Celebrating 75 Years 1943–2018
Celebrating 75 Y
Contents 2-3.......................................................................Introduction 4................................ A New Organization and Its Leaders 5..................................................................... The Beginnings An Address by Earnest Elmo Calkins
and the First Induction of Members
9..............................................................The First Fifty Years ]9.................Highlights of Knox-Lombard FYC 1943-1992 12..........................FYC 55th Anniversary Commemorated 13..............................................The Next Twenty-Five Years 13............................................................................1993 – 1997 16..........................................................................1998 – 2002 19......................................................................... 2003 – 2007 21..........................................................................2008 – 2012 23...........................................................................2013 – 2017 27.........................Beginning a New Period of FYC History 27......................“For Being Eighty” – a closing reflection 28..............................................................FYC Driving Forces 28..................................................................Edward Caldwell 29.........................................................Earnest Elmo Calkins 30..................................................................M. Max Goodsill 31...................................................................Gail C. Youngren 32...........................................................Carolyn Swartz Park 33............................................... Fifty Year Club Presidents 34................................................Scroll of Honor Recipients
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Seventy-five years ago, two Knox alumni conceived a plan for Knox College’s older alumni to gather annually on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of their graduation. They believed that it was important for alumni of a certain age who had common memories of their time at Knox to gather each year for a celebration of the 50th Reunion. They certainly must have envisioned a group that would create a bond among alumni and strengthen their connection to the College. The founders were also committed to collecting the stories and histories of as many alumni as possible to leave as a legacy for posterity. What began as a social group has grown from the original 321 members to more than 3,100 members. In the last 75 years, the Fifty Year Club has also gone from gathering in people’s homes for board meetings to an office and gathering space in the basement of Whiting Hall furnished with antiques and memorabilia from alumni, to the Bungalow on West South Street, and, most recently, to an office in the Alumni Relations suite in the beautifully renovated Alumni Hall. Early in the new millennium, the Club added a 50th Reunion campaign to the Club’s program. The 50th Reunion class gift program is now a vital part of the Reunion program and has raised more than $17 million for Knox College over the past 20 years. Reunion Classes have renovated classrooms, endowed scholarships, and funded offices in new buildings. Individual 50th Reunion gifts have helped students in every possible way— from scholarships, research funds, and internships to support for
ears of the Knox Fifty Year Club career services and everything in between. We’ve moved from only holding events locally to planning and hosting events all across the country. The Club now has regular functions in Florida, Arizona, California, Chicago, and Michigan in order to broaden the reach of the FYC. The FYC Bulletin continues to be a vehicle that keeps FYC members in touch with each other. It has undergone several design changes through the years and is now published twice annually. Each issue features short biographies about the newest 50th Reunion Class and news about members, awards, celebrations, and other news from Knox. One thing that hasn’t changed since the inception of the Club is birthday postcards. For the last 20 years, they have been addressed and written by Carolyn Swartz Park ’55.
In 2018, the Club continues to build relationships between alumni and the College. Though there have been many changes through the years, the mission of the Club has remained the same: to bring together those alumni who share similar memories of their days at Knox and to preserve a record of all Knox people. Here’s to another 75 years of the FYC! Megan Clayton
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A New Organization and Its Leaders Approval by the Knox College Board of Trustees launched the Fifty Year Club on June 12, 1943. A year later, the first 50th Reunion celebration and induction ceremony was held at the Oneida, Illinois, home of Janet Greig Post, Class of 1894. A group of 18 members of the Class of 1894 attended. In his induction speech, Earnest Elmo Calkins lamented the fact that, “Knox College is singularly unfortunate in having had no observers with the historical instinct present at its birth, and its early history is lost in vague and unsatisfactory records. Its earliest students went forth and are now lost in the mist of time.” To assure that this history, unlike that of the earliest Knox and Lombard students, would not repeat itself, he reminded FYC’s founders of the Club’s purposes: • To unite in one body those who share common memories of a certain period of Knox history, and, • To preserve a record of all Knox people, which is in its essence the history of the College. Over the years, Earnest Elmo Calkins, M. Max Goodsill, Gail C. Youngren, and, most recently, Megan Clayton have distinguished themselves as critical figures in preserving the Fifty Year Club and recording its history, along with the experiences, achievements, and records of many of its members. • Before his death in 1964 at age 96, Earnest Elmo Calkins was known as the “Dean of Advertising Men.” Though deaf for much of his life, his career spoke to consumers through the voices of fictional characters and visions of art work, both of which he introduced to his profession. He graduated from Knox in 1891, received an honorary degree from the College in 1921, and served as an honorary trustee from 1950 until his death. • After completing a business career, M. Max Goodsill, Class of 1912, returned to Knox in 1958 as Director of Public Relations. His enthusiasm for the Fifty Year Club led to his unofficial title of “FYC Commander-in-Chief.” • A 1927 graduate of Lombard College, Gail C. Youngren served as Fifty Year Club President from 1983 until 1986. She served as FYC director and editor from 1987 until 1998. In 1991, she arranged for a monument to be placed on the former site of her alma mater as a way to commemorate Lombard College, which operated in Galesburg from 1851 until the Great Depression forced its closure in 1930. She was honored in 1984 with the establishment of the Gail C. Youngren Endowment Fund at Knox. • Megan Clayton joined the FYC staff as assistant to the director in 1994. In her current position as associate director of FYC programs and 50th Reunion Coordinator, she directs the activities of the FYC, edits the FYC Bulletin, and manages the 50th Reunion activities and fundraising. She is a graduate of Carl Sandburg College in Galesburg.
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The Beginnings An Address by Earnest Elmo Calkins At the induction of the Class of 1894 into the Club, June 11, 1944 At the Home of Janet Greig Post at Oneida, Illinois To the Members of the Class of 1894 Greetings: I think I can safely say that I bring you tidings, if not of great joy, at least of a certain amount of cheer, for you have all attained the proverbial three-score-and-ten; some of you have grandchildren; the younger generation has made you feel your years, so—I am no Ponce de Leon; age is relative, but I am privileged to welcome you to a company of your elders. You are now members of an organization in which you are indisputably the youngest. In the Fifty Year Club, you are freshmen! I come as a representative of Edward Caldwell, founder as well as president of the Knox Fifty Year Club. He should have been here at this very hour, but instead is slowly, though I am glad to report, successfully recovering from serious injuries received on the night of March 11, when a car knocked him down, cracked his pelvis, and otherwise damaged him. Meanwhile, I am here to help you make your debut as the youngest Old Grads. The Knox Fifty Year Club was formally launched on June 12, 1943, when the trustees gave it the green light. It comprises all who were students 50 or more years ago, and today you have become members automatically by the March of Time—and there is nothing you can do about that. Briefly, its purpose is twofold. I. To unite in one body those who share common memories of a certain period of Knox history—quite different from that of more recent graduates—roughly, the period between 1864 and 1894. II. To preserve a record of all Knox people, which is in its essence the history of the college. Each member is asked to supply his own data, in the “Who’s Who” formula, for this purpose. The alumni are the end products of the college, its reason for existence. What they are, what they have done, is the measure of the college, its contribution to the culture and civilization of the country. Knox College is singularly unfortunate in having had no observers with the historical instinct present at its birth, and its early history is lost in vague and unsatisfactory records. Its earliest students went forth and are now lost in the mist of time. All we know about the members of the first graduating class is that they are dead. The history of Knox rests largely on two books: the minutes of the trustees’ meetings and the records of the Old First Church. The secretary of the college was Nehemiah Losey and the clerk of the church was Nehemiah West. Great as were their devotion and service to the infant college and colony, both Nehemiahs lacked every qualification for keeping a record. They were tongue-tied, pen bound, inarticulate, did not write easily, either in penmanship or expression, laconic as Spartans, omitting all details, feeling, no doubt, that everyone present knew what happened; they intimated or implied exciting incidents without giving any further information. One need but
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compare with these meagre and exasperating records the graphic history of the past critical two years at Knox as set down by President Davidson in his reports to the trustees to see how lacking in everything that constitutes history these early accounts are. And likewise, little attempt was made to keep track of the men and women who went forth from the college until it was too late to recover their real stories. When I was writing my history of Knox, I called at Union College, Schenectady, to see what I could learn about George W. Gale, who graduated there in 1814. Although it was an inconvenient moment, for the college was in the midst of preparations to install a new president— the gifted Dixon Ryan Fox, who delivered a fine Founders’ Day address at Knox seven years ago—my request caused no more trouble than to send for a folder in which I found biography, letters, copies of sermons, and other facts, a complete dossier 123 years after the principal founder of Knox had left that beautiful campus. And so, let us hope that a hundred years hence some historical researcher may find among the archives of our college information about any man or woman who imbibed some fraction of his or her education at our alma mater. Speaking of the historical sense, I am reminded of Charles Ferris Gettemy, who possessed it to a high degree. His memoir of the Ferris family is a model of its kind. I recall from our earliest association, in grade school, high school, and college, that Charlie was always elected recording secretary, and was he good! To this day, those old minute books are full and graphic accounts of our parliamentary activities. He carried his gift into public life, and the State of Massachusetts benefited by his sense of recording things. I have no doubt Governor Guild found him the best secretary a governor ever had. And so, before going further with this revelation, I again urge each of you to comply with the simple request that will be made before we close to give as complete an account of your own lives as the questionnaire calls for. The necessary spadework to get this club going has been done by Edward Caldwell. Voluminous correspondence was required merely to find out if certain Knox people still lived, and if so, where. Even yet, there are a number of cases in which he drew blanks. Three-hundred sixty-four people were reached, and a little less than half that number have so far responded. Since June of last year, the number has been thinned by the deaths of 28. Your class has 52 living members which are today added to the rolls. The Club will grow with the years, the additions more than offsetting the losses, and the historical center will move forward down the stream of time. Our Knox is centered back in the eighties, our memories cluster around an institution somewhat primitive compared with these days, but that is our college, and as Daniel Webster probably did not say, there are those who love it. But in time the historical focus will move from the last century into this. It will be a new setting, but the character of the memories that hover about it will always be the same. One of the minor objects of the Club is recognition of the Oldest Living Graduate (OLG), a peculiar distinction that has nothing to do with achievement or desert. It is the slow handiwork of Father Time, but some seem to prize it. A profile in The New Yorker avers that Dr. Alfred Meyer—husband of the more famous Annie Nathan Meyer—is the
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runner-up as the OLG of Columbia University and lives in hope of outdistancing his rival. In Salisbury, Connecticut, where I spend my summers, is the venerable Dr. John Calvin Goddard, pastor emeritus of the Congregational Church there, whose proud privilege it was last June to lead the Yale alumni procession. Since the organization of this Club, Mr. Caldwell made some studies in the longevity of Knox graduates. This brought up a paradox, which is that our OLG is not the oldest living person. Caldwell has compiled a table of the 35 oldest living alumni of Knox, all of whom graduated in various classes from 1870 to 1892, and with four exceptions, all have been out of college more than 60 years. Job M. W. Moore, of Prescott, Arizona, who will be 98 years old as stated in the table referred to above, graduated in 1872, but Carrie Hosford Castle, though three years younger than Mr. Moore, graduated two years earlier. So here, right away, we have a distinction between the Oldest Living Graduate and the oldest living person. Next on the list is Prof. Henry W. Read, whom we all remember with affection. He will be 95 on his next birthday. Other things in this interesting analysis are: that there are no living members of the classes that graduated in 1871, 1873, 1874, and 1876; that the women outnumber the men 20 to 15—as the insurance companies know; that the average age of the women this year will be just under 86 and of the men slightly under 87; that the youngest of these 35 survivors will reach the age of 83 this year; that 14 of the 35 were born before the Lincoln-Douglas debate at Knox in October 1858; that the list includes two members of the Ferris family; that 23 of the 35 were born in Illinois (eight of them in Galesburg), two in Ohio, two in Missouri, and one each in New York, Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, Nebraska, Scotland, Ireland, and Canada; that 32 came to Knox from Illinois (13 of them from Galesburg), and one each from Indiana, Colorado and Missouri; that 10 are today living in California and nine in Illinois (three of them in Galesburg); and that two were born in Galesburg, entered college from, and are now living in Galesburg. But perhaps the most interesting and surprising discovery of this whole study is that Mr. Moore, Class of 1872, our oldest living graduate, was born in the same year that Knox graduated its first class—1846! I am now about to distribute to each of you a certificate of membership and what I might call a questionnaire, for lack of better name; a list of facts wanted, the simplest outline possible. I urge you to at least fill this in completely. But it would be much better if you would take it merely as a suggestion for a more expanded account, a thumbnail biography, giving a fuller account of your life, your background, how and where you have lived, your family both forward and backward, and especially all your links with Knox. I am also handing you a copy of the first Bulletin of the Fifty Year Club, which contains some of the harvest from the first batch of replies. As you read this, let your interest in news of old friends and college mates tell you how welcome similar news about you will be to them. Do not underestimate the value of such records. It is not so much the important lives as the typical lives that give one the whole picture of this particular era of the life of Knox graduates.
