Vinograd, Dr. Sherman 2012-07-14
This interview features physician and NASA researcher, Sherman Vinograd. Vinograd discusses growing up in Milwaukee, his Jewish heritage, and attending the University of Chicago before transferring to the University of Wisconsin. Vinograd also discusses his interest in music and time spent in Europe. Moreover, Vinograd talks about his career at NASA and his research.
General Interview Information
Interviewee Name: Dr. Sherman Vinograd
Additional Parties Recorded:
Date: July 14, 2012
Location: Cedar Park, Texas
Interviewer: Robert Weaver
Length: 02:14:38
Abstract
National Institute of Health, Don Whedon had the biggest one, He advised NASA, He was one of the researchers at NASA, Life, Sherman’s daughter is the reason for him moving there, She is a horse lady, Her name is Jocelyn, Married to a man with the name Shirwilher, He is an Archeologist, He found a 1500 year old dwelling here in Texas, He is mostly researching Native Americans, Sherman was an Archeologist also, Most all states now have laws that want an archeological examination before building, He had a very dear friend that’s older than him, College Life, His name was Bill Timmins, Bill was a grad student at the University of Chicago, He was getting his masters while Sherman was a freshman, Sherman is very interested in Music and Jazz, Bill was about 21 when Sherman knew him, Sherman was 16 when he went to college, Bill was in the Navy and was a Physician, He wore both a Navy and Marine Uniform, Sherman also served in the Navy, He went through the V-12 program that helped him get through Med School, Got into medical school by this time and they paid for everything, Went to Med school in Wisconsin, Life, Born in 1/24/1921 in Milwaukee, Sherman in Jewish, When his parents were very young they grew up in the same area as other Jews, His parents came over young, His mother was an infant and his father was a teenager, He doesn’t know his father’s family well, His father died when he was 11 years old, Blacks and Jews settled in around the same areas, Most were really poor and didn’t have a dime, Most worked their way out of the ghetto, His father was in the Real Estate business, At first he had a waffle wagon, He brought some real estate for himself, It consisted of an apartment building, 2 flats and his business, He remembers having a big backyard, Began going to Cold Spring Avenue School, Then called McKinley Street School, The Jews lived in a very defensive group, They were cultural and religious Jews, As they became better economically established they moved outward of the city, They moved more westward, Eastside was even more upper class, As time went on people moved out of central area westward, Initially they lived at the near end part of town at the three home structures, Until he was 4 they lived on the west end of Vleet Street, They moved out to 47th street, Beyond downtown was the bay area, Lived on 47th street for about 4 years, He had several Jewish friends that he grew up with, Most were trained to be professional, He went to Sherman School when he lived on 47th street, There was a fair # of Jews, Had lots of German friends also, It was not a Nazi time when he was growing up, He has a brother, He moved them to the eastside, Went to a school called Sherwood, It was on the nicer side of the city, There were Jews there, Left Westside in the 5th grade, Crash happened and his father went broke, His father’s car got hit by a train, His mother had to take care of everything, His brother wanted to go to medical school, His sister worked as a secretary and helped out their mother, He got home sick when he went away to camp and he was worried about his mother, There weren’t teenagers then, After his father died his cousin helped him out, His cousin and he were about the same age, His father died in 1932, They had the same birthday, Moved back to the center of town again, He was in 7th grade when his father died, They moved within a few months of his death, They got interested in bicycles, They could get to each other’s house in about 10 minutes, All other cousins were professional people, They owned a burlesque theater, 30’s were a really new time for him, In 1927 movies developed sound and it changed a lot for him, Writers were excellent at that time, Art grew in quality, Jazz became swing, Penny Goodman influenced him greatly, He started playing clarinet and saxophone in High School, He was really good at it, Within 2 weeks he was in the 1st chair, He’s stuck with music his whole life, He’s played in Europe, Graduated from High School at 16, Quality of Education was high, Father left enough behind for him to get a college education, One of his teachers was a great teacher, Ehlman- physics Teacher, Maurice Mo- English teacher, Maurice Mo taught with tables instead of desk, He put them in competition with each other by completing vocab or interviewing people, Mother went to reformed temple and father was orthodox, He had to be both confirmed and have a Bar- Mitzvah, He wasn’t really hated just treated differently, The older he got the more firm he became in his beliefs, He didn’t react to it, The world was full of new wonders, The esquire magazine had nice cartoons, They didn’t have television back then, Also read Mercury magazine, His sister took it regularly, On Saturdays he would enjoy them, He also liked a lot of bike riding, He used to ride about 8 miles a day, Had a racing bike in high school, It takes a while to break it in, When he went to the University of Chicago he didn’t know what he wanted to be, They had the youngest president of a University at the time, Chicago attracted very bright people, They established survey courses, He took over the Encyclopedia of Britannica, Top of Classic Knowledge, Hutchinson divided all knowledge into 4 areas, Biological, Physical, Social and Humanity Sciences, Left there to go to Wisconsin, Chicago was a dull place to live, He and Bill were in a band, In a band orchestrated by one of the Alpha Delts, They had to avoid the band union, Run by the gangsters, Played in downtown Chicago at the Medina club, He was lead