Gerald Carruthers

DeVorkin:

This is an oral history interview with Gerald Carruthers, who is the younger brother of George Carruthers. And you are now, I take it, in Huntsville?

Carruthers:

Yes.

DeVorkin:

Okay. The auspices of this interview are both the American Institute of Physics and the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum. I think what I’m going to do I have two screens here. I hope you don’t mind me reading on the other screen, and when I do, I’ll be looking at you.

Carruthers:

Not a problem.

DeVorkin:

Okay.

Carruthers:

As long as you don’t start throwing rocks.

DeVorkin:

[laughs] No chance there. Now, can we go through these questions, and then ask you to amplify on them if you feel like it?

Carruthers:

Sure.

DeVorkin:

As you said, there are a lot of other things to talk about, and I’m open for that, too. So, let’s start. Now, I know that all of you were born in a suburb of Cincinnati, in Madisonville.

Carruthers:

Yes, except for Barbara Ann. We don’t talk about her too much, because she was only three years old when most of that stuff happened. Everybody was born at Catherine Booth Hospital in Cincinnati, but we were living in Madisonville until Barbara Ann was born. Barbara Ann was born in Milford.

DeVorkin:

Okay.

Carruthers:

At the hospital in Cincinnati.

DeVorkin:

I see. You had already moved to Milford, but she was born in Cincinnati.

Carruthers:

Yes.

DeVorkin:

Okay. Tell me, first of all, about Madisonville. Do you have memories of it?

Carruthers:

All I remember of it is I walked down the sidewalk. That’s all I remember. But when we came back to visit, we had friends over there that we used to go over there and burn marshmallows with, and hot dogs, and stuff like that. And I remember that part.

DeVorkin:

[laughs] Okay. Very good. Is there anything else about Cincinnati or the Madisonville area — or should we move to Milford?

Carruthers:

I think we ought to move to Milford, because I was only about three years old then.

DeVorkin:

So, you really don’t have any memories of that. So, let’s then concentrate on Milford. Can I first, though, ask: why did your family move to Milford? Did you learn about that afterwards?

Carruthers:

I learned about that a long time ago. What happened was, when my father was young, a teen, and Uncle Ben was young man, they had an uncle who lived out on the farm, and my father went out there. He loved it. He spent the summer there, and he became a farmer, per se. So, that’s where he wanted to be. Now, he was a civil engineer, and he worked for the Corps of Engineers, basically on the dam projects. That’s the reason why we ended up down on the river, down by Cincinnati. He initially worked over by Louisville, down the street from Cincinnati on the river, if you’ve got your geography book out, [laughs] a road map, whatever.

DeVorkin:

[laughs] Right. Was this a farm that you mentioned — you said that the farm was a hobby farm.

Carruthers:

A hobby farm, yes. They didn’t use that to make money. He was working at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base at that time, as a civil engineer (no longer building Dams but Air Force Stuff, I suspect runways and hangers), so he was making money that way. But he was building a farm like the one that he had when he was a teenager, that he worked with an uncle. He had hogs, a cow, chickens, and a dog. We grew corn, fruit trees, and we had regular vegetables on our farm. These are the things we ate. The hogs we took out to the butcher, and the butcher would butcher them up, and put them away, and then when we needed some meat, he’d give it to us.

[EDIT: I would like to add some more about the farm and our father and mother because it meant so much on how we lived and grew up! When we moved to the farm, there was very little other than an old log cabin and, two houses, and a barn. Our father as we said, worked at Wright Patterson Air Force base during the week and came home on Friday and returned on Mondays. For the weekends he was constantly working. The first thing he had to do is build a bridge to get on the property to get up to the cabin. He had to do a restoration/renovation to the cabin so we would have some place to live. The way our father worked, like all the time!!, but showed us kids how to do things showed us how to live our lives!! George got the most and best because our father showed him the best and George was the one with what he wanted! The rest of us were just kids, and too young. Now I believe that my father’s work ethic was transferred to George and was probably the cause of his early demise at 39. Our mother was a very smart lady and adapted to farm life easily. She ruled the house and farm and us children. She insured that we got our schoolwork done and correctly. She also insured we got to the library, and got our chores done! She too was always showing us how to live on the farm and working like little farm hands!]

DeVorkin:

Wow. That sounds like a really lovely life. Was it that idyllic?

Carruthers:

It was. It was. I didn’t want to leave.

DeVorkin:

[laughs] Yes, I bet.

Carruthers:

Especially not to move to Chicago. [laughs]

DeVorkin:

Yes. Okay. Tell me about your early schooling. George was how many years ahead of you?

Carruthers:

Six.

DeVorkin:

Six years. So, that was really quite a difference.

Carruthers:

Yes.

DeVorkin:

Is there any reason why there was such an age difference?

Carruthers:

Well, my parents were smart. Everybody was three years apart.

DeVorkin:

Oh, I see. Okay.

Carruthers:

Apparently in those days, a lot of people would have them every other second, it seems like.

DeVorkin:

[laughs] Yes. Right.

Carruthers:

Every 14, 15 months.

DeVorkin:

So, Anthony was your older brother also.

Carruthers:

Yes.

DeVorkin:

And just amplifying on question 4: did you all play together? Anthony, George, you?

Carruthers:

Tony and I played together (sometimes when his friends were not available, after all 9 year olds don’t play with 6 year olds [smile]). George was a dedicated person. He was focused on one thing, and that’s the way he is all the way through life, all the way up until the time he retired. He had one thing on his mind, all the time, and that was it. I mean, that was it. He was an artist too, drawing spaceships going to and landing on the moon, and drawing space Christmas cards! When he was in Chicago, he had won a summer contest from the Chicago’s Art Institute, in downtown. Later I believe he dropped that hobby and moved on to engineering drawings.

DeVorkin:

Did he share his interests with you?

Carruthers:

Yes, he shared them with me. But those were his interests, too. In other words, I learned what his interests are. He didn’t care what my interests were. [laughs]

DeVorkin:

Oh, I see.

Carruthers:

In other words, if I wanted to think about carpentry or something like that, nah. You want to think about a car? Nah. You know? If you’re thinking about space, yes.

DeVorkin:

Ah, okay.

Carruthers:

Or things like — things I was doing in my career, he was — he had an idea of what he was doing, and I had an idea of what he was doing, but we never came to a place where we were doing the same thing.

DeVorkin:

Yes. Okay. But what about with you and Anthony?

Carruthers:

Oh, we were always together. I mean, he was in the Army, too. I was in the Army. He was a nuclear weapons specialist, and I came in three years after him, and I came in as a missile guy.

DeVorkin:

And were you in the same area?

Carruthers:

Only once. In 1972 — 1971, I came to Aberdeen Proving Grounds, and about a year after that, he came to Aberdeen Proving Grounds, Maryland, which is in Bel Air, Aberdeen, Maryland. And we passed by in Nuremburg, Germany for 3 months in 1977.

DeVorkin:

Right.

Carruthers:

And when I was there, I worked in technical intelligence and he was working as a machinist and mechanic, he did repair stuff, and he also made stuff, using mechanical devices for cutting, and stuff like that, that sort of stuff.

DeVorkin:

Okay. Yes. Don’t want to jump that far. I’d like to go back to your schooling…

Carruthers:

Okay.

DeVorkin:

…and certainly, find out where you all went to school, what you got interested in, and also, did you as a family sort of study together, or were you all pretty much on your own?

Carruthers:

Well, at that time, we were pretty much on our own, initially. Well, I was only 1 or 2 years old at that time.

DeVorkin:

Oh, well, sure.

Carruthers:

So, we didn’t have too much homework. We had at that age; we didn’t have real homework. Not really.

DeVorkin:

You must have gone to kindergarten, at least first and second grade?

Carruthers:

No. There was no kindergarten. We didn’t have a kindergarten in our school.

DeVorkin:

Oh.

Carruthers:

So, I had first and second grade. And right after second grade, as I went into third grade, then we all transferred to Chicago. That’s was when we moved to Chicago.

DeVorkin:

Okay. I see.

Carruthers:

George was graduating right after we moved, so we sort of had a delay before we got there, so that George would finish elementary school. In Chicago, he went to Englewood High School in 1953.

