Sturdy the Band of Pioneers

Musial signs an autograph in front of the administration building. The young fan is Dave Behnke, son of Dottie Behnke ’49 and the late Gene Behnke ’51. Looking on is Thom Hunter, another honorary degree recipient at the 1962 commencement.

On a warm Monday morning in June just over half a century ago, an overflow crowd in front of Wallace Hall watched members of the Class of 1962 receive their degrees, yet many of the spectators were there not so much to honor the graduates as to catch a glimpse of the future Hall of Famer. “Stan the Man” was one of six distinguished men selected to receive honorary degrees that day.

Yet the decision to honor a baseball player hadn’t been without controversy.

The nomination had come from the Rev. Dan Long of Rock Island’s Broadway Presbyterian Church, a member of the college’s nominating committee for honorary degrees. “This isn’t just a publicity stunt,” Long told a reporter. “It started when our chairman suggested that we broaden our field in the awarding of special honors. It was felt that in the past we had stuck too closely to the ecclesiastical field, and the idea now is to make our awards symbolic of the entire American way of life. In other words, sports represent something important to Americans, as do religion, education, art, science and politics. We want people to recognize that fact, and, since one of the purposes of an educational institution is to place emphasis on the higher values, nothing could be more fitting.”

Other athletes considered for a degree included Warren Spahn, Gil Hodges and Bob Friend, but they were rejected for not having the same level of community and philanthropic involvement as the Cardinal slugger, who during the off-season remained in St. Louis, where he was active in community life, serving such projects as Easter Seals. “The committee took cognizance not only of his tremendous achievements as an athlete, but more particularly of the example he has set for young people in his personal life,”Long said.

John Niblock ’58, a young director of publicity for the college, had the unenviable charge of getting national press coverage for the college, while deflecting criticism that Musial’s degree was nothing but a publicity stunt. Even locating a publicity photo of Musial in a business suit rather than a baseball uniform proved a challenge. Niblock finally contacted Musial’s restaurant in St. Louis, which with some difficulty located one in the files.

In days before electronic communication, what today would be a routine task of getting photos and video to news outlets required a bit of creativity. “AP wanted a photo of Stan getting hooded for his doctorate, but needed it before the actual commencement took place later that day,” Niblock recalled. “So we staged it there at the podium at Wallace Hall and they ran it with the headline, ‘Musial’s Monmouth Warm-Up,’ to indicate it was not the actual ceremony. Later, another media request–WOC-TV or WHBF-TV wanted color film of the ceremony with Stan the Man, and we shot it and sent it by courier to the Quad-Cities so they could work it into the evening newscast.”

Niblock said his student photographer, Phil Krebs ’64, shot the film in 8mm, which the station had to copy into a 16mm format before airing it on the evening news.

Also on the docket for receiving honorary degrees that day were the commencement speaker, Philip Coombs, assistant secretary of state for educational and cultural affairs; H. Stanley Bennett, biology dean University of Chicago Medical School, David Dodds Henry, president of the University of Illinois; Norman Hilberry, former director of Argonne National Laboratory; and the Rev. Thom H. Hunter, vice president of McCormick Theological Seminary, making some college officials nervous about how Musial’s presence would be received.

Any fears that Musial wouldn’t measure up were quickly allayed, however, as the humanity, humility and genuineness of the baseball star were immediately apparent to all who encountered him.

Musial, who wrote later that “It takes a man like myself who didn’t get one to appreciate a college education,” had just driven to Monmouth from the University of Notre Dame, where his son Dick had graduated the previous day. His pride in watching that ceremony, so quickly followed by the Monmouth College honor, made it an emotional day for him, but one in which gratitude shined through. Jim Lodwick, a former Monmouth resident, related a story about his mother-in-law’s encounter with Musial at a local drugstore: “As she was entering, this gentleman held the door for her and inside they chatted while waiting for service. She did not know who the man was but later found out that it was Stan Musial.”

MC’s late director of development David Fleming ’46 arranged for Musial to sign a batch of baseballs for college staff, which he cheerfully did, as well as supplying many other autographs that day.

Beyond the considerable media hoopla, the ceremony conferring of Musial’s honorary doctor of humanities degree was framed in dignity. In presenting Musial for the degree, the inimitable biology professor John Ketterer said, “Such is his prowess that even the vociferous partisans of Flatbush gathered within the sacrosanct walls of the late lamented Ebbetts Field found naught but to praise and dubbed him “Stan the Man.”

In addition to pleasing the commencement crowd, the day proved successful from a PR standpoint, as each of the seven New York City papers carried a story about Musial’s honor the next morning and it even made Time magazine. According to Niblock, “We had a shot at getting a photo in Life magazine that week, but got crowded out by Kennedy’s foreign policy speech urging peace in a nuclear age at the American University commencement.”

