Milwaukee-Downer College celebrates
In October 2001, alumnae of Milwaukee-Downer College came together -- in Milwaukee, on the Lawrence campus, and even on the Fox River -- to mark the sesquicentennial anniversary of their alma mater, an occasion for reuniting and remembering.
The following articles from the Summer 2001 issue of Lawrence Today turn back the years to offer some selected vignettes from Milwaukee-Downer history, which we hope will spark some remembering when the Downer alumnae reunite. Some of these have been published in Lawrence Today and elsewhere over a period of years; others were written specifically for this collection.
- President Sabin sits for her portrait: What happened when Ellen C. Sabin, Milwaukee-Downer's first president, was persauded, albeit with difficulty, to have her portrait painted in 1912.
- T. S. Eliot's secret love: In which we read again the story of Milwaukee-Downer Professor Emily Hale and her long-time and long-concealed correspondence with poet T. S. Eliot.
- Une Inspiration qui circule: Written especially for this occasion by two of the five Lawrence women students who translated the correspondence of Milwaukee-Downer Professor of French Amélie Sérafon with her former student Bessie Wolfner, across the years from 1918 to 1957.
- And a partridge in Milwaukee: How "The Twelve Days of Christmas" came to America, through the agency of Professor Emily Frances Brown, creator of Milwaukee-Downer Christmas theatricals.
- Travels and triumphs of the Teakwood Room: Travels, indeed -- from India to the Milwaukee home of Timothy Chapman and his daughter Alice to the Chapman Library at Milwaukee-Downer College to Jason Downer Commons on the Lawence campus.
- A life cut short, a life remembered: Elizabeth Ann Richardson rests in an American military cemetery in France; her drawings, diary entries, and letters tell the story of an exceptionally creative, and caring, Milwaukee-Downer woman.
