Author Archives: Lynn Niedermeier

by | January 7, 2016 · 8:44 am

More Than Meets the Eye

Louise Carson Drake and Ann McNallyHere is Louise (Carson) Drake, looking fabulous during a tour of Venice’s Grand Canal in 1951 with her friend Ann McNally in the background.

Born in Bowling Green, Kentucky in 1894, Louise was descended from Revolutionary War patriots (she and WKU’s own Margie Helm shared a great-great grandfather, Thomas Carson).  After graduation from Georgia’s Brenau College in 1917, Louise entered law school at the University of Kentucky.  Three years later, she aced the bar exam, scoring the highest of anyone who took the test and earning an invitation to practice before the state court of appeals.

Instead, Louise chose to marry eye, nose and throat specialist Dr. William Preston Drake and immerse herself in the social and cultural affairs of her home town.  Active in the Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR), the Colonial Dames of Kentucky, and Bowling Green’s XX Literary Club, Louise also served as the second woman member of WKU’s Board of Regents.

A tireless student and author of local history and genealogy, Louise searched archives far and wide to compile materials on her Carson, Porter and Helm ancestors, amassed a roster of Kentucky Revolutionary War soldiers for the DAR’s Kentucky Society, and worked with her cousin Margie Helm to preserve an ancestral cemetery.  She also traveled worldwide, looking fabulous.  After her death in 1979, her friend Jane Morningstar praised her “appreciation of life” and her “superior intellect with the faculty of total recall.”  Louise, she wrote, “had personal beauty and was always dressed in perfect taste and style. . . .  She was a gracious Southern lady with pride, dignity and courage.”

Louise (Carson) Drake’s papers, consisting largely of her genealogical and historical research, are part of the Manuscripts & Folklife Archives collections of WKU’s Department of Library Special Collections.  Click here to access a finding aid.  For more collections about genealogy, search TopSCHOLAR and KenCat.

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by | December 11, 2015 · 8:37 am

The Holiday Spirit in Japan

One of many interesting features of the papers of WKU librarian Margie Helm, available in the Manuscripts & Folklife Archives unit of WKU’s Department of Library Special Collections, is documentation of Margie’s unique friendship with Hana (Kato) Kaku, her Japanese-born classmate at the Pratt Institute Library School.

Kaku family Christmas card to Margie Helm

Kaku family Christmas card to Margie Helm

Fluent in English and in Western ways, Hana returned to Japan to help in the rebuilding of its libraries following the devastating earthquake of 1923, but soon left the profession to care for her ailing husband, retired diplomat Michio Kaku.  Then World War II brought economic destruction, driving the couple from their comfortable life in Tokyo to subsistence farming in a small village at the foot of Mt. Fuji.  Hana made extra money as a translator and craftsperson, but was never able to fulfill her desire to return to library work.

For years after the war, Margie Helm sent Hana and her family gifts of clothing, medicine, toiletries and food (Hana’s stepdaughter June was delighted by a gift of marshmallows, for she didn’t know that “such a delicious thing existed,” and ecstatic when she received her first new dress in seven years).  Their many letters of thanks included descriptions of the difficult conditions for ordinary citizens in postwar Japan: inflation, food and housing

Kaku family Christmas card to Margie Helm

Kaku family Christmas card to Margie Helm

shortages, and a “moral mess” that was tempting some to embrace communism.  After Hana’s sudden death in 1951, her husband Michio told Margie that her support had been Hana’s “oasis” in a life filled with deprivation and sacrifice.

The upheaval in their country and the postwar communist threat also made the Kakus receptive to Christianity–Michio would formally convert in 1953–and the beautiful Japanese Christmas cards they sent Margie spoke to their evolving faith.  Over the years, Margie received Christmas cards from other Japanese friends, tributes to her continuing interest in her former classmate’s country.

Click here to access a finding aid for the Margie Helm Collection.  For more collections, search TopSCHOLAR and KenCat.

Christmas cards to Margie Helm from Japanese friends

Christmas cards to Margie Helm from Japanese friends

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by | November 19, 2015 · 9:56 am

Advice from Miss Margie

Margie Helm, her ancestors, and "Jiggs"

Margie Helm, her ancestors, and “Jiggs”

After processing the papers of Margie May Helm (1894-1991) in the Manuscripts & Folklife Archives unit of WKU’s Department of Library Special Collections, we have learned  a great deal about the woman who played important roles in building both the campus library system and the Bowling Green Public Library.

