I just finished teaching a month-long course in WVWC History. We learned about the buildings on campus: when they were built, who built them, who helped to fund them, who are they named for, and more. We learned about some of the Giants who have been here before us, and the work that they did. We learned that some of the people we see every day now are actually doing things worthy of the title of Giant.
Sometimes, as students turn in their assignments, they express things like, “Mind. Blown.” Sometimes they say things like, “I am so proud of MY SCHOOL!” The more they learn about the past of WVWC, the more they tend to appreciate it in the present. They feel connected and grounded in this community.
We (incuding me) are sometimes surprised by what we find, such as this article in the May 9, 1946 issue of the Pharos.
Stories like this one lead to more questions……where did they meet? What happened later? Her kin being the wealthiest in Tehran, it must have been an interesting time for her to be living here!
[Note: Because I really was curious about these people, I did some further research. They apparently met while both students here. James graduated with the class of 1962 and Shamsi in 1963. Although she was a very successful business woman in the area of Real Estate, she was also known as a linguist (spoke five languages), had medical training, and they both worked at Keesler Air Force Base in Biloxi, Mississippi. He was 82 and she was 75 when they both were drowned in their home during Hurricane Katrina]. SunHerald, July 8, 2015 and updated January 13, 2016.
Or this one found by one of my First Year Seminar students last fall:
I was stunned. Although I had long heard about Professor Hallam, who began teaching here in 1928, and I knew he taught Mathematics here until he retired in 1973 this was news to me! Never had I heard that there was a time that he spent 27 months preparing pilots who would be deployed in World War II. This article was right next to one reporting the death of a student who had been here for two years before being called into the service. His name was William Watts, and he was from Durbin, West Virginia and was killed in action on January 23, 1945. Read more about him here.
Personal Connections
During spring semester, one student let us know that she was a direct descendent of Agnes Howard’s sister. One boy found Letters to the Editor in the 1960s Pharos which his grandfather had written concerning the draft during the Viet Nam war — and letters written in response. Mind. Blown. Another girl found photographs of her grandmother being crowned May Queen.
Primary Sources Are Powerful
The primary sources which help us to find these things are available online for all to use. Here is a list of them, and some worksheets that I prepared for the students so that they could learn to use them. Enjoy them! And, you don’t even have to do the assignments and turn them in unless you want to.
Books (Online)
Haught, T.W. (1940) West Virginia Wesleyan College: the first fifty years.[electronic]. Retrieved from Internet Archive. Buckhannon, WV: West Virginia Wesleyan College. Available in the Annie Merner Pfeiffer Library.
Haught, T.W. (1950) West Virginia Wesleyan College: the sixth decade 1940-1950. Typewritten copy. [electronic] Retrieved from Internet Archive.
Plummer, K.M. (1965) A history of West Virginia Wesleyan College 1890-1965. [electronic] Retrieved from Internet Archive. Buckhannon, WV: West Virginia Wesleyan College.
Books (Print Only – available in the Annie Merner Pfeiffer Library or through the Bobcat Den for $40)
Miller, B.T. (2014) Our Home Among the Hills: West Virginia Wesleyan College’s First 125 Years. Virginia Beach, VA: The Donning Company Publishers.
Pages In Time
- Performing Arts Programs (in progress)
- Pharos (so far up into the mid 1970s)
- Photographs
- Programs
- Sundials (so far through 1960)
Internet Archive
- Catalogs (from earliest days on)
- History Books (the Haught and Plummer books)
- Murmurmontis (1904-2010)
Worksheet for Internet Archive
DreamersAndGiants.com
- An online encyclopedia, and celebration of the people who have studied, taught, and worked at WVWC. This is very much in progress, with more being added regularly. And, fittingly, the students are involved in the process of the discovery.
- Brings elements together from all of the sources above in order to tell the stories.
Worksheet for DreamersAndGiants
Enjoy the exploration! And the stories!