Author Archives: Lynn Niedermeier

by | December 13, 2011 · 2:43 pm

“A Better Person for the Experience”

Dee Carl Perguson, Jr.

Dee Carl Perguson, Jr.

Graduating from high school at age 16, Dee Carl “D.C.” Perguson, Jr. (1921-2010) left his home in Horse Branch (Ohio County) in 1938 to attend Western Kentucky State Teachers College (now WKU).  He earned a bachelor’s degree in history, then entered the U. S. Army.  Perguson served in North Africa and Italy, where he was wounded in January 1944 and sent home to recover.  Earning his master’s degree in 1947, Dee began a life of teaching, travel and volunteerism.

Highlighting the personal papers of Dee Perguson, now part of the collections of WKU’s Special Collections Library, are his correspondence and diaries.  Begun while Perguson was a student at WKU, his diaries offer a detailed account of college life in the shadow of World War II.  During his military service, Perguson kept up a faithful correspondence with his parents in Horse Branch. After being wounded in action, he tried to reassure them.  “My injury is not really bad,” he wrote.  “Two bullets hit my arm, one bone is broken in my upper arm.  Done up in my plaster cast I am in fine shape” and, he continued, “probably a better person for the experience.”

Perguson’s post-war correspondence details his political, church and volunteer activities during his career as a high school teacher in Seattle.  He also kept journals documenting his year in England as a Fulbright Scholar (1949-1950) and his travel to the Soviet Union and Central America.  Ever the historian, Perguson also wrote retrospective essays about his youth and family in Horse Branch.

Click here to download a finding aid for the Dee Carl Perguson, Jr. Collection.  For other collections relating to Ohio County, World War II and more, search TopSCHOLAR and KenCat.

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by | December 1, 2011 · 5:14 pm

A Journalist’s Life…With a Surprise Ending

Virginia Wood Davis, 1919-1990

Virginia Wood Davis, 1919-1990

After she got a job in 1942 doing war work in an Owensboro factory, Smiths Grove native Virginia Wood Davis was unsure about finishing her degree at Western Kentucky State Teachers College (now WKU).  On one hand, the war wouldn’t last forever, but on the other hand Virginia and her widowed mother had learned to watch their pennies, and her $80-per-month paycheck at least allowed them to stop worrying about food.

But Virginia did return to school and graduated in 1943.  Taking a teacher’s suggestion that she pursue newspaper work, she embarked on a career that lasted more than 40 years and took her to reporting and editorial positions in Tennessee, South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Florida and finally back to Kentucky, where she spent eight years as managing editor of the McCreary County Record.

In a profession where women were still a curiosity, Virginia trod the reporter’s beat, learned to “go toe to toe” with men, and cultivated her resume.  She won an award from the South Carolina Press Association in 1960, became the first woman to run the main copy desk at the Florida Times-Union, and earned numerous press awards for the McCreary County Record.  She covered civil rights marches in Alabama, migrant workers in Florida, and striking miners in Kentucky.  But the hours were long and the pay was low.  From a starting salary of $25 per week in 1943, Virginia retired in 1985 earning $325 per week at the Record.

To colleagues and friends, Virginia’s personal habits, which included an obsessive frugality and a lifestyle that some called “primitive,” were proof of her lifelong poverty.  But they were in for a shock.  When she died in 1990, Virginia left a small house, a beat-up truck, some personal possessions… and investments that, after being rumored to be as much as $2.5 million, were eventually valued at $400,000.  The major beneficiary of her scrimping and saving was her alma mater.  Virginia left 80% of her estate to WKU–the largest bequest ever given up to that time–to be used for the benefit of its journalism department.

WKU was equally honored when a family member donated Virginia Wood Davis’s personal papers to WKU’s Special Collections Library.  This collection, which includes more than 4,000 items of correspondence, diaries, genealogy records, news writing and photos, is now processed and available to researchers.  It provides a full and fascinating picture of the life and times of a daughter of Smiths Grove, a hardworking woman journalist, and a uniquely successful investor.  Click here to download a finding aid.  For more of our collections, search TopSCHOLAR and KenCat.

