Hanover's History Department and the Duggan Library Archives celebrate "One Day in May" every year, collecting material to help future historians understand everyday life for Hanoverians today. We'd love for you to join us.

In 1933, this date (May 20) was a Saturday.  Calla Harrison was probably thinking that day about how time passes.  

Most immediately, she needed to remember to set back her alarm clock so that she would get to church on time the following day.  She was living in Honolulu then, and the Hawaiian legislature had just voted to repeal Daylight Savings Time. It had started only three weeks earlier, but it was so unpopular that the legislators decided to repeal it right away.  Although the governor was sick in bed that day, he promised to get up at 2:00am to sign the bill so that it would take immediate effect then, giving Calla an extra hour of sleep on Sunday morning.

She may also have been thinking about how time had passed in the fifty years since she became Hanover’s first female graduate.  The College would be marking that anniversary in June by awarding her an honorary doctorate, but she had decided that Indiana was just too far away for her to participate in person.  

A month before, she had been delighted to receive a visitor she knew from her college years – Effie Morse, her old math professor’s daughter.  Effie had stopped briefly as she was passing through Honolulu on her way to Japan.  It’s possible they hadn’t seen each other since the 1880s, and they spent two hours together, talking about Hanover.  Then they walked to the pier where Effie's ship was waiting.

 As Effie was leaving, her last words were “If you can’t go to Hanover, why don’t you write something?”

We’re fortunate that Calla Harrison took that advice.  The six-page letter she sent off on Effie’s suggestion is now in the College Archives, and it gives us invaluable details about her “knightly and most chivalrous” fellow students and the “saintly” faculty of the early 1880s.  It was not just classmates and faculty who shaped her though; she also remembered people who would not otherwise have gotten much credit.  She remembered Effie Morse as “a tiny girl, playing somewhere near her dark-eyed, gentle mother.”  She also described Amanda Fisher (the president’s wife), who “knew how to make a shy Junior or Senior ‘prep’ feel at home,” and Margaret Garrett (the classics professor’s wife), who “cared for our spiritual welfare.”  Without Calla’s letter, we might not think about all the many people who provide students with life-changing guidance and support.

We hope you’ll follow Effie Morse’s advice and “write something” to help future historians understand you and your Hanover experience!

Sources: “Clocks Going Back an Hour, 2 a.m. Sunday,” Honolulu Star-Bulletin, May 20, 1933, p. 1, 9; “Graduate at Hanover,” Madison Courier, June 6, 1933, p. 3; “Prof. Huffer Kin Dies in Japan,” Capital Times (Madison, Wisc.), Mar. 5, 1934, p. 7; Calla Harrison, to “Hanover Alumni,” 24 Apr. 1935, Duggan Archives, Hanover College (Hanover, Ind.).

Photos:  "Pier 7, Honolulu," New York Public Library Digital Collections; "Professor Culbertson Standing with Horse Carrying Professor Morse's Daughters,"  Duggan Archives, Hanover College (Hanover, Ind.).