LeRoy Pennysaver & News

LE ROY PENNYSAVER & NEWS - AUGUST 25, 2019 by Lynne Belluscio Several weeks ago I re- ceived an email requesting information about Nancy Van- Doren. There was a note that she might have possibly been an Ingham student and her parents were missionaries and that her maiden name was Van Husen. I checked the Ingham files and there was a Nancy Van Husen, and she attended only one se- mester. But I wasn’t able to con- nect back to the email request, so I hoped that I would hear back. Then, two weeks ago, I received an email from Dr. Donna Potts, Chairman of the English Department at Wash- ington State University. She was the researcher I hadn’t been able to contact. What she told me, was intriguing. I learned that an Ingham student, who had no history in our files oth- er than being in the catalogue, was one of the founders of the Washington Agricultural Col- lege – a Land Grant school, that eventually became Washington State University. Dr. Potts has been researching Nancy for a couple of years, ever since she noticed a woman in the photo of the founders of Washington Ag- ricultural College. “Who was this woman?” she wondered. And as she began to unravel the story of Nancy VanDoren, she discovered a story that led to LeRoy. She had found the Ingham catalogue on line and verified that both she and her sister attended Ingham – as well as their mother, Joanna Brown of Elba. Johanna and her hus- band, Stephen VanHusen, were Baptist missionaries. In 1840, the Van Husens arrived in Nel- lore, India in the Telegu region. Stephen translated the Bible into Telegu. Nancy was born on May 22, 1842. Three years later, Stephen’s mental health had deteriorated so badly that his wife wrote several letters to the Baptist Missionary Society, requesting permission to return to the United States. When the family returned to the United States, Stephen was committed to an insane asylum where he died in 1854. In the meantime, in 1852, Johanna moved her family to LeRoy and enrolled Nancy and her sister in the Le- Roy Female Seminary – the forerunner on Ingham Univer- sity. The two sisters apparently moved to Rochester and for a few years, conducted a private school. (More research needed.) Nancy went on to attend Oswe- go Normal School and then on to Leavenworth, Kansas where she served as the principal of two schools. She returned to New York and from 1871 to 1874, she served as a teacher of methods at Geneseo Normal School. In 1875, she returned to Leavenworth and married Woodhull Seaton Van Doren and they had a son. Some really strange things happen during the next couple of years, and although her hus- band is still alive, she refers to herself as a widow. And there are a lot of questions about what happened to her son and who raised him. Dr.Potts be- lieves that Nancy’s son lived with her sister, Martha Kenny and returned to LeRoy to attend the LeRoy Academic Institute. (Again, more research.) From 1881 to 1884, Nancy was the principal of the school at Fergu- son, Missouri, and perhaps was living there with her brother. She then worked at the Dakota Agricultural College in Brook- ings, South Dakota, where she served as preceptress, librarian, and teacher of English. In 1891, with the encour- agement of George Lilley, she came to the Washington Agri- cultural College. George Lilley became the college’s first pres- ident and Nancy taught English and took charge of the library. In 1908, Van Doren Hall was named for her. The hall was the first college building west of Chicago to be devoted entirely to home economics and it was the first building on campus to be named for a woman. Donna shared all this information in a paper that she is writing. With her permission, I will be includ- ing portions of her paper in the next Historical Society newslet- ter. Nancy died in 1922, and according to Donna’s re- search, her ashes were returned to LeRoy for burial. Donna had no luck using “Find a Grave” and she hoped I could find Nan- cy’s final resting place. I pulled out the Machpelah Cemetery records and sure enough, she was buried in Section A near her sister’s relatives, the Kenny’s. I drove over to North Street and went to the west hill in section A. I was pretty sure I knew where she was. I looked at about 20 stones and could find nothing. Some were heavily covered with lichen and they were hard to read. And then I looked again at a stone that had tipped over, and there, beneath thick lichen I could see “BORN NELORE INDIA.” If I hadn’t known that she was born in In- dia, I would have never found her grave. Her name was on the top that had tipped into the ground and couldn’t be seen. I quickly took a photo and sent it off to Donna. The next day, the summer school kids cleaned off the stone, and we will eventual- ly tip the stone back up. Nancy VanHusen, a woman who lan- guished in obscurity, will now be recognized for the contribu- tions she made in higher edu- cation. Dr. Richard Wing, who wrote his doctoral thesis on Ing- ham University, often called In- gham, “The Light That Failed.” I am more and more convinced, it was a “beacon” that led the way for 8000 women to accom- plish great things. We are only now discovering their stories. Born in India