WEBVTT - The Mennonite National Anthem 0:00:15.356 --> 0:00:15.796 Pushkin. 0:00:20.396 --> 0:00:24.556 Lester Glick's diary, July twenty eighth, nineteen forty five. 0:00:28.556 --> 0:00:31.076 This morning I looked in the mirror and hated what 0:00:31.156 --> 0:00:36.596 I saw. My face is now emaciated, sad, and flecked 0:00:36.596 --> 0:00:38.116 with black dots. 0:00:39.236 --> 0:00:41.476 Lester Glick was one of the thirty six young men 0:00:41.636 --> 0:00:45.276 who signed up for the Minnesota Starvation Experiment. Unlike so 0:00:45.356 --> 0:00:48.156 many of his counterparts, Blick did not leave an oral 0:00:48.196 --> 0:00:52.116 history of his experience at the Library of Congress. All 0:00:52.156 --> 0:00:56.876 we have is what he wrote in his diary. This 0:00:57.116 --> 0:01:00.396 entry is from late in the study, after months of hunger. 0:01:02.836 --> 0:01:07.476 My nose is bony, my cheeks protrude, my lips are 0:01:07.516 --> 0:01:12.156 big and flabby. My fluffy, wavy hair has become coarse 0:01:12.196 --> 0:01:15.836 and straight. My comb is always laden with globs of 0:01:15.916 --> 0:01:19.196 loose hair. I can count my ribs in the mirror, 0:01:19.556 --> 0:01:23.676 and my collar bone sticks out as though dislocated. My 0:01:23.876 --> 0:01:26.516 arm muscles have dwindled that I could reach around my 0:01:26.716 --> 0:01:29.596 arm above the elbow with my thumb and third finger. 0:01:32.116 --> 0:01:37.436 I am so weak I can scarcely walk. I am tired, discouraged. 0:01:38.796 --> 0:01:40.636 My life has all been drained from me. 0:01:43.316 --> 0:01:46.716 And here is what Lesterglick wrote on October nineteenth, the 0:01:46.836 --> 0:01:48.556 second to last day of the experiment. 0:01:49.796 --> 0:01:52.556 To day turned out to be the worst day of 0:01:52.596 --> 0:01:56.596 my life. This evening, Doctor Taylor called me into his 0:01:56.676 --> 0:02:00.636 office and told me I have developed a tuberculosis lesion 0:02:01.116 --> 0:02:04.516 on the apex of my left lung. I am to 0:02:04.556 --> 0:02:08.276 go home, enter a sanatorium, and begin a six month 0:02:08.356 --> 0:02:16.236 rehabilitation program. I couldn't have received any worse news. My 0:02:16.316 --> 0:02:19.676 tuberculosis came into sharp focus. However, as we gathered for 0:02:19.716 --> 0:02:23.916 the last supper celebration, all of the subjects, in fear 0:02:23.996 --> 0:02:27.076 of my dread disease, moved away from me and I 0:02:27.116 --> 0:02:30.156 sat alone, completely isolated from the others. 0:02:38.556 --> 0:02:41.676 My name is Malcolm Glowell. You're listening to Revisionist History, 0:02:41.876 --> 0:02:47.236 my podcast about things overlooked and misunderstood. This is the 0:02:47.276 --> 0:02:50.876 final episode of our look at the Starvation Experiment run 0:02:50.876 --> 0:02:55.276 by Ansel Keys during the Second World War. Today, I 0:02:55.316 --> 0:02:58.676 want to tell a story of Lester Glick, the story 0:02:58.876 --> 0:03:02.116 of what happened to him after the experiment and how 0:03:02.116 --> 0:03:04.396 he made sense of all the suffering he had been through. 0:03:12.836 --> 0:03:14.276 Just tell me a little bit about your father. 0:03:14.396 --> 0:03:17.156 First of all, so I look very much like him. 0:03:17.756 --> 0:03:22.596 He had dark, curly hair, he was about five five 0:03:22.756 --> 0:03:25.356 I think maybe five six if we if he stood 0:03:25.356 --> 0:03:28.476 on his tiptoes, maybe he was down to one hundred 0:03:28.476 --> 0:03:30.396 and fourteen pounds at his lowest weight. 0:03:31.716 --> 0:03:34.356 Lester Glick died in two thousand and three, but I 0:03:34.436 --> 0:03:36.876 spoke with two of his children, that's. 0:03:36.796 --> 0:03:41.796 His daughter Chris, and he was a very thin man 0:03:42.276 --> 0:03:46.436 until he got out of the starvation experiment. I mean 0:03:46.476 --> 0:03:49.636 before he went there, he was thin, but then he 0:03:49.716 --> 0:03:51.996 had an eating disorder the rest of his life, so 0:03:52.316 --> 0:03:56.076 he gained and lost hundreds of pounds throughout the rest 0:03:56.076 --> 0:03:58.716 of his life. He was kind of roly poly as 0:03:58.756 --> 0:03:59.956 how I remember him. 0:04:01.316 --> 0:04:04.716 After I spoke to Chris, I called up Lester Glick's son, Byron. 