Grubb Family Tree

Nana Sil says:

My father, Colonel Herman Work, went to France as a First Lieutenant with the United States army Enginerers, in 1917, to help win the World War. He worked to build bridges and railways, and houses for soldiers to live in. He came home in 1919. Again there was a war, World War II, and again in 1942 Herman went to Europe--first to London to plan the invasion into France, and also he was in Paris after the invasion in 1944. He came home in January 1946 and retired from the army as a Colonel.

From (1996) "Volunteer Moments: Vignettes of the History of the University of Tennessee, 1794-1994," edited by Milton M. Klein

The Good O1' Days: Another Glimpse

Historian's Note:
Herman Work, a Knoxville resident and graduate of Knoxville High School, entered UT in 1905 and enrolled in the agricultural science curriculum. He remained until 1908 and did not receive a degree. In 1962, at the age of 74, he wrote down his recollections of his college days and presented them to a civic club in Staunton, Virginia, where he was then living. Several years later, he sent an expanded version of his remarks to the University Historian who, in turn, sent it to the Public Relations Office for possible inclusion in the Alumnus. The paper was not published, and it recently was rediscovered in the office of the present University Historian. Excerpts of it are offered here as a personal memoir of one who enjoyed the campus almost a century ago. Mr. Work died in De Land, Florida, in December 1986, at the age of 98.

THE UNIVERSITY

In the Fall of 1905, the University had been growing and there were about 450 students on the Hill at Knoxville-30 or 35 of them co-eds. There were about 25 members of the faculty, and a smaller number of helpers. As a Freshman (or "Fish") I "knew" practically everyone on the campus, at least by sight, from President Brown Ayres to Old John who speared trash papers on the campus early each morning ....

THE HILL

The Hill, once called Barbara Hill, ... was circled by a broad road leading from the western side, around the crest and on down to the main gate. Most of the top had been graded to a golden clay subsoil for a small parade ground, with sand and gravel added. Presumably the grading provided clay for the bricks used in the early buildings.

On a high bank to one side of the parade ground stood Old College, a brick box about 60 feet square, with a pointed roof and Mr. Wren's cupola, dating back to 1826. In 1905 this antique box housed the Law School and had classrooms also for the ancient and modern languages.

To one side was West College, a three-story dormitory whose eaves were about level with those of Old College. The ground floor had an armory to hold the rifles (Springfield 1869, probably, nearly five feet long) and cartridge belts of the cadet corps. There was also a room with a shower bath, toilet and a sink at which one could fill his water bucket or pitcher for use in his room upstairs. The splintery pine floors were nicely drenched with discarded engine oil as was the custom of the time in public buildings.

Some of the dormitory rooms on the second and third floors had small grates for coal fires .... The fortunate inmates could buy a card from the registrar with places in the margin for the janitor to punch for 12 bushels of coal, or perhaps it was 15. A card cost $1.00 and room rent was $5.00 a term, per person, or $15.00 for the session. Cadet uniforms of hard blue-gray cloth, made at Charlottesville, cost $18.00 new, and were good for a long time often on several backs. One estimate of the living cost of a student for a year was $193.00.

Used furniture of varied but tasteful design and quality was usually available from former occupants at nominal prices. There was a table for two, a double bed, a couple or three plain straight chairs, a washstand with bowl, pitcher and bucket. Clothes could be hung from nails in the walls. A single electric globe hung from the ceiling, innocent of any feminine frills. If anything had ever been painted, it was no longer visible on the dried and cracked surfac
es. But many-paned windows, with the putty long since dried out or fallen away, looked out on the north side over a gentle slope of grass with large old trees as in a well-kept park .... The janitor swept out the halls once in a while, not often. Otherwise, housekeeping was by the roomers. Boarding could be had at a commons in the ground floor of the Phi Gamma Delta house on the lower campus for $3.00 a week. Many of us walked a mile into the center of town to eat with Mrs. Robinson on Walnut Street. She provided nourishment for some genteel people of the town also for $2.50 a week. Potatoes, cabbage, whole hominy, turnip greens with meat stew, hash, boiled beans, bread pudding and sometimes a pot roast, provided calories.

On the other side of Old College was East College, a twin of West, but holding more students because there was no armory there. Their superiority in numbers entitled East College to raid their weaker neighbor. The word, about 1:00 a.m., was "Let's stack West College tonight," which meant that they hoped to upset the beds and their contents, piling everything else on top in a glorious confusion, escaping before their victims came awake. West was then put to the trouble of retaliating after things quieted down for a few days.