Not everyone, however, was impressed. Charles McCabe, the crusty columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle, charged that Musial had “cheapened himself just a bit” accepting a degree from “a jerkwater Illinois College.” He added that“Baseball is too decent, too pure, too inspiring a thing for our youth to be exploited by a lot of frustrated experts on Phoenician Maritime History or the sprung rhythm of Gerard Unmanly Hopkins.” To add insult to injury, the Cincinnati post ran a story saying the degree was conferred by Monmouth College of New Jersey.

Although only 50 when this photo was taken in 1907, Alice Winbigler was already a veteran professor, having served on the faculty for nearly three decades.

What educator was closely associated with Monmouth College’s first five presidents, whose administrations spanned 96 years?

Hint: This faculty member was a student under President David Wallace, was hired to teach by President J.B. McMichael, was a college classmate of President Samuel R. Lyons, was a professor of President Thomas H. McMichael and, in retirement, was a friend and adviser to President James H. Grier.

Another hint: During a 50-year stint in Monmouth classrooms, this professor taught mathematics, astronomy, Latin, history, English and rhetoric; and was honored by the college with two honorary degrees, an endowed chair and the naming of a dormitory.

If the above biography does not immediately ring a bell, this name certainly will: Winbigler. Alice Winbigler—or “Lady Alice,” as she was popularly known—left a mark on the Monmouth College campus that still endures, some 72 years after her death.

Alice Winbigler was the youngest of seven children, born to Elias and Rachel Winbigler in Terre Haute, Ind., on March 1, 1857.  When she was 2, the family moved to a farm north of Monmouth, where the staunchly Presbyterian clan took full advantage of the newly-chartered Monmouth College.

Her brother John enrolled as a Junior Preparatory student in 1859, followed by her sisters Julia in 1864 and Anna in 1869, and her brother Willard in 1871.  When Alice was only 7, her father died and the family moved to Monmouth. They built a comfortable house on East Second Ave., which would become Alice’s home for the rest of her life.

By the time Alice entered Monmouth College in 1873, Alice’s mother had died; and she was living with her sister Julia (an elementary school teacher) in the family home.  John was a decorated Civil War veteran, farming north of Monmouth, Anna had left school to marry, and Willard was preparing to enter medical school.  Left essentially to fend for herself, Alice developed a spirit of independence that would become a distinguishing character trait throughout her long career.

Besides being self-reliant, Alice was intensely curious—particularly in the sciences and math—and became a star pupil of mathematics professor Thomas Rogers.  Not long after her graduation, she was asked to return to her alma mater and teach under Rogers; eventually, he selected her to be his replacement on the faculty.  (She would later follow suit by hand-picking her own replacement, Professor Hugh Beveridge ’23.)

Despite the fact that the only graduate work she ever did consisted of two summers at the University of Chicago, she was promoted to professor of mathematics and astronomy in 1895 and in 1902 was named head of the Mathematics Department, a post she held until her retirement in 1929.  Throughout her 50 years of teaching, she never once took a sabbatical or leave of absence.  Her summers, though, were often filled with activity.

Such was the case in 1924, when she was awarded a trip to Europe, Egypt and the Holy Land by two of her former student, Mr. and Mrs. Dan Everett Waid (by then Mr. Waid was a successful architect based in New York City).  Just prior to embarking, she had been presented with an honorary degree by Monmouth College in recognition of her estimable teaching skills.

Over the years, many of Miss Winbigler’s students would attest to the impact she had on their education.  Charles Wishart (Class of 1894), who went on to become president of the College of Wooster, noted, “she not only taught me to think straight, but to think hard.”  Long-time newspaperman Ralph Eckley ’23 loved to relate how Miss Winbigler would always hold up an older sibling as an example to prod a math-impaired student along: “Your sister Isal never had any trouble with that problem!”

Miss Winbigler’s love for math was contagious—perhaps because she believed so strongly in its power to improve the mind…and the person.  In 1917, she wrote: “Mathematics presents to most students just the kind of difficulty the overcoming of which produces that intellectual fiber essential to effective citizenship.”

She was also a disciplinarian.  As one student later commented: “She had a sharp tongue and woe to the lazy or indifferent pupil who tried to judge on Miss Winbigler.”  As dean of women from 1910 until 1914, she kept an eagle eye on the evening activities of female students.  And when she served as faculty advisor to the YWCA, which sponsored the annual May Fete, she decreed that all the dresses worn by the participants must be of a certain length.

Despite her strict demeanor, Miss Winbigler was beloved by her students, who twice dedicated the Ravelings yearbook to her.  They called her “Lady Alice,” “Alice in Wonderland” and “Sweet Alice Ben Bolt.”  Miss Winbigler also enjoyed corresponding with her former students.  She wrote the alumni column for the Oracle for 20 years and even after retirement welcomed former and current students in her home on East Second Ave. Isabel Bickett Marshall ’36 recalls being entertained there as a student: “She was very social and very kind.  She was an elegant lady.”

