Month: January 2020

This week marks the 35th anniversary of the death of one of West Virginia Wesleyan College’s biggest Giants (January 30, 1985). [Note this was written in January 2020]

Stanley Hubert Martin is our longest-serving president to date. He served from 1957-72. Throughout the tumultuous decade of the 1960s he provided strong leadership which went far beyond maintaining the status quo. In fact, our campus looks as it does today because of his insistence on the style of architecture we have come to take for granted.

The Stanley H. Martin era was one of incredible change and growth. New buildings included:

• 1958 McCuskey Hall
• 1959 Jenkins Hall
• 1962 Doney Hall
• 1963 Benedum Campus Community Center
• 1963 Holloway Hall
• 1964 Paul G. Benedum Hall
• 1967 Christopher Hall of Science
• 1967 Wesley Chapel and Martin Religious Center
• 1972 Middleton Hall
• 1972/1973 Wraparound addition to the Annie Merner Pfeiffer Library

Remembering Stanley Martin

The Summer 1985 issue of the Sundial included a wonderful tribute to Stanley H. Martin. Many other Wesleyan Giants were quoted in this article.  Sam Ross was the Managing Editor, but the editorial staff also included such people as Mort Gamble, Jerry Beasley, Patton Nickell, and Herbert L. Sharp. I don’t know which of these people wrote the actual article, but we owe them a debt of gratitude.  The photography for this issue was done by Howard Hiner.

The article gives great detail about the life and accomplishments of Stanley Martin. I encourage you to read it here.

On April 25, 1985, a great celebration of the life of Stanley Martin was held in the chapel that he had envisioned. There, other Wesleyan Giants gave tribute.

Bishop William Boyd Grove

Those who came here to have their minds transformed…across the coming of them all falls the shadow of Stanley Martin.

Dr. Sidney Davis, Dean of the Chapel (and member of the class of 1936)

While many could not see the enormous measure of his dreams for the college, we are surrounded by the breadth of his vision.

President Hugh A. Latimer

Stanley Martin believed wholeheartedly that Wesleyan is a community…one in purpose and identity.

Dean Kenneth Welliver recalled Martin’s concern for a balance between liberal arts and career training. To understand more, one can read Stanley Martin’s own  thoughts on this in the April 1966 issue of the West Virginia Wesleyan College Bulletin in his article entitled “Critical Issues in Christian Liberal Arts Education.”

Dr. Sidney Davis, as he closed the service, summed up the message of the day.

Thank you for coming. The College thanks you — the College of the past…the College yet unknown.

The writer of the article concludes that, although he was speaking to the crowd that had gathered that day, these words could have been directed at Stanley Martin as well, and states that “his monument, when you return to Wesleyan, is all around you.”

From the very beginning, the founders of the West Virginia Conference Seminary made sure to include female students. They recognized that there were very intelligent, dedicated, and creative young ladies in the rural areas of West Virginia and they wanted to be sure that they had opportunities for education. Maybe they were thinking of Lenna Lowe Yost.

Lenna Lowe Yost
Trustee 1927-42

On Friday, January 25, 1878 (142 years ago this week) Lenna Lowe was born.

Coming from a very small community, she rose to great prominence in political circles all over the country and served as a trustee of West Virginia Wesleyan College from 1927-43.

Lenna’s father died when she was only 8 years old.  Her mother operated a hat shop.  As many of these rural communities were, the community of Amos was very close-knit.

Lenna the Student

The only year that Lenna attended the West Virginia Conference Seminary was during the academic year 1896-97. She was listed in the Literary, Art, and Music programs. Of the 343 students listed that year, there were five from Amos, a community in Marion County which was in the Fairview area. Joining her at the Seminary were:

• Sue Lillian Yost – (Literary and Elocution) – who was the sister of Lenna’s future husband, Ellis A. Yost.
• Ora Louise Potter – (Literary and Music)
• Claude S. Jarvis – (Literary and Elocution)
• Frank J. Yost (Literary and Elocution) – possibly also related to Ellis Yost. He became a druggist and owned his own store in Fairview.

In only the seventh year, the West Virginia Conference Seminary did not yet offer college level degrees. The first full college class graduated in 1905. The coursework, however, was vigorous and challenging. Lenna and the others from Amos were all enrolled in the Literary Program, and each also chose other areas of study such as Art, Elocution, and Music. Here is the first year curriculum for the Literary Program:

Her science courses would have been taught by a very young Thomas W. Haught.

