July 2009

Month: July 2009

Body parts buried on campus

One of the strangest questions to hit the Archives in quite a while-where is my great- grandfather’s leg buried on campus? A patron e-mailed this question, saying her great-grandfather was a student here in the 1890s and a member of the Lawrence pole vaulting group. He injured his leg while pole vaulting, it became infected and had to be amputated. It was buried somewhere on campus. While there are no records of it being buried on campus, my guess is that since there were 4 buildings on campus in the mid-1890s – Main Hall, Sampson House, Ormsby Hall, and Underwood Observatory, it was likely buried in that area.

“The Founding of Lawrence University” article in Voyageur magazine

The Summer/Fall 2009 issue of Voyageur magazine features an article on the founding of Lawrence, written by University Archivist Julia Stringfellow with assistance from LU history professor Jerald Podair. The article includes pictures of the first graduating class of 1857 and other early pictures of Lawrence. A copy of the magazine is available on Level A of the library and in the Archives on Level B.