Another alumna who remembers Miss Winbigler fondly is her great niece, Juanita Winbigler Reinhard ’42, who lived with her for two years while attending Monmouth College, just prior to her death.  “Aunt Alice was interested in everything,” Reinhard said.  “She was an avid Republican and hated Franklin Roosevelt.  “She would have me read to her…I remember particularly reading Mein Kampf.”

Upon Alice’s retirement in 1929, Monmouth College dedicated its entire Commencement Week activities in her honor.  A campaign to endow a Winbigler Chair of Mathematics in memory of her sister Julia was announced, with half the income from the endowment to go to Miss Winbigler as an allowance during her lifetime.  The night before commencement, a gala banquet was held in the gymnasium with hundreds of her former students in attendance.  At commencement, she was named professor emerita.

Alice Winbigler died on May 27, 1941.  Five years to the day after her death, a new dormitory was dedicated in her memory, the first building on campus not to be named for a college president and the first to be named for a woman. As the cornerstone was laid, Professor Milton Maynard eulogized his former colleague with these words: “She was as uncompromising in her ideals and integrity as the mathematics she taught…truly the name of Alice Winbigler is written large in the history of Monmouth College.”

Special thanks to James Hardesty ’98, whose senior history research project on Alice Winbigler was helpful in researching this piece.

When I was young, everyone heard the college steam whistle blow.  It signaled football games, Pole Scrap, Maypole dance, and the beginning of the Walkout.

–Earl Carwile ‘41

Our day began with the cheery notes of the college’s heating plant whistle summoning reluctant, sleepy-eyed students to their 7:40 A.M. classes.

–Ralph Whiteman ‘52

When the football and basketball games were completed, the firemen would blow the whistle and count the score with whistle blows for victories.  This was a nice service for those on campus and for neighbors.

David Allison ‘53

The college whistle was a campus institution.  It blew every day at time for chapel and maybe for class periods.

–Bob Foster ‘48

It could be heard all over town, even late at night.  We would count the blasts and know the MC scores.

–Robert Matson ‘50

For more than a quarter-century, Monmouth College students have marked the hours listening to the familiar Westminster chimes emanating from a loudspeaker in the Wallace Hall cupola.  Although generated electronically, the carillon music has become a campus tradition.

Earlier generations relied on a much more shrill, but equally beloved, timekeeping device.

When Wallace Hall was built in 1909, its cupola was not designed to house a bell that traditionally would call students to class, so the administration instead had a steam whistle attached to one of the boilers in the new heating plant.

The heating plant whistle soon became a familiar sound in Monmouth, and residents set their watches by it.  That is, until one morning in 1917 when some students decided that morning classes could not start without a whistle, and ran off with it.  A hastily-procured substitute was found—an automobile exhaust whistle that emitted often-bizarre sounds.

Despite its unpredictable tone, students came to love the new whistle, which the Oracle student newspaper said “has shrieked and squawked in victory, shrilled to awaken students, and moaned at chapel time for 13 long years.”  It was not surprising that disappointment was voiced in the summer of 1930 when he heating plant was renovated and a brand new whistle was installed—one with a deep, even tone.

Perhaps that was what prompted an unknown prowler to creep into the administrative offices in Carnegie (now Poling) Hall early in the morning of October 22, 1930, and deposit the original whistle, stolen in 1917. The administration duly restored the old whistle to its rightful post, causing the Oracle to rejoice: “Students will no longer feel the urge to steal the whistle, for the sacred relic is again in our midst and each true Scotchman will feel a thrill of pride as the noble old thing blows its daily sermon of toots and snorts.”

The newspaper, however, proved unoracular in its prediction, as the whistle disappeared once again just a few years later. For the next 15 years, the campus was without a whistle.

Then one day an alumnus stumbled upon the relic while cleaning out his attic and returned it to the school.  To the embarrassment of the administration, it was stolen again a month later, and there was a desperate effort to replace it.

Stored away for many years on the campus was a whistle from an old threshing machine that had never been used because the college’s steam pressure was too great.  As a last resort, they decided to give it a try, and it worked!

Some years later, a key part of the whistle’s mechanism disappeared and the college was again without a whistle to celebrate victory for several years.  Then, in 1977, President DeBow Freed requested that the whistle be rebuilt to be used at homecoming.  Green Army handyman Cletus St. Ledger dug through old machinery and found the necessary parts.

With the advent of new heating technology, the college’s old steam boilers eventually became a thing of the past, and the heating plant itself was for the most part dismantled, along with the steam whistle.  Recently, however, the whistle surfaced in a corner of the plant and it was sent to the archives, where it will remain silent but safe, unless someone comes across a new source for steam on campus.

This blog was inspired by a publication titled “Hometown Memories: Recollections of Homegrown MC Alumni.”  A collection of memoirs from “townies”—alumni who grew up in the city of Monmouth, the project was the idea of one such former townie, Marjorie Munson Wunder ’53.  The quotations that head this story were excerpted from the booklet.  It is clear from these recollections that the Monmouth College whistle is a beloved memory to many MC alumni.