Anzio Beach, Monte Cassino, Normandy: To most, these are names from a map or history book. To Charles Phallen, emeritus professor of technology education, they are places he served valiantly in World War II and visits now, at age 94, to receive honors from a grateful populace or pay  respects at the graves of fallen comrades.

Her career took her to the soaring cathedrals of Europe in search of medieval stained glass windows, but as a teacher, Professor Emerita of Art Helen Zakin was always more comfortable in the intimate seminar rooms of Tyler Hall.

“I always enjoyed working with students in small classes,” said Zakin, who especially liked teaching interdisciplinary courses in medieval studies for the Honors Program.

Professor Emerita of Art Helen Zakin

“In order to teach large classes, you have to be a bit of an actor or actress, a real performer,” Zakin said. She preferred the interaction of working with students one-on-one, where she could see who needed extra help, or draw in those whose attention wandered.

It’s a type of care she experienced from her dissertation adviser at Syracuse University, medieval art historian Meredith Lillich. Although there was no e-mail in the mid-1970s, Lillich would send copious handwritten notes by post while traveling all over the world. Since joining the Oswego faculty in 1970, Zakin had many female role models, ranging from Presidents Virginia L. Radley and Deborah F. Stanley to former Vice President Patti Peterson and Professors Marilynn Smiley and Rosemarie Imhoff. She tried to pass that mentorship on to students and to other faculty members in her work as department chair from 2002 to 2007.

While she doesn’t enjoy the impersonal nature of teaching online, Zakin says the Internet has opened a world of possibilities for the art historian. “At the Pierrepont Morgan Library online, you can get into the manuscripts, page after page,” she says. “You can see the [stained] glass in Shropshire Cathedral, panel by panel.”

But for Zakin, nothing compares to traveling the world, studying art in its own setting. A noted expert on medieval stained glass, she is a member of the Corpus Vitrearum Medii Aevi, a prestigious international organization that catalogs stained glass. Throughout her 40-year career, she visited hundreds of cathedrals and museums, and attended conferences or presented papers
in most countries in Europe. Her 2001 book catalogued French stained glass in American Midwestern collections. In 1992, she spent six weeks researching the stained glass holdings of the Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, Russia. With her husband of 40 years, ceramicist and Oswego Art Professor Emeritus Richard Zakin, she has traveled to Turkey, Spain, Italy, Poland and France among other European nations, as well as the United States.

While traveling, she took photos to share with her Oswego classes. In Pisa, Italy, she photographed underdrawings for frescoes, revealed by World War II bomb damage.

For all her globe hopping, the St. Louis native has no desire to make her home anywhere but in Oswego, thanks to the area’s rich heritage. “There are layers and layers of history in this town that one could peel away, and that fascinates me,” she said, pointing to the city’s role in major historical movements like abolitionism and the Underground Railroad.

Since her retirement from the college in 2009, Zakin has kept busy exercising her mind and body with Spanish classes, reading, yoga and jogging. She volunteers for political campaigns and the Syracuse Friends of Chamber Music. Her newest passion is gardening. Zakin, who received her bachelor of fine arts degree in studio art, still enjoys painting and photography.

She remains grateful for the opportunities she received at Oswego, her first and only faculty post, which she held for four decades. “There’s a certain intimacy about this place, I know I wouldn’t find anywhere else,” she said.

— Michele Reed

“We used to have a dance in the gym every Friday night and once in a while there was a formal,” said Denham Griffin ’47. “And we would put up drapes all the around the gym and it would hide all the ugly walls.”

Ernie ’47 and Liz Grieve Leal ’45 courted at those dances. “We did a lot of dancing. We had great music back then: Glenn Miller, Tommy Dorsey records,” said Liz.

Bill ’47 and Betty Reid Gallik ’45 share a similar story. They loved to attend the dances and other activities set up by the SRA, the Student Recreation Association.

Lucky girls had their dance cards filled with willing partners.

“He was in a fraternity; I was in a sorority,” recalled Betty. “We were sort of privileged. We went to six formals.”

They didn’t meet at a dance, however. Their courtship had a bit more bounce to it. “Pingpong tables were set up in the hallway and that’s how Bill and I met,” Betty recalled. They would play the game during their breaks and something happened that made her realize he cared. “We had lockers on that side and Bill said, ‘Why don’t you keep our pingpong paddles in your locker so we don’t lose them?’” Betty recalled.

The romance that began over a game of pingpong would be kept alive by letters overseas during Bill’s service and the couple were married when he returned home. They celebrated their 63rd wedding anniversary in July .

Norma Sutherland Church ’45 recalls the dances well. One cold, snowy night she went to an Arethusa formal at a hotel on the eastside of Oswego. “All the girls were dressed in beautiful gowns, silver slippers and velvet evening coats,” she said. When the dance ended, the plows had not been out and they would have to walk across the town and up the hill in their finery. Art Professor Aulus Saunders came to pick up his wife, who was the house mother, and gave the girls a lift in his car, so they didn’t have to walk all the way back.

“The best thing I got out of Oswego is right here,” said Denham Griffin, gesturing to his wife of 62 years, Sylvia Norton Griffin ’47. “We met on Halloween night 1942; our favorite joke is: I’ll take my mask off if you take your mask off.”

