The Magazine of the University Library • Washington and Lee University FOLios Fall 2014 TABLE OF CONTENTS FROM THE UNIVERSITY LIBRARIAN Special Collections and Archives . .1 Meet John Dinkel, New Chair of the Friends By John Tombarge Educational Support. 3 John Dinkel’s chairmanship of the Friends of the Library Staff News . 6 Board inaugurates the Friends’ 10th year. John received his bachelor’s degree from W&L in 1961 and stayed on to Friends of the Library . .7 get his law degree in 1964. Over his distinguished career, he practiced law in Virginia, New York and Florida. John Events . .10 also supports many community and charitable organizations, How You Can Help . .12 John Dinkel ’61 including serving as chair of AMIkids, a non-profit organi- zation dedicated to providing a future for troubled youth, and of in Memoriam . .16 the Redlands Christian Migrant Association, which provides quality child care and early education for children of migrant workers and rural low-income families throughout Florida. John brings extensive experience in service to the Friends, and the library staff EDITORIAL TEAM: looks forward to a productive year under his leadership. Montrose Grandberry, With John’s election as chair, we bid a fond farewell to Hardin Marion, who served as Administrative Assistant and chair for many years. We thank Hardin for his service and his leadership in making the Friends Coordinator organization a success. While he may be stepping down from the board, he will always be Yolanda Merrill, a Friend of the Library. Humanities Librarian CONTACTS: WORDS FROM THE BOARD By John Tombarge Friends of the Library: In this 10th year of the Friends of the Library, it is good to look back and recognize its (540) 458-8642 success. Over the years, the Friends have provided just under $200,000 in support for the [email protected] Library. We have used these funds to expand the library’s collections and digital resources Website: Library.wlu.edu/friends and to buy needed furnishings and equipment. Additionally, individual members have adopted books and manuscripts in Special Collections to be preserved. They have also Leyburn Library: used the bookplate program to recognize and honor people through special plates placed (540) 458-8640 in new books added to the library’s collection. The support received directly from the Friends, and from its members, has greatly benefited the library and encouraged its staff to Telford Science Library: do more. (540) 458-8110 Maintaining quality collections and services is difficult in tough economic times that result in a shrinking library budget. The support received from the Friends of the Library ON THE COVER: helped the library emerge from the recent economic downturn with its status intact as one of the finest academic libraries in Virginia, and one of the best liberal arts college libraries English professor Genelle Gertz in the country. and her students examine rare bibles in Special Collections as The pages of this newsletter provide a glimpse of some of the activities undertaken by the part of her Spring term course library staff as they engage students, faculty, and the community in new ways. I hope you will savor the successes of the past year and look forward to the upcoming events in the “The Bible as Literature: Exile fall. I hope, too, that you will decide to continue your membership in the Friends and your and Return.” support for the library. The Friends have set a fundraising goal of $20,000 this year, and we will track progress towards this goal on the new Friends of the Library website: http:// library.wlu.edu/friends/. Information about upcoming events and how to support the Friends and the library will be available there. Please join me in helping the library reach new heights in the coming year. A STROKE OF GOOD FORTUNE Carson McCullers Collection. She is best known for “The Heart is a Lonely Hunter” and “The Member of the Wedding.” The collection By Yolanda Merrill, Humanities Librarian is composed of letters from McCullers to Sidney Isenberg ’42 (her Maggie Hammer ’16 was the library’s first Summer Research psychiatrist) and letters Isenberg received from researchers (Virginia Carr) and other psychiatrists pertaining to McCullers. Isenberg Scholar. This program encourages well-qualified and strongly later donated these materials to his alma mater. The collection motivated students to become familiar with research tools, tech- covers her mental and physical illnesses, her pervading desire for niques and methodology through collaborative research with sanity, her tumultuous marriage to Reeves McCullers, and Reeves’ faculty members during the summer. She did her research in suicide in his youth. Many of her letters are handwritten, which is our Special Collections department under the guidance of Tom a bit challenging to decipher considering her semi-paralysis (this Camden. The Anne and Edgar Basse Jr. Endowment sponsored her was a result of her supposed strokes). research. Yolanda Merrill interviewed Maggie this summer. Q: How is your experience working in Special Collections with original materials? Q: Where are you from and how did you choose Washington A: I am keenly aware that this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for and Lee? me. On a Tuesday morning I will be sitting in the library, casually A: I am from Dallas, Texas, although my family recently moved reading an original E.E. Cummings poem. One that he thought of, to Massachusetts. I attended an all-girls Catholic high school and typed, and held himself. To be in the presence of such brilliance was utterly in love with it. When I began considering colleges, I exceeds my wildest dreams. One day, while critically analyzing a began my search in Virginia. Don’t ask me why—I had never been letter, I discovered something: Flannery O’Connor’s short story, “A to Virginia, don’t have family here, but I knew that Virginia was Stroke of Good Fortune,” was first published in Washington and where I belonged. Having narrowed my search, I started searching Lee’s Shenandoah. The story had been printed in one other literary for a school that bore a resemblance to my magazine that had become defunct just high school—one that stressed honor and after the story was published. O’Connor integrity, focused on the development of considered the story unpublished, and, the whole person, and was at least some- after changing the title, submitted it to what aesthetically appealing. There was Shenandoah, where T.H. Carter published only one that exceeded my criteria. I could it in the Spring 1953 issue. not have made a more perfect choice. Q: How do you like living in Lexington Q: How did the Summer Scholars during the summer? opportunity come your way? A: Lexington in the summer is a completely A: I approached my advisor and mentor, different place from Lexington during the Professor Marc Conner, about wanting to school year. As my friends and family well enroll in summer school. I am an English know, I like staying busy, and I’ve been major, with minors in mass communica- fortunate to do so this summer. Between tions and creative writing. At his sugges- studying for my VMI Spanish summer tion, we met with Tom Camden ’76, head school course, web programming, and of Special Collections & Archives, to discuss possible research proj- coming to know timeless literary figures, I’ve found time to spend ects. Sitting down to my meeting with both of them, Mr. Camden time with friends, hit the local farmers market, and get a little sun. I pulled out a copy of Phillis Wheatley’s poetry, written when she was live right on the Maury, which is ideal for outside summer activities. just 16. He had lured me into the unexpected excitement of Special This has been a truly remarkable experience—one that I will never Collections. Mr. Camden suggested that I begin my work on the forget. I thank the men and women of the library—particularly in Thomas Henry Carter Collection, move into the Carson McCullers Special Collections—that have made every day at work a joy. I will Collection and finish up with some Eudora Welty. Needless to say, never consider this summer a summer of work. I could not say no. Q: Tell me more about these two collections. A: Thomas H. Carter ’54, a Martinsville, Virginia, native, began his Maggie’s research will be incorporated into the Carter and the career at a young age. He founded and edited his own literary maga- McCullers collections. She is hoping to write an article about her zine, Spearhead, in high school. He was a master of correspondence, research as well. Besides working in Special Collections, Maggie befriending his pen pals as their conversations deepened beyond takes a Spanish course at VMI, and is creating a new website for an inquiry for submission to Spearhead. He corresponded with 20th-century literary demigods such as Flannery O’Connor, William Professor Conner’s Irish Studies program. To have Maggie’s bright Faulkner, Ray Bradbury, E.E. Cummings and Ezra Pound. Entering presence in the library all summer has certainly been a Stroke of into W&L, his inborn, undeniable editorial brilliance was realized Good Fortune for us. and he was given complete control of W&L’s literary magazine, Shenandoah. I’ve spent my summer dissecting the contents of his collections, composed primarily of letters. My second project is the FOLios Newsletter • SPECIAL COLLECTIONS 1 WASHINGTON AND LEE’S CORNERSTONE DOCUMENT NEWLY RESTORED By Tom Camden, Head of Special Collections & Archives or every alumnus and friend of Washington and Lee, the story of George Washing- ton’s generous and timely benefaction to Liberty Hall Academy in 1796 is one of those pieces of history that define the character of our great University.