Unique Gift Preserves History

Good things can come in small packages, at least as far as Lander associate director of Library Services Dr. David Mash is concerned.

Mash recently received a phone call from Jane McGahee, of Clinton, who told him that she had been going through some things that belonged to her grandmother, Clara Bobo, who attended Lander during the 1930s, and had come across three old Lander College yearbooks. “She couldn’t bear to throw them away, and she said, ‘would you be interested in these?’ And I said, ‘absolutely,’” Mash recalled.

The yearbooks Mash received were signed by numerous classmates of Bobo, as well as Dr. John W. Speake, president of Lander from 1932-41. Between two of the yearbooks was something that Mash found even more interesting: a souvenir folder of 17 postcards depicting Greenwood landmarks of the 1930s. “We’re just so excited that this little piece came,” Mash said, calling the folder “unique to anything we have.”

Mash is in the process of digitizing the photos and researching the places shown so that he can annotate each image. He encouraged friends of the University to donate old postcards or other items of historical importance to Lander’s archives collection. Even something small, he said, can be “of large consequence.”

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By Jeff Lagrone