Libraries
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.
Nels A. Tornquist served as a U.S. Cavalry soldier, seeing action in several conflicts, and was known for his rapid promotion to command a black company during World War 1. Tornquist’s family moved to Kansas from Sweden when he was eight years old and homesteaded south of Salina, Kansas. Tornquist first joined the U.S. military in 1896 and from 1899 to 1902, he was part of the 22nd Field Artillery Battery as a corporal, serving in the Philippines during the Spanish-American War. After the war, he served with various regiments before serving with the 1st Squadron 13th Cavalry as a sergeant from 1916 to 1917 in the campaign against Pancho Villa. In 1918, Tornquist was made Captain QMC of a black company, 344th Labor Battalion Company B, which saw action in France during World War I. After the war, Tornquist was assigned to the ROTC in 1921 at the University of Washington in Seattle with a rank of sergeant before retiring from active duty in 1922. In 1932, an act of Congress promoted him to the retired rank of captain. Tornquist died in Pasadena, California, in 1950 at the age of 77.
John Thirwell, a British consumer advocate, spoke at Farrell Library in 1988. The donor file contains correspondence from Anthony Crawford to Mr. Thirwell and correspondence from Mr. Thirwell to Richard L. D. Morse, as well as an announcement from the Friends of the Libraries about Mr. Thirwell's speech on The Consumer Movement in England.
Russell I. Thackrey was a journalist, university professor, and educational administrator. Thackrey earned his B.S. in journalism from Kansas State in 1927 and his M.S. in 1932. Simultaneously, Thackrey worked as an instructor at K-State from 1928 to 1935, while he also revived and edited Kansas Magazine from 1933 to 1935. After working as a reporter for the Associated Press for one year from 1935 to 1936, Thackrey taught at the University of Minnesota from 1937 to 1940, but he returned to K-State as Head of the Journalism Department from 1940 to 1944. This was followed by his work as Dean of Administration at K-State from 1944 to 1947. Thackrey’s work in education continued as he served as Director of the National Association of State Universities and Land Grant Colleges from 1947 to 1970. He also served on the John F. Kennedy Task Force on Education in 1960, and in 1969, he was awarded the Presidential award of American College Public Relations Association. After leaving education, Thackrey spent his time writing, and in 1971, he published “The Future of the State University” through the Illinois Press. Thackrey died in Manhattan, Kansas on March 11, 1990.
Stuart McGregor Pady was born in Arnprior, Ontario, Canada, on November 15, 1905. Educated in Ontario, he graduated from McMaster University in Toronto with a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1928 and a Master of Arts degree in 1929. As a doctoral student at the University of Toronto, he married Rose Annie Maw in 1931. Two years later, Stuart received his Ph.D. in Mycology, Plant Pathology.
Pady received a Fellowship in Botany from the National Research Council and did his work at the New York Botanical Gardens between 1933 and 1935. He then joined the faculty at McMaster University for one year, and then became Head of the Biology Department at Ottawa University, in Ottawa, Kansas, from 1936 to 1945. During this time, Pady and his wife adopted two children: Donald in 1937 and Helen in 1942.
In 1945, Stuart taught botany at Kansas State College in Manhattan, Kansas, for one year. Then, the Padys moved to Montreal, Quebec, Canada, where Stuart joined the McGill University faculty and taught botany. During this time, he received research grants from the Defence Research Board, Ottawa, Canada, on Arctic Aerobiology.
In 1952, the Padys returned to Manhattan, Kansas, as Stuart became Head of the Department of Botany and Plant Pathology at Kansas State College, now Kansas State University. He served in this capacity until 1967, when he returned to the classroom. During his tenure he recevied several research grants from the United States Department of Health Education and Welfare, National Center for Air Pollution Control, to study airborne fungi.
Pady enjoyed a sabbatical from July 1969 to March 1970 at Waite Agricultural Institute, University of Adelaide, Adelaide, Australia. During this time he also was a consultant for the USAID program at Andhra Pradesh University, Hyderabad, India.
Rose Annie Maw was born in Kingston-upon-Hull, Yorkshire, United Kingdom, on January 28, 1900. While not a college graduate, she was important to Stuart's academic life by often typing his research papers and attending academic functions with him.
