Author Archives: Melissa Kean

This is the last part of Corinne Tsanoff’s letter to her sister about the Rice semi-centennial celebration in 1962. It’s the longest piece and also my favorite, because of the discussion of the wardrobe complications endured by the faculty wives, … Continue reading →

He was the first faculty member to arrive at Rice in 1912 and was allegedly “delighted with Houston.” This came from a very early scrapbook kept by Mr. Cohn, Rice’s first business manager. Those small dots are some sort of … Continue reading →

The day after President Pitzer’s inauguration in October, 1962 there was a full schedule of Semi-centennial events, culminating in the awarding of the Medals of Honor. Here is Corinne Tsanoff’s touching description, highlighted (at least for me) by her gentle … Continue reading →

Not long ago we got back the fifty-three boxes of the Tsanoff Family collection from off- site storage at Iron Mountain, where it had been housed until the recent completion of the second module of the Library Service Center: Before … Continue reading →

Slang is one of those things that never fails to interest. It evolves at a dizzying rate and is  forgotten as quickly as it moves on, frustrating my desire to know what the heck people were talking about. So when … Continue reading →

Back in 2017 I wrote about finding at an estate sale a scrapbook that had belonged to Cal Dean Hill ’52.  It chronicled much of his life, from boyhood through his years at Rice. An enormously important part of that … Continue reading →

Part of the reason I needed my recent break was that learning of the death of Chandler Davidson so soon after losing Sid Burrus just knocked the pins out from under me. I first met Chandler when I was in … Continue reading →

You may or may not have noticed that I haven’t posted for a while. Nothing is amiss, but I just needed a real break. Now, break taken, I’m back and with a backlog of really good material to talk about. … Continue reading →

When I heard last weekend that Sidney Burrus had died I felt simply heartsick, bogged down with grief. Sid was the person most responsible for me staying at Rice after I graduated. People are often surprised to learn that my … Continue reading →

One of the more underused resources in the archives is the collection of Rice Institute Pamphlets, our own scholarly journal, which became Rice University Studies after we became Rice University in 1960. There’s a lot of miscellany in these volumes … Continue reading →