Recently, the Wheaton College Archives and Special Collections obtained a letter penned by Wheaton’s first president, Jonathan Blanchard as a recommendation for alumnus Anson T. Hemingway, grandfather to Ernest Hemingway. The College Archives purchased the letter and photograph of Anson in his later years from a dealer via eBay (a great deal of history goes up for sale on this site daily). The letter makes a strong connection between Jonathan Blanchard and Anson Hemingway, as well as helping establish the context in which Ernest Hemingway grew up.

Anson Tyler Hemingway, the son of Allen Hemingway and Harriet Louisa Tyler, was born in East Plymouth, Connecticut in 1844. The family came to Chicago in 1854 and within ten years all three Hemingway brothers had enlisted in the Civil War. Anson served in the Army as a private with the 72nd Illinois Regiment and fought in the deadly Battle of Vicksburg. He later re-enlisted in Company H, US Colored 70th Regiment as 1st Lieutenant and also served as provost martial of the Freedman’s Bureau in Natchez. Anson’s other two brothers died during the war.

After his time in the military, Anson attended Wheaton College. After two years of study, as a friend and admirer of Dwight L. Moody, he went on to serve as general secretary of the Chicago YMCA for ten years before establishing a real estate business in Oak Park, Illinois. Anson married fellow Wheaton student Adelaide Edmonds, who graduated in 1867. Together they had four sons and two daughters. An avid outdoorsman, Anson gave his grandson Ernest a special tenth birthday present of a 20-gauge shotgun, believed to have sparked the future author’s lifelong hunting pursuits. Anson Hemingway passed away in 1926 at the age of eighty-two.

Imagine that for five years you are living in a dirty cramped 12-foot by 20-foot basement room that is heaped full of boxes and other material in an office building in a major city. In this room are six others who must live and sleep together and with only two beds.

This was the experience of seven Siberian Pentecostals who sought refuge from religious persecution in the American Embassy in Moscow in 1978. It would 1983 before even one of them was able to leave. That one person was Lida Vashchenko.

In 1978 seven Siberian Pentecostals crashed past Soviet guards and into the United States embassy seeking help in emigrating from the Soviet Union because of religious persecution. Pyotr Vashchenko, Augustina, and their three daughters, Lidiya, Lyubov and Liliya along with fellow Christian believers Mariya Chmykhalov and her son Timofei had traveled 2,000 miles by rail from the Siberian town of Cherno-gorsk.

Starting in 1961, Siberian officials began harsh anti-Christian campaigns and routinely disrupted Christian worship services and jailed many Pentecostal leaders. The Vashchenko children faced harassment at school — ridicule, ostracism and beatings. The following year the Vashchenkos decided to educate them at home, but the state ruled them unfit and removed their daughters from the home and placed them in state homes until they turned 16. In January 1963, while Pyotr was in prison, Augustina and fellow Pentecostals made international headlines for forcing their way into the U.S. embassy seeking asylum. When they were promised better treatment they left. However, the Vashchenko’s home was confiscated, their jobs were lost and they were imprisoned.

Known to the outside world as “the Siberian Seven,” they lived as uninvited guests in a grubby 12-foot by 20-foot room in the basement of the U.S. embassy on Moscow’s bustling Tchaikovsky Street. They shared two beds and earned small change around the embassy washing cars, knitting garments, cleaning rooms.

Inspired by Soviet Dissident Andrei Sakharov, after three and a half years in the embassy basement Augustina and Lidiya Vashchenko began a hunger strike — stopping their eating in a desperate bid to win world attention and shame the Soviets into relenting. Their health failed quickly. Their plan worked as the severity of their situation gained international attention and the hunger strike became life-threatening. However, Pyotr Vashchenko was opposed to their tactics because of his understanding of the Christian teaching against suicide.

While in the embassy, the group completed a 225,000-word account of their heart-rending saga, reworked by John Pollock as The Siberian Seven. Their experiences reveal the sufferings that Christians behind the Iron Curtain had been compelled to bear. It has been noted that the case of the Siberian Seven is a good example of the gravity of the human rights situation that existed inside the Soviet Union.