Stuart retired from Kansas State University in 1973 and they moved to Ottawa, Kansas, the following year. After living in Ottawa for twenty years, they returned to Manhattan in 1994. Rose died there in June 1997, followed by Stuart's death in January 2004.
The Steel Ring and Honor Society is an honor society that is compromised of Seniors within the Carl R. Ice College of Engineering who present leadership, academic achievement, service and engagement. The Steel Ring Honor Society has been at Kansas State since 1927. Members of the society are in charge of planning and running the Engineering open house every spring.
The Society for Military History is an organization dedicated to the scholarship and study of military history amongst scholars, soldiers, and citizens. The Society was first established in 1933 in Washington, D.C. as the American Military History Foundation (AMHF), and in April 1937 the AMHF first published the Journal of the American Military History Foundation. The organization’s name was changed to the American Military Institute (AMI) in 1939, while the Journal was renamed as Military Affairs in 1941. In 1948, the AMI merged with the Order of the Indian Wars. For one year, from 1948 to 1949, paid editors from the Office of the Chief of Military History were in charge of the Military Affairs publication, but this was suspended by U.S. Secretary of Defense Louis Johnson. Beginning in 1968, Kansas State University was in charge of the publication of Military Affairs. This continued until 1988, when the Virginia Military Institute assumed publication. In 1989, Military Affairs was renamed as the Journal of Military History, and in 1990, the AMI was renamed as the Society for Military History.
The Shirley Smith Papers (1937-2011) contain a wide array of information regarding the unique life and career path, from rural Kansas to New York City, of Kansas State alumnus Shirley Smith. Smith’s papers are of importance not only as a record of personal history, but history within the modeling, art, and acting worlds as well. The collection includes a variety of formats into which most of the papers are organized according to series and subseries. Research strengths of the collection include the regional and biographical history of Smith’s hometown, Whitewater, Kansas, as well as more substantial documentation of Smith’s career as a model, actress, and artist.
Shirley Smith died in New York in October 2013.
Shirley Smith was born in Whitewater, Kansas in 1929. By the time she graduated high school in 1947, her career as a model was already beginning as she entered (and won) several beauty pageants in her hometown. Soon, she moved on to Kansas State College, becoming heavily involved in theater, and graduating in 1951.
After graduating, Smith began her modeling career by modeling in advertisements for Kansas City’s Helzberg Diamonds in 1952. Soon, Smith moved to New York to continue to model for several major lingerie companies, including Maidenform. Following her modeling career, Smith moved on to acting in shows on Broadway and soon took roles on television and in a movie as well. Several of her most notable appearances include a play entitled The Highest Tree, which also featured Robert Redford and Paul Newman, and a starring role in a 1956 episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents (“Alibi Me”). Smith also appeared alongside Peter Falk in the motion picture film Pretty Boy Floyd.
In her early 30s, Smith began to suffer hearing loss and turned her focus toward her art career. Beginning with collages and other forms of abstract art, Smith moved on to “lyrical abstraction,” a form of post-modern art, which included fabrics and various other mediums. Later in her career, she returned to her roots, painting pastoral scenes of rural Kansas and farm animals, especially pigs. Smith spent several summers in a trailer studio outside of Whitewater, Kansas as inspiration for her work.
George Smith was born January 15, 1809 in Burlington, Chittendon County, Vermont, the son of John and Mary Smith. In 1832, he began his law career in Vermont, Moved to Illinois, and eventually settled in the Iowa Territory. Mr. Smith served as a county judge from 1837-1841 in Tipton, Cedar County, Iowa and then resumed his law practice. On March 26, 1845, he married Elizabeth Davy Richards, whose family had recently immigrated from Devonshire, England. They had six children: Mary Eliza, Marcia Emma, Flora Ella, Frank Melville, Rollin George, and Jenny Lind. In 1871, George Smith set out alone to settle a homestead in smith County, Kansas. He died of suffocation on September 4, 1872 when the dug-out he was living in caved-in. His youngest daughter, Jenny Lind Smith, was born December 26, 1856 in Tipton, Iowa. She taught school at Dubuque High School in Dubuque, Iowa from 1875-79 and then moved to Kansas with her mother and brother Frank in 1880. In Kansas, she met and married Volney Bottomly in November 1882. They had two children, Herbert Jefferson and Helen Elizabeth. Mrs. Bottomly died on March 20, 1950. Helen Elizabeth Bottomly was born December 9, 1886 in Cedarville, Smith County, Kansas. She graduated from Kansas State Agricultural College in 1905. She taught school for a year in Cleburne, a country school north of Manhattan, Kansas. She then attended Kansas Wesleyan College in Salina the next year. On May 6, 1908 she married Percy Eugene Lill, son of Michael and Joanna Lill of rural Mt. Hope, Kansas. Percy had two brothers, Harry and Joe, and two sisters, Genevieve and Gertrude. Percy and Elizabeth Lill lived on a farm near Mt. Hope for most of their lives but moved to Oxford in 1947. They had seven children including Marjorie Elizabeth, Eugene Michael, Volney Bottomly, Wayne Percy, Gordon Grigsby, Dean Thomas, and Richard Alan. All but one, Volney, received degrees at Kansas State and he alone of the brothers did not fight in World War II. Dean Lill was killed in action in November 1944, in Germany and was buried in Holland. The rest of the family are all married and living in various locations in the U.S. Their parents, Percy and Helen Lill, have both passed away, he on July 28, 1967, and her on October 22, 1977.
