Daily Archives: October 15, 2010

To the Class of ’35

This charming sketch of Dr. J. Oliver Buswell, Jr., drawn by Dewitt Whistler Jayne, accompanied by Buswell’s written greeting to the student body, is published in the 1935 Tower, wherein the president briefly thanks the staff for their excellent work on the current edition and for “…so tastefully furnishing the office during your second year inJ. Oliver Buswell college…” Jayne in 1936 pushed for developing the art department, convincing the administration that it would provide a major contribution the liberal arts education. As a result, one course in art and one course in music were incorporated into the curriculum. During the 1970s Jayne donated over 1300 etchings, woodcuts and drawings by his uncle, renowned illustrator Allen Lewis (SC-60), who was also a distant cousin of James McNeill Whistler. Jayne’s painting, “Who Was That Shining One?” hangs in the Wheaton College Special Collections public area. It depicts missionaries Bob Ekvall and Ed Carlson’s encounter with frightened bandits in western China, who saw something mysterious that Ekvall and his companion did not see at the time.