Donald M. Love Papers

Collection

Identifier: RG 30-091

Staff Only

Scope and Contents

The personal papers of Donald M. Love are divided into thirteen series: I. Address Books; II. Appointment Books; III. Committee Files; IV. Correspondence; V. Teaching Files; VI. Writings and Talks; VII. Community Service Files; VIII. Tour Guide Files; IX. Student Files; X. Photographs; XI. Miscellaneous Historical Files; Miscellaneous Printed Matter (Late Accretion); and, XIII. Awards and Honors.

Love's papers document his activities as a college administrator, writer, and teacher, as well as a civic leader and traveler. The most significant records are his talks and writings. The series of largely incoming correspondence, while equal in volume to Love's writings, provides minimal details about Love's personal or professional activities. Files include exchanges with President Carr over the controversial Barrows House (1963); with Librarian Eileen Thornton (1960, 1962) relating to a proposed archives at Oberlin; and with friends and acquaintances such as the Rev. William H. Hudnut (d. 1963) of Rochester, New York (1922-31). Numerous illegible letters (1965) from Katherine Hayden Salter (1896-1988) request special professional favors of Secretary Love. Gaps exist in Love's correspondence because select, private correspondence was probably not retained for future research use.

In spite of gaps in the record, Love's papers span his lifetime. Early records date from Love's school days at Sandusky High School (1909-12) and at Oberlin College (1912-16). Family correspondence (1894-1916) reveals a tight bond between Love and his parents, although family personalities remain veiled. Several letters (1915-16) from Love to his "dear ones" describe his adventures as Oberlin delegate on Henry Ford's Peace Ship to Scandinavia. These are housed in Series IX., Student Files, Subseries 2. Except for some miscellaneous correspondence (1936-73) and committee files (1936, 1948-52, 1957-62), which include the only extant manuscript notes of General Faculty meetings (1960-62) and Trustees Executive Committee meetings (1962), very little record exists in this collection of Love's administrative career. For Love's professional records, consult the Records of the Office of the Secretary (5), the Records of the Office of the Registrar (27), and the Records of the College of Arts and Sciences (9).

Although Love will be best remembered as an administrator, his papers fully document his activities as a writer and public speaker from 1913 to 1974. Love's writings include the typescript draft of his publication, Henry Churchill King of Oberlin (Yale University Press, 1956), together with research materials and correspondence created during the writing of the book (1952-56). Among the research materials are several letters received from President King (1913, 1915). The bulk of Love's writings consists of manuscript and typescript drafts of talks and notes for talks, as well as published articles. Subjects of these talks, which were delivered mainly to local groups, range from Sienese art to the poetry of British writer Matthew Arnold. The talks and articles, together with Love's teaching materials for his English literature classes at Oberlin (1926-65), and the records (1949-66) of the tours he conducted in the British Isles in 1950 and 1955 reveal Love's deeply rooted interest in the literary history of England.

Love's efforts to promote higher education in Lorain County and his activities on behalf of the town of Oberlin are also well documented, in spite of some gaps. Files relating to his tenure as a member of the Board of Trustees of Lorain County Community College (1959-71) are incomplete; they include correspondence (1962-63, 1967-69), printed financial reports (1967/68-1969/70), memoranda (1962, 1968), and minutes (1968, 1970, 1971). Records document Love's service in numerous capacities to the First Congregational Church of Oberlin (1940-41, 1961-74) and include memoranda, official correspondence, and budgetary records. Gaps exist in these files for the twenty years between 1941 and 1961. Love's involvement in other civic affairs, including the founding of the Oberlin Historical Society, are documented in correspondence, fundraising records, and printed materials (1940-74). Historical files include his collections of records relating to Ohio history.

Dates

Creation: 1868-1974
Creation: Majority of material found in 1912-1974
Other: Date acquired: 06/17/1975

Creator

Love, Donald M. (Donald Melbourne) (Person)

Conditions Governing Access

Unrestricted.

Biographical Sketch

Donald Melbourne Love was born in Bloomingville, Ohio, near Sandusky, on September 15, 1894. He was the only child of Melbourne Thomas Love (1860-1937), the village storekeeper and postmaster, and Grace De Lamatre Love (1866-1935), a graduate of the Connecticut Training School for Nurses. Love received his early education in a one-room district schoolhouse. After graduating from Sandusky High School in 1912, he entered Oberlin College where he began lifelong friendships with classmates Frederick B. Artz (1894-1983), Edgar W. King (1893-1969), Allan Fisk Rood (1894-1971), Edward Franklin Bosworth (1894-1957), Grace Schauffler (1894-1982), and Mary S. Yocom (1894-1968). Love majored in economics, winning election to Phi Beta Kappa during his senior year. In December 1915, President Henry Churchill King (1858-1934) chose Love as Oberlin's delegate on the Peace Ship to Scandinavia hastily chartered by automaker Henry Ford (1863-1947) to end hostilities in Europe.

