Jack Neely's Tribute to Bill Rukeyser

 Bill Rukeyser, 1939-2022

Of all maverick publisher Chris Whittle’s celebrity hires in the late 1980s, he may have been the most surprising, not that Whittle would have offered Bill Rukeyser a job here, but that the powerful editor would have taken it, moving from a high-profile career in business and financial journalism in New York to take a job with a famously unpredictable company down in Knoxville. The tall Princeton alumnus with a deep voice and formal bearing was a Wall Street Journal reporter before he found a place at Time, Inc., as managing editor of Fortune magazine, and later as founding editor of Money magazine. He arrived at Whittle in 1988, just as the company was planning its palatial downtown headquarters. First working on the top floor of the Andrew Johnson Building, Rukeyser was best known here for helming Whittle’s prestige project, Whittle Books, a series of short but substantial works by major thinkers of the day, including George Plimpton, Gary Wills, and John Kenneth Galbraith. The company crashed by degrees in the mid-1990s, “overextended,” as many assessed it, at a time when the company was venturing into unconventional television projects and a quixotic plan to overhaul America’s public school system by challenging it with a private model called Edison Schools.
 
Even more surprising than this publishing titan’s arrival was the fact that Rukeyser, unlike most of the other honchos including Whittle himself, stayed in Knoxville. While here, Bill Rukeyser created a glossy niche publication, Corporate Board Member magazine, which he created and edited from his office high in Plaza Tower. It had an exclusive audience of 60,000 subscribers, all board members of public corporations (“60,000 very interesting people,” he remarked). His Knoxville-based Bill Rukeyser, Inc., was also involved in other forward-thinking projects, like online auctions.
 
But after landing here, he and his English-born wife Elisabeth looked around with an open mind and got involved in a broad spectrum of worthwhile community efforts, including UT Medical Center, of which Rukeyser was chairman of the board; Knoxville Museum of Art, of which he also served as a director; and the Knoxville Jazz Orchestra, of which he was a major benefactor, and one of its most regular attendees. Despite his button-down demeanor, he loved jazz, and was impressed with what Knoxville had to offer, especially through UT’s jazz program.
 
His preference for Knoxville first puzzled his colleagues in New York, but he explained it by citing its beauty—from his high office he could see “the mist rising off the river and the mountains in the distance”—and the city’s unusual openness to newcomers and new ideas. He and Elisabeth lived in Rocky Hill and convinced his old urban neighbors that life in Knoxville was “an acceptable eccentricity.”
 
He was a regular reader of Metro Pulse, and when it was terminated, he joined the cadre of people who attempted to revive its spirit via the Knoxville History Project. He was one of our first supporters, and served on our original board of directors. Thanks to his corporate-board member experience, he was the primary author of our original nonprofit bylaws (and patiently explained to me why we couldn’t just skip that part), and an important advisor on the complicated financial aspects of founding a nonprofit.

Although his chief interest in KHP was its support for our major journalism venture, the award-winning but short-lived Knoxville Mercury, he has remained a valued advisor in the five years since it closed. In early July, he helped us more accurately remember some details concerning the Whittle paragraphs in our new “Walking Literary Guide.”
 
In Knoxville he remained a formal New Yorker of another era, always in a dark suit, always with a bon mot worthy of Thurber. He loved humor, and always seemed to be restraining a pun, but somehow, I believe, got Knoxville to take itself more seriously as a worthwhile project.
 
Following his own wishes, no funeral is planned, and there’s been little public notice of his passing in the media—as of this writing, Wikipedia still refers to him in the present tense—but we can’t help remembering him, and finding inspiration in his example. 

~ Jack Neely

Great Grandmother Lottie Cheever's 1901 Letter about Yale's 200th Anniversary Celebrations

Below is my transcription of a letter dated Oct. 25, 1901, from Hanover, New Hampshire.  

I found it in one of the many boxes of letters to and from my great grandmother Charlotte “Lottie” Cheever Tucker (1887-1944) that I have in my basement.

The letter describes the elaborate celebrations surrounding the 200^th anniversary of the founding of Yale University, which took place 0ct. 20–23, 1901.  Lottie's account includes her husband, Dartmouth President William Jewett Tucker, meeting the new president, Theodore Roosevelt.  Interestingly, among many other notables, Booker T. Washington took part in the celebrations.