A native of Auburn, Kentucky, Margie Helm moved to Bowling Green as a teenager and was valedictorian of the first graduating class (1912) of Bowling Green High School.  She received her library training at New York’s Pratt Institute and later earned a master’s degree from the University of Chicago.  She joined WKU in 1920 and retired from her post as Director of Library Services in 1965.  Today, the Margie Helm Library, the Margie Helm Award, the Margie Helm Library Fund, and the Rodes-Helm Lecture Series remind us of the contributions of Miss Margie and her family to quality education at WKU.

“Aunt Margie,” remembered her niece Jane (Helm) Baker, “had three great loves in life: Family, the church, and Western.”  Indeed, her papers document not just her closeness to her parents, her three brothers and their families, but her spirituality (she was the first woman elder of the Bowling Green Presbyterian Church) and her heritage.  Research and correspondence traces Margie’s descent from no fewer than 8 Revolutionary War patriots, a lineage that made her a high draft pick for membership in the Daughters of the American Revolution and the Colonial Dames of America.

The keepsakes in her papers also show us a more personal side of Miss Margie: the wisp of blonde hair clipped from her 22-month-old head; poems and party favors; and photos of her adored fox terriers “Peter,” “Jiggs” and “Topsy.”  We also find her “notes to self” in which she contemplates the ingredients of a life well lived.  “While I was out walking with Jiggs tonight,” she scribbled on a piece of paper in 1941, “I decided that these were the essentials for happiness: 1. A clear conscience; 2.  A desire to do something for other people; 3.  A lively interest in something and at least some opportunity to develop it.”

After her death in 1991, her niece found this advice from Miss Margie, written on a small slip of paper:

My Philosophy

 1.  The golden rule.

2.  Make things simple and harmonious.

3.  Don’t be sensitive.  People are not thinking about you.

Click here to access a collection finding aid.  For more collections, search TopSCHOLAR and KenCat.

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by | November 13, 2015 · 8:03 am

DLSC Volunteer Receives Summit Award

Louise Sauerland

Louise Sauerland

At WKU’s Summit Awards dinner on November 5, volunteer Louise Sauerland was recognized for her work in the Manuscripts & Folklife Archives section of the Department of Library Special Collections.

A native of Philadelphia, Louise and her husband Dave have lived in Bowling Green for 15 years.  Since 2008, Louise has logged almost 700 hours helping to conserve, organize and process everything from 19th-century court documents to large collections of papers like those of the Clements family of Owensboro, Kentucky; a completed finding aid for the latter has been uploaded to TopSCHOLAR and can be accessed by clicking here.

Louise is currently at work on a collection of research documenting the history and genealogy of the Van Meter family.  “Disorganized” is how she charitably describes this mass of material, assembled over many years by Bee Spring, Kentucky resident J. C. Van Meter after extensive correspondence with far-flung members of the family.  With its aging newsprint and onion skin paper, the collection presents as many conservation as organizational challenges, but when processing is complete will offer a valuable resource for anyone interested in the history of this venerable family.

Congratulations to Louise on a well-deserved award, and thanks to all our volunteers for their service!

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by | October 22, 2015 · 1:21 pm

“I have seen enough”

Verdun, 1918

Verdun, 1918

In May 1918, Simpson County, Kentucky native James Knox Polk Lambert (1864-1960) left his Chicago law practice to volunteer with the YMCA in ministering to American soldiers fighting overseas.  During his 15-month tour in England and France, Lambert witnessed the transformation of Europe: a last-ditch German offensive, the Armistice, the wild celebrations following successful negotiation of a peace treaty, and the appalling destruction left behind by the war.  He kept a diary of his activities, and reflected on his experiences in a lengthier journal.  Both are now part of the Manuscripts & Folklife Archives collections of WKU’s Department of Library Special Collections.

After the U.S. entered the war, the YMCA was charged with bolstering the welfare and morale of American soldiers with entertainment, educational, religious and other programs.  The end of hostilities, however, did not signal the end of the YMCA’s mandate.  Millions of weary servicemen now turned their eyes toward home, and James Lambert and his colleagues faced the daunting task of keeping them emotionally, spiritually and recreationally occupied as they endured the logistic and bureaucratic trials of mass demobilization.

In addition to the ruin the war brought to the French countryside, Lambert was most struck by the ferocious impatience of the soldiers awaiting repatriation.  “The months of January, February and March [1919],” he wrote, “were marked by the most intense agitation of the boys to go home.”  He found most soldiers he encountered “in the grip of that mania,” unreconciled to the fact that, even at an exit rate of 300,000 men per month, it would take 7 months to get everyone home.  Some of the men, observed Lambert, were obsessed with a rumor that the government was secretly plotting to keep them in the Army for life; so high was the level of anxiety that General John J. Pershing, Commander of the Allied Expeditionary Forces, actually feared a mutiny.  When Lambert suggested that the men spend their time sightseeing and enjoying some postwar tourism courtesy of the YMCA, the reply was predictable: “I have seen enough.  I never want to see this country again.”  For all he had seen, however, James Lambert’s experiences at the close of the Great War marked the beginning of a lifelong fascination with European history and culture.

