NCC: Gertrude Hildreth papers

This collection contains appointment books, personal journals/diaries, and other miscellaneous personal effects created and maintained by Dr. Gertrude Howell Hildreth.

The appointment books are small size pocket calendars in which Dr. Hildreth recorded appointments, events, and activities. The appointment books cover dates that pre-date her time at North Central College through her retirement and permanent residence at Sea Cliff. She apparently used these books both to schedule upcoming events and to briefly summarize occurrences. These books generally do not contain information for each day. Later years of these books are particularly unused. The appointment books do shed some light on her thoughts and actions in the years which pre-date her diaries.

The diaries in this series particularly pertain to Dr. Hildreth’s life following retirement from Brooklyn College. The diaries contain nearly daily entries from Dr. Hildreth’s overseas residence in Istanbul and Beirut. Dr. Hildreth appears to have begun keeping these diaries as a series of travel journals and she used these to record what she saw, did, and even her thoughts on a myriad number of issues. Subjects in the diary entries range from the weather and local flora to her health and daily exercise though dramatic events including the evacuation of Americans from Beirut and travel difficulties in Cold War Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union. The diary entries from Dr. Hildreth’s time in Sea Cliff are generally not daily until later in her life, when she finally remained there. Numerous references in the diaries are made to Dr. Hildreth’s works on manuscripts and the later Sea Cliff diaries are repeatedly referred to as a warm-up for her writing for academic purposes.

In addition to the handwritten entries which constitute by far the bulk of contents, Dr. Hildreth did paint and draw using watercolors, pencil, ink, and colored pencil drawings. The subjects of these artworks are largely plants and flowers and buildings. The diaries also contain newspaper articles and notices which Dr. Hildreth glued onto the pages. Occasional photographs and dried botanicals are also glued to the pages, but these are much less common than the above additions. Entries in the diaries indicate that while Dr. Hildreth was in Istanbul, Turkey, she traveled to Syria and the Black Sea and witnessed student riots and the institution of martial law. Entries during her two years in Beirut indicate that she traveled to Paris, Jerusalem, Syria, Bulgaria, Ukraine, Russia, Turkey, Greece, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Iran and Iraq. Also included are details on her experience in being airlifted out of Beirut and her resulting time in Athens during May and June 1967 (now called the Six Days’ War). The diaries from her time back in the United States cover her time in Demark, South Carolina teaching at Voorhees College and her travels through New England, Canada, and throughout other U.S. destinations.

Following the vast bulk of the collection (the appointment books and diaries) are folders that contain correspondence, microfilm and description of materials held at the Educational Testing Service, and three dimensional artifacts. The personal correspondence is to and from family and friends during her time overseas, and to and from students and North Central classmates from the late 1940s through her death. The Educational Testing Service materials have been microfilmed and copies of the reels of personal (as opposed to professional) materials were included with the donation. A guide of the entire ETS holdings was also forwarded and is included here. The artifacts are largely awards and teaching licenses received and Dr. Hildreth’s expired passports. The final item in this series is a remembrance book used at a memorial service held following her death.