DeVorkin:

That’s right.

Carruthers:

We were over there two years, and then George graduated from high school and went on to the University of Illinois in 1957.

DeVorkin:

Yes. Okay. But still, I’m trying to get a sort of a 3-D view of your farm life, though. You were pretty young.

Carruthers:

I remember it.

DeVorkin:

[laughs] Yes. So, you talked about sharing chores. You had chores. What kind of chores did you have, even though you were really young?

Carruthers:

I was able to slop the hogs. [laughs] And you know, we had to pick up stuff, and that sort of stuff. Sometimes we’d climb the trees and get some fruit down out of the trees. We had all kinds of fruit trees, and stuff like that. We had plenty of stuff to do. And we had chickens. My mother took care of the chickens, because the chickens would run us all over the place.

DeVorkin:

Oh, yes. Now, do you remember what George’s chores were?

Carruthers:

No. All I know is he was basically on the same line as we were.

DeVorkin:

Okay.

Carruthers:

We also helped Mom take care of the vegetables up in the vegetable garden and that was basically what our chores was, because when Dad came in, he took care of the corn, because he had a corn crib and everything to feed the hogs.

DeVorkin:

Right. So, your dad spent the week at Wright-Patterson?

Carruthers:

Yes.

DeVorkin:

…and came in on the weekends.

Carruthers:

Yes.

DeVorkin:

And did you all feel safe without him there?

Carruthers:

Of course. [laughs] We’re not in Chicago. When we got to Chicago, that was different. Real different.

DeVorkin:

Definitely. I want to know about that. But did you have neighbors and friends?

Carruthers:

Yes.

DeVorkin:

And what kind of people were they, and how close?

Carruthers:

They lived on the backside of our farm. So, we’d go out the back way out of our house, go up the hill and down the hill, into their house.

DeVorkin:

Okay.

Carruthers:

One of my buddies is still living there.

DeVorkin:

Ah. Wow.

Carruthers:

He was in George’s time frame and not mine.

DeVorkin:

What was that? Sorry.

Carruthers:

He was George’s age. They were in elementary school together.

DeVorkin:

Elementary school. Sure. So, George did have friends.

Carruthers:

Yes.

DeVorkin:

Do you know what they did together?

Carruthers:

They didn’t do too much. George was, like I said, straight. He got interested in science and space and stuff like that, and that’s where he stayed.

DeVorkin:

Yup. Okay.

Carruthers:

Matter of fact, it really surprised me that he built a camera. He was an aeronautical, astronautical engineer with a nuclear master’s, and he ends up building a camera.

DeVorkin:

That’s right. Yes. He did a number of different projects. But he certainly adopted that camera idea once he went to NRL. But back to the farm.

Carruthers:

I believe that he did work at Illinois to help him pay for his degree.

DeVorkin:

Yes, he got his degree at Illinois.

Carruthers:

Yes, but I think he had to work to pay for his degree.

DeVorkin:

Oh, yes.

Carruthers:

Because everybody was broke. George was on scholarships when he went through his bachelor’s in engineering, and then when he got up there into the master’s and Ph.D., he had to do work that they wanted him to do.

DeVorkin:

That’s right. He had fellowships…

Carruthers:

Yes, fellowships.

DeVorkin:

…But now, when you were still at the farm, George built a telescope.

Carruthers:

Yes, he did.

DeVorkin:

And did you look through it?

Carruthers:

Yes. Sure. I remember when he built it. He found a place where they sold parts to telescopes.

DeVorkin:

Okay.

Carruthers:

And he built this one telescope, and he was so happy. He put it up in the area, and then accidentally, everything caught on fire out there in the weeds.

DeVorkin:

Oh, no! [laughs]

Carruthers:

We were okay.

DeVorkin:

Oh, man. But the telescope was damaged?

Carruthers:

Nope, the telescope was fine.

DeVorkin:

Oh, okay. Do you remember what he showed you through the telescope?

Carruthers:

No. I never looked at it during the daytime. There was nothing you could see really, as far as stars or anything like that’s concerned.

DeVorkin:

Right. So, he didn’t look at the countryside. He looked at stars and stuff at night?

Carruthers:

He looked at stars and stuff like that, yes.

DeVorkin:

And when he did that, and when you looked through it, did he tell you what you were looking at?

Carruthers:

No. I was too young. He’s not going to pay any attention to me.

DeVorkin:

[laughs] Aw, okay.

Carruthers:

You know, Tony wasn’t interested, and I probably was interested, but he didn’t want to have anything to do with me, you know. I was just a little bitty kid brother.

DeVorkin:

Did he treat you that way? Was he a bully or anything, or just indifferent?

Carruthers:

He just went his own way.

DeVorkin:

Yes. Okay.

Carruthers:

He was focused. Always focused.

DeVorkin:

Now, George recalls reading a lot and getting interested.

Carruthers:

Yes.

DeVorkin:

You already mentioned that when it came to space, you guys had similar interests. But what were your other interests? And did you go to the library with your brothers to read, or did you have books at home?

Carruthers:

We went to the library. But I don’t know where he got the books that he needed for space and stuff like that, because I’m not even sure if they even knew what space was in Milford at that time. [laughs]

DeVorkin:

[laughs] What sort of stuff did you read?

Carruthers:

Ah, shoot. I don’t know. Just regular stuff. You’re talking about when I was 7 years old?

DeVorkin:

Yes. Did everybody read in the family? Did your mother and dad encourage you to read?

Carruthers:

Yes. Everybody read.

DeVorkin:

Yes. And did your dad take an interest — well, no — you were still pretty young, but did you learn about how important it was to go to school, read books, and get educated?

Carruthers:

Yes, it was.

DeVorkin:

Yes. So, you grew up with that sort of feeling.

Carruthers:

Well, it sort of died when he died — you know, when we moved to Chicago.

DeVorkin:

Oh, really?

Carruthers:

Things happened, because our mother then had to go work.

DeVorkin:

Yup.

Carruthers:

And now, we’re home alone. Me and Barbara Ann — Tony got himself a job. George is, at first — he spent the last two years over with the Dunlap’s, because he was getting ready to graduate from high school. It’s in the notes I sent you this morning.

DeVorkin:

Yes.

Carruthers:

But being at home, we were basically taking care of the house, and no time for [inaudible]. A lot of things didn’t happen when you’re home alone, I guess you’d say.

DeVorkin:

Were there things that you wanted to happen, or things you wanted to do, that you couldn’t do?

Carruthers:

Oh, sure. There were some things I did, like I got in touch with the Air Force, and they sent me all kinds of pictures of airplanes, and stuff like that.

DeVorkin:

About how old were you when that happened?

Carruthers:

I was about 10, 12. We moved into our house in 1955.

DeVorkin:

Did your mother buy the house?

Carruthers:

Yes, she did.

DeVorkin:

So, she must have been working a pretty steady job in the Post Office.

Carruthers:

That was before she went to the Post Office, when she bought it. She was working for a place called Hornblower & Weeks. I think they were a place that dealt with money and bonds and stuff like that. Stockbrokers.

DeVorkin:

Stockbrokers. And that was a Chicago firm.

Carruthers:

Yes.

DeVorkin:

Yes. Was there money in the family, enough for your mother to buy the house?

Carruthers:

Actually, I think that what happened was we (I’m not sure) were the second family on the block to be of color.

DeVorkin:

The second family. Okay. Yes.

Carruthers:

And the first one on the block looked sort of like us, but they called that “blockbusting.”

DeVorkin:

Oh, really? Is that what it was called?

Carruthers:

Mm hmm

DeVorkin:

Oh, tell me about this.

Carruthers:

Well, “blockbusting,” what they’d do is the realtors would sell houses to people who have a job, but they’re of color, to a white neighborhood, right next to the black area.

DeVorkin:

Yes.

Carruthers:

And then they’d sell us a house, and everybody looks around and says, “Oh, there goes the neighborhood. We’ve got to move.”

DeVorkin:

Oh. Now, was there a lot of hostility? Did you experience discrimination?

Carruthers:

Yes, but not on the block. In our neighborhood, we had a city park, and we couldn’t go to the park.

