- Jun 19, 2014
- 12,759
- 31,856
Founding Member
I remember Dr. Louis Gaitanis, a little man who always wore a bolo tie and had hairy ears. He was a professor at UF's Warrington School of Business for a loooooooong time.
I learned he recently passed away at 99 1/2 years old. In trying to find an obituary, I stumbled across this fascinating oral history project.
The linked .pdf is an interview with Dr. Gaitanis from 1995. He recounts his life as a child growing up in Miami in the 20's and 30's, attending UF's business school, law school, getting married, and coming back to UF as a professor.
If you like history like me, you'll want to read this.
* It is a fascinating snapshot at what it was like to be a child in Depression-era Florida (subsisting on avocados and crawfish, waking up at 3:00 am to sell papers),
* facing discrimination as a "foreigner" (signs at lakes reading "No Greeks, Ni**ers, or Indians Allowed" and tricking an FSU house mother into thinking his name was the less ethnic sounding "Louis Guy Thomas" so he could visit his girlfriend in Tallahassee),
* he describes people he worked with that we only know as campus buildings or statues (Trusler, Matherly),
* he provides a snapshot of campus life and Gainesville in the 30's and 40's (working on campus, hunting wild rabbits in Gainesville, then bringing them to the cafeteria where they would cook them for you, having to wear a tie to meet with the Dean),
* how students traveled back home to Miami or to Tallahassee to visit their girls,
* and borrowing from friends to buy property including homes and pine forests for lumber (not from banks).
It's 76 pages but it's big margins, double spaced, large type. It's a fast read. Even if you don't read the whole thing, at least skim the first 40 pages (don't be deterred by the first 4 pages--mostly boring background--the good stuff starts right after that).
Link: http://ufdcimages.uflib.ufl.edu/UF/00/00/62/02/00001/UF277.pdf
Alex.
I learned he recently passed away at 99 1/2 years old. In trying to find an obituary, I stumbled across this fascinating oral history project.
The linked .pdf is an interview with Dr. Gaitanis from 1995. He recounts his life as a child growing up in Miami in the 20's and 30's, attending UF's business school, law school, getting married, and coming back to UF as a professor.
If you like history like me, you'll want to read this.
* It is a fascinating snapshot at what it was like to be a child in Depression-era Florida (subsisting on avocados and crawfish, waking up at 3:00 am to sell papers),
* facing discrimination as a "foreigner" (signs at lakes reading "No Greeks, Ni**ers, or Indians Allowed" and tricking an FSU house mother into thinking his name was the less ethnic sounding "Louis Guy Thomas" so he could visit his girlfriend in Tallahassee),
* he describes people he worked with that we only know as campus buildings or statues (Trusler, Matherly),
* he provides a snapshot of campus life and Gainesville in the 30's and 40's (working on campus, hunting wild rabbits in Gainesville, then bringing them to the cafeteria where they would cook them for you, having to wear a tie to meet with the Dean),
* how students traveled back home to Miami or to Tallahassee to visit their girls,
* and borrowing from friends to buy property including homes and pine forests for lumber (not from banks).
It's 76 pages but it's big margins, double spaced, large type. It's a fast read. Even if you don't read the whole thing, at least skim the first 40 pages (don't be deterred by the first 4 pages--mostly boring background--the good stuff starts right after that).
Link: http://ufdcimages.uflib.ufl.edu/UF/00/00/62/02/00001/UF277.pdf
Alex.
