Milligan Archivist finds a handwritten letter from Winston
Churchill in library.
Photo by Jennie Kodak
Steph Wilson
Staff Writer
September 28, 2007
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Milligan Archivist finds a handwritten letter from Winston
Churchill in library.
Photo by Jennie Kodak |
During the summer of 2006, Library Archivist Ginger Dillon stumbled across a hand-written letter from Winston Churchill in the P.H. Welshimer Memorial Library. Much like the last scene in Indiana Jones when the Ark of the Covenant is boxed up in a warehouse, it seems as though many valuable treasures lay tucked away, mostly undiscovered in the library.
“The letter was addressed to David Sinclair Burleson,” Associate Professor of Humanities, History and German Ted Thomas said, “who was an 1891 alumnus of Milligan College.”
The letter, dated 1945, is not much bigger than a 3-by-5 card. It is a brief statement from Churchill thanking Burleson for a letter. One can only guess what was in the letter from Burleson to Churchill. Dillon speculates that Burleson wrote to congratulate Churchill on the outcome of World War II.
At the time he received the letter, Burleson was serving as the first president of East Tennessee State University.
Dillon informed The Stampede that the Library staff is not allowed to estimate the dollar value of the letter because doing so would break the college’s code of ethics.
Library personnel, such as Dillon, are more concerned about the intellectual value of the piece. When she found the letter, it was not in its proper place. The letter belongs in the Burleson collection but had somehow been separated from the collection. The letter’s value from an intellectual standpoint is much greater when placed with the rest of the collection — where it currently resides.
The papers which fill the Burleson collection were given by Burleson’s daughter. This extensive compilation contains letters from many impressive leaders of Burleson’s day such as President Dwight Eisenhower and Harry Fosdick, the first preacher of the historic Riverside Church in New York.
According to Dillon, the letter will remain in the collection as it is now and is available for viewing.