Rice History Corner

The kid on the bike looks pretty old to be a freshman, no?

Because it’s Friday, I went ahead and left this photo uncropped. I’m just nuts like that sometimes.

It was a parking lot from the beginning, but people didn’t always park the same way. In 1921 it was totally random, helter-skelter:

Later on things got regimented. This photograph is clearly significantly later but it isn’t dated. I bet I have readers who can figure it out:

Bonus:

Remember these guys, framed by the oak leaves in front of Lovett Hall?

Here’s another image with the oak leaf frame, this one facing the other direction:

And in the same batch we find the trees themselves, quite a bit larger than I had expected, flanking the Sallyport:

I feel like these two pictures were taken somewhat later than the first one, maybe in the very late ’70s or even early ’80s. I can’t help but notice a couple of other things. The hedges, frankly, look pretty ratty. I also hadn’t known that there were hedges right in the middle of the quad where the old road had been. And what a motley group of trees along the edge–it looks like a single Italian Cypress and then some other kinds I can’t identify right now.

Bonus:

I know I must have seen this photo before, but when I picked it up yesterday it struck me as surprising. We have many images of early campus construction in the files but very few of them show this kind of wide view.

As someone who was reduced to a jibbering mess by a house renovation job a few years ago, this picture is mind boggling. That’s just too much construction all at once–and bear in mind that the photographer seems to have been standing on the foundation of yet another building (South Hall). I would have been quivering in a corner.

Special Treat: Here’s the back side of the photograph.

A later archivist adds her own label to the original label: “Miss Dean‘s handwriting.” Then she adds another label to a second label, the one that notes “Mr. Watkin, Mr. Waldo”: “Pender Turnbull‘s.” So who’s the third archivist who thought to tell me who labeled the photo in the first place? Pretty sure it was Ola Moore, who came to work in Fondren in 1962 and stayed until her retirement. (I don’t know when that was.) Just to complete our tour of beloved Rice librarians, here’s Mrs. Moore’s reminiscence (from a 1984 Flyleaf) of Sarah Lane:

MISS LANE: 

A PERSONAL REMEMBRANCE 

Ola Zachry Moore 

Few people are as beloved as Miss Sarah Louise 
Lane; still fewer have her reputation for service to Rice. 
Thoughts of a very special friend conjure up particular 
mental images of that person. So it is with Miss Lane. 

Two qualities leap to mind immediately when her 
name is mentioned; one is her enthusiasm, the other is 
her helpfulness. In her years at Rice, first as a Rice 
Institute student and graduate of the class of 1919, later 
as advisor to women and finally as head of the 
circulation department in the library and skillful 
restorer of books, she never volunteered advice but was 
always available for counsel and willing to help with a 
problem when asked. No one can remember ever 
seeing her lose her temper or act in an unbecoming 
manner. Yet Miss Lane was never "stuffy". 

Her position as head of the circulation department 
was certainly one of the most difficult in the library and 
yet she managed it with poise and without ever being 
discourteous to an irate patron. Firm she could be but 
never impolite nor rude. Her student assistants and 
members of her staff were expected to do their jobs 
pleasantly and efficiently without shirking their duties 
but in turn, they were treated fairly and with con- 
sideration. Miss Lane ran a tight ship but a fair one. Her 
tall graceful figure behind the circulation desk was a 
familiar sight to students, faculty and staff for many 
years as was the ever-present bouquet of fresh flowers 
or a pot plant on her desk. 

Flowers and plants came under her spell too but it 
was only after her retirement from her full-time 
position as head of circulation that she had time to join 
a garden club and take up flower arranging. Here, as in 
all other matters, she entered into this new endeavor 
with characteristic enthusiasm and became in a very 
short time a much-loved member of another organi- 
zation; this time the Southhamptom Garden Club. 

