Seventy years ago, things were different, but almost everything looks familiar. You can see it in the photos of campus life from the beautiful old yearbooks. And this is a look at my alma mater’s yearbook, the Glomerata, which I collect. My grandparents aren’t in this book, but their peers are. Maybe some people they knew, or would know later, are in here, though we’ll never know.
This is the second installment of our glance through 1954. Part one is here, but I’ll put them all in the Glomerata section, of course. You can see others, here. Or maybe you’d like to click through to see all of the covers. I wouldn’t blame you. They’re quite handsome. The university hosts their collection here.
In 1954 the university was in the middle of the G.I. Bill enrollment explosion. The campus had their second largest ever enrollment, and the campus was still in a growth phase. I put a fair amount of context in the part one post, so let’s just jump in.
Since this is a highlight feature, rather than a complete look, I’ve been using a few rules — minimal buildings and minimal head shots– and I’m breaking both of my rules here. Just because this line art is well done.
This is a drawing of Comer Hall, which houses the College of Agriculture, where I spent half of my time. There was a computer lab on the third floor in my day, a small auditorium classroom on the second floor, and my advisor, the dean, had his office on the first floor. There was a fallout shelter in the basement, and that might be one of the few parts of the building I didn’t know anything about. It was built in 1920, burned and rebuilt in 1922. It is named after B.B. Comer, an early 20th century Alabama governor. And a progressive one, at that. (Progressive among his contemporary peers, to be sure.)
That’s the dean, E.V. Smith (no relation) who was director of Extension from 1951 to 1972 and a real power player of his era. The research center in nearby Shorter is named for Smith. There, researchers conduct experiments on plant breeding, animal husbandry, horticultural innovation, biosystems engineering and more. It’s comprehensive.
The younger man is the student president of the college of agriculture. I’m not sure when those positions disappeared, but we’ll figure it out in other books. Buck Compton was from a place called Nanafalia, which sits on a ridge above the Tombigbee. One of the 75 people there would have to drive some distance to find a town you’d ever heard of or read about. It’s the sort of middle of nowhere that’s surrounded by a lot of nowhere, is what we’re saying. It’s a small place now, it was small when Compton grew up there. Anyway, he met his wife, Barbara, in college when they were sophomores. They graduated and got married in the summer of ’54.
He joined the Air Force, and when he left the service, he returned to the family farm. He and his dad ran cattle, a timber company and a country store, and the cattle and store were still in operation until just a few years ago. She was a high school history teacher. They were married for 62 years until he died, in 2016. She passed away in 2020. Together, they raised two daughters, and they had five grandchildren.
On the same page are two smaller photos meant to be evocative of the CoAg experience. (I wonder if anyone called it that in the 1950s …) They’re a bit fuzzy because I resized them, but we’re obviously examining and weighing produce.
And it looks like we’re working on a small disc harrow here.
I wonder how long all of that equipment remained in use on campus, and where it went when they upgraded.
Here’s a drawing of Tichenor Hall, which is where I spent much of the rest of my time. By the time I showed up it was filled with journalism students. (Don’t laugh, there were a lot of us then.) The basement had some geography folks, but it was mostly just us. Tichenor was built in 1940, and is named after Isaac Taylor Tichenor, the university’s third president, serving in that role from 1872 to 1881. He was also a pastor, having served as a chaplain during the Civil War, a farmer, a mining executive and in the leadership of the Southern Baptist Convention.
Tichenor is one of those complicated 19th century people in modern eyes. He was a proponent of slavery. He felt the Confederacy lost their war because of the Union’s industrial strength. And that’s how he framed his work at the university, pushing for big changes in higher education and diversity in the local economies, sort of a preview of the New South that was to come.
Roger Allen went to college at Auburn, played baseball and graduated with a chemistry degree in 1918, and a master’s the next year. After lab work during World War I and some time in New York and at Howard College, he came back to the Plains to teach in 1928. They pulled him out of the classroom for a quarter-century run as an administrator, and he was at the helm when the College of Science and Mathematics saw a great deal of growth. He retired in 1967.
Bill Fickling was from Georgia, where he was a three-sport star, including two state championships in the hurdles. In college, he played varsity basketball and ran an incredibly respectful 110-meter hurdles, where he was a conference champion in his sophomore year. His dad was a real estate powerbroker, and Bill Jr. took on the family business. Junior did well for himself. He married Miss America, Neva Jane Langley, in 1955. They were together for 58 years, until she died in 2012. They raised four children. Her obituary is clear: her pageant life did not define her. But it followed her anyway. Bill was still active in his community through the twenty-teens.
A few scenes from Tichenor Hall. That looks like an adding machine of some sort.
And those typewriters, they even look clunky for their day. I hope at least some of them landed in the hands of collectors.