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You will see, as you read the Bulletin, how many links there are perpendicularly, as well as horizontally, connecting individuals, the family groups that have gone to school here, the three generations that have followed one another, and that will in the course of time be extended to four, five, and more. I cannot begin to tell you the enthusiastic interest with which I read the batch of letters that have already come to hand. I knew nearly every writer, for this was my period at Knox, my floreat, as the book cataloguers say. Many of these people are my friends even after 50 years of separation. All of them are acquaintances. And you were part of that life as much as I. Between us, with your help, which I now bespeak, we will recreate the composite life of the Knox student who flourished between the Civil and the Spanish Wars. No matter how brief your contact with Knox, that contact was important to you, and is important to Knox. The Seymours did not graduate— Henry attended but two years—but he gave Knox its magnificent library building; Lyman was there no longer, but the fruit of his contact is the splendid men’s dormitory. William Honnold had only one year, but his affect for the college has given us an inspiring addition to humane letters. Don Marquis, Lee Masters, and Eugene Field were students for short periods. Of the 11 Knox graduates who “made” the Dictionary of American Biography—12, if we may include Edward Conger of Lombard—only four graduated, and of the remaining seven, two were in the Academy only, yet enough of a memory of that portion of their education remained to warrant mention of the fact in the account of their lives. And it is but another testimony to the need of collecting just such archives as I am asking you to contribute that, for some of these former students, whose lives were significant enough to be included in the greatest biographical dictionary this country has produced, there is not in our own Knox directory a single fact to explain why there were thus singled out. Here we have 11 distinguished sons and daughters of Knox—12 if we may include Conger—whose lives afford a striking illustration of the American way of life. For most of them followed more than one career and attained eminence in several fields, exemplifying that American characteristic, versatility. Among the 12, there was a minister of the Gospel, a professor, a geologist, a broker, a banker, and at least one philosopher. Two were soldiers, two college presidents, three were elected to Congress, and three represented their own country abroad. Five were journalists. Of five writers, two were poets, and of five lawyers, two were judges. Only two attained great wealth, and those two were philanthropists, who have made gifts to our college.
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It is our ambition to get this Club started with sufficient momentum so that it will carry on, self-supporting, selfperpetuating, because of the sheer value and
interest of its purpose. You are the first class to be inducted as a whole, a proceeding to be followed each succeeding year from now on. I hope you will each make your individual contributions to the lengthening recorded history of Old Knox. It was on the front lawn of Janet Greig Post’s country home, near Oneida, that the Class of 1894 became the first members of the Fifty Year Club on June 11, 1944. This climaxed the work of Edward Caldwell, who originated the idea of the Fifty Year Club; of Earnest Elmo Calkins, who diligently contacted alumni; and Janet Post, who entertained on that memorable day. Without question, the meeting on June 11, was and still is the most important highlight—getting the Fifty Year Club off to an excellent start.
The First Fifty Years: 1943–1992 FYC’s earliest members, the Classes 1893 through 1942, were raised by people who lived through the Civil War. While Knox students, they witnessed the construction of Alumni Hall. Knox enrollment reached 300 during their years on campus, while Lombard’s total student population reached a total of 500 just six years prior to its 1930 closing. These Knox students experienced campus visits by U.S. Presidents Benjamin Harrison, William McKinley, and Theodore Roosevelt. Numbers among them fought in the “war to end all wars,” found bootleg whiskey during Prohibition, witnessed the human misery brought about by the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl, and first sang the Knox Hymn, “Hail to Alma Mater.”
Highlights of Knox-Lombard FYC 1943–1987 By Gail C. Youngren Following the Club’s first and organizational meeting on June 11, 1944, at the home of Janet Greig Post, meetings were held in a wide variety of locations. Over the first 50 years, the organizational meetings gave way to programs that ranged from information on administrative and academic subjects to topical presentations by faculty and staff.
Getting organized The second meeting was held in the home of Martha B. Cole, a dedicated member of FYC, now the home of Mary Allensworth Creighton ’16. Though Edward Caldwell could not be present, he paid all expenses of publishing the Bulletin. His aim was for the Club to be on a self-perpetuating basis as soon as possible through a modest annual fee. It was decided in 1948 to charge dues of $1 to defray some of Club’s expenses. Dues were raised from $1 to $3 on June 13, 1970. In 1982, they increased to $5.
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The Max Goodsill Endowment Fund was introduced at the business meeting on June 7, 1978. Milt Hult, Bill Dean, Judge William Bardens, Stanley Kellerman, and Dr. J. C. Thomas Rodgers had raised $39,000. Milt and Bill were originators and staunch supporters of the fund. The income from this fund is used for operation of the FYC.
The first meetings • In 1948, the FYC meeting was held in the Panhellenic House with 68 members and guests attending. Mr. Caldwell’s secretary, Mrs. Osborne, was presented to the group by Janet Post, acting as chairman at Mr. Caldwell’s request. The Club elected permanent officers. • Acting Knox President Kellogg McClelland announced the first monetary gift to the Fifty Year Club—$300 from Lynn Irwin, Class of 1898. Twin calves, Dot and Spot, were sold to twin 4-H Club boys to obtain the money. • In 1949, FYC chose to meet in Whiting Hall. Adda Gentry George “expressed pleasure in receiving eligible Lombard College Alumni into the Club.” • The following year, 89 members and guests held their meeting in Seymour Hall. The Club passed a resolution: “The FYC makes record of its gratitude to Edward Caldwell as its founder, benefactor, supporter, and president until his death in August 1949. The Club itself will be a living monument to his memory.” • On Sunday, June 7, 1953, members listened to the reading of a letter from E. E. Calkins, who divided alumni into three groups—the recent graduates, those busy working out their careers, and the old graduates—the forgotten ones.
A variety of speakers highlighted most meetings • Otto Harbach, Class of 1895, was the featured speaker at the June 10, 1956, meeting in Whiting Hall. He spoke of the assets of age and advantages of the present-day college. • Sewall Wright L’11 spoke of conditions in the early 1900s at the June 9, 1957, luncheon at Whiting Hall. At that 1957 meeting, President Sharvy Umbeck also said, “FYC has more enthusiasm and deep rooted devotion than any group I know.” • At the June 1, 1958 program, Nelson Willard advised the members to read the Bulletin “three times in order to digest all valuable information.” • On May 31, 1959, Max Goodsill presented a leaflet reprint of a page from the Knox Alumnus. John Weigel L’08 said, “All members have a dedicated password. We are all loyal friends of Knox. Carry on.” • Harold Ingersoll, Class of 1911, said, “Old students never die; they just join the Fifty Year Club,” at the June 4, 1961, meeting. • President Inman Fox spoke to Club members on October 12, 1974.
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• On October 25, 1975, Mildred Hoopes ’25, who was most helpful in the early days of the FYC, spoke on “Beginning the FYC.” • “Images of and Images From,” written and edited by Max Goodsill in 1970, was a series presented in 1970, 1971, and 1973. Parts of all three iterations concerned the founding of Knox and Lombard Colleges. Alumni from both schools took part in the presentations. Gene Conklin ’27 came from Hutchinson, Kansas, to be the main speaker. Gene said, “Knox and Galesburg are interdependent—if one dies, the other will, too. However, the future for Knox is bright and still attracting students well-endowed with brains.”
Unique contributions to Knox • October 8, 1858, the FYC presented 10 framed portraits of Knox professors to hang in the various dormitories. In 1987, five of these framed pictures (of Herbert Griffith, John Conger, Ida McCall, Herbert Neal, and Dean Simonds) were hung in the recreation room at the FYC headquarters at 161 W. South Street. • In 1951, Col. and Mrs. Clark E. Carr established the Clark Mills Carr Prize in memory of their son, who died in 1879. • On June 5, 1960, the Sandburg Bronze Bust in Seymour Library was unveiled by Max Goodsill, and a portrait of Nehemiah Losey painted by Catherine Crissey Probst L’18 was presented to the College. • In 1961, Catherine Probst contributed a portrait of Janet Greig Post. • In 1965, Quincy Wright L’15 presented the College a rare copy of Sandburg’s In Reckless Ecstasy, printed with hand-set type on the Asgaard Press. Also that year, Margaret Sandburg planted a dogwood tree near the Bell Tower as a symbol of “closer ties between Lombard and Knox.” • The Gail C. Youngren Endowment Fund was established through a $500 gift from John Baily L’29 on October 15, 1983. He also contributed $500 to the Lombard-Sandburg Scholarship Fund and $100 to the Sigma Nu Fraternity. A matching gift came from Illinois Bell Company, where John had worked for many years.