Roderic Simpson, born in 1922, worked in cooperative agriculture. He was among the first to complete a pilot program under the aegis of the United States Department of Agriculture through Dodge City Community College (previously Dodge City Junior College) and received a certification in lieu of a Bachelor of Science degree in agriculture, making him eligible to be a county Extension Service Agent. This program entailed 60 credit hours of science coursework at Dodge City Community College followed by three years of employment under the supervision of an Extension Agent.
After completing the certification, he worked for three months as Gray County Extension Agent in Cimarron, Kansas before receiving his draft notice in December 1944. After serving in the Navy, Simpson was brought on by his father to a series of cooperative projects in Mullinville, Kansas. Galvanized by the attacks of the National Tax Equality Association on cooperatives, he embarked on a career in cooperative agriculture.
Roderic Simpson began working in a management position at a general purpose cooperative in Peetz, Colorado; and then transitioned into work as a fieldman in eastern Nebraska and western Wyoming for the CCA (Consumers Cooperative Association, predecessor of Farmland Industries). He then worked for the Dodge City Cooperative Exchange for 15 years as a local cooperative fieldman, and later joined FAR-MAR-CO in 1971 as a territory fieldman based out of Hutchinson, Kansas.
Born in 1945, Robert Simonsen is a life long resident of Kansas. He received an undergraduate degree in history/political science from Washburn University in 1976.
Simonsen joined the U.S. Army in 1966 and achieved the rank of Seargent-Major in the medical field. He retired after 31 years of combined active and reserve service.
Since elementary school, collecting photographs autographed by political leaders in the United States has been an avocation of Simonsen's. While serving in Vietnam in 1969-70, he began collecting in earnest and expanded his focus to include political and military figures from the United States and countries throughout the world. The collection contains over 7,500 portrait photographs signed by political and military leaders from approximately 75 countries, including the United States.
Currin V. Shields was a political scientist and leading consumer advocate. Shields received his A.B. degree from the University of Nebraska in 1941, followed by his Ph.M. from the University of Wisconsin in 1943. From 1944 to 1946, he served in the U.S. Army as a 2nd Lieutenant. After his time in the military, Shields was an instructor at Yale University until he earned his Ph.D. from Yale in 1950. From 1950 to 1960, Shields was a professor of Political Science at UCLA. He also served on the 22nd Congressional District, Democratic Council of California and host of a radio program entitled “What’s the issue?” at station KFWB in Hollywood. Shields was co-chairman of the California Democratic Council Political Action Committee from 1955 to 1957, and in 1958, he published his book “Democracy and Catholicism in America.” From 1960 to 1984, Shields was a professor in the Department of Government at the University of Arizona. Shields was a failed candidate for Governor of Arizona in the 1968 Democratic primary. Shields’s work as a consumer advocate began in 1969 when he became a board member of the Consumer Federation of America, as well as president of the Arizona Consumers Council, a position he would hold until 1980. Throughout the 1970s and 80s, Shields was a member and director of several consumer groups, including the Consumer Advisory Committee, the National Conference of Consumer Organizations, the President’s Consumer Advertising Council, the National Consumer Affairs Internship Program, and the National Consumer Symposium, Inc. Shields died in 1984 at the age of 66.