International House Berkeley

44 Reeve Gould1941-1943; 1946-1948 I first visited I-House as a teenager – I was up in Berkeley for a summer vacation with my mother and my aunt, and they took me to see the new I-House. I came to live in I-House in, I think, 1941. I was there for three semesters, and then I went into the Navy in WWII. I returned to I-House after I got out, to join the Golden Agers, in the fall of 1946, and was there for three more semesters. No, three semesters doesn't seem very long, but.... During the war, I was in the Pacific, attached first to Admiral Spruance's staff as a communications officer with the Pacific fleet, and then, about half the time, to the staff of Admiral Durgin, who was Commander of the escort carrier force. Yes, I did see battles. Once, another escort carrier was hit by a kamikaze pilot, caught fire and sank. Of course, we were lucky; we were never hit. When the war in the Pacific was over, I had the honor of going with Admiral Durgin to the signing of the Peace Treaty in Tokyo Bay.... Then I wanted to go back to Berkeley to get my Masters degree in Architecture, so, naturally, the choice was I-House; I wanted to live there again. The Director of Admissions, when I was first at I-House, was Lionel Rideout, who was a fellow San Diegan, and he and my parents were good friends. When he heard that I was planning to come back home, he had a catch-up party because he said I must meet Nancy Lawson [Gould]. Of course, my parents and grandparents had been good friends with Nancy's parents and grandparents, but she was five years younger, so I don't remember much of her until she had just graduated from Vassar, and was coming here. Yes, my wife was one of the Vassar Five: Nancy, Candy, Randy, Nan.... Nancy was Nancy Lawson, Randy was Helen Randolph, Nan was Nancy Nowell, Candy was Clair Tapley – she married my friend David Leaf. And then there was Betsy Williams. Of course, in those days there was plenty of social life. People used to joke about those who majored in Great Hall. I never really had time for much of that, as an architecture student. My first memories of I-House? I liked it – it was in the days when we all had private rooms, before the war, and I enjoyed my seventh floor room. How did the mix of foreign students change between my undergraduate and graduate days? Well, I had a great many Turkish friends in the pre-war years, and a few from South and Central America. After the war, not so many Turks, but a good preponderance of Latin American friends, and I think there are fewer of both in the current I-House.

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