How I ended up at UHA

I was sort of a lost wandering soul in high school. Our family was poor and my parents did not go to college – Mom never even graduated high school. Dad had joined the Air Force in 1943 and wound up a POW after his B17 was shot down during the Battle of Berlin. After coming home, he really never was able to get his act together. And Mom thought I should just find a man, get married, and let him take care of me.

I was interested in lots of things, but I didn't have a particular calling, and who was going to pay for college for me? So I was pretty aimless during high school.

One day during my last high school year, I was sitting in the library with a few friends, and a book fell to the floor beside me when someone shoved the book on the other side of the shelf too far.

I leaned down and picked up the book. It was a college catalog for the University of Hartford. I took the college catalog home, filled out the application and waited. If I was accepted and awarded enough financial aid, I would go to college. If not, who knew?

So at the end of August, 1968, I was on my way to Hartford in my "brand new" $200 salmony-rust-colored Rambler.