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A potpourri of stories about various family members or events
Sometimes Plan B is Better
In August of 1968, my family packed up a U-Haul and drove to Fargo, North Dakota. My father, Edmund Hibbard, previously a biology professor at St. Cloud State College, was told by his chair that he could not continue teaching at SCSC with only a master's degree (as there was becoming a glut of Ph.Ds in biology). He would need to obtain a Ph.D. He already earned an MS degree from the University of Minnesota in 1951, and he had two more years of graduate-level biology at the University of Michigan during 1956-1958. He had also done some preliminary research work near the Garrison Dam on the Missouri River in western North Dakota. Thus, it was reasonable for his chair, Harold Hopkins, to inform Dad that he had 2 years to complete the Phd and then his job would still be available to him. About 10 years later, Harold became my father-in-law (though I didn't learn about this backstory until several years after we started dating).
Given these circumstances, it would seem that the wise and prudent thing would be for my dad to buckle down and finish his doctorate within the two-year window. I think that is what I would have tried to do to take advantage of the circumstances. Of course, I don't know what it was like to be in his shoes at this time, but I do know that it took him four years, not two. Thus, there was no teaching job at St. Cloud State College afterwards. I know that there were some financial issues during those four years: most of the time, there were 5 kids living at home, and neither mom nor dad had a great income. But during this time, we also made some extensive road trips and bought the cabin, so I don't think it was just financial. I know that there were also emotional issues with dad becoming frustrated with his progress and work, and, based on some things mom said, he was partially avoiding working on finishing. I know that we did a lot of hunting trips in the fall and winter during those years.
Fun in Fargo
Only thinking about the incentive of the awaiting job, it seems like the best thing to do was to finish up in the two-year window. Since Dad loved teaching, I am sure that there was some disappointment in not going back to SCSC. Even though we had a home in St. Cloud, there was no teaching job available at a college. The summer after finishing, he did some work for the Corps of Engineers near Fargo (in MN) and then learned that he would be hired by Northern States Power (NSP, later called Xcel Energy) as an environmental biologist. I think the timing was fairly close to when we moved back, but I do not recall. It was not the same as teaching, but he soon fell into a groove and enjoyed the work.
Graduation time – I think I took this photo as I know I also attended (just the three of us)
Even though Dad did enjoy the work with NSP, I have at times wondered if he missed teaching and if he wished he had made that 2-year window. This seemed like the best plan for him (from my biased perspective). He started working for NSP about the fall of 1972, and then started developing some medical issues in 1981. It turned out that the cancer that he had had as a young man of 22 had returned and had spread into his leg. Amputation was the immediate remedy, which caused some later complications and hindered work for some time. He did get back to work and life. He even still went hunting and fishing with one leg. (My cabin neighbor recalls how he sometimes helped Dad get in and out of his canoe to fish.) He sometimes bewildered other hunters who saw a one-legged man with a three-legged dog to help him. Dad ended up dying March 19, 1985, about two weeks after he found out where Bruce and I had decided to start our Ph.D programs (Colorado State University and the University of Notre Dame, respectively). He was pleased to know our path was in place.
Fishing on the river
Hunting with Ken
On the face of it, things seemed to turn out just fine for him not returning to his teaching job. He enjoyed this new work (except for the first years of commuting to downtown Minneapolis), and he earned significantly more. However, for his wife, our mother, this "mistake" of not coming back in two years paid her large dividends. From 1985 until 2010, when mom died, she was able to continue to receive dad's pension from NSP for those 25 years, as well as having full medical coverage from them.
Sometimes, things may start out seeming to be what we may think of as only Plan B, but in the end turn out to be as good as Plan A.
Published 2021-01-16. Revised 2025-06-28.
If you find any error(s) in the text, please let me know. Thanks. Contact me with errors or comments using hibbardac@gmail. [Back to the top] [About the author, Al]