Milligan Library Life

by the staff of P.H. Welshimer Memorial Library & Seminary Library

“Faces of the First Ladies”: New Archives Exhibit at Welshimer Library

Posted on by

The Holloway Archives at Milligan University has recently installed a new exhibit for Fall 2020 in the Welshimer Library. “Faces of the First Ladies: A Photo Exhibit of Milligan’s First Ladies, 1882-1968” displays over two dozen photos of Milligan’s presidential wives, from Sarah LaRue Hopwood to Dorothy Keister Walker. Included in the exhibit are short descriptions of these women, including how long they served as first ladies and who their husbands — the presidents — were.

Perlea Derthick

“The presidents get a lot of the spotlight in Milligan history, but the ladies have an interesting history too,” says Katherine Banks, University Archivist. “Sarah LaRue Hopwood was just as much a part of Milligan’s founding and early years as Josephus was. Perlea Derthick ran the school while Henry was away, which was often. Dorothy Keister Walker was an ordained minister and evangelist in the 1950s and 1960s.”

Dorothy Keister Walker and Dean Walker

May Day Play, Olive Garrett on far right, circa 1896

While many of the photos in the exhibit are portraits of the women, Banks points out that several of them speak to the women’s involvement in the school as well. “Some of the only photos I could find for the early first ladies were of them with a group of faculty or with students,” Banks says.

Additionally, there are some photos of the women that show their personal side. “One of my favorite photos in this exhibit is of Sarah LaRue Hopwood with a parrot on her shoulder! Typically, you think of photos from the late 1800s and early 1900s as being stiff and unsmiling. But this photo breaks that stereotype and speaks to Sarah’s love of animals.”

Sarah LaRue Hopwood, circa 1898

“We’re in a unique position this fall, with the pandemic, which may limit who will be able to see any archival exhibits,” Banks says. “I thought doing an exhibit that was heavily visual would be helpful for having an online version of the exhibit, so that people viewing the exhibit online wouldn’t feel like they were missing anything.” The exhibit is available for online viewing on Milligan DigitalRepository, Milligan’s online archival repository. Although slightly different in format than the physical exhibit, viewers can still see all the same information and photos that they would see in person. For those able to see the exhibit in person, it is available for viewing on the main floor (first floor) of Welshimer Library in the archival exhibit cases.

 

First Ladies of Milligan, 1882-1968:

  • Sarah Eleanor (LaRue) Hopwood, First Lady 1875-1903, 1915-1917
  • Olive Leola (Hanen) Garrett, First Lady 1903-1908
  • Pearl Katherine (Archer) Kershner, First Lady 1909-1911
  • Aileen (Moore) Utterback, First Lady 1911-1913
  • Allie (McCorkel) McDiarmid, First Lady 1913-1914
  • Elizabeth (Murphy) McKissick, First Lady 1914-1915
  • Perlea Derthick, First Lady 1917-1940
  • Florence Elizabeth (Anthony) Burns, First Lady 1940-1944
  • Geneva Dora (Tarr) Elliott, First Lady 1944-1948
  • Mary Lewis, First Lady 1948-1950
  • Florence (Ley) Walker, First Lady 1950-1960
  • Dorothy (Keister) Walker, First Lady 1962-1968

Professor Kellie Brown’s new book reviewed in The Washington Post

Posted on by

Congratulations to Milligan University Music Professor, Kellie D. Brown on the publication of her new book, The Sound of Hope: Music As Solace, Resistance and Salvation During the Holocaust and World War II (McFarland, 2020)!

Milligan Libraries was pleased to host a virtual book launch party for Dr. Brown on July 24. (You can view the party on our YouTube channel here.) But to top this off, we were very excited to learn that the book has just been reviewed (on August 28, 2020) by Ms. Diane Cole in The Washington Post!

I reached out to Professor Brown to ask her how The Post found out about her book. “I really am not sure how The Post picked it up. But I am, of course, very excited. This kind of exposure creates a tipping point for an author. The wide distribution of a book review in The Washington Post coupled with the accompanying credential it endows opens doors for the book both nationally and internationally.”

