Many graduates of the World
War II generation had the same job throughout their lives; students today will
go on to change careers an estimated seven times. Those in the “Greatest
Generation” moved in with just a suitcase; millennials today need minivans and
U-Hauls for all their belongings. For their grandparents, a college education
was enough to break into the job market; today’s students amass an impressive
resume even before Commencement, with study abroad experiences, independent
research projects, and multiple internships. And what about the generation in
between? The one that had more options than their parents, but fewer than their
children? The one reported to be the first generation to contribute to two
college educations—their own and their children’s—and someday, maybe even their
grandchildren’s?
Hamline magazine
looked at three generations of Hamline students to explore these issues: Dick
Klaus ’50, his daughter, Kimberlee Klaus Self ’79, and his granddaughter,
College of Liberal Arts senior Natalie Self. Dick, Kimberlee, and Natalie give
us a glimpse into what it was like to be a part of their generation.
Dick
Klaus ‘50
“There was never any other school I was going to go to,” Dick said. “I never thought
about anything else.” After graduating high school in 1944, Dick entered the Naval
Air Corps as an aviation ordnance man. He trained in Norman, Oklahoma, and
Jacksonville and Miami, Florida. He was stationed in San Diego, waiting to ship
out, when the war ended. But he was sent to Okinawa, where he joined the VPB
(patrol bombing squadron) and served there until coming home in June 1946. He
entered Hamline that fall. Dick doesn’t remember anyone dropping him off at Hamline.
“I must have taken the bus,” he said. “Dad was in the Philippines, serving as a
missionary, and Mom was working in Northfield. Moving was very simple in those
days. You had one suitcase. If you were very fortunate, you had two suitcases.”
With veterans flooding back into
college that fall, Dick was housed with 120 men on double-decker bunks in the Old
Gym, “Just like in the service!” Dick said. There were no desks, only lockers
for their belongings. But Drew Hall was completed that winter, and the men
moved there for the spring semester.
Dick quickly settled into
Hamline, joining the basketball and track teams. “I was always interested in
athletics,” Dick said. “My parents wisely told me I could only do two sports.” Playing
basketball was a memorable experience for Dick, as the basketball team won the
conference championship every year, and in 1949, the national tournament. Dick
played with basketball legends Joe Hutton, Jr., Hal Haskins, and Vern
Mikkelsen.
“When the team went to Kansas
City for the national tournament, the school pretty much shut down. Kids piled into
cars and headed down with the team,” Dick said. Dick was active outside of
athletics, serving as president of Drew Hall his sophomore year, as the
co-chair of Big Brothers, and as a representative on student senate. It was in
student senate where he met Shirlie Mansergh. It was in September 1947.
“The senate was making final
plans for the Freshman Week Picnic in Kaposia Park in South Saint Paul,” Dick said.
“As we made plans for getting to the picnic, Shirlie and I ended up going in a
car with two other couples. It was crowded so she sat on my lap.”
The couple was engaged by
Valentine’s Day, and married on August 7, 1948 at Hamline United Methodist
Church. Dick recalled that there was at least one other couple married that
day, maybe two.
Since Dick went to Hamline on
the GI Bill, he graduated in 1950 without any loans. A psychology and physical
education major, Dick also earned a teaching certificate.
But the job market was as
flooded with young men as his first dorm in the Old Gym had been. He looked for
coaching and physical education jobs but there just weren’t any in the metro
area.
With no local teaching positions
available, Dick enrolled at the University of Minnesota in its master’s in
physical education program. But he found work later that winter at Douglas School
on the west side of Saint Paul. “I made $1,800 my first year,” Dick said. “When
I started my second year, they gave me credit for being a vet, so I earned
$2,400.” Later Dick moved to Longfellow, where he taught physical education and
science. During this time he completed his master’s degree program and also
earned a degree in elementary education from Macalester College.
It was in the North Saint
Paul/Maplewood/Oakdale district that Dick made his career. Suburban schools
were growing like crazy, and one year Richardson Elementary (then North) held
double sessions, with one group of students and teachers having class in the
mornings, and another group having classes in the afternoon.
Dick has fond memories of
teaching in the morning and then spending the afternoon with his two young
children, Kimberlee and Kendall, taking them sliding down the winter slopes.