— Michele Reed

Nancy did not attend Oswego, but she and Charles shared many happy memories of campus. They met while working at Eastman Kodak when Charles returned from World War II. During Charles’ senior year at Oswego, they lived in Splinter Village, where they created “many warm memories,” playing with their dog in the yard behind the apartment and becoming close friends with their neighbors.

Charles Trabold '50, M '53, seeded a scholarship fund in honor of his late wife, Nancy Trabold.

After graduation Charles went right into Oswego’s graduate program while he taught at Watertown High School and the couple lived at Camp Shady Shore during the summer. “That was the extension of the family feeling that pervaded in Splinter Village,” he said. Their first daughter was born then and Nancy would sew costumes for the parades Shady Shore families often had.

In the summer of 1955, while Charles worked on campus writing a book on industrial design, the couple served as a housemother and father for a residence full of graduate students.

“I know how to make everything,” said Charles, who still loves to spend time in his woodworking shop. “But I depended on her to pick out colors and she was very, very good at that.” She and Charles designed their home and everything in it. “She was a true partner,” he said.

A self-taught artist, Nancy was always making sketches, so when it came time to memorialize her with a scholarship, the family opted to designate one for a young woman interested in art.

Nancy and Charles Trabold, ’50, M ’53

The family is happy about the scholarship because Nancy will “still exist in a helping way for others,” said Charles. Nancy always preferred to help individuals rather than formal organizations “in a low-key way” — helping an ill person, taking care of someone’s children or providing food.

Charles was lucky enough to find another life partner and 11 years ago, at age 75, he married Dr. Rae Rohfeld. The two enjoy many things together, and share a love of flying kites.

Despite her love of life and beauty, Nancy would succumb at a young age to early onset dementia. Sept. 23 marked the 25th anniversary of her passing. “It was a devastating, devastating thing,” said Charles. His daughters saw their mother, a vibrant athlete and artist,  decline.

“It’s kind of a counterpoint to that terrible time, knowing that there’s something that commemorates her vibrant life,” Charles said of the scholarship.

— Michele Reed

Class of 1945 when they entered in 1941.

When they entered in the fall of 1941, the Class of 1945 numbered 100 strong — the largest freshman class in the history of the Normal School. They spent a carefree autumn settling into local rooming houses, working hard in class, enjoying dances and flirting with members of the opposite sex.

Then came Dec. 7, 1941, and their world turned upside down.

“Everything changed when we came out of the movie theatre Dec. 7,” said
Denham Griffin ’47. The Japanese had bombed Pearl Harbor.

Class of 1945 as seniors.

“First thing we asked was, ‘Where is Pearl Harbor?’” Denham said with a chuckle. “We didn’t have Mrs. [Isabel Kingsbury 1907] Hart’s geography course yet.”

They would learn where Pearl Harbor was all too quickly, and over the course of the next four years many more names as well: Omaha Beach, Guadalcanal, Iwo Jima.

By the time 1945 rolled around most of the men were still in uniform. The graduating class was less than half of its original number, and mostly female. Only 41 would march across the stage in Sheldon Hall, rebuilt from a devastating fire in January 1941. The men would return as veterans, however, and go on to graduate in 1947, 1948 and 1949. Even today, reunions include members of classes from 1940 to 1949, many married to each other.

Calm Before the Storm

All that turmoil was just a blip on the horizon as the Class of 1945 got off the train or bus to begin their undergraduate adventure.

1945 Ontarion

“The railroad came into Oswego at that point and it was a nice day,” said
Denham Griffin. “The nice taxi cab driver said he had a good room for us, so my buddy and I said, ‘We’ll look at it.’”

At that time most students lived in private homes, three or four to a
room. Thanks to that cabbie’s advice, Denham and his friend the late Tom Richardson ’46 (who would become president of New Jersey’s Montclair State University) landed the jackpot — single rooms for $3 a week. “We were very pleased,” he added. Even after $3 a week for a supper meal at Herbie’s Diner, that left them plenty of money for books . . . and courting the girls.

Sylvia Norton Griffin ’47 lived during freshman year in Dubuque’s house, along with seven other girls, and worked to pay for her room and board. Later she would live in the Chetney house. “They had 20 girls, but only one bathroom. The tub was in a separate room,” she recalled.

Liz Grieve Leal ’45 lived in Shady Shore with President Ralph and Mrs. Alice Swetman. She did odd chores around the house for her room and board. “I was a ‘handy helper’ . . . I got Dr. Swetman’s breakfast and made Mrs. Swetman’s coffee and took it up to her. She liked to stay in bed and practice bridge hands.”

Moran

After finding a place to live, the frosh had to go through orientation. “One of the upperclassmen would write you a letter before school opened and he was your big brother and he explained what to expect,” said Ernie Leal ’47.

At that time freshmen orientation was a little different than today’s version.

“They used to hit you with paddles,” said Ernie, referring to the playful tradition. “And you had to wear an Oswego beanie and you had to sing all four stanzas of ‘O Blue are Ontario’s Waters.’”

