Category: Elementary Physics

My father, James Pate Williams, Sr. (Born November 8, 1912, and Died February 10, 1993) was forced to quit school at the age of thirteen in 1925 or 1926 and was initially a sweeper at the West-Point Textiles Company’s Dixie cotton mill on Greenville Street in LaGrange, Georgia. The reason he quit school was to support his birth family after they were abandoned by my Williams side grandfather.  Sometime in the 1930s my father received a cost accountant degree from LaSalle Extension University based in Chicago, Illinois. He corresponded via mail with his professors to earn his degree. LaSalle Extension University was one of the first examples of a distance learning center. While on the job he used a Friden tabulating machine, a K&E drafting kit, and K&E slide rule. I probably got my love of mathematics and numbers from my birth parents. My father taught me how to use a compass, protractor, slide rule, and tabulating machine.  He used paper spreadsheets and his Friden calculator to maintain household expenses and to document his and my mother’s income tax. My father was also in charge of the Civil Defense equipment stored at Dixie Mill. That Cold War era equipment included a Roentgen measuring device and Geiger counter. I learned how to use both Civil Defense devices while I was in high school.

Friden, Inc. – Wikipedia

Keuffel and Esser – Wikipedia

La Salle Extension University – Wikipedia