Jim Elander, grew up in a very interesting small town about 35 miles west of Chicago with a unique population of about 3500. The unique feature was it had at least 4 millionaires. During the time before, during, and after the depression of the 1930s, they built schools, hospitals, and parks and took care of people by giving them food. I knew two of the families and some of their children. I graduated from high school on June 2, 1944 and on June 3 I was in the Navy. My Navy service was in the Pacific at Guam, Iwo Jima and Okinawa, then to Tokyo. After the peace and back to the States where I was discharged, my service put me through college and post graduate programs and additional programs via Science and Math. These programs were at Western Illinois University, Illinois State University, Purdue University, and Western Michigan University. My first teaching position was at Mazon, Illinois, a small school with only about 100 students. They taught me a lot! After my post graduate work, I applied for a position at the noted Oak Park River Forest High School (a high school where 93% of the students attended college). While at OPRFHS, I was elected president of the Chicago Men's Mathematics Club (now open to all math teachers) and also School Science and Mathematics Association. I became Math Chairman of the OPRF Math Department (with 26 math teachers). In 1980 after retiring from OPRFHS, I joined the Math department at North Central College, then retired a second time about 1990. I now live in Naples, FL.
