Early struggles lead to lifetime success

Jim Foley ’65 knows too well the mathematics of poverty: Forty dollars was the monthly allotment he and his siblings received from the state after his parents died when he was a youngster.

Three miles was the distance he walked to and from high school in Manchester each day — a bus ride would have cost 25 cents, too expensive. In college, 13 cents was the cost per serving of elbow macaroni with ketchup (every dinner for three years). He could get two boxes of Jiffy corn mix for 20 cents — enough for five breakfasts each week.

On college weekends, he’d spend each Saturday and Sunday doing piecemeal manual labor back home, $1 an hour, to earn $16 for the weekend — $8 would go to his older sister Arline so she could buy groceries for the weekend; they usually ran out of food by Thursdays. He’d get to keep the other $8.

It’s the arithmetic of a rough upbringing, after his father was killed in an industrial accident when Jim was 3 and his mother died two years later, leaving 5-year-old Jim and his two sisters to sometimes live with relatives, but often fend for themselves.

He also knows the ‘new math’ of today’s college students — even though 60-odd years have passed, many share the same problems as Foley did. They struggle not only with big-ticket expenses like rent or tuition, but everyday needs like new shoes, school supplies, food, utilities, doctor and dentist visits, car repairs and more.

For Foley, there’s a happy ending: he found love (he and wife Betty just celebrated 60 years together) and professional success. But because he can still recall those lonely feelings of having to fend for himself at a young age, he wants to change that for today’s UNH students.

That’s why he established the James Foley and Betty Foley Essential Needs Fund at UNH with a generous $3.7 million gift. While the majority is in the form of a bequest, $22,000 will be available this year to be awarded to students by UNH’s basic needs coordinator and case manager, with consultation from the Basic Needs Committee.

For Foley, it’s part of making peace with his past and making sure that the next generation knows they’re cared for.

“I grew up an orphan. From 5 years old on I lived with different kinds of people, and some were bad. The commonality between all of them was that they didn’t want me … no one had time for me.”

By high school, Foley had a plan. He was a member of the Civil Air Patrol, and he would use his love of flight to get out and see the world. He would become a commercial pilot after a stint in the Air Force. UNH — the only school he could afford, thanks to advocating for himself with a scholarship fund trustee at Amoskeag Bank — didn’t have an aeronautical engineering program, but no matter; he’d major in something closely related and be on his way, he thought. But during his time in UNH AFROTC, he flunked the required eye exam, and his plans were dashed.

When it came to his UNH academics, more disappointment followed — this time in organic chemistry: most of it was memorization, not learning, he recalls. And lab on Fridays interrupted the hitchhiking back to Manchester for work every weekend, year-round: Hitchhike back Friday nights, get to the work hall Saturday mornings to pick up shift work. “If I did Friday lab, I wouldn’t get out until 5 p.m., and in the wintertime by that time it was dark and cold when I started out.” He asked his professor, Paul Jones, to move him to a different lab — Jones refused.

So, fed up during sophomore year, Foley marched into Professor Jones’ office, “ready to tell him his organic chemistry class was a waste of time,” and that he planned to drop out of school.

Jones took it as a challenge.

“He spent two hours with me — two whole hours — asking me thought-provoking questions, no more of this memorization stuff,” he recalls. Once Foley figured out what organic chemistry was all about at its most basic level, “I understood how it worked, and it was beautiful!” he says of finally falling in love with chemistry. He says if it hadn’t been for Jones’ care for him as a learner, he never would have stayed in college.

“He took the time to teach me something that changed my whole life,” says Foley.

The proverbial light bulb had gone off, and soon after he joined the lab of Professor Ken Andersen. “He was very generous with his time, and he taught me the skills required of an efficient and successful synthetic chemist,” says Foley. “Because of his dedication, later I was able to finish my doctoral lab work in three and a half years, while most of my fellow students took five.” He remained lifelong friends with both Andersen and Jones.

Foley graduated Phi Beta Kappa with his chemistry degree in 1965. The day before, he had married Betty Cook of Dover; the day after, he and his new bride were on their way to Madison, Wisconsin, where Jim started teaching laboratory science at the University of Wisconsin.

A doctoral degree would follow, and then a career spent at Polaroid from 1969 to 1981, when he left to help Edwin H. Land found the nonprofit Rowland Institute for Science. Land was the founder of the Polaroid Corporation and its research director for 50 years. “While I was at Polaroid, I made several discoveries that saved the company millions of dollars — which brought me to Dr. Land’s attention,” Foley explains.

He was a senior fellow at the Rowland Institute, where his research focused on structure and function relationships pertaining to the photophysics of organic dyes, for use in biophysical, biological and medical applications.

These days, he and Betty enjoy retirement in their Andover home, where they’ve lived since the early 1970s, and Foley regales visitors with stories of their home renovation, his career and the couple’s world travels.

Mostly, Foley is adamant that today’s college students need people looking out for them because, as he points out, you never know what someone is dealing with outside of class or outside of work.

“No one ever saw me, you know what I mean? I don’t want other kids to feel that way; like the song ‘Mr. Cellophane’ from the movie ‘Chicago’ — invisible,” he says. “These students need to know they are important and their needs are important and can’t be ignored. They need a computer, or they need to go to the dentist, or they need new shoes. I want these kids to have what they need; I want them to feel seen.”