Ferry Tales

A Ferry Hall Library Book

By Rita MacAyeal ’87, Library Director and Archivist

Tells a Tale

Handwritten inscriptions inside the book cover

In the LFA Library’s Treasure Book Collection there is an 1897 edition of Sir Thomas Malory’s epic work, “Le Morte d’Arthur.” Handwritten inscriptions in the book indicate it was owned by “L.F. Smead” in 1899 and “R. Lincoln Long” in 1919, before being gifted to Ferry Hall’s Library in 1967 by “Mrs. Lincoln Long.” Through some digging into history, a tale of the book’s owners emerges—perhaps not as dramatic as the Arthurian tales, but interesting nonetheless!

In 1899, Lewis Frederic Smead was in his junior year at the University of Wooster in Ohio when he inscribed his name and address inside the book’s cover. After graduating in 1901, he travelled to Baltimore, Md., to attend medical school at Johns Hopkins University. There he met Cora Helena Baker, a nursing student; they both graduated in 1905 and were married in 1908. Following a residency at the Union Protestant Infirmary in Baltimore, Dr. Smead and his wife settled in Toledo, Ohio where they raised a family and established themselves as prominent citizens of the city. Dr. Smead eventually gained professional renown for developing the Smead-Jones Suture, a technique which formed the basis for modern suturing.

After twenty years in Dr. Smead’s possession, the book made its way to the household of the Reverend Roseel “Rosy” Lincoln Long and his wife Reva who had arrived in Toledo in 1918 to serve at Collingwood Presbyterian Church. The Longs had a significant connection back to Lake Forest, having met when Rosy was an undergraduate at Lake Forest College (class of 1912) and Reva Birdenia Henry was a student at Ferry Hall (1907- 10). Apparently their school romance was strong enough that when Reva transferred to another school her senior year, it left Rosy pining. His senior yearbook noted that “this year his good ‘Ferry’ deserted him and now he leads a bachelor’s life and wears a ‘frown that won’t come off.” That situation was happily resolved when Rosy and Reva married in 1915. They would return to Lake Forest College in 1939, when the institution conferred an honorary Doctorate of Divinity on Reverend Long.

Over the decades, the Longs raised three children and made their mark as active members of various Toledo community organizations. In 1951, Reva founded a mission church in Toledo called the Happy Hollow Sunday School, which later became Christ Presbyterian Church. Seven years after the passing of her husband, Reva gifted his copy of “Le Morte d’Arthur” to the library of her alma mater Ferry Hall—the place she and Rosy first met and fell in love.

Since its publication 123 years ago, this 1897 edition of Malory’s work has logged many miles—traveling from Wooster to Baltimore to Toledo to Lake Forest under the care of its owners. Preserved now in the LFA Library, it is more just an antiquarian book— it serves as a time capsule that reveals a unique story of its own.

Portrait of Reva Birdenia Henry Long, published in The History of the Henry Family of “Flower Hill” Ireland and their Descendents, 1926.

Senior portrait of Roseel “Rosy” Lincoln Long, published in the Lake Forest College Forester, 1912.