I asked Brown about the premise of The Sound of Hope and the role music played during the holocaust. “Music is incredibly powerful. That is the ultimate premise of my book. It can be used to uplift and comfort, and it can also be used to manipulate and deceive. The Nazis were quite effective in their use of music as a weapon, forcing prisoners to perform to entertain the SS in concentration camps. They also used music as a practical means to cover the sounds of screaming during torture. It was also used as psychological manipulation as musicians were forced to play near gas chambers and convoy arrivals to create an appearance that ‘all was well’ for the new arrivals.

“Music was used as part of a meticulously conceived plan to deceive the Red Cross contingent who came to inspect the Terezín concentration camp. The Red Cross representatives were treated to numerous staged concerts by prisoners who were dressed up to look like they were faring well, while all the while, they were starving to death.

“But also, music featured prominently as a way to bring solace or spiritual resistance. People sang together in the cattle cars as they were transported to camps, and they sang together in defiance as they were being hauled into gas chambers. They sang or played or composed in defiance of a group of people (Nazis) who wanted to say that they did not matter, that they were subhuman and that their culture would be erased. Music served as salvation literally for many people who proved useful to the Nazis as musicians and so were kept alive and were able to see the liberation of their camps.”

Finally, other than being excited, I asked Professor Brown if she had any specific thoughts about The Washington Post review. “I think it is important to note how the reviewer is comparing the premise of my book, which is that music has a incredible power to affect and influence individuals and groups of individuals, to the way music has arisen during the pandemic as a means of comfort and solidarity. I support this to a point. I also know that whatever we are going through right now in a virus pandemic can never, nor should it be, equated with the intentional genocide of millions of people. I hope that when readers of The Sound of Hope draw a contemporary parallel that it will be with the renewed quest for racial justice that has been ignited in our country.”

More information about Dr. Kellie Brown’s book, including purchasing information, can be found at The Sound of Hope Facebook page, McFarland & Company, Inc. Publishers, and Amazon.com. Read other reviews on Goodreads.

New Books and Media Received (June-August 2020)

Posted on by

The following Books and DVDs (89 items) were received into the Library collections at Welshimer and Seminary Libraries through expense accounts and by donation during June, July, and August 2020. Received books include a backlog of donations added to the collection this summer, many of which are for the Gail Phillips Collection.

Welshimer Library

Archives
The sound of hope: music as solace, resistance and salvation during the Holocaust and World War II by Kellie D. Brown, 2020.

Seminary Library

History
White men’s magic: scripturalization as slavery, 2014.

Language and Literature
Going deeper with New Testament Greek: an intermediate study of the grammar and syntax of … the New Testament., 2020.

Women talking: a novel, 2020.

Philosophy, Psychology, and Religion
Advances in the study of Biblical Hebrew and Aramaic: new insights for reading the Old Testament, 2020.

Brown church: five centuries of Latina/o social justice, theology, and identity, 2020.

Chrysostom’s devil: demons, the will, and virtue in patristic soteriology, 2020.

Defending shame: its formative power in Paul’s letters, 2020.

Demons and spirits in biblical theology: reading the biblical text in its cultural and literary context, 2019.

Evangelical theologies of liberation and justice, 2019.

In the eye of the animal: zoological imagination in ancient Christianity, 2018.

John Henry Newman on truth and its counterfeits: a guide for our times, 2020.

A life of Alexander Campbell, 2020.

Love makes no sense: an invitation to Christian theology, 2019.

Qualitative research: a multi-methods approach to projects for Doctor of Ministry theses, 2011.

Sexuality in the New Testament: understanding the key texts, 2010.

A story of YHWH: cultural translation and subversive reception in Israelite history, 2020.

Vulnerability and glory: a theological account, 2010.

The word made flesh: a theology of the incarnation, 2019.

Social Sciences
The mother of all questions, 2017.

Reference
The Oxford handbook of the Phoenician and Punic Mediterranean, 2019.

New Testament Seminar
The Gospel as manuscript: an early history of the Jesus tradition as material artifact, 2020.

Images of ancient Greek pederasty: boys were their gods, 2010.

The moral teaching of Paul: selected issues, 2009.

Narratology by Genevieve Liveley, 2019.

Place of Judas Iscariot in Christology, 2017.

Donated Gift Items to the Milligan Libraries
Ask another question: the story & meaning of Passover.

Auschwitz, 1270 to the present.

Bedtime Bible stories.

The beginning of the Reformation: Wittenberg in 1517.

The beginning reader’s Bible.

Bible stories of boys and girls.

Bible stories that live.

The Bible story: from the American Standard edition of the revised Bible.