0:04:05.636 --> 0:04:09.956 How do you think the experience and being involved in 0:04:09.996 --> 0:04:17.796 that experiment changed him completely? 0:04:17.836 --> 0:04:22.836 And not at all. It's clear to me that Daddy's 0:04:22.876 --> 0:04:30.236 relationship with food and with his body was utterly and 0:04:30.356 --> 0:04:37.436 completely disordered and changed by the starvation experiment. In that regard, 0:04:37.556 --> 0:04:43.476 he never got over the starvation experiment. And Dad talks 0:04:43.556 --> 0:04:46.316 as he was talking about his struggles with his way 0:04:47.556 --> 0:04:54.916 that he never this is just amazing to think about. 0:04:55.796 --> 0:04:59.636 He never got over being hungry. He was always hungry 0:05:00.236 --> 0:05:02.556 even when he had all the food he wanted. That 0:05:03.076 --> 0:05:10.036 something had happened in his physiology that broke the connection 0:05:10.316 --> 0:05:15.116 between his stomach and his brain and it never cured. 0:05:16.716 --> 0:05:19.476 You know, I never saw my father cry, but I 0:05:19.516 --> 0:05:22.156 saw him as close to tears when he would talk 0:05:22.156 --> 0:05:23.356 about that experience. 0:05:25.236 --> 0:05:31.556 It's making me cry. Like he would always keep candy 0:05:31.676 --> 0:05:34.836 underneath his seat his the driver's seat in the car 0:05:34.916 --> 0:05:37.316 because he always wanted to have food close to him 0:05:38.076 --> 0:05:43.996 just in case he got hungry, and he described starvation 0:05:44.396 --> 0:05:47.676 as the worst deprivation there is for humankind. 0:05:52.156 --> 0:05:57.876 As a kid, sometimes I felt like he was detached. 0:05:58.956 --> 0:06:04.036 Looking back on it, I think he was scared, and 0:06:04.396 --> 0:06:09.796 he was scared because he had experienced things that most 0:06:09.796 --> 0:06:13.356 people don't experience. I think my dad was scarred in 0:06:13.396 --> 0:06:16.676 the same way you hear about veterans being scarred about 0:06:16.716 --> 0:06:22.596 active war. That there's just some stuff you can't explain 0:06:22.676 --> 0:06:35.596 and you can't control, and it's scary. And part of 0:06:35.636 --> 0:06:40.716 me wishes that my dad had never had to experience that, 0:06:40.716 --> 0:06:43.116 that he had had a sweeter life than he had, 0:06:43.676 --> 0:06:47.316 and he had a pretty sweet life. He had a 0:06:47.356 --> 0:06:52.916 good life. He would say he had a good life, 0:06:54.636 --> 0:07:00.836 but He paid a price for what he believed, and 0:07:00.916 --> 0:07:06.436 he kept paying that price his whole life. He was 0:07:06.476 --> 0:07:07.556 an amazing man. 0:07:14.276 --> 0:07:16.876 Byron and Chris both know what their father went through, 0:07:17.596 --> 0:07:20.196 but they also know what he became as a result. 0:07:24.836 --> 0:07:28.116 For as long as scientists have puzzled about human physiology, 0:07:28.556 --> 0:07:34.316 they've wondered how the body responds to extended deprivation. When 0:07:34.316 --> 0:07:37.396 you don't eat enough, you get weak. We all know that, 0:07:37.756 --> 0:07:41.716 but beyond that, the details quickly get complicated, and those 0:07:41.796 --> 0:07:45.716 critical details obsessed ansel Keys as he set out to 0:07:45.756 --> 0:07:50.316 design the starvation experiment. In twenty twenty one, the journal 0:07:50.356 --> 0:07:53.916 Obesity Reviews devoted an entire issue to the legacy of 0:07:53.916 --> 0:07:58.436 Ansel Keys. The issue was organized by a physiologist at 0:07:58.436 --> 0:08:02.476 the University of Freberg in Switzerland. His name is Abdul Dulux. 0:08:04.076 --> 0:08:06.756 Give me an example of a question that is very 0:08:06.796 --> 0:08:08.316 difficult to answer in your world. 