Sturdy the Band of Pioneers

Millionaire self-help author W. Clement Stone signs a copy of his book for a graduate at the 1963 Commencement.

When Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Jon Meacham is conferred an honorary doctor of humane letters degree at Monmouth College’s 159th Commencement Exercises on Sunday, he will join a long line of distinguished–and sometimes surprising–campus guests to be so honored.

Meacham follows in the footsteps of another distinguished historian/biographer, Henry Steele Commager, who received an honorary doctor of letters degree from Monmouth in 1959, That year was also notable in that Monmouth also conferred its first degree to an actress, Agnes Moorehead–just prior to her gaining popular fame as Endora on Bewitched.

Another actress would be granted a degree in 1988–this time a Monmouth alumna. Daytime Emmy Award winner Helen Wagner Willey ’38, who would become the longest-tenured character on a daytime drama in her role as Nancy Hughes on As The World Turns, was presented with an honorary doctor of humane letters.

From 1861, when the first honorary degree was awarded, to the present, the notability of the recipients has steadily increased. Not surprisingly, given that the college was originally governed by the United Presbyterian Synod of Illinois, 42 of the first 50 degrees conferred were doctors of divinity–mostly to ministers.

Perhaps most notable on Monmouth’s list of honorary degree holders is President George H.W. Bush, who delivered the commencement address in 2000. It was the first time that members of the robed processional party included Secret Service agents.

Today, politicians are among the most popular commencement speakers nationwide, and Monmouth College made its first foray into the political sphere in 1940 by presenting an honorary degree to Gov. Charles Sprague of Oregon (he was, by the way, a 1910 Monmouth graduate). Four additional governors–Mark Hatfield of Oregon, Jim Thompson and Jim Edgar, both of Illinois, and former Gov. Bob Graham of Florida–would be added to the honorary degree recipient list in 1966, 1981, 1994 and 2013.

Working its way up the political ranks, Monmouth awarded degrees to a seated senator, Howard Baker (R-Tenn.) and a former senator, Bob Graham (D-Fla.) in 1999 and 2013, respectively. Cabinet members honored include Transportation secretary Ray LaHood and Commerce secretary W. Willard Wirtz.

Newsmen Robert MacNeil and Howard K. Smith gave the commencement addresses in 1977 and 1979, respectively, but perhaps reporters were held in lower regard in those days, as neither received an honorary degree. Attitudes had changed by 2006, however, as NBC News Middle East correspondent Martin Fletcher was honored with a degree.

Commencement speakers are expected to deliver inspirational messages, and in 1963 millionaire businessman and self-help author W. Clement Stone also delivered copies of his book, The Success System That Never Fails, to members of the graduating class. Cynics charged that he was honored with a degree in hopes of a major gift to the college, but no check ever arrived.

Cynics were in force the previous year, too, when Cardinals slugger Stan Musial was granted an honorary degree. While some critics, such as San Francisco Chronicle columnist Charles McCabe, called it a publicity stunt, Musial was honored for his extensive philanthropic work in the St. Louis community and was a gracious, grateful recipient of the degree.

One recipient whose qualifications no one doubted was the visionary architect and inventor R. Buckminster Fuller. Although not a commencement speaker, he was a highlight of the annual Liberal Arts Festival in the spring of 1965.

Long known for its robust business program, Monmouth has awarded honorary degrees to multiple Fortune 500 CEOs, including alumni Harold Poling ’49 of Ford Motor Co. and James Pate of Pennzoil. Former Monmouth chairman of the board Lee L. Morgan, the CEO of Caterpillar, Inc., received an honorary degree in 1974.

Getting the third degree is usually considered undesirable, but it wasn’t for 1877 Monmouth graduate Alice Winbigler, when she was presented with the third honorary degree of her distinguished career upon her retirement in 1937. A longtime professor and dean at Monmouth, she shared the spotlight that year with Dan Everett Waid, from the class of 1887, a noted architect and college trustee, who received his second honorary degree from Monmouth.

Honorary degrees have also been awarded after retirement to recognize Monmouth presidents for their service. Presidents honored include Thomas H. McMichael (1936), Robert Gibson (1964), Duncan Wimpress (1970), DeBow Freed (1987), and Richard Giese (2005).

Painters spruce up the front porch of The Manor in 2008.

Recently, I told the history of the former home of a prominent Monmouth family that has been renovated by Monmouth College and today serves as its admissions building. In this blog, I move across the street to another brick house on the corner with a similar story—The Manor.

The official presidential home during the James Harper Grier and Robert W. Gibson administrations, the house had been the longtime residence of Monmouth College trustee Fred Burleigh Pattee before it was purchased by the college in 1949.

A notable example of American Foursquare architecture, the elegant brick building at 701 East Broadway was erected shortly after the turn of the 20th century by Charles A. Perley, general superintendent of Monmouth’s Pattee Plow Company. Fred B. Pattee, whose father and uncle had founded the plow company, purchased the home from Perley in 1908, just two weeks prior to his marriage to Miss Mary Hardin, daughter of Monmouth industrialist Delevan Hardin. After a brief honeymoon, the couple set up housekeeping.

The Pattees and Hardins were arguably Monmouth’s two most prominent families. Fred’s father, J. Howard Pattee, had invented the first tongueless cultivator in 1872. His New Departure Cultivator revolutionized agriculture and helped open up the western territories. Mary’s grandfather, Chauncy Hardin, was one of the builders of the C.B. & Q. Railroad. Her father, Delevan, had been president of both the Weir Pottery Company and the Second National Bank.

In 1913, Mary gave birth to their only child, Frederick H. Pattee, who grew up in the house and, after graduating from M.I.T., continued to live there with his parents—even after his marriage in 1941 to Martha Salladay. Mary died in 1944, but her husband, son and daughter-in-law remained in the house until 1949, when they built a modern ranch-style house at 1335 East Broadway. That year, Fred H. joined the MC board of trustees, and the college Senate voted to purchase the former Pattee house to replace the aging “Woodbine Cottage,” which had served as the presidential manse since World War I days. Requiring a name befitting the home of presidents, the Pattee house was dubbed “The Manor.”

President and Mrs. Grier moved into the home that fall. Three years later, President and Mrs. Robert W. Gibson took up residence and would make The Manor their home until the end of their presidency in 1964. In 1965, the newly-inaugurated President Duncan Wimpress moved into the new presidential home, Quinby House. The Manor was converted into a home for senior women. In the fall of 1968, it became home to a new fraternity chapter, Phi Epsilon Phi, which the following year obtained a national charter with Zeta Beta Tau. In a bit of historic irony, the ZBTs in 1975 relocated to the former presidential manse—Woodbine Cottage—leaving The Manor temporarily vacant.

Between 1976 and 1979, The Manor was rented to Professor Rod Lemon’63 and his wife, Hallie Simpson’63 Lemon. In 1980, the college relations office moved in and remained there until 1996, when the renovation of Carnegie Library into Poling Hall created additional office space and the house was no longer needed for that purpose. Dick Valentine, MC’s then vice president for external relations, and his wife, Lorna, purchased the property that year and converted it back to a private residence. The Valentines conducted extensive renovations to the property, which over the years had become somewhat worn, and they also constructed a three-car garage in back.

In 2004, the former Manor went on the market again. Monmouth College trustee Bonnie Bondurant Shaddock, a 1954 graduate, still had fond memories of The Manor, having visited Presidents Grier and Gibson there while a student. The former president of Monmouth’s Alpha Chapter of Kappa Kappa Gamma, she was also proud of the Pattee family’s ties to the founding of the women’s fraternity—the elder Fred Pattee’s aunt and cousin having been among its earliest members. Bonnie and her husband, Shad, decided to purchase the now-renovated property and present it as a gift to her alma mater to be used as a comfortable guest house.

The Manor officially began its second life with Monmouth College on May 13, 2006, when a dedication ceremony was held during Commencement weekend. Today, it is regularly occupied by guests, from prospective faculty members to distinguished visiting lecturers.

A front view of the Brown house when it still retained such original features as wooden shutters, a pillared entry and ivy-covered walls.

