Title | Houstonian 1954 |
Creator (Local) |
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Place of Creation (TGN) |
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Date | 1954 |
Description | This edition of the Houstonian, published in 1954, is the official yearbook of the University of Houston. |
Subject.Topical (LCSH) |
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Genre (AAT) |
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Language | English |
Type (DCMI) |
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Original Item Location | LD2281.H745 H6 v. 20 1954 |
Original Item URL | http://library.uh.edu/record=b1158762~S11 |
Digital Collection | Houstonian Yearbook Collection |
Digital Collection URL | http://digital.lib.uh.edu/collection/yearb |
Repository | Special Collections, University of Houston Libraries |
Repository URL | http://info.lib.uh.edu/about/campus-libraries-collections/special-collections |
Use and Reproduction | This image is in the public domain and may be used freely. If publishing in print, electronically, or on a website, please cite the item using the citation button. |
File Name | index.cpd |
Title | In Memoriam |
Format (IMT) |
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File Name | yearb1954009.jpg |
Transcript | IN MEMORIAM Most colleges remember their founders' faces by old, old portraits hanging in some forgotten place. The founder's life is history in some book. Until June 18, 1954, University faculty members, alumni, and students could remember their school's founder as a friend. For over a year, they had listened for the news of a rally from a long sickness. The news never came. On the 18th, at 74, Dr. Edison E. Oberholtzer, who had helped found the University, later serving as its first president, was dead. The University mourned officially for its past president, a man of academic greatness. Those who knew him better, mourned more deeply and out of more than respect. For if any man can be called the father of the University, he is Dr. Oberholtzer. In 1927, as superintendent of Houston's public schools, he had a problem. The answer to that problem, a petition by a group of local high school graduates, was Houston Junior College, forerunner to the University. In 1934, the depression made money a dictionary word, but rapid growth under Dr. Oberholtzer's sound guidance had given Houston Junior College the determination to expand into the present University. When he left the Houston Public Schools in 1945 to become first full-time president of the University, 4,000 students heard the news and wondered at their school's quick progress. In 1950 Dr. Oberholtzer retired as University President, ending a teaching career he began at 17. To degrees from the University of Chicago and Columbia he added the honor the school gave him as President Emeritus. Several years of ill health followed, his strength gradually ebbing. When the end came, newspapers, as is their custom, hunted a proper obituary tribute. "Eminent Educator," was the choice. Very fitting, it nevertheless seemed in some way lacking warmth. "A Friend," was the University's final but unforgetting good- by. |