0:08:09.556 --> 0:08:15.076 Right from the beginning of nineteen hundred, from prisoners of wars, 0:08:15.116 --> 0:08:18.996 from people being mild nourished and recovering that there was 0:08:19.036 --> 0:08:24.116 a tendency for body fat to be recovered faster than 0:08:24.556 --> 0:08:27.756 lean mass and muscle mass and so forth. And this 0:08:27.956 --> 0:08:31.116 was quite a problem because when you think of you 0:08:31.156 --> 0:08:35.356 are rehabilitating a patient who has that's a cancer or 0:08:35.476 --> 0:08:39.796 infection or wherever that they lose weight because of the disease. 0:08:40.756 --> 0:08:44.076 When you have to make them recover, you would prefer 0:08:44.116 --> 0:08:49.476 them to recover tissue, organ, muscle, because that's where the 0:08:49.516 --> 0:08:54.356 functionality is critical. Right, But they have problem to recover 0:08:55.356 --> 0:09:00.796 muscle mass, muscle function, and relatively ease to recover fat, 0:09:02.076 --> 0:09:05.156 and especially in the abdominal area, which is where the 0:09:05.156 --> 0:09:06.636 bad fat is situated. 0:09:07.956 --> 0:09:10.756 Muscle is a lot more important to regaining your health 0:09:10.796 --> 0:09:13.716 than fat. But the body wants to recover fat first 0:09:13.996 --> 0:09:16.916 after extended weight loss, and not just a little fat. 0:09:17.956 --> 0:09:22.796 Not only they recover their fat faster, but they recover 0:09:22.956 --> 0:09:26.676 more fat than the lost So what I mean, So 0:09:26.716 --> 0:09:29.996 they recover more weight and it's mostly fat. 0:09:32.316 --> 0:09:34.756 Why does the body do that? And is there something 0:09:34.796 --> 0:09:37.436 that science could do to make the body switch tactics 0:09:37.796 --> 0:09:41.156 and build lean muscle instead. You could imagine all the 0:09:41.196 --> 0:09:43.676 areas where the answers to these questions would be useful. 0:09:44.436 --> 0:09:47.996 Keys was focused on people suffering from malnutrition during the war, 0:09:48.556 --> 0:09:53.716 concentration camp survivors, for example. That's one area Delu mentioned. 0:09:53.716 --> 0:09:59.236 People recovering from serious illness, cancer patients after chemotherapy. That's another, 0:10:01.236 --> 0:10:04.076 but as also people trying to recover from eating disorders, 0:10:04.396 --> 0:10:08.516 people struggling with obesity, trying to maintain weight loss. Eighty 0:10:08.556 --> 0:10:11.036 five to ninety percent of those who lose weight gain 0:10:11.076 --> 0:10:16.476 it back. We need to understand that process. But there's 0:10:16.516 --> 0:10:19.636 a problem. There's no easy way to do good experiments 0:10:19.716 --> 0:10:22.596 on starvation and his aftermath. I mean, how would you 0:10:22.636 --> 0:10:25.596 do it? You need to carefully control what people eat, 0:10:25.796 --> 0:10:28.196 when they eat, how much they eat, and you have 0:10:28.236 --> 0:10:30.796 to do that for months on end, because nothing useful 0:10:30.796 --> 0:10:33.396 about diet can be learned from a few weeks of observations. 0:10:34.036 --> 0:10:37.516 You can't run experiments with prisoners or people locked up 0:10:37.556 --> 0:10:43.076 in a psychiatric hospital, because that would be unethical. You 0:10:43.116 --> 0:10:46.356 need people who consent to be starved and have the 0:10:46.396 --> 0:10:49.796 discipline to follow up on their commitment. But how do 0:10:49.836 --> 0:11:01.196 you find people who fit that profile? A few years ago, 0:11:01.276 --> 0:11:05.316 the National Institutes of Health organized something called the Calorie Study, 0:11:05.716 --> 0:11:08.796 where one hundred and forty three adults signed up for 0:11:08.836 --> 0:11:12.476 two years of stringent dieting. The goal was for them 0:11:12.476 --> 0:11:16.156 to cut their caloric intake by twenty five percent, and 0:11:16.196 --> 0:11:21.116 they received quote an intensive lifestyle intervention to foster adherents, 0:11:21.476 --> 0:11:27.036 individual counseling, group sessions, consultants. How much caloric intake did 0:11:27.036 --> 0:11:29.916 the volunteers end up cutting from their diets when all 0:11:29.996 --> 0:11:33.796 was said and done, not twenty five percent, twelve percent. 