The Wheaton College Archives & Special Collections acquired the papers of Kent Hill that related to the Siberian Seven. Hill, former president of Eastern Nazarene College and former director of the Institute on Religion and Democracy, was studying in Moscow on a Fullbright scholarship when the seven sought refuge. Hill eventually received, and later translated, copies of their papers that they had compiled to document their charges of persecution and oppression. These papers tell a story of human rights violations and religious persecution. The collection (SC-52) contains diaries, correspondence, photographs, and other manuscript material.

Beginning in the mid-1970s when Art Rupprecht and Jerry Hawthorne joined a group of their very interesting and interested Greek students late on Friday afternoons in the Stupe. The week’s classes were over and it was time to relax with a free cup of coffee — they arrived just at closing time when the staff were about to throw the remaining coffee down the drain. It was theirs for the taking. Faculty and students spent time thinking through some theological issues, talking about baseball or fishing, or discussing some difficult Greek passage, telling a few jokes, and generally enjoying each others company and insights. Soon others wanted to join. So it became a weekly feature, but it was too large and often too raucous to continue meeting in a corner booth of the Stupe.

Just as concerns over a meeting place arose a new chapel schedule was implemented with chapel to be held weekly on Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays — leaving Wednesday at 10:30 free when faculty and students had no officially scheduled meetings. So Wednesday became the new day. Now all that was needed was a place. John Ortberg, speaking for his housemates, offered Windsor House as the newly designated place of meeting. It was agreed that faculty would provide the donuts and the Windsor men would provide the coffee. Occasionally one of the faculty would fudge a little on the donut buying, for one of them was caught slipping across to Windsor house early, to heat up an Aldi’s day-old coffee cake for the coffee hour.

Eventually these Windsor men graduated, but the new men assigned to that house wanted us to continue, which the faculty were only too happy to do. Windsor House, which was adjacent to Buswell Library, continued to be a place of meeting for students from all parts of the world, faculty from all disciplines — a great amalgam of students and faculty. Discussions were lively and sometimes even heated, but always argued with passion, if not always with reason. Everyone present could not help learning something he (all men in those days) had not known before–those were great times together.

When Windsor House was torn down the group was invited to join the men in Kay House, so that this tradition could continue. By the time that particular Kay House group of men were ready to move on via graduation to their higher calling, the new “pharaoh knew not Joseph.” So no successive invitation was extended from that house. When that moment of desperation came, however, many of our student friends were awarded Hidden House as their next year’s domicile, and with one voice they beckoned us to come and join them at their home each Wednesday morning as usual. The tradition kept going and growing. This pleasurable and profitable welcome break from the routine bustle of academic life continued unabated for more than a decade.

As change is always inevitable, the chapel schedule changed again. The new schedule had it fall on Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Not wishing to flaunt chapel, nor to encourage undesirable behavior on the students part, the majority of the faculty regulars decided that all who wished could come to Jerry Hawthorne’s office (on the second floor of Wyngarden Health Center) at the traditionally designated time. As many as 15-18 professors from the departments of literature, language, philosophy, psychology, sociology, history, communication and the sciences crammed into that small office for the weekly repast of coffee and donuts. Here the late and beloved Dr. Joe McClatchey delighted to come as long as he was alive; it was he who dubbed this place and this congregation, “Jerry’s Pub,” a name it still holds, although the infamous “Jerry” is now retired, and the Pub presently meets on Tuesdays and Thursdays in Art Rupprecht’s office.

The fact that we met on Wednesdays during chapel was information that could not be kept secret. Eventually it reached the ears of the Board of Trustees. They asked the President to see if this were true or simply rumor. If true he was charged to ask this group to cease and desist. When the President learned of the long history of this group and reported this to the Trustees and that it was not a subversive group intending to undermine chapel, the Board graciously gave the group permission to continue on Wednesdays at Chapel time, but only until Hawthorne retired. Hence, the new schedule.