Standing high on the corner of Broadway and Sixth Street for more than a century, the Tudor revival house that today serves as headquarters for Monmouth College admissions has a history that is both colorful and tragic.

Constructed as a residence in 1912 by attorney John Burrows Brown, the house was designed by the prominent Peoria architectural firm of Hewitt & Emerson, which had also produced plans for Monmouth College’s Wallace Hall and Carnegie Library. It was built by Monmouth’s premier contracting company of the era, Apsey and Fusch, for the princely sum of $60,000, an amount which in today’s currency would translate to more than $1 million.

The long and narrow basement game room contained two billiard tables, a piano and a fireplace.

Although designed in the style of a rustic English cottage, the home also exhibits some Midwestern Prairie-style influences. Among its most unusual features were a basement containing a 60-foot-long game room, laundry room, food storage pantry and wine cellar; five fireplaces, three full bathrooms and two half-baths; and a large detached two-stall garage in the rear with quarters for the family chauffeur. A driveway from Broadway passed under a porte cochere on the east side of the house and led to a service court, from which a second driveway led to Sixth Street.

The orignal entry foyer for the Brown home now serves as a reception area for the office of admissions.

The main floor featured a central hall with stone fireplace and ornamental plaster ceiling. Flanking both sides of the hall were French doors leading to a reception room, a library with elaborate casework, and a dining room with a built-in sideboard. Adjoining the dining room was a large breakfast room opening onto a side porch. A service wing, located north of the grand stairway, contained a modern (for 1912) built-in kitchen, a cold pantry, a servants’ hall and a telephone room.

Probably taken in the 1920s, this view of the library shows off the dramatic cast plaster ceiling, designed by architect Herbert Heweitt.

The central stairway contained a landing with a window seat and three art glass windows. At the top of stairs was a spacious upper hall surrounded by a master bedroom with a vaulted ceiling, a guest bedroom, and a bedroom for Brown’s widowed mother-in-law, Irene Eldridg Smith, who boarded with the couple. That room featured a fireplace and a private balcony. There was also a spacious sitting room overlooking the front entrance, a sleeping porch tied to the master bedroom, and a family bathroom.

An upstairs north wing contained a sewing room, guest bathroom, servants’ bathroom, service hall and two servant bedrooms.

The builder, John B. Brown, was born in 1864 in Connecticut and moved with his parents to Whiteside County, Illinois, in 1868. He graduated from Knox College, studied law and was admitted to the Illinois bar in 1899. The following year, he married Edna Bell Smith, daughter of one of Monmouth’s leading druggists.

A rather plain farmhouse–the home of Professor Alexander Young–originally occupied the corner where John Brown built his residence.

In 1905, while living in his wife’s hometown of Roseville, Brown purchased the property on which the house would eventually be built. (A previous house on the site, built in the 1860s, had been the home of Alexander Young, Monmouth College’s first professor of Greek and Hebrew.)

Brown was the senior member of the Monmouth law firm of Brown & Soule, with offices in the Patton Block. His partner, Melville G. Soule (Monmouth College class of 1897), was the first cousin of his wife, Edna. Both Melville and Edna were the grandchildren of William F. Smith, one of Monmouth’s first settlers, who opened the town’s first variety store in 1835. Brown & Soule in 1918 consolidated with the firm of Safford & Graham to form Brown, Safford, Graham & Soule.

John Burrows Brown (1864-1920)

Because of his brilliant mind, John Burrows Brown became one of the most prominent attorneys in western Illinois. He was an ardent Republican who supported William McKinley in the heated campaign against William Jennings Bryan, and made several speeches supporting the gold standard platform. He was a candidate for the Illinois Supreme Court, and also delivered the address at the cornerstone laying for the new Monmouth Hospital. He was a trustee of Knox College, president of the Warren County Bar Association, and a member of the Monmouth Country Club, Commercial Club and Elks lodge.

An early view of the back yard of the Brown house, before the annex was built and a parking lot constructed.

The Browns moved into their new home in 1913. They likely initially had three live-in servants, as quarters had been built for a chauffeur in the garage and two servants in the house. While the Browns were part of Monmouth society, they continued to play an active role in Roseville, particularly in the Congregational Church where they were members, and the Library Association, of which Edna was the first president.

John and Edna both suffered from poor health, and in they spent the summer of 1919 in Waukesha, Wis., with Mrs. Smith and a niece, which proved beneficial to both of them. They were planning to go south for the winter, but in October, Edna contracted a cold and rapidly declined. On Nov. 2, Edna Brown died at the age of 52. Her funeral was held at the Brown home and she was buried in the family plot in Roseville Cemetery.

A view of the Brown house in winter, probably during the early ‘Teens, judging from the carbon arc streetlamp and the interurban track running in the middle of Broadway.

John Brown continued to share the home with Edna’s mother, but by the next spring, his depression over his wife’s death and his own poor health were making him increasingly restless and nervous. On the night of Friday, April 30, 1920, he came home right before the supper hour and dined with his mother-in-law. He retired to his room at 7:30, and Mrs. Smith, thinking he intended to go to bed, remained downstairs. Shortly after 8, she heard a muffled report, but paid no attention. Around 10, she retired to her own bedroom, next to Brown’s, and seeing a light under the door, looked in to see if he needed anything.

She discovered Brown’s lifeless body at the edge of his bed and between his feet was a .405 caliber rifle. Mrs. Smith immediately called her nephew, Glenn Soule, who lived further down Broadway, and he contacted Coroner Ralph Graham. Soule, Graham and next-door neighbor I.S. Smith met at the house and proceeded to the bedroom where they determined that Brown had taken the rifle from the closet, sat on the edge of the bed, and placed the gun between his feet with the barrel in his mouth. He had previously removed the shoe and sock from his right foot and he had tripped the hammer with one of his toes. The bullet went through his head and into the ceiling. Coroner Graham called an inquest for the following evening, and the jury immediately concurred with the above findings. Brown’s funeral, held in the home the following Monday, was widely attended and burial was next to his wife in Roseville Cemetery.

Glenn Soule was the last owner of the house before it was purchased by Monmouth College. He was the first cousin of John Brown’s wife, Edna.

Brown left the home to his law partner, Glenn Soule, with the provision that Mrs. Smith would continue to live there the rest of her life. Soule and his wife, Etha, moved into the house later that year.

Mrs. Smith survived nearly another decade, finally passing away just before Christmas, 1929. In her will, Mrs. Smith left the college $25,000 as a memorial to her father, Truman Eldridg, who had been one of Monmouth College’s first trustees. In 1931, the college used the bequest as partial payment on the house, which it purchased for $35,000 from Soule. Included in the sale were most of the home’s furnishings.

Ernst Derendinger, a native of Switzerland, served as the first head of MC’s new Fine Arts Department.

The college immediately converted the building to house its new Fine Arts Department, recently endowed by architect Dan Everett Waid (MC 1887), in memory of his wife. Dr. Ernst Derendinger, a native of Switzerland, who had studied art in Germany and written a book on art history, had been hired the previous year to oversee the Fine Arts Department. His idea was to develop a curriculum for the appreciation of art based on one at HarvardUniversity. (At the invitation of the Carnegie Foundation, he had spent the previous two summers doing research at Harvard on the teaching of art appreciation.) Monmouth’s program started out with a gift of 200 art books from the Carnegie Foundation, along with 1,500 slides and 1,500 photographs, with plans to add an additional 1,500 slides each year until the collection had reached a total of 10,000.

The original front porch of the Fine Arts Building featured stucco columns supporting a wooden pergola.

An apartment for Derendinger and his wife was created on the second floor, and offices for Derendinger and his assistant, Harriet Pease, were established on the main floor. (Miss Pease would serve as art assistant and librarian throughout the entire life of the Fine Arts Building, from 1931 until 1958.) Derendinger turned the former game room in the basement into an art lecture hall and fitted it out with a newly purchased stereopticon lantern and screen.

Professor Tom Hamilton teaches an art seminar in the library.

