University of Michigan - Michiganensian Yearbook (Ann Arbor, MI)

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Dean Greene

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Sarah Caswell Angell The President ' s wife ! These have been words lovingly spoken here at Michigan. Even now it seems not quite possible that speaking them will not call into the room the sweet woman who daily, for more than thirty years, filled the words with real and tender meaning. There can be no tribute to her that will satisfy any one who knew her. Only, people love her still and know in their hearts how rare and fine she was ; the rest is written in lives she touched and, here and there, in softer ways and some- what more of gentleness. College girls have come here from queer little places, crude, with limited train- ing, ill at ease and feeling that everyone was strange and different. At some little en- tertainment for new girls they met Mrs. Angell, and not one of them but felt the comradeship with which this woman of perfect good breeding and tact was able to replace their uneasiness. As life since has broadened their sensibilities and experi- ence, they have realized what she did for them that difficult first day ; and how it is the great people who are simple, always. The daughter of a college president, Mrs. Angell had been all her life among college people and college surroundings, during her girlhood and after her marriage; so that when she came with her husband to the University of Michigan thirty-three years ago, she was fitted to organize as. little by little, she did organize college life and society here into something of the charm and good-fellowship that Ann Ar- bor life holds now for faculty and student members of the University. She did it all with a simple grace that made people know she was glad to be one of them. She never forgot people and she put into them the grateful sense of being especially re- membered and appreciated. Little things no one knows the thousands of little things she did. The afternoon before she died, on the seventeenth clay of last Decem- ber, she dictated an affectionate note of acknowledgment to a group of girls who had sent her roses that she especially loved. And then she asked to have the flowers brought nearer, where she could see them and have the fragrance of them. It was her large, warm personality that breathed sympathy and thrilled enthusi- asm into the work Mrs. Angell did that made her successes. She was genuine, and she had a buoyant faith in people and things. She had charity in her heart, and she dispensed it. For years the church knew her presence, and her steady helping ways. She loved the carrying of sweetness and light to homes and lands and she fostered the work of men and women who tried to do this. Mrs. Angell was young when she died at seventy-two ; for she had kept her faith, and she lived with abounding joyousness. She had walked softly all her years. E. J. P. 10

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Dean Greene BY A. B. PRESCOTT. The life of Professor Charles Ezra Greene has made itself known to the members of nineteen hundred and four more perfectly if possible than to those of earlier classes. His services in administration, in teaching and in the engineering methods of the world stand out before us now with singular unity of effect and the nearness of per- sonal acquaintance. The new Engineering building appears on the campus as a sub- stantial token of labors in which he has held a steady hand, together with his colleagues, since his appointment as Profesor of Civil Engineering in 1872, at thirty years of age. Mr. Greene graduated from Harvard in 1862, turned first to manufacturing, en- tered the service of United States Volunteers in 1864, and was afterward commis- sioned first lieutenant, decided upon the profession of a civil engineer, studied in Mas sachusetts Institute of Technology and received its degree in 1868. He was at once engaged as an engineer and continued upon the construction of railroads and harbor improvements) declining a proposal for college teaching until he was called to succeed Professor De Volsen Wood in this University. The several elements of his education and experience fitted well his fine natural traits of mind for the duties then before him. As a contributor to the science of engineering Professor Greene has been well known for distinct productions, of practical merit and constant, use, especially for the invention and development of graphical methods of analysis as applied to frames, bridges and arches. These working methods have been applied to determine the stresses in such structures as the steel arch bridges across the great Niagara gorge, and the Washington bridge across the Harlem river at New York. To all who have heard Professor Greene in his presentation of a technical subject the clearness and directness of his style will always be a delightful remembrance. The perfection of his language was in itself attractive, while with even voice and quiet bearing he imparted his own interest in his theme to those who heard him. In set- ting forth notable achievements of engineering construction in this and other lands the deeper currents of his enthusiasm were revealed as he referred again and again to Michigan alumni, naming their classes, who had here and there surmounted diffi- culties and had accomplished what had been accounted the impossible in older coun- tries. Of his work in the University and the world the years ' to come will speak with more effect than anything said at present. But it is of the man himself that words would de desired, if they could portray the charm and strength of his character. Sin- cere and just, kindly and true, prompt and decisive with gracious dignity, faithful to his convictions, his personality has been dear alike to his students and his colleagues. 12