Tag: WVWC History

135 Years – Happy Birthday WVWC!

Birthday Cake - 135 years

It is not every day that a person has an opportunity to celebrate such a milestone! How does one even go about it? Gifts are certainly in order. Taking the time to reflect on the people who have been integral to such a long story of growth and success seems to be appropriate. What follows is my attempt to celebrate the founding of our Home Among the Hills, where the doors first opened on September 3, 1890 – and the people and adventures since that time.

Gift #1 – Faculty List

About 20 years ago, I asked what I thought to be a simple question. (Is there a list of all the people who have taught here through the years?) It turned out that the answer was that it was all in the catalogs. Yikes. There have been a LOT of those through the years! But, after many years of digging through those catalogs and making a spreadsheet, I finally came up with a list. It includes anyone who was listed as faculty in one of the catalogs – even some early student assistants in various lab classes. These are all people who have impacted lives. Some have taught here for decades. Others for just a few years, but if they happened to be YOUR years, they may have made a huge difference for you.

However, once I had the list I was still not satisfied. I wanted to know what they looked like, where they had come from, what they taught, and what kinds of people they were. So, I have been compiling that information as well by looking through yearbooks, alumni publications, and even researching some in places like LinkedIn or FindAGrave.  Click here to see the results (with more coming!)

Gift #2 – Buildings

Buildings all have a story to tell us (many, actually). When it was built? Why was it built? What was the purpose for each? Where did the funds come from? Who was it  named for? What has been written about each?

The Buildings section of DreamersAndGiants has been updated with a lot of that information. Click here to check it out!

Gift #3 – Online Course

Thanks to a suggestion from Provost Lynn Linder, and some great technical assistance and moral support from Traci Probst and Jon Benjamin, there is now an online course available for those who would like to know more.  Click here to explore it! 

Answers to some frequently asked questions:

  1. It is free.
  2. It is available for anyone to take (faculty, staff, current students, alumni, trustees, prospective students, or anyone who would like to know more).
  3. It covers the founding and early days, and the history of the buildings.
  4. The entire course takes about 2 1/2 hours, but you don’t have to do it all at once.
  5. At the end of the course, you recieve a certificate!

Bobcat 135

While I am not a student of numerology, I thought it would be interesting to see what the number 135 might signify. What I found seems pretty on target.

  • Number 1 often represents new beginnings, independence, and self-leadership
  • Number 3 represents creativity, communication, self-expression, and optimism
  • Number 5 represents adaptability, freedom, positive change, and adventure

Happy 135th Birthday, WVWC!

Stories Lurking Everywhere….What Do You Know?

Seminary Building 1890 Catalog Drawing
Drawing of Seminary Building in 1890 Catalog

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.

Clipping 1946-05-09 Student Marries Princess
Pharos, 1946-05-09

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:

Clipping 1945-03-15 Hallam Resumes Teaching
Pharos 1945-03-15 

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.

Hallam, William A.
Photo of William Hallam, by Howard Hiner

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)

Worksheet for Pages In Time

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!