After just two years, Derendinger left Monmouth, and was succeeded in the post by Thomas Hamilton. A 1907 MC graduate, Hamilton was hired to direct the Conservatory of Music, but also served as acting professor of the appreciation of art until 1939, when he became a full-time professor of art appreciation. His wife, Martha, joined him in the department in 1937, teaching constume design, household management, and the history of furniture and decoration. The Hamiltons occupied the upstairs apartment from 1932 until 1939. Orchestra director Gail Kubik also lived in quarters on the second floor for part of that time.

The Loya family stands on the west lawn of the Fine Arts Building, where they lived in an upstairs apartment from 1939-1941.

When the Hamiltons built a new house in their Brewery Hill subdivision in 1939, new music professor Hal Loya and his wife, Eileen, moved into the apartment, which they occupied until 1941. During that time their two children were born. Mrs. Loya fondly recalls the cramped quarters in the apartment (their kitchen was the former servants’ bathroom) and how grateful she was when the college increased Hal’s salary so they could afford to rent a house. Many alumni have fond memories of taking piano lessons from Edna Riggs and Gracie Peterson in their studios on the second floor.

The master bedroom of the Brown house, with its vaulted ceiling, became a home to coed students during World War II, when naval cadets occupied the dormitories.

During World War II, the music department was moved out of the upstairs and it was converted to a dormitory for senior women, who had been displaced on campus by Naval cadets. Mary Louise Winbigler, a 1938 MC graduate and admissions secretary, served as the resident house mother. The girls dubbed their “sorority” Phi Alpha Beta. Following the war, the music department reoccupied the second floor and Edna Riggs lived in the apartment there for a time.

Both students and townspeople took piano lessons from Edna Riggs in her private studio. located on the second floor of the Fine Arts Building.

In 1957, the college trustees saw a need to expand available space in Carnegie Library and authorized relocating administrative offices from the library and the Woodbine to a centralized location in the Fine Arts Building. Business manager Harlan Cain prepared a detailed plan to convert the building into offices. In the spring of 1958 the music department vacated the second floor and relocated to Austin Hall.

During the summer of 1958, the Woodbine was renovated to accommodate the art department, while major renovations were carried out in the Fine Arts Building. The most significant change was the construction of an annex connecting the original home with the garage to the north, providing room for the business office, physical plant and office services.

In 1957, an annex, linking the house with the garage, was constructed to house the business office.

The president’s office was moved into the house’s former living room and dining room, with the academic dean across the hall. The alumni and public relations offices were moved to the second floor, and admissions to the basement. A darkroom for the college photographer was installed in the old basement pantry. A new centralized switchboard system was also located in the building.

A college board meeting is held in the former game room of the Brown house in the early 1960s.

When Hewes library was completed in 1970, the dean of students offices were moved into the old Carnegie Library. Admissions and financial aid were moved to the former Sigma Phi Epsilon house next door to the Administration Building. This left the academic dean and registrar on the second floor of the house, data processing and the alumni office on the first floor, and college relations in the basement.

By the early 1980s, the former president’s home across the street from the Administration Building (known as The Manor), was converted to offices for alumni and college relations, leaving the president, academic dean, admissions, registrar, business office and physical plant in the Administration Building. In 1986, President Haywood decided to move the president’s office into Wallace Hall, freeing up the house’s most elegant public rooms for use by the admissions office.

When the former Carnegie Library was converted to Poling Hall in 1996, the business office, physical plant and registrar relocated there, leaving the Administration Building’s second floor and basement vacant. College relations then occupied the second floor and college communications occupied the basement, leaving the entire main floor for use by admissions.

A complete renovation of the basement of the Brown house was undertaken in the summer of 2011.

Recent renovations to the building included the construction in 2000-2001 of  a new front entrance and the removal of the driveway leading to the porte cochere. In 2008, the former kitchen (which later housed the business office and vault) was converted to restrooms, the entire basement was extensively remodeled and a new HVAC system was installed. In 2011, the “annex,” which had connected the main house to the garage, was razed, as was the garage, to make room for the Center for Science and Business. A new handicapped-accessible rear entrance was constructed in its place.

It is estimated that replacing the building today would cost $164 per square foot. At more than 10,000 square feet of space, that would mean about $1.78 million. Today, the former Brown house is one of the jewels of the Monmouth campus, and is one of the oldest buildings—behind only Quinby House, Marshall Hall, Poling Hall, McMichael Academic and Wallace Hall. As the first stop for prospective students and parents, it serves as impressive and comfortable welcoming center.

At the final NARU graduation ceremonies in 1945, Navy Lt. Merlin Shultz presented a special citation and award to President Grier.

(Conclusion of a three-part series)

For 30 months Monmouth College had shared its facilities with the Navy and during that time more than 4,000 men received training. As the war began to draw to a conclusion in the spring of 1945, it became evident that the college was receiving more applications for admission than it had space to assign. After some conversations with Washington, the Navy made arrangements to vacate the dormitories by mid-summer, thus providing rooms for 180 more young women.

On July 24, the final NARU graduation ceremonies were held in the Auditorium and President Grier was presented with a citation from Vice Adm. Jacobs for the college’s help with the war. Remaining undergraduate platoons were moved to Muhlenberg College in Pennsylvania. It was estimated that the Navy experience at Monmouth resulted in a cool million in additional revenues to the financially-strapped college.

Gen. MacArthur was recognized by the M Club as the ultimate Fighting Scot.

On Dec. 7, 1945, four years to the day after the United States was drawn into the war, the Monmouth College Athletic Board awarded honorary M Club membership to a notable Fighting Scot. That man was the former Supreme Allied Commander of the Southwest Pacific theater, General Douglas MacArthur. In a letter of acceptance, MacArthur wrote President Grier: “I am very grateful to be identified with so noble a group and shall hope at some future time to express in person my pleasure at being one of them.” News of the award was published by the Associated Press, United Press and Stars and Stripes.

In July 1946 college presidents met in Cleveland to discuss the problem of accommodating the waves of returning veterans. According to president Grier, they were haunted by two monumental questions: what to do with the atomic bomb and what to do with all the students. “Most of us are little concerned personally with the former problem,” Grier reported, “but much with the second.”

And there was reason to be concerned, as the new G.I. Bill brought veterans back to campus in unprecedented numbers. College trustees had recently approved construction of a new dorm, Winbigler Hall, but by the fall of 1946, the 68 girls assigned to the building discovered the rooms still had no doors and the only furniture was beds.

Rotary Hall, which would later form the west wing of Fulton Hall, was constructed next to the Phi Kap fraternity house with donations from the local Rotary Hall to house returning veterans.

With virtually no private housing available in Monmouth, the local Rotary Club was made aware of the problem and rallied with a major fund drive to construct a residence hall for 34 men. Known as Rotary Hall, it would later become the rear wing of Fulton Hall. However, because it was far from complete, the 34 future residents spent most of their first semester living in the college gymnasium. Finally, the students were enlisted to paint their new residence, and as a result, were allowed to move in on November 22—two to four men sharing each room.

A married student stands on the front porch of one of the post-war apartments on North Ninth St.

Thanks to the Federal Public Housing Authority, housing for married veterans was also made available. Eight apartments were hastily constructed on North Ninth Street, and finished just after Christmas 1946. Each efficiency apartment had all the comforts of home—kitchen, bathroom, living room, bedroom, gas space heater. Making the living arrangements all the more challenging was the fact that five of the eight couples had small children.

After the Navy moved out, women on campus reclaimed their dining facilities in the basement of McMichael Hall.

Back in the McMichael Hall dining room, which had been reclaimed from the NARU cadets, women now took their meals and etiquette was the name of the game. Grace was sung, posture was erect, serving dishes were passed in the correct direction and all waited for the upper class girl at the head of the table. Group singing between courses led to very lengthy dinners. According to one of the underclass girls, Louise DuBois Kasch ’48, she and Helen Wohler Tourney ’48 would on occasion decide to depart early and crawl on hands and knees the length of the dining room to escape from the south door undetected. Other times, she would have a violent coughing spell, needing assistance from her co-conspirator in leaving the dining room.