Although this group never attained the recognition and reputation of C. S. Lewis’ “Inklings,” it nevertheless served the same purpose. From among those students who regularly attended “the Pub,” not a few of them have gone on to help, under God, to make this world a better place in which to live. Many of them have distinguished themselves as doctors, missionaries, pastors, artists, university professors, college presidents, public school teachers, leaders in development programs, clinical psychologists, and the list goes on and on.

On November 25th noted investment banker, and well-known rare book collector Helmut Friedlaender died at the age of 95. Widely known as a bibliophile Friedlaender drew attention when he disposed of his quietly-gathered collection at Christie’s Auction House. Smaller volumes were fetching six-figures without hesitation.

Wheaton College was the beneficiary of the generosity of another, less-known, bibliophile. Friedlaender saw his books as “orphans” that needed a proper home, a sentiment that William S. Akin shared as he he saw his own books as his children. Friedlaender sold his “children” but Akin found a better home for his legacy.

Eventually, Bill Akin’s collection was placed on loan at Wheaton College. Akin had developed a friendship with Wheaton’s president, V. Raymond Edman through Edman’s brother who was a member of Chicago’s Union League. Akin donated the bulk of his collection in Edman’s memory after his sudden death in 1967.

One of Akin’s area of collecting interest was Samuel Johnson and James Boswell. Akin’s Johnsonian collection became quite significant, eventually containing the first thirteen editions of the dictionary. The oldest Johnson item in our collection is shown here. In 1737 Johnson determined to take his chances as a writer in London. He had been composing this tragic drama and with a draft of this work complete, he set out with one of his former pupils David Garrick. Finally, in 1749 with Garrick’s assistance, who was now manager of a theatre in Drury Lane, Irene was performed with some modest success.

It was Johnson’s work on his dictionary and not Irene that he became known as the “grand old man of English letter’s.” For decades when someone said “The Dictionary” it referred to Johnson’s and none other.

The Jonathan Blanchard Papers are a diverse gathering of items covering the family history of Wheaton College’s first president. Ranging from the scribbling of grandchildren to a petition for the abolition of slavery, they illuminate Blanchard in his many roles. The heart of the Collection is the more than 4600 letters preserved by his wife, Mary Bent Blanchard. Dating from 1808 to 1892, the items cover a wide range of topics with writers including family members, friends, students, Civil War soldiers, church associates, colleagues, reform workers, and others. These letters are a valuable resource for scholars, students, and other history enthusiasts alike.

During this Thanksgiving holiday one such letter was written by Jonathan and Mary’s daughter, Maria Blanchard Cook from Chicago on November 25, 1872.

Dear Father, the turkey which I heard you prepared for our Thanksgiving, in order perhaps that we might more keenly realize the blessing of having kind parents, came safely to the city. Mr. Cook was hauling lumber to his new place of business that day and at noon placed the turkey on the open wagon he was using and supposing it was fully secured by things he placed over it came home and on reaching here found the paper it was wrapped in empty. We were sorry to lose it the more because it was the turkey from home. But Mr. Cook says he will replace it and mother Cook has invited us all over to her house on Thanksgiving day so we will be thankful for our turkey, hope some one more needy and deserving than we found it and “rejoicing evermore.”

To paraphrase the joys of William Sanford Akin’s life would be say that he collected books. Akin’s interest in books began as a teenager. He recalled with a note of humor that it all started when “someone hit him over the head with a first edition.” But elsewhere he stated that he became interested in Samuel Johnson when he was 14 when he was told to read Beauties of Johnson as “penance for his sins.” During this time he served as an acolyte while Dr. George Craig Stewart was rector of St. Luke’s Episcopal Church in Evanston. When he was 16 he obtained a job in an old bookstore. Ultimately, Akin knew “of nothing more gratifying, physically, mentally, or spiritually, than to sit down to a cup of tea and browse among [his] books until [he found] something to satisfy [his] need at the moment.” The connection between Akin and Wheaton began when Akin developed a friendship with Wheaton’s president, V. Raymond Edman’s brother who was a member of Chicago’s Union League. Akin donated the bulk of his collection in Dr. Edman’s memory after his sudden death in 1967.

