to the first quarter. See, we went to school on a quarter, of which our credit hours were semester credit hours. 

So for algebra, we probably went to class six days a week and got maybe five credit hours for it. Chemist would be the same way. So... Pretty intense program. That wasn't much time. It was a pretty intense program. Right, right. 

We had, I know math was six days, and chemistry was six days, and we would have English maybe three days, and military, I don't know what else we had. Do you remember any of the professors? 

A couple of them. One of them, a chemistry professor, was Professor Elmo, E-L-M-O. A young man, he was not much older than we were. 

Now, during the year, during the school year, 1940 fall to 41 spring, Gene Tomo, the governor, wanted to fire the president of the University of Georgia, and the Board of Regents would not fire him. 

So Gene Talmadge forced members of the Board of Regents to retire and appointed new ones, and they fired the University of Georgia president. 

When this happened, the organization that accredited schools took all Georgia state schools off of being accredited, which meant that these young professors that couldn't afforded to teach at a non-accredited school to move up. 

Professor Elmo, a good chemistry professor, he had made the decision he was going to move And at that time, we had four-hour final exams, which were just, whether you knew it or not, was tough. 

If you had an A, and at that time we had double-A grades, if you had an A or double-A grade average, you did not have to take the final exam. How did you get a double-A? 

I guess it's 95 or above. Oh, okay. 

So it was a ranking of how well you did. Yeah. 

So you could skip the exams if you had an A or above. Right. He made it a requirement that we had to be in class the last day of review. 

And he finished up his review to where everybody had, he answered everybody's questions that there were any questions. And then he gave about a 30-minute lecture. which he had us kids rolling in the aisles laughing. 

If you've ever, ever seen an empty-minded professor or a really professor really, really, really putting on a show, Professor Elmo put on a show that day that I don't guess I'll ever forget. 

He really, he really put on a, it was tied in with chemistry, but he finally pulled his watch out of his pocket and dipped his watch in a bigger water and drank the water and said that by drinking the water, drinking, you know, faster than he could drink it, it was all running down his clothes and he said it's time to go. 

The other professor I remember was, of course I can remember several of them, our math professors was Dr. Ballou and Dr. Steen, they wrote the trigonometry book, and they were terrific. 

Now, in English, I had a professor by the name of Brown. I don't know his name, but he was commonly known as Farmer Brown. And in English, if you had a C average, you did not take the exam. 

Oh, really? 

They didn't expect as much from you in English, huh? 

Did not expect as much from us in English. A lot of kids exempted the whole English course from their high school. If they could pass a test? 

They could pass a test. 

Well, it came to the end of the class, end of the quarter, and I was running with a boy by the name of Bud Toos, and he looked in his grade book and says, I want to see Mr. Smith and Mr. Tewis after class and the rest of you exempting that. 

So he took his grade book and he looked down through the grade book and he says, Mr. Tewis, I'm going to give you a C. And he did the same thing. He says, Mr. Smith, no reason for you to take the exam. You haven't got a chance to pass. 

I thought you were doing that badly, huh? 

Bud and I talked him into letting me take the exam to have a chance. And Mr. Brown gave me a D. Oh, dear. You were having trouble, huh? 

So I had trouble with him. Good thing you were good at the math and the chemistry then. Oh, yeah. 

You would have been balanced, wouldn't you? 

Probably not just with English, because it was not enough to overcome the credit hours on the other two. 

In sophomore year, of course, we were taking physics, and I had a Professor Ewald, but But the lecture series was Shorty Bortel. I don't know whether you knew Shorty or not, but he was quite a character also. He doubled in some of the coaching. He coached tennis. Tennis. He coached tennis. Was he a good lecturer? 

Oh, yes. Oh, yes. Very good. 

So you learned a lot from him. Overall, did you feel you had good professors? 

I would say yes. Yes. 

But some that I wish I could have had, which I did not, I wish I could have had Dr. Smith in math. Dr. Smith did not teach co-ops, and I wish I could have had Dean Savant in the E-E department. 

But I took the electronics option, and he did not teach anything in the electronics option. 

But you knew about them from their reputations? 

Oh, yeah. Did you ever get hazed? 

Just the rat courts and so forth. 

Did you ever get paddled, though, or did you know your words and keep your hat on? 

I don't think they missed anybody, or at least get a paddled or two. Just for good luck? 

For good luck. 

What happened when it came time for the next quarter when you had to go co-op? 

How did they figure out where you were going to go on your job? 

