5p one sided, mimeograph on off-white paper. Announces that Hubert Miller was elected Registrar to fill the vacancy left by resignation of Kenneth Kurtz from the office mentions that Fisk University sent an invitation for their annual Festival of Music and Fine Arts in late April. Visitors- Mrs A. D. Jamieson left on Wed.
BLACK MOUNTAIN COLLEGE COMMUNITY BULLETIN
College Year 11 Bulletin 27
Monday, April 10, 1944
CALENDAR:
The International Relations Club will hold its regular weekly meeting this evening at 6:45 o’clock in the Lobby of the North Lodge. The discussion will be concerned chiefly with “The Ideal Curriculum.”
This afternoon from 4:30 to 4:45 o’clock, Trudi Straus and Gretel and Edward Lowinsky will broadcast Antonio Vivaldi’s Concerto for two violins and piano from Radio Station WWNC. This is the first program in a series of four to be broadcast by Black Mountain College during April. On Saturday afternoon, April 15, from 2:00 to 2:30 o’clock, Eric Bentley, Sam Brown, and Clark Foreman will hold a panel discussion on “Effective Modern Education,” at Station WWNC. On Monday afternoon, April 17, from 4:30 to 4:45, Frederic Cohen will give a piano program; and on the following Saturday, from 2:00 to 2:30 o’clock Dr. Bentley and his students will give a program of scenes from Bortelt Brecht’s “The Private Life of the Master Race.”
The Board of Fellows will meet on Tuesday afternoon at 4:30 o’clock in Study 10. The College budget is the chief item on the Agenda.
The Faculty and Student Officers will meet in the Kocher Room at 4:30 o’clock on Wednesday afternoon.
On Thursday evening, in the College Dining Hall, there will be an Easter Concert, consisting of organ music, played by Edward Lowinsky; the Gospel Story of the Crucifixion, King James Version, read by Kenneth Kurtz; and the three Biblical Scenes by Heinrich Schuctz (1585-1672) conducted by Heinrich Jalowetz.
The organ music will include Toccata in C Major by Johann Pachelbel (1653-1706) and Variations on “Mein Jungos Leben hat ein End” by Jan Pieterszeen Swelinck (1652-1621)
The Schuctz Biblical Scenes will include: “The Pharisco and the Publican” sung by Erwin Straus, Eric Bentley and the Black Mountain College Chorus; “Easter Dialogue” (“Woman, Why Weepest Thou?”), sung by the Men’s Chorus and the Women’s Chorus; and “The Seven Last Words”, sung by Patsy Lynch, Liese Kulke, Eric Bentley, Kenneth Kurtz, Erwin Straus and the Black Mountain College Chorus and played by the Symphonia composed of Gretel Lowinsky, Trudi Straus, Gwendolyn Currier, Margaret Straus and Erwin Straus.
On Saturday evening at 8:30 o’clock there will be an showing of an exploration film in the Dining Hall.
William W. Wurster, of San Francisco, and his wife, Catherine Bauer Wurster, will spend next Sunday and Monday at Lake Eden. Mr. Wurstor will talk informally on “Modern Architecture” in the Clark Foreman apartment on Sunday evening. The whole College community is invited. Mrs. Wurster will talk about “Housing” to a small group on Monday.
ANNOUNCEMENTS:
Herbert Miller was elected Registrar by the Faculty, at its last meeting, to fill the vacancy left by the resignation of Kenneth Kurtz from the office.
On Sunday evening in the Lowinsky apartment there was an informal concert of music by Carl Phillip Emmanuel Bach and W.A.Mozart. Edward Lowinsky played Bach’s Piano Concerto in A Minor and Piano Concerto in F Major and Mozart’s Fantasia for the Piano in C Minor. Trudi Straus, Gretel Lowinsky and Dr. Lowinsky played Mozart’s Sinfonie Concertante for Violin, Viola and Piano in E Flat Major.
Bob Wunsch will talk this evening at the monthly dinner meeting of the Schoolmaster’s Club in Asheville on “Acceleration in Post-War Education.”
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Herbert Miller will give two addresses on Friday, in Asheville on “Czechoslovakia,” one at Asheville College, the other at the luncheon meeting of the Kiwanis Club. Last Tuesday evening Dr. Miller talked informally with members of the Highland Hospital staff on “Asia and the Future.”
WITH FORMER STUDENTS:
New Addresses:
Lieut. William C. Berry, 0-716331
Bombardier Class 48-8
RAAF
Roswell, New Mexico
Mrs. E.E. Conrad (Ruthabeth Kureger)
7401 West 48th Street
Wheatridge, Colorado
Private Herbert Oppenheimer, 14133800
133rd General Hospital
Barracks 1
Camp Gordon
Augusta, Georgia
R.L. Bliss
16903 Maple Wild Avenue
Seattle 66, Washington
Louise Minster
c/o A.S. Oko
1215 Fifth Avenue
New York 29, New York
EXCERPTS FROM RECENT LETTERS:
Lieutenant Bill Berry writes from New Mexico: “I’m in a Bombardier School..At present it is entirely for student officers who have had navigation…if they decide to keep us here to finish, I’ll have a Bombardier-Navigator rating. If they don’t we ship out to Fresno preparatory to going overseas…My chances of seeing Black Mountain before I go overseas look pretty poor…..I’m sorry I can’t enliven my letter by reports of thrilling navigation missions I’ve had or weird tales of Mexican peons pursuing me down the street with bead work and pottery…This is the first time I’ve been in this section of the country. I looked forward to seeing pistol-packing sheriffs, horses with saddles and brands on them, half-civilized Apachos and mammoth steaks. I have seen only a carefully tended cactus in a garden and some windmills from Sears-Roebuck. No steaks.”