DeVorkin:

You couldn’t go?

Carruthers:

No, because the white guys would beat us up.

DeVorkin:

And this was the case for George, too?

Carruthers:

George didn’t ever [experience this]— George was over there where all the black people were. They were our cousins. My mother’s sisters. And my mother’s mother.

DeVorkin:

Okay.

Carruthers:

[Pearl Singley] was my mother’s mother, and [Lucille Dunlap] is my aunt.

DeVorkin:

So, he stayed there. Did he come to the home?

Carruthers:

On weekends.

DeVorkin:

On weekends. But did he ever live there?

Carruthers:

We would live there, and then he just stayed [with the cousins] until he got finished with high school. So, on the weekends.

DeVorkin:

Aha. Because George, when I’ve asked him, he said he never experienced any hostility or racial tension during this time.

Carruthers:

That’s because he was not doing the same things we were doing. We were running around. We were trying to go places, you know, go over to the park, and stuff like that. And George wasn’t going to the park. That wasn’t on his agenda.

DeVorkin:

Okay.

Carruthers:

On our block, there was nothing like that.

DeVorkin:

Okay. Now, George went to Englewood High School. Did you go there, too?

Carruthers:

No, I went to Hirsch High School, and Cornell Elementary School, which were in our neighborhood.

DeVorkin:

Okay.

Carruthers:

So, George went to a different school. The school he went to was all-black.

DeVorkin:

Yes, Englewood School.

Carruthers:

Yes.

DeVorkin:

And yours were mixed, or primarily white?

Carruthers:

Mixed.

DeVorkin:

Mixed. Okay.

Carruthers:

Mostly high school — when I got to high school, it was mostly white, but by the time I graduated, it already turned to black.

DeVorkin:

And how aware, or how affected were you, by discrimination through school?

Carruthers:

Actually, very little.

DeVorkin:

Okay.

Carruthers:

Because all of our teachers were white. We only had about three or four black teachers. Everybody else was white, and everybody else just treated us like we were just one of the crowd.

DeVorkin:

Okay.

Carruthers:

Of course, they had places you don’t go — you know, like you don’t go out there and take a white girlfriend, or something like that.

DeVorkin:

Oh, no. So, in a way, George was…

Carruthers:

Immune.

DeVorkin:

…immune, but he was also pretty physically separated from you during Chicago.

Carruthers:

Yes, and another thing is, there is a difference between schools.

DeVorkin:

Tell me about that.

Carruthers:

In other words, George’s school was not as advanced as the school we were going to, as far as the teachers and stuff like that. And he found that out when he got down to Illinois, where he actually had to take catch-up classes when he got down there. Whereas at our school, we were already pre-notified that we were okay for our level of schooling.

DeVorkin:

Yes. Understood. Well, in high school, how did your interests develop? What did you want to do in life?

Carruthers:

I wanted to do the same thing George did, but I was one of those guys who wanted to do everything.

DeVorkin:

[laughs] Would you say George had any influence on you at all?

Carruthers:

Sure. Matter of fact, it started all the way back in the beginning, back when we were still in Ohio. George would draw pictures of rockets. Now, George is an artist. I don’t know if you know that or not.

DeVorkin:

No! No, I didn’t know that.

Carruthers:

George is an artist, and he’d draw pictures of rockets and stuff, draw people. And matter of fact, he got a summer scholarship over at the art museum, Chicago Art Museum…

DeVorkin:

Really?

Carruthers:

…because he was so good at drawing, and stuff like that.

DeVorkin:

Wow. [laughs]

Carruthers:

He was really more of a drawer than a regular artist. You know what I mean by that.

DeVorkin:

Yes. A sketch artist.

Carruthers:

Sketch artist. Yes.

DeVorkin:

Yes. I’ve got to find out more about that. Hopefully Deborah might be able to help me with that.

Carruthers:

I don’t think she would know anything about that.

DeVorkin:

Okay. Now, George also started going to the Adler Planetarium to build more telescopes.

Carruthers:

Well, he didn’t go there to build telescopes. He built his own telescopes. But he just went there to be educated on stars and telescopes and stuff like that.

DeVorkin:

Yes. He did say that attended their mirror-making classes, making telescope mirrors.

Carruthers:

Yes because he used one to build himself.

DeVorkin:

Oh, yes. The telescope he made himself.

Carruthers:

Yes, he had a telescope that had a mirror. It was a mirror telescope. Basically, mirrors on one side, and the lens that you look through is on the other side.

DeVorkin:

That’s right. Did you ever look through that telescope?

Carruthers:

Of course. [laughs]

DeVorkin:

[laughs] And any memories of that, even though that was in Chicago?

Carruthers:

Oh, yes. I have memories of that. But I wasn’t a telescope guy, and I was still six years younger than he was, so I was still too young for what he wanted to do.

DeVorkin:

Yes.

Carruthers:

He had some friends of ours who were Tony’s age who were interested in what he was doing, and I got these — I don’t know if you’ve ever seen these before.

DeVorkin:

Oh. I’ve not seen that one [Newspaper article: “Gets Twice as Hot as the Sun” showing Carruthers and his rocket test apparatus]. I’ve seen others. Oh, boy. And that’s an original print, right?

Carruthers:

Yes, it is. I have another one where they had the telescope out.

DeVorkin:

Those are new. The ones I found in the Chicago Defender dealt only with his rocket club.

Carruthers:

Okay. He’d started a rocket club. Yes.

DeVorkin:

Yes. Now, you were still in high school, but George came home in the summers…

Carruthers:

Yes.

DeVorkin:

…from college, Urbana-Champaign.

Carruthers:

Yes.

DeVorkin:

And during that time, he took courses on the Chicago campus, but he also got involved in the Rocketry Club. And I was wondering — you just showed me a picture of one that, you know, twice as hot as the Sun. That’s really a good one.

Carruthers:

He built a plasma rocket motor.

DeVorkin:

That’s right. Were you interested in that? Did you go to any of his meetings?

Carruthers:

His meetings were in the house, in the backyard. And hopefully, we didn’t burn too much down there. I became interested in ionic rocket propulsion.

DeVorkin:

Yes.

Carruthers:

And he and I did things at the Museum of Science and Industry, we did different science fairs.

DeVorkin:

Oh, yes. Great. There was one worrisome thing that happened to your brother, Anthony. He was badly burned.

Carruthers:

Okay. I explain that in the notes I sent you.—

DeVorkin:

Okay. I didn’t get that far.

Carruthers:

It’s a little bit turned around than what actually happened.

DeVorkin:

Oh, just — give me the story.

Carruthers:

Okay. What had happened was, George had built up a bunch of little rockets to be fired off for the Fourth of July, and he was just putting them together and fire them off, and they’d go up there, and they’d sort of disappear in space somewhere. Because they didn’t go very far, but they were pretty small.

DeVorkin:

Yes.

Carruthers:

So, I said, why don’t we tape a sparkler onto the rocket, so we can see where it’s going? Just tape it on. Now, Tony being the older brother, took it away from me, and took the sprinkler away from me, turned the rocket upside down, and tried to stick it into the rocket motor. And that was white phosphorus in there. And of course, that didn’t work very well, for him.

DeVorkin:

Oh, boy.

Carruthers:

In other words, in the thing, I said, “Well, I’ll take half the blame for this, because I was the one who started it.” I don’t blame George, because George didn’t even know Tony was doing this.

DeVorkin:

Oh, okay. [laughs] Because the newspaper article simply said he got the stuff from George.

Carruthers:

Yes.

DeVorkin:

Yes, I appreciate that. Okay. Now, you mentioned Cornell Elementary and Hirsch High School.

Carruthers:

Yes.

DeVorkin:

Were there any particular teachers you’d like to identify as being influential on you?

Carruthers:

If I could remember their names, that would be okay. [laughs]

DeVorkin:

[laughs] That’s okay. There’ll be a transcript of this, and I’ll start by editing it, but then I’m going to send it to you to answer questions or fix anything that we got wrong. So, you’ll get another chance at this.

Carruthers:

Now, I did enter the science fairs when I was in Cornell, following in George’s footsteps. What happened was, George also drew and created comic books and stuff like that. He did a lot of comic books. One was he did this thing about photonic engine to take off to go to Alpha Centauri.

