While living in Russia, Svetlana Stalin, the only daughter and last surviving child of Soviet dictator Josef Stalin, was “the little princess.” A perfume and many Russian girls were named after her. At the end of her days in Wisconsin, far from her homeland, she died in obscurity on November 22, 2011, at age 85. Between those points Svetlana rode the soaring ups and dismal downs of an extraordinary life.

Defecting in 1967 from Russia, she moved to India, then to Europe, then to the United States. Already widowed and divorced, she married American William Wesley Peters, a former son-in-law to Frank Lloyd Wright, and took the name “Lana Peters.” Returning to Moscow in 1984, she moved to Soviet Georgia, than back to America, then to England, then to France, back to America, then to England again, before finally settling in Wisconsin. During her U.S. sojourn, Svetlana espoused deeply conservative causes, financially supporting William F. Buckley’s National Review. In Russian, she seemingly denounced these views, stating that she had been a “pet” used by the C.I.A. Residing again in the U.S., she retracted her former anti-conservative sentiments, accusing the press of mistranslating her statements.

In 1982 the BBC aired “A Week with Svetlana,” documenting her visit at the Sussex home of Malcolm and Kitty Muggeridge. The famed defector discussed her experience as Stalin’s daughter and the growth and stability of religion in the USSR.

The program was positively received. One woman wrote to Muggeridge, “…It was so very interesting to meet Svetlana, whose faith has sustained her through her joys and sadness…Her conversation, riveting and evocative, reminded me of my young days…Eager to create a brave, new world…” Another wrote: “My heart has been set singing after watching on the television yourself and your guest Stalin’s daughter…The pictures of your house, the garden and the dear English countryside was a feast indeed. Even more, was the unwavering faith of your guest. ‘Christ is alive!’ Hallelulah, my heart replies…”

“You can’t regret your fate,” Svetlana once remarked, “although I do regret my mother didn’t marry a carpenter.” She authored two autobiographies, Twenty Letters to a Friend and Only One Year.

The papers of Malcolm Muggeridge (SC-04) are maintained at Wheaton College Special Collections.

Alan Alexander Milne was born in Kilburn, London, England in 1882 and grew up at Henley House School, a small independent school in London run by his father. One of his teachers was H.G. Wells who taught there in 1889-90. Milne later attended Westminster School and Trinity College, Cambridge, studying mathematics. While at Cambridge Milne edited and wrote for a student magazine, Granta, where he came to the attention of editors at Punch, a humor and satirical magazine. He would later work at Punch as an assistant editor. In 1913 Milne married Dorothy “Daphne” de Selincourt and together they had one child, Christopher Robin Milne, on whom was based the Christopher Robin character of his later Winnie the Pooh books. Milne retired to his farm after a stroke and brain surgery in 1952 left him an invalid. He died in 1956.

Materials on A.A. Milne and monographs of his works are located in the William S. Akin Rare Book Collection in the Wheaton College Special Collections.

Gerald Ford said of John Bayard Anderson, “He’s the smartest guy in Congress, but he insists on voting his conscience instead of party.” This statement spoke well of the son on a Swedish immigrant who sought to honor his beliefs. Anderson, from Rockford, Illinois (Illinois’ 16th Congressional district) served in the U. S. House of Representatives for twenty years (ten terms) and was a candidate for president in the 1980 election.

Born in 1922, Anderson was the recipient of an honorary doctorate from Wheaton (LL.D. — Doctor of Laws) in 1970 and spoke at Wheaton on occasion. Though honored in 1970, his visit on March 12, 1980 was not so hospitable. The election season of 1980 was the most significant season of political stops Wheaton College had ever seen. Illinois has, for a long time, been a key battleground state with its large numbers of electoral votes and the 1980 primary season brought many March visitors to the campus. The first visitor was John B. Anderson.

A devout Christian, as a member of Congress Anderson, 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. Having served in Congress for nearly two decades Anderson retained his economic conservatism but grew much more moderate in his position on social issues. He and his fellow Republicans of similar moderate beliefs had become known as Rockefeller Republicans. Anderson’s wife noted that after the murder of Martin Luther King Jr. and the 1968 riots she understood her husband’s devotion to his work. Though shaken by the events of that year she found she couldn’t match his level of concern.

Anderson’s reception at the November polls were about as favorable as he had received at Wheaton. In the end he received 7% of the popular vote and didn’t carry a single precinct, not even in Rockford, Illinois. Unable to return to his seat in Congress Anderson found himself as a visiting professor on several college and university campuses. Unfortunately, Wheaton College was not one of them.

The Wesley Pippert Papers document a portion of the Anderson campaign, including audio of several of his campaign speeches.

