Search results

Title: Reed, Amy Louise, 1872-1949 -- Memorial Minute:
Creator: Belding, Ellinor, Sague, Mary Landon, Sandison, Helen E.
Description
Date: [After 1949]
Text: < My y AMY LOUISE REED November 22, 1872 - January 2h, l9h9 Wisdom and humanity are the qualities that must always be associated with the name of Amy Reed by all who knew her. Throughout her long service as an active member of the faculty of Vassar College colleagues and students alike relied on her judgment, for it was always sound and given with the understanding of a large minded, large souled woman. Even in retirement she made friends among the younger and newer members of the...
Show more< My y AMY LOUISE REED November 22, 1872 - January 2h, l9h9 Wisdom and humanity are the qualities that must always be associated with the name of Amy Reed by all who knew her. Throughout her long service as an active member of the faculty of Vassar College colleagues and students alike relied on her judgment, for it was always sound and given with the understanding of a large minded, large souled woman. Even in retirement she made friends among the younger and newer members of the community who, like her older friends, found themselves turning to her for advice and for friendship. Her services to the faculty were incalculable. When discussions in faculty meeting were straying to non- essentials or into apparently insoluble oppositions she would rise and bring them back to commonsense and co- hesion with words at once downright, simple and full of humor. The faculty committees on which she worked, always actively, are almost the total roster of our com- mittees. She gave vital service to all the activities of the campus community and to many in town. Her connection with Vassar goes back to 1888, when she entered as a freshman; and, except for two years of graduate study at Yale,.it was continuous after l9Oh, when she became an instructor in the English Department. As a younger associate of Professor Laura Wylie, whose great leadership she followed with comprehension and sturdy independence, she herself became one of the form- ative elements in English teaching here. Her mark is on the thinking of the Vassar English department today; and her sane and liberal ideas have influenced many a teacher elsewhere through her constructive work in such organizations as the School and College Conference on English. She left her characteristic impress on the Library also. Though without professional training for the post, she was appointed head librarian in 1910, because of her rich and humane knowledge of books. During her eleven years in this position her broad vision of long-range problems set a pattern that has remained valid. Her searching, critical concept of the place of the library in a liberal arts college insured vitality to the work in her time and has provided a stimulus to the library staff, even to the present day. 3 F 4 1 ? I AMY LOUISE REED (Continued) She directed faculty plays in the old days, and she herself walked the stage, the very figure of her "great Dr. Johnson". Her chairmanship of the fif- tieth anniversary celebration was a vast practical and educational achievement; this occasion marked the inauguration of President MacCracken, who always recognized her as in a sense "the dean of us all". She composed the pageant of the Canterbury Pilgrims, one of the most memorable of Vassar's outdoor theatre pro- ductions. Sometimes in leisure hours she wrote mem- ories of her girlhood in the New York of the 70's and 80's; to hear her read a chapter aloud, - to see the twinkle of her eyes and hear the irresistible quality of her laughter, - was the delight of her friends. She returned to the English department in 1920 and taught through l9hh. In l92h she received the Doctorate from Columbia University, publishing then her "Back- ground of Gray's Elegy" and later her edition of "Let- ters from Brook Farm‘, evidences of a scholarship that permeated her daily thinking and teaching. It is pri- marily as a teacher that she will be remembered by many generations of Vassar students. In the last few weeks alumnae have written about her as a valued teacher, a wise“ humorous, friendly person who always remembered and placed you", who "wore her learning so lightly that one was aware of it merely as an enrich- ment of herself". A foreign student writes "she is more to me than just the patient teacher who helped me, struggling with English, and tried to make me under- stand American Literature. She is the warmest of friends, and the most open minded spirit. I shall always remember her as a great personality and as a woman who could understand so well human nature". The whole community mourns the loss of a great woman, a great leader, and a great friend. Ellinor Belding Mary L. Sague Helen E. Sandison XII - 305-306
Show less

Title: Conrow, Georgianna, 1878-1954 -- Memorial Minute:
Creator: Sague, Mary Landon, Thomson, Vera, de Schweinitz, Margaret
Description
Date: [After 1954]
Text: I i \ \ I 1 I 1 esoacranm comzow 1878 - 195k Associate Professor Emeritus Georgianna Conrow was born on January 26, 1878 in Moorestown, New Jersey and died in Poughkeepsie on November 19, l9Sh. She received the A.B. and M.A. degrees from Cornell University, and subsequently continued her studies at Columbia and Cornell, and in Switzerland and France. In l923 she was awarded the Dipl$me de l'Ecole des Professeurs de frangais a l'etranger from the University of Paris. She came to...
Show moreI i \ \ I 1 I 1 esoacranm comzow 1878 - 195k Associate Professor Emeritus Georgianna Conrow was born on January 26, 1878 in Moorestown, New Jersey and died in Poughkeepsie on November 19, l9Sh. She received the A.B. and M.A. degrees from Cornell University, and subsequently continued her studies at Columbia and Cornell, and in Switzerland and France. In l923 she was awarded the Dipl$me de l'Ecole des Professeurs de frangais a l'etranger from the University of Paris. She came to Vassar College in 1905, after teaching in high schools in New'York State and New Jersey, and retired in l9h6. During her many years of service in the French Department Miss Conrow taught students at all levels of their progress - from the beginners, to whom she gave particular care and encouragement, up to the class in Molibre, a subject which was especially congenial to her lively sense of humor. She made an invaluable contribution to the smooth functioning of the department. Faithful in all things,she never con- sidered any task too small to receive scrupulous attention. In discussion of policy matters one could depend on her for a word of good counsel, given at the right time, and founded on experience and wise judgment. In 1925 Miss Conrow was elected Secretary of the Faculty, and held this important post until her retire- ment in 19h6. For the period 1937 to l9h7, including one year after she had withdrawn from teaching, she was also Secretary of the Board of Trustees - the first member of the faculty to serve in this capacity. The value of her service to both faculty and trustees is well expressed in the resolution adopted by the trustees in May l9h7, which we quote in part: "...To convey the meaning of the Board's delibera- tions and actions in brief and effective minutes is a difficult art. Hiss Conrow is a master craftsman in this art. Her work...has not only constituted a fine permanent record for the col- lege but has been of constant help to all members of the Board... in clarifying their thought for further action. Her devotion and wisdom in this work and her loyalty and friendship in performing it... cannot be measured.” GEORGIAHNA CONROW (Continued) Miss Cnrow's interest in the total college community was friendly and warm. But it extended beyond the campus; to civic work also she gave generously of her time and her abilities. Among the important offices she held in Poughkeepsie were: Director of the Vassar Hospital Association and President of the Beard of Directors in 1939-l9h0; 2nd Vice-President of the Comunity Chest; 2nd Vice-President of the Poughkeepsie Garden Club; member of the Scholarship Fund Comittee of the Poughkeepsie Branch of the American Association of University Women, and general Chairman of the v regional A.A.U.W; convention held at Vassar College in l9h8. She was also actively interested in the Women's Republican Club of Dutchess County, and several County welfare associations. The great amount of work Miss Comrcw accomplished, and her many and varied interests reflect her character. With her untiring energy she carried through to completion a task however small or large. She will be greatly missed not only at Vassar College but in the wider city and county community. Her zest for living and interest in people of all ages and walks of life will be a lasting memory to all who knew her. Mary Landon Sague ' Vera Thomson Margaret de Schweinitz XIV — 15
Show less

Title: Furness, Caroline Ellen, 1869-1936 -- Memorial Minute:
Creator: Carter, Edna, Sague, Mary Landon
Description
Date: [After 1936]
Text: I i I i 1 I i CAROLINE ELLEN FURNESS 1869 - 1936 The members of the New York League of Unitarian Women wish to express their sympathy to the faculty of Vassar College for the great loss they have sus- tained in the death of their member, Dr. Caroline Furness. The League feels deeply the loss to Uni- tarianism, not only of a worker in this locality, but of one whose broad interest was felt throughout the land» From the New York League of Unitarian Women IX - 337

Title: Macurdy, Grace Harriet, 1866-1946 -- Memorial Minute:
Creator: Clark, Evalyn A., Kambouropoulou, Polyxenie, Sague, Mary Landon, Erck, Theodore H.
Description
Date: [After 1946]
Text: 1 ! 1 1 1 GRACE HARRIET MACURDY l866 - l9h6 The Faculty of Vassar College records with sorrow the death on October 23, l9h6, of Professor Emeri- tus Grace Harriet Macurdy, teacher, scholar, human- ist and humanitarian. Miss Macurdy served Vassar well for forty-four years as a teacher of Greek. On her retirement in 1937 President MacCracken wrote of her: "No description in wnrds can fittingly por- tray the service which Miss Macurdy has rendered to the life of Vassar. Her humor, her...
Show more1 ! 1 1 1 GRACE HARRIET MACURDY l866 - l9h6 The Faculty of Vassar College records with sorrow the death on October 23, l9h6, of Professor Emeri- tus Grace Harriet Macurdy, teacher, scholar, human- ist and humanitarian. Miss Macurdy served Vassar well for forty-four years as a teacher of Greek. On her retirement in 1937 President MacCracken wrote of her: "No description in wnrds can fittingly por- tray the service which Miss Macurdy has rendered to the life of Vassar. Her humor, her gayety and her eloquence have combined with her rare learning to bring a distinction to the Classical studies that has made graduates of Vassar desired in every grad- uate school. The spirit of youth is still hers and her outlook has grown with the years." The long list of her published works bears testimony to her distinguished scholarship, which won her re- cognition and acclaim'b0ﬂa at home and abroad. The humane quality of her writings brought many tributes and was appreciated by an American Army officer just returned from the war in these words: "Of all the work done by American scholars in the field of Clas- sics I had rather been the author of The Quality of Mercy than of any other book I know. at mpressed me most was the fact that pursuit of the gentler vir- tues in Classical literature had breathed into your pages their spirit." Miss Macurdy's human interests were universal, and she brought to all of her associations a unique charm and dignity which raised them above the level of the commonplace. Her life centered in Vassar College and in her devotion to friends in Great Britain, Italy and Greece. Her warm sympathy and generous aid to the stricken in those countries brought her in July l9h6 the high honor of a British decoration, the King's Medal "for service in the cause of freedo". Both her spirit and her work bore the quality of eternity, and, strangely, the very essence of them both was voiced in a poem of her own found in her desk after her death. Her stanza on the painter of 1 > I 5 i J 1 ! J ! i L 5 4 J I GRACE HARRIET MACURDY (Continued) a black-figured Attic vase might well serve as her own epitaph: His work shall perish, but the artist's soul, Imaging beauty changing endlessly, Shapes still new visions of the Eternal Whole, And finds for beauty imortality. Evalyn A. Clark Polyxenie Kambouropoulou Mary Landon Sague Theodore H. Erck XII - 80
Show less

Title: White, Florence Donnell, 1882-1950 -- Memorial Minute:
Creator: Sague, Mary Landon, Miller, Maria Tastevin, de Schweinitz, Margaret
Description
Date: [After 1950]
Text: FLORENCE DONNELL WHITE 1882 - 1950 The Faculty of Vassar College expresses its deep sense of loss in the death on December 15, 1950 of Florence Donnell White, Professor Emeritus of French. Miss White was born in Alna, Maine, on January 23, 1882. She graduated from Mount Holyoke College in 1903, taught for two years at the Springfield, Massachusetts, High School, and received her M.A. degree from Mount Holyoke in 1907. Continuing her graduate study at Bryn Mawr, where she was a Fellow in...
Show moreFLORENCE DONNELL WHITE 1882 - 1950 The Faculty of Vassar College expresses its deep sense of loss in the death on December 15, 1950 of Florence Donnell White, Professor Emeritus of French. Miss White was born in Alna, Maine, on January 23, 1882. She graduated from Mount Holyoke College in 1903, taught for two years at the Springfield, Massachusetts, High School, and received her M.A. degree from Mount Holyoke in 1907. Continuing her graduate study at Bryn Mawr, where she was a Fellow in Romance Languages, and also at the University of Paris, she received the degree of Doctor of Philosophy from Bryn Mawr in 1915. She came to Vassar in 1908, and was glad to carry on her whole career in the college which she loved and on which she has left her distinctive mark as an educator and as a person. The gratitude felt by Miss White's students for what her teaching means to them was well expressed in one letter, received at the time of her retirement in l9h7, when the Florence Donnell White Fund was established: I felt when I left Vassar and feel even more strongly after twenty-four years that her teach- ing gave in fullest measure what a college educa- tion should give: respect for scholarship, honesty and humility in the practice of it, and as an end result of four years of study a founda- tion of knowledge of and interest in the subject so well-laid that nothing can destroy it. There were no easy short-cuts in Miss White's courses - for herself or her students... Her stu- dents were well-informed, because she informed them well, with the highest standards for thorough work, with a belief in the importance of exact knowledge as against guesswork and good intentions, and with a mastery of her subject which, shared with them, gave them a fund of appreciative familiarity with France that they would use and enjoy for the rest of their lives. ' Miss White was chairman of the department of French from 1918 until 19h6. She served on the most important elective committees of the faculty; among those which claimed her activity for the longest periods were the 30 FLORENCE DONNELL WHITE (Continued) Committee on the Curriculum, on Students‘ Records, and the Advisory Comittee. She published a study of Vol- taire's Essay on Epic Poetry, and in collaboration with colleagues made translations from the French and Spanish. She was a member of Phi Beta Kappa, of the Modern Lan- guage Association, the American Association of Teachers of French, the American Association of University Profes- sors, the Daughters of the American Revolution and the Colonial Dames of America. Outside the college she participated in the activities of the Institute of International Education and she was one of the originators of its program for the Junior Year Abroad. In recogition of her constant work in further- ance of understanding between the French and American peoﬁle she was made Chevalier de la Legion d'Honneur in 193 . Miss White's clarity of mind, her keen wit, her absolute justice, and her unfailing enthusiasm are qualities recalled by all who knew her. They enabled her to carry the responsibilities of teaching and administrative tasks with untiring strength and without ever seeming to be burdened. She had the tact and true sociability which came from a generous interest in people. A staunch New Englander, she had a deep affection for France, its literature and its people. In France, where she spent almost every summer, she counted many friends, one of whom has written, characteristically, "No one could have mgde the"United States better respected and loved than s e did. The Faculty of Vassar College, who have long had Miss White's sustaining presence among them, will keep the memory of her distinction, her wise counsel and her gracious company. Mary Landon Sague Maria Tastevin Miller Margaret de Schweinitz XIII - 171-172
Show less

