Buckeye Recreation Workshop - Kum Ba Ya (Come By Here)

 

Topic: Kumbaya 1955-1961
The Buckeye Recreation Workshop is the second place from whence “Kumbaya” could have spread before Lynn Rohrbough began publicizing the song.

John Blocher transcribed the song from the singing of Kathryn Thompson Good, [1] probably in the fall of 1954 for a songbook published on 15 March 1955. [2]  I asked Blocher if Good ever took her young children to the family evenings in Delaware, Ohio, that are mentioned in the post for 22 May 2022.  He, in turn, asked them what they remembered from their childhoods.  Blocher wrote back:

“None of the three surviving Goods remember going there as a family, but they distinctly remember Tommy’s activities on the Board of BRW.” [3]

While this suggests a high probability that she heard the song at the workshop, it is not proof.  More suggestive evidence come from the papers saved by a workshop board member from the 1955 workshop held in Urbana, Ohio, from April 17 to April 23.  Most items were handouts from sessions, but there was no schedule of events.  It also included a roster and group photograph.

Some of the handouts look like they were prepared to be used during sessions.  A few were created during the workshop.  They all were made from stencils.

Good helped write one that chronicled the afternoon group sessions.  As mentioned in the post for 3 October 2021, the first workshops featured afternoon teas with short lectures.  Lynn Rohrbough discussed games on Monday.  Tom Bruce spoke on Wednesday. [4]

The most important tea occurred on Thursday when “our own Gus Zanzig, who most interestingly and graciously presented new songs, and taught us several.  He pointed out the value of different types of songs, and told us the origins of several.  Songs that can be acted out and most enjoyable and play a part all their very own.” [5]

A sheet titled “Song Leading” suggests he may have given a talk on that subject. [6]  Usually, such handouts include instructions or hints for directing group session.  If those existed, they disappeared.  Instead, the first three attached pages featured hand-written transcriptions of music with typed texts.  One had been used during a Thursday event, [7] and another included a parody “contributed by Warren Bright.” [8]

The inclusion of material that emerged during the workshop suggests these pages were produced to satisfy requests from attendees.  The fourth page has the same character.   It is handwritten, and includes fragments that Zanzig might have mentioned in his talk: an introduction to “Good News,” simple parts for “Walking at Night,” and a descant for the chorus of “Down the River.”

The last page is the most important.  It is a handwritten version of “Kum Ba Ya.”  The stencil is so uneven, it could not have been produced by a professional like Jane Keen. [9]  However, the treble clef signs are the same on all five pages.  The handwriting varies some from that on the previous page, but has enough similarities to suggest they two were done by the same person.

The unknown is why the song was included.  Someone who attended the workshop may have inquired about something remembered from the previous year, or Good may have made an announcement about her camp’s new songster.  In the process she may have sung or otherwise mentioned it included a song they might remember.

The fact “Kum Ba Yah” was included may be the first signal people liked the song.  The stenciled version also implies some changes that were made to fit the audience.  Instead of coming from Angola, this headnote says it is an “African spiritual.”  Rohrbough’s version did not mention “come by here,” but this version does.  This hints that, from the beginning, some were uncomfortable with unknown or foreign words.

Notes on Lyrics
The text is identical with the version by Blocher that was issued 33 days before the start of this workshop.  Blocher’s version is reproduced in the post for 29 May 2022.

Notes on Music
The melody is the same as Blocher’s version.  Whoever made the stencil had to have seen a copy of Indianola Sings or a proof sheet for the song that Rohrbough could have produced if asked.

The most important change was the addition of chords, which were associated with the key of C, which has no flats or sharps.  For some reason, the autographer indicated it had one flat.  This idiosyncrasy appears with some of the other songs in the “Song Leading” set.  The tempo marking also has been dropped.

Notes on Performers
Augustus D. Zanzig’s name appears in the list of references in the column at the right.  At this time, he was associated with the Brookline Music School in Massachusetts, [10] and versifying translations of international songs as a part-time consultant to CRS. [11]

The Buckeye Recreation Workshop is discussed in the post for 3 October 2021.  In 1955, 123 individuals are listed in the workshop roster, excluding outside speakers, vendors, and people from out of state. [12]  All but one in the group photograph was white.  The dark-skinned young man in the back row might have been from Africa. [13]  His name gave no clues, and he attended from Ohio State.  Rohrbough introduced two Ohio Wesleyan University students from what was then the Gold Coast as part of his discussion of the game ADI. [14]

Of the 123 attendees, 81, or more than 65% were women.  This should not be surprising since the workshop lasted for seven days.  Most who came had jobs that were related to youth recreation.  More than 61% were 4-H leaders or employees of county agricultural extension offices or farm groups like the Grange.  Again, this would be expected since the group grew out of the extension activities of Tom mentioned in the post 3 October 2021.

