Born To Be a Newspaper Man

by Martin J. McGowan Jr.

Notre Dame

There was not much planning done about where I would attend college. I knew I didn't want to attend the University of Minnesota. It was too large and impersonal and I had heard stories of how people-especially from small towns like Appleton-got lost on a campus of more than 40,000 students.

I obtained catalogs from some schools in the east but they were too far away and cost too much. I didn't think I would feel comfortable in that environment.

There was one school that had some appeal for me and my father seemed mildly interested. That was Notre Dame. It is a Catholic school and at that time had an enrollment of about 5,000 students and has held that number over the years. There were no ACT or SAT tests for admission in those days, nor was there any financial aid available either from the school or the government. It all came out of the pocket or available funds. It cost $960 per year for tuition, room, board, laundry and a school annual. This must have cost my father dearly since he somehow paid it all.

That did not seem to faze my father as we sat on the front steps of our house one day in August, 1938. My father knew of one person who had attended Notre Dame, Marty Coughlin, son of a distinguished editor in Waseca. Dad didn't think Marty had turned out very well as a newspaper man and this was no endorsement for me to attend there, but we finally agreed Notre Dame was the choice. Surprisingly, I was admitted at that late date in the year and within a month I was there.

Dad accompanied me to school on the train. We found our way to the dorm in which I would live-the cheapest one. Dad met the dorm prefect, Fr. Dupuis, said goodbye and was on his way back to Appleton.

My residence for that year was Freshman Hall, a long gray barracks building left over from World War I. My roommate was a fellow from Whitewater, Wis., Francis Conaty.

Three notable things happened to me during that school year in the dorm that was demolished the year after I left it. The first occurred one weekend when the football team was playing out of town. Some of us, just out of high school, still had some youthful exuberance. Just to let off steam somebody decided to pull out the fire hose off the wall mounting. Before anybody could turn on the water, Fr. Dupuis heard the commotion, came out in the hall and told the miscreants to put the hose back. He also levied a penalty of no Saturday night privileges for a week.

The system was that everybody was expected to roll out of bed to attend Mass every morning at 6:30. To gain permission to go to downtown South Bend on Saturday night, Freshmen had to attend six Masses a week. Upper clansmen need only attend five morning Masses for Saturday privileges. The other difference was that Freshmen had to return by 10 p. m. and sign in before that time. Upper clansmen could say out until 11 p. m.

The Prefect of Discipline was a big, husky priest who cruised South Bend in a black Ford looking for wayward Notre Dame students. Beer drinking was banned until age 21 under Indiana law at the time.

The story is told about the famous football player who returned a bit late one night in May and was booted out of school for violating the regulations. This is the same football player who felt confined in the small rooms in Freshman Hall. So he put on a football helmet and shoulder pads and charged through the flimsy fiber board walls to make a two-room unit. It is also worth noting that now kegger parties and hard liquor are available for parties on campus.

That fall, in October I believe, another notable event occurred while I lived in Freshman Hall. That was the radio presentation of "War of the Worlds" by Orson Wells. It was the realistic dramatization of a purported invasion by alien beings that scared all of America. These beings were supposed to have landed in New Jersey and the follow-up was so realistic, presented like news bulletins, that one didn't know if it was real or not. When I heard it on the radio on my desk after listening a while I went out in the hall to see if anybody else heard it and what they thought of it. We finally decided it was a dramatization and not real but it really shook us all.

The other event that year came in the spring. After I returned to campus after Easter vacation I developed a case of mumps, apparently hatched at home but carried to the campus. I was put in the Health Service and became quite ill, requiring a night nurse for about eight days. I was notable for being only the eighth case of mumps in school history.

Fortunately, my history professor assigned somebody to take notes for me in that class so I wouldn't get too far behind. I remember that professor as a former Presbyterian minister who turned Catholic and became a teacher.

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