Plaques in Lee Chapel (cont’d): In the first two blog posts, I discussed a selection of the memorial plaques that hang in Lee Chapel. Over two dozen people are memorialized on these commemorative markers. Only two reference the contributions of women or African Americans. Only one woman is addressed by name: Bertha Stebbins of Natchez, Mississippi. In 1906, she married W&L graduate William McCutchan Morrison, class of 1887. For the next four years she served alongside her husband as a missionary in Luebo, a town within the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Mr. Morrison and a fellow Virginian Presbyterian, William Henry Sheppard, brought the mistreatment of native peoples by King Leopold II of Belgium to the attention of the international community. Mr. Morrison also worked on a dictionary of the local language, Baluba; in honor of his contributions the Bakuba tribes nicknamed Mr. Morrison “Kuonyi Nshila (“don’t let the path get closed again”), while Mrs. Stebbins-Morrison was given a name that translated as “perfume of the alabaster box.” She learned Baluba and worked as a school teacher and an amateur nurse. They were buried in Luebo, but a gravestone memorializes them in the New Monmouth Presbyterian Cemetery, here in Rockbridge Co. (Credits: Rev. T.C. Vinson’s 1921 book, William McCutchan Morrison: Twenty Years in Central Africa,“ George Frank ‘19 Africana Studies capstone paper, Maggie Davis, Family Search gravestone photograph).
A second plaque in the chapel commemorates “the occupation of the University’s facilities from 6 December 1942 thru 31 January 1946” by the U.S. Army’s School for Personnel Services. For over three years, W&L rented its campus facilities to the Army’s School for Special Service Officers. This group of scholars included African American soldiers; each of the several hundred soldiers were selected based on their leadership skills. Tucker Hall (then the site of the Law School), the University dining hall (then in Evans), and dormitories (then Graham-Lees; W&L students were sent into the fraternity houses and the town of Lexington), along with four classrooms and the basement of the Student Union were rented to the Army. The soldiers used the gym in the afternoons and always had access to one of the three athletic fields. Female recruits as well as African American officers graduated from the Army’s program. The photo in the post shows a close-up of the 1945 graduation class, standing in front of the Colonnade. (Credits: Special Collections photographs, Ring Tum Phi 1942.11.19, research by Johana Castillo ‘21, Scott Dittman).