Some of the returning veterans were actually ex-Navy cadets, who had fallen in love with Monmouth during their training days and decided to return. One such cadet, Red Poling, would later see his name gracing the former college library. The future CEO of Ford Motor Company never forgot his Monmouth education and served the college with distinction as a trustee and major donor.

A priority for the returning vets, who were much more worldly and needed a place to unwind from their studies, was the establishment of a student union. The Alumni Association passed a resolution to designate the entire annual fund for 1946-47 to this cause. Many other fund drives were started, and proceeds from Gracie Peterson’s “Rivoli” shows helped purchase tables emblazoned with the college tartan.

A post-war gameday program promotes the college’s campaign to build a new football stadium.

The return of intercollegiate athletics was eagerly embraced, and plans for a new football stadium in memory of men who served in the two world wars were unveiled. Like the student union project, this became a popular fundraising cause.

Everywhere, people were rushing to put memories of the war behind them and get on with their lives in the promise of a new peaceful era. Back in Japan, Takashi Komatsu was appointed to oversee the mammoth job of salvaging destroyed war materials and rebuilding Japan’s shipbuilding industry. Makoto Tsuda—Slurpy—went to work for him, prior to entering a prosperous career with the Noritake Company. In the fall of 1948, Komatsu’s sons, William and Mark, enrolled as freshmen at Monmouth College.

Medal of Honor recipient Bobby Dunlap was happy to return to a life of farming after the war with his wife, Mary Louise ’45, and daughter, Donna.

In his book, “The Greatest Generation,” Tom Brokaw sought to explain why the men and women who brought America through its greatest conflict spoke so little of their experiences in the war; why heroes like Bobby Dunlap remained modest until the end. “They have so many stories to tell,” he wrote, “stories that in many cases they have never told before, because in a deep sense they didn’t think that what they were doing was that special, because everyone else was doing it too.”

That probably summed up Bobby Dunlap’s philosophy. The hero of Iwo Jima was just happy to return to his hog farm.

The fraternity brothers who lived in the Tau Kappa Epsilon house at the corner of 6th and Broadway protected their Japanese-born member Makoto Tsuda from being sent to a relocation camp until his graduation in 1943.

(Second in a three-part series about Monmouth College’s involvement in World War II.)

December 7, 1941, dawned cold and blustery with the smell of snow in the air. As was often their habit, several brothers from Tau Kappa Epsilon left the warmth of their comfortable house on East Broadway for a Sunday afternoon outing at the Rivoli Theater. The show that day was “A Yank in the RAF,” starring Tyrone Powers and Betty Grable in a “realistic reproduction of the heroic evacuation of Dunkirk.”

Following the movie, the boys stopped off at Carter’s Pharmacy on Broadway for a Coke. The radio behind the fountain was tuned to WGN and the announcer said that some unknown planes had attacked Pearl Harbor. Makoto Tsuda, who was one of Tekes listening, was filled with dread, suspecting immediately that the unknown planes were sent from his native country.

Makoto “Slurpy” Tsuda, Class of 1943

That evening, President Grier came to Tsuda and told him, “You are under my protection.” Grier had been in contact with U.S. government officials and assured Tsuda he was safe. He then made two requests: First, Tsuda wasn’t to leave the Monmouth area, and second, he wasn’t to go anywhere, except on campus, without being accompanied by friends. A grateful Tsuda said later it was the action of Grier that kept him from being sent to a concentration camp in California. He was also grateful to his fellow Tekes, who went out of their way to protect him. The only contact he would have with a governmental official until his graduation was a visit from a local law enforcement official who asked if he had either a shortwave radio or a camera. Because he had neither, the official left. After graduating in the summer of 1943, Tsuda was reluctantly forced to return to Japan, where he was drafted into the Japanese army as a cryptographer. Not knowing that Tsuda was not assigned to combat, fellow Teke Harley Bergstrand ’46 would later note that whenever brothers stationed in the Pacific went into battle, they would say a little prayer that they would not be shooting at Slurpy.

Senior class president Bobby Dunlap ’42 admonished his fellow students to get in shape to prepare for the war effort.

Every student who was at Monmouth College on Sunday, Dec. 7, also remembers vividly the chapel service the following morning, when a radio was placed on the stage and the entire assemblage listened intently to President Roosevelt addressing a joint session of Congress. The address began with the immortal words, “Yesterday, December 7th, 1941—a date which will live in infamy…”

With war officially declared, President Grier attended a meeting of college administrators in Baltimore, where a strategy was adopted for accelerating class schedules to allow young men to enter the service more quickly. At the morning chapel on Jan. 8, 1942, he announced that under the new schedule, juniors could graduate the following January, sophomores in August of ’43 and freshmen in three years. Summer school, of course, would be a major component of the plan. In that spring of 1942, men began enlisting in the reserves in great numbers. Even so, one of the most influential students on campus, chided his fellow classmates.

Future Medal of Honor recipient and vice admiral Jim Stockdale was photographed on campus his freshman year, prior to transferring to the Naval Academy.

Bobby Dunlap, president of the senior class, a standout quarterback, and a future Marine hero, said, “I don’t think we’re taking the war seriously enough on campus. I think fellows should attempt to get in shape to meet the physical requirements of our democracy.”

One student who was taking the war seriously was Dunlap’s cousin, Jim Stockdale. The freshman from Abingdon had already been accepted for admission at the U.S. Naval Academy, where he would graduate in 1946 and become a decorated pilot, a Medal of Honor winner and vice admiral of the Navy.

Robert Barnes (right) was the third generation of an MC family to fight in a war.

Just as their fathers and grandfathers had in earlier wars, other Fighting Scots were also rallying to the cause. A case in point was Robert Barnes ’45, who elected to enter the Army Signal Corps. His father, Wallace Barnes, Class of 1904, had served in the Spanish-American War, and his grandfather, Dr. J.A. Barnes, Class of 1870, was a Civil War veteran.

By the fall of 1942, the number of male students on campus had dropped to an alarming level. Realizing that something had to be done soon, business manager David McMichael and President Grier visited Navy officials in Washington to see if Monmouth College might become home to a unit of WAVES. Within a short time, officers visited campus and were delighted with the dormitories, gymnasium, meal facilities and classroom space. On Dec. 10, a Navy telegram arrived, notifying college officials that it would be sending not WAVES, but 600 pre-flight cadets. The college was given only until Jan. 7 to be ready to receive the first unit of 250. With Christmas vacation beginning Dec. 18, the next few weeks would be hectic.

When notice was given that the Navy was coming to campus, women students did not have much time to move out of the dorms and into the fraternity houses. Most of their belongings were moved by sled.

The three fraternity houses were overhauled, with all furniture and personal belongings removed, sometimes by sled; the Music Department was moved out of the Fine Arts Building; Marshall Hall, which had been vacant, was put into shape; the three dormitories were cleared of 190 female students who were sent to live in off-campus housing, including the three fraternity houses—Teke, Phi Kap and Theta Chi. The faculty declared a moving day and classes were cancelled so the women could gather up their gear. McMichael Hall was made ready to receive 250 cadets and its kitchen was transformed into a galley to serve 600 cadets in an hour or less. In the brand new Grier Hall, a sick bay was established to accommodate 24 patients under the care of three nurses and three doctors, and an electric elevator was installed to accommodate storage in the attic. Cadets told time by a ship’s bell, mounted by the Grier entrance. A commissary, or Gedunk, was established in Grier’s lower level. There, cadets could purchase such items as candy, newspapers, cold drinks and even condoms!

East Hall, or Sunnyside, was overhauled to hold 110 men and a naval office. Wallace Hall was completely revamped to include classrooms on the third floor, the naval office and a cadet post office.

The last week in December, 14 Monmouth faculty members and one trustee attended William Jewell College in Missouri to take a seminar in navigation. On Jan. 10, the college began instruction with about 20 teachers, no textbooks and little classroom equipment.

Cadets arrive by train at the Monmouth depot.

When the first platoon arrived at the train depot, they marched through Monmouth in civilian clothes to quarters that were not quite ready. Many slept on mattresses on the floor. Dishes for the mess were borrowed from the First and Second Church. The Monmouth armory furnished cots and blankets. It was not until six months later that the official Navy textbooks would see publication.

