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30 Mary Ann "Quack" (Quackenbush) Fisher 1947-1949 W hat were my first impressions of the I-House? I don't think I had ever known that many people from other places. I had spent a summer in Mexico – so I knew a little bit about that – but I hadn't been to Europe, and I hadn't really met very many people from other countries as an undergraduate. So when I got to I-House, my reaction was: "Oh, she's from…!", or "He is a…?" But also it was such an interesting time because it was right after the war, and it was one of the first years that students from other countries were able to come. There was a backlog of people from the war years, some of whom had had horrible experiences, many of whom had had fascinating experiences. It was, by and large, an older group because many of them, including Americans, had been in the Service. So they were grown ups, and that was pretty exciting! I was twenty that summer of 1947. I had graduated in June, and I turned twenty-one in the fall. There are lots of stories from that time. There were really interesting people – some of whom were stateless. Vic Shick, for example, and Peter Komor; they came here from Shanghai. There were some other Russians from Shanghai who came through Argentina on their way to the US – that kind of migration – and they also were stateless. I had never heard of anyone being stateless before. Then there were those who were in the armed services in other countries. There were a couple of Australian flyers – Monty Yudelman was one – and there was also a woman named Nettie Konopka, "the Polish Countess." She was from Poland and had a little girl, who was maybe seven or eight years old. Nettie lived in the House, and the little girl lived with somebody in the neighborhood, and Nettie saw her every day; the little girl was often at the House to have meals with her mother. What I remember was one time, when Nettie was talking with Monty Yudelman and some of the other Australians, it turned out that Nettie had encountered an Australian flier in Poland, and the Australian flier had known Monty. Apparently, the two men had flown together. Nettie told Monty: "You know, your friend's plane was shot down, and he parachuted out, and we took him in, hid him, and helped him to get out." And Monty said, casually, "Yes, my friend mentioned that." Such extraordinary encounters at I-House! Many of the Americans had been in the war. There were a number who had been in the Navy, and did V-12 stints living in I-House. V-12 was a Navy program in that sent their servicemen to school while they were in the Navy. So I-House was turned into barracks. The V-12 lived there, had drill on the front steps every morning, and then they went off to class. They were in all different kinds of classes — I think sciences mainly — and then, when they finished that program, they went back into the Service. Al Garren was one of those; also Bob Vaught — he was a mathematician; and Jack Miller.

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