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by | November 17, 2011 · 5:15 pm

William Shakespeare Hays

William Shakespeare Hays, composer of "Evangeline"

William Shakespeare Hays, composer of “Evangeline”

His name may have encouraged William Shakespeare Hays (1837-1907) to become a writer, but he resembled more of a musical Mark Twain than the Bard of Avon.  A river captain, journalist, poet and raconteur, the lifelong resident of Louisville composed hundreds of songs, several of which became much-loved standards of the 19th century.  A beautiful woman at an antebellum house party reminded Hays of Longfellow’s poetic story of “Evangeline,” and his song of the same name sold 150,000 copies in little more than a year.  After Hays overheard a fellow passenger on a mailboat imploring his sweetheart to return his affections, he was inspired to write “Mollie Darling,” which sold a million copies.  Hays’s legend as a balladeer grew so large that some credited him with composing that greatest of popular anthems, “Dixie.”  His journalism appeared in the Louisville Democrat during the Civil War and later in the Courier-Journal and Times, where his columns chronicled shipping, weather and other happenings on the Ohio River and became required reading for Louisvillians in-the-know.

WKU’s Special Collections Library holds a fascinating collection relating to William Shakespeare Hays that includes letters to his wife Belle, poems, song lyrics, sheet music, newspaper columns, royalty and copyright agreements, photos, and reminiscences of those who knew him.  Click here to download a finding aid.  For other collections on authors, journalists, musicians and poets, search TopSCHOLAR and KenCat.

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by | November 11, 2011 · 3:15 pm

Veterans Day

Victor Strahm

Victor Strahm

The son of longtime music professor Franz Strahm and a WKU graduate, Victor Strahm (1897-1957) began flight training after the U.S. entered World War I.  By the time the war ended, he had achieved the coveted designation of “ace.”  Victor’s letters home to his parents comprise only one of the scores of collections at the Kentucky Library & Museum that document the lives and experiences of veterans from the Civil War through Iraq and Afghanistan.  An ongoing project seeks to document the experiences of WKU alumni in particular.  Click here for a finding aid to Victor Strahm’s papers and here to learn more about the WKU Veterans History Project.  Lest we forget, WKU’s Special Collections Library collects.

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by | November 10, 2011 · 8:00 pm

Bowling Green Inspires a Master Weaver

Lou Tate's field work on weaving in Bowling Green

Lou Tate’s field work on weaving in Bowling Green

In 1935, Louisa Tate Bousman (1906-1979) was just beginning her career as a teacher, writer, collector and authority on the folk arts of weaving, spinning and dyeing.  Within the next two years, she would present exhibits of Kentucky handweaving at New York’s Folk Arts Center and Louisville’s Speed Art Museum.

But “Lou Tate,” as she was known professionally, had already taken a great interest in documenting the rich tradition of weaving in her home town of Bowling Green.  She contacted Mary Taylor Leiper at WKU’s Special Collections Library, who offered to show her the museum’s collection and put her in touch with local owners of significant handwoven textiles.  Tate proposed that the results of her investigations be used to plan an exhibit at the museum, which she promised would be “intensely interesting.”

Tate summarized the results of her field work and gave a copy to the Kentucky Library & Museum.  Although she made clear that her paper, “Handwoven Textiles,” had only scratched the surface of Bowling Green’s treasury of coverlets, counterpanes, shawls and quilts, she included not only photos of her discoveries but actual scraps of weaving – three-dimensional examples that brought to life the color combinations and textures lovingly created by weavers whose work had survived for generations, even though their names were often lost to history.

A finding aid for Lou Tate’s paper can be downloaded by clicking here, and a finding aid for her associated correspondence with Mary Leiper can be downloaded by clicking here.  For more collections on weaving and folk art, search TopSCHOLAR and KenCat.

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by | November 3, 2011 · 1:47 pm

Josie Walker’s Book

Josie Walker's diary inscription

Josie Walker’s diary inscription

For a look into the daily lives of a Kentucky farm family late in the 19th century, WKU’s Special Collections Library offers this newly acquired diary, kept by an observant young woman in Columbia, Kentucky.

