International House Berkeley

74 Joan Rush 1946 – 1949 I came to I-House right after I was mustered out of the Waves in June of 1946. I was in the old house, which was on the corner of Piedmont and Channing, until the Big House opened – I believe in the fall of 1946. I actually found out about I-House when I was in the Service, in North Island, San Diego. I was talking to my Commander, who had been an I-Houser at Berkeley, and I said, "I don't want to go back to UCLA," and he said, "Why don't you just go to Berkeley?" and I said, "How am I going to do that when I'm down here in San Diego right now?" And he said, "Just go over and get a little plane, an airplane, and pop in with the pilot, and he'll take you up to Alameda, and you can go right over to I-House and sign up." And that's exactly what I did. It took me only one afternoon. Miss Sanford was there, and she took care of it. I went in in my Waves' uniform, and I said, "Do you have room?" And she said, "Well, you're a veteran? You're in." It was as simple as that. So when I came up, I thought I was going into the Big House, but they put me in the old house, and they said, "This is until you go to I-House." The first thing that happened when I arrived at the old I-House and came up the steps was that two Latinos came out, Fernando Walker and Rafael Cordeiro – one was from Chile and the other was from Guatemala. They said, "Hey, do you want to play tennis?" And I said, "Well, yes, but I have to unpack first." "We'll wait for you," they said. That was the friendly international greeting I got. That afternoon, I played tennis with two Latinos. It was just wonderful to be greeted that way – something different. There were many people from South and Central America, among them Rafael Rodriguez from Costa Rica, the singer and botanist. I wasn't one of the wonderful, wonderful singers who sang with the singing group, but I knew they were singing at the bottom of the stairs that comes down from the Blaisdell room. We'd meet there almost every night and sit on the stairs, and down below they'd sing. I just joined in, and they never said, "You can't join in." The singing group was mostly men – Bob Brewer, Bob Hacker, Elliott Castello, Doug Powell, Joe Connell – The Jahdrools – and Rafael Rodriguez were some of the main ones, but there were some women. Nanny was always there, with her guitar. Nan had a beautiful voice and she knew every single line – Bob Brewer was sweet on Nanny, that's for sure. And Peggy [Post] Grunland used to come by. We all became very good friends and went camping and skiing together after we graduated and had children. We are still good friends. Who else played instruments? Elliott Castello played a guitar. And Galen Fisher. He wasn't in the House, but he used to come and sing and play the guitar. But most of it was a capella. There was also Vince Peterson, physics major, who played a guitar; he wasn't really a member of the little group, but he came and played with these people once in awhile. There was also a Latino singing group, and it was mostly Latino songs, and there were two or three guitarist in that. Julio Wong, Vince Peterson and Octavio Sosa. I have pictures of their playing.

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