Many of the remaining people were associated with churches (17%), with the majority of those Methodists.  A few were interested in folk or square dancing, [15] while twelve were involved with the Girl Scouts (5), Boy Scouts (2), Camp Fire Girls (2), YWCA (2), or DeMolay (1). [16]

The home addresses of the 123 gives some sense of the geographic reach of CRS, and the potential areas were “Kumbaya” subsequently might have been taught.  In the map below, black locations represent counties with one to three attendees, while red represents counties with more.  Often friends, or couples, especially ministers and their wives, came together.

Ohio was settled from three directions in the nineteen century.  Some came along the Lake Erie, especially after the Erie Canal was opened in 1825.  Later, immigrants were brought to factories along the lake’s shore.  4-H and county extension offices were organized to serve rural area; urban 4-H did not yet exist. [17]  Places like Toledo, Cleveland, and Akron sent no representatives, but Lorain and Sandusky did.

The second entry point was the Ohio River.  People often came from the south.  Except for Cincinnati, which saw a sizable influx of Germans in the middle-19th century, few came to the Workshop from counties that bordered Kentucky.

The third route was the National Road, which stretched from Wheeling, West Virginia, through Columbus to Richmond, Indiana, by 1839. [18]  Most of the migrants came from or through Pennsylvania.  That is roughly the path of the red dots on the map.

No one came from northwestern Ohio, which included Wyandot County mentioned in the post for 17 July 2022.  The land there generally was less good than the prairie lands in the middle of the state.  Good’s husband wrote his master’s thesis on part of the Great Black Swamp that dominated that part of the state. [19]

Graphics
1.  “Kum Ba Ya.”  5 in A. D. Zanzig.  “Song Leading.”  Buckeye Recreation Workshop, 1955, papers.

2.  Base map:  United States Census Bureau.  Outline Map of Counties.  Copy uploaded to Wikimedia Commons website by Abe Suleiman uploaded on 7 February 2010.

End Notes
Copies of papers from the eleventh annual Buckeye Recreation Workshop, Urbana, Ohio, 17 April to 23 April 1955 provided by a member of the current board of the workshop.

1.  John Blocher, Jr.  Email, 5 May 2016.
2.  Lynn Rohrbough.  Letter to Shawnee Press, 16 February 1959.

3.  John Blocher, Jr.  Letter, 30 June 2016.  The use of “surviving” is odd, since four of the Goods’ children were alive.  However, one had moved away, and may not have been part of the family discussion provoked by Blocher.  The fourth child, Bruce Good, is discussed in the post for 17 October 2021.  “BRW” is the Buckeye Workshop.

4.  Helen Stanfeld and Tommy Good.  “Teas.”  Buckeye Recreation Workshop, 1955, papers.  Stanfeld was with the extension office in Batavia and active in her church. [20]  Tommy was Good’s nickname.

5.  Stanfeld and Good.
6.  Zanzig, Song Leading.

7.  “Walking Together” was “used for Signature Thursday by Paul Whipple.” [21]  He was a Methodist minister from Hartford, Ohio. [22]

8.  Bright was a Methodist minister from the church that was sponsoring the event in Urbana, Ohio. [23]

9.  Keen produced stencils for the Northland Recreation Laboratory in the 1940s, before she began working for Rohrbough.  She is discussed in the posts 24 April 2022 and 8 May 2022.  This implies she was not present at the workshop, and, thus, probably was not a possible source for the notes mentioned in the post for 29 May 2022.

10.  “Buckeye Recreation Workshop - 1955” list of attendees.  Workshop papers.

11.  Augustus D. Zanzig.  Letter to Larry Nial Holcomb, 1 May 1972.  Cited by Holcomb in “A History of the Cooperative Recreation Service.”  PhD dissertation.  University of Michigan, 1972.  135.

12.  Workshop roster for 1955.

13.  Group photograph included between the Workshop cover page and the roster.  Buckeye Recreation Workshop papers, 1955.