Awards and Honors • The Fifty Year Club Scroll of Honor was proposed on June 6, 1965. Nine members were awarded Scrolls that year.
Memorable moments • Tom Williams made his final appearance as “faculty song leader” on Knox campus at the June 13, 1970, meeting. • Alumni and friends met in Whiting Hall for a discussion, “Confrontation pitting the Class of 1971 vs. the Class of 1924. • On Sunday, June 2, at dinner in the Oak Room, Carl Larson set up a table for all members 90 or older. None were able to attend. • At the June 1, 1984, meeting, it was announced that Max Goodsill, Commander-in-Chief, was critically ill. (Max passed away the following day.)
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55th Anniversary Commemorated Knox Magazine celebrated the Fifty Year Club’s 55th anniversary with an article by Kieran McCarthy ’00. Excerpts help tell the story of FYC’s 75 years of service to alumni and Knox. A little more than a half-century after its creation, the FYC continues to impact the lives of Knox students two-score-and-ten after their departure from the College. As Earnest Elmo Calkins and Edward C. Caldwell had hoped, the Club has continued with sufficient momentum to survive into the next millennium, spurred on by what Calkins described as “the sheer value and interest in its purpose.” But this comes as no surprise to the members themselves, who have long known how the Fifty Year Club impacts their lives. “The Fifty Year Club is a fantastic organization,” says Mary Immenhausen ’45. “The only ones who lose out are those who choose not to participate.” Earnest Elmo Calkins, Class of 1881, had a bone to pick with Knox College’s founders. As much as George Washington Gale and his followers may have done to found Knox, Galesburg, and the surrounding community, none among them had the historical instinct to document their experiences for the ages. The early records they left were so poor that according to Calkins, the only thing we know about them now, “is that they’re dead.” Having written They Broke the Prairie, a history of Knox and Galesburg, in 1937 for the centennial of their joint founding, Calkins had a keen sense of the frustration caused for archivists and historians by such vague and unsatisfactory records. Throughout its 55-year history, the Fifty Year Club has dedicated itself to keeping Knox’s past alive in Knox’s present. In 1972, for instance, George Washington Gale IV, great-grandson of Knox’s founder, spoke at a Club luncheon to tell the tale of how the College got its name. According to his grandfather, the original founders argued profusely over what to call their new school. The names of several famous people were bandied about, but two of the most popular were John Knox, the noted Scottish Presbyterian, and Henry Knox, George Washington’s Secretary of War. Ultimately, he said, the Knox name won out, some of its supporters thinking they had voted for John and others that they had voted for Henry.
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In 1970, Max Goodsill, Class of 1912, enlisted Gail Youngren L’27 to help organize a Reunion of Lombard
graduates. When asked if she could create a gathering of at least 75 Lombard alumni, Youngren replied, “If I can’t get at least twice that many, I’ll consider myself a failure.” (Gail actually persuaded 230 Lombard alumni from 19 states and Canada to attend in 1971.) How does the Fifty Year Club let alumni know that Knox still cares? For one, it sends every member a personalized birthday greeting card. For many older members of the community, birthdays are not only a time for celebration, but also a time of great achievement. “Older people need special attention,” says Youngren, ‘“The cards are one of the things members like. Some put them up on their refrigerators.” In order to truly understand the impact the Fifty Year Club has on its members, one only has to read the Club’s tri-annual newsletter, the Fifty Year Club Bulletin. Knox and Lombard alums never miss an opportunity to reminisce with their former friends and classmates, and nowhere is this more evident than in the Bulletin. From war stories about introductory biology lectures to real war stories about World War II, Fifty Year Club members have a lot to say to each other, and, as the Bulletin shows, they rarely refrain from saying it. Some use the Bulletin as an opportunity to brag about their continued good health, and others use it to let former friends to know how to reach them. The Bulletin is also useful in keeping half-century alumni up to speed on current goings-on at Knox. It contains information on how the optional Club dues are being put to good use.
From the 1993–1997 FYC Bulletin Welcome, Classes of 1943, 1944, 1945, 1946, and 1947! During your years at Knox, the world was at war, you danced to recordings of the Glenn Miller Orchestra, you paid 15 cents a gallon for gas, and you endured rationing. Your news, along with that of other FYC members during these years, included: • The celebration of the 50th anniversary of the Knox-Lombard Fifty Year Club at Commencement ceremonies. The son of Harrison Miner of Decatur, a member of the founding Class of 1894, attended the anniversary celebration. He presented the Club with his father’s 1894 graduation diploma, signed by John H. Finley (1892-1899 President and 1887 Knox graduate). • Numerous references to “the Bungalow,” home of the FYC until 2014 • A recollection from Marjorie Nelson Powell ’33 about finding the “Lombard Rock” at the request of FYC Director Gail Youngren. Commemorating Lombard College, the inscribed 100,000-year-old Wisconsin Glacier boulder is now located at Lombard Jr. High School on East Knox Street. • Reports on the annual joint Founders’ Day celebrations of Knox and Lombard Colleges • A history of the fledgling Army aviators who underwent the arduous
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task of attending and completing Air Corps cadet training. There had been more than 2,000 men at Knox during the 15 months in 1943 and 1944 when the College served as the 302nd College Training Detachment. Twenty-four of them celebrated their Homecoming in 1994 with the Class of 1944. Air Cadet Lee Wilson wrote, “For most of us, the one semester at Knox was enough to make us think of ourselves, from then on, as alumni. Other colleges may claim us but Knox was our first love.” • A 1993 list of seven alumni 100 years of age and older, led off by 107-year old Anna Pearl Jacobs Muller • Celebration of Alpha Xi Delta’s 100th anniversary; the sorority was founded at Lombard College on April 17, 1893. When Lombard College closed in 1930, the Alpha Chapter moved to the Knox campus, where it resided until its dissolution in the 1970s. • “Memories of the Observatory,” in which Frances Hazen Rowe ’34 shared recollections of French classes taught by Lilly Lindahl • A 1993 welcome to new Knox President Frederick Nahm • A 1994 story about the Club’s celebration in memory of Janet Greig Post, who was responsible for the restoration of Old Main and the rededication of it in 1937 and “her untiring efforts for making the early days of the Fifty Year Club successful.” In a later edition, Rosemary Creighton Swise ’42 added, “On April 30 of this year, many of us attended the ‘Last Brick’ ceremony which marked the second exterior renovation of Old Main ... If the present Board of Trustees had instead supported a plan to abandon the building because of its deterioration, and move the campus to the Lake Storey area, we would have thought them collectively mad, but that was the mindset that Janet Greig Post faced in 1933.” • A special feature of the Fifty Year Club’s 1993 Homecoming crowning of the newly elected “king and queen,” Jim and Virginia Maxwell Green ’37, by outgoing king and queen Jim ’37 and Marian Rose Lillie ’37
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• Marjorie Gustafson’s commentary on Knox in the movies; “In 19391940, the Knox campus was the site of filming for the movie Those Were the Days. The movie was based on George Fitch’s stories of Old Siwash and starred William Holden, Ezra Stone, Bonita Granville, and Judy Barrett.” • A brief history of the Knox Conservatory of Music that “was almost a separate school from Knox College.” Organized in 1883, its student enrollment had reached 362 just two years later. Originally, all office and classroom space was rented from and contained in the Knox Female Seminary, which was later called Whiting Hall, after Mrs. Maria Whiting, the principal of the Seminary. The degree offered by the Conservatory until its 1936 merger with the College required two to four years of study with mastery of three of the following: piano, organ, singing, or violin. • A lamentation from Fritz Bromberger ’40 over the loss of “the little observatory north of Willard Field where English Professor Moon taught astronomy” and “Memories of Old Main” from Dorothy Parmenter Kostka ’28 that included her image of “Miss Willard who struggled to teach us the pronunciation of the French letter ‘u.’ One began with the lips stretched wide, forming an ‘EE’ sound, then puckering to combine with an ‘OO’—thereby producing the French ‘U.’ Perhaps.” • Memories of “shelves stacked high with textbooks and the latest bestsellers” at King Cole’s red brick bookshop that Marjorie Gustafson ’42 remembered as being “snuggled between Beecher Chapel and the Knox Music Building” • A 1994 story by Max Stubbs ’40 about the “Historical Facts of the Knox-Lombard Fifty Year Club” that included a common sentiment: “The Bulletin came into existence in June 1944. With the exception of the first Bulletin, all have carried the familiar history/biography/ news/gossip promise. The Bulletin is key to the Fifty Year Club success. Over the years, each publication has served as the catalyst to bring the Knox family together. Thanks for keeping us in touch with each other.” • A story from Marynell Durland Kirkwood ’44 about how she came to apply to Knox: “Leyden Community High School’s superintendent called me into the office to ask me where I would attend college. I explained that I did wish to go but that my father was opposed to educating girls who would marry, bear children, and never amount to much as all women have addlepated ideas anyway. The superintendent opened a folder on his desk and simply said, ‘Knox College is a good college.’” • News that Max Rowe ’43 had been placed in the Senior Hall of Fame for swimming across the Mississippi at Dallas City, Illinois
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• A “Special Knox Service Award” presented to the Knox-Lombard Fifty Year Club by the National Alumni Council at the 1996 Commencement. It cited FYC activities and leadership as models for “our entire community, demonstrating how active alumni can not only enhance the College today but in doing so enrich the lives of all who share its affection and devotion to Lombard College and Knox College.” Knox history was the subject of a number of essays preserved in the Bulletin. Alison Campbell ’96 profiled George Washington Gale. In 1827, his vision of an educational institution became a reality as he established Oneida Institute in Whitesboro, New York. It was out of Oneida Institute that the vision of what was to become Knox College grew. Through his powers of persuasion, he convinced others to join him in his vision. With detailed advice he sent out a team to find the perfect place. That place, which he later called the Mesopotamia of the West, was between the Illinois and Mississippi Rivers—far enough away from the sinful area of Chicago to avoid distraction. In 1837, Knox Manual Labor College was established. Also established were a prep school and a female seminary. Gale stressed the importance of a female seminary because he believed, “Women will begin to play an important part in the world, thus making it worthwhile for us to educate them.” Every issue of the Bulletin included notices and reports of FYC meetings, a President’s Report, “Birthday Bits” containing chatty news from members, often with expressions of appreciation for the Club’s unfailing remembrance of birthdays. Also included were brief profiles of each member of 50th Reunion classes, pages of members’ upcoming birthdays, lists of dues-paying members, and a necrology of members whose deaths had been reported since the previous Bulletin. Finally, every issue carried dozens of letters from FYC members who wrote of past and present professional and volunteer careers of service around the world. Examples of their work included ministering to Navajo people in Arizona, selling used books for the Friends of the Kalamazoo Public Library, editing and publishing the Virgin Islands Daily News, and serving on a Smithsonian Mission to the Easter Islands.
