Enid Bancroft Sutton (Swan) Papers

Enid Bancroft Sutton was born on January 27, 1891, in Nuevo Laredo, Mexico, where her father, Warner Perrin Sutton, served as Consul-general. Her mother was Mary Lois Andrews. Enid’s childhood years were divided between Saugatuck, Michigan and Washington, D.C. One brother and two of her sisters attended Oberlin College before her. Enid earned an AB in English Literature in 1915, and a master’s degree in English at Oberlin in 1916. During the First World War Enid served in the Red Cross.

In the summer of 1915 Enid took an ecology course from Professor Lynds Jones, the first of his many summer courses involving trips to the American West to study geology, flora and fauna, particularly birds. Students on these trips kept detailed journals of their observations and took photographs as fulfillment of their course requirements.

In 1917 Enid Sutton married Wilbur Fridolf Swan, an Oberlin graduate in 1910 and a recipient of a master’s degree, also at Oberlin, in 1915. Enid and Wilbur Swan lived in Iowa for their first twenty-five years of marriage. In mid-life, Wilbur left his business career to serve as a minister in the Presbyterian Church. They were in Nebraska for fifteen years of Church service before relocating to Decatur, Illinois for Wilbur’s position as Minister-of-Evangelism at the Westminster Presbyterian Church. Enid did a great deal of calling with him at hospitals and the homes of congregants. After Wilbur’s cataract surgeries, Enid did all the driving. The Swans vacationed in Europe in 1961 and visited the countries of their heritage: Scandinavia, Scotland, England and Wales.

The couple had six children, of which two sons graduated from Oberlin College: Arthur in 1946 and Jon in 1950. Arthur taught for three years in London, and Jon traveled and taught in Switzerland after earning a master’s degree at Harvard. Later he worked at The New Yorker magazine and wrote poetry. The three daughters in the family all served in the war effort during World War II. Zaida was a WAVE stationed in Washington, D.C., and Kristin served as a WASP working as a test pilot at Garden City, Kansas. Felice did research at Harvard Medical School in cancer. The eldest son, Charles, taught for three years in the Presbyterian Community School in Tehran, Iran under the Board of Foreign Missions, then returned to graduate in law at the University of Michigan and worked in the Office of Foreign Buildings in the State Department.

Wilbur Swan died of pneumonia on March 17, 1969. Enid moved to Greenport, New York in 1974 to live with her eldest son’s family. She died on October 11, 1983 in Greenport, survived by five of their six children, eleven grandchildren and eight great-grandchildren.

In a note to Oberlin College from Arthur Swan with an enclosed obituary clipping he states, “One of my mother’s most enduring and meaningful Oberlin experiences took place in the summer of 1915, when she was part of a small group of students, led by Professor Lynds Jones, who enjoyed an adventuresome ecology expedition on the Pacific Coast. Her interest in birds never waned. Her journal and book of photographs taken on the trip continue to fascinate her family.” These items were donated to the Oberlin College Archives in 1994.

On a form sent out by the College to alums and former students before her death, Enid answered the question “What has been the influence of Oberlin on your life?” She answered, “… decidedly for the good (--) one feels ideals are not only immensely worthwhile but the sine qua non of a satisfactory life.”

Sources

Enid Bancroft Sutton Swan student file, Alumni and Former Students Records (RG 28).

Finding guide to the Jones Family Papers (RG 30/107).

Note written by Anne Cuyler Salsich