Josephine “Josie” Walker was nineteen when she began the second volume of her diary in October 1883.  Like most single women living at home, Josie organized her life around family, household duties, school, church, and social events.  She and her sister had their share of chores: “Sophie and I ironed some, churned, baked a cake & some apples and did a hundred other things,” she wrote on October 27.  The following summer, she enjoyed a day out at the county fair, where she feasted on watermelon, watched mule races, and admired prize-winning livestock and quilts.  Josie and her family, however, had decided not to go into town one day in March in order to avoid witnessing a scheduled public execution.  “I don’t see how a humane person could go to a hanging,” she confided to her diary.

Josie was also attentive to events in the wider world.  “This is election day.  Hurrah!” she wrote in anticipation of a new president in November 1884, but her hopes were dashed when Republican James G. Blaine narrowly lost to Grover Cleveland.  The Democrats, she grumbled, were uncharitably shooting off guns and making a “racket” to celebrate their victory.

September 6, 1884 had found Josie in a reflective mood.  “This is my twentieth birthday,” she noted, and two years had elapsed since she began to keep a diary.  “I suppose I am considered a grown lady by some,” she wrote, “but I feel as an ignorant timid child afraid to stand alone.  Let us hope the records of this year will be pleasant to refer to in years to come.”  With her diary now a part of our permanent collection, her wish can be fulfilled.

A finding aid for Josephine Walker’s diary can be downloaded by clicking here.  To find other diaries from Kentucky and elsewhere, search TopSCHOLAR and KenCat.

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by | October 28, 2011 · 9:13 am

Parades, Grapes and Witches Teeth

1908 postcard to Ruth Hines Temple; 1926 party invitation to Hansford Hale

1908 postcard to Ruth Hines Temple; 1926 party invitation to Hansford Hale

In 1908, nine-year-old Warren County native Ruth Hines Temple received a colorful Halloween postcard from her aunt.  More than a decade later, she still observed the scary season as a student at Randolph-Macon College.  There, she wrote her mother in 1921, seniors paraded solemnly in cap and gown carrying jack-o-lanterns made for them by the sophomores.  The next year, students paid 15 cents to gain admission to a full-fledged Halloween carnival in the gym, complete with side shows, music and food.

In the 1940s, before she moved to Bowling Green, Regina Newell experienced Halloween as a child in Coaldale, Pennsylvania.  She recalled knocking on doors in costume, prepared to deliver a little song, dance or recitation if she was asked, and of the older folks trying hard to guess the identity of each masked trick-or-treater.  Her school parties featured apple-bobbing and candy corn (“witches teeth”).  When Regina was eight, her family moved to California, where Halloween customs were somewhat different: trick-or-treaters got grapes instead of apples and wore makeup instead of masks, even though performing for their candy was no longer expected.

The stories of Ruth Hines Temple, Regina Newell and others are part of the collections of WKU’s Special Collections Library.  Click on the names to download collection finding aids. In addition, our folklife collections include lots of projects about ghosts, haunts, superstitions and the paranormal; or, you can read about ghostly happenings right here in Bowling Green and on the Hill.  For further information, search TopSCHOLAR and KenCat.

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by | October 20, 2011 · 9:08 am

Lowell H. Harrison, 1922-2011

Lowell Harrison as soldier and teacher

Lowell Harrison as soldier and teacher

When Russell County native and retired WKU history professor Lowell H. Harrison died on October 12, he left behind a distinguished record of teaching and scholarship, having written or edited some 15 books, published more than 100 articles and authored hundreds of book reviews.  Like many WKU faculty, staff and students, he also left behind an honorable record of military service.  During World War II, Harrison trained at Fort Knox, Kentucky and Camp Carson, Colorado, and served overseas as a combat engineer with the 104th Division.

In common with many of his fellow WKU students, Harrison kept up a wartime correspondence with classmates and teachers back on the Hill.  His letters, saved by their recipients and now housed in several collections in WKU’s Special Collections Library, show that the rigors of military service never dampened his dry wit or dulled his intellectual curiosity.  In August 1944, Harrison sent student Dorthie Hall a photograph of himself in combat-ready pose with the identification, “I’m the one supported by the rifle.”  In language that hinted at the narrative skill he would display as a historian, he also told Dorthie about his visit to the Colorado town of Cripple Creek.  “The hills are dotted with dark tunnels which belched impossibly rich gold ore only a half century ago,” he wrote.  “The town boomed, and the world’s greatest poker game saw stakes totaling over a million.”  Eventually, “the flow of ore became a thin trickle as the source vanished.”  Residents departed, and “as the years fled by, the drifts of winter snow slipped through more and more open doors and gaping windows,” leaving the town to reinvent itself and “cater to the tourist trade, undisturbed by the ghosts of old prospectors who pick away at promising formations at the ghost town of Cripple Creek.”

