Rice History Corner

Guess what?? I am posting this from my car! I’m not even making that up. (I’m not driving, though, don’t worry. I made my husband drive.) The last time my internet went out I got one of those mobile hotspots and I can now creep along the Katy Freeway and post in a leisurely fashion. Truly, we live in an age of miracles.

This week we have Rice students expressing themselves through interpretive dance. Several years ago we got a call from someone in, I believe, the Kinesiology Department. They’d found many, many volumes of scrapbooks, one from each year of intramurals over the course of several decades. If I recall correctly, I moved them to the library in an old laundry cart. In any event, they are full of pictures of the various teams and competitions as well as pretty complete results. I was a little surprised to find these 1953 pictures of an interpretive dance group. I’m not exactly sure how this worked as an intramural event, but you have to hand it to them, they certainly seem to be having a good time.

Update on the organ in the chapel: In what has to be the upset of the year, someone asked to see the second page of the contract for the building of this organ. I am always happy to oblige such requests, and in fact I encourage them. I thought about putting up the third page also, but it’s really nothing but boilerplate and signature lines.

Bonus pictures: I’ve spent quite a bit of time in the old Physics Building as we get ready to begin renovations. I’ve been struck repeatedly both by its beauty and its power to connect us to the people who built the early university. It’s been heartening to see the sensitivity of Rice’s FE&P folks to preserving the integrity of the building and restoring some its glory. I’m very grateful to them.

Anyway, while I was in there I started looking out the windows.

While I was looking at some old slides the other day, I found one that made me really happy. Even several days later I’m nearly beside myself with glee. One day in 1952 someone climbed to the top of the east stands in the football stadium and took a picture looking towards campus. It’s an odd photograph–I’m not really sure what the person who took it was trying to capture. But for me, it’s a dream come true because it shows all the stuff that nobody ever takes pictures of. You have to click on it and zoom in, and even then it’s not the clearest picture I’ve ever seen, but you can find all sorts of wonders.

There’s a smoldering pile of trash, what seems to be a row of hay bales, and–lo and behold–several sheds of the sort that might house mules and mowing equipment. I’m not finished studying this one, but I couldn’t wait to share it.

Bonus picture: Here’s another thing no one would ever take a picture of. It’s a manhole cover, underneath the trees in the middle quad by the RMC. I thought it looked pretty and it’s message is a little mysterious: “Clean water, clear choices.”

Update: A reader who is both alert and diligent did my checking for me and posted the answer in the comments section. (That isn’t, in fact Weiser in the carving. It’s the registrar, Samuel McCann.) Instead of waiting until morning and going to the library, he did it online, here. I should have thought of that, but I didn’t, so Michael Thannish wins the glory this time. I’m extremely grateful for the help! In a small bit of irony, the drawing of the Chemistry Building carvings that he refers to is already scanned and inside my laptop.

Weiser is the dragon in the lower right corner. This is what happens when a dean gets ahold of you.

In an earlier post a talked a little bit about Harry Weiser, who was an early Rice chemist and later Dean. He was recruited by President Lovett in 1915 as a brand new Ph.D. from Cornell and would prove to be one of the stalwarts in the building of the Institute. He was a talented chemist and an able administrator who served as head of the Chemistry Department for thirty-five years. He was also a cheerful and popular teacher, who fell naturally into the role of Dean, which he filled from 1933 until his too-early death in 1950. (He was succeeded by another chemist, Holmes Richter, class of 1926.)

Today I accidentally came across a beautiful picture of him in his office in a scrapbook that belonged to his daughter, Dorothy, when she attended Rice in the mid-1930s. I think this is lovely.

Something about it compelled me to go over to the Chemistry Building and see if I could figure out where it was taken. The building has been remodeled and there’s been some renumbering of the rooms, but this is roughly the same place. It’s Kathy Matthews’ office now. (While I was there, I subtly conned her into taking me for a tour of the new physics building, Brockman Hall. It is absolutely gorgeous–I’ll post some pictures later.)

While I was on my way over there, I remembered this. I’m pretty sure that’s Weiser on the left, although I’m at home and can’t check. Tell you what–I’ll check tomorrow and report back later. Don’t even think about asking me who’s on the right. I have no idea.

Bonus picture: Replacing the floor at Autry Court.

I think its fair to say that I’ve seen quite a few pictures of Lovett Hall. I wouldn’t even hazard a guess as to how many. I’ve seen it in the day, at night, in fog and snow, with brides in the Sallyport and with no one around at all. Top, bottom and sideways. This one stopped me, though. At first I was fixated on whatever that thing is that you can see through the Sallyport. But then I noticed something else.

 Holy Cow–what the heck is that car?!?! At least I assume it’s a car. That’s a car, right? There’s no horse pulling it, so it must be. Click on it, then zoom in and you’ll get a fairly decent look at it. Anyone have any ideas?

Well, I guess technically it’s early evening. I had a really busy day.