Following his graduation from Oberlin in 1916, Love taught mathematics, history, economics, and English in high schools in St. Charles, Illinois (1916-17), Alliance, Ohio (1917-18), and Youngstown, Ohio (1918-26). In September 1926, he was appointed Assistant Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at Oberlin and invited to teach the English Department's annual "Introduction to Literature" course. Thus began thirty-six years of service to Oberlin College, during which time Love held six administrative positions, more than anyone else has held in the college's history. From 1929 to 1935, while Assistant Dean, he served concurrently as Registrar; in 1935, he was appointed Acting Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences. He remained Acting Dean until 1937, when he again occupied the post of Registrar. In 1938, he was named Secretary of Oberlin College, succeeding George M. Jones (1870-1948), who had been the first to hold that office (1899-1938). During the absence of President William Edwards Stevenson (1900-85) from May to September 1959, Love was named Acting President of Oberlin College; he was then serving as Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences (1959-60).

Donald Love is best remembered for his twenty-four year tenure as Secretary of Oberlin College. Under Love, the influence of the Secretary within the College's administrative and academic branches reached its peak. From 1938 until his retirement in 1962, he applied to his official tasks his broad learning, keen judgment, and humanistic ideals. Love saw in President Henry Churchill King the embodiment of those ideals. Love's duties included serving as Secretary for the Board of Trustees (of which he was not a member) and the Prudential Committee (of which he was a member from 1935). His minutes were widely considered works of art as well as official accounts of the meetings. For the trustees, he prepared reports showing the proceedings of all of the groups whose records he maintained. In his capacity as records creator and records keeper, Love was Oberlin's first unofficial archivist. His genuine interest in preserving Oberlin's history made him an early champion of an archives at Oberlin. For his long dedication to Oberlin, Love was awarded the honorary degree of Doctor of Letters in 1960, and in 1963, the Alumni Association awarded him its highest honor, the Alumni Medal.

Donald Love always considered himself an educator rather than an administrator. Although his formal teaching at Oberlin was limited to the annual "Introduction to English Literature," he taught the course from 1926 until 1965, bringing to life for generations of Oberlin students the splendors of the English literary tradition. His relentless intellectual curiosity contributed to his skills as a teacher. He remained a student of English letters, attending summer sessions at Middlebury (1921) and at Oberlin College (1922, 1924, 1925), and a winter session at Harvard University in 1937-38. Love combined his interests in education, literature, and travel by conducting the summer tour to the British Isles, "Backgrounds of English History and Literature," for the Massachusetts-based Bureau of University Travel in 1950 and 1955.

Known for his fluidity of speech and grace in writing, Love was in demand as a speaker at town gatherings, at College events, and at events outside Oberlin. In academic year 1954-55, President Stevenson granted Love a leave of absence in which to write the biography of President Henry Churchill King. Published in 1956 by Yale University Press, Henry Churchill King of Oberlin was warmly praised by its reviewers. Success in this scholarly endeavor led in 1962 to a request by the Board of Trustees that he complete Robert S. Fletcher's History of Oberlin College by extending its narrative from the Civil War to 1925. The project was never initiated, as Love lacked not the ability but the temperament to carry out the considerable archival research required; Love even confessed in a 1969 letter to Ralph Singleton his lack of interest in "grubbing around" in the College's records, many of which he had written himself.

In addition to his administrative and teaching duties for the College, Love was dedicated to the welfare of the town; to Oberlin citizens, he was known as "Mr. Oberlin." Love served the First Church in Oberlin in numerous capacities during the period from 1940 to his death in 1974, including those of trustee, moderator, deacon, Vice-Chairman of the Executive Council, chairman of the Cabinet Committee, and Pastoral Committee member. He served as a board member or officer of such civic organizations as the Oberlin Auto Club, Oberlin City Club, Oberlin United Appeal, Oberlin Chamber of Commerce, Peoples Bank (now defunct), and the Oberlin Community Chest. Love was the first secretary of the Oberlin Historical and Improvement Organization (1964-74) and president of its predecessor body, the Oberlin Historical Society (1960-64). He was instrumental in the establishment of the Lorain County Community College, sitting on the College's Board of Trustees from 1963 to 1970 and serving as Board Chairman from 1967 to 1969.

Donald Love remained active up until his death in Oberlin on November 13, 1974, at the age of eighty.

Note written by Valerie S. Komor.

Extent

7.60 Linear Feet

Language of Materials

English

Additional Description

Method of Acquisition

The Donald M. Love papers were transferred to the Oberlin College Archives in two separate accessions in 1975 and in 1979. In 2006, Dewey and Carol Ganzel donated to the OCA a copy of “Robert’s Rules of Order: Revised,” 1915 (inscribed “Donald M. Love”). The book is filed in this collection (2006/065). In 2007, an additional lot of materials were received from the Office of the President (2007/063).

Accruals and Additions

Accession Nos: 273, 1979/18, 2006/065, 2007/063.

Related Materials

For Donald Love's correspondence as the first Secretary of the Oberlin Historical and Improvement Organization (1964-74), consult the records of O.H.I.O. (31/9). Correspondence from Donald Love is found in the professional files of the four presidents under whom he served. Consult the presidential papers of President Henry Churchill King (2/6), Ernest Hatch Wilkins (2/7), William Edwards Stevenson (2/8), and Robert Kenneth Carr (2/9). As indicated above, consult the records of the Office of the Secretary (5), the Records of the Office of the Registrar (27), and the records of the College of Arts and Sciences (9) for the bulk of Love's administrative records. Secretary Love's minutes of meetings of the Board of Trustees, its committees, and the general faculty for the period 1938-62 are available on microfilm. See the Records of the Board of Trustees (1) for minutes of Board of Trustees committee meetings.