University of Houston - Houstonian Yearbook (Houston, TX)

Page 14 text:

Ml KsSt !l 1 f 1 • ami ■ ni aMl 1 1 1 If mi 1 1 ■ ■. : I mi 1.1 Ezekiel W. Cullen Building

Page 13 text:

IN MEMORIAM Most colleges remember their founders ' faces by old, old portraits hanging in some forgotten place. The founder ' s life is history in some book. Until June 18, 1954, University faculty members, alumni, and students could re- member their school ' s founder as a friend. For over a year, they had listened for the news of a rally from a long sickness. The nev s never came. On the 18th, at 74, Dr. Edison E. Oberholtzer, vi ho had helped found the University, later serving as its first president, was dead. The University mourned officially for its past president, a man of academic great- ness. Those who knew him better, mourned more deeply and out of more than respect. For if any man can be called the father of the University, he is Dr. Oberholtzer. In 1927, as superintendent of Houston ' s public schools, he had a problem. The answer to that problem, a petition by a group of local high school graduates, was Houston Junior College, forerunner to the University. In 1934, the depression made money a dictionary word, but rapid growth under Dr. Oberholtzer ' s sound guidance had given Houston Junior College the determina- tion to expand into the present University. When he left the Houston Public Schools in 1945 to become first full-time presi- dent of the University, 4,000 students heard the news and wondered at their school ' s quick progress. In 1950 Dr. Oberholtzer retired as University President, ending a teaching career he began at 17. To degrees from the University of Chicago and Columbia he added the honor the school gave him as President Emeritus. Several years of ill health followed, his strength gradually ebbing. When the end came, newspapers, as is their custom, hunted a proper obituary tribute. Eminent Educator, was the choice. Very fitting, it nevertheless seemed in some way lacking warmth. A Friend, was the University ' s final but unforgetting good- by.

Page 15 text:

1 i- k -i if Oberholfzer Hall