Miss Sarah Lane took early retirement from the 
Fondren in 1962 shortly after I began working in the 
library. Her retirement party was held at Cohen House 
in a private dining room filled to overflowing with 
library friends. There were speeches, and gifts and 
finally a scroll with an overly-elaborate (and totally 
unplanned) curlicue attached to one of the capital 
letters caused by a wayward drop of gold ink! (This was 
my first scroll!) Our friendship began then and grew 
and flourished when she returned to the Fondren to 
start an in-house project to mend some of our ailing 
books. In this new capacity of bookbinder, restorer and 
mender of books, Miss Lane continued her long- 
established tradition of service to the Rice University. 

Miss Lane's new domain for repairing books was a 
special area on the fifth floor of the library where she 
had a spectacular view of the campus on three sides 
and, with a few steps to the front of the building, could 
see Lovett Hall on the fourth side. Here she lovingly 
worked her magic on countless distressed books in all 
stages of disrepair, spending as much time as was 
needed to return each one to usefulness. 

She had originally accepted this new challenge with 
the understanding that she receive the current student 
hourly wage for her work so she would not feel guilty 
spending extra time repairing books that needed more 
than the usual care to return them to circulation. This 
arrangement also meant that her work schedule could 
be flexible — she could travel when the opportunity 
presented itself or schedule her work early in the 
morning on those days she expected guests for lunch! 

While Miss Lane was "in residence" on the fifth 
floor of the library, she had the charming habit of 
inviting several library staff members to join her for 
luncheon from time to time. The group was always 
varied and guests were often of different ages and 
backgrounds, male and female. Such an invitation to 
lunch in her cozy little brick house on Wroxton was a 
coveted one. It was an experience to be savoured and 
remembered with pleasure long after the fact. Not only 
was the food always superb (Miss Lane was a marvel in 
the kitchen) but conversation was spirited and fun. It 
was impossible for a shy guest to remain so for long. 
The hostess was so vibrant and interested in everyone 
that she made each person feel at ease and made them 
enjoy being part of the group. 

After the meal, if there were time before guests had 
to return to work. Miss Lane could sometimes be 
persuaded to "show" and talk about some of the 
"treasures" she had brought back from her most recent 
trip. These journeys often included visits to Rice 
friends all over the world since her gypsy feet took her 
to many out-of-the-way places. Her mementos of these 
travels provided the visual images for many of her 
interesting stories about her trips. 

Because of her friendliness, her warmth and her 
interest in people, interesting things seemed to happen 
to Miss Lane. She was often able to bridge and to 
overcome the dual barriers of a foreign language and 
unfamiliar customs in countries often difficult for 
strangers, particularly Western ones. She took no pre- 
conceived prejudices into the countries she visited nor 
did she impose her own set of values on the culture of a 
host country. Instead, her genuine interest in the world 
around her made it easy for her to enjoy the culture of 
whichever country she was visiting. 

It is easy to see how Miss Lane has endeared herself 
to Rice. She attracted friends like a magnet and they 
were of all kinds and ages because she is ageless. A 
"doer" at Rice, she was always involved in some 
interesting activity that she was willing to share with 
friends. This might have been a drive down south of 
Houston for several pounds of pecans or it could have 
included a trip to a local flower show or even a visit to 
the yearly Customs Auction. But whatever the activity, 
just being with Miss Lane was sure to be fun!

It’s been impossible for me to read the stories about the implosion of the old Foley’s building on Main Street without thinking about George Cohen, who both built Foley’s into Houston’s biggest department store and gave Rice Cohen House. He was an extremely generous and civic-minded gentleman as well as a brilliant businessman and he was also, I think it’s fair to say, a bit of a character. This summer we were given his scrapbook and some other memorabilia by a family member and it was packed with   photographs and papers from a long and eventful life. Here’s my favorite, a piece that appeared in the Post in January, 1959, as part of a regular series of personality pieces called “Titled Texan.” It’s kind of a winding tale and a fascinating look at how Houston worked in those days.