None of these students from Amos appeared in the catalog for the next year. Some may have gone on to Ohio Wesleyan or other out-of-state schools for their college work.

Lenna in the Early 1900s

In 1899, Lenna Lowe married Ellis A. Yost (6 years her elder, and also from Amos, WV).  Ellis received his law degree from West Virginia University in 1908 and became the mayor of Fairview. In 1910 he was elected to the West Virginia Legislature. In 1913, it was the Yost Law that strengthened the Prohibition Laws and led to the Department of Prohibition in the state.

Lenna worked closely with Ellis, and was quite a powerhouse in her own right. She served as the President of the West Virginia Women’s Temperance Union from 1908-18. In 1916 she was also the President of the West Virginia State Suffrage Association. During this time, she gained national recognition for her efforts to ratify the 19th Amendment.

1920s

At long last, the 19th Amendment was ratified in West Virginia on March 10, 1920.

In Wheeling, at the 1920 State Republican Convention, Lenna became the first woman in state history to preside over the convention.

1920 brought another first for Lenna as she became the first woman to serve as a teller in a National Republican Convention in Chicago.

In 1921, Lenna was appointed by President Warren G. Harding to represent the United States at the International Congress Against Alcoholism which was held in Lausanne, Switzerland. In 1923, he appointed her to that gathering again, but this time in Copenhagen.

1921 was also the year that she was appointed to the West Virginia Board of Education — the first ever to be appointed. She served for twelve years, always championing issues for women. For example, she was quite adamant that the standards in state colleges and universities be high enough so that female students could qualify for membership in the AAUW (Association of American University Women). Is it a coincidence that the Buckhannon Chapter of AAUW was organized in 1928?  Click here to read more about the history of that group.

From 1923-32 Lenna Lowe Yost served as a member of the Republican National Committee. Her great work caused her to become a member of the Executive Committee, and to work for women’s issues throughout the country.

1924, at the West Virginia Republican Convention, Lenna was the first woman to be Chair of the Committee on Platform and Politics.

In 1927, Lenna was elected to a position on the West Virginia Wesleyan College Board of Trustees. She served in that role until 1942, and was the third woman to serve on the board. (The first two were Virginia Haymond (1912-17) and Lettie List (1912-19).

The Federal Prison for Women was located in Alderson, WV was located in Alderson, WV largely due to the influence of Lenna Lowe Yost. It opened in 1928.

On June 5, 1929, Lenna Lowe Yost received an Honorary Doctor of Humanities degree from West Virginia Wesleyan, the first woman to be so honored. Interestingly, Thomas W. Haught also received an Honorary Doctor of Science degree the same day.

1930s and Beyond

In 1930, Lenna Lowe Yost was appointed by the Republican National Committee to direct women’s activities throughout the nation. Before being named Director of the Women’s Division for the RNC, she had been working for the committee for no salary. In 1930 she received a salary comparable to the men. She held this post until 1935.

The 1933 Murmurmontis was dedicated to her. I find it a bit interesting that the drawing is of male students, but that may just be an indication that it was all students who appreciated her efforts.

Yes, the founders must have had just such a person in mind. 

Be watching for more celebrations of Lenna and her achievements in the coming days! For example, an event on the campus of WVWC on March 10 — the 100th anniversary of her successful work to ratify the 19th Amendment in West Virginia.

Meanwhile, you can check out her page on DreamersAndGiants.

Some photographs have a way of coming up again and again.

Each time we see it, we see different things. For example, this photograph of the entire campus community in 1928 first came to my attention in the WVWC archives a decade or so ago. It was rolled up and placed in a box.  We unrolled it, flattened it out, and took it to an architectural firm who had a special scanner which could handle the size and format of this picture.

I found myself wondering who these people were. What did their experience at WVWC look like? What happened to them later?

These questions persisted, and the idea for DreamersAndGiants began to take hold. The photo surfaced again and a section of it is part of the graphic on the front page of the website.

It came up yet again in a Blog Post in June of 2018 (Cloud of Witnesses) when I was writing about the faculty through the years.  At that time, I was looking mainly at faculty, but I also continued to wonder about those students.

A Fresh Look in Context

The photograph was taken in March 1928. This was a full year and a half before the stock market would crash…..bringing on the Great Depression.

It was roughly a decade after World War I and a decade before World War II.