0:11:34.676 --> 0:11:38.116 After all that effort, the volunteers, on average only got 0:11:38.316 --> 0:11:42.796 half way to their goal. And can you blame them? 0:11:43.116 --> 0:11:45.156 It's just too much to ask someone to give up 0:11:45.396 --> 0:11:48.396 a quarter of the calories they consume and to do 0:11:48.436 --> 0:11:52.196 that every day for months on end. Except that is 0:11:52.596 --> 0:11:57.596 if we're talking about anseel keys as guinea pigs. Abduldulou 0:11:57.716 --> 0:11:59.596 told me that when he started working in the field 0:11:59.636 --> 0:12:03.316 of obesity and metabolism almost thirty years ago, he quickly 0:12:03.356 --> 0:12:06.396 realized that the best source of data on some problems, 0:12:06.756 --> 0:12:10.596 and in some cases the only source of data, was 0:12:10.636 --> 0:12:16.956 the Minnesota Starvation Experiment ANCIL. Keys kept meticulous, comprehensive records 0:12:17.116 --> 0:12:19.796 on what six months of starvation looked like, and then 0:12:19.876 --> 0:12:23.156 Keys collected another mountain of data that could help answer 0:12:23.236 --> 0:12:27.596 questions about body fat once the volunteers started eating normally again. 0:12:28.476 --> 0:12:31.156 What we know about the human body of a normal 0:12:31.596 --> 0:12:36.156 weight person reacting to starvation is based on the Minnesota experiment. 0:12:37.156 --> 0:12:41.476 The Minnesota experiment is the gold standard. I did have 0:12:41.596 --> 0:12:45.396 a thing in my podcast this season where I asked 0:12:45.636 --> 0:12:49.196 researchers for their magic wand experiment, which is the experiment 0:12:49.756 --> 0:12:51.796 that they would do if I gave them a magic 0:12:51.836 --> 0:12:57.076 wand and they could wave away all logistical, financial, practical, ethical, 0:12:57.276 --> 0:13:01.076 whatever constraints. And I'm curious, if I gave you a 0:13:01.076 --> 0:13:04.756 magic wand, what is the diet or nutrition study that 0:13:04.836 --> 0:13:05.916 you would do? 0:13:05.956 --> 0:13:09.076 You mean ethica also is uh, we forget about it 0:13:09.916 --> 0:13:12.036 to try to do a similar study. But now we 0:13:12.116 --> 0:13:17.836 have so much more technology. We can monitor physical activity, 0:13:18.596 --> 0:13:24.396 a lot of the changes of function functional, whether it's muscle, 0:13:24.516 --> 0:13:29.196 whether it's immune function, and all that. 0:13:30.276 --> 0:13:33.916 What you're saying is you'd simply redo the Minnesota study, 0:13:33.996 --> 0:13:37.956 only this time use modern methods to gather an order 0:13:37.996 --> 0:13:43.396 of magnitude more data. Right, The whole point of a 0:13:43.436 --> 0:13:46.396 magic wand experiment is that it's the experiment you could 0:13:46.396 --> 0:13:49.636 never do in real life. Ansel Keys did the perfect 0:13:49.676 --> 0:13:53.916 experiment without a magic wand. And why was Ansel Keys 0:13:53.956 --> 0:13:57.076 able to do that? Because he was lucky enough to 0:13:57.196 --> 0:14:01.276 find volunteers willing to starve themselves to the point where 0:14:01.276 --> 0:14:04.796 their faces were flecked with black dots, their noses were bony, 0:14:04.996 --> 0:14:09.076 their cheeks protruding, their hair coarse and straight, and following 0:14:09.196 --> 0:14:10.196 out in big clubs. 0:14:11.676 --> 0:14:17.836 This is e and really really really huge contribution to humanity, 0:14:18.436 --> 0:14:21.076 to humanity, and they were not forced. 0:14:20.796 --> 0:14:21.236 To do it. 0:14:27.036 --> 0:14:29.756 When the US entered World War two, Lester Glick was 0:14:29.756 --> 0:14:34.276 twenty three years old, he declared himself a conscientious objector. 