DeVorkin:

Oh, God! Do you have any of them?

Carruthers:

No.

DeVorkin:

Oh, no!

Carruthers:

But he made comic books, and he made this one where they built this photonic rocket, which would enable it to reach almost the speed of light, and you’re going to go to Alpha Centauri, blah, blah, blah. And when it took off, it ate up half of Jupiter, or something like that. So, I saw it, and then I made one like that for the science fair. Of course, when you’re in elementary school, they really don’t believe that you came up with this.

DeVorkin:

Yes.

Carruthers:

And they didn’t really understand it anyway.

DeVorkin:

Yes.

Carruthers:

So, that died and fizzled. There was also a time when it wasn’t always good for us, being black, because I was in one class where the teacher would send me to a [remedial] class, saying I was not smart enough, and that I need to go over here with the dummies. And people over there who were dummies, they’d say, “What are you here for? You get back over there. You don’t belong over here.” And nobody really realized it until you get up to the 8th grade, and you take all the tests that you take when you get ready to go to high school, and they said, “Okay, how come you have college-level IQs and stuff like that?” And they said, “We’re going to put you in the advanced class when you get to high school.”

DeVorkin:

And did that happen?

Carruthers:

Yes.

DeVorkin:

That’s really great. And this was math and science and English, or what?

Carruthers:

All of them.

DeVorkin:

Wow. And was it called advanced, or was it called college prep, or what?

Carruthers:

They didn’t call it college prep. They called it advanced math, advanced whatever.

DeVorkin:

Okay.

Carruthers:

And they probably didn’t have that type of stuff over at Englewood, either. George would have been in there. He would have done a lot better than I did, because when I got to algebra, I could not get past minus times the plus.

DeVorkin:

You couldn’t get past what?

Carruthers:

You know the — in algebra, you have the minus times a minus is a plus? A plus is a plus, a minus times a plus is a minus.

DeVorkin:

Right.

Carruthers:

I couldn’t get past that. You can’t get past that, you ain’t getting past algebra. [laughs]

DeVorkin:

Oh! [laughs] Oh, man.

Carruthers:

I took it on summer school, and the next year, I was doing a lot better.

DeVorkin:

Good. Good. Well, when I asked you here, “Was there any question that you would go to college,” and you answered, “Money.”

Carruthers:

Money.

DeVorkin:

Yes. Could you say something about that? I mean, your mom was working. She owned the house. But were there possibilities of scholarships?

Carruthers:

No. One of the things that happened was that my stepfather was called back to duty, and then he went to Virginia for a year. That was my junior year.

Carruthers:

It’s on there. My stepfather met my mother at the post office, and they became friends. And he was an ex-military guy, and he was in the Reserves. And he got called to active duty in 1961 for a year, for the Berlin crisis.

DeVorkin:

Oh, boy. Yes.

Carruthers:

So he was a warrant officer, so we all packed up and went down to Fort Lee, Virginia. That’s how we got there.

DeVorkin:

So, then you went into the Army?

Carruthers:

No, I — he came back out.

DeVorkin:

Yes.

Carruthers:

Since I went to school there, they were on a year basis, and I was on a semester basis. So, my class was supposed to graduate in February.

DeVorkin:

Okay.

Carruthers:

But I didn’t take enough English. English is a mandatory class in Chicago — four years of English.

DeVorkin:

Yes.

Carruthers:

And I had come in there with three and a half.

DeVorkin:

Oh. [laughs]

Carruthers:

So, I had to stay for one class — actually, two classes I had to stay for, so I could graduate: English and gym. In that case, it was ROTC.

DeVorkin:

Okay.

Carruthers:

So, I didn’t have a choice. I was stuck.

DeVorkin:

And then after that, what did you do?

Carruthers:

So, I graduated in June.

DeVorkin:

Right. And that’s when you went in the Army?

Carruthers:

Right after that, yes.

DeVorkin:

Yes. Okay. And then you said you went in the U.S. Army and worked on missile systems for 22 years.

Carruthers:

Yes. Yes. I retired from the Army in 1985.

DeVorkin:

Oh. So, going to Huntsville, you went as an enlisted man?

Carruthers:

I was in the military. DEVORKIN Okay. I see. Very interesting.

Carruthers:

But when I retired, I moved here.

DeVorkin:

Ah, I’ve got you.

Carruthers:

Because this is the place where that type of stuff happens. You know? Military missile stuff, and so forth, and so on. Redstone Arsenal was also Marshall Space Flight Center.

DeVorkin:

That’s right. And how did you end up going there? Was there a way that you could ask for it, or what?

Carruthers:

Well, that didn’t work very well for me either, because when I retired from the Army, I put in a resume. Let me back up. Two years before that in my 20th year, I got promoted to Warrant Officer 3. I had already applied to get a job here in Redstone, basically to do the same thing I did right now, as a physical service person. In other words, I went out there and helped the soldiers in the field.

DeVorkin:

And what did you help them do?

Carruthers:

My job was to help them work with their equipment and make sure that they knew what’s wrong with their equipment or be able to get in contact with the people back here at Redstone to fix it.

DeVorkin:

Yes.

Carruthers:

That was not the problem. The Army said: okay, since we promoted you, you have to stay two more years. And what the people said at Redstone was: since you weren’t able to come with us now, we don’t know if you’d be able to come with us later. So, I got a job working in Saudi Arabia. So I’d been working in Saudi Arabia from 1985 to 1990.

DeVorkin:

Oh, boy. And what were you doing there?

Carruthers:

Missiles.

DeVorkin:

Missiles. And was that with Saudi Arabia, or with the U.S. Army?

Carruthers:

With Saudi Arabia, working for the Corps of Engineers. In other words, in order to work with a foreign government, you have to have the approval of Uncle Sam.

DeVorkin:

Yup, absolutely.

Carruthers:

Even if Uncle Sam sold them the equipment.

DeVorkin:

[laughs] Did you have any contact at the Redstone Arsenal with the groups that were building large launch vehicles?

Carruthers:

When I came in, we worked on the Sergeant Missile System. We worked on the Pershing Missile System. And then after SALT we went back down to what we call “pocket rockets,” Redeye, Stinger, Vulcan, Chaparral, all these small missiles that are necessary for ground employment. Just about everybody else lost their large rockets during SALT [Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty].

DeVorkin:

Yes. I was thinking about the ones also where, you know, Redstone became part of NASA, the Huntsville part. It split off.

Carruthers:

Redstone Arsenal moves to NASA.

DeVorkin:

Yes.

Carruthers:

NASA — Von Braun worked for the Army Ballistic Missile Agency. That’s one of the reasons why I came to Huntsville…

DeVorkin:

Oh, because of Von Braun.

Carruthers:

…from California. I was in California working as an operator for Nike Missiles, which were air defense missiles.

DeVorkin:

Right.

Carruthers:

And that wasn’t exactly what I had thought I was going to be doing.

DeVorkin:

And that was at first. Then how did you get to Redstone, then?

Carruthers:

They were asking for people who wanted to work with these missile systems, to go to school for the actual repair and stuff like that. And I threw my hand up.

DeVorkin:

So, you did go to college.

Carruthers:

Texas A&M. I went for a technical education. Got my master’s degree.

DeVorkin:

Yes. Exactly. Did you stay in touch with George during all of this time?

Carruthers:

Always, except for when I was overseas. It’s kind of hard to keep up — that’s the reason why I lost track of him when his camera went to the Moon, because 1967 to 1970, I was in Italy.

DeVorkin:

[laughs] Oh, I see. Okay. But you knew he had gone to the Naval Research Lab.

Carruthers:

Oh, yes. Matter of fact, when I was at Redstone, before I went to Italy, I was at Redstone before Italy, I wanted to see if he can give me a kick in the boot to get a job over there where he was.

DeVorkin:

Did he try?

Carruthers:

I don’t know what he tried or not. Things are different. In other words, you can’t hold somebody responsible. If you don’t know what the real situation is, it’s hard to say “well, you didn’t try.”

DeVorkin:

Ah. Well, he probably was also not in a position at the time. When was this?

