Edna Worthley Underwood was a writer and author who published original works of poetry, prose, plays, and short stories, as well as translated the works of other authors into English, as she was fluent in 6 languages. After graduating from Arkansas City High School in Arkansas City, Kansas in 1888, Underwood attended Garfield University in Wichita for two years. She then attended the University of Michigan and graduated in 1892. Underwood spent time teaching in Arkansas City schools before moving to Kansas City prior to 1904 and living there until approximately 1910-1912. From 1911 to 1938, Underwood wrote much of her works of poetry and prose and translating various works into English while living in New York City. After moving back to Arkansas City in 1938, Underwood spent her time traveling between Maine, Boston, and Arkansas City until 1953 but did not publish any more writings. Underwood died in 1961.
The United States Commission on Military History (USMCH) was established in 1973 after nine United States scholars traveled to the International Commission on Military History (ICMH) Colloquium in Stockholm, Sweden. ICMH was established in Zurich in 1938. In 1974 USCMH was incorporated by John Jessup, Reamer Argo, Forrest Pogue, and Philip Lundberg.
The USCMH hosted three ICMH Colloquiums. Two were held at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington D.C. in 1975 and 1982 respectively. The third was held in 2002 in Norfolk, Virginia.
In 1990, the first United States issue of Revue International d’Historie Militaire was published.
Presidents of the Commission were John Jessup (1974-1979 and 1988-1991), Philip Lundberg (1980-1983), James Collins (1984-1987), Kenneth Hagan (1991-1995), Dean Allard (1996-1999), and Allan Millett (2000-2004).
Leona Velen 1916-2001
Doris Velen 1919-2003Ruth Ann Von Elling was born 23 July 1941 at Fort Riley, Kansas, the daughter of Robert Leroy and Margaret Doretta (Have) Stillwagon.
Following her divorce from William Howard Von Elling, Ruth worked at a number of different businesses around Manhattan, Kansas, as either a cook or bookkeeper. She spent 4 years as the cook for the Beta Theta Pi fraternity.
She died 15 June 2016 at Manhattan, Kansas.
Colston Warne was an economics professor and consumer advocate, who served on multiple national consumer advisory boards that served to advise several U.S. presidential administrations. Warne earned his B.A. degree from Cornell University in 1920, his M.A. degree from Cornell in 1922, and his Ph.D. from the University of Chicago in 1925. From 1925 to 1926, Warne was an Assistant Professor of Economics at the University of Denver, after which he was an Assistant Professor at the University of Pittsburgh from 1926 to 1930, while simultaneously serving as a member of the Board of Directors for Cooperative League for the USA until 1929. From 1930 to 1942, Warne was a professor of economics at Amherst College, though he often spent his summers working as a professor at Bryn Mawr College’s summer school for industrial workers. Warne’s work as a consumer advocate began in 1928 when he helped form the group Consumers Research and continued when he served from 1934 to 1936 as President of People’s Lobby in Washington, D.C. Warne was the president of the Consumers Union from 1936 to 1979, while continuing to work as a professor at Amherst College from 1942 to 1970. Warne’s other efforts in consumer advocacy included serving as a member of the Board of Directors for the National Association of Consumers from 1947 to 1956, serving as an advisor to the President of the United States from 1947 to 1951, and organizing the first Council of Consumer Information in 1953 (later became the American Council on Consumer Interests). Warne was also instrumental in having the Consumers Union removed from the House Un-American Activities Committee’s list of “subverse organizations” in 1954. Warne’s work in consumer advocacy continued into the 1960s when he helped form the International Organization of Consumers Union in 1960 and served as a member of the Consumer Advisory Council to the President from 1962 to 1965. Warne retired from teaching in 1970 and died in 1987.
He was born February 6, 1924, on a farm near Osceola, Iowa, the son of Howard Oak and Nancy Elizabeth (Fugett) Wassom. When he was three weeks old, the family moved to Laurens, Iowa, where Clyde grew up and graduated from high school in 1941. Clyde attended Iowa State University for two years prior to being drafted into the United States Army in 1944. He served in several stateside camps and was a prisoner of war guard at several installations. He was discharged in June of 1946 and returned to Iowa State where he earned his bachelors in 1949 with a Genetics major and minors in mathematics and physics. He immediately started on an M.S. in Crop Breeding, completing the degree in 1951 working with brome-grass. His Ph.D. also was in Crop Breeding working with orchard-grass. Upon completing his Ph.D. in 1953, Clyde and family moved to Hiawatha, KS, where he became the first Superintendent of the Cornbelt Experiment Field at Powhattan.
