Remembering Merle L Borrowman
I was recently going through some old photos and came across this one 
of my Uncle Merle and my son Chris playing chess. It must have been about 1986 at a family reunion in Pocatello, Idaho the home of Merle's brother Reed. This was the next to the last time I saw Merle he died in 1993. Seeing the photograph I started wondering what my cousins on that side of the family have been up to maybe some were blogging. Well if they are I didn't find them, but I did find this memoriam about Merle. I didn't see Merle to much when I was growing up he was Columbia in the Fifties University of Wisconsin Madison in the Sixties and Dean of the school of Education at Berkeley in the Seventies I remember one family get together when he was telling us about the Anthropologist Margaret Mead. They were at Columbia at the same time. Apparently a group of young students and professors were meeting with Professor Mead at a get acquainted gathering. After they had talked for sometime she said let me tell you a little about each of you, and proceeded to go around the circle nailing it for each one based on their speech patterns and other clues they had revealed during the conversation telling them where they were born where their parents were from and how she knew. Merle thought it quite remarkable. I also remember him talking about the demonstrations at the University of Wisconsin at the beginning of the war in Vietnam. I was a little bit slower realizing what a travesty that war was but by 1968 it was obvious to any thinking person what a terrible mistake we were making. That was the beginning for me and I suspect a lot of other baby boomers of a transition from a conservative middle of the road point of view to a much more radical outlook. Values that we had held as teens being called to question. The reason so many of us are so cynical about the current administration the patterns the statements are starting to sound and look a lot like they did in the Sixties and Seventies. A few years later Merle said to me at a family gathering, speaking of my political evolution, well it took you a little time, but I never had any doubt where you'd finally end up.
update: Here is a link to a scan of the front page of the program from the speaking engagement Debra mentioned. Thanks Debra
Comments
sounds like you were fortunate to have shared time with him :)
Wow, he seems to have been a very, very cool guy and quite an intellect.
Norm,Uncle Merle also has a conference room named for him at the University of Wisconsin in Madison. I haven't personally checked it out, but I'm told it is authentic. David P.
I saw him speak at SIU-C. I was drawn because my last name was Borrowman, not a common name here, he was the exact physical image of my grandfather........unfortunately, I was too sick at the time to speak with him. An inspiring speaker!
Merle and I were close friends in the U.S.Marine Corps having met in May 1944 at Communication Officer School in Quantico. We shipped out to Guam in late '44 as replacement officers in the 3rd Marine Division. In February 1945 we landed together in the invasion of Iwo Jima in charge of infantry replacements. We survived and were together on Guam. After the Japanese surrender he was able to get back to the U.S. before me since he had a wife and a child, Steve, who was born May,'45. We corresponded sporadically post-warfor a few years because he was in grad school working on his Doctorate, and I was in Med school in Denver Our last contact was 1953 when he called from Az State Univ where he was in a seminar, and I was practicing nedicine in Phoenix. This belated entry is because I was reminiscing with friends and suddenly wondered if there was anything on Google re Merle,and was delighted to find multiple links. We had a third friend overseas, another communications officer, Eugene T., also a close friend of Merle's and mine, who published a book, "A Chance for Love" Michigan State Univ, Press 1998, a compilation of letters written to and from his future wife which contains many references to exploits concerning Merle and the two of us. I am so impressed to read about Merle's great accomplishments. Thomas A. Edwards
in the last paragraph above I omitted the last name of the author which is Eugene T. Petersen. Thomas A. Edwards