[Congressional Record Volume 165, Number 143 (Monday, September 9, 2019)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E1110-E1112]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
HONORING DR. WALTER S. McAFEE
______
HON. CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH
of new jersey
in the house of representatives
Monday, September 9, 2019
Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. Madam Speaker, as a result of legislation I
introduced (H.R. 3655) which was signed into law (P.L. 115-151), more
than 200 people gathered outside the U.S. Post Office located on Main
Street in Belmar, NJ at a ceremony to rename the building in honor of
Dr. Walter S. McAfee--an extraordinary scientist, educator, and
innovator.
Attending the event were many family members, friends and coworkers
of Dr. McAfee's, including his sister, Velma McAfee-Williams, who
turned 90 last week, and his daughters Marsha McAfee Bera-Morris and
Diane Mercedes McAfee.
Also present to pay tribute to Dr. McAfee was: Belmar Mayor Mark
Walsifer; USPS South Jersey District Manager James Drummer; Belmar
Postmaster John Mutchler, III; Mike Ruane, the CEO of InfoAge Science &
History Center; and elected officials from Monmouth County, neighboring
Lake Como and Wall Township.
Dr. McAfee was a brilliant scientist. His breakthrough research and
mathematical theories led to bouncing radio signals off the moon's
surface. His unique work served as the forerunner for satellite
communications, entry into the space age, moonshots and moonwalks.
Dr. McAfee is also known for his many innovations and successful
projects including sensors he pioneered to assist the military in
keeping tabs on aggressive actors--tools that saved the lives of many
Americans and our allies.
And we remembered and honored Dr. McAfee for his lifelong commitment
to learning--including his tenure as a professor at Monmouth College
and service as Chairman of the Board at Brookdale Community College.
As an African-American, Dr. McAfee overcame adversity and prejudice
with courage, tenacity and faith. His amazing life inspires. He
challenges us to strive for excellence. He is truly a role model.
[[Page E1111]]
In closing, I would like to include in the Record, the moving and
heart-warming remarks given by Dr. McAfee's daughter, Marsha McAfee
Bera-Morris, and nephew, Dr. Leo Cecil McAfee, Jr.
Remarks by Marsha McAfee Bera-Morris
Good morning. Congressman Smith, Mayor Walsifer, District
Manager Drummer, Postmaster Mutchler, family and friends. I
am Marsha McAfee Bera-Morris, the younger (or second)
daughter of Walter Samuel and Viola Winston McAfee.
On behalf of the entire McAfee family, I would like to
thank Congressman Smith and his staff and ``the leaders of
the Information Age Learning Center (or InfoAge)'' for their
efforts and persistence in the honoring of our father/
brother/uncle/granduncle/etc. by renaming the Belmar Post
Office as the ``Dr. Walter S. McAfee Post Office Building.''
We all greatly appreciate this honor and the opportunity that
this renaming ceremony affords us to celebrate his memory and
share our thoughts about his lifelong effort to contribute to
science and its service to the nation.
My father was deeply interested in education throughout his
entire lifetime. He taught briefly at a Champion Junior High
School in Columbus, Ohio. He also taught part-time at a
couple of New Jersey colleges, including Monmouth College,
while employed by the Army.
I would like to share with you just a bit of my personal
perspective on his love of astrophysics. I can remember him
waking me up, along with my sister Diane--at our request [a
request that he probably encouraged]--to see meteor showers
or lunar eclipses. Space physics was one of his true loves.
The summer I turned 12, a significant age for air fares, the
4 of us traveled to Europe. Three (3) of us were on vacation;
he was doing research on what, I think, were large radar
installations.
At home, he would often help with homework. But he would
never seem to just answer a question. Rather, he would ask
questions, backtracking until he found something that I or my
sister Diane had mastered. He would then bring us forward to
the subject matter about which we had inquired. Sometimes
this was interesting; more often, it was quite exasperating.
But he instilled in his two daughters a desire to master
their selected fields of endeavor. And finally, it was almost
impossible to argue with my father; logic and reason had to
govern any discussion.
About 15 years ago, I got my hands on a copy of a speech my
father had given. His speech concerned his own education and
the almost unbelievable hardships he had endured and against
which he had struggled. My father was born in 1914 in Ore
City, Texas. One of nine children to survive beyond age five
(5), he grew up in Marshall, Texas. His parents were both
educated and ``had strong middle-class values.'' All but one
of his siblings earned college degrees. He pointed out in his
speech that his parents owned a parcel of land. If they had
been sharecroppers, then he might not have continued his
education, since, in those days, the landowner could
``determine the fate'' of a sharecropper's children in the
educational sphere.
My father graduated from Wiley College in Marshall, Texas,
with a bachelors (B.S.) in mathematics, magna cum laude. I
think all or most of his siblings also attended Wiley. Second
oldest, he assisted with the expenses of some of his younger
siblings. He earned an M.S. in Physics from Ohio State
University and a Ph.D. in Physics from Cornell University
(under Hans Bethe). It is from his speech that I gather that
his most trying time was at Ohio State. Black people were not
allowed to be teaching assistants at Ohio State at that time,
nor could they stay in the dormitories on campus. At times,
my father was working three or four jobs simultaneously to
cover the cost of tuition and housing and educational
expenses. His department chairman actively discouraged
pursuit of a Ph.D. and, according to my father, hollered at
him for not taking an Industrial Arts course. He was, after
all, only going to be able to go back South to teach in a
black school.
Walter McAfee persevered. His family background, his stay
at Wiley, his continued communication with one or more of his
teachers from Wiley, plus his own awareness of what he had
mastered seem to me to be the chief support for this
perseverance. My father maintained a lifelong correspondence
with his first physics teacher, Professor McCane of Wiley
College, and, so far as I can tell, relied heavily on his
advice and support while at Ohio State.
In his own speech, my father stressed two things: (1)
mastery of your subject matter; and (2) perseverance. Before
he went on to Cornell University, but after he left Ohio
State, my father worked his way through several physics
books. He was determined to master the subject matter whether
or not his dream of a Ph.D. was achieved.
My father went to work as a civilian employee of the Army
in 1942 or so. He retired in 1985. He died in February of
1995. He is best known, I guess, for his mathematical
calculations for Project Diana, which involved bouncing radar
off the moon. This success has been said to mark the
beginning of the Space Age. As you can see, he had a l-o-n-g
career with the Army. I will not try to summarize that
career. For one thing, while he could and would talk about
physics in general, he couldn't and didn't talk about most of
the specifics of his job. I do know that, late in his career
with the Army, he did some traveling to NATO, and once he
mentioned ``night vision.''
In the 1950s, my father was recognized by President
Eisenhower for his work on Project Diana. In 1997, about two
and a half years after my father's death, the Army named a
building, actually a complex of buildings, ``McAfee Center.''
McAfee Center was located at Fort Monmouth, N.J., and, we are
told, the designation was a first at Fort Monmouth for a
civilian employee of the Army. After the Fort was scheduled
for closure, a cluster of buildings at Aberdeen Proving
Grounds in Maryland, was named in his honor.
Still, to have his name here in this Post Office, a central
public building, in the place he called home, raised his
family, honed his scientific skills and contributed to major
space exploration--this moment provides a singular pride and
satisfaction for so many of his family and friends and
colleagues.
I thank you for allowing me to share my thoughts.
Excerpts of Remarks by Dr. Leo Cecil McAfee, Jr.
Good Morning,
My name is Leo McAfee. I am a nephew of Dr. Walter McAfee.
My role today is to represent the non-immediate family of
Uncle Walter.
In this role, first I would like to acknowledge the birth
family of Uncle Walter, including his mother Susie McAfee and
father Luther McAfee.
Uncle Walter was born into a family of 9 children to become
youth and adults. There were 6 sons and 3 daughters, each
attended college. Seven or 8 of the siblings earned
bachelor's degrees in the Mathematics and Science fields. One
of the mathematically oriented siblings is with us today,
Aunt Velma, the youngest daughter, who was blessed to just
celebrate her 90th birthday in Houston, Texas on Saturday,
August 10th, 2019. Please recognize Aunt Velma, the only
surviving sibling of Uncle Walter.
Now for some impact of Uncle Walter in the lives of our
family.
First, Uncle Walter impacted me personally.
I knew Uncle Walter's Family because of their visits to
Grandmother Susie McAfee in Marshall, Texas. We would travel
to Marshall to visit with Aunt Vi, Mercedes, Marsha and Uncle
Walter. Since I was under age 10, Uncle Walter was only
slightly known to me.
Vividly I remember a day at my elementary school; I was a
fifth/sixth grade student at the time. My father, school
Principal of my elementary school, proudly showed us a
newspaper article reporting that Uncle Walter was a recipient
of a Secretary of the Army Presidential Fellowship. This
event is vivid in my memory because I decided I wanted to
earn a Ph.D. and be a scientist, though I did not know the
career of a scientist or of an engineer or for any other
professional career other than educator/teacher. That event
and day has remained etched and stored in the forefront in my
memory for perhaps 63 years now.
