From the first big-league appearance by an alum to celebrating the University’s 25th anniversary (143 years ago), historian Tom Emery explores this month in Illinois State University history.
August 5
On this date in 1968, Dr. Ralph Linkins, the much-loved dean of men at Illinois State from 1933-56, died.
Affectionately known as “Doc” or “Pinky,” Linkins was a friendly, welcoming presence for generations of Illinois State students, both male and female. An active sponsor of numerous events on campus, he was an adviser and mentor who left a positive influence on the lives of countless students.
Linkins was born on August 4, 1887, in Naples, Illinois, a small town on the Illinois River west of Jacksonville. He earned his undergraduate degree from Illinois College before pursuing advanced degrees at the University of Illinois.
In 1915, he was named to the summer school faculty at Illinois State, remaining each year through 1917, when he joined the faculty as a full-time instructor of zoology. He had been in his new position for just one year when he was drafted into World War I service in the summer of 1918.
Linkins spent nine months in the U.S. Army, keeping the campus informed of his whereabouts through periodic letters to The Vidette. He finally returned in April 1919.
At one function shortly after returning, he exchanged pleasantries with longtime university President David Felmley, who had just announced Linkins’ presence to the crowd. The Vidette reported that his return was met with “wild applause.”
Felmley quickly advised Linkins that he would “speak in general exercises tomorrow,” to which Linkins, “from the force of habit of nine months’ standing,” saluted the president, then “turned right about face.” At the exercises, he provided an “account of his experiences, sober and comical,” which was greatly enjoyed by the student body.
Linkins was promoted to the rank of professor of zoology later that year, also serving as the department chair.
He ascended to dean of men in 1930 while continuing in the biology department. Linkins resigned from teaching in 1931, in the words of The Vidette, “to devote his full energies to the demands of counseling the men” of Illinois State. It was a full-time job, indeed.
Linkins brought an air of regality to the position, reflective of academia in the period. In 1968, the Bloomington Pantagraph wrote that “he wore a white coat as a badge of his responsibility” as dean until his retirement. Underneath that appearance, though, was a determined individual; the Pantagraph called him “a tough little man behind the white coat and a bow tie.”
In some cases, tough love was needed. Occasionally, male students landed in trouble, but Linkins treated them fairly and with concern. As the Pantagraph wrote in 1956, “those who needed a job or ran afoul of the law found the dean a firm friend.”
Mostly, Linkins encouraged gentlemanly behavior, particularly for those in the teaching profession. The Pantagraph noted that “the dean is best known, perhaps, for his interest in promoting the good life—for boosting the cultural level, encouraging good manners and proper dress, and urging budding teachers to look on gentility as a prime virtue.”
Certainly, Linkins practiced what he instilled in his students. An avid sports fan, Linkins loved art, music, gardening, and as the Pantagraph added, “social graces.”
A lifelong bachelor, he was a longtime member of the local Amateur Musical Club, the Bloomington-Normal Art Association, the Bloomington-Normal Garden Club, and the Bloomington Country Club.
Throughout his career, Linkins promoted culture on the Illinois State campus. One of the organizers of the University Club in 1919, he promoted the school’s annual Christmas service in Capen Auditorium and the “stunt show,” a humorous fixture on campus for decades.
The Pantagraph wrote in 1956 that “Mother’s Day and Dad’s Day observances were fostered” at Illinois State by Linkins, who also chaired the University’s concert and entertainment board, bringing even more culture.
In 1938, he played a key role in the creation of a residence hall for men, Smith Hall, which showed “many of the students some of the good things in life,” as the Pantagraph reported. Among them were the building’s gardens, which had special meaning for Linkins.
Linkins supported many dances on campus, but he had a pet peeve. He liked for dances to be well-lighted, as he wanted to know “that people could see at college dances.” Contrary to popular belief, though, he did not use a light meter; rather, he based it on the naked eye.
At the time of his retirement in 1956, he was one of the longer-serving employees in university history. On May 30 of that year, the Vidette printed a touching goodbye letter from Linkins, thanking his many friends on the faculty and student body.
In 1962, the Ralph Linkins Student Employee Award was established to honor exceptional student employees of the University Union. The following year, the food center at the Tri-Towers complex was named in his honor. Linkins spent the last years of his life in Jacksonville, where he died on August 5, 1968.