From the 1998–2002 FYC Bulletin Welcome, Classes of 1948, 1949, 1950, 1951, and 1952! During your years at Knox, the Korean War began, the first transcontinental TV broadcast was aired, you danced to music on newly introduced 33 and 45 rpm records, and you read the first issues of MAD Magazine. Your news, along with that of other FYC members during these years, included: • Your celebration of the 1999 Founders Day with a presentation by the new Knox College President Dr. Richard S. Millman, former provost, dean of the faculty, and mathematics professor at Whittier College • A reminder from Dick Ruth ’43 that “The Gizmo wasn’t the original name or venue that satisfied Knox students passion for snacks. In 1938, three enterprising students started a food stand near Williston Hall called The Goal Post and nicknamed ‘The Geep.’” (The original
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Gizmo opened in Alumni Hall in 1946 as “The Hearth” to encourage students to stay on campus for food and fun.) • News that Ethel Fields Netherland ’99, had become Knox College’s oldest graduate. She should have graduated from Lombard College in 1929 with the rest of her class, but mistakes and last-minute delays resulted in no diploma for the Des Plaines-area woman. Lombard closed a year later, and Mrs. Netherland did not pursue the matter until President Millman reviewed the records and awarded her a 70-year overdue bachelor’s degree in biology. • A little-known history of the preservation of the name of Lombard College, supplied by Barbara Wynn Meek, Honorary, whose mother was head of its home economics department. “When Lombard College closed in 1930, it was necessary that the money left in the treasury and the original charter go to some organization. The Unitarian-Universalists had a theological school in Chicago. The Meadville School was pleased to accept the offer and become MeadvilleLombard College.” (Today, the school is known as Meadville Lombard Theological School.) • A presentation on two distinguished alumni at the 1998 FYC Commencement Luncheon by Owen Muelder ’63—Knox in the Past and the Future. Thomas Kurtz ’50, along with his Dartmouth faculty colleagues, created the fundamental computer language BASIC, thereby signaling the beginning of the “computer revolution.” John Buford entered Knox in 1841 and left for West Point the next year. His military career included leading the cavalry unit that set the stage for the Union Army’s victory at Gettysburg. Muelder explained his choice of a grad and a non-grad to emphasize the point that “anyone who attends Knox for four years or for only one term is an alumna or alumnus of Knox.” (And, after 50 years, becomes a member of FYC.) • An essay by Don Favreau ’49 in the autumn 1999 Bulletin on “Working My Way through College,” sharing a story common to thousands of Knox students over the years. During four years as a full-time student, Favreau held jobs as a bellhop at the Custer Hotel, as a member of the Whiting Hall cleaning crew, as a sexton at the Central Congregational Church, performing outdoor maintenance at Alvah Green’s Nature Preserve, and as playground director for the City of Galesburg. • A reminder in the Winter 2000 Bulletin of “Susie Siwash’s” admonition to women students of the 1940s and 1950s: “Be comfortable on campus. Wear saddle shoes, skirts and sweaters, tailored and sport dresses. Slacks, shorts, and breeches are proper attire for sports, but never for promenading. Wear them with ease on the athletic field, but not about the campus and NEVER downtown.” • FYC member tips on ways and places to spend their retirement years. Reports on Elderhostel experiences, publication of books, second careers, awards and recognitions, world cruises, relocations to sunshine states, and participation in competitions from bridge to Senior Olympics illustrated diverse interests of Club members. • The 50th Reunion remarks of, Jeanne Zemek Bohn ’50, who reminded members of this post-WWII history of Knox: “In 1946, the Second World War was just over, and the campus had two kinds of males
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on it: those boys who had graduated from high school in June and a large group of ‘men’ who had just arrived, courtesy of the GI Bill. Wandering among those hardened war veterans were 17- and 18-yearold girls, most of us away from home for the first time.” • A speech by Knox President Roger Taylor ’63 at the 2001 FYC Luncheon, in which he shared several facts and figures, including that enrollment had gone over the 1,110 mark and that students came to Knox from 47 states and 42 other countries • A recollection from Tom Kurtz ’50: “I guess I have to blame Andy Lindstrum for teaching me how to play bridge. You know, he never sorted his hand, but held it just as he picked it up. He didn’t want to give clues about his hand from where he withdrew a particular card.” • Regular messages from FYC Presidents. Typical of their wit, wisdom, and reminiscences was a comment by Charles Boydstun ’44 in the Autumn 2001 issue: “I’m sure the clocks aren’t running any faster or the rotation of the earth hasn’t speeded up, but it sure seems like it.” • A description of civilian pilot rraining at Knox by Burl George ’43: “In 1940, 20 Knox students, including two women, enrolled in this new program. Prospective pilots had to agree to join the armed forces in the event of an emergency. None thought anything of this requirement. After all, we were protected by wide oceans! December 7, 1941, caused significant changes in the program. Those enrolled were required to be sworn into the armed forces and to enter duty once their training was complete. At this point, women were no longer accepted in the program.” (Civilian pilot training at Knox was replaced by the Army Air Corps cadet training program begun in 1943.) The results from a 70th Reunion questionnaire from the Class of 1932 was reported in the Autumn 2002 Bulletin. Leading the list of replies to
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the question of “the important things one has learned in our long lives” were: “Honesty and real friendships, strong family ties, love of fellow man, pursuit of good health, sense of humor, and faith.” Reminiscent of Knox values, one 92-year-old offered, “Learn something every day or you’re dead.”
From the 2003 – 2007 FYC Bulletin Welcome, Classes of 1953, 1954, 1955, 1956, and 1957! During your years at Knox you watched TV’s first situation comedy, The Goldbergs, read George Orwell’s newly published 1984, used the first Polaroid camera, followed the Korean War, read the first issues of MAD Magazine, and benefitted from the first polio vaccine. Your news, along with that of other FYC members during these years, included: • The recollections of John Campbell ’43 who wrote, “The Class of 1943 came to Knox a year after Chamberlain’s announcement of ‘peace in our time;’ after the Sunday night when Martians landed at Grovers Mills, New Jersey, and a year after jukebox nickels brought endless repetitions of “A Flat Foot Floogie with a Floy Floy.” That summer, I had a job that paid 37.5 cents per hour. I realized that I didn’t have a clue to my future and an engineering course at the University of Illinois wouldn’t be the answer. In July, I applied to Knox.” • The first “Editor’s Corner” commentary by FYC Associate Director Megan Clayton: a regular feature since then, the column complements each “President’s Report” with reports of Club business and special items of interest. “New career beginnings,” were often reported by Club members as Bulletin “News Items.” Owen Muelder ’63 recorded a unique one in the lead article of autumn 2003 edition. “Today’s college students are told that in this day and age they should be prepared to change careers many times after they graduate. Dick Cheney ’43, who spent most of his professional career running Hill and Knowlton, one of the largest public relations firms in the world, is doing just that himself in retirement. Cheney, now 81, has decided, in the words of The New York Times, to ‘hang out his shingle’ in order to practice psychoanalysis in Manhattan.” • Appeals for financial support through the Annual Fund and planned gifts appeared frequently in the Bulletin. Particularly compelling was one included in a 2003 message from FYC President Jack Larson ’44. “The current edition of the Princeton Review ranked Knox number one in the nation in student satisfaction with scholarships and financial aid. This should certainly get the attention of anyone searching for a quality education with the possibility of financial aid.” • An essay by Len Kuchan ’53 entitled “What Knox Has Meant to Me,” capturing sentiments common to many Club members. “Knox College, through financial assistance, set me up for an excellent education that I believe set the base for most of the good things to come throughout my life. You see, I believe that your life is built on a series of significant decisions made or roads taken. If you were to
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change any one of these, you would end up changing everything. My education at Knox was one of these significant roads taken.” • The poetry of Neva Sebert Wallace ’51, which first appeared in the Winter 2005 Bulletin and appeared in several succeeding issues. Excerpts illustrate her unique ability to capture moments in place and time shared by many FYC members. From “Said the Alum to the Graduate” (Winter 2005) I stood where you stand on the grass of this campus, I struggled, created, unearthed and absorbed. Ancient trees overhead have witnessed us all and so have these bricks in the walks of Old Main. You and I share the gift of Knox heritage, learning in ways that pop the mind open, finding new paths for thoughts that intrigue, expanding the talents you have brought to this place. From “Old Main” (Winter 2006) Red bricks rise above the prairie soil. Morning mist surrounds familiar walls. What is it about the magic of this building Standing decades deep in memorabilia? Whatever brings us back again today we are captured by the old magnetic center nestled in the golden autumn leaves a simple box upon our campus map her walkways reaching out to all the world and drawing in the students of her past. From “Chambers of the Heart” (Winter 2007) “As we settle in to the warming arms of Homecoming and memories pound within our hearts, bombarding from the past, there is a selfish little voice at the back of the alumnus head that cries out: Why can’t it be as I remember it where did my Gizmo go? But we can be proud to come home to a college that listened to the winds of change and knew her future relied on change if she was going to feed the minds that lead this new millennium. • Celebration of a trio of 105-year-old members in 2006, along with 11 other centenarians, including Grace Rowsey Keehler, Ella Deveney Watson, and W. Russell Palmer, all members of the Class of 1899.
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• Reports from “PB Boys” meetings during FYC events. “PB Boys?” They were Knox student athletes who lived in the deserted offices of the People’s Building at the northeast corner of Prairie and Main Streets during the 1930s and 1940s. • Articles on Lombard’s “Most Notable Alumni” in summer 2007 and winter 2007. Among those listed were Pulitzer Prize-winning poet and biographer Carl Sandburg, who attended 1899-1902; Congressman E.H. Conger L’1862, who served as American ambassador to China during the Boxer Rebellion; nationally prominent theologian, writer, and educator Dorothy Tilden Spoerl L’27; and radio and TV broadcaster Ken Carpenter L’21. • A memorial to WW2-era alumni from Jean Allen Lowy ’48: “After the 1944-1945 school year, I left to work until the war was over. I later returned for my junior and senior years. The war was on in full force and many of our own fellow students had been called into service and found themselves on the bloody beaches of Normandy in June of ’44. We shall never forget.”