When Harmony Elementary opened in 1962, Dick joined the school as principal,
then in 1967 the district opened Weaver Elementary, and Dick moved there as
principal. For the next twenty-one years, he worked as principal at Weaver and
also at district’s central office, ultimately retiring in 1987 as director of
instruction.
Kimberlee
Klaus Self ‘79
When it came time for Dick and Shirlie’s daughter, Kimberlee, to think about
college, the family didn’t look far. “We didn’t encourage her to look at other
schools,” Dick said. “I wasn’t sure that was a thing that parents did back then.”
“I also looked at Eau Claire,”
Kimberlee said. “But there wasn’t housing available there because I turned in
my housing card too late. It was a good choice to come to Hamline.” Although
Kimberlee followed in her parents’ and grandparents’ footsteps, she pursued her
own interests, making a name for herself on a campus where the Klaus name was already
well known.
Kimberlee’s passions were music
and religion, and she pursed them both in her extra-curricular
activities—playing bassoon in the band, singing in the A Cappella and the select
Motet Choir, and serving on the Chaplain’s Advisory Council—as well as in her
academic pursuits. “I planned on majoring in music education, but ended up with
music performance,” she said. “At that time the education field was
overcrowded. Professors encouraged me to think of other things.”
One highlight of her time at
Hamline was playing a piece for her senior organ recital that Professor Russell
Harris had composed for her. “He was a student when my mom was there,”
Kimberlee said. “It was nice to have people that I knew, but I also had to live
up to a standard.”
Kimberlee also pursued studying
abroad with fervor, going on January-term trips all four years. The first year she
went to England to study monumental brass rubbings. “The only reason I got to
go was that my family knew Walter Benjamin. They didn’t take freshman,”
Kimberlee said.
“We were dropped off alone in
the morning to do brass rubbings in the church, and then we were picked up at 5
p.m.,” Kimberlee said. Often the vicars would invite them into their homes for
lunch. In the evenings the students would share about their day with each
other. ““It was an opportunity to do a lot of soul searching,” Kimberlee said
of the long, solitary days. “It led me to think about seminary.”
Kimberlee returned to England
twice more, for a choir trip her sophomore year (where she and Professor George
Vane picked up a few more churches, adding to the brass rubbing collection),
and for a music interim with Professors Rees Allison and Carol Kelly her senior
year. She studied in Hawaii her junior year, “A really tough course, with class
until noon and rest of day on the beach,” Kimberlee said. Although she had an
amazing academic and extracurricular experience, Kimberlee has one regret about
her time at Hamline. “I would have liked to have lived on campus all four
years, not just two,” she said. “My mom hadn’t lived on campus, and she didn’t
think it was necessary.”
Kimberlee lived at home her
freshman and junior years, commuting in her parents’ hand-me-down ’65 Plymouth Fury,
and living in Manor House her sophomore and senior years, when she could afford
to pay for housing herself. Saturdays and summers doing drafting work for the
rebar division of Paper Calmenson & Co., a steel manufacturing company, and
working as a hostess at a restaurant helped pay for the luxury.
Kimberlee’s grandmother, Dollie,
had lived in Manor House herself as a student. “She really had hoped I could be
on campus, to break away and be on my own,” Kimberlee said. “But that was a
conversation between us. She knew when to stay in her own business.” Her
grandmother did give her $25 of “fun money” a month, saying that since Dick had
gone to school on the GI Bill, they hadn’t had to pay his tuition. Kimberlee’s
parents paid for her tuition, so she, too, graduated without loans.
Dorm essentials at that time
included a record player, lamp, curtains, and matching bedspreads. Kimberlee
purchased a black and white TV her senior year and accumulated a rocking chair,
so by the time she graduated she had enough belongings to warrant the
assistance of her brother and his small trailer.
By graduation, Kimberlee knew
she wanted to go to seminary to become a minister. She started that fall at
Garrett- Evangelical Theological Seminary in Evanston, Illinois. Besides other
Hamline graduates, she knew one familiar face in the strange city—her
boyfriend, Charles Self. High school classmates, they didn’t start dating until
their senior year of college. They both decided to go to graduate school, and
ended up finding programs in Chicago. “That wasn’t really the plan; we didn’t
sit down and say let’s follow each other, but the schools were in the same
place,” Kimberlee said. They married three years later, in 1982.
