twothreeLoneast year, Lois Herr donated a collection of letters to Elizabethtown College that students and alumni had written to her father during World War II. Recently, the High Library finished processing these donated letters; they are now available for viewing and research in the College’s Earl H. and Anita F. Hess Archives and Special Collections.

The letters are meaningful to Elizabethtown because Lois’ father, Ira R. Herr, was at the core of Elizabethtown athletics during war time. The correspondence came from students and alumni that Coach Herr had mentored or taught at the College. Most of these letters were from men who were on the front lines of World War II.

Collections like these enrich our understanding of the actual experiences of war.”

Within the archives, each folder contains the letters and postcards sent to Coach Herr from a particular student. The folder also includes a biography and photographs that Lois Herr was able to collect through research about the writers as she wrote her book, “Dear Coach: Letters Home from World War II.” Permission forms that Lois received from the families of the soldiers, photographs from her various lectures and additional research and newspaper clipping can be found in the archives, as well.

In addition to the World War II letters, the Archives now hold The H. Willard Good Collection, which was originally donated to the Young Center for Anabaptist and Pietist Studies in 2011. This collection is now is open to research use, as well. Letters, newspaper clippings, tax forms, pictures and other types of paperwork from the years 1944-1946 have been assembled. Some of the letters are between Willard Good and his soon-to-be wife Pauline McKenzie. He also corresponded with passive objectors to World War II. In the letters is talk about civilian public service camps, conditions during World War II, Church of the Brethren meetings—Willard and Pauline were members of the Elizabethtown COB—voting, courtship, marriage, the Boy Scouts, Ladies Aid Meetings and wartime radio broadcasts.

“Collections like these enrich our understanding of the actual experiences of war,” said High Library Archivist Rachel Grove Rohrbaugh. “Students who read the letters can learn about World War II from the men and women who actually lived it.” These two collections give the ability to see war from a variety of perspectives. Willard Good, a member of the Church of Brethren, “was a conscientious objector (CO) and his letters to his wife Pauline focus on his time working at civilian public service camps.”

“Students can understand World War II in a whole new way that goes beyond what they may have gotten from a textbook. It’s an incredible experience to read the soldiers and COs thoughts and feelings and see their photographs,” said Grove Rohrbaugh.

These handwritten artifacts are stored in the Hess Archives and Special Collections on Level 1 of the Library. The Archives, themselves, contain materials on the history of Elizabethtown College and local COB records, as well as collections that support the research of the Young Center.

Both collections are open to any interested researcher from faculty to students to alumni, and the Library is interested in collecting similar material. Grove Rohrbaugh encourages anyone with artifacts to contact her at grover@etown.edu.