In 1955 the family moved to Manhattan and Clyde became a professor in the Agronomy Department at Kansas State University. During his 38-year tenure at Kansas State University he exhibited conscientious dedication in his comprehensive field research programs in corn breeding and genetics. His research efforts led to the release of several inbred lines of corn, including ones with special characteristics, and white corn germplasms. Dr. Wassom was widely known for his corn breeding efforts and served as a consultant to several countries. He also supervised several graduate students who are serving in university and industry positions in the United States and in their native countries. While on sabbatical in Mexico City during 1967, he worked with CIMMYT, an international research organization supported by the Rockefeller and Ford Foundations. He was the faculty leader for three intersession courses to South America to compare agriculture practices.
Dr. Wassom was a member of the First Christian Church and was a life Elder. He was also a member of the Manhattan Kiwanis Club, Konza Kampers, Gideon's International, and American Legion Post # 17. Clyde held a private pilot’s license and was a former member of the K-State Flying Club and the Civil Air Patrol. Clyde was also an excellent trombonist and enjoyed playing at church and for family in recent years. On December 24, 1945, while on active duty he was married to Jane Lavonne Williams at Camp Grant in Rockford, IL.
Mrs. Wassom survives of the home in Manhattan. Additional survivors include three children: Jane Luanne Nelson and her husband Gary of Cottonwood, AZ, Steven Clyde Wassom and his wife Becky of Wamego, KS, and Karen S. Stewart and her husband Christopher of Manhattan; three siblings: Glenn Wassom of Johnston, IA, Scott Wassom of Alexander, AR, and Phyllis Stefani of Cedar Rapids, IA; nine grandchildren: Christopher P. Henton, Tracy A. McCabe, Richard T. Henton, Mark S. Wassom, Matthew C. Wassom, Laura L. Sylvester, Derek J. Wassom, Brandon C. Hagedorn and Brian S. Hagedorn; seven step-grandchildren; 30 great-grandchildren and step great-grandchildren; four great-great-grandchildren and many nieces and nephews.
Dorothy Anne "Dottie" Wellington was born May 4, 1924, in Kansas City, Missouri. She was the daughter of Lancie L. and Julia Rouggly Watts. Dottie grew up in Kansas City and attended Hale H. Cook Elementary and Southwest High Schools. She graduated from Randolph-Macon Woman's College. On September 14, 1946, she married Robert B. Wellington at the Country Club Christian Church in Kansas City, Missouri. They were married more than fifty-four years before Robert's death in 2000.
Dottie was a homemaker and author of the syndicated "Let's Cook" cooking column that appeared in the Ottawa Herald and other newspapers for many years, as well as two "Let's Cook" cookbooks. She taught cooking classes, was a frequent volunteer in her community and welcomed international exchange students to her home. Dottie enjoyed genealogy research and creating photo slideshows of her family. She loved keeping in touch with a wide circle of family members and friends. She and Robert were devoted members of the Grace episcopal Church in Ottawa, where she baked the alter bread for many years. Dorothy Anne Wellington died on July 16, 2016 at the Olathe Hospice House, Oltahe, Kansas.
George Dudley Wheatley was born April 10, 1892, in Abington, Massachusetts, son of Frank G. and Nellie Holbrook Wheatley; he had three brothers, Frank E., Russell, and John R. Wheatley. He graduated from Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire. From 1914 to 1917, he was employed by Bay State Nursery in Abington and United Shoe Machinery Company in Boston. In May of 1917 he entered the National Army’s Officer Candidate School at Plattsburg, New York, where he was a member of the second class of 1917 (Company 3, 17th Provisional Training Regiment composed of men from New England). He was commissioned second lieutenant in the U.S. Army’s Officers Reserve Corps in November, promoted to first lieutenant on November 27, and inducted into military service.
In 1918, after induction into the U.S. Army he sailed with other officers from New York to Europe on the SS Mongolia. In 5 weeks of February and March he attended the Allied Expeditionary Forces school in Chatillon-sur-Seine, France. Further activities in 1918 include the following:
- March 13: Reported to Company A, 165th Infantry at Senneville, France.
- March 31: Additional three weeks of training in Baccarat.
- April 23: Returned to area near Montigny.
- May 9: Reported to Company B at St. Pole.
- May 30: Left Baccarat for the front.
- July 14–15: German offensive began.
- July 29: First wounded in battle; while recuperating at a nearby military hospital, he was also stricken with influenza (several accounts cite date of wounding as July 28).