14.  Stanfeld and Good.  The Gold Coast is now Ghana.

15.  Philip Maxwell came from the Oglebay Institute in Wheeling, West Virginia.  It is discussed in the post for 22 May 2022.  The fact someone came from Oglebay may suggest Mary Lea Bailey might have stopped by to visit without registering.  If she did this every year, she could be a source for the added notes to the CRS version of “Kum Ba Yah.”  She is discussed in the post for 22 May 2022.

16.  DeMolay is an organization for high-school-aged boys associated with the Masons. [24]  When I went to county fairs in Calhoun County, Michigan, in the early 1960s, older women had a food tent to provide inexpensive meals to individuals camping out in the barns with their livestock.

17.  The post for 3 October 2021 has a little on the history of the organizations.
18.  “National Road.”  Wikipedia website.

19.  E. E. Good.  “A History of the Natural Resources of Van Wert County.”  MA thesis.  Ohio State University, 1947.  He published some of the results in E. E. Good.  “The Original Vegetation of Van Vert County, Ohio.”  The Ohio Journal of Science 61(3)155–160:May 1961. [25]  He is mentioned in the post for 10 October 2021.

20.  Workshop roster for 1955.
21.  Zanzig, Song Leading.
22.  Workshop roster for 1955.
23.  Workshop roster for 1955.
24.  “DeMolay International.”  Wikipedia website.

25.  Thomas M. Stockdale and John F. Disinger.  “Ernest Eugene Good.”  Ohio Journal of Science 94(5):164–165:December 1994.

Buckeye Recreation Workshop

Topic: CRS Versions
The Progressive Movement’s interest in the constructive use of leisure time developed in response to the masses from Europe who moved into urban areas where no open spaces existed.  It began in Boston with the Playground Association of America, which provided sandboxes for children.  The year was 1885 [1] and, as the chart shows, the urban population was increasing rapidly from 28% to 35% of the United States total.

The concern spread from children to adults, and, among Populists, culminated in Prohibition in 1920, which closed the gathering places of the poor.  In their stead, settlement houses and other organizations offered alternatives to the amusement parks that sprang up along tram and interurban lines.  Neva Boyd was active with Jane Addams in Chicago’s Hull House. [2]

Meanwhile, as the percentage of urban dwellers rose from 40% to 51% between 1900 and 1920, people in towns and small cities began to worry about their own children.  The Boy Scouts and Camp Fire Girls were organized in 1910 to send kids back to the country for a few weeks each summer. [3]  As more communities introduced high schools, churches organized activities to promote endogamy among their youth.  Lynn Rohrbough provided an alternative to phonographs and dancing with his social recreation. [4]

Agricultural colleges became concerned that farm life was suffering from the concentration of wealth in urban areas.  The Smith-Lever Act introduced county extension agents and home demonstration agents to spread new ideas about farming and food preservation in 1914. [5]

The youth program, which became 4-H, had its roots in Clark County, Ohio, where A.B. Graham [6] started a Boys’ and Girls’ Agricultural Club in 1902.  In 1916, four Ohio counties hired 4-H agents as part of their extension programs. [7]

One early agent was Bruce Tom in Summit County.  He had been raised on a farm near Zanesville, and taught school [8] after graduating from the Presbyterian’s [9] Muskingum College in 1911. [10]  In 1919, he ran the first 4-H camp in Ohio. [11]

This was the time when many youth organizations, including the Epworth League, were promoting summer institutes in resort settings. [12]  The rationale for 4-H camping differed from that of the Boy Scouts; farm kids did not need to be reconnected with country.  Instead, the camps aimed to supplement rural education with programs that country schools could not provide in areas like biology, music, and athletics. [13]

Tom’s specialty became recreation.  In 1920, he set up a Rural Community Playhouse at the state fair to sponsor daily competitions for fiddlers and dancers. [14]  Later, he was hired by Ohio State University as a rural sociologist.  Stewart Case, a retired extension agent in Colorado, believed that was because “he couldn’t be known as a recreational specialist.  People would not have been willing to pay his salary.” [15]

In 1927, Tom attended Rohrbough’s second Recreation Institute, where he would have met Boyd, along with those mentioned in the post for 12 September 2021. [16]  The next year, he helped open a permanent 4-H camp in Ohio. [17]   He was on the committee that organized the Waldenwoods meetings mentioned in the post for 19 September 2021, [18] then, during World War II, wrote a column on recreation ideas for the National 4-H News magazine. [19]