Homer Bobilin writes form the New Hebrides on March 25: “I can imagine how this war has affected the manpower at B.M.C., but I didn’t realize there were less than a dozen males roaming the campus. Well, maybe the gals are beginning to appreciate our plight out here. They have a least a dozen males, we haven’t any females- that is, the G.I.’s haven’t; the officers are allowed to date the Army and Navy nurses. We are allowed to look at them from a great distance… I’m seriously considering taking one of the Army’s correspondence courses’. It would help to pass the time and give me some college credit..”
Ruthabeth Keuger Conrad writes from Colorado: “Early in December my husband’s submarine left San Francisco for some other port in the Pacific. I packed up and came home to Denver….Since getting home I have been swamped with things to do….Most everything I have done my mother has been in, too, which has been fine…This next week we play the Forellen Quintet at a concert, also an All-Wagner Symphony concert with Antonion Brisco conducting…Mother and I go to Colorado Springs to play in the orchestra there in concerts once a month. They have lost so many people to the Army that they draw on Denver musicians to fill their chairs…I have given two concerts of solos here in the last two months. I’m now working on the Prokofieff Seco on a big war bond rally program. Next week Dan Bergonzi and I are playing the Mozart Concerto for viola and violin and the Bach Double in a concert…Next month at the Musicians Society I am going to play the new concerto written by Mr. Reynolds, my teacher here…”
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Louise Minster writes from New York City: “There is no chance of my coming back this quarter. The doctors have decided something different this time. I have damaged several muscles in my back and since nothing was done about it before it has gotten worse and worse. It will probably take a month if not longer to heal them up…I am about to go on the war path for a job. Also I think I will try to take some lessons in perspective drawings and lay out so that I can better get my ideas across in stage design…”
Private Isaac Nakata writes from Italy on Sunday, March 26: “We are now near one of the active front in Italy, and we may go there soon. It looks like some pretty heavy fighting ahead of us, and I may not have the chance or the inclination to write for some time to come… Italy is quite mountainous where I now am. This part of the country also has snow capped peaks. The forest growth is sparse; the trees are short, and bushes make up most of the vegetable growth. This is a combat zone, but Italians still reside about their places of adobe. The attachment to their homes is very great in these people. Neither poverty nor disease nor humiliation was weakened their will to live. They have their sense of balance and their sense of humor, if not irony. They bargain with us and they often get the better of us, which is remarkable. Most of the people and their towns are dirty and unkempt, but the past regime and the war must be largely accountable….The expectation of battle keeps me fascinated and excited…”
Private Herbert Oppenheimer writes from Georgia: “At last I’ve left Tennessee and have gone still further into the southern provinces. To my great surprise I’m nearer to Black Mountain here that I was in Tennessee, and I am still hoping to make soon that long delayed visit to Lake Eden….This being a numbered hospital, so we are slated to go overseas…One surprise is that at present I am working in Headquarters with possibilities for advancement.”
Sergeant John Stix (whose new address is Hq. Co. 59th Sig. Bn., A.P.O. 308, c/o Postmaster, New York City) writes from England on April 5: “I’ve heard from both John Evarts and Tommy Brooks, both on the Island. Had a wonderful time with Ruth Rayne. Ruth’s office with the Cannel Islands Refugee Committee is in London whither she commutes from Ightham (Kent). Ightham itself is very old and, unlike most of the villages in our neighborhood, has retained its mellowed flavor. It’s had its share of blasting, too… It’s stillno picnic for them. Their district is out of hearing range of the air raid siren so in their system of air rad precaution they resort to the telephone, a popular measure. Mrs. Payne said that when the blitz was at its height she made as many as one hundred calls a day…. I didn’t have long in London itself- time for a lightning taxi-tour lasting precisely one hour and forty-five minuted and sponsored by the Red Cross. The cockney cab-driver served quite inadequately as guide and seemed in a fiendish rush. We did stop at two places: Westminster and St. Paul’s but hardly long enough to glimpse the view. Characteristically the guide was full of so-called human interest details. Consequently, my sharpest memory of Westminster Abbey is the fact that Ben Johnson, because of his height and the ever present need to conserve tomb-room, was buried standing up…I returned to St. Paul’s the following morning before train time to enjoy a quieter look. A miracle how it’s escaped destruction:
I am not tiring of this land of fish-and-chips, but I think we begin to miss America, all the “Miss Englands” nothwithstanding. As for the British Tommy, Tommy and Johnny are sometimes the best of friends but it hasn’t all been a bed of roses. Friction arises just where you would expect: over the females. And why Tommy comes marching home, he may not always find things just the way he left them.”