0:14:34.836 --> 0:14:37.556 He had grown up in a Mennonite family, attending one 0:14:37.556 --> 0:14:40.996 of the historic peace churches where pacifism is a tenant 0:14:40.996 --> 0:14:44.836 of faith. Glick was assigned to Ipsilenty, Michigan, to the 0:14:44.876 --> 0:14:48.676 State Mental Hospital. He was the night charge attendant on 0:14:48.756 --> 0:14:53.276 the active tuberculosis ward. Then one day he saw a 0:14:53.356 --> 0:14:55.156 notice on a bulletin board. 0:14:55.596 --> 0:14:59.036 And at the top there was a statement that said, 0:14:59.236 --> 0:15:05.236 will you starve that they be better fed. So Lester 0:15:05.276 --> 0:15:08.396 Glick would have seen this that spoke to him in 0:15:08.436 --> 0:15:09.276 his langu. 0:15:09.236 --> 0:15:13.356 Which that's Dwayne Stoltzless, a historian at the same men 0:15:13.356 --> 0:15:16.356 in Night school. Lester Glick once attended Goshen College. 0:15:18.076 --> 0:15:21.276 I think when I was hungry, did you feed me? 0:15:21.436 --> 0:15:23.996 When I was thirsty? Did you give me something to drink? 0:15:24.476 --> 0:15:27.556 It is that kind of language. So it very much 0:15:27.676 --> 0:15:34.236 is responding to Christ's invitation to go out into the world, 0:15:34.476 --> 0:15:38.196 not to stay in your church, but to go out 0:15:38.236 --> 0:15:42.596 into the world and to do good work and be 0:15:42.796 --> 0:15:46.836 judged by those actions. 0:15:47.876 --> 0:15:51.676 Matthew twenty five, verse thirty five, the same crucial verse 0:15:51.956 --> 0:15:54.716 I talked about a few episodes ago in talking about 0:15:54.756 --> 0:16:00.356 refugees and acts of kindness. My friend Jim Leptisen, who's 0:16:00.356 --> 0:16:03.956 a Menonite pastor, calls Matthew twenty five the national anthem 0:16:03.996 --> 0:16:06.996 of the Mennonite Church, the verse that defines the Mennonite 0:16:07.076 --> 0:16:11.116 religious calling to welcome this stranger, to clothe the naked, 0:16:11.636 --> 0:16:13.396 and to feed the hungry. 0:16:14.956 --> 0:16:20.916 For Mennonites certainly of luster Glicks generation, but I would 0:16:20.956 --> 0:16:26.556 say across generations, the reading of Matthew twenty five is 0:16:27.076 --> 0:16:37.676 a literal reading. It is a powerful invitation to step 0:16:37.716 --> 0:16:40.436 out of your comfort zone and go to places that 0:16:40.516 --> 0:16:49.356 are dangerous and risky and uncomfortable in order to do good. 0:16:50.556 --> 0:16:54.196 And this is another front spread over the face of America. 0:16:55.996 --> 0:17:00.716 Like the other fronts, it is big and complicated, so 0:17:00.956 --> 0:17:03.036 big that only a few men in the whole nation 0:17:03.676 --> 0:17:06.756 can understand its real capacity for waiting war. 0:17:10.596 --> 0:17:13.476 So Lester Blick moved to Minneapolis and took one of 0:17:13.476 --> 0:17:15.716 the long line of cots that ansel Keys had set 0:17:15.796 --> 0:17:21.636 up underneath the school's football stadium. He became a guinea pig. 0:17:27.156 --> 0:17:30.636 Now did lester Glick understand in that moment what he 0:17:30.716 --> 0:17:34.956 was getting into. Of course not nobody did. That's the 0:17:34.956 --> 0:17:39.076 point of an experiment. The subject commits to an uncertain outcome. 0:17:39.756 --> 0:17:42.556 But over the course of his long year in Minneapolis, 0:17:42.796 --> 0:17:46.356 he documents in his diaries his descent into a kind 0:17:46.356 --> 0:17:46.756 of hell. 0:17:49.876 --> 0:17:52.396 He is just one of the kindest, most gracious people. 0:17:52.436 --> 0:17:55.076 But as he writes about his experience, he writes about 0:17:55.076 --> 0:17:59.036 getting really angry, angry with the officials in charge because 0:17:59.036 --> 0:18:03.396 they've taken away his allotment of bread. You know, he's 0:18:03.436 --> 0:18:05.796 no longer getting the two slices he thought he was 0:18:05.836 --> 0:18:08.436 going to get because he's not losing weight fast enough. 