Hoiles Gardens Dedication Ceremony
 May
19, 2000
I would echo Dr. Mannoia's thanks to all of you for joining us
here for a few minutes this evening to celebrate this special occasion.
One of the things I have most loved about Greenville College and
the City of Greenville has been a sense of interconnectedness through
time and space that is so apparent when we look closely at city
and college history.
My grandmother attended college here in 1930 and '31, and my parents
in the late 50's, so I feel like the college's history is in large
part my own history. I want to describe just a little of that interconnectedness
this evening.
Between 1825 and the mid-1850's a promising lawyer and probate
judge by the name of John Brown White decided to leave the practice
of law to embark on a new professional path - in education. In 1855
John Brown White and Stephen Morse founded a college in Greenville,
Illinois, to be known as Almira College, named for Stephen Morse'
wife Almira Ann Blanchard.
As we all know Almira College is now Greenville College; but what
many may not know is that John Brown White was the great-grandfather
of one of our guests and benefactors, Mr. C. Douglas Hoiles. The
Hoiles family has been a dear friend to Greenville College ever
since John Brown White served as the first president of Almira College.
In her 1942 memoir about the college, Still
Abides the Memory, Mary Tenney offers these images to describe
the setting for students returning to Greenville College in the
late summer of 1908 (paraphrased): (and I would encourage you here
to reflect on the images the writer creates) "….the most distinctive
feature perhaps was the life of simple pleasures shared by the students:
no radios, no commercialized amusements, few automobiles to disturb
the placidity of rural life……….for this reason "the gullies" as
they were (and are) colloquially known furnished the students some
of the most unforgettable experiences, such as a stroll across the
hills on a warm, Saturday afternoon in April, under the immaculate
dogwood blossoms and rosy laciness of the redbud trees…….…. (later)
the late fall arrived and the ridges became a mass of gold and crimson
against a purple-blue Indian summer haze………..each season the gullies
offered some new attraction and their idyllic beauty furnished the
setting for most of the proposals of marriage made during those
years…."
Now, as you summon those images to mind, realize the impact of
those many marriages on our lives today. To a large degree, Greenville
College history from the early 1900's is founded on the work of
those young men and women who met and vowed marriage in the cool
shade, or sheltering warmth, of these woods. Their love for the
college is inexorably founded on the gift of natural beauty created
by our Heavenly Father and provided to us by the hospitality of
our benefactors, the Hoiles.
It cannot be overemphasized how important that gift has been to
the college as it exists today - Greenville College, and its Hoiles
Gardens, are a bright light drawing quality students and shaping
their lives for a future of service and character. These gardens
will color the fond memories of Greenville College students for
the next 100 years just as they did for those students in 1908.
Today, by dedicating the gullies as the Hoiles Gardens, we offer
our eternal thanks to Doug, Sue and Jeff for their many years of
hospitality and hard work. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Hoiles
Gardens.
David D. Patrick, Jr.,
May 19, 2000
John Brown White (1810-1887) m. 1st Mary Powers Merriam (1815-1855)
in 1838 2nd Elizabeth Richardson Wright (1820-1910)
Juliette Powers White (1843-1924) m. Charles
Douglas Hoiles (1844-1915)
In 1876 Guy Brown Hoiles (1877-1937) m.
Alice Baumberger in 1899
Charles Douglas Hoiles Jr. (1910- ) m. Susan
Lea Rosskopf (1911- )
Charles D. Hoiles III (1940- )
Jeffery Morse Hoiles (1942- )
Last updated: May
23, 2000
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