The Playgrounds and Recreation Association did not get involved because the declining rural population, down to 44% in 1930, was too small and too widely dispersed to support such work.  It was only after the Rockefellers became involved in 1929 that it held 78 recreation institutes in 34 states. [20]  The group, renamed the National Recreation Association in 1930, eventually hired five men to work with rural groups in cooperation with “federal and state extension agencies.”  Its program continued until 1940 when its field director died and World War II became more important. [21]

The U. S. military opted to handle its own recreation needs during the war, rather than relying on outside volunteers as it had during World War I. [22]  Augustus Zanzig was sent to the Treasury Department to help organize events to sell war bonds.  When that concluded in 1943, he went to work for the  Griffith Musical Foundation in Newark, New Jersey as its education director. [23]

The resulting vacuum in national leadership led a group in Westerville to organize its own Northeast Ohio Recreation Institute in 1944.  The workshop at Hiram College attracted Boyd, Rohrbough, and Rohrbough’s former partner, Carl Hutchinson, [24] along with Tom. [25]

The name changed to Buckeye Recreation Workshop in 1948 when it moved to Cuyahoga Falls.  Each day of the week-long institute began with breakfast and devotions, then alternated gym and craft activities.  A tea was held in the afternoon with a short lecture, followed by dinner, and an evening party. [26]

Most of the people who registered were home demonstration agents, but “ministers’ wives, farm women club leaders, and recreation personnel for Campfire Girls, YWCA, churches [and the] Grange” also attended.  E. O Harbin came, [27] but Merrill Davis led the music.  He taught singing in the Jackson, Ohio, public schools.

“Songs went with pretty nearly everything except the craft work and puzzles.  Fine old hymns were a part of each morning’s devotions, or what the church folks might have called a consecration service.

“Songs were sung with folk games, square dances, and at meals and assemblies.  And after a day or two the strains of the more melodious ones came floating through your mind and heart, and seems to help set the tempo and line of your thoughts and feelings.

“One that all of us quickly caught on was the spiritual, ‘When the Spirit Say Sing, I Want to Sing.’  Another was ‘I’ve Got a Home in Beulah Land,’ and a sample of a very neat ditty was ‘Ten Pretty Girls at a Village School’ which was sung to a folkgame.” [28]

The reporter for the National 4-H News did not mention any of the international songs that had been introduced by Zanzig. [29]  While the participants were shown the Varsovienne form of the waltz, the theme was still “Play with a Purpose,” and “not just for fun.” [30]

The workshops spread.  Mary Lea Bailey believed [31] “at least twenty-three labs affected by the Waldenwoods fellowship are still in operation” in the early 1970s. [32]  Allen Smith [33] identified thirteen spawned by the Northland Recreation Laboratory mentioned in the post for 26 September 2021. [34]

So many workshops sprang up that Larry Eisenberg remembered Howie Turner was his “constant companion, in dozens of labs” as they worked the modern equivalent of the chautauqua circuit.  He recalled most were “started and maintained by 4-H leaders. [35]

While some, like Eisenberg, began as invited speakers, [36] they returned as vendors with products to sell.  Bob Nolte recalled Eisenberg arrived at the Northland Recreation Laboratory “with a phonograph, loud speakers and records made for dancing.  Thus was born an era that never ended.” [37]  He was promoting the records and songbooks produced by the Methodist church that are discussed in the post for 9 February 2020.

The 1954 Buckeye Workshop, where “Kumbaya” might have been introduced, did not differ from the ones before.  About 150 registered for the week-long session in an Urbana, Ohio, Methodist church where Rohrbough talked about play-parties.  Other speakers covered “handicrafts, folk dancing, games, party planning, community song leading, camping techniques, and nature experiences.” [38]

The Buckeye workshop continues under the name Buckeye Leadership Workshop as a nonprofit corporation, and is still deeply rooted in the extension service. [39]  This many years after the word “recreation” was created to distinguish it from mere play, [40] the suspicion of things frivolous persists.  A current board member said they had to change the workshop name “for marketability reasons (easier for professionals to get leave to ‘lead’ rather than ‘recreate’).” [41]

Graphics
1.  United States Census Bureau data gathered by Jeff Hoyt.  “1800-1990: Changes In Urban/Rural U.S. Population.”  Senior Living website, 29 June 2021.

2.  “Recreation Labs/Workshops.”  41 in Folklore Village Christmas Festival, Program, 27–31 December 1987, Mount Horeb, Wisconsin.

