Magnificent Desolation_ The Long Journey Home From the Moon - Buzz Aldrin [98]
In her deeply religious family, Lois was sometimes a bit of a black sheep, wishing for more than the cloistered, conservative lifestyle fostered by the church. Her father, however, wanted her to attend Brigham Young University in Utah, to be in a “Mormon environment.” As a compromise, Lois agreed to go to the University of Utah (U of U). In those post–World War II days, college women rarely entered the workforce, so their education often focused on the liberal arts, rather than preparing for a career. Lois’s parents hoped that in the Utah environment she would at least by graduation find a good Mormon husband, settle down, and start a family. But Lois had different ideas. She balanced her studies and social life with a special emphasis on learning to ski during her two years at the U of U Despite the joy of skiing, Lois found Salt Lake City somewhat ethnocentric, and yearned for a more diverse college atmosphere. She applied to Stanford University in Palo Alto, California, and encouraged her older brother, John, to do the same. They were both accepted, and one September day they drove off in a big yellow Chevrolet convertible toward a new world at Stanford.
Life on “The Farm,” as Stanford is known by its students and alumni, proved to be everything Lois and John expected, and then some. John was quickly initiated into a fraternity (there were no sororities at Stanford at the time), and introduced Lois to his fraternity brothers, many of whom were football players. The star halfback, Emery Mitchell, grew attracted to Lois. As Emery and Lois dated, the reputation that followed her from high school on through college remained intact: she had high morals and was “hard to get.” She never went steady with one fellow, although she could have. Even the beaus she dated on numerous occasions suffered along without a single kiss. But that didn’t stop the many Stanford men who saw her as good marriage material, and by graduation, she had several proposals. To their disappointment, Lois was holding herself in reserve for her one true love, her Prince Charming.
Nevertheless, Lois made numerous lasting friends at Stanford, many of whom went on to great success, such as Sandra Day, a bright young woman with whom Lois struck up a friendship that flourished when Sandra and her husband John O’Connor moved to Phoenix to practice law. Years later, Sandra became America’s first female Supreme Court Justice.
Upon graduation from Stanford with a degree in education, Lois decided to take her fifth year at UCLA to satisfy the requirement to teach. She had another motivation to stay in California as well, since she was becoming increasingly interested in a young man she had dated during her senior year at Stanford, Bill Edwards, whose family lived in Long Beach. Bill had enrolled at Harvard Business School, so Lois would see him at Christmas and over the summer. Bill’s mother talked so enthusiastically about her own teaching career at Hawthorne School in Beverly Hills that Lois applied for a position there, and began teaching third grade the following year. But Lois’s romance with Bill did not last beyond the summer. The odds were against them: Bill’s father thought Lois was too short, and Lois’s father felt that Bill was unlikely to become a Mormon. Indeed, Bill married a tall, beautiful girl who lived next door. Lois finished out the school year at Hawthorne and was offered the chance to renew her contract, but decided her heart was not in teaching. She would take the next year off to tour Europe.
Lois’s European travels—with arrangements made by her family to meet and stay with many of their Rotarian friends in cities all over Europe and Scandinavia—combined two of her great passions: socializing and skiing. She met counts and barons and other titled members of Europe’s oldest families, as well as many renowned European ski racers. Somewhere between the mountains and après-ski activities, Lois came to know Stein Erickson, a Norwegian ski hero on whom she developed a crush. The relationship never developed, but Lois’s skiing did.