(Heberd) Corey. Both of Bob's parents could trace their genealogies back to the mid-seventeenth century in America and much further back in England. They both graduated from Cornell University, his father in 1892 and his mother in 1893. Fred Corey was a mechanical and electrical engineer, employed for many years by General Electric in Schenectady as a developer of railway equipment. Bob's early education was at the Brown School, a private elementary school in Schenectady. When his father went to work for Union Switch and Signal Company in Pittsburgh, Bob attended high school in Edgewood, Pennsylvania. From there he went to the University of Pittsburgh, where he graduated in 1919 with a bachelor's degree in chemistry. At some period during his youth—I do not know just when—he was stricken with the scourge of the time, poliomyelitis (infantile paralysis). A partially paralyzed left arm, a pronounced limp, and a frail constitution remained with him throughout his life, and probably contributed to his being somewhat more serious and less active socially than most of his contemporaries.

Not surprisingly, Bob's choice for graduate school was Cornell. There he majored in inorganic chemistry with Professor L. M. Dennis, with minors in spectroscopy and physical chemistry. According to A. W. Laubengayer, who also worked with Professor Dennis at the time,

(Jim) and another graduate student, R. W. Moore (Slippy), were collaborating and constructing what undoubtedly was the first all-glass vacuum line, patterned after that initiated by Stock in Germany, in this country. Considering that only 'soft' glass was then available and interchangeable slip joints and stopcocks were unknown, and diffusion pumps had not yet been invented, this project was indeed heroic. Only one with the determination and ingeniousness of Jim would have mastered it. His partner, Slippy, was a confirmed worry-wart and pessimist, despairing each day, and Jim had to rally Slippy to the cause. They finally succeeded in synthesizing and