I don't know. I went with, they sent me to Graybar Electric in the warehouse here in Atlanta. 

So you were assigned that. You didn't have to go out and look for it? 

No, I was assigned that. 

If you could pound your old job, you could do that. It was an option for you, I see. Right. 

In fact, my alternate, the boy by the name of Bob Joyner, he worked with Graybar all the way through his co-op. 

He did not graduate, but after his military service in the Navy, he went to work for Graybar and spent his entire career with Graybar. 

So how did that work out for you? 

Did you like the whole co-op idea? 

Was that easy for you to go to work for the... Oh, it was fun. When I say fun, it was hard work when you're in school. 

But when you came back to school after being away three months, it was a homecoming. Oh, really? 

So you're glad to be there then, huh? 

It was... You heard stories from all over the United States. Oh, because they all went other places. All went other places, right. 

Did you have to take everything you owned with you and move right out of that dormitory space? 

Not necessarily. You could leave a trunk in the basement. 

But it didn't mean you were going to come back to the same room or anything like that. You could just leave some stuff there. Right. 

And then once you went on the co-op job, were you responsible for finding your own place to live and everything then? 

As a rule, since I was working in Atlanta, I lived in the dorm several quarters. 

Oh, so they would let you stay there even though you were going off to work? 

If there was space, if there was space. 

So you lucked out for the beginning there, huh? 

I was in Cloudman, the freshman co-ops had first choice, and then probably the sophomore co-ops, and then the other space, anybody could stay there. 

So you were glad to come back to school after you're three months away. It was like a homecoming. I mean, it was really, really fun. Really fun. 

Did you have any trouble buckling back down to studies again? 

The next day you were back into it, so yes. It wasn't any problem. 

You were ready to come back and pay attention again, huh? 

So you were there for the football season. Yes. Most of it. And then you left in January. Right. And you worked until the spring. Right. 

So you did have an opportunity to have a typical college experience during the... during that season, during the football season. Oh, yeah, we enjoyed the fall. 

In the fall quarters, back as a freshman, if we won a ball game, we'd have a shirt-tail parade down through town. The cheerleaders got us out. This is all freshmen, not just us co -ops. And we would march in single file, cross the streets, build the block, you know, snake type of fire. 

We would, I remember going to the Lowe's Grand Theater, walking across the stage doing the movie and back out. While the movie was going on? 

While the movie was going on. Was it fun? 

We didn't have a choice. Oh, I see. We didn't have a choice. It was part of, you were programmed to do that as a freshman. The cheerleaders thought that we did that. 

Also, as a freshman at first quarter, the upper classmen came in and got us all out in a pajama parade, and we marched us downtown. 

The Henry Grady Monument, which has been moved just a little bit, but basically was where it still is, in the middle of Marietta Street, and they had my roommate up with a flashlight I had read an inscription off of the monument. 

And about six police cars just surrounded us and marched us back, saw that we marched back to campus quietly. Everybody in their pajamas. Everybody in their pajamas. 

Was it fun? 

Did you like to do those things? 

I mean, afterwards? 

I had no choice, but I guess it's fun. It's a nice memory anyway. It's a memory, right. 

But in our pre-junior year, which would be the, had to make a decision whether you took advanced military or not, and it came around, to take advanced military you had to be in what was called Enlisted Reserve Corps. 

So on the last day that the listed reserve corps that you could get into it, I joined the listed reserve corps, which would be in December sometime. 

The next day they announced that after you finished one unit after the first of the year, you went on active duty. And you didn't know that until after you signed. I knew that the next day. Bad luck, huh? 

Yeah. Which the, you know, the whole class was in there, the whole class was in the military. 

And they were finished that fall quarter, and somehow both sections of co-ops came back to class, and we're in class together after the first of the year. After that quarter, we all received orders to report for basic training, or for induction I guess. 

And I guess everybody went home and reported to their induction center nearest their home, which mine, of course, was Fort McPherson. 

And there was a, I guess I was in the first group and reported in, and after processing, there was about nine of us, most of them were classed behind us, were shipped to Kemp Crowder, Missouri, for basic training. And we took, I don't know, that basic training was eight weeks or something or another. And then the people that had signed up for advanced military were sent to a prep school for OCS. And that included you. Which included me. 

And I went through and finished it, and there was a group of us that finished because we started and they closed that prep school up. And then for some time, I was assigned back to work as an acting corporal in training basics. 

A lot of the boys went to specialist school, from pole climbing to radio repair and all of the signal call service, you know, schools. 