The blood of his servants.

The Catholic Bible in pictures.

The Catholic children’s Bible.

A child is born: the story for children.

Children’s stories from the Bible and today.

The end of the Holocaust: the liberation of the camps.

Escape from Sobibor.

The facts of life: three-dimensional, movable illustrations show the development of a baby from conception to birth.

Fire in the bread, life in the body: the pheumatology of Ephrem the Syrian.

The five books of Moses for young people.

Franklin and Eleanor: an extraordinary marriage.

God gave me eyes.

God is always there with Booker Bear.

God is my helper.

God sent His Son.

Have faith & pray with Whistler the Dog.

Heroes of the Bible.

La historia de Navidad: según los Evangelios de Mateo y Lucas.

An honourable defeat: a history of German resistance to Hitler, 1933-1945.

Hunter and hunted; human history of the holocaust.

I learn about the fruit of the Holy Spirit.

I pray with the prayer circle friends.

I’ve Decided I Want My Seat Back.

Jagendorf’s foundry: memoir of the Romanian Holocaust, 1941-1944.

Jesus: the little new baby.

Jesus and his disciples.

Jesus goes to school.

Jesus with us.

The journey back from hell: an oral history: conversations with concentration camp survivors.

King James II: New Testament, including Beautiful Bible stories for little eyes and ears.

Lest innocent blood be shed: the story of the village of Le Chambon and how goodness happened there.

Men of tomorrow; stories from the Bible for youth of today.

Michelangelo in Ravensbrück: one woman’s war against the Nazis.

Milligan mayhem.

Nightmares: memoirs of the years of horror under Nazi rule in Europe 1939-1945.

The NIV standard lesson commentary: International Sunday school lessons.

Off the record: the private papers of Harry S. Truman.

Out on a limb: the story of Zacchaeus.

Palestine: peace not apartheid.

Paper walls: America and the refugee crisis, 1938-1941.

The Picture Bible: New Testament.

Pray when you’re in trouble with Eunice the lamb.

Read-n-grow picture Bible.

Reclaiming the Old Testament for Christian preaching.

Seasoned with love: a collection of recipes.

Shoah: an oral history of the Holocaust: the complete text of the film.

Shtetl: the life and death of a small town and the world of Polish Jews.

The sound of hope: music as solace, resistance and salvation during the Holocaust and World War II, by Kellie D. Brown.

Syriac medicine and Ḥunayn ibn Isḥāq’s Arabic translation of the Hippocratic Aphorisms.

Tennessee’s battered brigadier: the life of General Joseph B. Palmer, CSA.

This life therefore.

The two sons.

Uncle Jim’s stories from the New Testament.

Wonder of Easter/La maravilla de la Resurrección.

Zaccheus meets Jesus.

 

Library continues community engagement virtually with Story Time and Finals Week Therapy Animals

Posted on by

Recently, I reported how Milligan Libraries successfully pivoted to holding its 10th Annual Edible Books Festival virtually after the campus was closed and classes were moved online better than halfway through Spring semester, in response to shelter-in-place orders surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic. We are a library that highly values opportunities to engage with our user community. We have very much missed meeting students and faculty in the library buildings.

We talked as a staff about how we could maintain library services and community engagement during this time. We felt pretty good that we were prepared to deliver needed information resources through a wide array of electronic content accessible from the library website, and we regularly monitor our communication channels (telephone, email, and chat) to respond in a timely way to requests for research assistance. But we knew more informal engagement would require some creativity.

Library Story Time

In addition to the aforementioned virtual Edible Books Festival, we were pleased to invite members of the faculty to record readings of favorite children’s story books and post them in the Library Story Time course on Canvas. We collected 10 readings (with the permission of the publishers) and posted these throughout the month of April. These included:

  • Are You ready to Play Outside? by Mo Willems, read by Research and Instruction Librarian Mary Jackson
  • Hooway for Wodney Wat by Helen Lester, read by Associate Professor of Counseling Christine Browning
  • Rosie Revere, Engineer by Andrea Beaty, read by Associate Professor of Counseling Shauna Nefos-Webb
  • What Do You Do With a Chance? by Kobi Yamada, read by Professor of Music Kellie Brown
  • Inside, Outside, Upside Down by Stan and Jan Berenstain, read by Associate Professor of Nursing Mary Fabick
  • The Velveteen Rabbit by Margery Williams, read by Professor of History and Humanities Tim Dillon
  • Click, Clack, Moo Cows That Type by Doreen Cronin, read by Professor of Psychology Lori Mills
  • The Old Woman and The Pig an Old English tale retold by Assistant Professor of Business Administration Kristal Dove
  • El Arbol Generoso (The Giving Tree) by Shel Silverstein, read in Spanish by Associate Professor of Spanish and Humanities Allysha Martin
  • Voyage to the Bunny Planet by Rosemary Wells, read by Associate Professor of Bible and Humanities John Jackson

