The Deans' Bible. Angie Klink

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СКАЧАТЬ with leather ties at the binding and a metal Purdue medallion affixed to the center of its cover contains the original handwritten petition for a charter. The mellow gold pages are filled with particulars and photographs about the University. Under the lovely handwritten words “Purdue Facts,” the text eloquently states the mantra of the land-grand institution: “Purdue’s sole cause for existence is service to the people of the state, not only in the training of young people here on the campus, but in the carrying of information out to residents of the state unable to come to the institution for its advantages.”

      The scrapbook contains black and white photographs of each “active” and a listing of her activities. Each woman smiles from under her Roaring Twenties hat and drop-waist dress.

      The group would provide scholarships to many women who would otherwise be unable to obtain a college education. The money for the scholarships was raised through Mortar Board-sponsored events, such as the “coed bid dance” and the Gingham Gallop held each spring. In subsequent years, each succeeding Purdue dean of women and dean of students would be a member and advisor to Mortar Board.

      Today, the national headquarters for Mortar Board is located in Columbus, Ohio, as an affiliate of Ohio State University. In 2014, Mortar Board’s third executive director is Jane Hamblin, a Purdue University graduate who formerly worked in Purdue’s Office of the Dean of Students.

      At the encouragement of the men’s athletic booster group, the Gimlet Club, the Purdue Mortar Board organized a junior and senior women’s athletic booster club called the Gold Peppers. Adorning their heads, the Gold Pepper women wore gold felt beanies called “pots.” The Gold Peppers served as Purdue’s pep club. They attended football and basketball games where they sold candy and led the crowds in cheers

      In the early years, a newly elected pledge wore a black pot, one gold and one black bobby sock, and a black and gold armband. She carried a cigar box filled with candy and, dangling from a ribbon, a real green pepper gilded in gold leaf. The pledge carried the pepper for days, and often it would rot. After the pledge became a full-fledged active member of the group, she turned her beanie inside out and displayed the celebrated gold side that was decorated with an image of a pepper.

      In the stands and on the bleachers the audience was “peppered” with gold pots. After World War II, the women organized veterans’ dances known as “Pepper Shakers.”

      In the 1960s, the Gold Peppers celebrated the end of their yearly activities with a “Smarty Party” to honor high-achieving sophomore women and award an annual scholarship to one of those entering graduate school. The Gold Peppers disbanded in the 1970s. Women and society had changed. Wearing a gold pot was outmoded, and by then, the term had taken on a new meaning in the slang prevalent on college campuses.

      SARAH ELY WAS A MEMBER of the Community House Association in Lafayette, where Carolyn was active. Sarah married her boss, Thomas Duncan, who founded the Duncan Electrical Manufacturing Company in 1901 in Lafayette. Duncan Electric produced electrical meters that were used in homes and businesses around the world. Thomas Duncan was an inventor and industrialist who held 150 patents. He traveled to Europe and took a safari tour of Africa in 1922. Upon his return, he wanted to entertain his wide circle of friends with his movies and a lecture about his adventures. He engaged the entire first floor of the Community House for his travelogue, but he found it too small. It was then that he decided to make provisions in his will for the creation of “an adequate hall” for the people of Lafayette. When he died in 1929, Duncan left money to the Community House Association to construct a new building where the Victorian house once stood.

      A new two-story, redbrick Georgian colonial with stone trim and a slate roof was constructed in 1931. The structure boasted walnut panel walls, marble floors, a balcony overlooking a ballroom, richly decorated meeting rooms, a tearoom, and live-in hostess quarters. As stipulated in Duncan’s will, a board of thirty women was to be elected to manage the facility. The regal building still graces Ferry Street, where citizens hold wedding receptions, piano recitals, quilt shows, concerts, art shows, club meetings, and teas. Duncan provided the money for the hall, but it had been Carolyn who originally energized the idea of a community hall back in 1914 through her speech, “Civic Needs.”

      On March 1, 1933, Carolyn was scheduled to speak at Duncan Hall to the educational and social group called the Twentieth Century Club, but she failed to show. Members of the club attempted to locate her, calling her office and her home in Varsity Apartments, located a block from the Purdue Memorial Union. Unable to contact Carolyn, club members became alarmed, for she seldom missed a meeting in which she provided the program reviewing the latest current literature. The club contacted the office of Purdue’s President Edward C. Elliott and spoke with Helen Hand, Elliott’s secretary. Helen checked the University calendar and determined there was no record of any engagement to account for the dean’s absence. Helen then contacted a janitor at the Varsity Apartments to check Carolyn’s home.

      The janitor unlocked Carolyn’s door that afternoon and found the dean lying on her bed, unconscious. It appeared that she had been stricken while she prepared to retire the prior evening. The newspaper account read: “The lights were burning. The morning milk bottles had not been taken in, and papers at her office, placed under the door, had not been disturbed. Nor her mail touched. She had only one class in English scheduled for 11 a.m. Thursday, and her absence from it had not been reported.”

      Physicians were summoned, and Carolyn was rushed by ambulance to St. Elizabeth Hospital in Lafayette. The newspaper stated that after her arrival at the hospital, Carolyn uttered a few words to one of the Catholic sisters on staff, which indicated she was partly conscious for a time, but she never spoke again. Carolyn died of apoplexy and acute uremia that night.

      Today, apoplexy is referred to as a stroke. Uremia is a condition that results from kidney failure. Some accounts say that Carolyn passed away from nephritis, which is inflammation of the nephrons in the kidneys caused by infections, toxins, or autoimmune diseases. Carolyn had not complained of feeling ill and had gone about her numerous duties as usual, so her sudden passing stunned all who knew her.

      The newspaper headline the day after Carolyn’s death stated, “Community Shocked by Death of Dean Carolyn Shoemaker.” Carolyn’s funeral was at Central Presbyterian Church, where she had taught Sunday school. Pastor W. R. Graham said, “The key to the amazing life of service of Dean Shoemaker was selflessness.” She was referred to as “a student, teacher, executive, club woman, alert citizen, and ‘foster mother’ to an ever changing and ever increasing host of young people.”

      The newspaper said of Carolyn: “She was a deep student of human nature, sympathetic and helpful to all. Her philanthropies were so numerous and extensive that she seemed to overlook completely her own comforts and convenience. From her vast store of literary information and understanding, was able to act as guide and interpreter of books and writers. At the same time her own personality served to awaken new interest in the subjects she discussed.”

      Carolyn’s casket was covered with a blanket of red roses, a tribute from the University she loved. All of the student organizations of Purdue honored their cherished dean with a huge spray of calla lilies and roses. Relatives and University officials asked that all others omit flowers and instead give to the newly established Carolyn E. Shoemaker Scholarship fund. Carolyn was buried in Springvale Cemetery in Lafayette.

      Purdue held a memorial service in Eliza Fowler Hall on April 19, 1933. President Elliott presided. He and Harry G. Leslie, the governor of Indiana who was born in West Lafayette, spoke to the crowd of their personal loss.

      Marion L. Smith, a student, recounted a story that Carolyn had told during a speech to a group of coeds the previous October. Paraphrased, the story describes a morning СКАЧАТЬ