Letter from Harrison Randolph, College of Charleston, offering honorary Doctor of Laws degree to Ellen M. FitzSimons, 28 March 1935
Book 1, Page 529 ·1935
Transcription
College of Charleston
Office of the President
Charleston, S.C. 28 March, 1935
Miss Ellen M. FitzSimons Librarian, The Charleston Library Society Charleston, S.C.
My dear Miss FitzSimons:
It is the purpose of the College at the coming Sesquicentennial celebration in May to confer the honorary degree of Doctor of Laws upon a carefully selected list of men and women prominent in American life. It is the desire of the authorities of the College to include you among the recipients of this honor.
In preparing our list for final presentation to the Faculty and Trustees, we feel that it is important to ascertain in advance whether this action on the part of the College authorities is agreeable to the recipient. I can not emphasize too much my warm personal pleasure in the inclusion of your name on the list of those to receive the honorary degrees and I hope sincerely that it will meet with your favor.
With high regard,
Very faithfully yours,
Harrison Randolph
AI Notes
Typed letter on College of Charleston / Office of the President letterhead, dated 28 March 1935, signed in ink ‘Harrison Randolph.’ The College’s president (Randolph, who served 1897–1945, the longest tenure in the college’s history) writes to Miss Ellen M. FitzSimons, Librarian of the Charleston Library Society, to inquire in advance whether she will accept conferral of an honorary Doctor of Laws degree at the College’s May Sesquicentennial celebration. The recipient is the compiler’s paternal aunt Ellen Milliken FitzSimons (‘Aunt Ellen’ in family correspondence) — one of the seven children of Dr. Christopher FitzSimons (3rd) and Susan Milliken Barker — who served as Librarian of the Charleston Library Society and is remembered there as a longtime preservationist of the institution.
Letter signed in ink. The recipient is Ellen Milliken FitzSimons (b. 27 November 1862), daughter of Dr. Christopher FitzSimons (3rd) + Susan Milliken Barker — i.e., the compiler Amy FitzSimons Walker’s paternal aunt. Family correspondence refers to her as ‘Aunt Ellen.’ The College of Charleston’s Sesquicentennial fell in 1935 (the institution was chartered in 1785).