0:18:10.076 --> 0:18:12.396 Back when lester Glick had been working at the State 0:18:12.436 --> 0:18:15.876 mental hospital in Michigan, he wrote with pride about the 0:18:15.876 --> 0:18:19.756 connections he made with patients who could not speak. He 0:18:19.796 --> 0:18:23.036 loved to work with patients and help them. But now 0:18:23.316 --> 0:18:28.316 in his hunger, he was becoming isolated, antisocial. He started 0:18:28.316 --> 0:18:32.196 to dislike the company of his fellow guinea pigs, and. 0:18:32.116 --> 0:18:36.076 So there is the separation that starts to take place, 0:18:36.076 --> 0:18:39.876 as breakdown in relations that is not at all in 0:18:39.956 --> 0:18:44.676 keeping with the real luster Glick, but it was the 0:18:44.756 --> 0:18:52.516 new Mault nourish Luster Glick who was separated from all 0:18:52.556 --> 0:18:53.756 the people around him. 0:18:54.156 --> 0:18:56.556 He understands that what it means to be hungry is 0:18:57.396 --> 0:19:04.036 not a momentary physiological deficit. It is a profound and 0:19:04.316 --> 0:19:07.396 overwhelming deprivation on every level. 0:19:09.876 --> 0:19:15.876 It's a deep isolation and an isolation that goes against 0:19:16.956 --> 0:19:20.756 the building up of community that he's been a part 0:19:20.796 --> 0:19:27.316 of since childhood. That church community, the family community was 0:19:27.996 --> 0:19:31.356 had shaped who he was in the most basic ways. 0:19:33.716 --> 0:19:36.516 In the bit of scripture so essential to Mennonites. For 0:19:36.676 --> 0:19:40.596 I was hungry, and you fed me, Lesterglick now understands 0:19:40.756 --> 0:19:45.676 what hungry means. It's not just calorie deprivation, it's the 0:19:45.716 --> 0:19:50.636 absence of any kind of sustenance. And then at the 0:19:50.716 --> 0:19:53.596 end of his time in Minneapolis, he discovers he has 0:19:53.636 --> 0:19:56.916 developed tuberculosis as a result of his ordeal. 0:20:03.316 --> 0:20:06.796 So daddy's plan had been to go to medical school 0:20:06.836 --> 0:20:08.676 when he was in college, and he was going to 0:20:08.676 --> 0:20:11.676 be a doctor. And then when he got TV during 0:20:11.716 --> 0:20:14.996 the starvation experiment, that his doctors told him that he 0:20:15.036 --> 0:20:18.836 couldn't withstand the rigors of medical school and medical education 0:20:18.956 --> 0:20:22.396 and then medical practice, and so they advised him to 0:20:22.436 --> 0:20:24.596 do something else, and he chose social work. 0:20:25.436 --> 0:20:27.636 His life took a profoundly different turn. 0:20:28.476 --> 0:20:31.476 He got a master's and then he got his PhD 0:20:31.596 --> 0:20:35.676 at Washington University in Saint Louis because he felt like, 0:20:36.956 --> 0:20:40.276 as he practiced social work that social work education was 0:20:40.476 --> 0:20:43.756 what his calling was. So he wanted to teach other 0:20:43.836 --> 0:20:50.796 people how to practice social work with the principles of 0:20:52.236 --> 0:20:57.396 loving kindness and not just as a sort of mechanical 0:20:57.436 --> 0:21:00.396 practice of obtaining services for people. 0:21:01.236 --> 0:21:04.316 Glick started a school of social work at Goshient College, 0:21:04.516 --> 0:21:07.396 his alma mater in Indiana. He went on to start 0:21:07.436 --> 0:21:10.836 another school of social work at Syracuse University, then one 0:21:10.916 --> 0:21:14.116 of the University of Southern Mississippi. He's a social work 0:21:14.156 --> 0:21:14.876 school planter. 0:21:15.436 --> 0:21:18.356 Yes, yes, that's exactly right. 0:21:19.316 --> 0:21:23.116 Inglick's self published memoirs, there's a chart called places I 0:21:23.156 --> 0:21:26.636 Have called Home, which takes up an entire page. Thirty 0:21:26.676 --> 0:21:31.676 eight addresses in all Webster Groves, Missouri, South Main Street, Coast, Indiana, 0:21:31.956 --> 0:21:36.916 Ramsey Avenue, Syracuse, New York, Montague Street, Hattiesburg, Mississippi, criss 0:21:36.956 --> 0:21:41.196 crossing the country his entire adult life in pursuit of 0:21:41.236 --> 0:21:41.836 the hungary. 