The Boy from Altheimer: From the Depression to the Boardroom

3. Learning to Be a Tax Lawyer

Chapter Three Learning to be a Tax Lawyer Iattended Henderson State Teacher’s College in 1941 and 1942, leaving to join the Navy in November 1942. After returning from the service in January 1946, I entered the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville and took classes in the spring and summer semesters. I received some credit for my military service and my attendance for three months each at Rennsalaer Polytech Institute in Troy, New York, the University of South Carolina, and the University of North Carolina, and was able to enter the university’s law school by the fall. Constance Wanasek, a third-year student and temporary employee in the registrar’s office, enrolled me and we became “pinned” that fall. A year later, on August 31, 1947, we married at St. Mark’s Episcopal Church in Fayetteville. I knew right away she was the one for me. I attended classes under the GI Bill, which paid for my tuition, fees, and books, and provided a seventy-five dollars per month stipend. This amount increased to $105 after we married. The GI Bill, or officially the Servicemen ’s Readjustment Act of 1944, was passed to help the country reabsorb returning veterans. The opportunities afforded by this bill fundamentally changed American life as millions of returning servicemen sought college educations and prepared themselves for a standard of living unknown and unavailable to most of their parents. These young ex-GIs were “anxious to make up for years lost to the gods of war, tedium, and terror—with similar 39 BOWENrevisedpages.qxd:Layout 1 2/6/08 4:00 PM Page 39 stories they soon wanted to forget. Life was waiting; the days of dying were over.”1 Connie attended Muskogee (Oklahoma) Junior College for one year before transferring to Fayetteville. She had graduated the previous June and worked as secretary to the dean of the School of Agriculture. Her salary of $110 per month gave us a combined income of $215 monthly. In 1947, this allowed us to live in relative comfort in a small house on Lindell Street, just three blocks from the university campus. Not having taken any previous classes that required essay answers to test questions, I was at a disadvantage on entering law school—and my first semester’s grades reflected that difficulty. However, Connie often joined me at the law school library, just south of the student union. I recall discussing my progress in contract law that first semester with my professor, Joe Covington. Covington observed Connie as she exited the student union, en route to meet me at the library. Covington told me that I needed to choose between her and contract law, in order to succeed in the class. Despite the admonition, I stayed with Connie as well as contracts and managed to pass the class. I was in law school when Silas Hunt, the first African American to be admitted to the law school program, entered the University of Arkansas in the spring of 1948. Hunt was the first black student to attend a white southern university since Reconstruction.2 Hunt graduated as his class salutatorian from Washington High School in Texarkana, Arkansas, and enrolled at Arkansas AM&N (now the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff) in 1941. Like so many of us, Hunt’s college career was interrupted by World War II. He was seriously wounded at the Battle of the Bulge while serving in Europe. He returned to Arkansas and graduated from AM&N in 1947. The next year, Hunt applied for admission to the University of Arkansas law school and was accepted on a segregated basis.3 I was acutely sensitive to the racial issues surrounding Hunt’s enrollment because of my childhood in a segregated society . I was also supportive of Hunt’s admission for the same reason. Hunt attended segregated classes in the law school’s basement, but he was not alone for long and because his teaching was individualized, some white students began to join him and pretty soon the façade of segregated education was broken. Indeed, some white students attended Hunt’s individualized lectures in the basement because they felt they received better instruction in the smaller class. Unfortunately, Hunt was unable to complete his first semester 40 / LEARNING TO BE A TAX LAWYER BOWENrevisedpages.qxd:Layout 1 2/6/08 4:00 PM Page 40 due to problems resulting from his service-related injuries. He died three...