Author Archives: Lynn Niedermeier

Kentucky Library & Museum Christmas collections

WKU’s Special Collections Library has a wealth of material documenting the celebration of Christmas by generations of Kentuckians.  Pictured above is a 1901 letter to Santa from young Elizabeth Coombs; a Depression-era greeting card; a card sent from post-World War II Holland to the Grise family of Bowling Green; a postcard greeting to Captain Edward Hines; a 1928 card from “Lola” to her friend Lila; and World War I-era greetings to Ray Howell from his brother.

Our Manuscripts & Folklife Archives include interviews with Kentuckians reminiscing about their childhood Christmas traditions, as well as many letters from soldiers stationed in war zones as they remember their loved ones over the holidays.

To find out more about Christmas in our collections, search TopScholar and KenCat.

Chester Coleman Travelstead, 1911-2006

Over her 40-year teaching career at WKU, Nelle Gooch Travelstead (1888-1974) was known for her energy in the classroom, her civic activism, and her ferocious devotion to her two boys, Will (1909-1981) and Chester (1911-2006).  The papers of Chester Coleman Travelstead, now available at WKU’s Special Collections Library, document the lives of this indomitable single mother and her sons.

Comprising more than 4,500 items, the collection includes Chester Travelstead’s personal and professional correspondence and that of his mother, brother, and wife Marita.  Travelstead edited his mother’s papers, wrote a reminiscence of his World War II naval service aboard the USS Comet, and kept a journal of Marita’s battle with Alzheimer’s Disease.  The collection also documents Chester Travelstead’s distinguished career as an educator.  A WKU alumnus, Travelstead received his doctorate from the University of Kentucky in 1950, and for the next 27 years served in faculty and administrative positions at universities in Georgia, South Carolina, and New Mexico.  He received four honorary degrees, and in 2004 the University of New Mexico named its College of Education administration building after him.

Prior to his appointment in New Mexico, Travelstead had been ousted from his position as Dean of Education at the University of South Carolina.  The trouble arose in 1955, after he spoke to a summer session on the topic “Today’s Decisions for Tomorrow’s Schools.”  Delivered in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Brown v. Board of Education, the speech urged the timely integration of the nation’s public schools.  Travelstead’s speech and the resulting letter of dismissal are part of the collection, but so too are the accolades he later earned for his forward-looking views.  During its bicentennial in 2001, the University of South Carolina honored Dean Travelstead as a man of “uncommon courage in uncommon times.”

A finding aid for the Chester Coleman Travelstead Papers can be downloaded here.

Meador, Richards, and Johnson Papers

Covering more than 150 years, the Meador, Richards, and Johnson Family Papers at WKU’s Special Collections Library document the history of three Simpson and Logan County, Kentucky families and their kin, the Garrett and King families of Tennessee and Texas.

As one might expect, material accumulated over such a long period covers a variety of topics.  A letter to Caroline (King) Garrett sent from Havana, Cuba in 1842 vividly describes the illness and death of her brother George and the writer’s efforts to circumvent prejudice against non-Catholics in order to secure him a decent burial.  That same year, Caroline’s brother John wrote from Texas, where tensions were high between Mexico and the breakaway republic, still three years from becoming a U.S. state.  The previous month, invading Mexican troops had produced “grate excitement through the country” before being driven from San Antonio.  John was confident that Texans could stand up to the saber rattling of Mexican general Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna.  “I think I am as much for peace as any man where it can be had upon laudable turmes,” he wrote, “but I do think candidly Old Sant Ana’s pride wants takeing down a little.”

Jump ahead more than a century to a lighter note: the collection also contains items relating to the notorious fan dancer, Sally Rand.  In 1975, at the age of 71, Miss Rand was still making appearances and autographing photo cards showing her famous form strategically concealed behind ostrich feathers.

A finding aid for the Meador, Richards, and Johnson Family Papers can be downloaded here.

The American Carriage Company, Cincinnati Ohio

When we last left retired WKU professor Don Slocum, he had found a century-old letter wedged behind the siding of his back porch and donated it to WKU’s Special Collections Library.  Now, his old house has disclosed more of the secrets of its past owners.  In addition to two more letters dating from 1904, he has found some material relating to the American Carriage Company of Cincinnati, Ohio.

Dating from early in the 20th century, one of the leaflets promotes “Our New Wagonette,” perfect for use on pleasure trips or as a “general utility wagon for summer resorts.”  Painted black, with dark green leather cushions and a “first-class foot brake,” the carriage came with or without a canopy.  A second offering was the Hotel Coach, the ancestor of today’s airport shuttle.  Holding up to ten passengers and their luggage, and designed to be pulled by just one horse, the coach promised innkeepers an edge in attracting commercial travelers who had just arrived at the railroad depot and were in search of lodging.

Like today’s automobiles, the models of the American Carriage Company were available in multiple configurations.  A price sheet set out terms for open or closed buggies; A-, B- or C-grade leather; coil or elliptic springs; half or full platforms; quarter or extension tops (with lettering applied at “very reasonable charges”); and much more.

A finding aid for the American Carriage Company leaflets, and the rest of Dr. Slocum’s latest discoveries, can be downloaded here.

Martha and Jacob Van Meter

Charles J. Van Meter (1826-1913) is remembered in Bowling Green as a pioneer in the development of commerce on the Green and Barren Rivers.  His generosity toward the Southern Normal School (now WKU) prompted the naming of Van Meter Hall in his honor.

Charles’s father, Jacob Van Meter, came to Bowling Green in 1818 and grew wealthy as a farmer and merchant.  As a state legislator, he also lobbied for public improvements to river navigation and helped build the Bowling Green Portage Railway, a narrow-gauge railroad that carried goods from the boat landing to the center of town.

When 86-year-old Jacob Van Meter died on February 27, 1874, the funeral was planned for March 1 but was delayed for a day when, early that morning, his 82-year-old wife Martha also died.  In the florid style so popular with Victorian Americans, the Bowling Green Republican mourned two of the city’s most venerated citizens.  How appropriate, declared the paper, that Jacob’s soul “should have been wafted to Paradise with the first breathings of spring.”  As a canny businessman, kind neighbor, model father and blameless Christian, Jacob’s character was “solid as marble and unsullied as snow.  He has gone down to his grave,” continued the paper, “without stain or blemish, ripe in years and in honors.”  Martha Van Meter, similarly, was “a remarkable woman, esteemed and beloved by all who knew her.”  And so the tribute when on and on . . . for four long columns of the newspaper’s editorial page, as if emulating Jacob Van Meter’s lifelong motto, never give up.

The obituaries of Jacob and Martha Van Meter are part of the collections of WKU’s Special Collections Library.  Click here for a finding aid.  For more on Bowling Green’s Van Meter family, search TopScholar and KenCat.

Clarence’s letter

Johnny Cash should have written a song about it.  In March 1934, a guy named Clarence couldn’t wait to drop a line from Paintsville, Kentucky to his girl Mary.  “I have just got out of jail,” he wrote, “and was sure glad to get out.”  Some ex-cons might have been thinking about finding a good meal, or a good night’s sleep, or a good woman, but Clarence had only two things on his mind:  catching “the first big, black thing that comes along that looks like a freight train” and then getting his old job back.  He was tired of being chased by the law.

Clarence’s letter has recently been added to the collections of WKU’s Special Collections Library.  A finding aid (and an “arresting” image of the letter itself) can be downloaded here.