Showing 597 results

Ida Weaver was born in Muscatine, IA, and attended Grinnell College as a member of the class of 1914. While at Grinnell, she belonged to the Girl's Glee Club. In 1916, she married Elmer P. Steinmetz, who ran a button factory in Muscatine. They had one son, Ladd W. Steinmetz.

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.

John Charles Kemmerer was a poet and printer who worked in an engineering firm to support himself and his family. Born on a farm in Guthrie County, Iowa in 1901, he developed a devotion to writing poetry and to the art and craft of printing during his teenage years. He attended Grinnell College from 1919-1923, starting in the engineering course, but getting his degree in English and History. During his college years he worked at a Grinnell newspaper printing office, had poetry published in student publications, served on the staffs of the Malteaser and the 1923 Cyclone, and was the class poet.

After graduation he received his master’s degree from Harvard and during the rest of the 1920s studied at Columbia University and wrote short stories, plays, a novel, and poetry. In 1929 he married Ruth Chamberlain (class of 1922) and the following year began working for the firm of consulting engineers in New York City at which he was to spend his entire career. But it was poetry and printing that was most important in his life.

In the early 1930s he studied typography in night courses at New York University, built his own hand press, and began publishing his own books, the first in 1933 while at NYU. In 1950 he purchased a weather-beaten farmhouse in rural Connecticut and moved his presses there. From 1967-81 he published sixteen books of poetry in limited editions of less than one hundred copies, one autobiographical sketch, and had one book of poetry, Wild plum tree, published by Carroll Coleman at the Prairie Press in Iowa City.

The following selection from his, A biographical note, may best describe his life: "1972-73. By this winter his published work had received several hundred friendly responses; from veteran critics of the Twenties; from generations in theirprime; from pretty girls, and young men with beards. Thus in a Dark Age the poems, author, and printers had lively company. And the books were in greatlibraries in New York, Iowa, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut; and in the homes of collectors, whose books may go anywhere."

Truman Douglass was born in Illinois in 1842, grew up in Wisconsin, graduated from Illinois College and from Chicago Theological Seminary in 1868. He served as Pastor of the Congregational church in Osage, Iowa 1868-82. He was Superintendent of the Congregational Home Missionary Society 1882-1907, living in Grinnell, and remained active in church work after his retirement. As Superintendent he helped organize and raise money for new churches in Iowa. He was a Trustee of Grinnell College 1906-19. He died in California in 1925. May of his children and descendants attended Grinnell College. More biographical details are in the College Archives 52/D741.

James Langdon Hill, possibly the collector of these materials, was born in Garnavillo, Iowa in 1848. He attended Grinnell College and the Andover Theological Seminary and served as a pastor for Congregational churches in Massachusetts. He was involved with the Society of Christian Endeavor in England and the United Society of Christian Endeavor.

Mary Ellen Sarbauagh donated her papers to Grinnell College April 1995. Most are undated but probably were written 1985-95.

Jonathan Chenette received his Master of Music from Butler University and his B.A. and Ph.D. from the University of Chicago.  He began teaching at Grinnell College in 1983 and was promoted to Associate Professor of Music in 1989.  He has served as Composer-in-Residence with the Cedar Rapids Symphony.  As a composer and librettist he has also worked with the Dubuque Symphony Orchestra and has had works performed by the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, the Cedar Rapids (Iowa) Symphony, and the Netherlands Radio Chamber Orchestra.  He has received grants, awards, and fellowships from the MacDowell Colony, the Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Center in Italy, the American Music Center, the Iowa Arts Council, Grinnell College, and the Grinnell Area Arts Council.