Replies

For reference, here is the transcript.

Almost certainly she was in night school in the Fall quarter and was not taking her courses by correspondence.

You can see in the bottom right corner of the transcript her credits for extension courses. If you read the fine print you can see that the university distinguished extension courses from correspondence courses by an "x" in front of the course number.

Her neighbor Mary T. in her interview said she was babysitting for Ann while Ann was taking night classes at the university, and as I recall that recollection related to the period around Feb-Mar 1962.

Looking at the credits and courseload, it appears she was taking the same type and load of courses in both the Fall and Winter quarters.

You may well be right about the date being Sept 19 and not Aug 19. The date on the transcript could read either way, and we have your recollection to rely on.

To my mind, the curious thing is not that whether she started school in August or September, but that there she was at that time in Seattle, a teenaged mother taking her newborn baby and moving far away from her husband and parents.

Her courses were "Modern Government" and "Intro to the Study of Man" -- it is simply not credible to think that she went there because she couldn't find analogous courses at the University of Hawaii.

Perhaps Barack Sr. didn't believe the baby was actually his, and dumped her.

There has been speculation that Ann learned about his other wife in Kenya and left him for that reason. But that is completely contrary to the interview with Mary T., in which she said Ann told her that the baby's father might have to take a Kenyan wife because of tribal obligations and that Ann was okay with that. In other words, Ann did not know that Barack Sr. already had taken a Kenyan wife.

It appears Ann did not resume residence in Hawaii until after Barack Sr. left for Harvard.

Who says she took the baby to Washington? She did so well in her classes, maybe she left the baby with Grandma? This woman never bonded with her child, and this early separation may prove why. She abandoned him several more times in his short childhood.

Seriously, we should NEVER, and I mean NEVER, elect as our President someone who had a childhood so lacking in unconditional love. We should almost never elect a President who desperately wants the job, anyway...

Really nice job Sir John--good research and clear thinking. Thanks. I am going to respond in two tranches--the first to have a separate U of W timing comment I can use again elsewhere.

For reference, here is the transcript. Almost certainly she was in night school in the Fall quarter and was not taking her courses by correspondence. You can see in the bottom right corner of the transcript her credits for extension courses. If you read the fine print you can see that the university distinguished extension courses from correspondence courses by an "x" in front of the course number. Her neighbor Mary T. in her interview said she was babysitting for Ann while Ann was taking night classes at the university, and as I recall that recollection related to the period around Feb-Mar 1962. Looking at the credits and courseload, it appears she was taking the same type and load of courses in both the Fall and Winter quarters. You may well be right about the date being Sept 19 and not Aug 19. The date on the transcript could read either way, and we have your recollection to rely on.

Correspondence courses were extension courses. I know. My little sister did exactly that which is exactly how they appear on her transcript also.

Unfortunately, the thing I haven't yet said is that it may be that the night school courses were also extension courses. And I have a vague recollection that may have been in fact the case from something another friend did in exactly that time period.

Of course the only evidence we have that the winter quarter classes were night school is the statement from the lady who was babysitting--and she was expressly uncertain and that may not have been the case.

It makes more sense that the first date (bottom right hand corner) is the date she registered rather than the date classes started which for extension classes was done by mail. You know that Winter Quarter Classes didn't start until the first week in January so you know the December 27, 1961 date for the Winter Quarter registration doesn't reflect her presence in class which didn't start until the following week.

On that basis, the 9/19 or 8/19 date probably would have reflected registration but not class start, whether night school or correspondence.

And the 8/19 date would be too long for Fall Quarter also. The 12/11 and 12/12 dates indicate the date she took the final (which might have happened for a correspondence course or a night school course); the quarter was ten weeks long--the partial thanksgiving week offset days lost for holidays; plus finals. So if the date was 8/19, it didn't represent a class start date.

Your suggestion that the start date really is 9/19 makes some sense; that's about when she might have registered for an extension class, correspondence or night school, for fall quarter.