From the 2008–2012 FYC Bulletin Welcome, Classes of 1958, 1959, 1960, 1961, and 1962! During your years at Knox you followed the Supreme Court deliberation of Brown v. Board of Education, listened to Elvis’ first hit, “Heartbreak Hotel,” drove on the first Interstate highways, first heard the name Fidel Castro, wore the first Mickey Mouse hats, and played with the first Hula Hoops. Your news, along with that of other FYC members during these years, included: • A anecdote from editor Megan Clayton in winter 2008 about a member who “hated to admit that she was in a fifty year club, but she could stand being part of the Feisty, Young Club.” Megan added that President Roger Taylor ’63 liked “Feisty, Youthful, and Committed to Knox.” In the next Bulletin, Tink Lutz Scherer ’55 suggested, “Forever Young Crowd.” • The remarks of Carolyn Andrews Porter ’58 at FYC Induction: “As a result of several tragic auto accidents the spring before we arrived at Knox, the College took some drastic steps, and one was that cars were banned. Only town students and seniors in their spring quarter could bring cars.” She lightened her comments by also recalling that the January 1955 talent show was called, “We’re Walking Now” which included a “Frankie and Johnny” parody entitled “Sharvy and Wilbur” (President Umbeck and Dean of Students Pillsbury) • FYC on the Road. These years, like many before them, found FYC members holding meetings in interesting places in Florida, Arizona, California, Illinois, and Michigan. Members’ reports of all sorts of experiences filled Bulletin columns. Don ’56 and Susie Swanson Lisio ’58 reported that, as 2008 Santa Ana winds drove wildfires toward their San Diego area home, they packed their cars with clothing and important papers. Sadly, four tall file cabinets filled with references for the e-book Don was completing about arms control
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negotiation between World Wars I and II had to stay. At 3:30 a.m., they drove to safety as “flaming embers flew all around us. Some were the size of baseballs, others were smaller embers more like swarms of fireflies.” At that point, Don was convinced of the certainty of losing both their home and his book in the inferno surrounding them. Both the house and the book, along with the Lisios, survived. “So many homes in our neighborhood were burned down to their concrete pads, including four houses immediately downwind of us.” • Articles on the importance of estate planning by Bob King, senior director of Knox gift planning. A variety of approaches to increasing the value and impact of members’ estate planning was described to readers. • Regular announcements of FYC Scholarship winners, along with reminders that members’ contributions make it possible to continue and grow both the Carl Sandburg/Lombard Scholarship (for students transferring from Carl Sandburg College) and the Garnett Babbitt Martin Scholarship (for demonstrated financial need) • A reminiscence from Anita Tosetti Johnson ’58 in spring 2008 called “How Green Was My World!” She wrote, “Green was a color, not a movement.” Until biology professors Paul Shepard and George Ward exposed her to Green Oaks, “ecology was a word I had never heard.” • An essay/poem by Dave Ehlert ’59 about the seasons at Knox entitled “The Leaves of Knox.” He wrote, “I remember the leaves of Knox, guiding the seasons to repeat. The last green leaves of September greeting freshmen as they begin. Girls in shorts at the Gizmo, ROTC in the autumn heat. The flurry of the Pumphandle . . . We shiver to Seymour breakfast; the walk becomes a run. The snow has buried the leaves, frozen where we cannot see. A late night trip to the Q for eggs or a short stack. . . brutal wind. . .the trees bare. . .The sudden heat of May ignites the green within the leaves. They splash the trees with color as Frisbees fly above the ground and Flunk Day speculation sweeps the campus. . . When faces blur and ideas age, I can still see the leaves of Knox.” • Memories of “Kampus Kapers 1943” by Ned Landon ’43, recalling his class production of a student-written show entitled Man Alive. Use of many College facilities for Army training meant the small Beecher Chapel stage served as the set for the fictitious Kenesaw College campus. “Only a small corner of the stage served as the men’s dormitory,” Landon wrote. “It was not as crowded as one might expect since Kenesaw then had only three male students in school. The rest are in the armed services while the remaining three were in the Naval Reserve waiting to be called up.” • Memories from Kay Beck ’48 in the Winter 2009 Bulletin: “During my time at Knox, you had to pass the exams in six fields before you could enter the last quarter of your senior year: English, math, science, history, a foreign language, and fine arts. In the fall of 1945, we did not have a lot of help on campus so all of the students and faculty raked the many leaves.” • Observations from Maurice Stamps ’39 about the humility of WWII veterans who take Honor Flights to see the Washington, D.C., World War II Memorial in the Spring 2010 Bulletin: “We were treated like
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heroes … Of course the real heroes are the comrades who didn’t come home.” • News of a performance by President Roger Taylor ’63 and the “Fulton County Boys” (Dean Larry Breitborde and Chief Financial Officer Tom Axtell), fulfilling a challenge to spur alumni giving. Fully 5,523 alumni gave to Knox in 2009, the highest number in College history! • News of a 2010 reunion organized by Jerry Peck ’57of the 31st Surgical Hospital for Mobile Army, which was the basis for the movie and TV series MASH. Peck said, “We even had the characters to prove it: Hawkeye Pierce, Trapper, BJ, Frank, Henry, and Hot Lips. However, they were officers, and we were grunts.” • A bittersweet announcement from Lee Lutz ’47 and Bob “Sam” Malley ’47 about the final reunion of the “P.B. Boys” in 2010. The men, who lived in small, dark, cramped rooms on the second floor of the People’s Building at Prairie and Main Streets during the late 1930s and early 1940s, had gathered every year since the early 1980s. The group decided that since the “Boys” were nearing 90, they would find other means to share their memories. • A reminder from FYC President Bobbie Schlick Poor ’54 in her Winter 2010 “President’s Message” with these words: “In our formative undergraduate days, Knox taught us, like a family, to do our best work. Like a family, it gave us support and encouragement when we were young alumni. It has renewed our spirits, like a family, during our lifetimes, steeped us in curiosity, creativity, flexibility, resolve, and, one hopes, uncommon good sense. We are Knox. We are family.” • Thoughts from Gail Dean Cotton ’61 inspired by returning to the Knox classroom at Homecoming: “As always, I took the opportunity to continue my Knox education, as I do one day a year, with rather more diligence that I showed as a Gizmo bridge-playing undergraduate . . . It’s interesting and fun to see all these bright, shiny-faced young faculty members. Oh, yes, and current students, are similarly shiny.”
From the 2013–2017 FYC Bulletin Welcome, Classes of 1963, 1964, 1965, 1966, and 1967! During your years at Knox you replaced 48-star with 50-star American flags, considered joining the newly created Peace Corps, were shocked by the assassination of John F. Kennedy, and began to use ZIP codes. Your news, along with that of other FYC members during these years, included: • The history of the FYC Bulletin in its 150th issue in spring 2013: The first issue, June, 1944, coincided with the first meeting of the FYC. It was edited by Earnest Elmo Calkins, Class of 1891. Probably due to the war, the next issue didn’t appear until March 1946. Until 1970, it was published once a year in June, then twice each year until 1974, when the current three issues per year schedule was established. • Vivid memories from Ron Pearson ’54 of the annual tug-o-war that was held between pledge classes of the Phi Gamma Delta and Beta
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Theta Pi fraternities. “Instead of a line drawn on the ground which each team would try to pull the other across, we used Cedar Fork Creek as the middle line. I had the lead position on the ‘Fiji’ side of the rope. We pulled the lead Beta pledge to the very edge of the stream bank and I thought that victory was imminent until our side of the rope suddenly went slack. I was quickly pulled into the creek, followed by the remainder of our pledge class, who landed around and on top of me.” Later, his pledge class learned that their sturdy anchor man had experienced an asthma attack at the wrong moment. • A rare 70th Reunion! While only Burl George and Art Holst were able to attend, both proudly carried the banner of the Class of ’43 in the Homecoming Convocation procession. Their visit included dinner at Soangetaha and interviews by the Communications Office to preserve their recollections of Knox during the war years. Former Knox faculty member Dr. Frank Young recalled assigning his freshman preceptorial students the task of sitting on the steps of the Seymour Union facing Alumni Hall and writing about what they saw. The rule in those days was that faculty members must also complete all assignments. The following is an excerpt from Dr. Young’s own completed assignment. The Lombard Bell I am silent. The students pass and do not hear me. I no longer call them to their classes. I am death in the midst of life. Some recall me. They heard me toll; they heeded my sound. Few are left now. I am the past that is no more. I show those who chose to look at me that education lives forever. I represent education that helped produce the present.
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• Articles featuring dozens of very interesting FYC programs during these years, including a 2014 presentation in Burr Ridge, Illinois, by senior Knox archive assistant Mary McAndrew, who spoke about the many offices and departments that were housed in Alumni Hall before the renovation. She shared a brief history beginning with the laying of the cornerstone by U.S. President Benjamin Harrison in 1890. Following McAndrew’s presentation, renovation contractors for Alumni Hall shared photos of the building they had “stripped to its bones.” • News that Ray A. Truedson L’32, the last remaining Lombard alumnus of record, attended the Burr Ridge meeting. Just five months later, at age 104, he passed away. He was a Galesburg High School graduate who served as a cryptographer during World War II, followed by a career in the American Express travel department. • The relocation of the FYC office to the third floor of the renovated Alumni Hall in winter 2015. The first “home” of the FYC was the basement of Whiting Hall. It moved to the “Bungalow” at 161 West South Street in 1980. • Recollections of the 1965 Mississippi River flood: Joe Thompson ’65 remembered, “standing on the sandbag wall, a bag tossed to me from the right, tossing it to the guy on the left, all the while watching the river come up higher and higher.” Ann Raftree ’65 wrote, “Our gang helped in filling the sandbags, using topsoil from a farmer’s field, and also worked on the sandbag line. They had either prisoners or reform school boys working, and I remember seeing the guards with shotguns watching over them.” Glenn Schiffman ’65 recalled, “What I remember most is asking my history professor if I could turn in a paper late because I was helping sandbag. He refused with a statement close to, ‘I don’t think helping sandbag against a river in a small town is more important than my history class.’ I never liked that guy after that.” • A special reunion for Galesburg High School/Knox grads prior to their 50th Knox Homecoming in 2013. It was there that Alva Early described justice denied to him 50 years earlier. Because Early joined picnicking with white friends on the “whites only” north side of Lake Storey, high school administrators denied him his high school diploma. John Sauter ’63, Early’s friend from the fourth grade, shared the rest of Early’s story with Bulletin readers. “Knox classmate Lowell Peterson ’63 contacted Owen Muelder ’63 after the GHS/Knox reunion and suggested that they should correct that injustice. At an emotional ceremony on August 8, 2013, Alva finally received his diploma. Many of his classmates were there to witness the ceremony, along with Knox President Teresa Amott.” The appropriateness of her presence, according to Sauter’s article, was related to the role Knox College played in Early’s life. “Alva was an excellent student through high school. He was admitted to Northwestern University and the University of Chicago,” Sauter wrote, “until his admission was rescinded because he did not have a high school diploma. When Knox President Sharvy Umbeck learned of this, he told Alva he would be welcome to attend Knox.” Alva Early transferred from Knox to the University of Illinois. Following graduation, he earned a law degree from Chicago-Kent and a doctorate of divinity from Northwestern University.
