A room of one’s own would be prized by a student of any era, but this 1899 crib would have been the top lottery choice at Shepardson College, the lower-campus sister to Denison, which was still all male at the time. It was not only a single, but it was the tower room of Burton Hall, now the music building, with a round, many-windowed nook where the lucky resident could read or gaze out at the expanse of trees and lawn.
When this photo was taken, the room was occupied by Grace Brumback, Class of 1899. Grace’s father, Henry, was an 1863 graduate of Denison who moved to Missouri, so it would have been a more than 700-mile journey for Grace and her trunkful of enviable stuff, including the staghorn footstool with “99” stitched on the top, and a throw pillow embroidered with the signatures of Denison gentlemen.
A member of Phi Beta Kappa, Grace was as serious about her studies (Latin, math, rhetoricals, paleontology, philosophy) as about her housekeeping, and she went on to do graduate work at Stanford. Denison and Shepardson merged several years after she earned her Shepardson diploma, so that degree was reconferred by Denison. Her son, Henry Brumback Henson ’29 met his wife, Isabelle Smock ’28 at Denison, and this past May brought members of the Brumback family back to Granville to see the graduation of Grace’s great-great-granddaughter, Kristina Isabelle King ’14.