From the Farm to Pioneering with Digital Control Computers: An Autobiography

was seven years old and destined to become a farmer when my father died. His death initiated the first major change in the direction my life was to take. My father had established himself as a successful farmer with a farm on the banks of the Snake River in eastern Oregon. It was close to heaven, with hills to climb and explore, a river for fishing, a field for hunting, and a friendly shepherd dog for a companion. Exciting farm machinery included a rather archaic steam-driven tractor and a modern tractor with an internal combustion engine (" oil pull "). A paperweight model of an oil pull tractor rests on my fireplace mantel. The tractor dealer gave me this model while my father negotiated the procurement of an oil pull tractor, his first new tractor. Dad was training me well as a future farmer. I drove his tractors, under his supervision, of course. He also demonstrated for me what it was like to drive at the breakneck speed of 50 miles an hour in an open Model T Ford. Naturally, he did not suggest that I drive that fast. We went fishing in the mountains of eastern Oregon, slept outdoors, and ate food cooked over an open fire, while my mother, safely residing at home, worried about the poisonous snakes that might bite us. I would have followed in my father's footsteps, but his death drastically changed the future direction of my life. Since my mother was unable to manage the farm, she moved with my two sisters and me back across the Snake River to Payette, Idaho, where I was born and had lived for the first few years of my life. My mother faced difficult times, with no close relatives to provide support. Her mother and father had died a few years earlier, and her only sister lived on a farm in northern Idaho. The state threatened to put my sisters and me in an orphanage. Facing that pressure, my mother remarried and bought a small place in Payette with one acre of land. That action established the pattern of my life for the next 10 years. Elementary School Soon I recognized my future depended on education. Farming was not to be my future, even though I still liked the farmer's way of life. I could see the difficulty in becoming established as a farmer in the 1930s. …