Nothing Can Compare with Dec. 7, 1941 (Nov. 2003)
Posted on 1/8/2004
It was a different time. Brothers dressed in a jacket for dinner in the evening and in a coat and tie for Sunday lunch. Seniors usually wore jackets or suits to class – no t-shirt and jeans. Many of the upperclassmen wore felt dress hats. In the house, everything had to be quiet after 8:00 p.m. – no music or noise of any kind. It was all study time. There was only one telephone in the house, and it was downstairs. And no house mother was on-site to watch over everything. Pledges kept the house clean; that was their responsibility. Every fraternity had a pledge master – an upperclassman – supervise the pledges. Saturday morning was clean-up time.
Everybody knew everybody. The upperclassmen all took the freshmen under their wings and showed them the ropes. Behavior was very important. Pledges had to know the full name of every active in the house. Every time a pledge came in the fraternity, he had to stop inside the door and give his full name and recite a scripted statement. All freshmen had to wear a dink and a name card. First-year men had to wear a black bow tie, and all freshmen had to carry a pack of gum (for the upperclassmen). The Nittany Lion was a new work of art on campus, and students walked by it as they entered into the old Beaver Stadium. Most people walked. Only two people had cars at the house: Lloyd Dixon ’43 had a bright yellow 1941 Lincoln Zephyr convertible; John Anstine ’44 had a Model-T Ford for which he paid $15.
That was 1941 – the year that E.V. Bishoff ’44 pledged Kappa Sigma at Penn State. But WWII loomed on the horizon for Americans. “The most important thing that happened was Dec. 7, 1941,” said Bishoff. “We had just finished lunch on that Sunday and went into the living room. Someone had the radio on. The announcement came over about Pearl Harbor. It changed everybody’s life. Dances and homecomings were fun, but nothing can compare with December 7.”
In 1943 E.V. left PSU to enroll in an accelerated chemical engineering program at Carnegie Tech in Pittsburgh, though he said, “My heart is at Penn State.” By the spring of 1943, many fraternity houses had been closed and the government was taking them over temporarily. Missing graduation, Bishoff took the night train from Pittsburgh to New York and set sail with the Merchant Marines. For more than two years, he served as an engineering officer, seeing many parts of the world including the North Atlantic, Persian Gulf, Mediterranean, North Africa and Europe. The son of a PSU Kappa Sig, Bishoff moved right into the house in 1941. He recalls fondly his days with brothers including his freshman roommate, Bob Bacher ’47, and many others including Gardner Lindzey ’43, Ted Baldwin ’43, Dick Stebbins ’43, Larry Furman ’42, Bill Mayer ’42, Ralph Sapp ’42, Walt Sapp ’49 and Ed Lenker ’48. One of his better friends was Carrol Blackwood ’43. President of Kappa Sigma at the time was Lloyd Dixon.
Since 1946, Bishoff has seen a career spanning 57 years and encompassing everything from sales engineering for Rockwell in Pittsburgh to the creation of his own commercial real estate company, E.V. Bishoff Co., where he is currently the chairman. The company, with offices in Columbus, Cleveland and Pittsburgh, is run by son David. Bishoff and wife Jo also have two daughters, Karen and Beth, as well as five grandchildren. They are a close family, all living within blocks of each other. Bishoff has also become re-established at PSU, attending a football game each year as well as being involved in some alumni and philanthropic efforts for the university. And Kappa Sig will remain a key influence in his life at Penn State. “It’s hard to put into words what it meant,” he said. “Those two years were very important because they helped shape my attitude toward a lot of things: values, behavior, treatment of others and responsibilities. If I hadn’t belonged, I might not have picked up on this. Our older brothers went out of their way to help us turn from boys to men.”
Brothers can contact E.V. Bishoff at 614-221-4736.