Coordinating the instruction for the college was math professor Hugh Beveridge, chosen for the role because of his experience as a cadet in the Student Army Training Corps at Monmouth College during the first World War. He was in charge of a faculty of 40 that included such MC faculty as Garrett Thiessen and Lyle Finley in the physical sciences, but also professors teaching outside their disciplines, such as speech professor Jean Liedman and philosophy professor Sam Thompson teaching Navigation. Bible professor Dales Buchanan taught Principles of Flight, which his daughter Dorothy said was ironic because he had only flown once. Yet he told his students if they had any questions he would find out the answer, and they respected him for it.

A number of Monmouth citizens also filled in as instructors. One such colorful character was Ralph B. Eckley ’23, chosen to teach “Theory of Flight” because of his long experience as a private pilot.

The “Yellow Peril,” an NP-1 Spartan trainer from Glenview Naval Air Station, was assembled on the front lawn of Grier Hall to help familiarize pre-flight cadets with the parts of an airplane.

Eckley immediately noticed that many of the French flight terms such as aileron, fuselage and empennage, were not comprehended by the cadets, many of which had never seen the inside of an airplane. So he asked the lieutenant in charge to contact Glenview Naval Air Station to have a retired NP-1 Spartan trainer flown to Monmouth to be used as an exhibit. The pilot who flew the plane to the Monmouth Airport, however, left it with an empty tank, so Eckley purchased five gallons of gas at the Phillips 66 station and enlisted the help of state police and sheriff’s deputies to taxi the plane along Sixth Street to East Broadway, where it was parked in front of the flagpole. Eckley reported to the skipper that he had broken a lot of regulations to get the plane there. The skipper replied that the order had been to get it on campus before sundown, and Eckley had met that directive. The plane, dubbed “The Yellow Peril,” was later moved to the front lawn of Grier Hall, where it would become a fixture throughout the duration of the pre-flight school.

Ralph Eckley ’23, an avid local pilot who served as an NFPS instructor, helped convince the Navy to adopt curriculum developed by Monmouth College faculty for its pre-flight training.

Later, working as a physics lab assistant under Lyle Finley, Eckley noticed that the 22 mimeographed experiments furnished by the Navy were inaccurate. He asked Finley for copies of experiments he used for his freshman students and had them run off on good bond paper. It wasn’t long before the Navy learned the syllabus was not being followed, and they sent a lieutenant commander to investigate. It was quickly apparent that the Navy’s experiments were inferior to Finley’s, so enough copies were run off for the Navy to use in six other colleges and universities. Monmouth College received a Naval citation for the curriculum improvement.

Life as a cadet was rigorous. Most of the Plebes, as they were called for the first four weeks, entered pre-flight school directly from civilian life. Reveille was sounded at 5:45 each morning and classes began at 7:30. Except for 90 minutes of physical training, the day was spent in classes—seven hours a day, six days a week. Following lunch, classes resumed until 5:30. Two hours each evening were set aside for study, leaving about an hour after dinner and 15 minutes before “Taps” at 9:45 as the only free time. Studying and sleeping was in itself difficult, as usually four to six cadets shared a single room. If course averages dropped below passing or if there were disciplinary issues, cadets lost their weekend privileges and had to report to study hall.

Cadets in good standing were allowed the privilege of attending weekend dances.

Those with weekend privileges could attend a dance in the gym each Saturday night, movies downtown, or recreation rooms at the American Legion and local lodges. They were also allowed to travel within a 50-mile radius, which meant soirees to the big cities of Galesburg, Rock Island and Burlington.

Crowds of townspeople would often turn out to watch Evening Colors.

Watching the cadets became a popular pastime, not only for coeds, but also for members of the Monmouth community, who turned out each evening at 7 to watch the lowering of the colors. Huge crowds from the town also attended the regimental reviews, staged on the athletic field in honor of departing battalions.

Bobby Woll (left) with Naval cadet and athlete Bob Weaver.

Intercollegiate athletics, of course, were sidetracked by the war, but that didn’t mean Monmouth suffered from complete withdrawal. Although Bobby Woll ’35 was the sole remaining coach on campus, he would not be deterred. His 1943-44 basketball team, which included four Naval cadets, won nine of 11 games and was defeated only by Iowa and Camp Ellis. Naval cadets such as Bob Weaver of Ashland, Oregon, received Monmouth letters. The Navy also brought some sports VIPs to campus, including Wisconsin All-American grid star George Paskvan, former Missouri head coach Don Faurot and Cornelius Warmerdam, the world pole vaulting champion, who vaulted 15’8-1/2′ using a bamboo pole.

Female cast members in Gracie Peterson’s 1944 musical “Girl of the Year” had to make do with cardboard cutouts as dancing partners.

The coming of the Navy was particularly good news to Monmouth coeds, who had previously been used to having two boys to every girl. Although the cadets’ free time was extremely limited, they interacted socially with the coeds, and hosted four Navy proms each year. But the women also did their fair share for the war effort, organizing book drives for soldier barracks, selling stamps and bonds, collecting scrap metal and taking first aid courses. A number of women continued the tradition of the popular “Gracie Peterson” shows, although cardboard men had to be employed. The 1944 spring production, “Girl of the Year,” went on the road to Camp Ellis, where it was viewed by 2,000 enthusiastic soldiers.

Mary Fernald ’42 (right) lost both her hands in an accidental explosion at the ordnance plant where she worked.

Some Monmouth women were not content just to remain on campus. Professor Dorothy Donald took a leave of absence to perform war work. A handful of women students enlisted in the WAVES, WAACS and Red Cross. Mary Fernald, who went to work as a lab technician in the Kankakee Ordnance plant, suffered the loss of both hands in an explosion.

The women who did remain on campus did their best to maintain an air of normalcy.  Rather than complaining about cramped conditions, seniors quartered in the former music studios of the Fine Arts Building pretended they were in a sorority and dubbed their house Phi Alpha Beta. And because there were no freshmen or sophomore men available to compete in the annual pole scrap, the women of those classes instead instituted a tug of war. Adding to that spectacle was the use of a fire hose by members of the Pep Club.

Crimson Masque director Ruth Williams, determined to keep theater alive at Monmouth, partnered with a community theater group, and four excellent dramatic productions that included both faculty and townspeople, were still offered each year in the Little Theatre.

The pre-flight school lasted 18 months at Monmouth. It was succeeded in July 1944 by a Naval Academic Refresher Unit (V-5). These men were experienced bluejackets from the fleet desiring to enter pre-flight directly for training as Navy pilots. Subjects taught were math, physics, English, history, Naval organization and physical education.

President Harry Truman decorates Capt. Bobby Dunlap ’42 with the Medal of Honor.

By early 1945, with the war having been won in Europe, members of the campus community eagerly awaited word of an Allied victory in the Pacific. In late February, they read of a desperate battle on the volcanic islands of Iwo Jima, in which one of their own was a key player. Bobby Dunlap, a farm boy from Abingdon, had enlisted in the Marine reserves while still a student. Called “the biggest little man on campus,” the 5-foot-9 quarterback was actually offered a contract by the Philadelphia Eagles, but he was called up by the Marines before training camp began. Putting his quarterback skills to good use, he nevertheless became a seasoned Marine Corps captain and fought bravely at Guadalcanal, Guam and Bougainville. On Feb. 19, as a member of the 5th Marine Division, he led 285 men onto Iwo Jima, fewer than half of whom would be alive after the first four days of fighting. Defying uninterrupted blasts of artillery and machine gun fire, Dunlap led his troops in a determined advance toward steep cliffs on the island. He crawled alone 200 yards forward of his front lines, located enemy gun positions and relayed the information to supporting artillery. For eight days he hardly slept, and he had taken out dozens of Japanese pillboxes when he was finally shot in the hip by a sniper. He would spend the next nine months in a full body cast. For his gallantry, President Truman presented Dunlap with the Medal of Honor on Dec. 18, 1945, in a White House ceremony.

In the four years of conflict, Monmouth College sent more than 700 of its students, faculty and alumni to all regions of the world. Of these, 43 made the supreme sacrifice.