Touring the battlefields

Touring the battlefields

Click here to access a finding aid for the James Lambert Collection.  For other collections about World War I, search TopSCHOLAR and KenCat.

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by | October 8, 2015 · 6:58 pm

Fortress Bowling Green

When Union troops arrived in Bowling Green, Kentucky in February, 1862 after a 5-month-long Confederate occupation, they found a town stripped of its timber, livestock and foodstuffs, its railroad depot set afire, its Barren River bridges destroyed, its secessionist sympathizers in flight, and its Northern sympathizers relieved but still apprehensive at the sight of another occupying force.

Bowling Green defenses, 1863

Bowling Green defenses, 1863

Despite the destruction, the troops also found a daunting array of Confederate fortifications.  Bowling Green, at the confluence of road, rail and river routes into the South, was considered a prize by both sides, and the defenses constructed during their occupation had emboldened the Confederates.  We “are too well fixed for the Yankees to come here,” Tennessee volunteer James McWhirter boasted to his sister.  “If they ever come we will give them a genteel whipping.”

The Confederates, nevertheless, had evacuated without a major clash ever taking place, a stroke of luck that left the Union forces relieved.  “I don’t think it would pay them to attack this place from the looks of the forts around here,” Erasmus Shull wrote his aunt.  Lieutenant Colonel George Jouett was similarly impressed, calling Bowling Green a “city of fortifications.”  The College Hill fort was “an almost unapproachable fortress,” he wrote his mother, and Baker Hill is “quite as strong and perfect.”  Ohio infantryman George Jarvis notified his family of “a glorious but bloodless victory” that “gives us possession of one of the strongholds of this state.”

Accounts of the war came to describe fortified Bowling Green as the “Gibraltar of Kentucky.”  Two of the above letters, however, confirm that this was a contemporary characterization.  George Jouett found Bowling Green a “Gibraltar which could not be taken by assault,” and George Jarvis agreed that “in fact it is the Gibraltar of Kentucky.”  Only lack of supplies, illness, and setbacks elsewhere (losses at Mill Springs and Fort Henry, and pressure at Fort Donelson) had convinced the Confederates to withdraw before a serious test of its defenses.

These letters about Bowling Green’s Civil War fortifications are part of the Manuscripts & Folklife Archives collections of WKU’s Special Collections Library.  Click on the links to access finding aids, and click here to browse a list of our Civil War collections.  For more, search TopSCHOLAR and KenCat.

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by | September 30, 2015 · 9:03 pm

Gethsemani Magnificat

Fondation de Gethsemani coverIn his address to Congress on September 24, Pope Francis gave special recognition to four individuals who “shaped fundamental values which will endure forever in the spirit of the American people.”  One was the Cistercian monk Thomas Merton, “a man of prayer, a thinker who challenged the certitudes of his time and opened new horizons for souls and for the Church.”

Born in France, Merton (1915-1968) converted to Catholicism as a youth.  In 1941, he entered the Abbey of Gethsemani, a monastic community founded in 1848 near Bardstown, Kentucky, and spent the next 27 years of his life in contemplation (which included a controversial exploration of Asian religion), social activism, and writing.

Crucifix presented to Frank Chelf, 1954

Crucifix presented to Frank Chelf, 1954

The Manuscripts & Folklife Archives collections of WKU’s Department of Library Special Collections hold materials relating to the Abbey of Gethsemani, such as a small olive wood crucifix presented to Congressman Frank Chelf in 1954.  Also included are materials collected by WKU faculty member Marjorie Clagett.  As part of her lifelong interest in the French in Kentucky, she researched their Catholic institutions, and in 1949 wrote a paper on the centennial of the Abbey.  She also collected articles, brochures, and a photo essay commemorating the anniversary.

The Abbey’s centennial brought renewed attention to Thomas Merton, who published his autobiography, The Seven Storey Mountain, that same year.  In a review of the book, Life magazine found Merton still searching for the peace he desired.  Despite the contemplative atmosphere of the monastery, he said, with farming, maintenance and other chores, there was still “too much movement, too much to do.”  Nevertheless, he concluded, “Anybody who runs away from a place like this is crazy.”

Crowds gather for the Gethsemani centennial, 1948

Crowds gather for the Gethsemani centennial, 1948

Click on the links to access finding aids for these collections.  For more on religious orders, including our extensive collections of Kentucky church records, search TopSCHOLAR and KenCat.

