Omeka - Digital History at Ursinus

Organ was Installed in 1916 as Memoriam to C.H. Clark

Dublin Core

Title

Organ was Installed in 1916 as Memoriam to C.H. Clark

Subject

The Clark Organ

Description

The article talks about the organ that was installed in 1916 by Mrs. Emily K. Clark, the widow of Mr. Charles Heber Clark. She made the purchase and installation of the instrument possible. There is brief discussion about the dedication of the organ to Mr. Clark's memory, and a section outlining that Mr. Clark is the same famous newspaperman for the Philadelphia Inquirer, American humorist, and writer of the time . The article was written because of a plate hanging on the wall under the organ pipes that read, "In Memoriam, Charles Heber Clark, LL.D., 1847-1915"

Source

Ursinusiana, Ursinus Weekly, 1950-1951. March 12, 1951, pg. 2.

Date

March 12, 1951

Language

English

Text Item Type Metadata

Text

Students of Dr. Calvin Yost Jr's Literature 20 class and any observant chapel-goers have noticed the oblong gold plate on the wall directly beneath the gold organ pipes in the front of Bomberger chapel on which are inscribed the following words: "In Memoriam, Charles Heber Clark, LL.D., 1847-1915."
The pipes belong to a $5,000 organ installed at the College October, 1916 and used until the present electric organ was bought recently. The pipe organ was donated to the college in memoriam to Mr. Charles Heber Clark, journalist and author, by his widow, Emily K. Clark, of Conshohocken.
This organ was installed at Ursinus during the fall of 1916 at the same time as the hardwood floors and new seats for the chapel. The dedication ceremonies on October 21 at three o'clock in the afternoon and the organ recital that evening by Ralph Kinder, a well known Philadelphia organist, are very eloquently described in the October 23, 1916 issue of the Weekly. According to this glowing account the organ was "officially and everlastingly dedicated" to Clark by Dr. George Leslie Omwake, president of the College, "amid solemn prayers, fitting speeches and thrilling strains of music from both throat and pipes" in a chapel "filled to overflowing."
The speaker for this occasion was Dr. Daniel Gregory Mason, a well known composer and writer of critical essays on music, who was head of the Music department of Columbia university at that time. Mrs. Henry Hotz sang at both afternoon and evening sessions. The organist, Ralph Kinder, is not only still living, but he is presenting an organ recital for the Norristown Octave club in the Christ Evangelical and reformed church at Noble and Marshall streets, Norristown, on Wednesday afternoon, March 21, at 2:30 p.m.
Few students realize that this same Clark is one of the later American humorists with quite a literary reputation to his credit. He was born in Berlin, Maryland in 1847, was employed on the staff of the Philadelphia Inquirer in 1865 and he continued in the profession of newspaperman for the remainder of his life. His literary reputation rests on one book of humorous sketches about life in a suburban town; he signed this book of sketches, Out of the Hurly Burly, with his penname, Max Adeler. Selections from this book are still included in surveys of American literature. Clark also wrote three novels, two volumes of short stories and other rather serious works which tell of life in Maryland and Conshohocken, his "home territory."
In his later years Clark founded the Manufacturer's club of Philadelphia, advocated higher protective tariffs before the Ways and Means committee in Washington [D.C.] and tried industriously to live down his earlier reputation as a humorist. His picture in an old Ursinus Weekly shows him to be a typical, well-to-do businessman at the turn of the century--complete with short-clipped mustache and high, stiff collar. Thanks to the generosity of the widow of this author Ursinus acquired its first organ.

Original Format

School newspaper article

Files

Organ was installed in 1916.jpg
Organ was installed, the lone article.jpg

Citation

“Organ was Installed in 1916 as Memoriam to C.H. Clark,” Omeka - Digital History at Ursinus, accessed December 26, 2024, https://omeka.ursinus.edu/items/show/311.