After three years for her
master’s of divinity, and an extra fourth year to earn a master’s of Christian
education, Kimberlee looked to serve in the United Methodist Church. “Women
were trying to break into the field at that time. The United Methodist
Conference in Illinois would not take me on as one of theirs because they had
too many pastors at the time,” Kimberlee said. “I got lost in the shuffle.”
Instead she got a position at the American Baptist Church in Evanston. She
served a United Methodist church after they moved to Indianapolis, and upon
moving to Chicago. When the couple decided to have a family, Kimberlee stayed
home to be with their daughters, Natalie and Melanie. She has remained active
with Girl Scouts and volunteer work at church, and officiates at special
occasions, such as weddings and funerals.
Natalie
Self ‘09
If Hamline was a given for Dick and his daughter, Kimberlee, for
daughter/granddaughter Natalie, Hamline didn’t even make the list.
“Hamline was never on my list,
mainly because I was too independent,” Natalie said. “I wanted to do something
different from the rest of my family.”
“Natalie had said, ‘I’m never
going to Hamline,’” Dick said. “We didn’t say anything.”
“My dad wanted me to look at
every possible permutation,” Natalie said. “My parents never really got
guidance.” Natalie looked at “naval academies, public schools, tiny private
schools…” from Pennsylvania to South Carolina, and west to Minnesota.
After touring Macalester on a
trip with her father (and hating it), Natalie realized she liked the area.
“There was something about the Twin Cities that I’d forgotten about… I
associated it with my grandparents being here, and looking at it not in that
context made me reevaluate it.” Although Natalie hadn’t looked much at Hamline,
she certainly was familiar with it. “I brought Natalie to Hamline when she was
in sixth grade,” Kimberlee said. “George Vane sat down with her and talked
about the brass rubbings. Dad also brought her to an admission event where
family members bring grandchildren.”
When Natalie told her mom about
the trip, Kimberlee encouraged her to just apply. It was only two weeks before the
scholarship deadline. Excited by Hamline’s social justice major and progressive
financial aid (Natalie earned a full tuition Presidential Scholarship), it was
the personal attention that “ultimately clinched it” for Natalie.
“My dad and I were totally
flabbergasted,” Kimberlee said. “It was more than we could have hoped for.” When
asked whether her mother and grandfather were excited, Natalie said, “I think
so…I think they tried to be nonchalant. More than anything, they were glad I’d
be close. They told me later that that entire first year they were on pins and
needles… would I like it?”
Dick and Kimberlee can let out a
sign of relief. “I couldn’t be happier with Hamline” said Natalie, now a senior.
If her grandfather was the
athlete and her mother the musician, Natalie has made her own mark on the
campus as a student leader and advocate for racial equality. Natalie’s
accomplishments and activities are too numerous to name in their entirety, but
here’s a sample: She’s served as an SOS (Students Orientating Students) leader,
a LEAD team member (helping organize student orientation), on the Student
Alumni Board, and as a tour guide and blog writer for Undergraduate Admission.
She has been active in Multicultural and International Student Affairs (MISA)
and Commitment to Community, was Homecoming Queen, and acted in the main stage
production, Never the Sinner. As a first-year she helped start WTF?! (Where’s
the Fun?!), a student organization that plans campus activities, “out of a
desire not to spend our weekends wasted,” Natalie said. Unlike her grandfather,
who moved in with a suitcase, it took the family’s minivan to move Natalie in,
and “Dad talks about renting a U-Haul” to move her out. On the top of Natalie’s
must-have list was a laptop computer, a printer, and a TV. She also has the
ubiquitous iPod, and more recently, a Blackberry. “But I don’t have a gaming
system!” Natalie added, confessing that she uses her boyfriend’s Wii on
occasion.
Although her social justice
major (with a concentration in Black American studies) was a natural choice,
the English major she added was surprise. “I’ve always hated English!” Natalie
said. After trying to get out of the required first-year writing course, Natalie
randomly chose Mike Reynolds’s class. “I walked out of that class an English
major. The approach was so different, not ‘Let’s read Huck Finn!’ but how
marginalized people use texts to express and work through that oppression,” she
said.
In a world where studying abroad
often means a semester or even a year in a foreign country, Natalie initially
replied in the negative when asked if she had studied abroad, but added as an
afterthought that she spent a January-term studying theatre in England. She
also went to Germany with the Presidential Scholars Colloquium, a two-week trip
that gave her the chance to experience a home stay and talk to professors
there.
