BLACK MOUNTAIN COLLEGE COMMUNITY BULLETIN
College Year 11 Bulletin 17
Monday, January 31, 1944
CALENDAR FOR THE WEEK:
The Board of Fellows will hold its regular monthly Business Meeting this afternoon at 4:30 o’clock in Study 10.
The International Relations Club will meet this evening at 6:45 o’clock in the Lobby of the North Lodge. The meeting will last one hour.
The Faculty will meet in the Kocher Room on Tuesday afternoon at 4:30 o’clock. The chief item of business will be a discussion of the Winter Quarter class registration of the students.
The students will hold their regular weekly meeting in the Lobby of the North Lodge on Thursday evening at 7:00 o’clock.
There will be no lecture on Thursday evening this week.
On Saturday evening, in the Dining Hall, there will be the concert of Toscanini recordings of Beethoven’s Fourth and Sixth Symphonies, the gift of John Stix. The concert, which was postponed from last week, will begin at 8:30 o’clock. It will be introduced with a commentary by Heinrich Jalowetz.
ANNOUNCEMENTS:
Marilyn Bauer and Jane Slater will discuss and demonstrate “Economical and Artistic Costuming for the Amateur Theatre” at the February Dramatics Institute at the Lee H. Edwards High School in Asheville on Saturday morning.
Kenneth and Ann Kurtz will return this morning from Baltimore, Maryland, where, at John Hopkins Hospital, Ann received medical examination and treatment.
Dr. Charles Lindsley, who taught chemistry at Black Mountain College from September 1958 to September 1941, will arrive early next week for a few days visit at Lake Eden. Dr. Lindsley is now at the University of Virginia where he is doing special work for the United States government.
News has been received at Lake Eden of the death of the youngest child, Janie, of Bill and Martha McCleery. She “died suddenly Saturday night, January 22, in her sleep.”
WITH FORMER STUDENTS:
New Addresses:
Private Claude Stoller,
A.S.T.U. 5911, Company B,
Pasadena 5, California.
A/C F.M. Stone, 324231191,
Sqdn. 17, Bks. C, S.A.A.A.B.,
Santa Ana, California.
In the Mail:
Homer Bobilin writes from the New Hebrides on January 20: “I’m getting more discouraged every day by this place. Beginning to wonder what the sun looks like. Everything is just rotting away. The buttons rot off your clothes. Your clothes rot off your body; and I’m beginning to feel as though my skin were rotting off my bones. Even the shed we live in smells with dampness and decay. It’s a great life! Raincoats don’t do any good, since the water splashes about four feet high. Guess I’ll just have to resign myself to being moldy for the duration.”
B M C COMMUNITY BULLETIN 1943-44 BULLETIN #17 Page 2
Private Claude Stoller writes from Pasadena, California: “My course here at Pasadena Junior College probably corresponds to a freshman Engineering course (somewhat accelerated). We have about 5 hours of classes a day and 3 compulsory hours of study. Besides that one has to eat, shave, clean up, write a letter or two, drill, and 3 times a week stay up late at night for band rehearsal (I didn’t want to be in a band here, but my company commander ‘requested’ it.) It all sounds fearsome, but isn’t really. I think the average BMCer works harder.”
REACTION TO THE SOUTHERN CONFERENCE FOR HUMAN WELFARE:
An Editorial in the Asheville Times of January 24:
COVERING A LOT OF GROUND
The Southern Conference for Human Welfare, in session for two days at Black Mountain College, gave its approval to so many laudable cases that anyone expressing dissent at any point of the vast territory covered by the resolutions probably risks deep damnation—from conference spokesman—as a double-dyed reactionary.
Nevertheless, the Times believes that progress in human welfare is not exempt from the dangers of indiscriminate approval, 100 percent plus, of everything proposed in the name of human welfare.
It would take a whole volume to debate the issues properly, and fairly to all concerned. In this article it has to suffice only to ask how anyone can be absolutely certain that the following items of the conference program deserve the unreserved support of all forward looking persons- the Wagner-Dinghall bill for social security extensions, including (presumably) the bill’s highly controversial provisions for socialized medicine. Some Government public health experts agree that the bill in this field goes too far.