Edward MacDowell (1860-1908), pianist and composer, felt that the productivity he enjoyed in his later years was the result of the uninterrupted leisure and pine-scented countryside of Peterborough, New Hampshire, where his summer retreat was located. Comfortable in his cabin situated a few years from his home, Hillcrest, he created the Norse and Celtic sonatas, the New England Idylls, the Fireside Tales, and many other songs and choruses. So far out in the woods, the property offered the deep pervading solitude of a primeval forest. During his final illness MacDowell fretted as to what might happen to this beloved patch of earth, hoping that it might continue providing a safe haven for other artists. As he lay dying, his wife, Marian, promised him that she would devote her life to fulfilling his dream. Shortly before he died, the Mendlessohn Glee Club had raised funds for an as-yet undecided memorial; at the suggestion of Mrs. MacDowell, the memorial took the form of an endowment of the Peterborough property for the purpose of establishing an art colony.

Feeling strongly that the various arts all spring from the same impulse, Edward MacDowell encouraged his students to expose themselves to other forms. For instance, the musician should know something about painting; and the sculptor should know something about poetry. The best way to accomplish this was to congregate representatives of all arts, acquainting them with one another. And so the Colony was instituted, acquiring additional acreage in the following decades – though most of it remained undeveloped to preserve the rich forest. Studios and cabins were built, each sufficiently secluded to afford privacy and productivity. Men had their own houses, the women theirs. Residing at Hillcrest, Mrs. MacDowell supervised the construction of studios, roads and the farm. In addition, she traveled far and wide, delivering lecture-recitals, raising substantial support for the 600-acre Colony.

Throughout the years the Colony has hosted such guests as Willa Cather, Elinor Wylie, Edwin Arlington Robinson, Stephen Vincent Benet and Thornton Wilder, who there wrote Our Town. Recent participants include James Baldwin, Michael Chabon and Alice Walker.

The Edward MacDowell Papers (SC-196), comprising photographs, pamphlets and newspaper articles, are housed at the Wheaton College (IL) Special Collections.

2011 is the 400th anniversary of the Authorized Version, or more commonly known, the King James Bible. Through the end of 2011 the Archives & Special Collections has mounted an exhibit, Out of Sacred Tongues, celebrating this anniversary by displaying original and facsimile texts that show the history of the King James Bible.

Included in this exhibit is what would be considered a “mite” bible. This miniature bible is just over 1 3/4 inches tall and contains the full text of the King James Bible. The text is so small it requires a magnifying glass to easily read the text. Fortunately the publishers included one in a pocket in the back of the Bible!!

The Bible was published in Edinburgh and London, Nimmo, Hay, and Mitchell and jointly published with Henry Frowde. The publishers had the text printed at the Oxford University Press who had recently acquired the ability to print “micro” text. Some may be familiar with this printing technology through the “compact” edition of the Oxford English Dictionary which allowed individuals to own the gargantuan 600,000 word, twenty-volume, dictionary–that took 80 lexicographers to complete– in just two volumes. That two-volume set, like the mite bible, came with its own magnifying glass, but stored in a drawer. This set was a great enticement to join book clubs like the Conservative Book Club.

The production of this Bible was no small feat in the same way that the creation of the King James Bible was no small undertaking. “Authorized” in 1604 a group of the “best learned” from Oxford and Cambridge, along with bishops and the chief learned of the church” set about the task of translating a Bible for the whole church. After seven years the 47 scholars involved produced what has become the most widely sold book in history. In 1881 when a group set about to revise and update the text they found that “the longer we have been engaged upon it the more we have learned to admire its simplicity, its dignity, its power, its happy turns of expression, its general accuracy, and, we must not fail to add, the music of its cadences, the felicities of its rhythm.” Not until more recent decades has the text of the King James been supplanted by more modern renderings.

Charles Harting Percy died over the weekend at 91. He was an unusual politician, not unlike another recently passed Republican, Mark Hatfield. Percy was on the moderate-end of the Republican spectrum, probably a bit left of Hatfield. Both were known as Rockefeller Republicans. He had broad appeal in Illinois, including in the African-American community in Chicago. The Washington Post’s Emily Langer said, “in today’s polarized political climate, Sen. Percy would be described as a rare breed–an unabashed liberal and skeptic about military spending and war….He repeatedly clashed with President Richard M. Nixon on foreign and domestic issues.” Again, not unlike Hatfield.

Born in Florida and a reared in Chicago, Percy was elected to the United States Senate from Illinois in 1966 after having worked at Bell and Howell for over 25 years. Percy remained in the Senate until 1985. On two different occasions (1968 and 1976) Percy explored the possibility of running for President, but did not run either time. His most important political act, and one that had the most enduring legacy, was overhauling the process of nominating federal judges. Implementing a system of broad input, including the bar association, Percy’s approach was unusual for the time.

The Wesley Pippert papers contain several files related to the life and career of Charles Percy. Pippert served as Percy’s Press Secretary from 1967-1968 during one of the exploratory periods for the U. S. presidency. The Pippert Papers are available to researchers at the Wheaton College Archives & Special Collections.