Then in the summer of 1920 the General Electric Company offered Clarence a position in the test group at their main laboratory at Schenectady, New York. A few months later he was assigned to the personal staff of one of the world's great scientists, Dr. Charles Steinmetz.
The years 1920-1926 were dynamic years, and Clarence rose fast at General Electric. He worked on theoretical research, adding to and extending basic theory in such fields as parallel generators, reciprocating compressors, etc.; he conducted altitude tests on electrical and gaseous phenomena for the AIEE; he had many papers published in the ASRE and ASME Journals; he added patents to company holdings and provided many "bright ideas" for collaborating companies, such as the simple suggestion that Eastman Kodak replace the hand crank on their prototype movie camera with a spring, thus laying the foundation for America's home movies (he was presented with one of the first production models and in the past 35 years has built quite a film library
Dr. Steinmetz also served as professor of electrophysics at Union College in Schenectady prior to his death in 1923, and had encouraged his staff to engage in advanced studies. Clarence gained his Master's Degree in Electrical Engineering from Union College in 1926.
Despite the meager salary of $90 per month, Clarence and Til got by somehow. Indeed, by the summer of 1924 they had saved enough to go home on a vacation, and while in Tacoma on July 18, 1924, Glen Malcolm was born.
On June 1, 1926 David Aaron was born at Schenectady (named after Dave McClanigan, Clarence's closest friend at General Electric.) Til never had felt well in the east and by now was so ill that she felt that she had to "go home" to a milder climate. Early in July Clarence obtained a transfer to the company's Portland, Oregon office. Two weeks after their arrival in Portland, Til died on July 29, 1926, at the age of 30. Just six weeks later baby David died at Tacoma on September 2, 1926 at the age of three months. [He couldn't hold food down.]
Kenneth and Glen were parked with Grandmother Cutler in Tacoma. Later that winter Clarence became engaged to Dorothy Smith, Til's best friend from Chewelah.
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Dorothy Alice Smith was
born at Chewelah, Washington on February 17, 1896, the daughter William and Alice (George)
Smith. Both William and Alice were Englishmen, William having been born in September, 1846 in Kent, and Alice on May 7, 1853 in London. William was a carriagemaker by trade, and as his craft became mechanized his hand skills were used less. Several of Alice's brothers had come to America and were working in farm machinery plant in Auburn, New York. In 1882 William brought his family to Auburn, where he worked for two years. Hearing of the opportunities on the frontier, William set out for the west, arriving in the western part of the Dakota Territory in 1884 (this is now South Dakota.) |
