College of Liberal Arts and Sciences – Page 2 – The Black ISC Student Experience to 1950

August 4, 2022February 8, 2023

Crouch, Hubert Branch (M.S., Protozoology, 1930; Ph.D., Zoology, 1936)

Hubert Crouch was born 7 December 1906 in Jacksonville, Texas, to George W. Crouch and Mary “Carrie” Crouch. His sister is Geneva Crouch, who also attended Iowa State University. He attended Iowa State for his Master of Science in Protozoology, which he received in 1930, and his Ph.D. in Zoology, with minors in Entomology and Botany, which he completed in 1936. He worked at Kentucky State college as a professor of biology during the time that Rufus B. Atwood, a fellow Iowa State alumnus, was President of the institution. After working at Kentucky State College, Crouch became a professor and Head of the Department of Biology and Director of the Division of Science at Tennessee Agricultural & Industrial State University at Nashville. By 1965 he was the Dean of the Graduate School there, and soon was serving with fellow Iowa State alumnus Walter H. Dabney, who was Dean of Engineering by 1969-70 (US Dept of Health, Education, and Welfare, Office of Education and National Center for Educational Statistics, Education Directory 1969-70 Higher Education, US Government Printing Office, 1970). He founded the National Institute of Science and the Council of Science Teachers, in association with the Kentucky Negro Educational Association.

In 1935 Hubert married Mildred Shipp, whose parents, John and Nellie Shipp, housed Black ISC students at their home in the 1930s and 1940. Mildred’s mother was Nellie Emira Martin, whose parents, Archie and Nancy Chandler Martin, opened their home at 218 Lincoln Way to many Black ISC students. Hubert Crouch and his sister Geneva were two of those students. After living at the Martin House, Hubert moved to 118 Sherman, the home of his future wife’s parents, the Shipps. He and Mildred had multiple children. Hubert died 17 October 1980. After his death, Tennessee State University erected a building known as “Hubert Crouch Hall” in his honor.

Iowa State College Dissertation Title: The animal parasites of the woodchuck (Marmota monax L.) with special reference to the protozoa, 1936

Iowa State University Catalog Record:https://quicksearch.lib.iastate.edu/permalink/01IASU_INST/174tg9m/alma990007117870102756

Sources

Photo Credits Kentucky State

https://doi.org/10.2307/2717664

https://www.jstor.org/stable/2717664

https://library3.tnstate.edu/library/bldgs/crouchbldg.htm

August 4, 2022February 8, 2023

Ewing, Willa Juanita (B.S., Botany, 1926; M.S., Horticulture, 1935)

Willa Juanita Ewing, known as “Juanita,” was born 29 December 1903 in Keytesville, Missouri, to William Ewing and his wife Lee Ewing. Juanita’s mother married several times which resulted in Juanita’s name changing in her youth. Leaving her first husband in Missouri, Lee moved with her young daughter to Des Moines, where she married Edwin H. Carter. The Carter family moved to Ames in 1915, becoming one of the earliest known Black families in the community. By 1920 Lee was a widow, working as a housekeeper at the Tri Delta house and living there with her daughter, called “Waneeta Carter” in the 1920 census. By 1925 Lee had married her last husband, Charles A. Anthony, and with daughter “Juanita Ewing,” according to the 1925 census, had moved to a house at 2928 Woodman (now Wood) Street.

During her undergraduate years in the 1920s, Juanita lived with the Anthonys at their Woodman Street home. The family made money during the Depression by renting the house to Black ISC students for several years after 1930, during which time the family moved into the Phi Gamma Delta fraternity house, where Lee was a cook. This situation was similar to that which Lee and Juanita had experienced when they first moved to Ames between 1915 and 1920 and lived at the Tri Delta house.

Ewing was the first Black graduate of Ames High School in 1922 and is the first recorded African American woman to receive a degree from Iowa State College: a Bachelor’s of Science in Botany in 1926, and later, in 1935, a Master’s of Science in Horticulture. During her time at ISC, Ewing was active in the Ya-Wa-Ca Club, affiliated with the Young Women’s Christian Association (Y.W.C.A.) When she graduated in 1926, Juanita was one of only 13 Black regular session students at ISC (“A Record,” 1926). Her classmates included Compton Chapman, Benjamin Crutcher, and Maurice Thomasson.

After completing her Master’s degree in 1935, Ewing got a job at the Alabama State Teachers College (now Alabama State University) in Montgomery, Alabama, where she first served as an extension agent, then taught freshman and sophomore botany, and later was placed in charge of beautification of the college grounds. As a member of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Ewing was instrumental in establishing a chapter of the sorority at Alabama State and, later, in 1959, after she had moved to Fairbanks Alaska, was a charter member of the Alaska Alumnae Chapter in Fairbanks, Alaska.

By 1965, she was teaching at Joy Elementary School in Fairbanks. That same year she lodged charges of racism in teacher hiring against the district Superintendent, a move that would, no doubt, have garnered the approval of her long-dead mother, one of the earliest members of the Ames Branch of the NA.A.C.P.

Willa Ewing died in Des Moines, Iowa, on 8 May 1985.

Iowa State College Thesis Title: The comparative anatomy of the leaf of Brassica juncea (L.) Coss. and its broadleaved and curled varieties, 1935

Iowa State University Catalog Record:https://lib.dr.iastate.edu/rtd/17726

Sources

Photo Credit: A record of the Negro at college 1926. (1926, August). The crisis: A record of the darker races, p. 187.

Biography available at HBCU Connections at Iowa State University : Willa J. Ewing ( http://hbcuconnections.iastatedigital.org/Willa_J._Ewing )

A record of the Negro at college 1926. (1926, August). The crisis: A record of the darker races, p. 174.

August 4, 2022February 27, 2023

Davis, Walker Milan (M.S., Economics & Sociology, 1933)

Walker Milan Davis was born in Okolona, Mississippi, 14 December 1908, the fifth son of Geroge Milan Davis and Leean (aka Leann) Johnson Davis, Mississippi farmers. In 1932, he graduated from Alcorn A & M College with a B.S. in Agriculture. A year later he earned an M.S. in Economics and Sociology from Iowa State College (1933). During his time at Iowa State, Davis resided at 1204 3rd Street (the home of Iowa State alumnus Walter G. Madison, Sr. (fall 1932), and at 208 ½ Main Street, (winter 1933). He also pursued Ph.D. coursework in Rural Sociology at the University of Wisconsin, never completing the degree.

Though the timeline for his employment is not clear, Davis seems to have held a series of temporary positions between 1933 and 1940 while also employed full-time at Okolona College as Dean and Registrar of the college. He worked for a semester in the Fisk University Social Science Department, a semester at Tuskegee Institute, for a time at Rust College, and for at least two semesters teaching sociology at his alma mater, Alcorn A & M College. Davis’s World War II draft card shows him employed in 1940 at the Ministerial Institute and College in West Point, Mississippi, where he held the position of business manager in 1942-43. That year, Davis took over the Presidency of Okolona College, a post that he held until his death in 1960 at age 51. He was buried in the college cemetery.

Iowa State College Dissertation Title: Alcorn College and its graduates : a case study in Negro leadership, 1933

Iowa State University Catalog Record:https://iowa-primo.hosted.exlibrisgroup.com/permalink/f/12tutg/01IASU_ALMA21186415450002756

Sources

Photo Credit University of Okolona

Biography available at HBCU Connections at Iowa State University : Walker M. Davis ( http://hbcuconnections.iastatedigital.org/Walker_M._Davis )