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• A profile of World War I “Ace” Howard Knotts, Class of 1916, in the Spring 2015 edition by Anna Marquez ’15. Knotts was the youngest of 63 American pilots who gunned down five or more enemy planes. He flew a Sopwith Camel for the U.S. Army Air Service and was awarded the American Distinguished Service Cross and the British Flying Cross for extraordinary heroism. • Memories of the 1960s from Colin Harding ’63, focusing on the experiences that he missed in the States while in Turkey: “We were at the end of the pipeline, literally and figuratively . . . we had no television, no telephone, and our only radio only received BBC and VOA shortwave broadcasts. Our only newspaper, Stars and Stripes, usually arrived three days late. So the impact of events in the U.S., especially in 1968, was somewhat muted. Think of what happened that we missed—the assassinations of Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King, the riots and fires in Washington, D.C., and Detroit, the election cycle, George Wallace, campus riots, Democratic National Convention in Chicago, and Abby Hoffman.” • News of a second book by Barbara Young ’42, who received a Brownie Starflash camera as a gift from her brother in 1958: She took it with her to the Bahamas while on a retreat from the rigors of life as a psychiatrist. Little did she know that photography would become her passion. The Late Summer 2016 Bulletin reported that, at age 95, she is working on her second book, Photographs Are Memories. • Memories from Rosemary Creighton Swise ’42, written by daughter Sally Davidson Swise ’68: “The highlight of my first two years at Knox was when Paramount came to town to make a movie from the novel Those Were the Days written by George Fitch, Class of 1897, about his experiences at Knox and in Galesburg. I was so excited to be an extra, paid the handsome sum of $5 a day.” • News that the Lombard Bell returned to the Knox campus in 2017: “You likely remember the iconic tower that sat on the Knox College lawn between Seymour Union and Alumni Hall. The tower housed the Lombard College bell, which was once rung daily by Lombard student Carl Sandburg, Class of 1902. In 1935, a few dedicated Lombard alumni arranged to have the bell moved to the Knox campus after Lombard closed in 1930. The alumni raised enough money to have a structure built that was reminiscent of the turreted tower where the bell hung on top of Lombard’s Old Main. The bell resided in the same place until 2013 when the renovation of Alumni Hall began in earnest. At that time, it was stored for
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safekeeping until it could be replaced on campus. Thanks to encouragement and a gift from alumnus, local historian, and devoted fan of Carl Sandburg, Rex Cherrington ’73, the Lombard bell found its way back to campus in May, though in a new location at the northwest corner garden of Alumni Hall.”
Beginning a New Period of FYC History Welcome, 75th FYC Anniversary Class of 1968! During your years at Knox, you witnessed the early implementation of the 1964 Civil Rights Act and the “War on Poverty,” learned that Martin Luther King, Jr. had won the Nobel Peace Prize, expressed opinions about the Vietnam War, and read the first issue of Rolling Stone magazine. As the entire Knox community celebrates this 75th Anniversary Year, every issue of the Bulletin is sure to be highlighted by: • The FYC induction of the newest 50th Reunion Class • Regular President’s and Editor’s messages • News of classmates • Scroll of Honor and FYC scholarship winners • FYC meetings all over the United States • Class Reunions • Awards and recognitions of our members • Recollections of days gone by • Essays, photos, and poems that you and your fellow alumni will take the time to share with every reader of the Fifty Year Club Bulletin
FOR BEING EIGHTY
A closing reflection from the files of Max Goodsill, Class of 1912 We oldsters sure do get away with a lot just because we’ve managed to keep breathing longer than most folks. I have just celebrated my 80th birthday and I’ve got it made. If you forget someone’s name or an appointment or what you said yesterday, just explain that you are 80 and you will be forgiven. If you spill soup on your tie or forget to shave half your face or take another man’s hat by mistake or promise to mail a letter and carry it around in your pocket for two weeks, just say, “I’m 80, you know,” and nobody will say a thing. You have a perfect alibi for everything when you’re 80. If you act silly, you’re in your “second childhood.” Being 80 is much better than being 70. At 70 people are mad at you for everything, but if you make it to 80, you can talk back, argue, disagree, and insist on having your own way because everybody thinks you are getting a little soft in the head. They say that life begins at 40. Not true. If you ask me, life begins at 80!
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FYC Driving Forces Edward Caldwell by Helen Ortman Erickson ’33 Edward Caldwell was born on a farm in Bloom Township, Illinois, on May 26, 1861. In 1881, Caldwell entered the senior class at the Knox Academy and in 1882 became a member of the Knox College Class of 1886. In 1881, Lucy Smith Morse of Tremont, Illinois, also entered Knox Academy. She would later become Mrs. Edward Caldwell. Caldwell left Knox at the end of his junior year to study civil engineering at the University of Michigan. He received his degree in one year. Later he entered Cornell University. After one year, he became one of the first 25 to receive an electrical engineering degree from Cornell. After his marriage to Lucy in 1889, he went to New York to be sub-editor of Electrical World, a McGraw-Hill publication. This relationship with McGraw-Hill lasted 36 years. Caldwell served in almost every department of the publishing business. His last official position was that of president of the McGraw-Hill Book Company. Now let’s consider Edward Caldwell and his close association with Knox College. He served on the Board of Trustees from 1923 to 1949. In recognition of his service to scholarship, Caldwell was elected to membership in the Illinois Delta Chapter of the Phi Beta Kappa at Knox on October 11, 1926. In 1931, Caldwell was granted an honorary degree from Knox. Among literary gifts to Knox Library from the Caldwells are the following: • The Edward and Lucy Caldwell Endowment Fund from the Caldwell Collection. Its stated purpose is “To aid general resources of the library.” • The Finley Collection, composed of more than 4,000 volumes on the history and romance of the Northwest, covers the years 1600–1840. • The founding of the “Friends of Knox College Library” group in 1931. This action resulted in many fine contributions to the library. • Another rare gift came following Caldwell’s death in August, 1949: a completely bound volume of 23 original letters of Fred Jones while a student at Knox, 1879-1884, to his parents in New Windsor, Illinois. Also, a similar volume of 150 letters written from Knox by Lucy Morse Caldwell to her parents in Tremont, Illinois. • In 1950, Knox College Library received Caldwell’s personal rare book collection. Another gift was Caldwell’s idea of the Fifty Year Club. Edward Caldwell and Earnest Elmo Calkins corresponded concerning the possible formation of a “Fifty Year Club” late in 1942. One letter from Caldwell in February, 1943, reads in part: At the Trustees’ meeting in Chicago I proposed the organization of a 50 Year Club, Emeritus Club, or whatever it might be called. I read to the Trustees Prof. Reed’s letter which I had sent to you. Every member of the Board favored the idea and promptly passed a resolution
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authorizing me to go ahead and carry it through to its conclusion with some sort of an organization. I gave them to understand that I was willing to help get in started, but someone else must carry it on afterward. After drawing up a plan of organization and submitting it to Dr. Carter Davidson on June 8, 1943, the Fifty Year Club was on its way. Caldwell and Calkins together spent hours writing to alumni who would be eligible for membership. The Fifty Year Club was launched on June 12, 1943, and the first formal meeting honoring the Class of 1894 was held in June 1944. In the unavoidable absence of Edward Caldwell, Earnest Elmo Calkins presided. One provision in the organization set up was the birthday letter. Gail Youngren sent out more than 1,400 birthday cards each year during her tenure. Now Carolyn Swartz Park ’55 sends more than 1,600 each year. The true measure of the greatness of Edward Caldwell can best be summarized by a quotation from the memoriam written by Dr. Harry Kurz, member of the Knox faculty from 1921–1934, and a very close friend of the Caldwells. “He seemed to have an expansive enthusiasm which could absorb every new interest and maintain them all in a state of activity and zestful accomplishment.” This was the true measure of Mr. Caldwell’s greatness, this love for his chosen work, the cheer and eagerness with which he greeted the adventures of each day, the serenity of his faith in the comradeship of his Knox family.” And now this Trustee of Knox is gone and there is a vacancy where his love has functioned and called into being so many evidences of devotion. The least we, who remain, can do is to perpetuate, by our own devotion, the Fifty Year Club and the Friends of the Knox College Library.
Earnest Elmo Calkins by Irene B. Landis ’36 Born in 1868, dead in 1964, and in between were more than 90 years of creative productivity! He came to Galesburg as an infant and when but at age six developed a case of measles resulting in increasing deafness. When he went to school he found it very difficult because he couldn’t hear enough of the recitations and discussions. As he grew more and more deaf, he turned more and more to reading. It was at Knox that he was denied the opportunity to become an orator and began to write. He was editor of the College magazine Coup d’Etat and was named writer of the college newspaper items which appeared every Thursday in the Galesburg paper. Later he said these two experiences were his most valuable at Knox. He was “not an academic genius” and was deficient in meeting graduation requirements. The faculty voted to deny him a degree, so he wrote a letter to the
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College board, stating that if he had learned anything from his years at Knox, it could not be taken away from him; and that if he had not learned anything, the granting of a degree would not help. The board voted to overrule the faculty, and Mr. Calkins received his degree. Thus it was that Earnest Elmo Calkins left Knox and Galesburg with somewhat bitter feelings. He went to New York, where he worked in various printing, publishing, and advertising jobs. With a friend as his partner, he formed “Calkins and Holden,” the very first modern advertising agency, and built advertising into a lucrative and respected profession. As Mr. Calkins became financially independent, he wrote more and more. He was the author of many books and a prolific contributor to magazines. Often the magazine articles were about Knox and at one point he remarked that someday he would write a history of Knox College and the Galesburg community. Prior to the Knox College—Galesburg centennial celebration, he was persuaded to write his promised history, and thus was born his interesting and informative book, They Broke the Prairie. But, best of all, while he was in Galesburg to research materials for his history, he began to see Knox and the city in a different light and developed a deep and lasting affection for both. In fact, at a Knox Reunion for the Class of 1894, he was elected historian for the newly formed Fifty Year Club. Mr. Calkins earned and received many outstanding honors in his lifetime. He was elected an honorary member of Knox College Chapter of Phi Beta Kappa. An honorary Doctor of Letters was bestowed upon him by Knox. In 1925, he was awarded the Bok Gold Medal for distinguished service to advertising. In 1950, he received a gold medal from the American Institute of Graphic arts. In 1962, the Art Directors’ Club gave him a medal for distinction in advertising. He was listed in Who’s Who. Among his many books is his autobiography, Louder Please. When he died at age 95, he was working on a project for Knox, indexing all of the articles he had written for the Atlantic Monthly periodical. A creative man, a productive genius, and a loyal and generous supporter of Knox College, the Knox-Lombard Fifty Year Club is proud to claim Earnest Elmo Calkins as one of its earlier founders.