Along with his interest in Johnson and Boswell, Akin grew fond of illustrated editions of John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress. In many homes of the 18th and 19th century, particularly in America, Pilgrim’s Progress, ranked second only to the Bible in importance. The third edition of The Pilgrim’s Progress, published in 1679, appears to have been the first printing with any illustration, which have always played a key role in the story of Christian as he journeys from the City of Destruction to the Celestial City. This particular edition was the first to bring the two previously separately published parts into a single volume.

Pilgrim’s Progress became a part of the evangelical canon and as missionaries went around the world they took Bunyan’s Christian along with them. This Japanese edition is decidedly Asian in its illustrations. Not only has the book been translated into Japanese but care has been taken to translate the imagery as well. Here is Christian’s encounter with Apollyon in a decidedly different perspective. It is much more suited to the Japanese audience, especially with Fuji-esque mountain in the background and Christian wearing the armor and accoutrement of a samurai soldier.

Oswald Chambers’ strong faith was accompanied by an abundant imagination that developed into a vibrant creativity. After attending Sharp’s Institute as a child, Oswald received further education from several institutions including the National Art Training School in London (later renamed the Royal College of Art) where he received the Art Master’s Certificate, despite his father’s objections to his art studies. His father, a Baptist minister, did not believe that art could be a platform for ministry.

Chambers furthered his art studies at Edinburgh University and saw the arts as a gift of God to make life on earth bearable–they were a necessity, not a luxury.

In God’s Workmanship Chambers wrote that:

“The Personality of Truth is the great revelation of Christianity–“I am … the Truth.” Our Lord did not say He was “all truth” so that we could go to His statements as to a text-book and verify things; there are domains, such as science and art and history, which are distinctly man’s domains and the boundaries of our knowledge must continually alter and be enlarged; God never encourages laziness. The question to be asked is not, “Does the Bible agree with the findings of modern science?” but, “Do the findings of modern science help us to a better understanding of the things revealed in the Bible?”

Art is one of those domains wherein humanity can both imitate God’s creativity and find expression for our own. Here are some examples of Oswald’s work, the originals, of which, are located in our collection.

It was at Edinburgh that Oswald prayed that he would serve God through art. As he continued his studies Chambers sensed that he was being called into fuller service and ministry. While in Edinburgh, he came under many positive influences, but particularly that of venerated Scottish Presbyterian pastor and Keswick leader Alexander Whyte. Especially influential was his Young Men’s class. Chambers struggled immensely regarding the ministry. George Oxer, a longtime friend, sought to correct “any who may think that Oswald Chambers had an easy passage to the heights God took him. The measure of the valley is the height of the mountain. My friend’s soul was a lone rough rider passing through the wilderness to his Canaan.”

Shown here is a charcoal drawing of Beethoven that is housed in the Chambers collection.

Wheaton College has seen its share of political campaigns and candidates. Many have seen Wheaton College and the surrounding area as a bastion of Republican politics and the number of visits of Republicans, in and out of the campaign season, has reinforced this. The local Fourth of July Parade has often been on the itinerary of the presidential candidate. The connection between Wheaton College and presidential politics may hearken back to Jonathan Blanchard’s own involvement in the political process. Blanchard was heavily involved in the emergence of the Liberty Party while in Ohio and remained involved after his move to Illinois. He recognized the value of political structures to influence change. He was later nominated for the U.S. presidency by the anti-Masonic American Party (not to be confused with the “Know-Nothing” American Party of the same era). Blanchard had asked Frederick Douglass to serve as his vice-presidential running-mate. Douglass declined.

The earliest visit of an actual primary or general election candidate was from Vice-President Richard Nixon. Appearing in a rally on McCully field (text of speech), Nixon was then a candidate for the Republican nomination, which he eventually won. However, as history has shown, Nixon didn’t fair well in the first-ever televised debates. Interestingly, those that listened to the debates via radio developed a different sense of who won. Exhibiting the strength of the visual medium, these debates set a precedence that influenced national politics around the globe with Germany, Japan, Italy and others establishing televised debates for national elections. Back in Wheaton, Nixon played to his crowd calling them to “strengthen the faith of America. See that young people grow up with faith in God.”