Upon Linkins’ retirement, a reporter asked what he liked best about his work at Illinois State. Linkins simply replied, “all of it.”
August 5
On this date in 2002, the turret from the Union Civil War ironclad ship Monitor was raised to the surface for the first time since the vessel sank in 1862.
The raising of the Monitor from its wreck site off Cape Hatteras, North Carolina, is considered an outstanding event in naval history, with one of the best-organized and most productive dive expeditions ever attempted.
Capt. Barbara Scholley, a 1980 Illinois State University graduate and a distinguished officer in the U.S. Navy, was on the dive team. Scholley is considered one of the finest Navy divers of her generation and held a variety of commanding officer positions in her career.
The Monitor is best known for its duel with the C.S.S. Virginia, better known as the Merrimack, in Hampton Roads, Virginia, on March 9, 1862. It was the first time that iron ships met in combat in world naval history.
The Monitor, which spawned a class of ironclad warships generically known by that name, measured 172 feet long and 41 feet wide, weighing 1,200 tons with a 10.5-foot draw. The vessel sat so low in the water that she was barely discernible, if not for her turret, the defining feature of the ship.
The circular, revolving turret measured 20 feet across and 9 feet high and concealed two guns. The turret allowed the guns to be fired at nearly any angle, compared to previous ships (including the Merrimack), which often had guns only on broadside, at the bow, or stern.
A small pilothouse was one of the few other protrusions from the deck. Because of its unusual appearance, the Monitor was dubbed a “cheesebox on a raft.”
The Monitor battled the Merrimack to a draw at Hampton Roads, forever revolutionizing naval warfare. Strangely, neither ship survived for long after the duel. The Merrimack was scuttled two months later to prevent her capture by advancing Union forces.
On December 31, 1862, the Monitor was being towed en route to join the blockade of Charleston when she foundered in heavy seas 16 miles southeast of Cape Hatteras. The ship’s entire crew of 16 men was lost.
Efforts to locate the wreck of the Monitor began as early as 1973, and by 2002, a comprehensive effort to raise the wreckage began. The divers were led by Scholley, who in 1992 had been only the fourth woman to command a commissioned Navy ship, the USS Bolster, a diving and salvage vessel. She had been the Navy’s first female supervisor of diving from 1997-99.
Scholley made 19 dives over the two summers on the Monitor project, working at a depth of 245 feet at a maximum of 35 minutes per dive. One source states that her team “did the necessary salvage work, which included manually fastening the cables that hoisted the engines and gun turret.”
The ship’s 20-ton steam engine was raised in 2001. The raising of the turret in 2002 was the centerpiece of the project, which garnered national media attention and was covered in documentaries on The History Channel and other outlets.
“It is by far the best dive a Navy diver can make,” said Scholley of the Monitor project. “It’s physically and technically challenging. But it’s cool to be working on the forefather of our modern Navy … it’s really wonderful. Being part of history, especially naval history, is really something you can’t put into words.” Scholley considered the Monitor expeditions as “the highlight of my 24-year naval career.”
Prior to that, Scholley held leadership positions on the dive project that recovered wreckage from TWA Flight 800, which crashed into the Atlantic Ocean off New York on July 17, 1996. On that project, she supervised a team of 200 divers and was on many dives herself.
She was also a leader in the dive recovery of the USS Cole, which was destroyed in a bombing while in a Yemen harbor in 2000.
Scholley graduated from the Basic Diving School in Panama City Beach, Florida, in 1983. A 2000 graduate of the Officer Candidate School in Newport, Rhode Island, she retired with the rank of captain in August 2005.
In 1994, Scholley was honored with the Illinois State University Distinguished Young Alumni Award, and four years later, she received an honorary doctorate from Illinois State. She was inducted into the school’s College of Arts and Sciences Hall of Fame in 2005-06.
August 10
On this date in 1910, Ed Kinsella, the first Illinois State University player in Major League Baseball, made his final big-league appearance.
Kinsella is one of many Illinois State players who made it to the big leagues, a list that also includes 1974 All-Star Buzz Capra, 1984 World Series champion Dave Bergman, 2005 World Series champion Neal Cotts, and 2019 All-Star Paul DeJong, who currently plays for the Washington Nationals.
