Nashotah Sketch: Living at the Fort
By The Rev. Lawrence N. Crumb, ‘61
Webb Hall “The Fort” circa 1930. Image courtesy Frances Donaldson Library, Nashotah House.
Webb Hall, better known as “The Fort,” was built in 1865, with additions in 1926 and 1950. An impressive stone structure in the Gothic Revival style, it stands on a hill just inside what was the secondary entrance to Nashotah House (now the exit) and across the road from the cemetery where bishops, former faculty members, and alumni are buried. It was built as the president’s house; its first occupant was Azel Dow Cole who had succeeded James Lloyd Breck in 1850 and remained in office until his death in 1885. According to local tradition, his wife was of a combative temperament, and the building was referred to as “Fort Betsy,” later shortened to “The Fort.” At some point, it was officially named for William Walter Webb (professor of dogmatic theology, 1892; president, 1897; bishop of Milwaukee, 1906-1933). In the early twentieth century, it was occupied by Canon Howard Baldwin St. George (professor of church history and liturgics, 1902-1932, and a contributor to the Prayer Book of 1928). His wife, Euphemia, died in 1902, leaving him to raise five children, ages seven to eighteen, in addition to his teaching duties. The oldest, Helen St. George, lived near the seminary when I was a student; I remember her returning to campus to tell us what it was like to live at Nashotah in those days.
The author (left) with the Very Rev. Edward Sidney White, Dean of Nashotah House (1952-1959). Image courtesy the Rev. Lawrence Crumb.
The building next became the residence of the College Department, a program that allowed students to spend three years at that level and then go on to the program in theology. After World War II, the department was discontinued, and the building divided into faculty apartments. When I entered in 1958, Father Joaquin, the librarian, and his wife Edna occupied the first floor. Father Mount, the pastoral professor, had most of the second floor. A middle-aged bachelor, he married during the first semester of my senior year and left at the end of the term. In the meantime, a second handrail was installed, since his wife had difficulty walking. The small apartment on the third floor had been occupied by Father Bruce, the Old Testament professor, but he had left just before I arrived, and the apartment was given to one of my married classmates. The Chapel of St. Peter and St. Paul, used by the college students and beautified in memory of Canon St. George, was accessible from either the second or third floor and had become one of the oratories used by Fathers Joaquin and Mount when not serving at the house mass in the main chapel.
When I returned as assistant librarian and instructor in Greek in 1965, the Joaquins still lived on the first floor, and it was in their guest room that the first woman student lived when she arrived in 1969. Felix and Myrtle Beauchamp, a retired couple whose son, Douglas, had attended Nashotah, occupied the third floor in return for Felix’s work as bursar. They also had two rooms on the second floor as guest room and storage; I was given the other six. Father Talmage, who was taking library courses in Madison, had been using the apartment in return for part-time work as instructor in music; I had to wait a few weeks for him and his wife to move out and live in a suite over the sacristy, where I had once lived as a student. He had been preceded by Father Cross, professor of moral theology, who had arrived in 1961 with his wife, Mary, and their two grown daughters; they had moved into one of the new faculty houses by the lake, since sold.
The apartment still had vestiges of its former use as a college dormitory. Some rooms had two closets, suggesting a shared bedroom, and there was a divided bathroom: on one side of the hall, two shower stalls and a wash basin; on the other side, two toilets and a wash basin. The free-standing urinal, as Father Mount called it, had been removed in deference to the ladies of the Cross family, but I saw it in the basement; it looked like a relic of Victorian bad taste. I appreciated the built-in bookshelves in the study, furnishing it and the other rooms with either new purchases or items left behind or found elsewhere on the campus. (The dining-room chairs and sideboard were from the old refectory, a new one having been built since I had graduated.) After three years, I married; there was plenty of room for a second person. A new unit was installed in the kitchen for when Felix saw Ellen sat to wash dishes at the low sink. (The kitchen door, usually shut, opened onto the landing.)
We left in 1970, when I took a library position at the new UW-Parkside campus in Kenosha; the Joaquins left in 1974, when he retired to the nearby town of Wales; at some point, the Beauchamps left to be near their son and family in Hudson, WI. I had not been back inside the building until Father Olver, professor of liturgics, gave me a tour this year of the remodeled building where he and his family live; some of the rooms are available for their guests and for those of the seminary.
The Rev. Lawrence N. Crumb (M.Div., 1961; S.T.M., 1973) lives in Eugene, Oregon, and is vicar of St. Andrew’s, Cottage Grove.
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Do you have a Nashotah House memory you’d like to share, favorite chapel “prank,” a description of what life was like, or a word of advice on raising kids at the House and/or ringing Michael the Bell? We would love to have your “sketches” of Nashotah House from back in the day— whether that day was last week, last year, or years ago. We are currently collecting these among alumni, spouses, students, and friends of Nashotah House, and would love to include yours.
Nashotah “Sketches” may be emailed to chapter@nashotah.edu subject line: Nashotah Sketches. Feel free to write a brief “biography” of yourself, as well as any pictures you’d like to share with the community. We look forward to sharing!