STUDENT LIFE

There were no house committees, no supervision from anyone. Each man did what was right in his own eyes. The students, with practically no discipline except in classes and the drills of the cadet corps, were orderly most of the time. There were occasional matters between the Sophomores and the "Fish" of only passing notice, including a proverbial cane-rush that really involved only a few champions and seemed to have little pattern ....

Undoubtedly, there was some liquor on the Hill, at times and places. If there was ever any liquor in East or West College, it escaped my eye and nose. Few of the students there had any money for frivolities and most of them must have been conscious of sacrifices made for them by their families. So far as my memory goes, there were no saloons in town except in the disreputable Central Avenue area on First Creek, across the city. Such ignorance may have been true of 90 percent of the students of that day. Certainly there was much "blockading" or illicit stilling not too far away and the papers often told of raids by the revenuers, but not on the Hill. ...

OTHER BUILDINGS

On one side of the parade ground or quadrangle was South College, three stories of old brick with two entrances off the parade ground and classrooms extending across the building, with windows at each end. The rooms were shallow in depth and nearly as free of paint as the old dormitories. Heavy oak chairs had a sort of writing table on the right arm .... At one end of South College was a small book store and post office.

Science Hall, housing the administration offices, including the billing and collecting agency, was on a steep hillside facing the front of Old College. Completed in 1892, it was of pressed brick and adorned by a short tower and a wide brick arch over the entrance .... The style of architecture was that of sets of toy building blocks for sale in those days to the more prominent families. They were made in Germany of red and yellow tile. They featured rounded arches and pointed towers .... Staunton and most progressive cities of the late 1800s have samples of that architecture. Science Hall had classrooms and laboratories for chemistry and physics. The Library was at one end of the building; the Chapel at the other.

The YMCA was on a steep slope on the same level with Science Hall, but facing South College, completing a rather open and informal quadrangle. The YMCA had a small swimming pool, lately added with much enthusiastic support. Jasper Ring, Wash Dougherty, Frank Beene, J.e. Loucks, Bernie Martin, and others used to frolic in the little tank, in a drowning game, in which all would gang up on one until he was water­logged. This seemed a jolly game and I used to admire their restraint in only half­drowning the skinny kid who wanted to play with the big fellows ....

On a lower level was Morrill Hall, the Ag. Building, two stories of brick covered generally with ivy. This was also the Agricultural Experiment Station for the state. The President's house stood nearby. Barbara Blount Hall, housing the Home Economics Department and all the resident girls, stood on the same level. It derived its name from one of the first girl students .... And the three oldest buildings on the Hill have given way to Ayres Hall, a great stone pile of imposing architecture, crowning the Hill. On a lower level than Morrill Hall and Barbara Blount, stood Estabrook, home of the Engineers, a strictly util
itarian design of brick ....

CHAPEL

The students saw much of Dr. Ayres at Chapel at 9:00 a.m. daily except Saturdays and Sundays. The service consisted of a hymn or two, responsive reading and prayers followed by announcements and often a short talk by a faculty member or visiting celebrity. One of these was a slight Japanese who delighted us by telling of the great curiosity of his race. Another celebrity was the Secretary of Agriculture or perhaps an Assistant Secretary. Showing the simplicity of the time, it fell on me as a freshman or sophomore to conduct this dignitary to the University Farm, a mile or two west of town on Kingston Pike. A five-cent street car took us to the end of the line at Third Creek, where he was met by a buggy from the Farm ....

LITERARY SOCIETIES

The Chapel, seating perhaps 500 people comfortably, was the scene of the annual literary contest between the Chi Delta and the Philomathesian Literary Societies. Most of the men of broad ambitions belonged to one or another of the societies, with Law and Arts people most prominent. They met at night each week on the third floor of South College for programs of recitations, essays, orations and debates. Each member was on the program at some time during the year. Some told of Pizarro-"What shall we do when hope is gone?" "Go on, and on, and on." Another recitation was about the young knight who "Threw his glove, but not with love, right in the lady's face .... "

Faculty advisers to the literary clubs, if any, kept in the background. The students governed themselves by their own constitutions and by-laws, led to a considerable degree by senior Law students. Everything pointed toward the annual contest between the two clubs, attended by many townspeople and parents. Another annual occasion was the Glee Club recital. So the chapel was a school of manners as well as a strong unifying force.

