Today’s Project 100 memory comes from Virginia McCullough Fish. She was born in 1947 at Hackensack Hospital in Bergen County, New Jersey.  She attended public schools in Bergen County.  Her family moved in February of her senior year in high school so the last four months of her senior year were spent at Ramapo Regional High School, and she graduated in June, 1965. 

Some of Virginia’s paternal ancestors came from Ireland and lived in poverty in Hell’s Kitchen in New York City.  Her grandfather had to leave school in the fourth grade to help support the family. By 1898, he was able to purchase a horse, wagon, a new suit to begin a business bringing dairy products from northern New Jersey farms to sell in Jersey City.  The family’s fortunes improved, and Virginia’s father was not only able to finish high school but earned a scholarship to Lehigh University.  Unfortunately, due to the Depression, Virginia’s grandfather would not allow his son to attend Lehigh and required him to work for the family business.  Virginia’s father was the oldest of 13 children, and Virginia’s grandfather could not spare him during this challenging economic time.  The business survived the Depression and grew remarkably during the 1940s.  By 1950, the business, still focused on transporting dairy products, had 150 tractor trailers with a half dozen depots from New England to the Mid-Atlantic.  Virginia’s father continued to work for this family business until selling the company in 1964.

Virginia’s mother was born in Nova Scotia, Canada.  Many men in her family line were seafarers (master mariners and sea captains).  Virginia’s maternal grandfather had to leave school and go to sea at the age of 14 in 1901 upon the death of his father, as he now had to help support his mother and his seven younger siblings (he, too, was the oldest of a large family).  He worked his way up in his profession, becoming a master mariner while moving from the last of the coastal sailing ships and into the era of merchant ships.  He worked for two shipping companies, both based in Liverpool, England.  Virginia’s grandfather married Virginia’s grandmother in 1916.  They eventually had three daughters together, with Virginia’s mother born first in 1920.  Not too long after her birth, in the early 1920s, the family relocated to Hasbrouck Heights, New Jersey. 

During World War II, the Germans sunk the ship upon which Virginia’s grandfather was master mariner not once, not twice, but three times.  Allied forces rescued Virginia’s grandfather and fellow crewmates the first two times, but the Germans captured his ship the third time.  After he surrendered to the Germans, believing that he had negotiated for the release of his crewmates on lifeboats, he had to watch as the Germans turned their guns on the lifeboats, killing all but two of the crewmen.   They survived and reached Recife, Brazil.  He spent the next three and a half years in a German prison camp, nearly dying as a result of starvation and exposure.  When a small child, Virginia remembers, that whenever she was not eating her dinner, her grandfather would tell the story of how he and his fellow prisoners snuck out at night and searched through the trash cans behind the German officer’s quarters for potato skins and carrot peels so that they could make soup.  After release from this prison, he rehabilitated in England with the help of two British women.  When he finally returned to New Jersey, now in his late 50s, he retired from the sea.  He kept in contact with the two women who nursed him back to health for the rest of his life.

Virginia’s mother graduated from Hasbrouck Heights High School in 1938 and worked for the next three years as a model for several dress houses in the garment district of New York.  Upon her marriage in 1941, she had to leave the work she loved and become a devoted wife and mother to five children.  She returned to work in retailing in the 1960s until her retirement in the 1980s. 

Virginia graduated from high school in 1965 and worked for a year in a large bank.  In August 1966, she was severely injured in an auto accident.  The injuries required two eight-hour brain surgeries. She was in a coma and on life support after the first brain surgery.  Eight months later, when she was strong enough, she underwent the second eight-hour surgery to put a plate in each side of her head.  It took a year and a half to recover during which time, Virginia did a lot of thinking and set goals for her life going forward, one of which was to obtain a college education. During her recovery, her family relocated to Ocean County, New Jersey. 

In the spring of 1968, she returned to full-time employment and began taking classes at night at Ocean County College.  During the years between 1968 and 1977, Virginia also managed to do some traveling; she attended a a summer semester at the University of Madrid in Spain in 1972 and, committed to a six-month volunteer work, study and travel program on a kibbutz in northern Israel during 1973-1974.  She made a six-week return trip to Israel in 1977 and spent a month in England and Scotland as well.

In January 1977, Virginia commenced full-time study at Glassboro State College as a non-traditional student while working part-time.  In April of 1979, Virginia presented a paper at the Phi Alpha Theta regional conference held on the campus of Glassboro State. The paper was entitled “Samuel Mickle of Woodbury:  Early Nineteenth Century Diarist.”  She graduated, with honors, in the Spring of 1979.

After working full-time for the next three years, she moved to New Hampshire in August 1982 to attend the University of New Hampshire (UNH) to pursue a Master’s degree in Colonial and Early American history.  The University of New Hampshire appealed to her because she wanted to be close to archival sources required for research on colonial era New England.  After the first semester as a full-time student, Virginia had to drop back to part-time study due to the high cost of living in New England.  She shifted to taking graduate classes at night and was able to obtain full-time employment in the Publications Office.  She obtained a second job working twenty hours a week in the evenings when she didn’t have classes and on some weekends.  She completed degree requirements in the Spring of 1988 and graduated.  During these years, she also met and married her husband, Stan.  Earlier he had been a teacher and a counselor; Stan worked for the University of New Hampshire for 26 years and became Dean of Admissions and Financial Aid.