Carruthers:

1966, ’67.

DeVorkin:

He was a postdoc at that time, and he just converted to staff member in ’66, ’67. I don’t — what I’m impressed about his efforts was that he started proposing all sorts of rocket flights and all sorts of missions, and they were really quite detailed. Were you aware — that was the time that you were in Italy, though?

Carruthers:

Yes.

DeVorkin:

Yes, so you weren’t that aware of it?

Carruthers:

No, and I know that he was firing rockets — matter of fact, one of the things — he was using one of our rocket motors to shoot some of his stuff up into the stratosphere.

DeVorkin:

So, that was on the Aerobee, the booster on the Aerobee?

Carruthers:

No, this was a Sergeant rocket motor, which was on the Aerobee. Yes.

DeVorkin:

Oh, yes. That was the one where he could really get a berth, but he had quite a bit of trouble getting a berth on other things, like Pioneer and other satellite attempts.

Carruthers:

Yes.

DeVorkin:

And nearly Apollo. Did you know about that?

Carruthers:

I didn’t know about him on the early Apollo, but I knew about what happened. Being on Redstone, you know when a lot of things happen.

DeVorkin:

Like what?

Carruthers:

Well, like when the rocket [fails]. Apollo 204 caught on fire with the three astronauts who died. Matter of fact, we have schools named after them: Chaffee, Grissom and White.

DeVorkin:

Yes. The Apollo 204 fire.

Carruthers:

Mm hmm.

DeVorkin:

That was tough. Do you know if it affected George at all?

Carruthers:

I didn’t know that. I don’t know if it did or not, because I was there, and he wasn’t. [laughs]

DeVorkin:

That’s right. Well, did George ever visit Huntsville while you were there?

Carruthers:

Later. He visited once in ’77, I think it was.

DeVorkin:

Okay.

Carruthers:

Because basically, he was saying that — and several other times after that, when I was out of the service by that time. He may have been there later than — I mean, again, I had three years in Germany after that, after I saw him in ’77. That was when he came with his wife to Huntsville.

DeVorkin:

So, you met Sandra?

Carruthers:

Oh, I knew Sandra — long time ago. Matter of fact, I’ve got pictures of her.

DeVorkin:

Oh, wonderful.

Carruthers:

It was at their wedding. I was there at the wedding and the reception, and stuff like that.

DeVorkin:

Wow. Tell me about her.

Carruthers:

She was sort of shy, quiet. She didn’t talk very much to other people. You know, that’s the way she was.

DeVorkin:

How did they seem to be together? Did they seem close?

Carruthers:

Yes, they seemed close. I think what happened was, George’s job got in the way. He’d go to work at 8 and get out at 9.

DeVorkin:

[laughs] Yes. But you say they stayed married until she passed away.

Carruthers:

Yes.

DeVorkin:

Okay. Do you know what she died of?

Carruthers:

No, I don’t.

DeVorkin:

Okay.

Carruthers:

I don’t think he was there because he came home and found her dead. I think that’s where his dementia started.

DeVorkin:

Oh, boy. Okay. During the time that they were together, do you know if she worked?

Carruthers:

No, she didn’t work. She was a homebody, all the time.

DeVorkin:

Okay. But they never had kids?

Carruthers:

No.

DeVorkin:

Okay.

Carruthers:

She wanted kids, but they never had kids.

DeVorkin:

Aw, boy. Okay. So after George’s telescope went to the Moon, you certainly must have known about that.

Carruthers:

Oh, yes.

DeVorkin:

Did it make people ask you questions about it? And how did you feel with George gaining that kind of notoriety?

Carruthers:

I liked it a lot, but he also — you didn’t read the part of that, did you?

DeVorkin:

Where is that?

Carruthers:

That’s where you were asking about the camera, on the Moon, going to the Moon.

DeVorkin:

Oh, I see. You wrote: “He didn’t tell us about them until” — see, I only got this from you [laughs] a few minutes before I dialed in.

Carruthers:

I know. I was just working on it this morning.

DeVorkin:

Okay. [laughs] So —

Carruthers:

That’s on 27.

DeVorkin:

Yes. That’s what I’m looking at. Now, it’s very important. You said that this was a race thing. Please tell me about that.

Carruthers:

Okay. Thornton, he didn’t know — he was like somebody that just walked around with George. He didn’t have anything to do with the building or the working of the system, or anything to do with the system, but he’s going to walk around and get half of the praise.

DeVorkin:

Oh, yes. Yes.

Carruthers:

And so, what happened was we were watching him on TV, and you know that — I’m trying to remember. Walter Cronkite.

DeVorkin:

Yes.

Carruthers:

Walter Cronkite was — he always paid attention to these space things.

DeVorkin:

Right.

Carruthers:

And he called on this guy Page, and he started to say, “Well, tell us about this camera.” And Page just stood up there, and he said, “I don’t know anything about it.” And CBS hurried up and got him out of there, and got George, pulled him in there. George was the inventor and everything else on this and he could tell them just exactly what was important about it.

DeVorkin:

And this is on the CBS News with Walter Cronkite?

Carruthers:

Yes.

DeVorkin:

Oh, my God. I’ll try to find out if they have a copy of that at NRL, in the Public Affairs. But you were thinking it was a race thing. Did George ever describe it that way to you in a letter or anything?

Carruthers:

No. George is not that type of person. The only thing he worries about [is his work]. Now, if you get in the way of his stuff, he might have something to say about it. But he’s not in a big hurry to get praise for anything he does. As long as he’s able to do what he wants to do, you know, he will.

DeVorkin:

Yes. Well, okay. Number 28: When George started getting written up in newspaper accounts, how did you and your family react?

Carruthers:

Oh, we were great. We were in pig heaven, I guess.

DeVorkin:

Did you say, “pig heaven”?

Carruthers:

Yes. [laughs]

DeVorkin:

[laughs] Okay. That’s great.

Carruthers:

He was on — matter of fact, I have a thing where he came off a calendar. They have a calendar from — a beer calendar, and George doesn’t drink, something like that.

DeVorkin:

So, he was featured on a calendar?

Carruthers:

Yes.

DeVorkin:

And do you remember the beer?

Carruthers:

Here, I’ll show you.

DeVorkin:

Yes, sure.

[pause]

Carruthers:

I have to find it.

DeVorkin:

[laughs] Well, is there any way that you can have all these wonderful things copied and sent to me at my cost?

Carruthers:

I have it already on my computer. I can send you a copy of it. But what I have is just the top half. I don’t have the beer half.

DeVorkin:

[laughs] Okay. That’s alright. But you know, it’s just really clear that he got very, very popular.

Carruthers:

Yes.

DeVorkin:

Now, do you have correspondence with George, written correspondence, letters back and forth?

Carruthers:

No. You know, we didn’t send letters. We sent stuff, or we went.

DeVorkin:

Oh, okay.

Carruthers:

George would always send — whenever he had something going on, like in his magazines that he — he was the editor of the NTA magazines.

DeVorkin:

Right.

Carruthers:

And he’d send me copies of what he got — magazines, plus what everybody else got, too.

DeVorkin:

That’s very important. Do you know when he joined the NTA?

Carruthers:

Ah.

DeVorkin:

I’ll give you two dates. Shirley Thomas, who worked with him on Project SMART, said that he joined in about ’74. But George recalls that he joined in the early ’80s.

Carruthers:

’74 sounds better.

DeVorkin:

Okay, ’74. Alright. Good. Yes, I’m trying to plot out, you know, his outreach and better appreciate what prompted him to become so active as a mentor and as a symbol of education and science and math.

Carruthers:

Because that was what my grandmother did. She was a teacher. You had something wrong about that, too. You had Uncle Ben for St. Louis. It’s East St. Louis. It’s across the river.

DeVorkin:

Okay.

Carruthers:

The reason for that is, teachers could not have children or be married in Missouri.

DeVorkin:

Was that a racial thing?

Carruthers:

No. That was a female thing.

DeVorkin:

Huh.

Carruthers:

They didn’t want the females to be married or have children, because then they wouldn’t be able to take care of somebody else’s children. DEVORKIN Wow. You brought up the grandmother in terms of teaching and giving back to the community and things like that.