And then late in the summer, they sent us back to Georgia Tech to our own school them to wait to go to OCS. 

So, I came back to Georgia Tech and spent one semester, full semester. 

Now, the other people like the ordinance, the other co-ops were pulled out in the middle of the quarter, middle of the semester it was, to go to OCS. 

Signacle waited until the end of the semester, so I got a full semester of school in, which at that time, see the war was still going on, which meant six days a week of school. January the January 1st was just another day. 

They had a Professor Hagedorn in a electrical engineering class, and he assigned a quiz for January 1st. 

The military people couldn't cut classes But this old rule of when you take a quiz, when you finish, you can leave. 

So we went into his class on January the 1st, and he had written up on the board E equals IR. 

If I equals two F's and R equals two O's, what does E equal? 

As soon as you're finished, you turn your papers in and you go. 

But people in the military could not, could not. 

So he met the letter of the law, but he still let you have the day off. Right. 

Now, we lived in, actually World War I rebuilt barracks on 3rd Street, which is now by the Bobby Dodd Way, I guess, uh, we had from the corner of Techwood, Techwood Drive, uh, toward, toward, what is, now the expressway, the expressway it was now, and on the opposite side of Third Street from where the, um, athletic office is, but it got, uh, where we would march to class. 

But it got real, real lax and the boys, and the boys didn't get up and meet Reveille and didn't, really didn't go to breakfast. Breakfast, the food, food in the dining hall wasn't the best. 

It wasn't, actually it was the worst I ever had in the service, but all my time in the service was inside the states. 

But the word, word came down as it does in the service that, uh, you need to get up and meet Reveille and go to breakfast. 

Well, I, I got up, and all my friends said, get me up, but, uh, there was just a handful of those that got up and marched to, marched to breakfast. 

So instead of going through the barracks and taking the names of the people that didn't get up, they took, came up to the, to the That's all, and took the names of those that did, and everybody else was, everybody was absent. 

So they restricted the whole company, except us, except us few, for the weekend. 

Well, being, being tech boys, they went in and talked to the sergeant, talked to the captain, and decided that we could have a, a party in the wreck hall. 

So we had the old restricted ball in the company area. That's what you called it, the old restricted ball. 

Now, those of us that could leave, we would have to go pick up the girls and take them home. 

So you had a mission. You could go off. Yeah, I had gotten up so I could go off. 

But they just made the best of us. I guess they did. 

They didn't suffer at all, did they? 

Did you have very many parties like that? 

That's only one of those I remember. That's the only one. 

Now, football games, we would line up and march in. 

And if any of our Army buddies or Navy buddies were in town, they'd just fall in and march in with us. 

One of the best come from behind football games I ever saw was University of Georgia against the University of Alabama played on Grand Field during that time. And we just marched, you know, we just marched into the ball game. Tech wasn't even playing? 

No, it was Georgia and Alabama. Why were they playing in Atlanta? 

Due to transportation restrictions. Oh. 

So we generously let them use our field, is that it? 

We probably charged them for it. I don't know. How generous it was. 

But transportation was a problem. And Alabama got ahead about three touchdowns. 

And this was Frank Sankiewicz and Charlie Trippi's days, and they came back in the fourth quarter and won the ball game. Did you all cheer for Georgia? 

I guess we had to. Over Alabama, I guess we had to. Plus the walls didn't fall down on you, going against all that tradition. That was quite a football game. Sounds like it must have been. 

It was a stressful time because everyone knew the war was going on and a lot of tech men were out at war. 

But did you still make the best of it and have a good time on the camp? 

Oh, yeah, oh, yeah. You don't remember it as a real bad time then? 

No, no. 

I'd say fortunately they didn't, you know, during the Korean War, they brought all the boys' bodies back, and it was depressing to go to the airport. They did not do that in World War. didn't that do that in World War II like they did in the Vietnam War. 

So you didn't have. You knew it was happening, but it wasn't right under your nose. Oh, yeah, yeah. You knew it was happening, and you knew you were losing some friends. 

Well, how long did you stay right at Tech? 

We stayed that quarter, and then we went straight from there to, in the second quarter, we went to OCS in Fort Monmouth, New Jersey. 

Uh, we rode the train up with boys from the Corps of Engineers and went to, I think there was Fort Belvoir, Virginia, but we went to Fort Monmouth, New Jersey. And uh, that was also an experience that you don't want to go through but once, which is OCS. 

And from OCS went to Austin School, which I took long lines inside, which is a telephone long lines AT&T type of job. 