In Uniform

Shortly after Pearl Harbor, Oswego students began enlisting in the armed forces. Throughout the war, they would leave, some never to return.

Bell

“A number from our class were killed, and there was no one to help us with that,” remembered Norma Sutherland Church ’45. “Three men I dated were part of that.”

Others spent years in the service,
returning to Oswego when discharged. Bill Gallik ’47 was in the original class of “60-Day Wonders.” He received his commission at Notre Dame University. “They decided we weren’t so wonderful — they gave us two more months.” He would serve on Chichi Jima and Guam. “I was on board a ship for 10 months before I
became commanding officer.”

Ernie Leal had to wait a bit. “A lot of fellows enlisted right after Pearl Harbor, but I was 18 and you had to be 21, and my parents wouldn’t let me.” He would enter the reserves for a six-month stint in the fall of 1942 and be shipped
right out.

Rose

Davis Parker ’47 signed up in 1943 and was trained as a weatherman. He spent two years in New Guinea before finishing his schooling. After he returned he would move to the Rochester area, where he met and married his wife of nearly 61 years, Jane.

President Ralph W. Swetman and other professors wrote frequent letters to student-servicemen abroad. Dave Parker remembers the librarian Mary Hennessey writing to him. One letter from Swetman, dated Aug. 15, 1945, filled the guys in on the annual summer session at Shady Shore: “We had a wonderful evening at the traditional weiner roast last night. The swimming was perfect, the hot dogs were still hot dogs (with the inevitable indigestion), but the community singing which followed was really good — with the best in barber shop harmonies.”

Wohl

Swetman concluded, “Even as this letter is being written, the thrilling news
of the Russian entry into the war, the atomic bomb and the Japanese peace
feelers, is coming over the radio. It will not be long now. When you fellows all get back, this college will hum as never before.”

Those boys who were lucky enough to survive the war did come back. Many would live in Splinter Village, where “the wind really whistled through the buildings, but we hunkered down and persevered as we had learned to do in WWII,” writes former professor William S. Reynolds ’49,
a student-veteran who worked as a carpenter to help maintain the complex. Many of the vets would wed their college sweethearts and are still married more than six decades later.

History-making Class

The Class of 1945 was entering Normal School at the tail end of the Great Depression. Parker remembers that times were tough economically. “Everybody was in the same boat,” he said. “Nobody had much money, but we made out OK.”

“We were content to go to the Oswego Theatre,”said Denham Griffin. “Thirty-three cents in the balcony and 44 cents in the orchestra.

Class of 1945 officers were from left: the late Dorothy LeBlanc Warner ’45, president; the late Elizabeth Carroll Vernon ’45, former secretary; Dorothy Emmanuel Paul ’45, secretary; the late Rosalie Carroccio Brezina ’45, vice president; and Margaret Kambas ’45, treasurer.

“We always sat in the balcony — 10 cents was a lot, at a nickel for a cup of coffee,” he said. “You had one suitcase; one or two people had a radio — that
was rich.”

“Every dorm had one phone — because the boys called for dates,” added Sylvia. “There were only three or four cars on campus, and they mostly belonged to handicapped guys. The girls didn’t drive generally.”

The Class of 1945 would make Oswego State history as well, as the college changed from a normal school to a state teacher’s college in their freshman year. They had a special way to express their joy.

“When we started there was a big sign in front of the two buildings — it read State Normal School,” said Denham. “In the spring, when the State Legislature gave a degree to the elementary education girls, we ripped down the sign, carried it through town and threw it in the river.” Parker added, “Wish we had it back!”

Norma Church remembered the sign-tossing incident as well. “We made
a circle and sang the alma mater,” she
said. “A policeman tried to get us to
disperse because we didn’t have a permit for a parade.”

The campus was honored by a visit from Eleanor Roosevelt, wife of President Franklin D. Roosevelt. The late Betty Burden ’45 and the late M. Carol McLaughlin ’45 were among those to formally greet the First Lady on the
steps of Old Main (now Sheldon Hall). “I remember they had a few of us who were president of our groups shake hands and talk with her,” remembered Betty Reid Gallik ’45, who was president of the Women’s Athletic Association.

“I kept looking at her; she had this great big diamond pinky ring,” remembered Liz Leal. “She wasn’t a very good-looking lady but that big diamond just caught your eye. At that stage [of life] you were interested in that kind of thing.”

Mrs. Roosevelt was instrumental in bringing the Jewish refugees to Fort Ontario, the only place that housed World War II refugees on American soil.

MORE: Friday Night Fun

“We had some of the refugees in our classes,” remembered Norma. She and her roommate had two over for supper and the guests reciprocated by inviting the girls to a special concert at the fort.

While there were only two buildings on campus — Old Main and the IA Building (now Sheldon and Park halls) — the wartime classes were taught by faculty whose names grace most of the buildings on our present-day campus. Residence halls are named for Jimmy Moreland and Isabel Hart, and students today attend classes in buildings bearing the names of Marian Mahar and Gordon Wilber. Max Ziel’s name adorns the gym.

The wartime classes: They had seen history, made history and will always be a big part of the history of SUNY Oswego.