Born on January 15, 1880, Kinsella played on local teams in his native Lexington, as well as nearby Gridley, in his younger days. He attended Illinois State before breaking into pro ball with the Bloomington Bloomers of the Class B Three-I League in 1904.
The current designations of class AAA, AA, A, and rookie level began in 1963. In Kinsella’s era, leagues were classified in descending order as AA, A, B, C, and D.
The Three-I was one of the premier Class B circuits of any era, and Kinsella performed well. In his second season with Bloomington in 1905, he was 17-14 for a Bloomers squad that was just 60-65, with a sixth-place finish.
That August 4, his contract was purchased by the Pittsburgh Pirates, one of the strongest teams in the National League in the first decade of the 20th century. Pittsburgh finished second in the league at 96-57 in 1905.
Kinsella made his major-league debut at Cincinnati on September 16, a 6-0 Pittsburgh loss. He pitched two innings, allowing just one hit with no runs. Two weeks later, he pitched his second major-league game, going eight innings in the second game of a doubleheader against Brooklyn. In eight innings of work, he scattered nine hits while striking out eight.
His final appearance in 1905 was in the second game of a doubleheader at Cincinnati on October 8. In seven innings of work, he allowed four runs with two strikeouts as he took the loss in a 4-1 decision.
Kinsella was sold to Toledo of the American Association in December. Toledo, in turn, sent him to Springfield of the Three-I League, where he appeared in 22 games in 1906.
In 1907, Kinsella joined the Portland Beavers of the Class A Pacific Coast League, which had plenty of advantages. Because of favorable weather, PCL teams often played 180-200 games in that era. Portland finished last at 72-114, but Kinsella excelled, going 21-20 with a 2.29 ERA and 39 complete games in 370 innings.
That same year, he married his wife, Mabel, in Bloomington. The union lasted 69 years until his death.
He was back in Portland in 1908 and fashioned a 21-19 record in 45 games as the franchise improved to 95-90. Kinsella stayed in Portland in 1909, but with a different team, the city’s entry in the Class B Northwestern League. He was 23-10 in 35 games as Portland finished 79-88.
On August 14, 1909, Portland sold Kinsella to the St. Louis Browns of the American League. The Browns moved to Baltimore to become the Orioles after the 1953 season. Kinsella did not make his first appearance with the Browns until May 1, 1910, tossing three scoreless innings of relief in a 5-4 loss to Cleveland.
While Pittsburgh had been a strong team, the Browns were one of the worst, struggling to a 47-107 record and a last-place finish in 1910. Kinsella started at Cleveland on May 6, and took the loss despite pitching well, with seven innings and four runs allowed. Eight days later in New York, he started again and was shelled, allowing three runs in 2.2 innings of a 14-0 rout.
Kinsella appeared in just seven games from there, including 2.2 innings of relief in a 19-2 blowout at New York on July 21. His season highlight was a complete-game, 5-3 win over Washington on August 2.
Another memorable moment was four days later, in a home game against the powerful Philadelphia Athletics. Kinsella went the distance in a 6-3 loss in 11 innings against an Athletics team that entered the game at 63-31.
Kinsella’s final major-league appearance was in the first game of a doubleheader against the Yankees in St. Louis on August 10, 1910. He started the game and was pulled after allowing six runs in four innings. Kinsella did not get a decision as St. Louis rallied from a six-run deficit for a 10-6 victory.
In 1911, Kinsella landed with Denver of the Class A Western League, finishing 12-10 in 28 games as Denver captured the league title at 111-54.
In late May, Kinsella was traveling with his team in Nebraska when his train collided with another train. The car carrying the Denver team was thrown off the tracks and overturned, but Kinsella and his teammates suffered only minor injuries. Six other cars were crushed, however, and 14 people lost their lives.
Denver repeated as league champions in 1912 at 99-63, as Kinsella went 22-11 in 35 games and 280 innings.
Kinsella went back to the PCL with Sacramento in 1913, going 7-8. His final professional season was in 1914 with Des Moines of the Western League, where Kinsella was 8-9 with a 4.10 ERA.
After leaving baseball, Kinsella returned to Bloomington and operated a restaurant before farming in the Towanda area. Longtime Pantagraph sports editor Fred Young called Kinsella “as congenial as a fellow as you ever met.”