(Concluded in next installment)

At the suggestion of historian and veteran blogger Stacy Cordery, I have decided to turn a 2005 presentation I gave marking the 60th anniversary of the end of World War II into a blog. Specifically, the presentation focused on Monmouth College’s involvement in the war.

In this first of three parts, I describe the prologue to war on the Monmouth campus.

Takashi Komatsu ’10 would become a leading Japanese industrialist who played a key role in Japanese political affairs in the years leading up to World War II.

In 1900, a Presbyterian missionary walked into a curio shop in Northfield, Mass., and struck up a conversation with a young Japanese boy who was running the store. The boy, Takashi Komatsu, was just 14 years old and had recently emigrated alone from Japan. He was very intelligent and ambitious but lacked the funds to advance himself or his education. Quite taken with his story, the missionary wrote her sister, Mrs. W.W. McCullough in Monmouth, Ill., to see if Komatsu could come live with the McCulloughs, who ran a Monmouth lumber yard, and enroll at Monmouth High School.

Rooming with the McCullough family in their home on East Second Ave., a young Komatsu enjoys a picnic on their front lawn.

Komatsu thrived in Monmouth, was valedictorian of his MHS class and entered Monmouth College, where he became a champion debater. Graduating from the college in 1910, he studied international law at Harvard before returning to Japan, where he considered becoming a Christian missionary. Instead, he tutored the grandchildren of a Japanese steamship magnate, leading to a job as his private secretary. By the age of 35 he was a steamship executive himself, carrying on his work against a backdrop of growing militarism in Japan.

The Great Depression had wrecked Japan’s foreign markets and with the population increasing dramatically, the government began to consider expansion through military conquest. When Japan occupied Manchuria in 1931, Komatsu was sent to the U.S. on a three-month speaking tour to defend his government’s actions.

Komatsu (left) meets with President Grier during his 1940 visit to the U.S. to attend the New York World’s Fair.

In 1940, with relations between Japan and the United States rapidly deteriorating, Komatsu again visited the United States as a special commissioner representing Japanese exhibitors at the New York World’s Fair. Invited by Monmouth College president James Harper Grier to address the alumni banquet at that summer’s commencement, he expressed hope that Japan and the U.S. could reconcile their differences. The United States, he said, had played a significant role in bringing Japan into the world picture and for this reason should look with kindness upon Japan. The following day, Komatsu was presented with an honorary degree by his alma mater, as was the commencement speaker, Charles Sprague, who had been Komatsu’s classmate and was then governor of Washington State. They spent that night at the home of President Grier discussing the worsening conditions between the two countries.

Returning to Japan, Komatsu was called to report to government circles as a long-time expert on America who had recently visited the country. He told officials Japan should not join Italy and Germany; he said that Japan’s problems with America could be peacefully negotiated; he said war with America would be disastrous for Japan. It was not what they wanted to hear, and he was not allowed to speak in public thereafter. The Japanese government felt the need to expand shipping facilities for the war effort and took control of Komatsu’s ship building company, which it merged with one of the country’s largest steel companies and made Komatsu its director general. But because of his outspoken stance against the war, he would remain under suspicion and close scrutiny.

Robert Black ’41 was the first Monmouth College student to enlist in the military during World War II as well as the first student killed.

As the school year got under way that September of 1940, the Monmouth College campus was abuzz with talk of war. Under supervision of the physics department, a flight school was organized at Monmouth Airport. On Oct. 16, Robert Black, a junior from New Mexico, became the first MC student to register with the Warren County Selective Service Board. A year and a half later, he would also become the first Monmouth graduate to die in the service, as his twin-engine Army training plane crashed in California.

Socialist politician Norman Thomas, an avowed anti-war activist, spoke at Monmouth College in 1940 about the role of the United States in world politics.

In December, President Grier invited the well-known Presbyterian minister and Socialist presidential candidate Norman Thomas to lecture on “America’s Role in World Affairs.” Speaking to a capacity crowd in the Auditorium, Thomas pointed out the obvious danger that Nazi Germany had become, but warned against unreserved support of Great Britain, lest the old system of colonialism and capitalism be revived. America’s role, he said, should be to use her influence to create the kind of post-war world it desired.

From left, students Corky Kirkpatrick, Makota Tsuda and Ted Winbigler portray the three Axis leaders in a 1941 chapel skit.

A memorable chapel skit in the spring of 1941 featured Ted Winbigler ’41 as Hitler and Corky Kirkpatrick ’42 as Mussolini in an irreverent spoof of an Axis leaders’ meeting. Portraying Japanese foreign minister Matsuoko in the skit was a sophomore international student from Japan named Makoto Tsuda, or, as he had been nicknamed by his Teke fraternity brothers, “Slurpy.” Slurpy had come to Monmouth College in the fall of 1939 as a Bancroft Scholar. The scholarship fund was administered by the Japan-America Society, which counted as one of its members none other than Monmouth College’s first Japanese student, Takashi Komatsu.

As rumors of America entering the war began to intensify, President Grier issued a letter in May 1941 to all MC male students. The letter urged students not to interrupt their studies and noted, “We must not permit tension of the times unnecessarily to disrupt normal procedures.”

Carl Sandburg, speaking at Monmouth prior to Pearl Harbor, was a proponent of the U.S. entering the war.

On Oct. 23, 1941, the noted poet and Lincoln biographer Carl Sandburg presented a concert in the Auditorium. Sandburg, an unabashed flag-waver and a veteran of the Spanish-American War, blamed the condition and inactivity of the United States on the current generation’s propensity for comfort and convenience, and said that only by returning to the trial-and-struggle theme of the pioneers could America again become a world leader. Sandburg’s words would prove prophetic six weeks later, as after that date, trial and struggle would occupy America for the next four years.

(Continued in next post.)

Elizabeth Wallace Taggart was the daughter of MC’s first president and a member of the college’s Alpha chapter of Kappa Kappa Gamma when secret societies were banned at Monmouth. She is pictured here (center), surrounded by four other early Kappas, during the reinstatement ceremony of the chapter held on campus in 1934. Not long after that, she recalled her early life in Monmouth in an interview.

Elizabeth Wallace Taggart, Class of 1880, was a member of a fascinating family. One of her brothers was the chief engineer in charge of constructing the Panama Canal. Another brother awarded the first military contract for an airplane to the Wright Brothers. Another brother was president of Norfolk College. Oh, and her father was the first president of Monmouth College.

Elizabeth, or Lizzie, as she was commonly called, grew up in the family home (destroyed by fire in 1873) directly across the street from what is now known as the Minnie Stewart House, where Kappa Kappa Gamma fraternity was founded in 1870. Lizzie was only 12 years old at the time, but I can imagine that having had Minnie Stewart as a neighbor had some influence on her decision to become a Kappa herself.

It was during her time as a student at Monmouth that fraternities were banned. She quietly remained an advocate for fraternities, however, (as did her father, who had been a fraternity man at Miami University), and returned to Monmouth in 1934 for the reinstatement of Kappa’s Alpha chapter.

After graduation, Lizzie taught for a year at the female seminary in Steubenville, Ohio. She married attorney Frank Taggart in 1883, bearing him four sons and two daughters. They made their home in Wooster, Ohio, where she died in 1948 and is buried.

One of Lizzie’s sons, David Alexander Taggart, had a son James, who is a retired attorney still living in Wooster. In 2011, James Taggart and his family were special guests of Monmouth College during Golden Scots Weekend, and donated to the college archives some family treasures associated with his great-grandfather David Wallace, including a Bible, a walking stick presented by the students of Monmouth College, and a posthumous oil portrait.

Mr. Taggart also provided the following invaluable account of his grandmother’s early life in Monmouth as the daughter of the Monmouth College president. Specific details concerning just when the “interview” was conducted or who conducted it have apparently been lost, but it was clearly the work of one of her grandchildren during the 1940s. It’s a fascinating first-person recollection that shines new light on the primitive conditions and hardships surrounding the early days of Monmouth College.

Lizzie Taggart’s headstone in the Wooster, Ohio cemetery.

