I would guess that almost no one remembers this, but almost two years ago I wrote a post about some of the bookplates in use at Fondren. I’ve never forgotten this particular post though, because I wanted so badly to find out something about the man who inspired this lovely plate:
I looked all over for him and never could find anything at all, not even a trace.
Yesterday I was doing some research in the Andrew Forest Muir (’38, ’42) collection—I was way, way down in it too, in a box full of personal and family correspondence and photos, more obscure you could hardly get. There were a lot of photos and they were all labeled, but each was inside its own individual envelope. This makes them hard to get at, so I was perhaps less than scrupulous about opening every one. I did, though, notice the one labeled “Charles Hamilton” because even after all this time I’m still looking for Wiley A. Hamilton and well, you just never know. It can’t hurt to look.
So I opened it and found him:
Retired from Schlumberger and worked at Fondren for three years before he died at age 83. He must have loved it in the library very much. No wonder someone made bookplates in his memory. Comparing the drawing and the photo from the obituary, I see that must be him checking out a book in the bookplate. (Those are Muir’s typical meticulous annotations on the side of the clipping, by the way. I don’t believe he ever left anything unidentified or failed to cite a source. I’m very grateful to him.)
Bonus: Here’s another Fondren bookplate. I don’t know who she is, but it should be easier to figure this one out.