0:21:43.076 --> 0:21:45.636 One of the things, one of the practices that he 0:21:46.036 --> 0:21:50.196 in forrest t while we were growing up, is that 0:21:50.316 --> 0:21:52.796 he wanted us to know what hunger was like as well, 0:21:52.876 --> 0:21:55.596 so we could be empathic for people who were not 0:21:55.836 --> 0:22:01.716 able to eat like we were. So Wednesdays, every Wednesday, 0:22:02.076 --> 0:22:06.676 all we could eat was white rice all day, and 0:22:06.836 --> 0:22:10.156 we had limited servings. Some of my first memories was, 0:22:10.356 --> 0:22:13.156 you know, reading rice on Wednesdays, and then I mean 0:22:13.196 --> 0:22:15.676 I did that until I went to college. 0:22:16.276 --> 0:22:20.036 How did you and your siblings feel about that? Did 0:22:20.076 --> 0:22:22.436 you understand the point of it? 0:22:23.036 --> 0:22:27.516 I don't think we did, except we knew how important 0:22:27.556 --> 0:22:30.596 it was to our father, and we laughed about it 0:22:30.636 --> 0:22:32.516 and kind of kidded him about it. But I don't 0:22:32.556 --> 0:22:35.036 remember any of us ever saying this is stupid, we're 0:22:35.076 --> 0:22:37.716 not doing this. We just we did it. 0:22:37.716 --> 0:22:41.716 It's not a trivial thing. If you're hungry to be fat, 0:22:42.596 --> 0:22:44.796 It's one of the greatest services you can do to 0:22:44.876 --> 0:22:49.636 another human being. 0:22:50.876 --> 0:22:54.076 When he was dying. They lived in a little retirement community, 0:22:54.956 --> 0:22:59.956 and they had these little individual sort of apartments where 0:22:59.956 --> 0:23:06.076 people could live that were freestanding. And Daddy, he always 0:23:06.156 --> 0:23:09.076 was a gardener. He had a really great green thumb, 0:23:09.796 --> 0:23:13.756 and so he had a large garden where he provided 0:23:14.076 --> 0:23:17.036 fresh vegetables for all the people in the twelve little 0:23:17.116 --> 0:23:21.116 units where they lived. And when he got sick that year, 0:23:21.316 --> 0:23:24.116 he couldn't maintain his garden anymore, and he was very 0:23:24.156 --> 0:23:26.636 concerned about where his neighbors were going to get their 0:23:26.676 --> 0:23:29.156 fresh vegetables if he wasn't able to provide them for him. 0:23:31.396 --> 0:23:34.316 The more time I've spent looking at the starvation experiment, 0:23:34.716 --> 0:23:37.276 the less I've understood why so many people in the 0:23:37.316 --> 0:23:41.796 scientific community are uneasy with what happened. People say, nothing 0:23:41.876 --> 0:23:45.356 like that could and should be done today. But why, 0:23:46.076 --> 0:23:49.156 what exactly is it about the experiment that is so 0:23:49.316 --> 0:23:53.436 incomprehensible to us today. I think the answer is that 0:23:53.476 --> 0:23:55.756 we focus far too much on what was given up 0:23:55.836 --> 0:23:59.036 in the moment by the volunteers, and we forget about 0:23:59.036 --> 0:24:01.956 what was gained down the road as the result of 0:24:01.996 --> 0:24:16.156 that suffering. The Minnesota experiment left a permanent mark on 0:24:16.236 --> 0:24:20.116 nearly every one of its participants, they understood something about 0:24:20.156 --> 0:24:24.636 food and hunger that they hadn't before their experience. Of 0:24:24.676 --> 0:24:27.036 the eighteen who left their oral histories with the Library 0:24:27.036 --> 0:24:31.556 of Congress, seven signed out for something called Heifer's for Relief, 0:24:32.196 --> 0:24:35.356 a program that after the war, shipped livestock from America 0:24:35.396 --> 0:24:39.076 to Europe. The volunteers took trips back and forth across 0:24:39.156 --> 0:24:43.916 the Atlantic, taking care of the animals. Another Minnesota participant 0:24:44.236 --> 0:24:47.716 worked in relief camps after the war. Sam Legg, one 0:24:47.756 --> 0:24:49.676 of the leaders of the Guinea Pigs, worked with the 0:24:49.756 --> 0:24:52.516 Quakers to buy food for the Hungary and post war Europe. 