Scarlet 3: Black, September 9, IMP—page a

 

Dusting off the name plaques

Dorm names reveal Grinnell history

By Elaine Ashbaugh

Grinnell College‘s sixteen dor-
mitories. each bearing the name of
some man or woman, usually
exhibit bronze plaques sporting
such names as Mary B. James or
Francelia Spitzer Loose.

Although Grinnell vernacular
shortens them to a simple, imr
personal “James” or “Loose,”
those names are the key to the
histories of rnany interesting and
inﬂuential people each with a
slightly different “Grinnell con-
nection."

Residents of Mears Hall would
be surprised if a Mary Grinnell
Mears were to stop in for a visit7
or pay for a party featuring
chocolate peppermints and orange
bonbons, but once upon a time,
Mary Grinnell Mears did exactly
that, . . .

MARY Grinnell Mears. daughter
of town founder JB. Grinnell,
graduated from Grinnell College in
1981. The next year a tornado
struck the college; something
similar must have swept Mary off
her feet at the same time for she
soon married the well-known
minister from the East who had
Come to Grinnell to deliver the

 

with the twcn veight occupants of
the original-sized dorm who were
expected to write to her several
times a year.

JOHN Hanson Thomas Main,
fourteen years a teacher and three
years the acting president of
Grinnell college, served his last
twenty five years, until his death in
1936. as its President, To him, Main
Hall was dedicated.

John Main was born in Toledo,
Ohio, on April 2, 1859, the child of
Hezekiah and Margaret Main.
From Moores Hill College, In-
diana, Main received his B.A. and
M.A. degrees in 11190 and 1883. By
1392, he had received his PhD
fromJnhns Hopkins. In 1911, he had
earned the LL.D. degree from
Oberlin.

JOHN had professional con-
nections with Several other
colleges before coming to Grinnell
in 1992, including Iowa State
University, Harvard University,
Moures Hill College, and the
Woman: College of Baltimore,
Main also served as trustee of the
Carnegie Foundation for the Ada
vancement of Teaching,

 

WHEREAS much information
remains about the Mears and the

Joanna Harris Haines

commencement speech of 1882. His
name was Dr. David O. Mears,

Settling in Albany, New York,
Mary became an active member of
several clubs, serving several
terms as president of the Woman’s
Foreign Missionary Society, as
well as founding the National
Congress of Mothers in 1997 and the
Parent-Teacher Association,

MARY’S husband David com-
tinued his ministry in Albany, but
remained close friends with EA.
Goodnow, a member of a previous
congregation. Goodnow, donating
$5000 for the building of the first
Grinnell dorm for women, asked
that it be named lor Mary. She
herself presented the first of three
addresses at the laying of the
cornerstone in June of 1888, The
land on which the new dorm was
built had previously been named
Chamberlain Park in honor of
Trustee J.M. Chamberlain.

David died in 1915 in Albany,
while Mary died twenty years later
of a stroke in Palo Alto, California.
She had remained faithful to “her”
dorm sinceits beginnings, stopping

 

when possible. donating money for

hall functions. and corresponding,

Mains of this world, the Clevelands
left little trace in the Grinnell
College archives..Cleveland Hall
bears the name of a Martha
Cleveland, a graduate of the class
of '67. She married LeRoy Dibble,
another pelson for whom a dorm
was named. LeRoy practiced
medicine in Kansas City, Missouri,
for many years,

Although not a Grinnell College
graduate, Mary B. James was for
years a well-respected school
teacher in the town. Through the
years she invested savings in city
property and ultimately deeded
her property to the college on an
annuity basis, thus receivmg a
stable income until her death.

Joanna Harris Haines, although
born (in 18413) on a farm in NW
Pennsylvania, was to become the
first woman ever to graduate from
a colleg€west of the Mississippi
when she completed her studies at
Grinnell in 1865.

FORCED to leave Pennsylvania
by their losses in the depression
after the Mexican War, the family
moved to the purportedly fertile
state of Iowa in 1852. They settled
in Lee County, near Farmington.

 

With many Southerners in their
new neighborhood, the frequent
abolitionist meetings in the Harris
home did not make the family very
popular.

Dissatisfied with their Con-
servative neighbors, Joanna’s
father and brother decided to make
a fresh start elsewhere. A visit to
Grinnell showed them land that
looked good with a price of $4.00
per acre, The Harris iamily pur-
chased eighty acres from J.B,
Grinnell.

The family’s radicalism Con-
tinued in the more liberal en-
vironment of Grinnell. For years.
they had subscribed to the Radical,
a paper of extreme anti-slavery
views, Their house became a
“station" on the underground,
railway,

JOANNA later married Grinnell
lawyer RM. Haines. Due to their
support of both the town and
college, ”Cottage Four” was
dedicated to Joanna Harris Haines
at commencement in 1931, the year
of her death.

Luella Jane Read (157191932)
was born in Shenandoah, Iowa, and
received her first degree at Tabor
College, Iowa, in 1899. Later, she
received her B.A., M.A., and
finally a PhD in 1910 at the
University of Michigan.

