Purdue University - Debris Yearbook (West Lafayette, IN)

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Professor Edward Ayres PROFESSOR EDWARD AYRES, for eighteen years Profesor of English at Purdue, died at St. Elizabeth Hospital, Lafayette, on the sixteenth of December, 1919. His passing was the occasion for profound regret and mourning among all who knew him, but especially among those who knew his work at the University. For Edward Ayres stood for all that was fine and noble in the life of the institution. Modest and unassuming, gentle and kindly in all his dealings with men, incapable of harshness or bitterness toward anyone, he impressed himself upon the life of the community through sheer force of intellect and character. He carried into his work and into his contacts with colleagues and pupils the purest ideals of knightly conduct, and realized as few men do the ideal of a Christian gentleman. Xo one could come under his influence without somehow being the better for having known him. In one thing only was he unyielding; he would not surrender nor compromise a principle of moral or intellectual integrity. He was far above entering into a personal fight, but many times he entered the lists on behalf of cultural ideals or moral principles in the University. Always he strove to build into the lives of his pupils and into the life of Purdue an element of spiritual idealism. His monument he himself has built in his years of labor. It is more durable than brass or stone, and more stately than any building. For he wrought the house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. r i!J Thirteen

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Emma Montgomery McRae Emma Montgomery McRae, bom February 12, 1848, at Loveland, Ohio, died September 21, 1919, at Newton Center, Massachusetts—the psalmist’s three score years and ten—but what a life when measured by service, what a life when measured by beauty, by love. Mrs. McRae loved Purdue. And when she found last June that she could not come for commencement, she wrote: “It breaks my heart not to be with you.” And we know that Mrs. McRae died with the love of Purdue in her heart. I)r. Carter, who conducted the services held at Muncie over Mrs. McRae, began by saying that at that moment the Muncie High School, over which Mrs. McRae had presided for so many years, was observing a period of silence that was to last five minutes. And at his request those who were assembled paid the same silent tribute. Dr. Carter was followed by President Stone, who began: “At this moment the Hag at Purdue hangs at half-mast in honor of Mrs. McRae. And this, it must seem to all of us, is the heart of the whole matter, silence—more eloquent than words—and the flag at half-mast for one whom we loved even as she had loved us. Those of us who knew Mrs. McRae best, knew her as a woman of the highest type of spirituality. She walked with God. And it is a source of satisfaction to know that she found in her last years the fellowship for which she had always yearned, in the Unitarian Church at Newton Center. When there seemed, earlier in the year a possibility that death was inevitable, Mrs. McRae gave utterance to the faith: “I have lived a long life, a life of service, and it has been a happy life. If it is my time to go, 1 am content.” Thus is brought to a close a life that had reached the allotted three score years and ten, and what a life when measured by service, by beauty, by love. i'at r Tictlri'

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Harry Earl Mclvor IX dedicating this page to the memory of Harry Earl Mclvor, the Class of 1920 wishes to express its keen sense of loss at the death of an alumnus who stood for all that is highest in ideals and devotion to the best traditions of Purdue. He was known personally to many of our members and not a few served under him in the Purdue Battery on the Mexican Border in 1916. Harry Earl Mclvor was born in South Bend, Indiana, August 25, 18S8, and came to Purdue in 1909 from Ft. Wayne High School, graduating with the Class of 1913, in Electrical Engineering. Immediately after his graduation he accepted the position of Purchasing Agent of the University, and remained in this capacity until he entered the army at the beginning of the war, serving as Major of Field Artillery. After his discharge in January, 1919, he devoted himself to his oil interests in Oklahoma, and had returned for a short visit to his parents at South Bend when he was stricken with his fatal illness, and died October 15, 1919. As a student he attained high honors, being elected President of the Purdue Y. M. C. A., and being a member of Eta Kappa Xu. Scabbard and Blade, and Tau Beta Pi honorary fraternities. His loyalty to Purdue and his high ideals of service to his country, his University and his friends are fit examples for the emulation of all future generations of Purdue students. Page Fourteen