Des Moines Tribune from Des Moines, Iowa • 38

Quads kppy Parents Reports To the President 1 '0. w. tabor Secretary -Ar 7'1 thur J. Goldberg took time out Wednesday during a discussion with unemployed at Duluth, to phone-President Kennedy and make an on-the-spot report. Goldberg, accompanied by Minnesota Gov.

Elmer L. Andersen, toured the economically distressed iron range country of northeastern Minnesota. He told the unemployed that the administration is trying to get them back to work. Eide Wirephoto (AP) S-J 11 Vta I William W. Cutaiar III visits his wife Arlene after birth of quadruplet daughters.

ing their own. We haven't weighed them yet but I estimate they weigh from 2l2 to 3 pounds. They are in satisfactory condition." The infants were born seven weeks ahead of schedule. Cutaiar, 26, who helps his father operate a transportation firm in Kennett Square, said he and his wife had been told about four weeks ago to expect quadruplets. The Cutaiars moved from their three-bedroom home in nearby Paoli into his parents' five-bedroom home in suburban Devon because of the new additions.

The couple has two other children, William IV, 4, and Sheree, 3. PHILADELPHIA, PENN. UP) "A gift of God," exclaimed William W. Cutaiar III after his young wife gave birth to quadruplet girls Wednesday night. "It's quite a feeling," he said.

"I'm more or less starting to get back to reality. But tell m2, what do you do with four at once? "She (the mother) was really excited and trying to think of names. 'What will I name she kept repeating, and all this and that. She's just so happy. I'll let her name them." As for the babies and their 24-year-old mother, a supervisor at Delaware County Hospital in nearby Upper Darby gave this report: "The mother is doing well.

The babies are hold- Douglas Gets Keys From to his successor, Vear Douglas. City Manager Elder Gunter appointed Douglas to the police command post to serve on a temporary basis. This was the scene Thursday in the office of the Des Moines police chief as Howard R. Eide (right), relieved as chief Wednesday, turned over keys to the office I JAMES MERRITT, 3 'Sri'- After 20 Years in Navy, He's a College Boy Now i h7i VI. FATHER OF 4 blow his house away.

Aboard an LSM (landing ship medium), he went all over the Pacific, saw Tu-lagi, Guadalcanal. In Leyte Gulf he learned that an atom bomb had ended the war. He took part in no major battles during World War II was instead, he says, "in a lot of oddball places" and he loved it. Why then is he choosing four years in the reflective atmosphere of a university, on Drake's landlocked campus? "A man should do what he enjoys doing," says Merritt "He owes it to him- By Lillian McLaughlin James Robert Merritt, 42, retired navy chief petty officer, father of four, is nearing the realization of a dream he gave up 23 years ago when he went to sea. Merritt, who lives at 644 Forty-fourth is a junior at Drake University, hopes to get his degree in pharmacy in June, 1962.

In his 20 navy years, Merritt lived from Key West, to Corona, from Guam to a Pacific atoll 900 miles south of Pearl Harbor. All Over Pacific He sailed on a seagoing tug, watched a typhoon fF Vi ft i "These seagoing tugs pull things like drydocks all over the ocean. I was a chief petty officer then and the entire medical staff for 105 men. "We put in at Guam when it was being retaken by the Americans. It was a strange sensation to be on board, watching a movie, and look out in the night and see gunfire in the hills." In 1942, during an assignment in California, Merritt was married.

His wife Anita is a Puerto Rican, a member of "a grand family," he says, who had moved to the United States. When the Merritts had three children Kathleen Ann, now 14; Marlynn, 13, and James, 11 he was When it's the Dad. That's chief petty homework time at 611 Forty-fourth youngsters have to make room for James Robert Merritt, 42, retired officer, who is working toward a degree in pharmacy at Drake University. Gathered around the study table are (from left) Kathleen Ann, 14; Mrs. Merritt; Merritt; Meryem, Marlynn, 13, and James, 11.

self and his family if he can better their life. My decision to go to college was thought out for some time." The son of Mr. and Mrs. Glen C. Merritt, 4822 Har-wood drive, Merritt joined the navy in the depression year 1938, after his graduation from Roosevelt High School.

"Jobs were few and far between, and college difficult to manage then," he said. "I thought I'd go to school again after my four years in the navy." World War II changed that plan. Hospital Shop As a hospital corpsman, Merritt, just before the war broke out, was on the hospital ship Relief floating back and forth between the Hawaiian islands of Oahu and Maui, serving the U. S. fleet.

Then he was sent to Palmyra Island. "It was one of an atoll of 100 islands, no natives just 2,000 civilians building an airstrip, 12 sailors and 18 marines," said Merritt. "Best time I had in the navy. Finest fishing In the world! When war broke out, we couldn't believe it at first. Then Jap subs tossed a few shells at us." Merritt next was on a ship bringing Pearl Harbor wounded back to the States.

He served a hitch at a convalescent hospital in Corona. On Tug "Then I was on a seagoing tug, the Pakana tugs are named for Indian tribes," he said. sent to Guam, took his family with him. (The Merritts now have another daughter, Meryem Jean, arrived in Guam on Nov. 12, 1949," he said.

"On Nov. 17, a typhoon blew our house away." 3-Day Chase In 1944, Merritt when he was on the seagoing tug had weathered out another typhoon in Leyte Gulf. "Three destroyers turned over, and our towline broke loose," he said, "We chased a drydock three days. The men on the dock, with no motor, no engines, just floated helplessly around In Jap waters. "There's nothing more terrifying than the forces of nature." By the war's end, Merritt was halfway toward retirement, elected to remain in the navy.

But he applied at pharmacy school, took a six-month course at the naval hospital in Bethesda, Md. "Everything is shoved into a small capsule, but the school turns out fairly good pharmacists, who work, of course, under supervision," Merritt said. "I've been associated with pharmacy ever since." Part-Time Work Merritt works part-time at the Iowa Methodist Hospital pharmacy, draws his navy pension (half of base pay). His parents also have helped, he says. When he is graduated, he would like to work in a hospital pharmacy, possibly in the Veterans Administration.

Docs he feci a bit lost going to and from classes with men and women a couple of decades younger than he? "Not at all," says Merritt. "I spent a good deal of time supervising the young in the navy. 'These young people at Drake are serious. They have minds of their own, know where they are going and are determinca tw get there. "I don't think we need worry about the younger generation.

I'm happy to have the opportunity of being with them. "It has opened my eyes." JAMES ROBERT MERRITT A change of jackets.