So the  weekend before last I did something I’ve never done before: I met up with a complete stranger in a parking lot in order to get some Rice memorabilia. Ann Pound Hopkins, the a granddaughter of J.H. Pound, (also here) one of the earliest Rice faculty members, and Ruth Robinson, a member of the class of 1916, had contacted me about some materials that had come down to her from her grandparents. We met up in the parking lot of the HalfPrice Bookstore at Montrose and Westheimer and she graciously donated Mr. Pound’s copy of the Book of the Opening to the Woodson. She also brought along a couple of examples of the kind of things that are in the rest of the collection, which sounds like it will be of great historic value to Rice.

There were two pictures of the early campus, including this one that I’d date about 1917 or so just based on the size of the cedar elms:

The other thing she handed me was a dance card for a party that was held in the Commons in June of 1916, right near the very end of the school year:

It was raining so I didn’t look closely at it until I got home, but when I did I couldn’t help but smile. Mr. Pound certainly got plenty of dances: