We learned today of the death on May 12 of Dr. Leslie Prosak-Beres. She is pictured above on the right, with fellow education faculty Dr. Dale King on the left. Leslie taught education courses at DC in the 1980s. I remember working closely with her on the children’s literature class that all education majors had to take; she would bring students to the library and have library staff help them learn how to do research in the field.
Here’s another photo of her from the 1987 Oraculum yearbook.
After she left DC, she joined the faculty of Xavier University in Cincinnati, retiring just last year. Her full obituary can be viewed here.
Barb Sedlock
Lead Librarian/Coordinator of Metadata and Archives
DC Men’s Glee club trying to push their bus “Sally” on a muddy road, assisted by a team of oxen
Today the DC Archives acquired a really cool set of photos from 1926, found by David Jones of Boston, who purchased them on Ebay, and then donated them to us. Mr. Jones was interested in the Mohawk Trail, an historic road in Massachusetts, and one of the photos has written on the back, “stuck on Mohawk Trail.” After he scanned them for his records, he contacted DC’s Archives and asked if we would like the originals. Would we?! Of course. Especially since we don’t have a lot of photos from the early part of the 20th century in the Archives. Mr. Jones was extremely kind to take the trouble to seek us out and make the donation. Many would have discarded something like this, not realizing they would be of interest to a museum or archives.
How did he know to contact Defiance College? In this picture below, there is a sign inside the spare tire on the bus that reads: “Defiance College Men’s Glee Club, Ohio.”
It’s hard to read here but in a blown-up version, the sign is clearly visible.
And how do we know it’s from 1926? In the top photo, the license plate is visible beneath one of the pushers, and it has 1926 on it. And in the last photo, below, the plate is also visible.
So that led me to look for what documentation we might have on this Glee Club tour. I found two articles in the March 25, 1926 DC Collegian, which has a photo of the Glee Club members and lists the proposed itinerary.
Then the April 23, 1926 Collegian (scroll down to bottom left of cover page for the story) contains an article describing their experiences on the tour. They toured 14 Eastern states, including the cities of Boston, Philadelphia, New York, Washington, and a stop at Niagara Falls. They only missed one performance due to the bus being stuck. They estimated that they sang before a total of 4,000 people, most of whom probably hadn’t heard of Defiance College before.
This is probably the men packing the bus before setting out on their trip. Sisson Hall is in the background.
The top photo illustrates how difficult travel was a hundred years ago, especially out on country roads when few of them were paved. I’d like to know where they found a team of oxen to help pull them out; the newspaper article didn’t say.
Once again, our thanks to Mr. Jones for donating these exciting photos.
Barb Sedlock
Lead Librarian and Coordinator of Metadata and Archives
Tennis courts behind the men’s dormitory Sisson Hall, 1910s?
The history of the sport of tennis as played at Defiance College needs some more research, but I’ve found a few highlights to put into this blog post.
The above photo may be from the mid-1910s, and shows the campus tennis courts with Sisson Hall dormitory in the background. You can see the roof of old Defiance Hall in the right background. The courts sat approximately where Serrick Center is as of 2021. If you squint hard, you may notice a horse pulling a cart between the courts and Sisson.
The 1908 Oraculum says that tennis was first played as a sport on campus in 1904, but it sounds like it wasn’t a varsity sport at that time, just various groups on campus playing each other. The first tennis tournament was held on campus in 1905, and both men and women competed. In the April 9, 1948 Tom-Tom, it was announced that women would be able to participate in tennis as an intramurals sport, but I haven’t been able to pin down yet when it became a women’s varsity sport, but likely not until the late 1970s or early 80s, after Title IX came into being.
The May 5, 1950 Tom-Tom is the earliest mention I can find of DC men playing against other colleges.
DC’s tennis courts in 1961
By 1961, the tennis courts had been moved to the athletic complex. This oversized slide (hence the black corners) had faded to a reddish color over the years, but it’s one of the few pictures we have from that era. It’s a bit difficult to figure out where they were on campus exactly from this picture, but if you look at this photo from the late 60s/early 70s, it shows the tennis courts approximately where the visitors’ stand is today by the football field, with the pond in the background. This campus map from the 1962 catalog confirms the location.
