Rice History Corner

Whose T bird? George Cohen’s. Here he is on the same day looking like a total badass in front of the fountain he had installed in the Cohen House garden:

Two items of note: the original ironwork on the President’s house and the fact that Mr. Cohen thought to walk far enough away from the house that he could get a good shot of his car in front of it. I wonder what that was all about.

(If you have a minute check out those links above about the ironwork. That was the first time I understood the potential of this blog. I can still remember how excited I was.)

Bonus:

I looked at the calendar this morning and realized that next Friday is already the last day of classes! Here’s some sound advice for students:

The cartoon was drawn by Jack Glenn ’22, seen here arriving at the airport for Homecoming in 1951. He really turns out to be an interesting guy even apart from his newsreel fame. I’ll have more on him later.

Bonus: I don’t think of myself as a small person but I look small here. That’s me right behind Coach Bailiff, in the white cap (with sweet headphones). If I’m not mistaken this photo was taken right before I called a pass play that resulted in a touchdown.

I feel sure one of you miscreants can date this photo for me.

Me!

I wouldn’t miss this if I were you. I grew up in the “three yards and a cloud of dust” Big Ten but I’m totally capable of going full Mike Leach if I’m in the right mood.

Bonus:

I received a phone call the other day from Mary Hale Lovett McLean, the oldest grandchild of Edgar Odell Lovett and his wife Mary. I was taken quite by surprise when she told me that the woman on Dr. Lovett’s right in this photo from last week–the one in the dark hat and glasses looking directly at the camera–was in fact her grandmother:

Sadly, Mrs. Lovett, well educated and highly active at Rice and in Houston cultural and social affairs from her arrival, was stricken with severe arthritis at an early age. By the 1930s she was largely housebound and eventually bedridden entirely. For her to be present at this gathering must have taken a supreme effort. I can’t help but feel  the deepest respect and admiration.

Bonus: Her portrait, at left, now hangs in the Woodson.

In Mr. Cohen’s papers I discovered this sequence of campus photos, all apparently taken on the same day in January, 1966. Some of them are exactly what you would expect but others are sort of oddball views. Many of them made me look closely; only one baffled me. Taken together they show a dramatically different place than the one I live in today.

So what do you think this is all about?

Part of the reason I’ve been so immersed in the Cohen House Papers recently is that one of my colleagues has been working on an exhibit about George Cohen. I’ve also been struggling, though, to figure out the answer to one of those nasty little puzzles that present themselves from time to time.

This one has to do with something in this photo–the rectangular area delineated in the lawn by the square tiles:

When did they arrive and when did they disappear? There’s note on the back side of this picture that suggests it was installed in 1928 but I can’t find anything to confirm that. This can be a maddening business—every image I’ve found so far is either unclear, undated or has the lawn just barely out of sight.

However, all this digging has turned up quite a few other interesting things, notably a rose garden off to the side of the faculty club. It’s encircled by a thick and carefully trimmed hedge, rather a curious design choice although definitely a striking one. Here it is, intriguingly, with the already established hedge but new rose plantings:

And here’s a nice view of it at a later date:

I looked at it a half dozen times before I noticed the woman.

Bonus: This left me puzzled for a couple of moments too.

I hate to keep picking on Al Conover, Rice’s head football coach from 1972 to 1975, but these pictures are more than I can resist.

I have no explanation for them, by the way. I find this second one particularly amusing.

A few weeks ago we had a researcher who was using the papers of Rice English Professor George Williams, ’23. While he kindly pointed me to some surprising materials in the second box (for which I’m most grateful), when I looked at Williams’s personal correspondence in Box 1 I was stopped cold.

Williams had left a note in each folder describing the person who wrote the letters and his perspective on their relationship. It was hair raising. He was talking to me. Really, it felt like I was being addressed personally from beyond. This might sound like fun but when you think about it it’s not an unmixed blessing.

Often Williams was telling me new things about people I already knew but sometimes he introduced me to Rice graduates I’d never heard of before. One of these remarkable people is a fellow named Sumter Arnim, ’26. The interesting thing about his senior picture in the Campanile is that there are no extracurricular activities listed, something that wasn’t unheard of but also wasn’t common during these times. After further investigation I’d guess that it was because he was studying.

Here’s Williams’s note:

Sure enough, when I started looking the very first thing I found was an article explaining why Arnim’s face belonged on the Dental Mount Rushmore. It’s rather mind boggling, somewhat like reading about the invention of the forward pass in football. Take a look–it’s well worth it.

Expect more of these notes as I slowly digest all the new information.

Bonus:

Extra Bonus: Go here for gorgeous pictures of Rice from Campus Photographers Tommy Lavergne and Jeff Fitlow.

Really.

Go.

I frequently write about things that have been buried deep in the archives and somehow bubbled their way up. There is, however, another category of amazing items: the stuff that just came in the door.

When I walked in to the Woodson this morning I was immediately met by one of my colleagues who was holding this small gem in her outstretched hands:

It was an RPC/Sid Rich class, non-credit of course, and apparently based on a similar class at Harvard:

The whole thing is interesting, although many of the cocktails sound hideously sweet. I was particularly intrigued by the February 4th topics, which include “Businessman Drinks.” Since Mr. Rice History Corner is by anyone’s definition a businessman I wondered if there might be something for him that I hadn’t already thought of. No such luck–these are basically right on target, although I can’t imagine him drinking a gimlet (or a brandy alexander for that matter):

And many thanks to the gang who put this course together:

Bonus: Hope springs eternal.