September 9, 2019 - Issue: Vol. 165, No. 143 — Daily Edition116th Congress (2019 - 2020) - 1st Session
HONORING DR. WALTER S. McAFEE; Congressional Record Vol. 165, No. 143
(Extensions of Remarks - September 09, 2019)
Text available as:
Formatting necessary for an accurate reading of this text may be shown by tags (e.g., <DELETED> or <BOLD>) or may be missing from this TXT display. For complete and accurate display of this text, see the PDF.
[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. ____________________