Carruthers:

Yes. George — this is on my father’s side — my grandmother pushed both her children to be very well educated. Uncle Ben has a Ph.D. He went to Madison, and then he went back to Illinois for his doctorate.

DeVorkin:

Right.

Carruthers:

And my father got a bachelor’s degree in engineering, and that’s what — George got — his perseverance in engineering was to do the hard thing, because my father, like I say, had to spend the whole week at Wright Patterson to do his work there, and he’d come home to do all the work at home. You know, that’s maybe the reason why he ended up passing…because he was working too hard.

DeVorkin:

Yes. But the teaching part of it — was that something that was sort of a tradition in the family? I’m trying to figure why George got so active in it.

Carruthers:

Because it was necessary for the race, I guess.

DeVorkin:

I’ll quote you on that. Did he ever talk to you about it?

Carruthers:

Yes, he talked to me about it when he was teaching — he was going over to the schools in Washington to teach the kids about space and trying to get them to come to get educated so that they could become [employed], do these things too, instead of ending up out on the streets.

DeVorkin:

He really believed in that, then.

Carruthers:

He did.

DeVorkin:

Yes.

Carruthers:

You have to give back.

DeVorkin:

Yes. Now, thinking about George as being rather quiet and retiring and focused on his own work, that’s quite a change. What do you think caused that change?

Carruthers:

I think it was always there, but it was just that he didn’t think he was that good, to do that. Remember he was teaching the neighborhood boys what he was doing with his telescope and his plasma jet rocket motor. And once he got a little fame, I guess he decided it was time to use that little fame that he has. And that was right there in D.C. He had a crew of high school kids working in his lab.

DeVorkin:

Right. So, you’re sort of implying that after a while, all the work that he was doing wasn’t competitive anymore.

Carruthers:

Could be. I don’t think George was competing with anyone, it is not in him! I don’t know for sure, because he had his little lab and everything, and he had stuff going out — matter of fact, he was getting back about the environmental issues, because he had equipment that went up on one of the satellites that was monitoring the Earth.

DeVorkin:

Yes. It was the mid-atmosphere explorer. It was called MAHRSI.

Carruthers:

Mm hmm.

DeVorkin:

Yes, and that was one of the last things he did in the early ’90s. And he’d been doing a lot of that stuff with sounding rockets and stuff like that.

Carruthers:

Mm hmm.

DeVorkin:

Yes. Okay. So, you didn’t attend Debra’s wedding, but have you met Debra?

Carruthers:

Yes, I met her.

DeVorkin:

Okay. And she’s, of course, helping — you know, she’s very much occupied right now with George and George’s health.

Carruthers:

Yes.

DeVorkin:

Yes. Are you in contact with them at all?

Carruthers:

Yes, I am.

DeVorkin:

Oh, that’s good. Okay. Because she was very nice in giving me your contact information. When I contacted you, I also tried to contact Anthony and your youngest sister.

Carruthers:

My sister has passed.

DeVorkin:

Oh, my.

Carruthers:

In 2017.

DeVorkin:

Oh, too bad. I’m sorry. Okay. But Anthony is still alive?

Carruthers:

Yes, he is, but he’s not the remembering type.

DeVorkin:

Okay.

Carruthers:

I guess the reason why I remember so much is because I was so young, and I didn’t want to lose what I saw and what it means - trying to hold on to what you’ve got.

DeVorkin:

Yes. Let me ask a few more questions about Huntsville. Did you feel as part of the community, or did you live on the base? Was there an Army base that you lived on?

Carruthers:

When?

DeVorkin:

When you went to Huntsville — Redstone.

Carruthers:

I first went to Redstone Arsenal in ’64 from LA air defense because as I said before, the Army was closing a lot of their Air Defense sites and I wanted to get my hands and head into missiles! I was on base. I was just a private. Which is also Marshal Space Flight Center!! NASA with Army Missile Command and the Ordnance Guided Missile School!!

DeVorkin:

Yes. Okay. Tell me a little bit about your life. Did you get married, and do you have a family?

Carruthers:

I got married too many times. [laughs] I have four kids.

DeVorkin:

[laughs] Okay.

Carruthers:

And it was different.

DeVorkin:

[laughs] Did George attend any of your weddings?

Carruthers:

No.

DeVorkin:

Okay. What about Anthony? He was in Chicago?

Carruthers:

I was in El Paso, Ft. Bliss Air Defense for the first one, and first child. Everything was down here. Oh, one of my children was at El Paso, then when we went to Aberdeen Proving grounds, number 2, my Daughter! Divorce and two more boys. One in Germany, Nuremburg, and the other at Ft. Campbell Kentucky. The one in the middle was supposed to have been a real classy wedding, but the rest of them weren’t.

DeVorkin:

Aha. What are they doing?

Carruthers:

The children? The boys! One sells cars. One works with televisions, stuff like that, trying to make sure that everybody is able to watch their programs, and the other one is working with an air conditioning company. The daughter?

DeVorkin:

So, both sort of technical work.

Carruthers:

Yes.

DeVorkin:

Engineering, that sort of stuff.

Carruthers:

I wouldn’t go so far as calling them engineers, but technical work, yes.

DeVorkin:

Technical work. Yes. Okay. One thing you said, and I don’t quite understand it. I asked you about the black striped coat that George seemed to always wear in pictures, in high school and college. And you said, “George only wore a suit coat when he had to take a picture, and he’s not gained any weight.”

Carruthers:

[laughs] Yes. In other words, he had a coat, and the coat’s going to last forever.

DeVorkin:

[laughs] Right. Now, you said his wedding picture, it was black.

Carruthers:

Yes.

DeVorkin:

The coat was black.

Carruthers:

Yes.

DeVorkin:

And do you have that wedding picture?

Carruthers:

I do.

DeVorkin:

Okay. Have these all been put on computer? Are those the things you can send me?

Carruthers:

Yes.

DeVorkin:

Fantastic.

Carruthers:

Okay. This is George. This is George, normally.

DeVorkin:

Yes. [laughs] Right.

Carruthers:

This is Sandra.

DeVorkin:

Oh. Oh, she’s lovely. Yes. Was that taken in New York?

Carruthers:

I’m not sure where it was taken. George gave it to me.

DeVorkin:

Okay.

Carruthers:

It was down in D.C. I think he picked her up as a student.

DeVorkin:

Well no, she was the daughter of a United Nations official from Grenada.

Carruthers:

Yes, I know that.

DeVorkin:

Okay. And she helped organize some of his lectures and stuff. Do you think she was a student at the time? I mean, what was her age when they were married?

Carruthers:

She was young. She was about 17, 18.

DeVorkin:

Oh, I see. So, she was still a student.

Carruthers:

Yes. I think she was a student. She was just — I think George met her down in D.C.

DeVorkin:

Uh huh. I’ll have to straighten that out a lot. Okay. Because she and George were married in Manhattan.

Carruthers:

Yes. I was there.

DeVorkin:

You were there. And do you know where it was? Was it in a church?

Carruthers:

Courthouse.

DeVorkin:

In a courthouse. Okay. How many people were there?

Carruthers:

Four adults and two children.

DeVorkin:

Four. Okay. [laughs] It was pretty small, then.

Carruthers:

Yes. Me, my wife, son and daughter, Uncle Ben, and my mother.

DeVorkin:

Okay. Okay. Ah. Okay, what have I missed? Because you said that there’s plenty that I’d missed.

Carruthers:

There’s plenty I’ve missed.

DeVorkin:

Aha.

Carruthers:

Because, you know — because there’s questions not answered, asked, or anything like that. And the more you do this, the more you remember.

DeVorkin:

Well, I hope that my questions have helped your memory. But if there’s anything that, at this point, you feel should be covered, or anything like that, I’ve got the time, and I’m, of course, very, very interested.

Carruthers:

I have those books that George read [in the 1950s?] You were talking about George always liked following things done by Von Braun and stuff like that. I don’t know if you’ve read them.

DeVorkin:

Oh, I’ve got them. Everything he read at the time, I read, too. And he built a telescope, I built a telescope, so I really, really felt a real kinship. We had a great interview.