Read Lowell Harrison’s World War II letters in the Dorthie A. Hall Collection, the Frances Richards Collection, and the Gabrielle Robertson Collection at WKU’s Special Collections Library.  Click on the collection names to download finding aids.  To find more collections of war letters (from the Civil War through Iraq and Afghanistan), search TopScholar and KenCat.

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by | October 12, 2011 · 10:37 am

Bond Brothers, Inc.

Oscar S. Bond and a Bond Brothers tie yard

Oscar S. Bond and a Bond Brothers tie yard

The age of railroads was not only the age of iron, steel and coal, but of wood — specifically, the millions of board feet required for cross ties, which were laid transverse to the rails to absorb the load and maintain the correct gauge.  As the proprietor of a store in Olaton, Kentucky, Oscar S. Bond (1876-1971) got into the business of selling cross ties when farmers would offer them to him in exchange for merchandise.  In 1908, he and two brothers incorporated Bond Brothers, Inc. in Elizabethtown and began to purchase timberland to supply the firm’s operations.  In 1922, the company acquired land for a wood treatment plant in Louisville, its new headquarters.  Securing contracts with the Louisville & Nashville Railroad, Bond Brothers was poised to become the country’s leading supplier of cross ties.

By the time the family sold the company in 1957, annual revenues were $10 million and operations included 29 lumber yards, 118 tie yards, 24 sawmills and 3,000 employees.  In addition to cross ties, the company produced creosoted lumber, poles and fence posts.  Oscar Bond also ran an 1,800-acre cattle farm (part of the former Shakertown farm) in Logan County and served as a director of Elizabethtown’s First Hardin National Bank.

A collection of Bond family papers housed at WKU’s Special Collections Library offers a look at this prominent Kentucky business and the personal and financial affairs of Oscar Bond and his wife Mary (Baird) Bond.  Included are dozens of photos of Bond Brothers operations — workers, tie yards and equipment — as well as of family members who contributed to the company’s success.  Click here to download a finding aid.  For more collections relating to railroads and other Kentucky businesses, search TopScholar and KenCat.

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by | September 22, 2011 · 9:34 am

150 Years Ago Today

Remnants of the Civil War fort on WKU's campus, about 1907

Remnants of the Civil War fort on WKU’s campus, about 1907

On September 22, 1861, William Howard wrote a letter to his family in Caldwell County.  A private in the 3rd Kentucky Infantry, Howard was with the first wave of Confederate troops who arrived in Bowling Green four days earlier from Camp Boone, Tennessee to begin a five-month occupation of the city.  “We are encamped at Bolen Green in Ky. Warren Co.,” he reported, and thanked his family for the socks he had received just prior to departing from Camp Boone.

Of Bowling Green, Howard wrote that “Union men here are as thick as dog hair”; nevertheless, he pronounced himself ready for a fight against the “Lincolnites.”  Over the next few months, he vividly depicted the trials of camp life for the ordinary soldier.  Like many of his comrades, Howard grew tired and ill as he helped to build fortifications in cold, rainy weather, and he watched as the “heep of sickness in camp” took its toll.  Early in November, he reported that deaths in his brigade were averaging about one per day, with 38 dead since their arrival.  The Yankees never showed up for battle, but in January 1862 Howard still believed that there would “be a big fight in Ky” before too long, “and then peace.”

When he wrote on September 22, Howard was apprehensive about the future, telling his family that “its extremely doubtful about us ever meeting again.”  He was right.  He died in Mississippi on February 12, 1863.

The letters of William B. Howard are part of the collections of WKU’s Special Collections Library.  Click here to download a finding aid.  For more on our extensive Civil War collections, click here or search TopScholar and KenCat.

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