During the years prior to Stan’s retirement, Virginia continued her employment at UNH and also completed all coursework for a Master’s in Education Counselor.  Upon Stan’s retirement and the selling of their house, they moved to Brunswick, Maine, in November 1994 to be near Stan’s aged parents.  Once relocated to Maine, neither Virginia nor Stan was ready to stop working so each pursued part-time jobs of a very different nature and enjoyed that very much.  In the autumn of 1997, Stan was diagnosed with Parkinson’s Disease.  Virginia decided to take a 12-week course to become a Certified Nursing Assistant (CNA) so that she could better care for Stan in the future and also her in-laws.  She was worked as a CNA, part-time, for three and a half years.  In 2003, Virginia and Stan fully retired. 

*****

I was not interested in going to college when I graduated high school.  Although I didn’t think so at the time, I was very immature.  After the car accident, my priorities changed quite a bit.  When I finished at Ocean County College, I didn’t consider any other institution that Glassboro State College.  I entered Glassboro State College as a history major because I had come to love the subject from a young age due the influence of both my parents. 

Several history professors stand out to me.  One of them was Sidney Kessler.  He was a very influential professor.  He taught Jewish history and the history of the Holocaust.  I remember finding the books that he assigned so compelling that I would read them through the night, often while crying over the terrible tragedy of it all.  He took us on interesting field trips to Philadelphia.  After graduation, he became a life-long friend and whenever he had the opportunity to be in New England, or I, in New Jersey, we would try to get together.  He was writing a series of short stories about his life and would often send them to me.  On the occasion of his 80^th birthday, Sid’s wife, Clair, compiled all of these stories into a wonderful booklet entitled, “Pages from My Life”:  Stories from the Memory of Sidney H. Kessler.  She sent copies to all of Sid’s family and friends who loved him and his wonderful stories.

Another professor whom I remember well was Mary Taney.  She was a specialist in Medieval history.  I took a class in her specialty, Medieval Europe, as well as another about the Ancient Mediterranean World with her.  She was such an engaging lecturer.  While she was clearly brilliant, she was also very humble and easy to converse with in class.  I related to her and felt an intellectual connection. In short, I greatly admired her, and I will always be profoundly grateful to have been her student.  I am forever grateful to her for introducing all of us students to the thinker Immanuel Velikovsky who studied medicine, science, philosophy, ancient history, law, archaelogy, astronomy, geology, languages, literature, and The Bible. He had fled Europe because of the rise of Nazis and became a colleague of Albert Einstein’s at Princeton. I read several of his books while at Glassboro and have, just recently, begun to reread them plus some other of his books I recently acquired.  The depth and breadth of his intellectual pursuits is staggering.  

I also remember Marie Wanek and a very demanding course that I took with her entitled “Modern India,” which, of course, included the Nehrus.  This was another area of history I had never delved into before, and it was intriguing.  I quite enjoyed that course.

I also took an Immigration class with Lee Kress.  It was an important and interesting class, as we are a nation of immigrants. Given my own background, of course, I found it very informative.  I remember several other faculty members such as Richard Porterfield and Robert Hewsen.  Another one that I remember for his infectious enthusiasm about the history of New Jersey was Robert Harper.  He had such a great sense of humor, and his classes were just so much fun.

It was an honor to be asked to deliver a paper at the Phi Alpha Theta regional conference in April 1979.  Samuel Mickle was an eighteenth-century gentleman farmer from New Jersey whose journal was in the Stewart Collection in the College Archives.  He was an engaging writer because he did not hesitate to write about his emotions which were woven through his day-to-day accounts of his life.  Because of his engaging style, working with his journal for months almost brought him back to life.  When his health deteriorated and he passed away, I actually wept. I had lost a friend.

I was only at Glassboro State for a year and a half.  It was a difficult time, personally, due to some family tragedies.  However, I only have good memories of the Department of History and its faculty.   The small classes were so beneficial and made for much closer interaction between faculty and students.  The small-town atmosphere of Glassboro was very appealing as well.  I haven’t been back since graduation, but I do imagine that it has changed a great deal. 

*****

This is part of the Department of History’s “Project 100,” the collection and sharing of one hundred memories by Glassboro State College and Rowan University alumni and staff in celebration of the 100^th anniversary of the founding of Glassboro Normal School, later Glassboro State College, and now Rowan University. 

Register for the Reunion on October 20^th:  alumni.rowan.edu/historyreunion2023.

Link to Project 100 on the Web:  https://chss.rowan.edu/departments/history/alumni_highlights/project_100/

Link to Facebook group:  https://www.facebook.com/groups/251485937221524. 

Thanks to Laurie Lahey for helping proofread and edit the final versions.  Email carrigan@rowan.edu with questions or corrections.