Issue date: 4/14/08 Section: News

Sarah Greenwald, a senior business major, unwraps a portrait of Anne Weller on Saturday in Weller Hall. (Nicole Milstead/The Daily Eastern News)

To check out our slideshow from the dedication, click here!


Sarah Greenwald found the namesake of Weller Hall in a closet.

Greenwald, a senior biology major, found a portrait of Anne Weller, whom she calls Annie, in a closet last fall. The portrait was in bad condition, so Greenwald went to Mark Hudson, director of Housing and Dining Services.

"I had the student come to me and she said, 'I found this portrait in a closet and it needs some help,'" Hudson said.

Hudson agreed the portrait needed to be fixed. It was decided that housing and dining would have the portrait restored.

Greenwald was put in charge of the project for the Triad, the common name for the Ford, McKinney and Weller residence halls.

Before the project could start, Greenwald had to find the missing portraits of Ellen Ford and Isabel McKinney.

Upon searching, Greenwald found the portrait of Ford in a McKinney Hall closet - but the portrait of McKinney was still missing.

Housing finally found the portrait of Isabel McKinney in the housing storage area.

Greenwald started the restorations last February by driving the portraits one-by-one to Chicago to be worked on.

McKinney's portrait remained in good condition and did not need to be restored.

Eastern carpenters also built frames and cabinets for the portraits to be placed in the residence halls.

The portraits were unveiled Saturday during "Triad Heritage Weekend." The event, coordinated by Temetria Hargett, McKinney Hall associate resident director, paid tribute to the three women who were influential to the university.

The three women committed their whole lives to education and never married or had their own families, Hudson said.

The event included a speech from Dan Nadler, vice president for student affairs, and Hudson, and featured a catered lunch for students.

"You can't really know who you are unless you know who you have been," Nadler said.

Nadler said Ford, Weller, and McKinney together gave a combined 105 years of service to the university.

On April 15, 1957, a recommendation was made to name the new residence halls after the three women.

The buildings were slated to open in the fall of 1958, but because of construction delays, the buildings actually opened in 1959, Nadler said.

The project cost $1.59 million.

Nadler, Hudson and Greenwald unveiled the portraits Saturday.

Hudson told the students at the event when they come in after a late night of studying to look at Ford, McKinney or Weller and say, "This one's for you."

No one knows the last time the portraits were hung.

Hudson said he knows that when he was an undergrad in 1976 living in the Triad - just 17 years after the Halls opened - the portraits had not been hanging.

"There is nothing more important at EIU than its people, the people of the past, present and its future," Nadler said.


Annie Weller:
In 1903, Annie Weller began instructing geography at Eastern after receiving her undergraduate and graduate degrees at the University of Chicago. Weller was the head of the Geography Department for years.


Isabel McKinney:
Isabel McKinney was an undergraduate of the University of Chicago and received her Master of Arts in English from Columbia University. Her career at Eastern- Normal School began in 1904 when she joined the faculty as an English and History Critic teacher for the seventh, eighth, and ninth grades. After 18 years of teaching, Ms. McKinney became the head of the English Department and remained in that position until her retirement 23 years later.



Ellen Ford:
Ellen Ford was an undergraduate of Syracuse University and returned there to receive a Master of Arts degree in Latin in 1894. Through previously working relationships with President Lord, Ford was able to establish herself as his "right-hand woman and his most important assistant". At his first opportunity, Lord hired her as a professor of foreign languages. Two decades later, Ford left her mark as being "principally responsible for planning and reorganizing the school's shift from a normal school to a teachers college in 1921." In 1926, she received the honor of becoming the president of the Eastern Division of the Illinois State Teacher's Association.




Nicole Milstead can be reached at 581-7942 or at nrmilstead@eiu.edu.

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