In a 1939 illustrated letter to his fiancée, Jean Turner, 20-year-old Donald Cram writes that he is thinking of giving up his chemistry studies in favour of drawing. Cram was working that summer for the National Biscuit Company (NABISCO), selling crackers to stores in New York. The job was demanding, and the drawings in the letter illustrate a scene in which Cram trips on the pavement and all the crackers fly in the air while his boss looks on. During a couple of following summers, he worked as a chemist in NABISCO’s laboratory. And his career as a chemist was destined to continue.
The letters were donated to the Nobel Prize Museum by Jean Turner Trueblood’s family in 2017.