Here, circa 1933, are some stalwart Rice dorm dwellers. I don’t think this would even be noteworthy these days.

Actually, I think they met yesterday so we’re probably safe.

Here’s a picture of a much earlier board meeting. There’s no identification of anyone and the photo is undated, although it must have been taken in the late 1960s. (We’ve talked about this before–go id your pictures! Your descendants will thank you.) I’m pretty sure who most of them are, but there are a couple I just don’t know. Let’s have a look:

Click on this a couple times and you can get a very close view.

I’m going to start on the back side of the table at left and go around. Again, most of these I’m pretty certain about but if anyone thinks I’m wrong or knows the ones I don’t, please speak up. I get lost at the right end of the table. So I make it as:

Herbert Allen

Oveta Culp Hobby

Malcolm Lovett, Sr.

George R. Brown

Rice President Kenneth Pitzer

Chancellor Carey Croneis

?

?

Is that Holmes Richter, the Dean?

?

Jim Teague?

Hugh Liedtke

A very young, handsome Ralph O’Connor

I think this must be Gardiner Symonds

One last thing: where do you suppose they’re meeting? It’s such a featureless room it’s impossible to say.

In the slides I was looking at yesterday, I came across this one. It stopped me in my tracks, because it includes Rice trustee Harry Hanszen. Surprisingly, we have very few photos of some of the most important people in our history, including many of the most influential members of our board. (Let me take this opportunity to say that if you have any pictures of previous board members or know someone who does, you really should get in touch with me! I can scan them and give them back.)

Something about this picture doesn't look right to me. I might have scanned it backwards. Anybody have any thoughts?

I knew right away that that’s Hanszen on the right and Houston on the left. The only person identified on the slide, though, is the fellow in the middle, Joe Watson. I’m less confident about this, but I do remember that we had a big football star here with that name at about this time, maybe a bit earlier. I assume that’s him–it’s clearly someone important enough to command the attention of Hanszen and Houston–but I’m working at home today and don’t have all my normal resources at my disposal. I do have, though, a picture of the great 1949 football team in my laptop. It’s a really high quality image too, so if you click on it you can get a good look at these guys.

Holy smokes, look at how thick that hedge behind them is!

I believe that’s our man third from the left in the second row from the bottom. He was quite a fine player.

Update: One of my more alert readers points me to this nice article about the 1949 Owls. Thanks, Bob!

I was looking at a batch of slides from the early 1950s this afternoon when I came across this one. It’s Cohen house, about 1952, from an unusual angle. It was taken essentially from behind– today Allen Center would be to the left of the parked cars and the terrace behind the right side of the building is now the main dining room. The arched window on the bottom in the middle of the building is now over the shoulder of the nice folks who give us the daily special.

Coincidentally, just a week or so ago I found some pictures of a wedding reception held at Cohen House in 1950, so I also have some idea what the interior looked like at about this time. The most notable thing to me is the decoration of the wall in the main lounge area. I think this must have been painted.

My daughter Maggie had her wedding reception in this room.

The man in the middle facing the camera with his hand in his jacket pocket is Hubert Bray, famous as Rice’s first Ph.D. recipient and a long-time member of the mathematics faculty. The very tall, slim man with his back to the camera is William Ward Watkin, the founder of our school of architecture.

So whose wedding was it?

Mechanical Engineering professor Alan Chapman and Marjorie Bray, daughter of Hubert Bray. (Here’s Chapman’s  2007 obituary from Rice News and Media Relations, written by two friends of mine. I still think of Alan nearly daily.)

I wish I could explain why I love this picture so much.

Wh-??

Seriously, though, I think Sammy should always be free to roam about at will during graduation. There are some potentially great gags available.

Just a few tidbits today.

First, for all you commencement fans out there, check out this link to the Woodson Research Center blog. There’s a brand new on-line collection of Rice commencement programs and ephemera where you can get your fill of all kinds of graduation-related materials. Go have a look! I promise you won’t be sorry.

Next, I was looking around inside my laptop and I discovered that at some point I had scanned a picture of the Physics lecture hall taken circa 1916. The room remains remarkably unchanged today, but zoom in and you’ll see that the chalk holder I talked about in a recent post was not there! I had assumed it was original, but it must have been installed later to deal with some sort of insufficient chalk storage situation. I guess they run through a lot of it over there.

Next, one day last week, in classic fashion, I was looking for something but I found something else. Here is the first page of the contract for the organ in the chapel. I was surprised that it was so short: the whole thing is just over two pages long. The organ was built and installed for just over $19,000. It was Newton Rayzor who chose the builder.

Finally, Mike Ross sent me a link to the obituary of Louis Girard, who I featured in a post this week about Rice hockey. I’m passing it along here. Go look at this too. Girard passed away only last December, at the age of 92. He came from Spokane, Washington, which was also the birthplace of my wonderful son-in-law. A lot of the hockey players at Rice in were transplanted northerners–one year U of H dominated the city league after two kids from Montreal enrolled there.