End Notes
1.  Richard F. Knapp and Charles E. Hartsoe.  Play for America: The National Recreation Association 1906–1965.  Arlington, Virginia: National Recreation and Park Association, 1979.  19–20.

2.  W. Paul Simon.  “Neva Leona Boyd, a Biographical Sketch.”  Virginia Commonwealth University website.  Among those who taught music in settlement houses are Augustus Zanzig in Boston [42] and Martha Ramsey in Cleveland. [43]  George Fenstermacher, who was Dean of Students at Taylor University when Melvin Blake was a student, received his first music training in the Cleveland Music School Settlement.  Once he was on the college faculty, he upgraded his education in Chicago.  For more, see the post for 30 May 2021.

3.  The Boy Scouts of America and Camp Fire Girls are mentioned briefly in note 30 of the post for 5 September 2021.

4.  Social recreation is discussed in the post for 12 September 2021.
5.  Amy Manor.  “Smith-Lever Act.”  North Carolina State University website.

6.  Suzanne Steel.  “A.B. Graham’s Legacy.”  Ohio State University website.  “A.B. stood for Albert Belmont, but ‘he ignored anyone who called him anything but A.B.’.” [44]

7.  “A Look at the History of 4-H in Ohio.”  Farm and Dairy website, 7 February 2002.

8.  Dorothy Montgomery.  “A Look at the History of Camp Ohio.”  Zanesville Times Recorder, Zanesville, Ohio, 15 June 2018.  Tom also is discussed in the posts for 12 September 2021, 19 September 2021, 3 October 2021, and 17 October 2021.

9.  The area was settled by Scots Irish moving west from western Pennsylvania. [45]  Tom’s great-grandfather migrated from Greensburg in Westmoreland County. [46]  While family genealogists have tried to find a Scots ancestor, [47] local historians believe the Thomm family had Lutheran roots. [48]  By the time Robert Bruce Tom was born, his parents had absorbed Scots history.

10.  Nainsí J. Houston, director Muskingum University Roberta A. Smith University Library.  Email, 12 August 2021.

11.  Montgomery.
12.  See the post for 12 September 2021.

13.  Ella Gardner.  Short-Time Camps: A Manual for 4-H Leaders.  Washington, DC: United States Department of Agriculture Extension Service, 1939.  1.  “Many of our rural schools present no music, nature study, recess games, or sheer fun activities.  In many places, isolated homes and a heavy schedule of home and school work make informal social gatherings rare.”  Robert Meadows believes Liberty Hyde Bailey was one of the more vocal critics of rural schools. [49]

14.  Premium List and Rules Governing Awards, Annual Ohio State Fair, Columbus, Ohio.  Columbus: Ohio Department of Agriculture, 1920.

15.  Stewart G. Case.  Interviewed by Dennis McGuire, 15 September 1983.  Mountain Scholar website.  24.

16.  Larry Nial Holcomb.  “A History of the Cooperative Recreation Service.”  PhD dissertation.  University of Michigan, 1972.  37.

17.  Montgomery.  The camp is Camp Ohio.
18.  Holcomb.  40.

19.  “Let’s Play.”  National 4-H News 20:14:June 1942.  The column was “Sociability Lane” and he signed himself “Uncle Tom” Bruce.

20.  Knapp.  99.  He was not more specific than “the Rockefellers.”
21.  Knapp.  95.

22.  Knapp.  129.  See the post for 5 September 2021 for the World War I activities of the Playground and Recreation Association of America.  John Bradford headed the rural workshop program.

23.  “Book Week Program Sunday at Library Augustus D. Zanzig Will Be the Speaker.”  The Montclair Times, Montclair, New Jersey, 9 November 1944.  He is discussed in the posts for 5 September 2021, 19 September 2021, 26 September 2021, and 3 October 2021.

24.  Hutchinson is discussed in the posts for 19 September 2021, 26 September 2021, and 3 October 2021.

25.  Mrs. Oliver Bailey.  Letter to Larry Nial Holcomb, 6 February 1972.  Cited by Holcomb.  87.  Oliver Bracken Bailey was the father-in-law of Mary Lea Bailey. [50]  Presumably, this Mrs. Bailey is Mary Lea’s mother-in-law.  Mary Lea is mentioned below in note 31.

26.  “Play with a Purpose.”  National 4-H News 26:19–21, 24, 26:May 1948.

