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Keith Olson, class of 1949, was a physics major from Waterloo, Iowa who resided in Dibble Hall. During his time at Grinnell Olson was an active member of the Camera club, Varsity football team, and a member of the Honor G club.

Grace Douglass was born March 10, 1882 in Osage, Iowa, the youngest of the six children of Truman O. and Maria Greene Douglass. In August 1882 the family moved to Grinnell where Rev. Douglass served as Secretary of the Iowa Congregational Home Missionary Society, a position he held for the next 25 years. Grace graduated from Iowa College in 1902, studied physical culture in the Boston Normal School of Gymnastics (a graduate department of Wellesley College) for a year, and taught physical training 1903-04 at Iowa College. In September 1904 she married Dr. Hiram Winnett Orr, an orthopedic surgeon in Lincoln, Nebraska. They had five children. Mrs. Orr was active in the Congregational church and with Camp Fire Girls. She is the author of A Layman's Guide to Ecumenicity, 1956.

Dr. Orr died in 1956, and Mrs. Orr later moved to the Mayflower Home in Grinnell. She died Aug. 23, 1962.

Dorothy S. Palmer attended Grinnell College, earned a BA in 1962. She went on to earn a Master of Arts in Education from the University of Iowa. She later worked for Grinnell College as Alumni Secretary and then Associate Director of Admission.

Leonard Fletcher Parker was a professor of Greek and Latin at Grinnell College from 1860-70 and of History from 1888-98. In the interim he taught at the University of Iowa. Parker was involved with the public schools, with the Underground Railroad, and with many aspects of life in the Grinnell area. He died in 1911 after the publication of his last book, History of Poweshiek County.

Paul H. Appleby, journalist, public servant, and educator was born on a farm in Greene County, Missouri in 1891. The son of a minister, his family moved frequently, living in Missouri, Kansas, and Iowa. He attended high school in Newton, Iowa and graduated from Grinnell College in 1913. While at Grinnell, he met his wife Ruth (class of 1913). After graduating from Grinnell College, Paul H. Appleby went to the state of Washington and worked on a fruit farm for a short time. He then went on to publish weekly newspapers in Montana, Minnesota, and Iowa. Paul was the editor of Iowa Magazine in Waterloo from 1920 to 1924. The four years following that saw him as an editorial writer for the Des Moines Register and Tribune. In 1928 he moved to Virginia and published the News-Journal in Radford and the News Messenger in Christiansburg. In 1933, Paul H. Appleby became Assistant to the Secretary of Agriculture, Henry A. Wallace. By 1940 he was the Undersecretary of Agriculture and in 1944 he became Assistant Director of the Budget for the United States. He left Washington DC to work for the radio station KIRO, returned to Washington DC and left again, this time to become the dean of Syracuse University’s Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs. He made several trips to India as a consultant with the Ford Foundation and in 1955 returned to political life by serving as Budget Director for the State of New York. He retired in 1957, but remained active in his role as a consultant to India and published several articles. 

Paul and Ruth Appleby had three children and they also all attended Grinnell College: Margaret Matilda Appleby, class of 1939, Mary Ellen Appleby class of 1942 (married John E. Sarbaugh, class of 1941) and Loring Thomas Appleby class of 1949 (married Doris Lucille Chambers, class of 1952). Loring and Doris’s son, Paul Harry Appleby, graduated from Grinnell College in 1974.

Many of Paul’s siblings also attended Grinnell—Erma Appleby graduated in 1908, Frank B. Appleby graduated in 1916 (married Jerene C. Reaver ex-1916) and Velma Appleby graduated in 1922. One other sister, Una Appleby Stewart was three years older than Paul and went to Cottey College in Nevada, Missouri, but was an Instructor in Speech at Grinnell College during 1919-1921. Please also see the family tree at the end of this finding aid.