In the following presidential election in 1964 Republican Margaret Chase Smith, a senator from Maine and a strong opponent of Joseph McCarthy, visited Wheaton College in March. Smith saw herself as a moderate and this caused her problems on both sides of the aisle. She alienated liberals with her support of the Vietnam War, yet troubled conservatives with her signing on with Democratic legislation. Though unsuccessful in her bid to receive the Republican nomination–losing to Barry Goldwater–Smith has the record as the longest-serving female senator in United States history.

Goldwater, having secured the Republican nomination, visited Wheaton in early October 1964. During his speech Goldwater called for a “restoration of law” in the United States, but a clash of demonstrations occurred between Johnson and Goldwater supporters portended a shift in political ideologies held among students. Local Christian residents attending the Goldwater rally encountered the Johnson supporters and tempers flared with locals calling some students “communists” and questioning their religious commitment, expecting any “good” Christian to vote for Goldwater and the Republican ticket. Some faculty applauded the courage of students to follow their convictions, despite them going against convention. They lamented the fact that charity and tolerance were lacking in the conflict.

As the Vietnam War dragged on, the gap between parties grew and presidential campaigns needed to be different. That difference came in the efforts of George McGovern. McGovern, the son of a Wesleyan Methodist (Wheaton College’s early denominational benefactor) minister, came to Wheaton College in October 1972 as the Democratic Presidential nominee. McGovern’s speech was less of a political speech than an attempt to help evangelicals understand his theologically-informed political philosophy. This “Gospel According to McGovern” had a mixed reception. Many younger evangelicals supported McGovern, including Wheaton graduate Tom Skinner. These younger evangelicals liked how McGovern expressed real concern for hunger, war, poverty and ecology. However, older mainstream evangelicals looked to Billy Graham, who lent his support to Nixon. The Wesley Pippert Collection contains a great deal of research material on McGovern’s campaign as Pippert was assigned by United Press International to cover McGovern’s campaign.

The most significant season of political stops at Wheaton came during the 1980 Presidential campaign. Illinois has, for a long time, been a key battleground state with its large numbers of electoral votes. The 1980 primary season brought many March visitors to the campus. The first visitor was John B. Anderson.

Anderson, from Rockford, was the recipient of an honorary doctorate from Wheaton (LL.D. — Doctor of Laws) in 1970. Though honored in 1970 by his visit on March 12, 1980 feelings on campus were not as hospitable. A ten-term member of Congress, Anderson ran as an independent in the 1980 Presidential primaries. As a member of Congress he, on three occasions, sought to amend the U.S. Constitution to recognize the law and authority of Jesus Christ over the United States. This put him in good stead with conservative Christian voters, but during his race for the presidential nomination he supported certain abortion rights. His endorsement of a person’s right to choose, which he believed was God-given, put him at odds with the same conservatives that once heralded his work in Washington. It is amazing to see what difference a decade can make.

Bolstering the importance of Illinois in the primaries George H. W. Bush made a stop at Wheaton just days after the visit from John Anderson. Bush was battling uphill to beat Ronald Reagan and was being beat by the religious Anderson. After a poor showing in the New Hampshire primary, the former director of the CIA didn’t draw a large crowd–failing to half-fill the cavernous 2,500-seat Edman Chapel. Bush’s future as a candidate didn’t look good. Bush would later return to Wheaton in 1985, as Vice-President, to deliver that year’s commencement address.