27.  Harbin’s health failed in 1945, [51] but he continued to attend recreation meetings. [52]  He is discussed in the posts for 9 February 2020, 12 September 2021, 26 September 2021, and 3 October 2021.

28.  Play with a Purpose.  20–21.

29.  Zanzig’s Singing America is mentioned in the post for 26 September 2021.  International songs simply may not have been mentioned, or were not in the repertoire of Merrill Davis.  It is difficult to draw any conclusions from the absence of information, but some already were included in a 1944 Rohrbough songbook described in the post for 9 February 2020.

30.  Play with a Purpose.

31.  Bailey had worked closely with Rohrbough since 1948, [53] and was on the board of the Buckeye Workshop when Holcomb was writing. [54]

32.  Holcomb.  45.  Waldenwoods is discussed in the post for 19 September 2021.

33.  Smith was the “youth manager of Farmland Industries, Inc. of Kansas City, Missouri.” [55]  Despite the shared surname, he does not appear to be related to the Fred Smith who helped found the Northland Rec Lab.

34.  Allan T. Smith.  “Genealogical Chart of Non-profit Recreation Laboratories,” 16 June 1972.  Reprinted by Holcomb.  46.

35.  Larry Eisenberg.  “It’s Me, O Lord.”  Tulsa: Fun Books, 1992.  60.  Turner represented The Handcrafters of Waupun, Wisconsin, who sold craft materials like the flat, plastic-coated lacing used in lanyards.

36.  Eisenberg.  59.  He thought he was invited to Northland Rec Lab in 1940 or 1941.

37.  Bob Nolte.  Northland Recreation Lab: A History.  1984.  21.  Copy provided by Heidi Ryan, 21 June 2016.  The Rec Lab is discussed in the post for 26 September 2021.

38.  Holcomb.  87.  His source was Grace Goulder.  “Ohio Scenes and Citizens.”  Cleveland Plain Dealer, Cleveland, Ohio, 23 May 1954 Sunday supplement.  4.

39.  One of the current board members is a former extension agent and another has a master’s degree in agricultural education. [56]

40.  Knapp.  3.  “At the turn of the century, in contrast, people used the term ‘play’ with much the same connotation that ‘recreation’ would come to hold by the 1930s by which time ‘play’ came to have a popular usage equating it with playgrounds and activities for children.  The switch from ‘play’ to ‘recreation’ for all ages is indicating of the broadening of the concept which took place over the first three decades of this century.”  And hence, the name change for the National Recreation Association as it sought more respect from potential patrons and the government.

41.  John Fark.  Email, 1 November 2020.
42.  See the post for 5 September 2021.
43.  See the post for 9 February 2020.
44.  Her source was his grandson, James Graham.
45.  “A Brief History.”  New Concord, Ohio, website.
46.  “Henry Tom.”  Geni website, 21 November 2014.

47.  Jay Webb Thom and Nelle Bigham Robinson.  The THOM Family: The Descendants of Joseph Thom and Elizabeth Craig Thom of Westmoreland County Pennsylvania.  Franklin, Indiana: 1932.  Copy posted to Wiki Tree website.

48.  Lorle Porter.  A People Set Apart: Scotch-Irish in Eastern Ohio.  Zanesville, Ohio: New Concord Press, 1998.  58.

49.  Robert Ray Meadows.  “History of Virginia’s 4-H Camping Program: A Case Study on Events Leading to the Development of the 4-H Educational Centers.”  PhD dissertation.  Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, 21 March 1995.  20.

50.  “Warren O. Bailey.”  Cook and Son–Pallay Funeral Home website, 2016.

51.  Eisenberg.  54.  “When in 1945 he was heading the Youth Department staff of the General Board of Education, Nashville, E.O. Harbin’s health had failed.”

52.  Nolte.  11.  “As the years passed, E.O. became very frail, but came to Rec Lab wheel chair and all, with wife Mabel to care for him.”  Harbin died in 1955.

53.  Mary Lea Bailey.  Email, 25 June 2016.

54.  John Blocher, Jr.  Email, 23 June 2016.  He notes she was president in 1960.

Barry Jolliff.  Email, 30 October 2020.  “There is only one (retired) Committee member with more tenure than me that is still living. [ . . . ]  Her name is Mary Lea Bailey.  She lives in Delaware, Ohio.”

55.  Holcomb.  45.
56.  “BLW Permanent Committee.”  Buckeye Leadership website.