GRANDMOTHER TAGGART

There she sat in her comfortable apartment, eyes alight as she recounted incident after incident of her life and gave personality sketches of various members of the family. After more than 80 years of wear and tear, she is still a vivid person. Unmindful of her children’s suggestions as to help, she lives happily alone doing her own work, maintaining an active membership in the D.A.R. and her church, is keenly alive to the issues of the present day living. By recording her story, it is hoped to catch and preserve some of the flavor of her personality which seems to have come down through a long line of ancestors.

Her own memories begin when her father was president of a small college which he had founded.

“Tell me, grandmother,” I began, “How did college presidents and their families live in those early days when you were a little girl?”

“It wasn’t much like this,” mused grandmother, as she looked about the room where we sat in comfortable chairs with carefully placed reading lamps, thick floor coverings, and walls adorned with beautiful pictures.

Lizzie’s childhood home, pictured at lower right, burned in 1873, destroying most of her father’s papers. Just across the street is the home of Minnie Stewart, where Kappa Kappa Gamma was founded, while Monmouth College’s Old Main is at the top of the frame.

“Our living room,” she continued, “had a well-worn rag carpet and plenty of straight, strong chairs and was heated with a wood stove that even in the coldest weather was equal to its task. In the center of the room, the reading table held the books that the family were using and a weekly paper which not many families could afford. The walls were always clean as they were freshly whitewashed whenever mother’s housewifely instincts demanded it.

The blank whiteness was broken by chrome and an occasional picture. An oil lamp lighted the room and it was my duty to wash the chimney every morning. Mother often would tell me several times before I could remember to do it. I could not reach the middle from either end and there was that streak left which mother was firm about.

The other rooms of the house were not so well furnished and except for the kitchen there was no heat. On cold winter nights it did not take us long to get into bed. Mother saw to it that we had long heavy woolen gowns that buttoned well up about our throats. I can imagine her disapproval of modern styles in night clothes.

On very cold nights mother would heat bricks on the top of the living room stove. These wrapped in an old weekly were placed in our beds.

Along with her practicality mother had a sense of humor. She often told of the new hired girl who was troubled with cold feet at night. Mother suggested that she take a flat iron to bed with her. In the morning, when asked how she got along with it, replied that she had gotten it nearly warmed up by morning.

“Tell us grandmother,” I prompted, “what you did as a little girl.”

“Well,” replied grandmother, “we were busy all the time and the days were all too short. There was the catechism to learn and our school lessons to get. Then mother gave us training every day in the arts of housekeeping. We prepared vegetables for meals, scrubbed the floors sometimes, brought in the milk from the cool spring house, helped with candle making, and in the proper seasons helped to get the fruit for preserves and for drying.

“Then too we were trained to do skilled needlework and to knit. Our stockings were knitted by hand, with different colored yarns. We thought them very pretty but of course the public could not enjoy them as our long skirts came to our shoe tops. I was somewhat spoiled as my grandmother usually came in and turned the heels for me.

“If we wanted small rugs for our room we sewed the rags and wound them in balls for the weaver. Mother encouraged us to select the colors of the wrap that we liked best and it was great fun and a matter of pride to see whose rug would be the prettiest.”

“But Grandmother,” I said, “didn’t you play games and have fun like children do now?”

“Oh! Yes indeed we did. There was Libbie Hamsher living near, who was so skilled with a pen that she wrote all the commencement invitations and diplomas. She could draw all sorts of paper dolls, too, and would spend hours making them for us to cut out. To pay her for this, we took her all the hickory nuts—the small ones known as pig nuts—that she could use. She thought these delicious. We learned to draw from her and spent many evenings that way. Skill in this, later got brother Will into trouble when he so successfully pictured the peculiarities of his Greek Professor that the picture, joined with some lack of diligence, caused him to fail the course.

“Authors, checkers, and chess were the favorite winter evening games. Town ball, prisoners base and lu lu were the running games that worked off our childish energy and then there were the orchard and deep woods where all sorts of climbing and fruit and nut expeditions took us out for an afternoon.

“Then there was the great day when my older brother brought the first croquet set to town. This coming direct from Chicago made us feel metropolitan. A Court was leveled off and benches placed under nearby trees for the many spectators who came to see the new game. The mallets were larger than those used now. The boys boiled the balls in linseed oil to make them harder.

“Aunt Margaret used to come to visit with us for long periods. She was tall, spare, and chiefly noticeable for her large nose. She was a widow and dressed as was the custom then in large, voluminous black skirts. We children thought her queer as she was always taking a cup of coffee for her stomach’s sake—when her health would no longer stand this, she turned to boneset tea. Her own remedy, whatever it happened to be at the time, was prescribed for all the family. All of us children hated the boneset so much that we kept ourselves well to avoid it. It was my task to gather the boneset when it was ripe down by the creek.”

“But Grandmother, wasn’t it harder for you to have a good time than other children?”

“No, I do not remember it so. Father required us to attend church, know the longer catechism, and add a verse of scripture a day, but this did not bother us at all, for all children had to do it.

“My only sorrow came one Sabbath evening when I refused to go through with the 125 answers in the catechism. Father spanked me with such good results that I taught it to all of my own children, except the last and he holds this omission against me.

“Father was thought rather Liberal since he allowed us to coast down Brewery Hill in winter and dig caves in its sides in summer. This was the only elevation within miles an father did not have the heart to deny us.

“One of our caves furnished the town with its greatest excitement. We found bones in it and the news spread as it can only in a small viallage. Soon the sheriff and most of the town arrived to solve the mystery. We were important children while grown-up villagers questioned us. Our bubble burst when the sheriff discovered that the bones were those of some porkers that had died of cholera and were buried there.

“Father always entertained the seniors each year. The seniors in those days wore stiff-bosomed shirts, paper collars and tall silk hats. Brother Mac and I made a pyramid of the hats while refreshments were served. When the seniors were ready for their hats they were irritated and voted us typical minister’s children.”

“What did you have to eat in those days, Grandmother?”

“Our big dinners were wonderful affairs. There was plenty of all kinds of meat—turkey was common, as we raised them. Vegetables were not plentiful except in season. There were no canned vegetables. They were put down in the cellar or buried until the time of use. Custards, pies and fluffy cakes were the desserts.

“Steak and fried potatoes was a common breakfast; also eggs and bacon. Our cook, Black Bell, thought a dozen fried eggs just right for her breakfast. An egg was just a mouthful. Black Bell came to us after the girl from Chicago had been sent home because she had bobbed hair. The elders told father that anyone could see what kind of girl she was form that.”

“Tell me, Grandmother, about your college days. Did girls do about the same as they do now?”

“Oh yes, we were as full of fun and as serious, depending on our several natures. We never danced or played cards—just had a good time.

“The college boys were interested in us and Sabbath afternoon walks down by the river were popular. Ice cream was unknown but sometimes the boys would take us to the restaurant and treat us to oysters cooked in water or milk, depending upon the state of their finances.

“We dressed in calico, except for one good woolen dress. Fashion demanded that the skirts cover our ankles. These were very full and were held in place by half hooks called tilters, which tilted easily if you sat down carelessly.

“We knitted colorful hoods and fascinators for winter wear and in the summer wore sunbonnets and shakers—a kind of straw hat—these were to protect the complexion.”

“Did you study the same subjects that girls do now, Grandmother?”

“We did not have the large range of choices that colleges do now. Most of our work was in Literature, Language, and Mathematics. Some took the Scientific course but were not thought to be well educated. Father had a large private library which we were encouraged to read. In it were a few of the usual novels of the period and some like “The Law and the Lady,” which were not considered quite proper for young ladies.

“The boys did not have organized athletics and some of them worked off their energy in other ways. Father found a rooster in his office desk one morning. There was no profit in this prank for him, as it turned out the boys had gotten the rooster from his own flock. On another occasion they took a professor’s buggy apart and reassembled in on the roof of the college building. The professor, being wise in the ways of boys, suspected the ringleaders and asked them to help him out of the difficulty that some mischievous boys had gotten him into. His buggy was in the shed the next morning.

“Students would learn how to cut shirt patterns and then make their school money by going through the country cutting shirt patterns for farmers’ wives.