Title: Beckwith, Cora Jipson, 1875-1955 -- Memorial Minute:
Creator: Fahnestock, Edith, Smith, Winifred, Brooks, Richard, Sague, Mary Landon, Kempton, Rudolf T.
Description
Date: [After 1955]
Text: coma JIPSON sscxwma 1375 — 1955 Members of the college comunity were saddened to learn of the death of Cora Jipson Beckwith, profes- sor emeritus of Zoology. Following a number of years of ﬂail health she died in Washington on January 9. 1955, in her eightieth year. Miss Beckwith joined the Zoology Department as an assistant in 1900, upon her graduation from the University of Michigan. With the aid of leaves she completed her graduate study while serving at Vassar College, receiving the...
Show morecoma JIPSON sscxwma 1375 — 1955 Members of the college comunity were saddened to learn of the death of Cora Jipson Beckwith, profes- sor emeritus of Zoology. Following a number of years of ﬂail health she died in Washington on January 9. 1955, in her eightieth year. Miss Beckwith joined the Zoology Department as an assistant in 1900, upon her graduation from the University of Michigan. With the aid of leaves she completed her graduate study while serving at Vassar College, receiving the doctorate of philosophy frm Columbia University in l9lh. She was chairman of the department at the time of her retirement in l9hO. Throughout her career Cora Beckwith was an outstanding teacher and member of the college community. She was quiet, dignified and unassuming. She was interested in people. Her lifelong tenure at Vassar was devoted to the well-being of the college in all its aspects. She expected, and obtained, precise thoughtful work from her students; she herself was capable of careful detail, prodigious amounts of work, and withal showed nice qualities of judgment. She contributed much to important comittees, notably those on the curriculum and research. In addition, for three years in her earlier days she served as an associate warden in Strong House. The teaching of histology, embryology and cytology, which she carried on over a long period of years, calls for the training of students in precise and delicate techniques, and at the same time for the development of difficult concepts. »Her natural qualities of dexterity, easiness of movement, and clarity of thought contributed to her success as a teacher. Her own shinin example was frequently the light which illuminated difficulties for the students. Her research was along cytological lines, especially associated with the lateral line organs of Amia calva and the cytology of the germ cells of the hydroids. She was elected to many scientific societies, and was a life member of the corporation of the Marine Biological Laboratory at Woods Hole, where in her younger days she CORA JIPSON BECKWITH (Continued) spent many summers. While in he later years research and visits to Woods Hole were not feasible, she always retained her interest. She encouraged and aided members of her department to share these interests. After her retirement from teaching in l9h0 she con- tinued to live in Williams Hall, and during this period was deeply concerned with the welfare and interests of her friends and associates. Later, in 1950, she moved to Washington to be with her two sisters who had retired also. Those who were able to visit her there sensed her solicitude for her sisters, and realized that this was another manifestation of a principle which had guided her throughout her life. The people with whom she came in contact, the college and the department of zoology particularly, owe her a deep debt of gratitude. Edith Fahnestock Mary Landon Sague Rudolf T. Kempton XIV - 31
Show less

Libraries

Today's hours:

Vassar College Digital Library