M. Max Goodsill Taken from “Max as I Knew Him” by Gail C. Youngren L’27 Known as FYC’s “Commander-in-Chief,” Max Goodsill, Class of 1912, provided leadership and support to the Club for 26 years. Following a business career in Montana and Minnesota, he returned to Galesburg to coordinate the centennial celebration of the Lincoln-Douglas debate. In 1958, he became director of public relations at Knox and became involved with the Fifty Year Club through his sister, Mrs. Claire Chandler ’04, the FYC president from 1957 until 1965. Typical of his contributions to FYC was his pursuit of a goal to bring 75 Lombard alumni to the 1971 Commencement Luncheon. Sharing his idea with Lombard graduate Herman Allen, Class of 1926, at a serendipitous meeting at the Galesburg driver’s license office resulted in a Commencement luncheon reunion of 230 Lombard alumni from 23 states!
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One of Max’s main ambitions was to get the Fifty Year Club on a self-sustaining financial footing without having to rely on College support. His wish was shared by founders Edward Caldwell and Earnest Elmo Calkins. A major step in that direction was made when, in June 1974, FYC President William Harris L’14 presented Max with a Citation of Merit and a Resolution that created the Max Goodsill Endowment Fund. As promoted by Milton Hult, Class of 1919, and Bill Dean, Class of 1919, income from this fund is used to defray FYC expenses. Perhaps one of his greatest contributions was the creation of the Knox Directory, with Professor Arthur Walton as his co-editor. Without it, the Fifty Year Club would not be able to function. Max was kind, generous, thoughtful, and considerate of all those he met. Our “Commander-in-Chief” is gone, but his ideas, his inspiration, and courage are left for us, in the words of John Weigel L’08, to “carry on.”
Gail C. Youngren Taken from a tribute written in 1987 by Frances Hazen Rowe ’34 and Irene Bowman Landis ’36 The Knox-Lombard Fifty Year Club was conceived by dedicated alumni who saw the need for such an organization. Gail C. Youngren L’27, has taken her place among the instigators to assure the continuation of their ideas and purposes. She began her years of service to FYC even before she became a member, when she accepted the job of Lombard Historian in 1975. Inducted in 1977, she served as Fifty Year Club President from 1979 until 1982. She became co-editor of the FYC Bulletin with Max Goodsill, Class of 1912, in 1982; and edited the Bulletin until 1998. Gail was responsible for sponsoring Lombard Reunions and in securing the plaques and repairs for the Lombard Bell Tower now on the Knox campus. In 1977, she received the Fifty Year Club Scroll of Honor. At the Founders Day Luncheon on February 16, 1984, Max Goodsill announced the establishment of the Gail C. Youngren Endowment Fund, which has a dual purpose. First, income from the Fund in allocated to the ongoing operational costs of the Fifty Year Club. Second, it establishes a permanent record within the annals of Knox College that provides recognition to Gail for her unselfish giving of time, energy, and abilities. Gail’s true talents lie in organization and motivation. Whatever needs to be planned and implemented, one can count on Gail to see that the job gets done. Unfailingly, she persuades the right person to do it. A lady in every sense of the word, her coworkers attest to her perseverance, her fairness, and her sense of humor. “All wool and a yard wide” truly describes this person who, along with all else, has had to carry more than her share of family responsibilities. Certainly, she has earned her rank among the “Big Four” of the Knox-Lombard Fifty Year Club.
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Carolyn Park ’55 By Megan Clayton, Associate Director of FYC Programs In her service to Knox, Carolyn Swartz Park ’55 has served as class agent, 50th Reunion volunteer, and served on the Knox Service Award Committee. In addition, Carolyn is a wonderful Fifty Year Club volunteer. She has served as greeter and registered alumni at the local FYC events. She received a Knox Service Award in 2008. But perhaps her greatest service to Knox and the FYC is addressing and writing more than 1,600 birthday postcard greetings to FYC members annually. Carolyn has likely written more than 30,000 birthday wishes over the past 20 years since she started! Carolyn Swartz Park and her family lived in Kewanee, Illinois, until she was 13, when they moved to Galesburg. She graduated from Galesburg High School, and then from Knox in 1955. She went on to earn a master’s degree in education from Western Illinois University in 1962. She married Earl Park in 1965, and they had two children, Shirley and Bob. Carolyn began her teaching career in Peoria, Illinois, at Calvin Coolidge Middle School. She then returned to Galesburg where she taught second grade for 41 years at Hitchcock, Bateman, and Lincoln Elementary Schools. She still remembers all her former students. She served as province president of Sigma Alpha Iota for 15 years, overseeing all downstate college chapters. She continues as a member of Alpha Xi Delta alumnae chapter at Monmouth College (as the Knox chapter is no longer active). In her retirement, Carolyn worked two days a week at St. Mary’s Hospital as a volunteer and served on the hospital’s auxiliary board, and she continues to take communion to the homebound. She is a member of the Knox County Retired Teachers’ Association. A lifelong musician, she was a charter member of the Knox-Galesburg Symphony Orchestra, and she played clarinet in the Knox-Sandburg Community Band and Knoxville Summer Band for many years. In addition to writing birthday cards, Carolyn is a knitter, works puzzles continuously, and takes care of her two wirehaired Dachshunds. She and Earl have shared their home with many Dachshunds over the years, as well as a couple of cats! It takes dedication to write so many cards each year and to make sure that each one arrives either on the day or only a day before. Carolyn’s husband, Earl, was dedicated to helping Carolyn and took cards to the post office or local mail drop box every day until his death in 2008. Carolyn has made the trek every day since his death. Carolyn says writing the birthday postcards is “great therapy and very rewarding.” She takes the cards with her whenever she’s at the dentist, doctor’s office, or garage awaiting maintenance. She is not yet ready to hand off this project and looks forward to sending birthday greetings to FYC members for many more years.
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FYC Presidents The following is a list of those who served as presidents for the FYC. 1943-1949 1950-1957 1957-1965 1965-1966 1966-1967 1967-1968 1968-1968 1969-1970 1970-1971 1971-1972 1972-1973 1973-1974 1974-1975 1975-1976 1977-1978 1978-1979 1979-1982 1982-1986 1987-1988 1988-1989 1990-1991 1991-1992 1992-1993 1993-1994 1994-1995 1995-1996 1996-1997 1997-1998 1998-1999 1999-2000 2000-2002 2002-2004 2004-2006 2006-2008 2007-2008 2008-2010 2010-2012 2012-2014 2014-2016 2016-2018 2018-2020
Edward Caldwell ’86 Nelson W. Willard ’96 Claire G. Chandler ’04 D. Leland Swanson ’10 Howard Lawton ’11 Haroldine Ives Hazen ’11 Ralph D. Lucas ’14 Helen Graham Lynch ’17 Ferris B. Crum ’16 Hiram Eli Essex ’15 William R. Harris L’14 Pearl Williamson Lucas ’17 Marjorie Simonds Andrews ’21 Elim W. Carlson ’22 Murray S. Smith ’25 George W. Gale IV ’24 Gail C. Youngren L’27 John R. Baily L’29 Helen Ortman Erickson ’33 Jim Lillie ’37 Jim Lillie ’37 Max Stubbs ’40 Irene Bowman Landis ’36 Irene Bowman Landis ’36 Russell “Bucky” Swise ’43 George Matkov ’38 George Matkov ’38 George Matkov ’38 Brad Burnside ’45 Chuck Boydstun ’44 Chuck Boydstun ’44 Ray Franson ’49 Ray Franson ’49 Jack Larson ’44 Cynthia Kenyon Marty ’52 Robert K. Burden ’55 Roberta Schlick Poor ’54 Mary Ellen McNamara McArdle ’52 Donald Hines ’53 Mary Lu Aft ’60 Mary Lu Aft ’60
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Scroll of Honor Recipients The Scroll of Honor award is presented to FYC members, including honorary members, to recognize lifetime achievements in the service of their community, society, or humanity.
