{"id":2217,"date":"2017-06-21T08:50:18","date_gmt":"2017-06-21T12:50:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.lib.purdue.edu\/asc\/?p=2217"},"modified":"2017-06-21T08:50:18","modified_gmt":"2017-06-21T12:50:18","slug":"collection-spotlight-the-romance-of-bernice-nelson-and-l-murray-grant","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.lib.purdue.edu\/asc\/2017\/06\/21\/collection-spotlight-the-romance-of-bernice-nelson-and-l-murray-grant\/","title":{"rendered":"Collection Spotlight: The Romance of Bernice Nelson and L. Murray Grant"},"content":{"rendered":"

Editor\u2019s Note: The Collections Spotlight series will highlight small collections that provide unique glimpses of Purdue and its people.<\/em><\/p>\n

Among the holdings of Purdue University Archives and Special Collections are many materials that belonged to Purdue students during their time in West Lafayette.\u00a0 Each collection is different and provides a personal view of the student and his or her college experience.\u00a0 In the case of the L. Murray Grant and Bernice Nelson Grant Papers, we get to glimpse two different students during their college days.<\/p>\n

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Lloyd Murray Grant, 1904 Debris<\/p><\/div>\n

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Bernice Nelson, 1905 Debris<\/p><\/div>\n

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Lloyd Murray Grant<\/a> graduated from Purdue with a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering in 1904.\u00a0 His future wife, Bernice Nelson<\/a>, graduated the following year with a B.S. in Science (1905).\u00a0 Both Murray and Bernice were popular students who participated in many clubs and societies.\u00a0 They crossed paths as members of the Debris Yearbook staff, Murray as business manager and Bernice as associate editor.<\/p>\n

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Bernice Nelson’s dance cards<\/p><\/div>\n

Bernice attended many social events held by campus groups and kept her dance cards, which document\u00a0the dances of the evening and allowed young women to record the names of their dance partners.\u00a0 Almost every one of her dance slots was filled.\u00a0 Interestingly, though most of Bernice\u2019s seven remaining dance cards are from the 1903-1904 year, she never once listed Murray as a dance partner. \u00a0Despite this absence, Grant’s senior biography in the Debris hints at a connection: “Murray holds a strength record in the Gym and also one outside. \u00a0He is known as the man with the ‘strong hold’ – the ‘full Nelson.'”<\/p>\n

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Programs (clockwise from left): Annual Dinner of the Purdue Alumni Association of New York City 1906, 1904 Commencement Program, Class of 1905 Junior Banquet, Invitation to 1904 Commencement<\/p><\/div>\n

Gala Week, the days leading up to graduation, was packed with activities for seniors and their families. \u00a0Murray saved the programs from many of those events, including the senior class banquet, invitation to commencement, commencement program, and full list of Gala Week activities. \u00a0The program for Bernice\u2019s commencement in 1905 is also part of the collection, as is the program for a Purdue Alumni Association of New York City Annual Dinner of 1906.<\/p>\n

The collection also includes two articles\u00a0about Purdue written by Bernice Nelson and published in the Exponent<\/em>. \u00a0The first, simply titled “Purdue<\/a>,” extols the prominent\u00a0role of Purdue graduates in the world. \u00a0The second, titled \u201cThe Purdue of Yesterday<\/a>,\u201d is a handwritten draft.\u00a0 \u201cThe Purdue of Yesterday\u201d shares anecdotes passed along by Purdue students from earlier years, including stories about sneaking out past curfew, riding trains around campus right after the track was laid, and playing lighthearted pranks during chapel services.<\/p>\n

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“Purdue” (left) and “The Purdue of Yesterday”<\/p><\/div>\n

After graduating with his Mechanical Engineering degree, Murray Grant found work first in New York City and then in his hometown of Spokane, Washington. \u00a0Bernice Nelson moved first to Illiopolis, Illinois, then to Rawlins, Wyoming, to teach science. \u00a0In 1909, the couple married in her hometown of Lowell, Indiana,\u00a0then moved to Seattle, where they lived for the rest of their lives. \u00a0Murray built a successful career in water works and piping, and is credited with \u201cdesign[ing] and construct[ing] most of the large, continuous stave penstocks and pipe lines in the U.S\u201d (Who\u2019s Who in Engineering<\/a>, Vol. 1,\u00a01922-1923).<\/p>\n

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David E. Ross to L. Murray Grant, June 7, 1933<\/p><\/div>\n

The Grants remained active in Purdue alumni organizations throughout their lives. \u00a0Murray was President of the Purdue Alumni Association from 1907 to 1908, participated in local chapters everywhere he lived, and even co-founded the Spokane chapter in 1908 (Exponent,<\/em> 12 December 1908<\/a>). \u00a0Their move to Seattle was announced in the Exponent<\/em> with the note that “they will be glad to have all Purdue friends call when in Seattle” (Exponent<\/em>, 18 September 1909<\/a>). \u00a0The Grants were often visited by Purdue\u2019s President Winthrop Stone, an amateur mountain climber, when he traveled to the western United States and Canada\u00a0to climb the Rockies.\u00a0 The Grant Papers include multiple letters between Stone and Grant planning their reunions during Stone\u2019s visits.<\/p>\n

The final item in the Grant Papers is a letter from Purdue Trustee David E. Ross, written in 1933, asking Murray Grant to meet with an international exchange student from Purdue who would be visiting the Seattle area.\u00a0 Nearly thirty years after graduation, Murray was still involved in the promotion of Purdue.<\/p>\n

The L. Murray Grant and Bernice Nelson Grant Papers are available for research in the Virginia Kelly Karnes Archives and Special Collections Research Center.<\/p>\n

MSA 330, L. Murray<\/span> Grant and Bernice Nelson Grant<\/span> papers, Virginia Kelly Karnes Archives and Special Collections, Purdue University Libraries<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Editor\u2019s Note: The Collections Spotlight series will highlight small collections that provide unique glimpses of Purdue and its people. Among the holdings of Purdue University Archives and Special Collections are many materials that belonged to Purdue students during their time in West Lafayette.\u00a0 Each collection is different and provides a personal view of the student […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":134,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[5588,5919],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2217","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-alumni","category-from-our-collections"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8vDd5-zL","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.lib.purdue.edu\/asc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2217","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.lib.purdue.edu\/asc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.lib.purdue.edu\/asc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.lib.purdue.edu\/asc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/134"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.lib.purdue.edu\/asc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2217"}],"version-history":[{"count":18,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.lib.purdue.edu\/asc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2217\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2246,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.lib.purdue.edu\/asc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2217\/revisions\/2246"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.lib.purdue.edu\/asc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2217"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.lib.purdue.edu\/asc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2217"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.lib.purdue.edu\/asc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2217"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}