It was three years before the board accepted the resignation of President Homer Wark, and elected President Roy McCuskey.

It was eight years after Ladies Hall had been renamed Agnes Howard Hall.

Haymond Hall of Science was fourteen years old.

It would be twelve years before Thomas W. Haught (seated next to President Homer Wark in the center of this photograph) would write the first history of the college. West Virginia Wesleyan College : First Fifty Years 1890-1940. In fact, the school was not quite 40 years old at that moment.

Because I have read this book and the two that followed (A History of West Virginia Wesleyan College 1890-1965 by KennethPlummer and Our Home Among the Hills: West Virginia Wesleyan College’s First 125 Years, by Brett T. Miller), and thanks to the digitization of college publications such as catalogs, yearbooks, Pharos, and alumni publications, I can now identifity people in this picture. Some are very familiar now, and I find that I can spot them right away.

Because of these resources, I now even know the stories of some of them, and have been able to share them on the DreamersAndGiants website and in the weekly Blog posts.

It turns out that there are definitely some Giants in this iconic photograph. And some who are yet unknown.

Who Was There? (Faculty)

Cecelia Alexander (WVWC’s first librarian. She died in an automobile accident five months after this picture was taken.)

Arthur Aylesworth (Bookkeeper and Treasurer 1922-44)

Jacob Bos (Professor of Languages 1923-52)

Ralph C. Brown (Class of 1915; Taught Bible and Religion 1922-61)

Lewis Chrisman (Professor of English Literature 1919-56)

Paul Crissman (Philosophy and Psychology 1925-28)

James Deck (German Languages, Greek, Modern Languages 1901-32)

Clara Fishpaugh (Education 1925-30)

Camp Wellington Foltz (Director of the Conservatory of Music 1925-27)

George Glauner (History 1923-66)

Eleanore Hancher (Biology 1926-28)

Thomas W. Haught (Sem. 1894, Many Roles!)

Nicholas Hyma (Chemistry 1919-56)

Oda Earl Karickhoff (Class of 1905; Sociology and Economics 1919-46)

Zeno Le Tellier (Mathematics 1922-28)

Reemt Eike Luebbbers (Business Administration and Finance 1926-30)

Bartlett Lyons (Public School Music 1926-33_

Lois Muree McCloskey (Home Economis 1922-29)

Frank Edwin Muzzy (Voice and Piano 1918-41)

Aiice Nason (Physical Education for Women 1922-39)

Rachel Ogden (Dean of Women 1926-34; Modern Languages 1926-47)

Ruth Raw (English Composition 1925-29)

Cecil B. (Cebe) Ross (Class of 1923; Coach, Director of Athletics; Physical Education 1925-42; 1946-54)

R. Ray Scott (Education 1921-35)

Leta Snodgrass (Sem.1904; Art 1913-49; WVWC Masters 1933)

Edgar Sorton (Violin 1926-28; Music 1938-44)

Homer Wark (President 1926-31)

Who Was There? (Students)

These students became doctors, lawyers, pastors, professors, and leaders in all walks of life. Some served in World War II. There were artists,  athletes, debaters, musicians, and writers.

Among these students are several people that we might recognize. For example:

Forrest Bachtel  (Class of 1930; Forrest Bachtel was the starting quarterback for Wesleyan for four years. He also lettered in basketball three times, as well as serving as the captain in 1930.)

Charles Ross Culpepper (Class of 1930; Honorary Doctor of Divinity in 1950. He became a prominent minister in the West Virginia Annual Conference and was a delegate to three World Conferences. He served in World War II on active duty for 4 1/2 years and was in the National Guard for 17 years, retiring as a colonel. He is the father of Marvin Culpepper who graduated in the class of 1951).

Katherine Ellen Currran (Class of 1930; Katherine eventually married classmate David Echols Reemsnyder and, when she died in 2013 at 104 years old, she was Wesleyan’s oldest alumna)

Randall Hamrick (Class of 1930; Director of Personnel 1938-42; Taught Bible, Philosophy, and Religion)

David Reemsnyder (Class of 1930; Physical Education 1935-73; Director of Athletics 1960-73)

The expressions on the faces of these students would tend to suggest that they were a lively bunch. Some look serious, some appear annoyed at having to pose for the photograph, and some look downright ornery. In other words, they are much like the students of today.

A snapshot of a group of students. It is often hard to recognize the significance of a moment when we are in it.