1965
1967
Oral Sumner Coad ’09 Hammil Ripley Graham ’07 Max H. Harrison ’13 John C. Jordan ’08 Stanley Manning L’05 Alice Logden Smith ’08 Marie Swanson ’14 Harold Eugene Tobey ’06
Nettie C. Allen ’00 Martha Illick Ambrecht ’00 William Kinney Crawford ’14 Ferris B. Crum ’16 Fannie Harff Glidden ’02 Edith F. Hardy ’13 Grace F. Hinchliff ’10 Constance H. Loesch ’13 Ralph D. Lucas ’14 Margaret Edgerton Moore ’95 Ethel Chamberlain Porter ’06 Willis H. Rich L’05 Ralph F. Ruth ’13 Harry Lee Smith ’10 Worcester Warren ’12 Inez Webster L’05 John C. Weigel L’08 Malachi Wickham ’09
1966 Violet Briggs Brown ’12 Mary Willard Clark ’04 Clifford Bateman Ewart ’09 Martha Alice Good ’12 Arthur Ray Grummon ’11 George Ferris Hayes ’10 Harry Hayes ’12 Nell Townsend Hinchliff L’04 Mary Willard Hurlbut ’15 Florence Shepard Ingersoll ’15 Robert E. Jacobson ’14 Leslie J. Johnson ’03 Edith Lass ’05 Howard M. Lawton ’11 Howard M. Leinbaugh ’13 Emma Holmer Little ’08 Charles Ward Mariner ’08 Sig B. Nelson ’10 Florence Pierce ’15 Harry & Helen Pillsbury ’09 Henry F. Prince ’11 Lillian Erickson Riggs ’15 Arthur E. Robinson ’15 Helen Margaret Ryan ’12 Paul Jordan Smith L’08 Nannine Preston Stephens ’99 Grace Loomis Terry ’95 John Caldwell Thiessen ’29 George F. Whitsett ’13 Florence E. Willard ’02 Bessie Coat Worth ’12 Arvid P. Zetterberg ’05
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1968 William M. Bardens ’17 Frederick Beard ’12 Ray Swan Belcher L’07 Earl R. Bridge ’10 Mina Van Cleave Buck ’01 Agnes Hartley Cole ’13 Verna L. Cooley ’13 Mary Allensworth Creighton ’16 Harold Hands ’14 Louise T. Harrington ’17 Albert Malcolm Walton ’15 Katherine ’10 Whitener Helen Trask Yates ’14
1969 Margaret Louise Anderson ’17 Mary Fern Barrer ’18 Lewis Raymond Billett ’17 James Ray Blayney ’12 Helen Calkins ’16 Carrie Belle Carroll ’95 Faye Phillips Frazier ’15 Hobart Raymond Gay ’17 Edward Benedict Grogan ’13 Inez Goodsill Heuber ’10
Ward W. Husted L’17 Margaret Evelyn Jacobson ’12 Ralph A. Kimble ’18 Ruth Hazen Kimble ’18 Henry W. Lampe ’01 Hugh E. Rosson ’16 Craig G. Whitsitt ’10
1970 John M. Baker ’19 Ray M. Brown ’14 Noel Craig ’12 Robert H. McClure ’15 Simon Guy Parks ’18 Catharine Crissey Probst L’18 Paul G. Spellbring ’18 George H. Wells ’13 Nettie Krantz Wilcox ’16
1971 Lawrence E. Boyd ’19 Kenneth L. Carpenter L’21 Eila Vanelle Hiler ’19 Kendall G. Hinman ’19 Helen B. Hubbard ’16 Mary Louise Kidney ’17 Agnes Olson Kirchhoff ’14 John H. Midkiff ’17
1972 Helen M. Eastes ’17 Margaret Elliott Houck ’19 Lewis W. Kistler ’16 Louis W. McKelvey ’20 Harold K. Salzburg ’24 Edmond B. Stofft ’20 Margaret Fuller Turner ’18 Guy L. White ’18 Ernest J. Wood ’13
1973 Crosiar G. Bower ’20 Marjorie Churchill ’22 Murlin G. Hoover ’20 Leonard R. James ’17 Harold V. Mather ’10 Ruth Chamerlin Miller L’12 Archie S. Morse ’16 Harold F. Peterson ’22 Katherine Wensburg ’21
1974 Ralph F. Albro ’23 Marcus Craft ’18 Lois Hurlbut Enz ’20 Charles Kenneth Lawyer ’25 Brett Neice L’23 Thomas E. Nelson L’20 Harriet Eleanor Robson ’14 Waldo Oswald Urban ’22
1975 Reuben W. Brockmueller L’25 Thomas ’17 Clark Mary E. Dunn 15 Palmer D. Edmunds ’12 George Washington IV Gale ’24 Czarina M. Hall L’13 Roy L. Lamb L’25 Cuyler S. MacRae ’24 D. Leland Swanson ’10
1976 John R. Anderson L’22 Faith Hague Bartlett ’17 John Herbert Coolidge ’24 Philip Drew ’25 Cyrena Margaret Everist ’21 G. Dewey Imig ’21 Arthur Lawrence ’98 Linneus A. Lawrence ’22 Horace Russell Smith ’24 Thayne Harwood Young ’16
1977 H. Dewey Ewing ’25 Ildra Jessup Larson ’21 Jonathan L. Latimer ’18 Cecil C. Lescher ’16 Irene Bridge Mariner ’12 Mary Esther Shaw ’23 Alice Wolfram Smith ’25 Dorothy L’27 Spoerl Harold C. Whitman L’25 Gail L’27 Youngren
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1982 William H. Alexander ’26 Jane Root Church 30 Evelyn Adams Costello L’24 Joseph Gray ’26 Mary Louise Hoagland ’29 Jonathan W. Latimer ’29 Marion Venell L’28 Erma Rose Wilson ’24
1983 1978 James Eugene Conklin ’27 Willard B. Dean ’19 Georgia Wesner Ellsworth, Hon. William R. Fritze L’27 Hortense Gehring L’27 Calvin Hammond ’28 George Hansman L’28 Mildred Fairbairn Hoopes ’25 Milton C. Hult ’19 Isyl Spiker Walton, Hon.
1979 Helen Weinberg Browning ’14 Lauren W. Goff L’25 Henry L. Hughes L’21 Dorrit Dodds Jones ’22 William H. Robson ’22 Sylvia C. Ryin ’25
1980 Raymond L. Anderson ’29 Raymond L. Arnold ’29 Ruth M. Erlandson ’28 Elden D. Finley ’23 Alma Lescher Fox ’19 Von E. Livingston ’25 Richard Nesti L’28 Margaret E. Thompson ’17 Helen Dopp Verner ’27
1981 John R. Baily L’29 Charles J. Bednar ’29 Lawrence Brennan L’29 George E. Drew ’29 Helen Christy May ’25 Willis E. Terry ’04 William A. Watson L’25
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Ann Shaw Darling ’23 Violet Field L’28 Hilmer C. Nelson L’25 Alice C. Saar ’29 Howard Silberer ’31 Clarendon Van Norman 26 Frank A.Whiteside L’27
1984 Dorothy Chamberlin Bednar ’32 Geraldine Owen Delaney ’28 Althea McConnell Gittings L’24 John L. Grout ’29 Noel B. Mosher L’27 Lawrence E. Rosenberg ’30
1985 Alice Simmons Cox L’25 Dorothy M. Drake ’25 James W. Drew ’34 Sarah Shurtleff Drew ’34 Elizabeth Blodgett Hall ’32 Virginia Hinchliff ’32 Richard A. Hoover ’30 Doris Miles Williams ’33
1986 Harper Andrews ’29 Edith Prescott Crabbe ’32 Rose Erlandson ’27 J. Kenneth Gunther ’32 Maurine Smith Hamilton ’29 Helen Lindrothe ’32 Nancy McLellan Merritt ’32
1987 Robert Gamble ’35 Viola Meeker Hall L’28 Irene Bowman Landis ’36 William K. Richardson ’34 Eleanor M. Senn ’30 Marion Van Norman Charles ’27
1988
1994
Richard Agnew ’29 Marion Yeoman Baker ’37 Russell Lane ’33 Robert McLaughlin ’36 Roy Rylander L’25 James Knox Welch ’37
Michael Newman Adams ’33 David L. Hamm ’40 Margaret Howe Hamm ’42 George John Matkov ’38 Daniel J. Roberts ’42 Mary Onken Styrt ’43
1989
1995
Roberta Christy Dalton ’34 Richard Goff ’37 Ella Hanawalt ’13 John A. Lampe ’33 Ignatius “Iggy” Matkov ’29 Charles B. Robison ’34 Frances Hazen Rowe ’34
Edwin R. Armstrong ’42 Jean Porter Benson ’43 Marian Miner Miller ’42 Henry Jr. Rasmussen ’41 David T. Robinson ’38 J. Harold Shullaw ’38 F. Marian Walker ’38
1990
1996
Bernard Crandell ’36 William Day ’34 Jane Gray Eberhard ’34 Harold Ford ’39 Dorothy Alsen Lass ’39 Helen Larson McMillan L’28
Beatrice Farwell Duncan ’42 Elizabeth Johnson Harris ’37 Robert F. Layton ’37 Gail Meadows ’34 Grace Smyth ’34 Isabelle Terrill ’33 Barbara Young ’42
1991 John Baudino ’39 Irwin Berg ’36 William Blake ’36 Evelyn Clay L’32 Margaret Peterson Crosby ’37 William Snyder ’27 Sarabeth Richardson Welch ’40
1992 Alice Richardson Dakin ’38 Russell G. Harris ’35 George W. Hendrickson L’26 Kenneth T. Johnson ’41 Ruth Miner-Kessel ’41 Paul Pickrel ’38 Arthur W. Young ’39
1993 Frederick Bromberger ’40 Neva Marsden Fach L’29 Charles S. Gamble ’41 Robert Y. Paddock ’39 Mary Dilworth Rea ’36 Russell Swise ’42 Vincent A. Tomas ’36
1997 Eugene Bonham ’37 George E. Bowman ’34 Dwight R. Crandell ’44 Margaret Zelle McClellan ’40 Helen Scharfenberg Peters ’36 Dorothea Richardson L’29 Leno Tattini ’40
1998 Anne Brown Byram ’38 Ruth M. Coppedge ’39 Robert Miller ’34 Frieda Ellerbrake O’Haggarty ’33 Peterson Ray Dorothy ’39 Rex Selk ’40 Betty Urquhart ’40
1999 Claude Anderson ’47 Arthur Johnson ’47 Joy Kerler King ’47 Robert J.L. Sundberg ’40 Mary Woolsey Thomson ’44
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2008 Joan Felter Hotchkiss ’50 Len A. Kuchan ’53 Jack Reiners ’56
2009 Ann Jung Finney ’58 John “Jack” Munson ’55 Robert L. Willett Jr. ’50
2010 2000 Bradley A. Burnside ’45 Marye McElvaine Immenhausen ’45 Gustav J. Rieckhoff ’48
2001 James R. Bowman ’48 H. Geraldine DuMars ’40 Sam Rinella ’49
2002 Jay Burgess ’51 Donald Favreau ’49 Charles Gibbs ’50
2003 Mildred Derry Dubois ’41 Marian Wetmore Osterloh ’33 D. William Sherrick ’52
2004 Harold F. Pyke ’53 Patricia Kimble Simmons ’51 Betty Jane Tate Turney ’44
2005 R. Anne Claypool Brown ’52 Robert Hegel ’52 L. Davant Mull ’51
2006 Grace Bacon Bacher ’50 Ralph Cianchetti ’50 Robert J. Miller ’52
2007 Robert Cannon Hon. Barbara Lemke ’44 Tony Liberta ’55
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Dorothy Thomas Wharton ’55 Jerry Peck ’57 Anne Cooper Munson ’57
2011 Jane Denninger Erickson ’50 Janet Drew Larsen ’ 60 Marjorie Stuart Waters ’52
2012 John D. Cooke ’52 Sue Brown Cowing ’60 K. Lane Miller ’50
2013 Will Burrow ’63 Jane Ehrenberg Rosen ’61 Cliff Van Dyke ’51
2014 BJ Bjorkman ’54 Frank Gustine ’60 Patricia Burke Herminghouse ’62
2015 Elizabeth Brook ’41 Karen Dittmer Boyer ’63 Barbara Lee Fay ’61
2016 Gail Hurd ’65 Katherine Badger MacDowell ’63 Charles Porter ’52
2017 Robert Callecod ’61 Judie Elifson Hoffman ’61 JoAnn Ooiman Robinson ’64
2018 Sandra Allison Cooper ’64 Karen Kuhfuss Koch ’62 Greta Kallio Nagel ’66
A Note from Dick Aft ’60
Dick volunteered to help Megan Clayton reduce 75 years of recorded FYC history into this printable-sized summary of our 75 year history, and we are so grateful. Researching and writing history has taught me that historians’ greatest challenge is deciding what to leave out. It is that challenge that confronts one with ‘making history’ more than just presenting it. To all those whose articles and messages in our FYC Bulletin have been omitted from this condensation, I sincerely apologize. To those whose words I have included, sometimes in abbreviated form, I thank you for giving readers of this retrospective insights into your Knox experience and the keys to memories that time may have locked away.
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GALESBURG, ILLINOIS 61401
KNOX COLLEGE