Though Reagan didn’t make a visit to Wheaton College during the primary, he did make a stop in Wheaton to campaign at the flea market the day before Bush’s speech. Reagan made his visit to the college after receiving his party’s nomination during the fall campaign season. The Governor’s whistle-stop visit came October 8th and was accompanied by numerous religious references within the first few sentences of his speech. He spoke of deliverance, rebirth and C.S. Lewis–words that were well-chosen and that resonated with the audience. Reagan would handily beat Southern Baptist Jimmy Carter with Carter only carrying six states with a total of 49 electoral votes, one-tenth the number for Reagan. Carter had been invited to speak at Wheaton in 1981 but declined fearing a hostile crowd (likely considering Anderson’s treatment).

The most recent campaign visit to Wheaton College came in 1988 when DuPage County Democrats brought Jesse Jackson to Wheaton’s campus holding a rally in Pierce Chapel. Part of a sweep through Chicago’s suburbs Jackson spoke to a large crowd and as one faculty member noted, addressed “biblical concerns for justice, fairness and non-violent social change.”

Nearly as brief as his candidacy was Mitt Romney’s potential visit to Wheaton. Early in the 2008 Republican primary Romney had wanted to hold a rally on the campus the Sunday before Super Tuesday, but was unable to secure permission to campus facilities.

Twenty years has passed since the last presidential candidate has visited Wheaton. Despite the regular note of commentators of the influence of evangelical voters in contemporary American politics and a broad-brush portrayal that indicates evangelical vote lockstep Republican, the history of political engagement at Wheaton College reveals that a finer brush stroke may be needed to accurately portray history. Wheaton has been willing to engage a wide range of political perspectives but also seeks to wrestle with the intersection of those perspectives and the perspectives of Scripture.

The final debate between John McCain and Barak Obama in the 2008 Presidential race referenced real-life “Joe the Plumber” who struggled on where to place his vote and whether the candidate’s proposed economic plans would negatively impact him and his business. Thirty-five years ago there was talk in America about a few other “plumbers.” These plumbers didn’t carry monkey-wrenches or copper pipes but did release upon this country a flood suspicion, disappointment and cynicism that plagues politics to this day.

David R. Young, Jr., born in 1936 in Jersey City, New Jersey, received a bachelors of science degree in physics from Wheaton College, Illinois in 1959, where he played soccer, sang in Men’s Glee and was a member of the physics Honors Society, Sigma Pi Sigma. He then went on to receive a law degree from Cornell University. Later, he he was employed in the law offices of Millbank, Tweed, Hadley and McCloy, New York. It was from here that he was appointed a special assistant at the National Security Council in the Nixon Administration and an administrative assistant to Henry Kissinger. In 1971, Young was assigned to the Domestic Council, where he worked with one of John D. Ehrlichman’s deputies. Young’s task was to investigate information leaks within the Nixon administration. Young and his boss, Egil Krogh, founded the White House Special Investigations Unit that eventually was known as “The Plumbers.” The moniker came about because plumbers “stop leaks.” Legend has it that Young chose this name because his grandfather was a plumber.

Other members of the Plumbers “union” were Howard Hunt and G. Gordon Liddy. The Plumbers, who were obviously not plumbers, and it would appear not good burglars either, are most known for the attempted burglary of a psychatrist’s office in 1971 and the attempted 1972 burglary of the Democratic National Committee offices at the Watergate complex. The revelations of the break-ins and subsequent cover-up brought forth a Congressional investigation that resulted in Young’s resignation from government service. He was granted limited immunity and spared jail-time.

A few years after this Young moved to Oxford, England and completed a doctorate. He went on to found and lead Oxford Analytica, an international consulting firm that draws upon the expertise of Oxford faculty. He has, since 1975, served as Lecturer in Politics at Queen’s College, Oxford. He has also been Senior Associate Member of St. Antony’s College, a Dominus Fellow of St. Catherine’s College, and Senior Common Room Member of University College. He has served as an Associate Member of the Royal Institute of International Affairs and the International Institute of Strategic Studies since 1980.

The National Archives and the Nixon Library both house archival materials related to Young, “The Plumbers,” the Watergate scandal, and related legal actions. The Wes Pippert Papers (SC-56) also contain resources related to the Watergate scandal. Pippert was the principal United Press International (UPI) reporter on Watergate from 1973 to 1975.