Kinsella died in Bloomington on January 17, 1976, two days after his 96th birthday. He is buried in St. Mary’s Cemetery.
August 24
On this date in 1882, the 25th anniversary gala for Illinois State began. The gala was one of the signature events in the early history of the University.
Illinois State Normal University was founded in 1857 as the state’s first public institution of higher learning and had survived the uncertainty of its first years, various financial woes, and a host of other issues.
Indeed, there was plenty to celebrate. At the time of the 25th anniversary celebration, 968 former Normal students were teaching in 88 of the 102 counties of Illinois. Another 104 held teaching positions in 17 other states and territories.
In addition, many Normal graduates were superintendents of either county or city schools, while some had become college presidents.
Planning for the 25th anniversary gala had begun in May 1881, 15 months before. The festivities kicked off on Thursday evening, August 24, amid poor weather, though the large, enthusiastic crowd did not seem to care. A cornet solo was followed by an address from Charles Hovey, the first president of the University, who had returned from his home in Washington, D.C., for the occasion.
On Friday morning, the assembly room of Old Main “was crowded to its utmost capacity,” in the words of Normal graduate John Cook, who would later serve as the University president. Alumni, early educational leaders, and top citizens of Bloomington-Normal spent “nearly an hour … in having a good, old-fashioned sociable,” as Cook described.
Some alumni traveled great distances for the celebration, while one female graduate visited the campus for the first time since her graduation 18 years before. The crowd was rather raucous at times as everyone, in Cook’s words, “returned to the familiar halls to renew their allegiance to their ‘cherishing mother.’”
A string of addresses were part of the program, as was the alumni business meeting at 3 p.m. on Friday in the Philadelphian Hall. On the docket was a subscription for a memorial to Joseph Howell, a member of the class of 1860, who was killed at the Civil War battle of Fort Donelson in 1862.
Cook, though, believed “the event of events” was the banquet, which was prepared by Miss Carrie Pennell, an undergraduate who lived off-campus in Normal. The hall was decorated with “festoons of evergreens” on the chandeliers, “flowers scattered about in profusion,” and a “shower from a fountain in the center of the hall (which) fell upon a huge circular basin filled with plants and blossoms.”
The deceased graduates of Normal were commemorated on tablets hung from the walls, while “class pictures, crayon designs, and various other appliances completed the decorations.” A local orchestra provided the music.
An impressive procession of alumni filed into the hall at 6 p.m., “taking their places at the tables by class.” Cook himself was master of ceremonies for the gathering, which numbered 220.
At the close of business, an array of toasts followed. Toasts were an integral part of 19th-century celebrations and dinners, and there were plenty during the gala in Normal. Many of the early graduating classes were toasted, and speakers were selected from each class. Among them were Enoch Gastman of the class of 1860, who is considered the first student in Illinois State history, and John Burnham of the class of 1861, who became a successful builder of iron bridges.
There was also Sarah Raymond of the class of 1866, who was the Bloomington school superintendent. The dinner was another ground-breaking moment for the indomitable Raymond, as most of the other speakers were men.
Though the revelry was memorable, there was some regret at dignitaries who were unable to attend. Gov. Shelby Cullom had to cancel due to illness, giving his place to the lieutenant governor, John Hamilton. Not surprisingly, Hamilton was toasted by the crowd.
Another who received a toast was Dr. Newton Bateman, an early member of the Board of Education, who had to catch an afternoon train to his home in Galesburg. Cook wrote that Bateman was toasted, “a sentiment (that) was greeted with loud cheers.”
Jesse Fell, the business powerhouse who is responsible for the University being located in Normal, also could not attend. Fell was forced to leave for Iowa on business three days before the gala. Cook lamented that Fell’s absence was “a serious disappointment to the company.”
In his speech, Hovey told the crowd that “a goodly number of people have been engaged, at one time or another, in one way or another, in founding this great school.” It was an accurate statement, because the founders, early faculty, and students of Illinois State carved a path of success for generations to follow.
Tom Emery is a freelance writer and historical researcher who, in collaboration with Carl Kasten ’66, co-authored the 2020 book Abraham Lincoln and the Heritage of Illinois State University.