Virtual Therapy Animals

At the end of every semester since Fall 2013 the Welshimer Library has received special guests during Final Exam Week. Therapy dogs and their owner/trainers — and occasionally kittens, too — would come in to help students cope with this stressful time. Obviously, this wouldn’t be possible this semester. Though not the same, perhaps, we thought we could still deliver the experience of animal visits to students virtually. User Services Librarian Catherine Hammer assembled several video playlists on our YouTube channel, featuring, therapy dogs and cats, cute baby animals, and videos that are relaxing by virtue of their satisfaction they provide while viewing.

Finals Week is winding down — along with the semester and the school year — but there is always time to watch dog, cat, and cute baby animal videos, right?

Milligan Libraries hopes you had a great year, even though the last part was disruptive and a little strange. We hope you have a good summer. Please stay healthy and safe. If you are not graduating, we look forward to seeing you in the Fall!

10th Annual Edible Books Festival goes virtual!

Posted on by

Planning was underway for Milligan Libraries’ 10th Annual Edible Books Festival when the word came down that Spring Break was to be extended for another week and then the campus was to be closed due to the growing threat of the COVID-19 pandemic. With available time shortened, and then with classes moving online for the rest of the semester, what was to become of Edible Books on this auspicious anniversary? Would we have to cancel? No! We would just move the festival online along with classes! “Most folks will be home and close to their kitchens,” reasoned Research and Instruction Librarian Mary Jackson. “In some ways it will be easier for them to bake something up at home than if they were on campus.”

As the name suggests, the simple idea behind the Edible Books Festival is that persons create and submit an edible treat with a book theme. Beyond this there aren’t many rules. The idea originated with the founding of the International Edible Books Festival around 2000. We held our first festival at Welshimer Library in April of 2011. Since then, it has become a Spring tradition — a special event to engage with the Milligan College community.

In normal years, Milligan students, faculty, staff, and family members would submit their entries in person to the Welshimer Room at the Library. On the first day folks would cast votes for Most Creative, Funniest/Punniest, and Overall Favorite. Then on the morning of the second day library staff would sample from the entries to determine the Tastiest entry before the Milligan community was invited back to Welshimer to taste from all the entries. Winning entries each receive a prize.

This year, beginning on Monday, March 30, folks submitted photos of their entry/ies via email along with their name and book title(s). Entries were received through Monday, April 13. We received 28 entries — the most we’ve ever had.

On the days leading up to the submission deadline, highlights from the previous nine Edible Books Festivals were featured on our Instagram channel. An album of entries was created on our Facebook channel, and voting commenced on Tuesday and Wednesday. Using unique emojis, folks voted for their Most Creative, Funniest/Punniest, and Overall Favorite. Unfortunately, this year we could not award a Tastiest entry — though it appears Katherine and her brother are enjoying her entry:

Though not as uniform as when folks voted in person, online voting was still pretty brisk. And the winners are:

Most Creative, awarded a $5 Dunkin’ gift card, went to Katherine Eldridge for How the Grinch Stole Graduation! by Dr. Seuss (receiving 65 total votes)

Funniest/Punniest, also awarded a $5 Dunkin’ gift card, went to Mary Jackson for Pigs in Heaven by Barbara Kingsolver (receiving 40 total votes)

Overall Favorite, awarded a $10 Dunkin’ gift card, went to Jenny Simonsen for Winnie the Pooh by A.A. Milne (receiving 107 total votes)

Congratulations to our winners, and thank you to everyone who participated in our 10th Edible Books Festival! “I wasn’t really sure what to expect,” said Mary Jackson. “But we had the highest number of entries we have ever had! There was a lot voting and sharing on Facebook. I am very pleased with how it turned out.” If you haven’t already done so, be sure to take a look at all the entries on our Facebook event photo album.