edgar-mitchell

Down and In 91
financial empire was in disarray; they told me their parent company had
unexpectedly declared bankruptcy, and the funding they had promised
was now out of the question. The institute had just opened its doors and its
primary source of financial support was lost.
It was during these trying years that I picked up a new dictum: trust
the process. Funding, I would learn, was always going to be a problem. But
this was no reason to give up. With faith and perseverance the means
would always come together so that we could take the next step. The
institute’s nascent years proved humble enough, as it was staffed primarily
by myself, Anita Rettig, part-time employees, and devoted volunteers. Anita
and I had begun dating after Louise and I had parted, and we both were
devoted to the project.
This was a restless time, and in its own way, a romantic time. The days
were fueled by a kind of idealism that propelled us into a vast unknown.
To pay the bills we incurred and the small payroll, the institute was funded
by whatever I could garner in lecture fees and the occasional donation of
one or two thousand dollars by interested parties. Gradually a number of
individuals were gathered to form the nucleus for a board of directors and
a professional staff, and more projects were undertaken. All the while,
Anita and I improvised. Anita had a gift for public relations, navigating
those tricky waters of the media, and managed to find television and newspaper
coverage for the institute, which eventually would translate into
revenue. The donations the institute received in the beginning usually
amounted to less than a quarter of what was needed each month, but in
those early days, when it was essentially just Anita, myself, and a minimal
staff, we seemed to be touched by an occasional miracle.
One rainy morning, a battered Volkswagen microbus pulled up before
the plate glass windows of the office. A young lady in her early 20s came
to the door and asked about the institute—what we were setting out to
accomplish, how we were going to accomplish it, and why. We talked for
a few hours, and as she got up to leave she asked if I would autograph a
photo for her child. As I did so, she wrote out a check, handed it to me,
and was gone as suddenly as she appeared. Once the microbus had pulled
away, I glanced at the check and saw that it was written out for $25,000.
Months later we learned that she was an heiress who wanted her money to
go to worthy and humanitarian causes (this was the early 1970s, after all).
Ours, she was sure, was such a cause. Such synchronicities allowed us to
keep going.
But we didn’t always have to rely on miracles. There were other resources
to be drawn upon. In the fall, after opening our doors, I contacted
Wernher von Braun, who was still working in the private sector, and asked
if he would speak at a fund-raising dinner for the institute in San Francisco.
There would be a host of other speakers, but he would be the keynote. He