Up From UO
By PEGGY OVERLAND
Those long months of steady
grinding under chemistry, physics,
zoology, and other pre-med assign
ments seem never to lead very far
except up to the “school on the
hill” where the grind is even worse.
But ultimately the few pull
through and someone like Dr.
Esther Pohl Lovejoy, M.D. '94,
gets written up in a column be
cause of the amazing career she
has managed to build out of or
dinary routine.
Dr. Lovejoy is one of the earliest
women graduates of the medical
school and also one of its most
distinguished alumni. Calm, white
haired, clear-eyed, she has per
haps one of the greatest collec
tions of international medals any
single person has ever possessed,
except perhaps for royalty and
they never receive them for meri
torious work. And Dr. Lovejoy’s
work has been of the most bril
liant.
After graduating from the med
ical school she began the practice
of medicine in Portland and con
tinued therein until the beginning
of World War I, except for ab
sences for post graduate work in
Chicago and Vienna. During her
practice in Portland she served as
a member of the Portland board of
health from 1905 to 1909, and as
head of the health department
from 1909 to 1912.
Perhaps at the present time,
such a career doesn’t appear very
startling, but Dr. Lovejoy had
electrified the world of the gay
’90’s when she decided even to
major in medicine, and then her
entry into regular executive posi
tions must have shocked conserva
tive Portland down to its finger
tips.
went i ross oervcu
When World War I broke out,
Dr. Love joy, like any modern
young girl, decided to help as much
as she could. In 1917 she served
with the American Red Cross in
France, and in 1918 was returned
to the United States to make a
tour of the country and tell the
people of the great need of the Red
Cross in Europe. During that time
she was asked to take active
charge of the American Women’s
Hospitals service, in which position
she has continued to the present
time. Since then she has held the
position of general director of the
organization with headquarters in
the Rockefeller Center in New
York.
Some of her other official ca
pacities include: fellow of the Am
erican Medical association; a
member of the Medical Women’s
National association, (president
1932-33); the Medical Women’s In
ternational association (president
1919-1924); and an honorary mem
ber of the Oregon State Medical
society and the Multnomah County
Medical society.
Owns Medals
The colorful part of her, how
ever, is her medal collection. A
strict listing of them would read
something as follows: Cross of the
Legion of Honor (France); Cross
of the Redeemer; Grand Cross oi
the Order of King George 1 and
War Cross (Greece); Cross of the
Holy Sepulcher (Jerusalem); Gold
Cross of Saint Save (Yugoslavia)
She is also author of "The House
of the Good Neighbor," 1919, and
“Certain Samaritans,” 1927-33. Tr
June of 1942, this amazing woman
received an honorary doctor oJ
laws degree from the University
of Oregon.
Hardly much more is needed tv
bo said concerning such an aston
ishing record of doing the unusual
To the few girls who daringly now
attempt majoring in pre-medicine
Dr. Lovejoy should certainly set a
superb example.
Oregon it Emerald
MARJORIE M. GOODWIN
EDITOR
ELIZABETH EDMUNDS
BUSINESS MANAGER
MARJORIE YOUNG
Managing Editor
GLORIA MALLOY
Advertising Manager
ANNE CRAVEN
News Editor
Norris Yates, Joanne Nichols
Associate Editors
Betty Lou Vogelpohl, Executive Secretary
Warren Miller, Army Editor
Bob Stiles, Sports Editor
Mary Jo Geiser, Staff Photographer
Carol Greening, Betty Ann Stevens
Co-Women’s Editors
Betty French Robertson, Chief Night Editor
Elizabeth Haugen, Assistant Managing Editor
Published daily during the oollege year except Sundays, Mondays, and holidays and
final examination periods by the Associated Students, University of Oregon.
Entered as second-class matter at the postoffice, Eugene, Oregon. _
'lUe AiAem&lif . . .
This afternoon’s all-ca’mpus assembly will be one of the
richest experiences students here have ever had. For today
they will hear Mrs. Lisa Lindbaek, Norwegian correspondent,
who has seen this war since its beginning and who has looked
upon its horror and drama and human tears and pain.
Mrs. Lindbaek has already spoken in public twice on this
campus. Once, to a meeting in the library browsing room, once
to the journalism editing class. On both occasions, her audi
ences came away thoughtful and inspired.
