days of old
Windows to the Past If not for John Dolibois ’42, alumni director at the time, all of the stainedglass windows that adorned Miami’s one-time glorious 1868 chapel likely would have been destroyed when Old Main was pulled down in 1958, having been declared no longer safe by the state building inspectors. Fortunately, Dolibois was on Slant Walk near the university’s original classroom building (where Harrison Hall is today) when he heard the sound of breaking glass. According to an Oct. 8, 1992, Oxford Press article, Dolibois followed the sound and discovered workmen tossing the windows out of the second floor onto a rubble pile. “After some hasty negotiating, Dolibois bought the remaining unbroken windows for $50,” the Oxford Press recounts. “They were taken to a university storage shed behind Minnis Drug Store.” Later, to establish the Miami University Presidents Club, Dolibois, who had since been promoted to vice president for University Relations, gave a window to each of the first 12 alumni who pledged $10,000 to the Miami University Fund. He saved three, one for each of his sons, all Miami graduates. John White ’58 tells more about the windows in his essay “Remembering Old Main, 1816-1958,” in Miami University 1809-2009: Bicentennial Perspectives. They were featured prominently in the chapel, part of a grand west wing that was built after the Civil War. “A local paper described it as a consecrated place bathed in dim and hallowed light,” White writes. “Its lofty ceilings were partitioned into frescoed panels, studded with gilt globes and ornamented in the Corinthian style. [Some of the] Great stained-glass windows made from imported English cathedral glass were named as memorials to past Miami presidents. “When Benton Hall (later renamed Hall Auditorium) was opened in [1908], Old Main chapel was no longer needed. It was converted into a central dining hall called the Commons — a subdued eatery, for stained-glass windows blocked much of the sunlight. When dining halls opened in new dormitories, the Commons became a theatre and was an art studio in its final decades.” Although it’s unclear where some of the windows are today, a few are on exhibit. The window that honors President John W. Hall is in McGuffey Museum; a second one is on display at Oxford Lane Library, donated by Dolibois in memory of his son, Brian ’80; and the third is the President Robert Hamilton Bishop window, located in President Greg Crawford’s study in Lewis Place. << On display at the McGuffey Museum on Miami’s Oxford campus, this stained-glass window rescued from Old Main memorializes John W. Hall, president of Miami 1854-1866.
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miamian magazine