When I was in school we were working on Macs. They were almost as clunky, but incredibly modern. You never think about those things when you’re young and working on a deadline. I wonder what they are typing, and if it stuck with any of those students long after the assignment was complete.
This is Samford Hall, the modern administration building. The graduate school was housed there in the 1950s. Today it is the icon building for photos and branding, and it should be. It’s still a lovely place in the Georgia colonial style.
I include this one in appreciation for the dodging and burning that someone undertook to get this in the book. In darkrooms, you did this with paper and light. I had two courses in undergrad that were darkroom intensive, and I never mastered the analog skill. Whoever did this, though, had some talent. And whoever is in silhouette here is working on pages we might see later.
Did you notice the Coke bottle? That was a nice touch.
These next few are staffers of the Glomerata, and I include them because they gave us this wonderful book. That’s Fred Nichols on the left, he was the editor of the yearbook. He was from Columbiana, Alabama, and was involved in all sorts of stuff on campus. President of his fraternity, in two different leadership groups, edited the Greeks’ rag, was an associate editor of the newspaper (which we’ll see in our next installment) and in the student senate. I’ve no idea how he managed to study industrial management. He went into the Air Force for a time, got married and they raised two children and two grandchildren. He died in 2001. You’re going to meet her in just a few moments.
The guy on the right is Tommy Tate, who was the business manager. He ran track, was recognized in one the mysterious leadership groups and studied business. I’m not sure what became of him. Tate is a surprisingly common name.
Look at the middle photo. The guy on the right is Batey Smith. He studied architecture, served as a captain in the U.S. Army and then went home to create ahugely important Tennessee firm, helping to build modern Nashville. In 1999 he and his wife established an endowed scholarship at AU. His was a hugely successful career, the lifetime achievement sort of career. Founding member of this. board member of that. He and his wife retired to Auburn in 2013 and he lived there until he died, in 2022 at 88.
The woman on the right side of the right photo is Jean Cross. She studied home economics. If I’ve got the right one, she married a football player. He would become a high school coach and athletic director in Georgia, where they lived until they retired to Florida.
I’m not sure why these two got their own photo. Maybe they were late to the picture sesh. But they’re worth talking about.
David Irvine’s dad was on the faculty, and he’s a senior in this photograph. He studied art at Auburn, became a tank commander in Europe during the Korean War, came home and earned his master’s and doctorate degrees in educational psychology and counseling from UNC. He became a school counselor and a teacher. After retirement he became a writer. As of this writing, he, at 92 (!!!) is still writing for his local paper, The Daily Dispatch (Henderson, North Carolina).
The office space gets a little more crowded for the last series of Glomerata staff photos. Let’s see what we can find.
Kathryn Keith studied psychology and became a teacher, a vice principal and homemaker in Georgia. She and her husband of 50 years raised one child, a grandchild and a great grandchild. She passed away in 2006. Frances Walthall married an Auburn man who became a manager at Alabama Power. They had four children and 14 grandchildren. Her husband died in 2007, but she’s still living in the state.
Irene Donovan finished at Auburn, and then went to graduate school at Tulane. She became a social worker, helping families in Louisiana and Georgia throughout her career.
June Sellers married Fred Nichols, the editor of this yearbook we mentioned above. She survived her husband. They had two children and two grandchildren. She started the kindergarten program at her church, volunteered at Children’s Hospital in Birmingham, was in DAR and volunteered and was a member of a sackful of other organizations. In her later years she moved into an assisted living facility. Her 2007 obituary said “she participated in every activity and was, not surprisingly, a member of the Social Committee” there. Hers was a life of service and doing.
Mary Ann Willman, from Columbus, Georgia, was a sophomore studying home economics. She married Haskell Sumrall, an Auburn man, a BMOC who became a captain in the Marine Corps. They lived in Florida until retirement. They had three kids. She died in 2014, and he passed away in 2020. They are buried at Miramar National Cemetery, in California.
Bill Whitaker died just this year, at 91. He met his wife in college, while he was studying electrical engineering. Whitaker joined the Air Force and stayed in until 1968. By then he had a master’s degree and a lifelong infatuation with computers. He worked at IBM, then went into sales with another big firm, and put in machines at places like Oak Ridge, Red Stone and Cape Canaveral. He returned to Alabama to head up the data processing department of Trust National Bank. He started his own company, eventually sold it, went to Memorex and another place or two before retiring.
The woman standing next to him the photo? That’s his future wife, Margaret, a sophomore from Mobile. They had two kids and two grandchildren and what sounds like a full and hopefully wonderful life. They were married for 68 years.
All of these photos will wind up in the Glomerata section, of course. You can see others, here. Or maybe you’d like to click through to see all of the covers. The university hosts their collection here.
