Long We’ll Remember

Photos by Roadell Hickman

KEEPER OF THE KEEPSAKES

In Case memorabilia, professor finds the trappings of a great university

By Robert L. Smith

The first souvenir Frank Merat bought was the 1926 yearbook of the Case School of Applied Science. There it was, for sale on eBay. He paid $34.

That was 10 years ago. Today his collection of Case memorabilia includes about 90 percent of the Case yearbooks published between 1896 and 1972. That’s in addition to fraternity pins, paperweights, belt buckles, and buttons, as well as blankets, cups and caps emblazoned with Case colors and images.

On a Quad imbued with history, Merat, an emeritus professor of electrical engineering, is the keeper of the keepsakes. His growing collection traces the 130-year evolution of the Case School of Engineering.

“I just started collecting the stuff for the heck of it,” he shruggs, adding, “It got interesting.”

Very.

Merat is chronicling his life and times, too. A three-degree alum, he arrived on Case Quad in 1968, earned a bachelor’s, a master’s and a doctorate degree, and stayed to teach for 40 years, sort of retiring last year. A student favorite, he still teaches an introduction to circuits course.

In a cluttered and adventuresome office on the fifth floor of Glennan Hall, memorabilia compete for space with circuity, light meters and machine parts—with Merat the happy tour guide.

He recalls he has, somewhere, a football autographed by Frank Ryan— the quarterback who led the Cleveland Browns to the 1964 NFL championship. Quickly, he’s up and rooting through boxes behind his desk. Voila, out comes a white pigskin signed by the Case mathematician.

“How many times do you have a math professor who’s an NFL quarterback?” Merat asks. “He still comes to reunions. You should see all the alumni who bring their math books for him to sign.”

He’s a vigorous, white-haired man with the resonant voice of a broadcaster, lending his observations gravitas. Paging through a Case Songbook from 1923, Merat declares, in a bit of a baritone, “Men’s glee clubs were big!”

Delicately, he flips through a handmade calendar from 1918. The slender cardboard pages bound with string bear black-and-white images of campus buildings and landmarks—some lost to time, some in view out of his window.

Each keepsake is a tangible memory, a star in the galaxy of Case history and something to ponder.

“It meant an awful lot to a lot of people,” Merat says, turning reflective. “And it raises some good questions. Where have we been? How have we influenced things? And where do we want to go?”

As a Case alumnus, he finds, he’s often walking in the footsteps of giants. His building is named for T. Keith Glennan, the former president of the Case Institute of Technology, who left campus in 1958 to lead a new space agency, NASA.

Merat notes that a former student, Paul Buchheit ’98, was one of the early employees of Google, where he created Gmail and helped ignite Web 2.0.

That’s worth remembering and worth chronicling, Merat believes. Somewhere, maybe, there’s a souvenir.

If you think you have something to add to Frank Merat’s collection, email him at flm@case.edu.

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