In addition to an internship at
Jewish Community Action, where Natalie worked with the director of development on
grant writing and “catch-all development work,” Natalie also completed an
internship with the New York Regional Association of Grantmakers this past
summer. While learning about foundation work and trends in nonprofit funding,
Natalie, along with the group of 450 interns in her program, collected
donations from their paychecks to give grants to local organizations.
Conducting site visits to evaluate organizations, the group ultimately
distributed $75,000.
Despite Natalie’s two
internships, long list of activities and honors, and more personal references
than she could ever use, the job market still has her concerned for her future.
“On the one hand, I’m taking
extra precautions, and my classmates are, too,” Natalie. “We’re doing practice
interviews, picking up an extra internship or two, doing honor projects,
independent research, being a teaching assistant. People are considering
positions that don’t make as much money... they are more open to a low
paycheck.” “But we’re a lot less worried about it than our parents,” Natalie
said. “We grew up with Oklahoma City, Y2K, 9/11… we know how to handle fear and
scare tactics. We focus on what we’re doing now, here, and focus on things as
they come up.”
“There are so many options for
them, so much more than when I came out as a woman,” Kimberlee said. “We’ve
maybe gone overboard in showing her all of the options. I think it’s a
frightening time. There aren’t that many jobs. We tell Natalie, it doesn’t have
to be the perfect job because it won’t be the last job. Find a passion and go with
it. I felt I had to know what I was going to do with the rest of my life.”
Her grandfather also thinks more
is expected of students today. “Academically, when I look at what Kimberlee did
and what Natalie has to do, I think I’d never survive today,” Dick said. “So
much more is demanded. We had to write term papers, and I suppose we had pop
quizzes, but there wasn’t all the pressure. The pressure today is external. If
you don’t do this now, then you wouldn’t be able to do that later.”
Concerns aside, Natalie’s career
prospects are bright, and graduate school is “definitely” in her future. But
what about marriage? Her grandmother was already married at her age. “I imagine
in my grandpa’s time we’d be engaged by now,” Natalie said of her boyfriend of
three years, whom she met at orientation. “Who knows where we’ll be in nine months.
If things work out, they work out, if not, well, we’ll do our professional
thing. I want to develop a professional name before I get married.”
Does Natalie have any regrets
about choosing Hamline and following in the family’s legacy?
“I’m really glad I went here. I
love seeing my grandpa at alumni events. When he has a meeting on campus, he’ll
send me an email and come by and give me a hug.” “We’ve all found things that
we’re passionate about at Hamline,” Natalie said. “Family is so important to
us. I can’t decide if we appreciate Hamline because it brought us together, or
whether it’s special because it’s part of a connection that we’re all a part
of.”
The Klaus legacy at Hamline
began with brothers Walter Klaus ’34 and LeRoy Klaus ’25. LeRoy, who once served as an associate pastor at Hamline
United Methodist Church, married Emily (Dollie)
Mettam Klaus ’23 (below). Their son, Dick, represented
the second generation, and married Shirlie Mansergh
Klaus ’48.
Their daughter, Kimberlee Klaus Self, graduated in 1979. Natalie represents
the fourth generation; the question of whether her sister, Melanie, 13, will
join her is still undecided.
A
Tradition of Giving
The Klauses have been strong supporters of Hamline University, establishing a
number of important funds, several of which provide annual scholarship support
to students.
LeRoy Klaus and Emily
(Dollie) Mettam Klaus established the Klaus-Mettam Endowed Scholarship Fund,
which supports students committed to Christian ministry or other services to
the Christian Church.
Dick Klaus established the
Shirlie Mansergh Klaus Scholarship Fund, which supports an upper class student
with financial need, with preference given to students in music or education.
In addition to expanding the Klaus- Mettam scholarship and supporting a variety
of other funds and initiatives, Dick continues to serve as chair of the Alumni
Annual Fund and as a class agent.
To support the brass rubbings
work she contributed to as a student, Kimberlee Klaus Self has given funds to
make Hamline’s renowned brass rubbings collection available to researchers
online. To view this impressive collection, please visit
www.hamline.edu/brassrubbings. She has also supported a variety of other causes
and contributed to both the Klaus-Mettam Fund and Shirlie Mansergh Klaus
Scholarship Fund.
by Breanne Hanson Hegg