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Thoughtful, because when a person as vital and as exciting
as Mrs. Lindbaek recounts such experiences as front line report
ing in the Spanish civil war, and the burning of the German
Reichstag, which sealed the mold of a future war—the distant
sounds of bombs and children crying come very close.
Inspired, because they are witness to what she has accom
plished. Her career began quietly in Naples where she studied
archeology. But while things were happening she felt that
archeology was not for her, not until peace. From that time on,
until the fall of France, by accident and by calculation, she
followed the war. Her trek with the refugees on the roads of
France ended that phase of her work.
. * * * *
Now Mrs. Lindbaek, who was teaching her native language
to the foreign area and language students, is working in the
library and writing a new book. Her first book was the result
of her investigations of the Norwegian merchant marine which
probably saved the allied cause in the early part of the war.
Talking with the men who manned the ships, discovering
“where they were born, why they were fighting, what hap
pened when the torpedo hit,” she gathered the story of “One
Thousand Norwegian Ships.”
^
Although her talk to students today will be particularly
about Norway, and its present occupation by Germany, there
will probably creep into her observations the same revolt
against fascism which her friend Ernest Hemingway evidenced
in “For Whom the Bell Tolls.”
If we are still not a\Yare, or if we sometimes forget how war
came and how men died and still die—this little, blue-eyed
Norwegian woman is our reproach.—M.M.G.
Qlaii lost atfeoaHUHte/U . . .
Jn the rough and tough days of Captain Cook, as well as in
the scarcely less exciting days of the copra-inspired expansion
of the white man’s commerce with the South Seas, the posses
sion of a few baubles of glass jewelry often meant the differ
ence between "keeping one’s head” and quite literally losing
it. And in recent times, in fact right down to the outbreak
of our present war, the pilots of the gold-carrying planes fly
ing back and forth across New Guinea’s 13,000 foot Owen
Stanley range dreaded the necessity for a forced landing, be
cause it meant risking death by poisoned arrows, the spear, or
the kris. Five out of six men who attempted to cross New
Guinea or any of the larger Solomon islands by land left their
bones somewhere along those sweat-box trails. The sixth as
often as not came out alive because he had thought to lay in
a supply of trinkets and bright, glittering ornaments before
he set out.
On islands like Bougainville and Guadalcanal lived head
hunters so intractable amid such gloomly, impenetrable jungles
and unclimable mountains that when they lopped the skulls
of occasional wandering traders and shipwrecked sailors, even
the police of the Fiji high court, dreaded throughout the length
and breadth of British Oceania by the natives, dared not follow
to apprehend them. In those regions a shilling’s worth of cut
glass beads was often worth more to a man than his weight
in sol ill gold.
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Since the war has brought about large-scale penetration
of these wildernesses, sailors no longer need wear pistols in
JletteAA. to tko &<HUo>i
(Editor’s note* The writer of
this extract from a personal let
ter was formerly an ASTP student
at the University of Oregon who
is now in training at Camp Cooke,
California.)
This has been a busy day. This
morning we went through the in
filtration course; this is a game
tht is played for keeps, and the
object is to crawl over 100 yards
of simulated battlefield. You crouch
silently in the starting trench—
then the machine guns let go a
round of live ammunition. You,
watch the bullets spatter in the
dirt of the bank bthind you. Pret
ty darn low—so you keep your
head down. Of course they told
you it was perfectly safe if you
stayed down, but suppose . . . you
chew your last fingernails.
Then somewhere a whistle blows
and the order comes down the line
to go over the top. Well, this is it.
So you crawl out of the trench
like a four-legged snake, seeking
every little depression in the
ground. Somewhere upwind a
smoke shell explodes and the black,
billowy cloud rolls down on you.
There’s nothing to be afraid of,
they told you it was coming, but
it chokes you and blinds you.
Smoke sneaks into every nook and
cranny—some even crawls up your
helmet—until you can’t see two
feet in front of you. You continue
to crawl using the Braille system.
