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Early life and influences
Q: Mr. Train, would you briefly describe your upbringing and early family life?
MR. TRAIN: I grew up here in Washington, D.C., which makes me a little unusual in government. I was born in 1920, in Jamestown, Rhode Island. My father was a Naval officer, and in those days, sea duty was largely on the East Coast. Our principal home was in the District of Columbia where both my father and mother had grown up, but in the summertime, the fleet went North to New England, I suppose for a more salubrious climate than Norfolk, Virginia. During the summers, my family took a house in Jamestown, an island just off Newport in Narragansett Bay. That's where I happened to have been born, but the fact is that other than that, my life has been here in Washington.
My two older brothers and I went to school here. I went to the Potomac School and then to St. Alban's, where I graduated in 1937. I went from there to Princeton University, where my brothers had gone. I was in the class of 1941 and majored in Political Science, or Politics as it was called at Princeton. I joined the Army ROTC since there was no Naval ROTC. My father finally accepted this. But, that meant that on graduation, in June of 1941, I went straight into the Army on active duty and spent over four years in military service here and overseas, ending up in Okinawa. I came back in the spring of 1945.
Shortly thereafter, I entered Columbia Law School in New York and graduated from there. In those days, following the war, there was a short course in which there were no summer vacations, and so I went to law school for two years and graduated in the class of 1948. Then I came back to Washington and went to work.
Q: In the early years, can you recall any mentors at school or at home? Any people who influenced you greatly?
MR. TRAIN: Well, I think obviously our parents have a good deal of impact, whether you know it or not at the time and whether you admit it or not at the time. On the other hand, my father was away from home a great deal, being a Naval officer. There was a good deal of sea duty involved. I had an uncle who was a very formative influence; a Federal judge named Augustus Hand. He was married to my father's sister and was a judge of the U.S. Second Circuit Court of Appeals in New York, and one of the most distinguished judges on the Federal bench. He doubtless influenced me to go into the law.