Men’s tennis team 1971
One of the sport’s highlights in DC history is this men’s tennis team from 1971, who made it to the NAIA tournament in Kansas City that year. The photo is from the June 1971 Today at the Defiance College. The article doesn’t list the players’ names, but Marv Hohenberger is on the right, who was also DC’s men’s basketball coach.
President James Harris at the dedication of the current E. Stevens Dix tennis facility in 1998.
DC’s tennis courts moved again in the 1990s: this photo is from the dedication ceremonies held on August 22, 1998 of the E. Stevens Dix tennis facility. There’s a different photo of Randy Buchman speaking at the same event in the Fall 1998 DC Magazine (scroll down to the bottom of the page.)
Barb Sedlock
Lead Librarian and Coordinator of Metadata and Archives
When sorting papers related to various buildings on campus a few months ago, I came across “Rules and Regulations, Trowbridge Hall,” which wasn’t dated in the original mimeographed text, but someone wrote in pencil “approved 1966” at the bottom.
Trowbridge was a men’s dorm at this period, so the rules were aimed at male students. Here is a selection:
Quiet hours were 24 hours except from 7PM Fridays through 5PM Sundays
“Remember, hallways are not ash trays!”
Horseplay and “filthy or profane language” were prohibited
No appliances such as popcorn poppers, coffee makers, or space heaters were permitted in rooms [probably because the building was originally built in 1905 and the electrical system not up to handling extras like that]
“Alcoholic probation will be issued to anyone who comes in the dorm in an unruly condition while under the influence of alcohol.”
Warnings were issued to students for excessive noise, general horseplay, water fights, drunkenness; receiving two warnings would bring you before the dormitory council.
Here is a photo of Greg Morton’s (’64) room in Trowbridge:
apologies for the faint image of words on the left side, photo must have been stored next to a newspaper clipping before it was donated to us
Trowbridge was originally constructed as a women’s dormitory. Here is an image of Peggy Cameron (?), Shirley Hilbert Fritz, and Peggy Granger in a Trowbridge Hall room in the mid-1950s:
Trowbridge was used for classrooms in late 60s/early 70s, and then demolished in 1971:
Trowbridge Hall being torn down
Barb Sedlock
Lead Librarian and Coordinator of Metadata and Archives
The above photo of Dosia is dated 1972. She was a DC religion professor for 14 years in the 60s and early 70s, serving in many administrative positions such as advisor to the Campus Christian Fellowship students, and was in charge of the Forum program. She was ordained in 1979, and earned her Ph.D. from the University of Pittsburgh. She was stricken with polio as a young woman, and became intimately acquainted with the problems of the chronically ill. She published a book on her own experiences in 1968. Here she is with DC bookstore manager Mark Randall (’62) at a book signing when the bookstore was in the basement of Dana Hall:
And below is another photo of Dosia with two DC students, Linda Griffin and Mari Wheaton, when the students helped conduct a church service for the First Congregational Church in Columbus; its pastor Rev. Chalmers Coe is at left, beside Dosia. We think it was taken in 1963:
Dosia moved to Arizona in 1974 and became active in hospice and aging issues, and served as Associate Minister of the Church of the Beatitudes, a retirement center in Phoenix. She published further books, one of hymns she composed, and another on ministry to older adults. She returned to campus in 1987 to give a workshop on aging. She continued being active in the United Church of Christ, and in the late 1980s, was given an award by the UCC:
UCC official?, Dosia Carlson, and DC Prof. Richard Howard receiving awards from the UCC, ca. 1987
DC profiled her in a 1983 DC Bulletin, and you can read her obituary here. A “simple search” in DC Memory will bring up 25 documents that mention her name.
Barb Sedlock
Lead Librarian and Coordinator of Metadata and Archives