- August 21: Reported wounded in action and transferred to an American Red Cross Convalescent Hospital in Biarritz, France, AEF; treated for multiple gunshot wounds in the buttocks and right thigh; reported back to his regiment at La Marche on Sep 26.
- September 26–November 11: Returned to the front when the 42nd Division moved to Verdun as part of the Meuse-Argonne offensive; took Hill 288, La Tiuderie farm and the Cote de Chatillon, and broke squarely across the powerful Kriemhhilde Stelling, clearing the way for the advance beyond Landres et St. Georges; moved through the advancing lines of the forward troops of the First Army and drove the enemy across the Meuse, capturing the heights dominating the river before Sedan and reached the enemy lines, the farthest point attended by any American troops.
- November 11: Learned of Armistice while passing through Buzaucy; stopped at Thenorgnes.
- November 14: Started for Germany as part of Army of Occupation, took command of Company L at Landres (relieved of command on Dec 1).
- December 3: Crossed Seine River into Germany.
Activities in 1919 included:
- January 13: Transferred to 27th Division.
- January 16: Reached Paris.
- February 28: Sailed for United States from Brest, France.
- March 9: Landed at Hoboken and went to Camp Merritt, New Jersey.
- March 25: Paraded in New York City.
- April 1: Discharged at Camp Devens, Massachusetts.
- October–November: Resided in Springfield, Vermont, for at least several months.
Wheatley entered the insurance business in Chicago, Illinois, in 1920, and married Margaret G. McMillan in Evanston, Illinois, in 1921. They had three children; Margaret A. (born 1923), Barbara H. (born 1925), and James H. ( born1929) Wheatley. In 1940, the family moved to Abington, Massachusetts, and George became successful in the insurance business and civic affairs. He died May 20, 1961, in Abington.
Warren Nichols White, Jr. was born in Fort Worth, Texas, on November 12, 1952. Finishing his secondary education at St. Paul’s High School in Covington, Louisiana, he pursued a Bachelor of Science Degree in Engineering with honors in Electrical Engineering at Tulane University in New Orleans, Louisiana. In the summer of 1974, he began working for General Electric in Schenectady, New York.
White later transferred to GE’s Power Transformer Division in Pittsfield, Massachusetts. While working in Pittsfield, White commuted to Troy, New York, to earn a Master of Engineering degree in Electric Power Engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in 1977. While working on his Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering at Tulane, he met his future wife, Georganne Wilcox and married on May 4, 1980.
In 1985 White and family traveled north to Manhattan, Kansas, where he began teaching at Kansas State University. Over the years he taught Digital Controls, Finite Elements, and Dynamics among other subjects and developed a course in circuits specialty for Mechanical Engineers. He served as advisor for Women in Engineering, the Wildcat Wind Power Team and Final Frontier Aerospace Systems and Technology (FFAERO). He was inducted into Tau Beta Pi, a national honorary society for Engineering.
Warren Nichols White, Jr., 68, died on Monday, May 24, 2021.
Thomas Elmer Will was born November 11, 1861 in Prairie Adams county Illinois. In 1880 he taught at a country school and in 1882 he entered the Illinois State Normal School, graduating in 1885. In the fall of 1888, he studied at the University of Michigan for one year. He then entered the senior class at Harvard College and graduated in 1890. On completing his university studies, he married Marie Van Velsor Rogers of Cambridge, Massachusetts and accepted the chair of history and political science at Lawrence University in Appleton, Wisconsin. He held the position at Lawrence University for two years after which he went to Boston where he delivered courses of lectures on economics and wrote a series of sociological articles for the “Arena” publication for one year. Will came to Kansas State in 1894 to become the chair of Political Economy, serving in this role for three years before becoming President in 1897. Notable during Will’s presidency was the establishment of the first on-campus bookstore and dining hall, but these services were closed after his removal as president in 1899. Kansas in the 1890s was the center of political upheaval between Populists and Republicans, and issues surrounding Populism and the free silver combination led to the removal of President Will together with several other faculty members after Republicans gained control of the Board of Regents. He devoted six years following the close of his work at Kansas State Agricultural College to emphasize the principles taught in his lectures, addresses, and papers while President, including time at Ruskin College in Trenton, Missouri, and as president of the New Socialist College in Wichita, Kansas. He became well-known in the 1930s as an advocate for the development of the Everglades in Florida, and he helped found the settlement Okeelanta in Palm Beach County, Florida. This led to the naming of the Thomas Will Memorial Highway in his honor in 1941, four years after his death.