Well I did not become a scientist, but I did earn a Ph.D.
in electrical engineering in 1970 at the University of
Michigan and became the first American of African heritage to
become a faculty member in the College of Engineering at the
University of Michigan.
Now, I will tell you a bit of my journey as mentored by
Uncle Walter.
Jump ahead nine or ten years to summer 1965. As a student
in the middle of my junior level in college, I accepted a
summer job in Poughkeepsie, NY at IBM semiconductor
development/manufacturing facility.
Being in New York, I was encouraged to contact my nearby
relative, Uncle Walter.
To visit, Uncle Walter tried to get me to catch a train or
a bus to visit Aunt Vi and him in South Belmar. He quickly
realized that this ``country boy'' was hopeless to use public
transportation in the NY/NJ region. He arranged to drive to
Poughkeepsie to pick me up to stay a weekend at their home;
and then take me back to Poughkeepsie at the end of that
weekend.
During that weekend, we discussed my academic record and
educational ventures and education goals. Also, we discussed
areas of electrical engineering I Preferred (circuits,
electronics, semiconductors). Well, semiconductor physics was
one of the classes Uncle Walter taught, a class I looked
forward to taking. That connection engaged conversations.
Also, he knew much about electronics, he being in the
Communications-Electronics Command (CECOM) at Fort Monmouth.
Either that weekend or during another weekend visit, Uncle
Walter decided that I was a serious student. He encouraged me
to transfer to Monmouth College. He offered that Aunt Vi and
he would pay for my education expenses, so my education would
be more fundamentally sound based in physics and
semiconductor devices.
My viewpoint was that in another 14 months, I would be able
to start graduate study at a top university in the United
States, and would be able to strengthen my fundamentals.
After further discussion, Uncle Walter seemed to accept my
viewpoint.
During summers 1968, 1969, 1971, I had summer positions at
Bell Labs in Murray Hill, NJ and IBM in Yorktown Heights, NY
twice, the two superior industry research labs in the United
States. Again, for each summer, I was near Uncle Walter and
Aunt Vi. Uncle Walter and I had numerous mentoring contacts
during those three summers.
[[Page E1112]]
After I started my 40-year faculty career at the University
of Michigan, in the early 1970's, Uncle Walter visited
researchers at the University of Michigan, including managing
a project at the Willow Run Laboratories that was the site
for highly confidential research. During his visit, we had
some serious career decisions discussions. Though I liked
circuits and electronics, many top electrical engineers
thought those fields were past their hey-day. I clearly
remember Uncle Walter telling me to stick to the areas that I
liked, and that my work would find more than enough rich
areas to study and to make contributions. Again, he was
correct. I was part of the pioneering field of numerical
mathematical computer modeling of circuits and semiconductor
electronic devices.
Next, Uncle Walter impacted three generations in the McAfee
(and Lester) family.
He impacted the first generation--the nieces and nephews of
Uncle Walter--which included me, my siblings, McAfee first
cousins, and the Lester first cousins.
He impacted the second generation--the grand-nieces and
grand-nephews of Uncle Walter. Each of my three children did
a report on Uncle Walter several years in elementary, middle,
and high school. Children of my siblings did reports on Uncle
Walter. And children of first cousins did reports on Uncle
Walter, even children of first cousins on my mother's side
(Lester) did reports.
He impacted the third generation--the great-grand-nieces
and great-grand-nephews of Uncle Walter. Children of grand-
nieces & grand-nephews are still doing reports on Uncle
Walter.
Uncle Walter had major notoriety regarding the moon with
his contributions in Project Diana. Just last month, NASA,
the USA, and the world celebrated the 50th anniversary of
first landing on the moon by humans, partially made possible
by the work of Uncle Walter in Project Diana.
In closing, a bit of Big Ten conference razzing, hopefully
humor for sports fans.
As a family, my children and I are die-heart University of
Michigan alumni; we bleed U-M maize and blue. The one strike/
complaint against Uncle Walter is his attending Ohio State
University, U-M's arch Big Ten rival in all collegiate
sports, especially football.
In baseball terminology, attending Ohio State was initially
a called strike against Uncle Walter. However, Uncle Walter
``hit a home-run out the park'' with his spectacular
technical and personal family successes.
Thank you.
____________________