Friends of the UNCG Libraries

Diane Russeau-Pletcher is a person who likes to go down rabbit holes when she finds them.   Exploring some of those rabbit holes recently brought her to the University Libraries at UNCG  to do research in the papers of Ellen Winston, found in the Martha Blakeney Hodges Special Collections and University Archives.   Russeau-Pledger is the 2014-2015 Research Travel Grant Award recipient of the Martha Blakeney Hodges Special Collections and University Archives. Diane is studying the history of the eugenics movement in North Carolina, especially after World War II, and sees Ellen Winston as a key stakeholder in the state’s program as head of the State Eugenics Board and Commissioner of Public Welfare in North Carolina prior to being named by President Kennedy in 1963 as the first U.S. Commissioner of Welfare in the U.S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare (HEW). Not only is the history of the eugenics movement still a current issue in North Carolina and still drawing national

(L-R) Anna Koester, Jack Koester, Dean of University Libraries Rosann Bazijrian, Will Koester, Pat Gruber, Ira Gruber, Caroline Koester Pat Sanderford Gruber (’51) and husband Ira live in Texas, so they don’t visit UNCG’s University Libraries every day.  As a student at Woman’s College who majored in English, however, Pat spent a lot of time in Jackson Library, and her love for the libraries at her alma mater remains.   She reminisced about the libraries during a recent visit, and enjoyed remembering that Jackson Library had just opened when she went to school here.  With her husband, daughter Anna and her husband Jack Koester, and grandchildren Will and Caroline, Mrs. Gruber also enjoyed seeing the dormitories where she had lived, and the transformation of what had been her library study carrel into the present-day Reference Services area.  Mrs. Gruber’s mother, Mildred Butler Sanderford, was a member of the class of 1927, and her sisters graduated in 1952 and 1955. After co