FOOTBALL

Small, slight, erect, cheerful [Dr. Charles E.] Wait [Professor of Chemistry] was the moving spirit behind University athletics, with the emphasis on football. Years later, the first stadium bore his name.

From the sidelines I had seen since maybe 1903 quite a few games at the old baseball "park" north of the Southern Railway and south of Asylum Avenue, said to have been the site of a market for receiving and shipping horses and mules. The ground was mostly bare and could be hard. There were no bleachers for football games. A heavy wire, stretched at breast height along each side of the field, kept the spectators and the players apart ordinarily. The spectators could surge back and forth, following the ball. Sometimes a canvas was stretched along the board fence to encourage knothole peepers to buy tickets at 50 or 75 cents. On rainy days, the mud was deep and sticky ....

Carson and Newman, Tusculum, Emory and Henry were likely to suffer defeat. Maryville had a fair chance to prevail, as did Clemson, Wofford and others. Sewanee, Georgia, Georgia Tech, Alabama, and mighty Vanderbilt (with Dan McGugin's bruisers) were usually too much for the Volunteers.

Until 1907, mostly with Ivy college coaches, the Volunteers had learned something about sportsmanship, but little about winning games over the hard teams. After a discouraging season in 1906, someone (Charlie Wait, chiefly?) brought in a new coach, George Levene of the famous Penn team a year or two earlier. At an early practice in 1907, Levene got his squad around him for a little talk. He wasn't big, perhaps 5'10", but very deep in the chest and solid, also quiet. He said something reported like this, "Gentlemen, I gather that Tennessee teams have been expected to make a gallant stand against such teams as Georgia Tech, Alabama, and Vanderbilt, but to go down with colors flying over the wreck. We're going to change that this year. We are going to play to win, not to be gallant losers." They did just that. Alabama was the only victor over the Volunteers, 5-0.

Levene had a new formation to replace the well-known T, and a good lot of plays, some of them "ne
w." The formation put the halfbacks in tandem on the right or on the left of the fullback. The front man was near the line so that he could take the ball and plunge through a hole before anyone woke up. The rear man could slash through, inside or outside the opposite tackle. The whole backfield could sweep either end or the fullback could drive through the line, or an end could sweep the opposite side. Perhaps the strongest clutch play was the guard-around, supposed to have originated at Pennsylvania. A tall left guard whirled, took a giant stride to the rear where he was turned around by the backs and fired like a cannon ball into the slot between the center and right guard, carrying the ball that had been pounded into his belly as he shot past the quarterback. Five yards were required to make the down, and there were no forward passes.

All these plays required the most exact timing, precise movement and accurate placing of the ball. There was no "huddle"-the signals were called during the line-up. In those days there was no corps of specialists (researchers) in the high grandstands, studying the characteristics of every opposing player, noting faults, but a player like G.B. Cottrell, a freshman in 19
07 and a country boy of flaming spirit, who had, it was said, never seen a football, played roving center (now the "Monster") just back of the defensive front line. He had a quick sense of tactics, could spot an erring foot, and took steps of his own that ruined many a play before it reached the line. The quick kick was a useful surprise play that could upset the balance of an opponent when the Volunteer ends were fast and lucky ....

Along with everyone else, I swelled with pride at the record being made, and remarked to a member of the squad that it was a pity such a team could not go on, beyond the schedule, to vanquish even more celebrated opponents. The big, good-natured line­man (Cody?) said, "If you had to get up for hard games, week after week, you might not want to add to the schedule .... " Still a good statement. ...

From Work Family History:
Herman Work, one of the nation's pioneers in the field of industrial forestry, studied agriculture at the Univ. of Tenn.; graduated from Penn St. College with a Bachelor's in Forestry in 1910.; received his Master's there in 1913. He served with the US Forest Service in Idaho, Utah, Wyoming and Nevada 1910-1917; entered the First Reserve Officer's Training Camp at the Presidio of San Francisco and was soon assigned to the 10th Engineers (Forestry) Regt. then being formed for immediate service in France. Again in WWII, he was ordered to active duty as a Lt. Col. with the 333rd Engineers Special Service Regt. which he helped train and moved to Europe in 1943. Later he headed the planning office of the Engineer Troop section in London and France. In 1946 he was released from active duty with the commission of Colonel in the reserve. Other than his military career, Mr. Work served his entire professional career with the West Virginia Pulp and Paper Co. and hcih he joined in 1919. He has had a hand in solving wood problems at all of the company's six mills, primarily stationed in Tyrone, Pa. Since 1946, until retirement in 1953, he has been head of the Company's Resource Survey work at Staunton, Va. which has explored timber possiblities throughout this country and in Brazil. He is active in the Society of American Foresters and the American Pulpwood Assn.