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WITH FORMER TEACHERS:
New Addresses:
Ensign R.S. Babcock, U.S.N.R.
A.P.O. 622
c/o Postmaster
Miami, Florida
Dr. Anna and Dr. Fritz Moellenhoff
109 Cooper Street
Peoria, Illinois
Anatole Kopp
A.P.O. 7567
c/o Postmaster
New York, New York
In the Mail:
Anatole Kopp is somewhere in England, in the American Army Intelligence Service.
Dr. Anna Moellenhoff writes from Peoria: “We have decided to move to Chicago in May; Fritz will open a practice of his own there, and I shall return to housewifery for a while…We are looking forward to ‘the big city’, to greater independence, and to reunion with Esther….It looks as if Fritz would have a full schedule from the start…”
An Invitation:
The Student Council
Fisk University
Nashville 8, Tennessee
April 4, 1944
Mr. W. Robert Wunsch, Rector
Fisk University will present its fifteenth annual Festival of Music and Fine Arts on April 19-22, 1944. The festival will feature the music and art of South America, Africa, and South Pacific, and India.
The Student Council of Fisk University extends to the students of Black Mountain College a cordial invitation to attend this festival. We should like to receive up to six students as guests of the Student Council.
Sincerely yours,
(signed) Epperson E. Bond
President
(signed) F. Jewel Freeman
Corresponding Secretary
Visitors:
Mrs. and Mrs. George Zabriskie were ween-end visitors from Durham, North Carolina, where Mr. Zabriskie is a student of English on a Guggenheim Fellowship at Duke University. Mr. Zabriskie, a candidate for the position of teacher of Creative Writing at Black Mountain College, is the author of The Mind’s Geography. He spoke informally on “Modern Writers” to students and teachers on Saturday evening in Bob Wunsch’s study.
Mrs. A.D. Jamieson of Newton Centre, Massachusetts, a member of the Black Mountain College Advisory Council, arrived on Friday for a visit. She will be at Lak Eden until Wednesday.
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Mr. and Mrs. Voigt (Marjorie Stenderhoff) were week-end visitors at Lake Eden. They came from Knoxville chiefly to see the College production of “Outward Bound” on Saturday evening.
Fred Wale, a member of the staff of the Rosenwald Fund, and Mrs. Wale arrived on Saturday for a visit of five days. They were accompanied from Chicago by Mr. and Mrs. Leslie R. Schauffler and their daughter, Sue.
Dora Leiper, a friend of the 1943-44 teaching staff at Black Mountain College, and Martine Seligman arrived on Sunday evening for a brief visit.
WORK CREW REPORTS:
(Week of April 3 through April 8)
Construction: Members of the crew were not doing construction work on the stage for the production of “Outward Bound” assisted Mundy and Walter in the kitchen remodeling. All the ceiling and the walls were covered with plaster board, and a good deal of the painting of the board was completed. Our goal, a spic and span kitchen, is about to be realized.
Nell Goldsmith
Farm: It is perhaps redundant to mention the weather, but it snowed and there were three heavy frosts which delayed planting. Again; however two acres in the bottom field were plowed and dragged. The Black Dwarf field was enlarged by Lady Huff, then plowed and planted with potatoes when it got warmer. One hundred cabbage plants were also set out.
During the cool weather wood for the furnaces was split at the farm. This is still something of a mystery, since the Hauling Crew has not yet been able to find the wood that was split.
On Friday we slaughtered, for the kitchen one shoat, 175 pounds dress weight. The beef herd was vaccinated for Black Leg, preparatory to their being taken to the Mountain Pasture.
Two bull calves were born, one to a dairy cow, one to a beef cow. This should be attributed to the processes of nature and not to the farm development.
One small duckling hatched out on Saturday night in a hidden nest on the bank of Lake Eden. Its mother neglects it.
Molly Gregory
Hauling: The Hauling Crew took coal and wood to the more ravenous furnaces and removed the weekly accumulation of trash to the dump. The crew also helped Nell Rice remove assorted boxes and bookcases from the Library to Black Dwarf and finished cleaning out the Conversation Room in the Studies Building. On Saturday the crew transported various properties to the Dining Hall for the production of “Outward Bound” and, on Sunday, returned the items to their owners.
Bill McLaughlin
Maintenance: Last week the Maintenance Crew cut down and cleared the brush on the area between the Studies Building and the lake, in preparation for plowing the ground and planting grass there. The job of spreading top soil for a flower garden and digging drainage ditches around the magnesium pilot plant was completed. John Campbell, the electrician, put a ceiling light in the Klepper-McKenna study, and a relay on the Foreman’s stove.
Ginger Osbourne
NOTE: Because of the lack of secretarial help, this may be the last Community Bulletin for some time.