And was signed back to a unit in Camp Crowder, a unit which would have gone to Europe about two weeks after I got back out there. 

But the positions were filled, and there was several tech people in that unit. 

But I was just reassigned to a different unit. And that unit was, you know, maybe halfway through training. And things went well in Europe, and they deactivated that unit. And for quite some time, I sort of floated. 

So you lucked out a little bit there, huh? 

You might say, it wasn't what I wanted, but sort of, sort of, sort of lucked out. You were safe. You were safe. 

Well, we figured, figured that when the war was over, that they'd bring all the boys up from overseas home and send us to replace them, or replace the ones who were going to stay for a while, but that didn't happen, didn't do that. 

And it finally closed Camp Crowder and moved us to Camp Polk, Louisiana, and he took the city to go out of Camp Polk, Louisiana and sent us to Fort ***, New Jersey, and I was discharged in Fort ***, New Jersey. When was that? 

When? 

That would be in late summer of 46. 

So did you decide, did you know you were going to go back to school, or were you undecided? 

No, I, uh, Audrey and I were married in 45, so I, we were planning on coming home and going to school. You knew you had to finish up and get that degree, huh? 

I figured I did. 

Now, I, I came back in, uh, fall of 40, I mean, got in school in the fall of 46. And Dean Savant said if we took certain electrical classes we could graduate in three quarters. 

My problem was that I had been sick of one sometime back and I had dropped thermodynamics and I had dropped a mechanics drawing course which were required. 

So I had to take, for three quarters, two quarters I took 20 credit hours and one quarter I took 21, and to graduate I still was short hours. 

They gave us credit for the advanced military, there was a course called to left me that that they gave me credit for, our petitioner got credit for, from the Signal Corps experience, and I was still short a couple of hours. 

And I took a course, people helped me find a course that I could just attend and at least pass, and it was in safety engineering. 

So I took safety engineering. I went to class and no study and was able to pass. 

I'm not sure who it was that, you know, checked those records to make sure you've got all the requirements, but she claims that I had enough credits to graduate, so I graduated. You took her word for it. I took her word for it. 

Also in that quarter, whether you still do or not, we had to take a quiz on the Constitution of the United States. Whether that's still a requirement, I don't know. Which I don't know. We had to give us two or three hours of credit for that. I don't know about credit. I don't think there's any credit. You just had to pass it to get out. 

But they gave us two or three hours of instructions and then a quiz on it. 

So, when did you finally graduate? 

When was it? 

In June of 47. June of 47. Do you remember that? 

Oh, yeah. You went? 

Yeah, I went. Where was it? 

It was in the Fox Theater. The baccalaureate sermon was in the First Baptist Church. 

So from 1940 to 1947, you were mixing it up with Georgia Tech and finally came up with your credits. Barely came up with that. I may have a half hour. Who knows? 

Who's counting now? 

Right. 

So what did it feel like? 

Were you relieved? 

Oh, yeah, definitely. Definitely relieved. 

So you had a wife and a new diploma. A new diploma. 

What did you think you were going to do with that? 

Well, that was really, everybody was trying to rehire their old people that had been to the service, and there was a lot of shifting going around between, you know, companies and not a lot of new hiring. 

And I came out with only one job offer, and that was with Shell Oil, basically in Houston, Texas, but it was in the oil fields. And I went to Houston to visit them. 

But then living in the oil fields just didn't, just didn't, just didn't satisfy me. 

So I came home and actually went to work for a robbering company that I had worked as a co-op a couple quarters and worked for the robbering company for about, I guess I guess about eight years. 

Then a man by the name of Jimmy Strade and myself opened a little electrical engineering consulting firm and I starved to death. 

Jimmy figured it out early and went back to work for Robert Company and I guess after about five years I went to work for White Electrical and worked for White Electrical for about eighteen years. 

So you were surrounded by Georgia Tech people because Mr. 

Robert was from Georgia Tech and of course we know there were some White Electric connections to Georgia Tech too through Mr. DuBose. 

Well, both of those, because after I went to work for Eckhart Electric and all three of those are, you know, highly Georgia Tech people one way or another. 

So you never really got away from Georgia Tech, did you? 

Oh, no, no, no, no, no. 

Most, not all, but most of the engineers at the robbering company were Georgia Tech people from the top on down. Of course, Mr. 

Chip Roberts, of course, when I worked as a co-op, his dad was not active, but his dad, his dad, known as Captain Roberts, was still in the business. 