Carruthers:

I’m trying to remember the name of the company that sold all those telescope parts.

DeVorkin:

Well, it could have been Edmund.

Carruthers:

Edmund, yes.

DeVorkin:

It is Edmund. Okay. That’s good to know. I wasn’t sure about that. Yes, Edmund was the place where I got some of my first stuff, and like George went to the Adler Planetarium, I went to the Griffith Observatory in Los Angeles, and they had a telescope-making class there. So, we have almost identical histories, but I trained in astronomy and astrophysics and taught for a while. And then I changed to history. [laughs]

Carruthers:

[laughs] Now, that’s sort of funny, because I went through Los Angeles in the Army, and I went to Pasadena first.

DeVorkin:

In Pasadena. Right.

Carruthers:

And then from there, we went out to Brea, then out to Palmdale.

DeVorkin:

Yes.

Carruthers:

Then I came here, because at that time, they were closing down all the missile air defense places because everybody was using ICBMs. And they didn’t think that, you know, the bombers were going to come in there.

DeVorkin:

Right. Did you ever go to Santa Susana, to the Burro Flats?

Carruthers:

No.

DeVorkin:

Okay.

Carruthers:

I really wasn’t there very long. I got there in like November, and I left there in April.

DeVorkin:

Oh, yes. That’s not too much time. You never went to the Griffith Observatory, did you?

Carruthers:

No. Astronomy was not my thing! Engineering and flight!

DeVorkin:

[laughs] Okay.

Carruthers:

You know, I was 18 years old, and trying to figure out where I was — why in the world I came to Los Angeles in the first place. [laughs] The Mouseketeers maybe!! I was the youngest.

DeVorkin:

[laughs] Well, it’s a strange, big, place.

Carruthers:

I’ve been back there since then.

DeVorkin:

Yes. Well, how do you feel about my writing a biography of your brother?

Carruthers:

I think it’d be nice. What are you going to do with it?

DeVorkin:

I’m talking to Harvard University Press, and they’re considering the book. And Harvard is sympathetic to that, but they want me to write a little bit more about the family. That’s why I’m interviewing you and want to write a bit more about the science that he did. And what I don’t know yet — and I’m trying to learn more — is about how he got interested in those questions. I think he got interested when he went to NRL, and these were the interests of the senior people at NRL.

Carruthers:

They probably came to Illinois.

DeVorkin:

No, he contacted them when he heard about an advertisement from NRL for a fellowship to finish his thesis.

Carruthers:

Okay. Yes. Okay.

DeVorkin:

Yes. And NRL was ready to bring him and his thesis advisor to NRL to finish his thesis. They were very enthusiastic about him.

Carruthers:

Mm hmm.

DeVorkin:

So, that was good. The big question I still have to answer — and this requires, you know, after the coronavirus stuff is hopefully under control, and the archives open again — is that George applied to NASA for many, many, projects, and he was turned down very frequently, and I don’t know why. And in fact, the people at NRL didn’t know why.

Carruthers:

A lot of that is wrapped up in — if you read the package that they used to give him this thing for Obama — that Obama gave him from the —

DeVorkin:

Oh, the Presidential Medal?

Carruthers:

Yes.

DeVorkin:

Yes?

Carruthers:

Look at the package.

DeVorkin:

The package?

Carruthers:

There’s a package that goes along with it. It’s about 25, 50 pages long.

DeVorkin:

Whoa! And that’s online?

Carruthers:

No, I don’t know about online. I have a copy of it.

DeVorkin:

Oh, boy.

Carruthers:

But there’s something I want you to do — do some research for.

DeVorkin:

Okay.

Carruthers:

And I’ve read this in space, telescope —

DeVorkin:

Sky & Telescope?

Carruthers:

Yes. And that is about the camera…

DeVorkin:

Yes?

Carruthers:

…and what it found.

DeVorkin:

Oh, yes.

Carruthers:

And what they say is, what’s so important about the camera is, it proves there’s fuel for the stars.

DeVorkin:

The fuel for the stars.

Carruthers:

Yes. What it does is, it tells them that there’s atomic hydrogen in the universe, and that’s the most important discovery they’ve ever had.

Well, being a Christian, I have a real solution for that. And otherwise, when you start talking about the universe, and you talk about how it really seemed like it was getting bigger and bigger, more and more and more portions to it, and then you say: well, how in the world can you see this stuff? Because light is only so fast.

DeVorkin:

[laughs] Yes. That’s true.

Carruthers:

And because light is so fast, some of the stuff you’re saying you’re seeing, you couldn’t have seen it.

DeVorkin:

Well, when you’re looking at very distant places, you’re looking far in the past.

Carruthers:

Yes. And how old do they say the universe is?

DeVorkin:

13.7 billion years.

Carruthers:

Okay. What they’re talking about is past that, in light.

DeVorkin:

Yes. That’s right. That is the observable universe. We can’t see beyond it.

Carruthers:

Yes.

DeVorkin:

Yes.

Carruthers:

And then we just need to pull out our Bibles, I think.

DeVorkin:

[laughs] Yes.

Carruthers:

The answer is there: “In the beginning…”

DeVorkin:

Ah, that’s true. Did George ever — did you ever have this kind of conversation with George?

Carruthers:

No, I haven’t. George did grow up with Maxwell’s theory on his T-shirt.

DeVorkin:

Oh, James Clerk Maxwell.

Carruthers:

Yes.

DeVorkin:

Yes, the electromagnetic equations.

Carruthers:

Mm hmm.

DeVorkin:

But did he ever go to church?

Carruthers:

When he came to Chicago, he went to church. He didn’t have an option. [laughs]

DeVorkin:

Oh, with his family. But do you have any idea whether he did on his own?

Carruthers:

I don’t think so.

DeVorkin:

Yes. Okay. What is the family denomination?

Carruthers:

I’m a Methodist.

DeVorkin:

Okay.

Carruthers:

But I was a Methodist before — okay. I’d have to find out what type of church it was when I was in Milford. But when I was in Chicago, I was a Methodist, as a kid. And then when my stepfather — he was a member of another church, so I didn’t have an option but to go there.

DeVorkin:

Thank you for bringing him up again. Could you give me his name, and what your relationship — when did your mom get remarried?

Carruthers:

1961. My Stepfather was S(utherland) Wellington Martin

DeVorkin:

’61. Okay. So, it was quite a bit of time.

Carruthers:

Yes. And that’s why Tony left town.

DeVorkin:

That’s right. So, George is leaving for Urbana-Champaign, and from there going to NRL. It was not a big change for you or for the family.

Carruthers:

No, because he was gone already.

DeVorkin:

He was already gone. Yes.

Carruthers:

We’d just see him on weekends. I mean, Christmas, the holidays, and summertime. In summertime, he usually worked at the post office.

DeVorkin:

Who did?

Carruthers:

George did.

DeVorkin:

When he was in high school, or college?

Carruthers:

When he was in college.

DeVorkin:

Really? Oh, I didn’t know that. So, he worked where your mom worked.

Carruthers:

Yes.

DeVorkin:

Okay. And that was by necessity to raise money?

Carruthers:

Yes.

DeVorkin:

Yes. Okay. That’s important to know. I didn’t know about that. Do you know what he did? Was he a mail carrier?

Carruthers:

No, he just worked slinging mail.

DeVorkin:

[laughs] Okay. Right.

Carruthers:

Not a carrier, but a clerk.

DeVorkin:

That’s very, very helpful. You’ve really helped me fill in a lot about the early life, and certainly, when I rewrite the early portion of the book, I’ll certainly send that to you if I can.

Carruthers:

Okay.

DeVorkin:

Yes. But is there any way that you can send me the material that you have, digitally? What about the other pictures of the newspapers?

Carruthers:

I can do that.

DeVorkin:

Okay. Yes. Any early family pictures of all of you together, with your parents — oh, did you give me his name? I’m sorry — your stepfather.

Carruthers:

S. Wellington Martin.

DeVorkin:

Okay.

Carruthers:

And he was a Reserve Chief Warrant Officer 4.

DeVorkin:

Aha.

Carruthers:

I don’t know if you wanted that.

DeVorkin:

Well, to understand, yes. Reserve Chief Warrant Officer 4.