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by | September 25, 2015 · 1:11 pm

Birthday Greetings

As a federal judge blows out the candles on the claim that the iconic song “Happy Birthday to You” is subject to copyright, let’s look back at a few charming early 20th-century birthday postcards sent to members of the Howell family of Warren County, Kentucky.

1912 birthday postcard

1910 birthday postcard

1910-era birthday postcard

And this 1930s card to Senora Tolle of Glasgow, Kentucky.

Birthday card to Senora Tolle

And this World War II V-mail birthday card, sent to Jo Reba Pope of Nashville by her serviceman husband.

V-mail birthday greetings, 1944

Click on the links to access finding aids for these collections.  For more greeting cards of all kinds in WKU’s Department of Library Special Collections, search TopSCHOLAR and KenCat.  And if today happens to be your “natal day,” well, “Happy Birthday to You”!!

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by | September 14, 2015 · 1:07 pm

Passage to India

Benjamin Covington Grider; Edwin Barter's letter

Benjamin Covington Grider; Edwin Barter’s letter

The acquaintance of Edwin Barter and Colonel Benjamin Covington Grider of Bowling Green dated back to the first year of the Civil War, during Grider’s command of the Union’s 9th Kentucky Infantry.  When Grider next heard from him, Barter had left his home in England to pursue the cotton and coffee trade in India.

In an August, 1865 letter from Madras Province, Barter observed that America had finally turned a page.  “The war for Southern rights is well nigh over, and ‘subjugation’ ‘Coercion’ and ‘precipitation’ are words buried,” he declared.  Now it was time to “count the cost” of “3/4 century’s folly and vice.”  Barter had heard that a local judge was out to get Robert E. Lee, but couldn’t imagine Americans being vindictive toward the Confederate general.

Once in India, however, Barter struck a more mercenary tone toward its brown-skinned inhabitants.  Regarding them with an air of superiority common to many in the West, he likened them to primitives who “draw water from the well and cook their simple food after the same style as their ancestors who lived before Britain was known to the Romans.”  He scorned the natives at length as mendacious, lacking in “go-a-headativeness,” and seemingly immune to attempts to introduce them to the benefits of Christianity and European civilization.  India, he remarked, has “180 million of inhabitants who are governed by 3 or 4 hundred thousand Britains [sic] who exile themselves for a certain number of years, never, or very seldom indeed, permanently settling in the Country, but ever looking forward to the day when they will have pocketed enough to turn their faces towards home.”  Barter described his own prospects as good, but agreed that he was not “at home.”  “How long residence?” he asked tersely–wondering, perhaps, about the political costs awaiting Britain in three-quarters of a century.

Edwin Barter’s letter to Benjamin Grider is part of the Manuscripts & Folklife Archives collections of WKU’s Department of Library Special Collections.  Click here to access a finding aid.  For more of our collections, search TopSCHOLAR and KenCat.

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by | September 3, 2015 · 6:48 pm

His Dream Home

J. C. Browning

J. C. Browning

In thousands of World War II soldiers’ letters in the collections of the Manuscripts & Folklife Archives section of WKU’s Department of Library Special Collections, servicemen express their patriotism, love of family, apprehension, boredom, determination, and a host of other emotions.  Reading of a man’s hopes for the future, however, is especially moving if we know that he didn’t make it home to realize those hopes and dreams.

Edmonson County, Kentucky native James “J.C.” Browning left his teaching job, wife Lila and infant daughter for service with the U.S. Army at Fort Knox in August 1941.  He trained in Ireland, then embarked for North Africa, where he was killed in November 1942 during the Allied invasion campaign known as Operation Torch.  But J.C.’s letters to Lila rarely dwelt upon the threats he faced (he seemed more worried about what would happen to their baby if Lila died while he was overseas!)  Instead, he returned time and again to one of his fondest wishes: that after the war they would purchase a home.  As these excerpts from his letters show, J.C.’s dream was vivid, and no doubt sustained him until his death:

If we really save while I am in the army this year we can make a down payment on our home somewhere. . . . We would admire it and love it as we made it better and better.  I’m really looking forward to that.

I would like to buy a home as quickly as we can. . . .  It takes an awful long time to build up a farm home that we would be proud of.  That is what I want and I will never be satisfied until we get started on it.

We want a very fertile farm close to town.  It should contain about 80 or 90 acres and have the modern conveniences of town.  In other words we want a town home out in the country.

Remember that we have a home to establish and it is a semi-country home.  It should contain about a hundred acres of good land and a tenant house because most of our work will be done for the public.

We must select a good location, one that we would like when we are old as well as now.  We should know what we are going to be doing 10, 20 or more years from now.  We must think and plan things to the best of our ability.

Click here to access a finding aid for J. C. Browning’s letters to his wife Lila.  For other World War II collections, search TopSCHOLAR and KenCat.

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