In truth, it’s hard to imagine what Rice would have been like without Cohen House. In its early years, when the Institute was still so isolated from the rest of Houston, it provided a indispensable arena for camaraderie and hospitality on campus. For decades it was the center of faculty life and work. Among the things in the scrapbook I found this resolution that the Rice faculty presented to Mr. Cohen’s wife, Esther, after his death in 1972:

And here’s an image from one of the Cohen’s not-to-be-missed New Year’s Eve extravaganzas, held each year in Cohen House for the entire Rice faculty. Left to right are Ken and Jean Pitzer, Mildred and William Houston and Esther and George Cohen:

Bonus: Here’s Alex Dessler, who signed the resolution above as Chairman of the Faculty Club board.

I’ve had a pretty rough week. I could sure use a little of this TLC. Plus a mani/pedi.

That’s the great Eddie Wojecki, by the way, Rice’s head athletic trainer from 1945 until 1967. I think I’ll write about him next week.

Let’s turn back for a moment, shall we, to those shots of the construction of the Math Sciences Building. It’s almost finished here in this image from the summer of 1968. It’s kind of hard to see but if you zoom in and squint a little you can see that the sign now reads “Herman Brown Hall” instead of “Mathematical Sciences” as it did earlier. Sadly, you can also clearly see the very beginning of the end for the big parking lot behind the Chemistry Building.

One of the unusual things in this batch of pictures is that there are some images of the building’s interior. This one was taken in June:

And this one is from August:

I was just in this building the day before yesterday and it’s as charming as ever:

Bonus: I couldn’t find a place to park after lunch today. In the stadium lot. Seriously.

The Remnant

This is one of the funniest labels I’ve ever seen on a picture in these archives.

“This guy is some successful Houston architect. I’ll remember his name eventually.” Why would you bother to write that down?!? I don’t recognize the handwriting, by the way, and it was with materials that came out of the gym before the renovations a few years ago. I think it must be Barry Moore, (’62). Can anyone confirm?

I had a really busy afternoon and can’t muster the strength to say too much right now. I did come across this today, though, and I didn’t notice right away that Jess Neely was the subject of the photo.

As you’ve no doubt surmised, I was more interested in the sprinklers. The playing field in the new stadium was originally grass and it remained grass for twenty years, at which point Brown and Root tore it out and put in that newfangled artificial turf. Back in 1950, building the playing surface came pretty near the end of the construction process. I happen to have some photos of it being built right here in my back pocket so I can give you something else to look at tonight. The dirt that you see being put down here was scraped out in 1970 in preparation for the new field and spread around other sites on campus. It’s probably still with us, which I find comforting.

One other thing: I once stood on that artificial turf while shooting a video and it was the hottest thing I’ve ever touched that wasn’t on fire. I actually felt like my shoes were going to melt.

Orvetta Weston Masterson c 1960

Another batch of materials from the Masterson family arrived at the Woodson recently and contained within are the most remarkable artifacts of the early college system that I have ever seen. For each of their first four years in the master’s house, Vetta Masterson, the wife of Hanszen’s first master, William Masterson, kept a notebook. They seem to have been primarily used to keep track of entertaining expenses but Mrs. Masterson frequently wrote as though she were keeping a journal, describing their experiences with the students, faculty associates and visitors. It begins with a long description of moving into the brand new master’s house on March 23, 1957 and soon moves on to stories of various social occasions, many of them of a sort long since vanished. The details of the dinners and teas are both homely–how many cans of pineapple for the salad–and redolent of a world that I can see, but can’t touch.

Hanszen House front courtyard 1965

An entry from the fall of 1957 brought a smile to my face. Then as now Rice’s History Department had significant strength in the history of the American South, including Dr. Masterson himself as well as Frank Vandiver. It seems that Southern Historical Association held its annual meeting in Houston that year and the Mastersons threw a dinner party in Hanszen House for some of the attendees. Here’s Mrs. Masterson’s account of the evening. I would point out only two things. First, the guest list is impressive. These were important people. And second, since moving in in March, the Mastersons had been plagued by both unfortunately timed torrential rain storms and malfunctioning domestic equipment. Go ahead and read it. It’s a wild, preposterous story and absolutely everything about it rings true to me. I do not believe that the behavior of Civil War historians would be any different today, fifty years later.