alto which is middle chair, They weren’t allowed back there again, He was a democrat, You had to pay up or they would stop your operation, You had to take the 4 survey classes, You had to take 2 test your freshman year and 2 your sophomore year, Have no test the entire year until those at the end that were cumulative, The exams took a full day, It provided a mix of everything, He made a few bucks playing with the band but not much, Bill and he would go downtown when they had a little money to listen to music, Heard great music down there, Used to get there arrangements from those people, K. Kiser gave them a few arrangements, They had a good sized library of arrangements, They were kind of favored, A lot of good jazz music around Chicago, They learned a lot of music back then, Bill was a very important person in his life, 5 of them went to Europe and played, War broke out while he was there in about 1939, He had just gotten out of Germany, He didn’t have to disclose his religion while he was there, Being an American helped, They didn’t find out about some of the things that were happening until after the war, He was in medical school when he went to the service, His brother was a Dr., He was good at science and had an inclination towards it, Started medical school around 1942 and graduated in about 1946, He didn’t go overseas when he was in the service in Medical school, Home port of the ship was Rotterdam, They were in second class and they paid for their board, They did lots of parties and things like that and they loved it, He ran out of money when he was there, They wore red white and blue socks, Europe was pro America at first but not so much after the war, They went into Holland and crossed over to England, They bought bikes and rain gear, They went through England and Scotland, They sold the bikes and hitchhiked with a really nice couple, They split up after that and everyone went back to their hometowns, He was left with a group, Was shown around a lot of places, They lost track of a lot of people, Took the trains in Paris, They really enjoyed Paris, Took advantage of the Champagne which was 6 cents a glass, All the soldiers were short, Had to get into a doorway to get out the way, They went up into Switzerland then into Germany, They split up again and he was alone there, They stayed in Youth Hostels, They enjoyed it a lot, They were taken over by the German youth, They were the only 2 Americans in the opera house, The opera house was a wooden frame building, They supplied them with a mattress, pillow and blanket for them to sleep, They sang American football songs while the German youth were singing German songs, John and he both left the next day but went in different directions, They wouldn’t let people in unless they had a way out, The youth hostel in Rotterdam was a lot nicer and friendlier, War was declared a few days after they left, The boat was delayed a few days but they got out of there just in time, Literally days between the start of war and their departure, Some of the crew were leaving and were afraid, Picked up some survivors of the sunken ship on the way home, The pilot knew the location of the mines placed in the channel, When he returned to the US it was back to school, After 1946 he interned at a infirmary in New Orleans, Medicine has changed a lot since then, Spent 2 years in the Navy on sea duty that was out of New Orleans, Took a general residency for a year, Part II, Moved to DC to find a program that was in disarray, Joined NASA and there were a lot of people involved, It was much disorganized, Had to devise and experiments program to start on, NASA, There was structure there, Trying not to step on each other’s toes, Frank Voris was his Guru when he was there, He was a great man and a surgeon, He went back in to the Navy after WWII, He was unusual but bright as hell, He used to be a football player, Everyone loved him, He really helped Sherman with a lot of things there and their great friends, They had an office of life sciences at NASA at the time, Had 3 parts: Biological, Development of hardware and techniques, and space medicine, Things that needed to be there for space flight, Created a lot of complications, He began at NASA in 1961, Biggest challenge at NASA, Organizational challenges as well as scientific, Wanted to confront problems but weren’t sure what problems would encounter, A lot of things took a lot of time because everything had to have safety, There were rivalries, Didn’t talk about them because they couldn’t, A lot of people just wanted in on the budget, There were a lot of pitfalls in it, There was a lot of diplomacy involved, Biggest success they had, They developed a large # of things, People got very exuberant, People would make embarrassing claims about stuff that couldn’t work, He selected the SPAMAG, Don was the authors of the experiments, He tried out nutrients balance studies, Don also had a lot to do with the experiment used to measure osteoporosis, Developed a different technique that was more accurate, It used radioactive isotopes, These techniques are still being used today, There were many large publications that he was able to put together, He did some but only the things he thought were important, With the end of the manned space program he is not as enthusiastic as he once was, He doesn’t think there is a lot to do in space for us, He isn’t really intrigued by it anymore, There isn’t really much to be gained by sending man in space at this time, People were asking about the little green men, Never came close to men hallucinating, He was very happy when they completed the Apollo trip, He thought he was a great accomplishment, Bob Gilrith was a great man, He was at Langley, He was an Engineer, He met a lot of great people, Left NASA because funds were being cut off and the importance was gone, He needed heart surgery in 1981, He went to St. Mary’s as the medical Director, Stayed there from 1986
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Transcript: Transcript available on Dspace
https://swco-ir.tdl.org/handle/10605/358992
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