Mud Pitfall
Now, in the mist, you blunder
into a mud hole. You plunge
through, nose two inches above the
dirty water. You decide you don’t
like amphibious training. By now
the smoke has rolled over you and
you open the throttle. The in
creased effort makes you sweat all
the more and each damp spot picks
up dirt and adds more mud to your
already filthy body. The machine
gun bullets are chattering merrily
overhead but you don’t pay any
attention to them any more.
You have enough troubles on the
ground for you have just struck
the first barbed wire entangle
ments. Turning over so you can
hold the wire up you try a sort
of backstroke that wears you out
but doesn’t propel you very fast.
Now the sun is in your eyes and
the sweat runs down into your
mouth and eyes. You try to spit
but sand is all that comes out. You
have eaten your peck of dirt and
so you feel prepared to die. The
first half of your body goes under
the wire easily. This isn’t bad at
all.
Then you feel a snag, but plunge
on with redoubled effort. Instead
of breaking loose, the wire catches
in half a dozen new places and you
thrash desperately trying to un
tangle yourself.
Voice of Intelligence
Then out of somewhere comes
the voice of Major Averill, “You
AST men are all potentional offi
cer candidates. Your are the most
intelligent men in the army.” So
you stop struggling and try some
of this officer candidate intelli
gence. You remove the trouble^
some barbs and roll clear. Just as
you are complimenting yourself a
charge of dynamite goes off in
your ear. You had buried your
head in the dirt with the first ex
plosion and just lie there while
stones and debris shower down on
you sounding like a hailstorm on
your steel helmet. You remember
the two engineers from the next
battalion who didn’t duck in time
when the dynamite went off. They
are both blind. You saw them yes
terday with their barracks bags
all packed, an officer leading each
one by the hand.
Another barbed wire entangle
ment is negotiated easily. Your^el
bows and knees are taking an a^
ful beating and your breath sounds
like someone dying of bronchial
pneumonia. But you are on tiie
home stretch so you don’t mind.
After what seems like hours of
crawling you tumble into the final
trench.
Taking one look at the grimy
figure that arrives two seconds
later you wonder—do I look like
that — my own mother wouldn’t
recognize me. The new arrival
looks at you, half smiles, digs a
wad of mud out of his, spits, and
says, “Quite (censored) a course,
wasn’t it?”
Soon the guns stop and the or^ay
comes, to climb out of the trench
and load yourself into the waiting
GI trucks. You’re tired and sweaty
and filthy and aching but you’re
happy; the Battle of Camp Cooke
is over. This has been a busy day.
PFC. RALPH HOLZWARTH,
Armed Field Artillery,
Formerly, Co. C., U. O.
A branch of the women’s wing
has been organized on the Univer
sity of New Mexico campus with
classes in ground training for
women interested in joining the
WAFS or some other flight course.
The course will include classes in
areodynamics, radio code, aircraft
identification, physics, military or
ganization, calisthentics, and drill.
their belts when beating through Torres strait or Bikini pas
cage. But the natives are still there, and they still are in
trigued by glass jewelry and trinkets. Instead of refraining
them from taking heads, the donations of University students’
excess costume jewelry will induce them to build runways, dig
drainage ditches, unload ships—these and a hundred other
jobs, all of which will aid directly in winning the war. The
American soldiers and sailors in .the South Seas have plenty
to do in the way of drill, fighting, and camp detail without
being forced in addition to take on these incidental, but vitally
necessary tasks. Furthermore the sun is intensely hot, the
humidity very high, and the malarial mosquitoes cver-preseufe
Hardy as the Americans are, they would wilf in droves were
they forced to perform many of the duties which the acclimat
ized natives carry on with the greatest of ease.
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Xor are we cheating these erstwhile headhunters by induc
ing them to work for baubles measured out by the dime’s worth.
Were our men not sweating and suffering and dying in those
islands, the Jap would now be there. Ask of the Filipino it
he prefers life under the Rising Sun to that under the Stars
and Stripes. Ask-the harassed Malay whether he prefers the
white man’s rule to that of the yellow man. Ask the overworked
Annamese or the freedom-loving Dyak. And when you have
received your answers ask of yourself how you enjoyed labor-i
ing last summer in your victory garden when the sun shiim
mered like a ball of molten copper in a glassy sky. Then thiim>
of the tasks our boys are NOT doing because of the jewelry
you donated, and make up your mind forthwith to give even
more.—X.Y.