Carruthers:

Yes.

DeVorkin:

Yes. Oh, another question about the summers when George came home from Urbana and did his rocketry. Some of the newspaper accounts said that all of the kids were helped a lot by the local Army group. Do you know anything about that?

Carruthers:

I do not know anything about that. What kids are you talking about?

DeVorkin:

That there were classes about safety, mainly, you know, how to do it safely.

Carruthers:

They probably had that over at the Chicago Rocket Club. I don’t know anything about it I went there a few times with George and met some of the guys that loved George and I got to see one of the guys at the Chicago Science fair when I competed! George normally would provide information about advance Space stuff and no more shooting play rockets! Remember the trouble he got in at home!!

DeVorkin:

Okay. That’s great. So, yes. Again, if you can scan — do you have a scanner?

Carruthers:

Yes.

DeVorkin:

Great. So, if you can scan the pictures and send that stuff to me, that would be extremely helpful, because I need more pictures of the early life — your family, that sort of thing.

Carruthers:

Do you have a means of un-aging these things?

DeVorkin:

I can use Photoshop to try to improve them, yes. But just having any copy will help me, because then I can try to find the originals. Sometimes when they have sources, I go to the originals. Like, I’ve gone to the Chicago Public Library electronically, you know, contacting them. And they say they need more information.

Carruthers:

I’ll show you something. I don’t know if you want it or not.

DeVorkin:

Oh, yes.

Carruthers:

I think this is what you’re talking about [NRL color image of Carruthers with his sounding rocket payload]. [laughs]

DeVorkin:

Yes.

Carruthers:

His grey suit that he only wore when he had to.

DeVorkin:

Yes, that’s the coat.

Carruthers:

Now, here’s the one about —

DeVorkin:

Hold it up. Yes, the picture of him — the lower one. To get a really good scan of that, you know, would be absolutely fantastic. That’s the one I want to use.

Carruthers:

Okay.

DeVorkin:

Yes, that’s real important.

Carruthers:

I don’t know if you’ve seen this one.

DeVorkin:

Yes, I think so.

Carruthers:

That’s EBONY magazine.

DeVorkin:

That’s from EBONY, yes. Do you know the story about how the people at NRL found out that George was married?

Carruthers:

How?

DeVorkin:

They read it in the EBONY, and that was about three or four months after he was married. Does that sound typical for George?

Carruthers:

[laughs] Yes.

DeVorkin:

Oh, boy. Those are really helpful. Okay.

Carruthers:

The one I was looking at was one that I had from me and John Glenn.

DeVorkin:

Oh, boy. That must have been a moment.

Carruthers:

Oh, yes. That was 1963. It was a space thing at the science museum, and John Glenn came down to talk to all of the people who had things about space.

DeVorkin:

Yup.

Carruthers:

And I just happened to be one of the ones that made it on the stage. I was one of the ones who won something — the science fair on space.

DeVorkin:

Well, that would be great to have. Do you know where it was published?

Carruthers:

It was in the Chicago Tribune — no, Sun-Times, I think it was. But I have a copy of it.

DeVorkin:

Okay. Again, yes, scanning that would be perfect, because I really want to be able to have pictures of the family as well.

Carruthers:

Oh, okay.

DeVorkin:

Certainly, mother, father, brother, sister, all of those things would be fantastic.

Carruthers:

You want something like that.

DeVorkin:

Oh, yes. Yes. Yes, yes. Just tell me who they are.

Carruthers:

That’s us. I’m the guy who has all the stuff. These are the pictures I made up for the Obama thing. All these have George in them.

DeVorkin:

Okay. That’s great.

Carruthers:

I had basically every picture that George ever took.

DeVorkin:

Well, that’s fantastic.

Carruthers:

There’s part of the farm. I have all the farm pictures. Matter of fact, I have those already on my computer.

DeVorkin:

Okay.

Carruthers:

So, I can send them. Here’s the three of us.

DeVorkin:

Okay, that’s — is George in the middle?

Carruthers:

Yes.

DeVorkin:

And then you’re on the left or right?

Carruthers:

I’m the guy who next to the light bulb.

DeVorkin:

[laughs] Okay. And this is in the house in Chicago?

Carruthers:

Yes, that’s Tony’s house.

DeVorkin:

That’s good. Well, anything you can send me.

Carruthers:

This is Benito Carruthers. He was in the Dirty dozen.

DeVorkin:

Oh, my heavens. Yes, you said something about that.

Carruthers:

He was one of the dirty dozen. But I have stuff here. I’ll send you whatever I can.

DeVorkin:

Okay. Certainly, you know, scanning those things will make pretty big files, and so you can send it to me piece by piece.

Carruthers:

They’re already on the computer, so most of them don’t have to be scanned. What is my time frame on some of this stuff?

DeVorkin:

Oh, as you can. It’s not immediate.

Carruthers:

Okay.

DeVorkin:

Yes. Oh, wow. Now, tell me who they are.

Carruthers:

Grandfather, grandmother.

DeVorkin:

And then —

Carruthers:

George and Ben.

DeVorkin:

That’s amazing stuff. Wonderful.

Carruthers:

Do you have anything else? You asked certain questions, and the question happened to require more information than just answering the question. So, at the bottom when you got down there, you asked the question again, so you didn’t get an answer for it.

DeVorkin:

Okay. But do you feel that you have now shared with me all of the things that you wanted to say?

Carruthers:

No.

DeVorkin:

Well, what are we missing?

Carruthers:

I don’t know.

DeVorkin:

[laughs] Okay. If you think of anything let me know.

Carruthers:

Sure thing.

DeVorkin:

Okay. And I, again, will be sending you the transcript. It will be of just all of the interview stuff. When we were going through the pictures and stuff, I’ll probably contract that a bit, but you’ll certainly, in our conversation, get a chance to read it and edit it.

Carruthers:

One thing, when I talked to a friend of mine, and we were talking about trying to show the real George.

DeVorkin:

Aha.

Carruthers:

He was one of the people that you say — when you talk about George, you have to think George is very quiet. He’s very focused, very focused. In other words, we couldn’t tell him to hold a hammer, or something like that, because that just wasn’t what he knew. He couldn’t work on his car. He had cars that were just pieces of junk, because he never bothered to get them fixed.

DeVorkin:

Was this in Washington?

Carruthers:

Yes.

DeVorkin:

Yes. Did you visit him at his home in Washington?

Carruthers:

Oh, yes. He had a real nice home, very neat and everything.

DeVorkin:

Aha. He had two addresses: one was on Congress Street, which was very close to the Naval Research Lab, and the other was on O Street.

Carruthers:

O Street is the house that I know. I don’t know about Congress Street. I have been there on New Years day 1973. This was just before he got married!

DeVorkin:

Okay. He was on Congress in the ’60s and ’70s.

Carruthers:

Okay. That’s before he bought this home.

DeVorkin:

Yes.

Carruthers:

Yes. Okay.

DeVorkin:

And I’ve been to the O Street address.

Carruthers:

So, you know George, then.

DeVorkin:

Oh, yes. I met him in 1992, and I have been in contact with him on and off through at least 2011. Interviewed him several times. Would you like me to send you copies of the interview?

Carruthers:

Sure.

DeVorkin:

Okay. Also, I did video histories of him, but they’re not online. They’re all blocked away in the Archives. [laughs] I’m sorry. But I’ll send you the oral histories.

Carruthers:

Okay. Sure.

DeVorkin:

Yes. Okay. Great. Yes. Okay, well, we’ll be in touch. Thank you again.

Carruthers:

Okay. I’ll let you know when I have a bunch to send you, and I’ll send it to you. And I’m sure I’m not going to get you everything I’ve got.

DeVorkin:

Well, anything you find. [laughs]

Carruthers:

I have one of everything.

DeVorkin:

That’s amazing. That’s wonderful. Well, thank you so much, and I’m going to thank Debra for putting us in contact. And we’ll be in touch soon.

Carruthers:

Sure thing.

DeVorkin:

Okay, bye-bye.

Carruthers:

Bye-bye. By the way, do you need to see the Packet that was used for getting George his Medal?? And did you know that George was asked to be an Astronaut?

[END]