Hawaii, Here We Come!

After a year studying mathematics at Cornell and Albany and finishing both degrees, it seemed like a good time to evaluate where we might like to settle down and teach. After much discussion we decided to apply to teach at a school in Hawaii. The headmaster of the Iolani School interviewed me while I was at Cornell and offered me a position to teach mathematics and physics, and I accepted. We packed up the car and loaded in our son Jerry, age two, and took off on a 2-3 week cross country trip and vacation. We left our car with Cornell friends in San Francisco and then flew to Honolulu to teach in an Episcopalian private boys school, the Iolani School for boys. About a month later our car arrived by boat, and we settled in to live in our school apartment on the school grounds. The parents of these boys paid high tuition to have their sons in a college prep school, and most of the students graduated with college credit from taking advanced placement courses in high school. All the graduates attended college, and the teaching environment was wonderful. I never had one discipline problem in my years there.

It was like teaching in a dream vacation spot. In 1959, Hawaii became the 49th state to join the union, and we moved there five years later. We could go to the beach to watch the sun go down and barbeque something to eat on our small hibachi grill. We could swim at the school pool on weekends or go to the beaches for body surfing. Gradually, in our free time we explored Oahu and other islands as well. During our time there we had many friends and family visit, including my grandmother who flew there for her first time in an airplane. She loved it and had the time of her life.

After two years at Iolani I was accepted to study one summer at the University of Colorado and to participate in an Engineering Concepts Curriculum Project sponsored by the National Science Foundation. I always thought they picked me so that supervisors and developers of the program could visit Hawaii. After that summer I taught this new curriculum to Iolani seniors and graduate students at the University of Hawaii. This whetted my appetite for more graduate studies, and I applied and was accepted by the University of Arizona for doctoral studies in mathematics. So after a three year vacation in paradise and with the addition of two more boys to our growing family, we moved to Tucson, Arizona. The happy wanderer continues!