Los Gatos, Cal
Spring 1977

Herman Work was born August 18, 1888, at McCoysville, Pennsylvania, in Juniata County. He was the son of the Rev. Jeremiah B. Work and his wife, the former Mary McClure Watts, of Clearfield County. Mr. Work spent his younger years in Pennsylvania, Virginia and Tennessee. After graduating from Knoxville High School in 1905, he studied agriculture at the University of Tennessee and became interested in the subject of forestry which, at that time, was little known in the Western Hermisphere. Some of his forbears were timber people and he had grown up with a great deal of exposure to the woods. He graduated from Penn State in 1910 with a degree in forestry, and later, while working in the West, earned a Masters degree in [absence]. In 1910 he was appointed to a technical position with the United States Forest Service headquartered in Ogden, Utah, and worked in Idaho, Wyoming, Utah and Nevada on surveys, mapping, and the sale of timber. In 1916, he was appointed Deputy Supervisor of the Caribou National Forest in Idaho.

Following the declaration of war against Germany in 1917, he volunteered for Reserve Officers Training at the Presidio at San Francisco, where he was assigned to an Infantry Company, and a short time later to a field Battery. In July, when offered a commission as First Lieutenant in the Engineers Corps, he reported to the 10th Engineers Regiment which was assembled near Washington, D.C. The Regiment sailed September 6th to Glasgow, and then proceeded to central France where companies were dispatched to the heavily timbered area. After three or four months operaing on the Swiss border, LF. Work was made Regimental Supply Officer and promoted to Captain. As the Forestry branch of the Army Department of Construction and Forestry grew to 16,000 Engineer troops and approximately the same number cutting firewood for the Army cookstoves, 85 sawmills were in operation. Capt. Work was detailed to estimate the amount of timber and fuel needed for the Army of Occupation and where such supplies were available, and to estimate the damge to the French timber resources of the Argonne Forest. In 1919, after assisting in closing the timber operations of the A.E.F., he received his discharge from the Army, having served almost two years in the A.E.F.

After discharge from the Army, he was employed by West Virginia Pulp and Paper Company of Tyrone, Pa. for ten years. During this time, he traveled extensively in the western United States and Canada, arranging wood supply for their four mills, especially the one at Covington, Virginia. It was during this period that many forestry practices were introduced and accepted in Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia and West Virginia.

In World War II, he served as Lt. Colonel in the Army Engineer Corps, most of this time in Europe on discharge from active duty he was promoted to Colonel in the Army Reserve where he served until retirement in 1948. He was the recipient of numerous awards, including a Commendation from General Pershing.

Col. Work's wife, Clare Zeliff Work, died November 23, 1974, at Staunton, Virginia, where the family had resided for 28 years. Mrs. Work had been President of the Beverly Manor Garden Club and Regent of the Beverly Manoro Chapter of the D.A.R. The couple had been married 53 years and were the parents of Silvia Grubb of Los Gatos, California and James Work of Houston, Texas. They had eight grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.

Col. Work was a member and former vestryman of Trinity Episcopal Church of Staunton, Va, Rotary Club, [Farm] Club, Virginia Forestry Association, Society of American Foresters, Charter Member and Fellow Society of American Military Engineers, Life member, Reserve Officers [...] Alumni Association of Penn State University and Universiity of Tennessee, American Legion, and Veterans of Foreign Wars. During the past several years, he has resided at the Florida lutheran Retirement Center at DeLand, Florida. He was _____ years old.

Honorary Pallbearers
Col. Ray F. Lynd
Maj. Gen. Walton [...]
Lt. Col. Joseph [Shingaugh]
Hugh Castle

Active Pallbearers
Requests younger members of the Rotary Club

Note: This was dictated by Herman Work, in Los Gatos, CA, as his obituary, in the spring of 1977. He was nearly totally blind by then. -GCG Jr 1/25/00