The college was a friendly place. When our house burned down, the students came and carried all that was saved to another house which father had rented before morning. This was the only way to do it as the mud was very deep. A load of coal stood all winter in front of our house, where it had bogged down in the fall.

“People had to help each other more in those times because there was very little money. Father preached every Sabbath in a neighboring village and this salary along with his salary as college president kept us.”

“What did you do, Grandmother, after you were through college?”

“There was only one profession open for girls then. I taught mathematics and language in a girls seminary for a year and then married a young lawyer.

“We built a small house on the edge of town when there was room for a barn, a garden and a large orchard. People did not move much then. We lived there 45 years. The land remained the same size but the house grew with our family. And now has undergone another transformation under the hands of my artistic daughter-in-law.”

Marion Morrison was not only Monmouth College’s first professor of mathematics. He was also a great uncle of actor John Wayne, who shared his name.

If David Wallace can be considered the architect of Monmouth College, then Marion Morrison would have to be his general contractor. Born in Ohio in 1821, Morrison met Wallace when they were fellow students at Miami University. Twelve years later, Morrison was called to be the first professor of mathematics and natural philosophy at the new Monmouth College and actually arrived at Monmouth prior to President Wallace, where he was able to supervise construction of the original college building on North A Street.

Throughout the next seven years, Morrison was not only the backbone of the college faculty, but one of its chief fundraisers. After the Civil War broke out, Morrison became the college’s financial agent, traveling widely to solicit funds for the struggling institution. In 1863, at the invitation of a former student, he visited the 9th Illinois Infantry camp in Tennessee, where he so impressed the officers of the regiment that they asked him to become their chaplain.

Morrison accompanied the regiment through the brutal Atlanta campaign, ministering to the spiritual and physical needs of soldiers, who suffered the heaviest loss of life of any Union regiment in the Western theater. He also kept a journal of the regiment’s actions, which was published by Southern Illinois University Press in 1997 and makes for an exciting read.

The physical strain of the war took a toll on Morrison, who spent a year recuperating in Monmouth before journeying to Lacon, Illinois, where he took charge of the United Presbyterian congregation. In 1870, he moved to Iowa, where he engaged in missionary work for eight years, and was finally called to Mission Creek, Kansas, where he remained until 1890, building a tiny congregation into a thriving church.

Morrison’s brother James, who also emigrated to Monmouth from Ohio, greatly admired Marion and named a son in his honor. Marion Mitchell Morrison grew up in Monmouth and enlisted in Co. B of the 83rd Illinois Infantry, where he served valiantly, receiving saber wounds in the chest and neck and bullet wounds in the head.

After the war, Marion Mitchell Morrison returned to Monmouth, where his son Clyde was born in 1884. Clyde would grow up to be a pharmacist in Winterset, Iowa.  It was there in 1907 that his wife gave birth to their first child, naming him Marion Robert Morrison, in honor of Clyde’s father. The third in the line of Marion Morrisons would become by far the most famous of the trio, starring in more than 150 films under the stage name John Wayne.

In conducting further research about Professor Morrison, I learned that he and his great nephew John Wayne shared something in addition to their birth names—both wore hairpieces and both were sensitive about it. Once, when Monmouth College students stole Professor Morrison’s wig as a practical joke, he refused to appear in public until he had sent off to Chicago for a replacement. John Wayne, the story goes, was once asked by a Harvard student if he was wearing a cheap hairpiece. The Duke reportedly replied, “It’s true it’s not my hair, but it sure as hell wasn’t cheap.”

Jennie Robb’s “senior photo,” taken in 1859, and her literary journal are among hundreds of important documents stored in the Monmouth College archives.

Serving as an unofficial campus historian for Monmouth College presents both challenges and rewards. When inquiries about ancestors who may have attended MC come in by phone or email, for example, they are often forwarded to me. That can present a challenge—taking time from my regular duties to look through the available records for a satisfactory answer.

On the other hand, I am sometimes pleasantly surprised by a campus visitor who appears out of the blue, often with an unexpected treasure for the archives. Such was the case one summer when the great-grandson of David Wallace (Monmouth’s first president) passed through town during his vacation and offered to present the college with a previously unknown oil portrait of his distinguished ancestor. The portrait, as well as a Bible and walking stick belonging to Wallace, are now part of our Special Collections.

For many years, the archives were under the watch of history professor Stacy Cordery, who encouraged several of her students to gain curatorial experience by working in the archives and cataloging its ever-growing list of holdings. Some of these students have gone on to pursue graduate study and professional positions in museum work. Now that Stacy has her hands full as both a best-selling biographer and professor, the archival duties have been placed in the capable hands of technical services librarian Lynn Daw, who is not only technically capable but also as passionate as Stacy about the collection and preservation of original source documents.

Located on the second floor of Hewes Library in the Beveridge Rooms, the college archives have come a long way since 1937 when librarian Mary McCoy established the “Monmouthiana Collection,” by culling old documents and photos from dusty files throughout campus. Today, that memorabilia resides in hundreds of archival boxes in a spacious, air-conditioned room. Scattered throughout its cupboards and shelves are a remarkable array of objects and documents: a lithographic stone once used to print diplomas, the clapper from the old college bell, the hand-written lecture notes of President Wallace, a dinner plate from Hawcock’s Cafe, the elevating screw from the college cannon, and the 1835 diary of Presbyterian missionary Alexander Blaikie, to name a few.

Many of the choicest treasures are not readily noticed but are tucked away anonymously on a shelf, waiting to be discovered. One such gem is a little hardbound essay book containing the handwritten poetry of Jennie Morrison Robb, a native of Pittsburgh, Pa., who graduated from Monmouth College in 1859. Its entries begin in 1857 and end in 1867, two years before her death. One of the most poignant is this poem, penned on April 16, 1865, two days after the assassination of Abraham Lincoln:

Father in heaven! In this hour
Of sore affliction, we draw near
And at thy footstool humbly bow
In prayer for strength our grief to bear.

O God! Thy ways seem dark to us.
We cannot see why wicked ones
Should be allowed to vent their hate
Upon our country’s noblest sons.

The nation mourns her fallen chief
With grief that scarce can comfort find.
Oh! May the Healer, from whose hand
The stroke is tenderly upbind.

To Thee our wounded hearts we bring.
Wilt Thou, O great Physician heal!
Cause us to know that this great ill
Thou hast ordained but for our weal.

We know that mortal men are but
The instruments in Thy great hand,
Accomplishing Thy work on Earth;
And acting but at Thy command.

We put our trust in Thee, O God!
For help in all our times of need.
Raise up one to complete the work
Unfinished by our honored dead.

And may the nation feel, the stroke
Is for Thy glory; and our good.
So may we humbly bow to Thee
And in submission, kiss the rod.

Inserted in the back of the book are 19 loose pages, comprising a salutory address delivered by Miss Robb upon her graduation, July 7, 1859. Written in her own hand, what a priceless document it is, as it may well be the only surviving record from one of the college’s earliest commencements.

After her graduation, Jennie married the Rev. William Turner Moffet, pastor of a Presbyterian church in Somonauk, Illinois. Their son, Hugh Robb Moffet, was born in 1863, and he would later attend Monmouth College before embarking on a highly successful newspaper career, editing and publishing the Monmouth Review Atlas for many decades, and serving on the college’s board of trustees.

Jennie’s enthusiasm for writing was likely the inspiration for her son’s lifelong devotion to journalism. Sadly, she died when Hugh was only six, and it’s easy to imagine why he treasured and saved her college journal for many decades, finally donating it to her alma mater sometime before his own death in 1957.

How fortunate we are that Moffet, along with so many other alumni and friends over the years, have been thoughtful enough to present their personal and family memorabilia to the college archives for safekeeping. Without them, large chunks of our colorful history would be lost.

If you have old letters, scrapbooks, photos or objects associated with Monmouth College, please consider donating them to the archives. Or, if you spot an interesting MC item on eBay, as some of our alumni have done recently, we appreciate those gifts as well. What you may consider to be an ordinary, uninteresting document could just be another “Jennie’s Journal” for a future historian.