But Al Stanford, Cherry Emerson, you know, big Georgia Tech people. I don't know about some of the others, but I think almost all of them were Georgia Tech people. 

I don't know about Charlie I guess he was probably Georgia Tech too, I'm not sure, but mostly Georgia Tech people, yes. And you determined you were going to stay in Atlanta? 

Oh, yeah, yeah. I was due to buy it. Roaming around when you were in school. Right. Tell us about your family. Did you decide you had some children? 

We have a son, which is Edwin, Jr., who graduated from Tech in about 71, and he is now working for the Hardin Company as a project manager. 

We have a daughter, which we think now that she should have gone to Georgia Tech, but we never considered Georgia Tech when she was thinking about going to school. 

So she graduated from Valdosta State. And what's her name? 

Her name was Cheryl, and she's married to a University of Georgia graduate. Just to keep the family on its toes. And she lives in, basically lives in Cincinnati, Ohio, and he works for Procter & Gamble. 

Now, his father, his father was a Clemson person. 

So, you can imagine their kids being mixed up between Clemson and Georgia and Georgia Tech, but they live with it. 

Now, John's great grandfather on his daddy's side, lettered in football at Tech in 1918. 

So there's some Tech roots there. There's some Tech roots there also. 

He lettered one year, and his father died while he was at Tech, and he had to go home and take care of the farm. 

So he didn't get to finish up, huh? 

So he did not finish Tech. How many grandchildren do you have? 

Each, we have four grandchildren. 

Each, our son has a daughter and a son, and a daughter has it the other way around, a son and a daughter, of which they all seem to be doing, all four of them seem to be doing real well. 

A daughter here and a granddaughter here in Atlanta is at Marist and I guess this will be here third year. And their son is in the school out here, Dekevich County School, what they call it, special. Anyway, you got to have good grades to get in it. 

Now, the two kids in Cincinnati, they're both in the, they live in Milford. They're both in the Milford school system, and they seem to be doing real well. 

When you determined that you were going to stay put in Atlanta so that your children could be educated here, do you think you made the right decision? 

Has it been a happy time? 

Happy decision for you? 

I think so. 

Now, by the time my daughter graduated from high school, the city of high schools were beginning to deteriorate. 

Now, son got out about the right time in high school. 

So it's been a good experience. I think it's been a good experience. And then eventually you said you went to work for White Electrical. Right. And you stayed there a good long time. I'd say 18 years, I think. Uh-huh. And I spent about eight years with Eckhart Electric. Those were all good years. 

And you've kept in touch with your Georgia Tech friends? 

To some extent, our co-op experience, spring a year ago, was good, and between Rem and myself, we, Mrs. 

Rem Dubose, we figured we'd go to lunch, and we would invite, we invited every co-op that attended our meeting back the spring before. And we meet once every other month, and there'll be from six to ten of us. I think it's about fifteen that we send notices to, but there'll be some six to ten. We've never invited any of that group that live in a lot of areas that did not attend the thing. We probably should, but we just never have. 

Well, it keeps the spirit alive. You keep your Georgia Tech contacts alive, and you keep the spirit of Tech alive. It was a good experience for you to come to Georgia Tech, wasn't it? 

Oh, yes. Yes, it was a good experience. It's... Tried to talk our son out of going, but he was determined to... You tried to talk him out of it? 

I don't believe you. 

Well, we made him, he wanted to go in engineering, so we made him check in, you know, with Clemson and Auburn. 

Now, I guess he had a good experience also. He joined a fraternity. Johnny. 

So his experience was different than yours. Oh, yeah. Yeah. 

Now, Johnny was his big brother in fraternity, and he got elected to the student council his freshman year. 

But his grades, his grades sort of suffered, and he went from warning to probation to drops. And he was trying to convince his mother and myself that he was going to graduate from Georgia Tech. And how can you graduate from Georgia Tech when you've been dropped? 

But he worked it out. 

He changed from electrical engineering to engineering, what is it? 

Engineering systems, it used to be. ISYE, Industrial Systems Engineering. System Engineering, which is what he graduated in. 

Now, your tech degree is as good as gold to you, was it not? 

Oh, yes. 

You really wouldn't have changed anything, even if you could, huh? 

And my degree has a little tiny words, co-op. Which you're proud to see there. It was a good experience. You better get a magnifying glass to see it. 

But you know it's there. I know it's there. And you know it was a good experience. Right. Mr. Smith, we've enjoyed your story. Thank you for sharing it with us today.