0:24:52.916 --> 0:24:56.476 Marshall Sutton traveled to the Middle East to feed refugees 0:24:56.516 --> 0:25:00.556 in Gaza. Several more went to Divinity School. Another man 0:25:00.596 --> 0:25:04.436 spent thirty years as a missionary in South Africa, Mozambique, 0:25:04.676 --> 0:25:08.116 and Kenya. And Lester Glick set out to plant social 0:25:08.156 --> 0:25:13.476 work schools throughout the United States, feeding the hungry in spirit, 0:25:14.236 --> 0:25:18.396 but also just the hungry, because after his year in Minneapolis, 0:25:18.556 --> 0:25:22.916 he no longer made a distinction between spiritual and physical deprivation. 0:25:26.276 --> 0:25:29.476 In his diary of his experience in Minnesota, Lick wrote, 0:25:29.676 --> 0:25:31.796 when he was deep into the starvation phase. 0:25:32.556 --> 0:25:38.596 Books on starvation tell us that hungry people eat clay wood, bark, 0:25:39.196 --> 0:25:45.356 unclean animals and often become cannibalistic. Yesterday I took the 0:25:45.436 --> 0:25:48.396 lead out of a pencil and began chewing the wood. 0:25:51.076 --> 0:25:56.836 It tasted all right. For some crazy reason, I crave 0:25:56.996 --> 0:26:02.876 raw horseradish, sassafras roots, and rabbit meat. I think about 0:26:02.876 --> 0:26:05.996 how cannibalism is a terrible option for a starving person 0:26:06.436 --> 0:26:08.756 and try to put it out of my mind, but 0:26:08.836 --> 0:26:11.236 I can't seem to stop thinking about it. 0:26:14.076 --> 0:26:16.836 You don't really get over of feelings like that. The 0:26:16.876 --> 0:26:19.756 best you can do is channel them into something else. 0:26:21.236 --> 0:26:27.196 For Glick, it became cinnamon rolls. After his year in Minnesota. 0:26:27.436 --> 0:26:31.196 He became obsessed with them. He cut out a picture 0:26:31.196 --> 0:26:33.836 of cinnamon rolls from a magazine and carried it with 0:26:33.956 --> 0:26:36.796 him at all times. It was in his wallet until 0:26:36.796 --> 0:26:37.436 the day he died. 0:26:38.716 --> 0:26:48.396 So Dad was known for his cinnamon rolls. He made 0:26:48.516 --> 0:26:56.756 these deep fried cinnamon rolls that were just amazingly delicious things, 0:26:55.996 --> 0:27:00.916 and he would make literally thousands of roles. There's a 0:27:00.916 --> 0:27:06.276 picture of me or one of my siblings sitting at 0:27:06.276 --> 0:27:09.596 the kitchen table and the tables covered in rolls. There 0:27:09.596 --> 0:27:12.116 are roles on the counters behind. 0:27:11.796 --> 0:27:13.196 Us, and. 0:27:14.636 --> 0:27:17.956 Dead took great delight in taking those roles to people, 0:27:18.116 --> 0:27:23.436 of bringing them into church and people enjoying them. And 0:27:23.596 --> 0:27:27.596 it's kind of a microcosm of what Dad was up 0:27:27.636 --> 0:27:33.676 to his whole life, of giving people some kind of 0:27:33.836 --> 0:27:40.996 sustenance that brought them to an unexpectedly good place. 0:27:42.876 --> 0:27:45.996 Byron was in a little office in his home in Wisconsin, 0:27:46.476 --> 0:27:49.316 remembering his father, who had been dead for twenty years. 0:27:49.956 --> 0:27:53.156 But there was something in that specific memory of the 0:27:53.196 --> 0:28:00.196 cinnamon roles that moved him. Yeah, yeah, Byron, this has 0:28:00.236 --> 0:28:04.676 been I have one last request of you. Sure, I 0:28:04.716 --> 0:28:10.076 would like you can you read that passage from Matthew 0:28:10.236 --> 0:28:12.236 give me King James. 0:28:12.916 --> 0:28:13.716 That's too properly. 0:28:15.476 --> 0:28:17.836 Actually, let me run get a bible. 0:28:19.236 --> 0:28:21.876 He left the room and came back with a family heirloom, 0:28:22.236 --> 0:28:27.196 his grandfather's Bible, battered leather bound, handed down from his 0:28:27.236 --> 0:28:30.996 grandfather to his father and from his father to him. 0:28:32.756 --> 0:28:38.516 Byron look for the passage in Matthew, the Mennonite national anthem. 0:28:37.956 --> 0:28:41.196 For I was in hungered and you gave me me. 0:28:42.156 --> 0:28:46.276 I was thirsty and you gave me drink. I was 0:28:46.316 --> 0:28:51.276 a stranger, and you took me in naked and he 0:28:51.436 --> 0:28:56.476 clothed me. I was sick and he visited me. I 0:28:56.636 --> 0:29:02.556 was in prison and you came unto me. Verily, I say, 0:29:02.636 --> 0:29:06.356