January 26, 2000
Williard Hall bears scars of firefight ...
By Cathy Willoughby
Staff Writer
Not only were student's belongings in their "homes away from home'' damaged in the fire Saturday morning, so were the offices of the International Student and Multi-cultural Programs.
The director, Lewis Miller, is busy relocating his offices to 285 East Perry St., and was on hand Saturday morning, and Sunday, to help recover student belongings and as much furniture, paperwork and years of memorabilia that were in his offices.
"It's really going quite well,'' Miller said of their attempts to salvage as many items as possible. "Considering the circumstances, we lost a lot due to water. We salvaged most of the art work; we had a collection of paintings and prints that students had given us over the years, that have a lot of sentimental value. We have taken them out of their frames, and it looks like they are going to dry well.''
Books in the office are water soaked, yet Miller said that the salvage company, Cousino Construction of Toledo, has taken it to their warehouses and thought 60 percent of the books and paperwork can be saved.
Helping him at Williard on Sunday, was his wife, Mary. They met each other as students at Heidelberg, in the late 1950's. She lived in Williard both her junior and senior years, and found the experience of entering the dorm after the fire emotional.
Memories flooded back to her as she saw the rooms she lived in, one of which was severely damaged. "When you go up the grand staircase, it was the second room on the right,'' Mary said. "It was one of those that was severely damaged, and it had the same closet and windows that I remembered.''
"The other room that I had my senior year was further down the hall; it was one of a suite of three rooms that looked very much the same,'' she added.
Her first reaction early Saturday morning was hoping everyone was out. Then she realized that her husband's office was also in the building. "I knew it would be big problem for him in his job,'' she said.
"When we went over on Sunday, and I'm not highly emotional, I experienced a lot of nostalgia when I walked in the building that I had walked in so many times,'' she explained. "It brought back so many memories.''
She remembers waiting for meals outside the Berg Room. "I remember the sound of the doors opening when they would let us in,'' she recalled. "The Berg room had these big, oak tables; it was a very gracious room.''
"We would stand outside waiting until they opened those big doors,'' she added. "I remember that the sliding of the doors, was a pleasant sound to me of wood on wood, because in my memory it meant that we could come in.''
When she entered the lobby Sunday, to her immediate right, was an open door. "That was the telephone booth, and I did peek in,'' Mary said. "On the second floor, at the top of the grand staircase, was the society room, and it was the society that I belonged to. So I remember having many meetings there, and it was a gracious place.''
When she looked out one of the windows, with a view across the lawn, other memories flooded back. "I remember in the springtime the men's societies, each would come and stand out on the lawn and serenade the women. They would go to all of the different residence halls. They really rehearsed, were dressed properly and were well-mannered.''
Lewis will also have the opportunity to revive long ago memories. The new offices he will be temporarily occupying was first the original heidelberg presidents home, and then a residence for up to 23 men who attended Heidelberg. Lewis lived there for three years while attending Heidelberg College.
"It felt good to come here, where I had lived,'' he said.