I continue to doubt that she was physically present in Seattle in the fall of 1961--but it is certainly possible that she was. And for that matter, even if she made it back there by the 19th of August, that too doesn't exclude either the prospect that he was born in Kenya on August 4 (3 Seattle time and date) or the prospect that she got him all the way back to Hawaii on the 8th to register and then back to Seattle 10 days later.

But I continue to be pretty confident that whatever happened with the U of W, she wasn't physically in class in August and the fact that she was registering for extension classes fall quarter doesn't put her there then either.

There has been speculation that Ann learned about his other wife in Kenya and left him for that reason. But that is completely contrary to the interview with Mary T., in which she said Ann told her that the baby's father might have to take a Kenyan wife because of tribal obligations and that Ann was okay with that. In other words, Ann did not know that Barack Sr. already had taken a Kenyan wife. It appears Ann did not resume residence in Hawaii until after Barack Sr. left for Harvard.

Observe also that the statements to Mary T and to Susan Blake about her happy relationship with her husband refute a later date for the initial Seattle appearance, however you structure it.

8/19 or 9/19, no later than September, she was establishing a Seattle base at a time he was living in Hawaii. That isn't picking up and moving back in with him and their kid.

That is in part why I think she went back to Hawaii first--to see if she was going to put the deal back together there. It turned out she wasn't; she went back to Seattle and started over.

A HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE Nationally, there have been two large-scale efforts to move institutions from one academic calendar to another. Both efforts moved institutions from a semester to a quarter calendar. The first was a national effort as a result of a federal wartime directive in 1918. The U.S. War Department imposed the quarter system on all colleges that participated in the Student Army Training Corps program in order to prepare more officers for the battlefield in a shorter period of time. As the war began to wind down in 1919, some institutions, such as the University of Washington, retained the quarter system while Washington State University reverted to a semester calendar by the margin of a single faculty vote.2 In the 1960s, states began another fairly large-scale effort to move institutions to a quarter calendar. Several state postsecondary systems converted to a quarter system as directed by their regents (e.g. Ohio) or by state legislature (e.g. California). Although no specific rationale was stated, the most common anecdotal reason appears to be “managerial/fiscal management ease.” In other words, state legislatures and university regents wanted every institution to operate on the same calendar. However, the 1960s were also a period in which more students were entering postsecondary education, including Vietnam veterans taking advantage of the G.I. Bill, and individuals wishing to avoid the conflict through student deferment. Perhaps, operating on a quarter system permitted these institutions to offer more units of study over a year to accommodate the increased demand. 2 Washington State University Libraries, The Semester V.S. the Quarter Plan for the State college of Washington, February 15, 1949 Washington State University Academic Calendar: Semesters vs. Quarters Page 2 Ironically, the same “managerial/fiscal management ease” urgency that drove boards of regents to abandon semesters for quarters in the 1960s is currently driving states to move to a semester system, along with the issue of transfer student management ease.

The above was taken from this link.
WASHINGTON STATE UNIVERSITY ACADEMIC CALENDAR Semesters vs. Quarters

As you can see from the below link the quarter begins in September and ends in December. So that obscure number in the above transcript has to be a 9 (Sept) instead of an 8 (Aug)

QUARTER CALENDAR

“There has been speculation that Ann learned about his other wife in Kenya and left him for that reason. But that is completely contrary to the interview with Mary T., in which she said Ann told her that the baby’s father might have to take a Kenyan wife because of tribal obligations and that Ann was okay with that. In other words, Ann did not know that Barack Sr. already had taken a Kenyan wife.”

That’s assuming that (a) the babysitter remembers the details correctly, and/or is not lying, and/or (b) Anne wasn’t lying. Just because someone - especially 0bama’s mama - supposedly said something, doesn’t mean she or someone else wasn’t messing with the truth somewhere along the lines. If Anne had been in Kenya (not saying yea or nay, but looks like yea so far), she certainly would have known about the first wife.