Likewise, is there no question to be raised of the wisdom of abolishing segregation of races in public transportation, of accepting without qualification the Fair Employment Practices Committee’s ideas with regard to Negro conductors and engineers on the railroads?
“Knowledge comes, but wisdom lingers-“ and this applies not alone to the ultra conservatives of our chapter of history.
A Latter:
Southern Conference for Human Welfare
506-507 Presbyterian Building
Nashville 3, Tennessee
January 28, 1944
Mr. Robert Wunsch, Rector
Black Mountain College
Black Mountain, N.C.
Dear Mr. Wunsch:
On behalf of the executive board of the Sothern Conference for Human Welfare permit me to express our deepest appreciation of the fine hospitality accorded to us on the occasion of our recent board meeting.
Everyone agreed that this was one of the best meetings we have ever had due largely to the fact of its being held at the College. We especially enjoyed the opportunity afforded to become better acquainted with the faculty and students and I think it is safe to say that the College has a few more enthusiastic supporters than it had before the meeting.
Personally I think that you all are doing a beautiful job and that Black Mountain is the outstanding College of the South. My best wishes go with you and the students for a very successful year.
With kindest regards and best wishes to the students and faculty,
Sincerely yours,
Southern Conference for Human Welfare
(Signed) James A. Dombrowski,
Executive Secretary.
B M C BULLETIN 1943-44 BULLETIN #17 PAGE THREE
CMMUNITY WORK SUMMARY:
(Week of January 24 through January 29)
The ears of the corn that had been standing in shucks at Grove Stone Field were taken off and hauled to the barns. That job is not quite finished yet.
At the Magnesium Plant Addition the cement floor was laid, and the earth by the door was graded in a ditch to carry off excess water.
Land clearing beyond the farm was continued.
The truck drivers were busy all week hauling coal for the furnaces and sand, stone and gravel for the construction work at the Magnesium Plant Addition.
Three pounds of mica were split and trimmed.
A cement pathway was laid across the concrete slab in front of the Studies Building to bridge the puddle that is always there in rainy weather.
The College rented a field across the river and up the valley and during the week student labor was over there taking out shoots and small trees. The first plowing was also completed.
----Reported by Nell Goldsmith
From the Farm came: three bushels of potatoes and 447 quarts of milk.
NEWS STORY:
Lake Eden, January 30—The Saturday evening concert by students and teachers at Black Mountain College included compositions by Vivaldi, Bach, Schubert and Beethoven.
The program was introduced by Trudi Straus, Gretel Lwinsky and Dr. Edward Lowinsky who played Vivaldi’s Double Violin Concerto in D Minor. Dr. Lowinsky then played three preludes and fugues from the Second Volume of “The Well Tempered Clavichord” by J.S. Bach.
After a brief intermission Frederic Cohen played Franz Schubert’s Sonata in A Minor, Opus 164, for Piano. The concert was concluded with the playing of Beethoven’s Trio in D Major, Opus Number 1, for piano, violin and ‘cello. It was played by Trudi Straus, violinist, Gwendolyn Currier, ‘cellist, and Frederic Cohen, pianist.
Among the guests for the concert were several soldiers from the Headquarters Weather Ring of the Army Air Forces and Asheville and Ernst Bacon, Miss Radiana Pasmore, Miss Alice Rose, and Miss Claire Harper, members of the Music Faculty of Converse College in Spartanburg, South Carolina.
FUTURE VISITORS:
Miss Zora Neale Hurston, well-known Negro author and anthropologist, has written Bob Wunsch that she will visit Lake Eden in May or earlier. Miss Hurston is now on her houseboat on the river at Daytona Beach Florida, working with Miss Felicia Soul, a Negro dancer, making a play, “High John de Conquer”, out of her article that appeared in the October issue of The American Mercury. Miss Hurston is the author of Jonah’s Gourd Vine, Mules and Hen, Their Eyes Were Watching God, Tell My Horse, and Moses Man of the Mountain.
STATE DRAM FESTIVAL:
The entry of Black Mountain College in the annual state dramatic festival will be Lady Gregory’s “Spreading the News.”