JOINING the Grinnell faculty
initially as a German professor in
1914, Luella added two more jobs
during her eighteen years at
Grinnellithat of Dean of Women
and Professor of Art History.
Although German was her original
field of study, Luella became so
accomplished in art history that
the Carnegie Foundation furnished
her with funds [or two summers of
study at the Art Institute of
Chicago and two summers at
Harvard University. They also
presented her with a vast amount
of material in the form of latern
slides, pictures, and books for use
in her classes at Grinnell

Luella. suddenly struck with
pneumonia. died on November 29,
1932. At the funeral President John
S. Nollen spoke. Professor I'LW
Matlack played the organ.

LOOSE Hall bears a plaque
dedicating the building to
Francelia Spitzer Loose and Dr.
David N. Loose. Francelia and her
husband David were long time
residents of Iowa, where David
was a pioneer physician in the
state and Francelia was a school
teacher . After Francelia‘s death,
David donated funds in her
memory for a new dorm. It was
built in 194748.

In 1942, Benjamin A. Younker
and family of Des Moines created
the Marcus and Annie Berkson
Younker Endowment, With H'lis
gilt, Grinnell College was able to
erect Younkels Hall in 1950751.
Additional funds provided for a
new health center and for
scholarships for Grinnell students.

THE Honorable James A. Smith
of Osage, Iowa, gave his name to a
second but much older “North
Campus" dormitory. The
organizer of an extensive lumber
business, James served as a
trustee of Grinnell College as well
as a state representative of Iowa.
He died in January, 1918.

W,H. Langan of Des Moines. for
whom the trustees of the college
named “Building Two,” was a
wholesale businessman of Des
Moines Although never officially
connected to Grinnell College, he
was generous in his donations,

RAWSON Hall bears the name of
the Honorable Charles A. Rawson,
onestime student, honorary
degree recipient. and trustee of
Grinnell College. He served as a
United States senator from Iowa as
well as chairing the Republican
state central committee in 1912,
and acting as national com-
mitteeman from 1924 to 1932.

 

President of the Iowa Pipe and
Tile Company, treasurer of an
insurance company, and director
of two banks, Charles never lost
the love lor sports which he had
developed as a football player at
Grinnell, He often returned to
Grinnell to referee sports events as
well as supporting amateur sports
clubs all over IoWa. Charles once
served asan official at the Olympic
Games. He died in 1936.

GATES llzll, like Main Hall,
bears the name ot'one of Grinnell's
nine presidents, George A. Gates.
He was born in Topsham, Vere
mont, in 1851.

George earned degrees at
Dartmouth College and Andover
Seminary. He served as a minister
in New Jersey and Wyoming,
before holding the office of
president at Grinnell College (then
Iowa College) for fifteen years
beginning in 1887.

Upon the request of his daughter
Edith May Clark McCornack, ’89,
the old “Building Five” was
renamed for Theodore F, Clark.
The Grinnell College ad-
ministrative office announced
plans to dedicate the dorm to Clark
within a week of his death in
November 1919,

AT his death. Clark was con-
sidered to he the last of the Iowa

pioneers He and a brother had
come from Ohio in 1854. Changing
from saw milling, to farming, to
banking, Clark ultimately became
well-known in the Midwest in
livestock raising and breeding. Not
an alumni of Grinnell himself,
Clark nonetheless saw his two
children (and two grandchildren)
graduate from this college.

Gardner Cowles, '82 publisher of
the Des Moines Register and
Tribune, was the donor of Cowles
Hall, In 1941, he and his family had
created the Cowles Foundation
fund, which funded the new dorm.

ALTHOUGH Cowles dorm was
ready for occupancy in 1942, no
civilians used the facility until
1945. During the intervening war
years, a unit of the officers Can-
didate School, assigned to the
college in 1942, occupied the
building.

The Norris family's connection
with Grinnell College began with
David Washington Norris, a
graduate of the class of 1872, and
continued through four
generati ns,

BOR n Maryland, D.W. Norris
moved with his family to Tama
County when he was fifteen years
old Aiter working his way throu h

 

Mary Mears

Grinnell College and men teaching
and clerking, Norris settled into his
final vocationias an attorney in
Grinnell.

Norris’ oldest son, S.W.
“Fritz" Norris Jr., graduated in
1395. As a student, he challenged
the place of the established student
newspaper by founding an in
dependent, competing paper,
naming it the Scarlet and Black.
Under Norris, the $8213 soon
became the only student
newspaper on campus.

THE budding journalist. after a
brief session as a news
correspondent on the East coast,
returned to the Midwestr Settling in
at the Marshalltown TimeSe
Republican, he purchased the
paper with his father's help in
meat the age of twenty-three.

In 1904 Fritz had the foresight to
invest in a small, struggling face
tory in Marshalltown. It
manufactured furnaces and went
by the name of Lennox. With
Fritz‘s guidance, the company
grew into the huge industrial
corporation it now 'is.

OTHER Norris family members
tollowed equally impressive
careers. One graduated from
Harvard Law School, several
followed Fritz as editor and
publisher of the Marshalltown
paper, and one even edited the
Scarlet and Black in his senior
year at Grinnell.

The Norris Hall dedication oc»
curred on October 8, 1960. Named
in honor of the Norris family by the
Board of Trustees, it recognized
the long association of the family
with the Col] '

~ George Augustus Gates

 