Probably Great Grandma Lottie was writing to her “Round Robin” of sisters and friends, who would circulate by mail a binder with the latest updates from each one of them, replacing their last letter with their new one and dropping the binder in the mail to the next recipient.

Lottie’s younger sisters were Ellen Cheever Rockwood (seated at right), Elizabeth Cheever Wheeler (standing), and Louisa Cheever (seated at left), who in 1900 had begun her long career teaching English professor at Smith College.  They are pictured below with their Auntie Elizabeth Cheever Washburn in 1886.

Here is my transcription (with some words I can’t make out):

My dear girls,

      Safely returned from out outing that was really most enjoyable though very fatiguing. It gave me an additional pang to find that Betty [Elizabeth Cheever Washburn Tucker, my grandmother, would have been 12] had had a crying spell of homesickness for her Mamma, but otherwise things seem to have gone on well without me.  Margaret McHugh’s trunk has come and she seems to be settling into her work pretty well.  I do not like her as well Mary, and she is not as neat: but I believe she will prove a better cook. I trust that Elizabeth [Cheever Wheeler] is well supplied by this time. It seems to me that I am very fortunate to have the change made with so little trouble or delay.

    The “Yale luck”, as the Harvard men would say, followed them as to ______ {Wrarten?]. Nothing could have been more propitious. Shortly after our arrival Monday night we were taken by the Mungers to a house on Hillhouse Ave. Which proved to be that of the sisters of Dr. Terry Englewood, who with his wife and daughters was our host for the celebration.  They both wished to be particularly remembered to Ellen and spoke warmly of her and Auntie [Elizabeth Cheever Washburn, widow of Worcester industrialist/philanthropist Ichabod Washburn (1798-1868)].  It was my pleasure to meet them.  There was quite a company of friends and neighbors to view the Torchlight parade, and M afterwards were served with bouillon & rolls, and ice cream + cake. The parade was a monstrous affair and very picturesque. All over the Univ. buildings, on the campus, and whenever it was wished to show allegiance to Yale, then more lines of Chinese lanterns, imported for the first time into this country from Paris. They were pumpkin-shaped and pumpkin-colored and were very effective. The whole town was as light as day and a blaze of color and sound. Beginning with the Harrises + Corps (?) whom we met on the street that night, we saw almost everybody we knew and met many others.  The English guests = the Messia (?) of Mansfield College, Oxford, were interesting, companionable people and I never tired of hearing her bold inflections and queerly-managed mouthings of familiar words.  Dr. White, the Ambassador, was my left-hand neighbor at table (I sat on Dr. Munger’s left) and he is a very charming man.  Mr. Hitchcock + Chandler, the two brothers-in-law of Mrs. Munger came and went at different meals, and the two children - Miss Rose – the invalid and Thornton, a Freshman – made the company at table- and it was exceedingly pleasant.  Tuesday A.M. we had good seats in the gallery of Battell Chapel, and saw the long procession of delegates and notables come in with all their “millinery” on.  It was a great show.  But the speaking did not come up to it, and the exercises were so long that in came one before the end.  I heard Parker’s “Hora Novissima” well-rendered, with a true (?) quartets of soloists, in the afternoon, and in the evening braved the tremendous crowd and more seats in the universe amphitheatre on the campus.  I never saw so many people together, but that was all I could see; For the women,—who had been admitted only on sufferance, at the last moment—stood up on the benches and in the aisles so that a good quarter of the alumni & guests could neither get their seats, nor having gotten them, see the stage. And this in spite of the maddening shouts of the young alumni, “down in front,” “ladies, please sit down” “ladies under 40, please sir down, all others rise.”  I blushed for my sex.  The singing of College songs, led by the band and a chorus, and taken up by all the 6000 or 7000 alumni was memorable, and the glimpses we had of the talk____ were enough to show how well-conceived and well-carried out they were.  The next morning, the Presidents’ arrival brought together a crowd of people that was absolutely terrifying. We made three attempts to get into the theatre when the degrees were conferred, but by the time we had reached the entrance the seats had been taken up, and along with hundreds of the alumni, entitled to fit in by virtue of their badges, we had to wait nearly an hour in order to get home again, without even a glimpse of the discussion.  It was very disappointing, and all the more so when the men came home and told us of the enthusiasm at fining (?) the defrus (?).  But President Roosevelt was entertained at a house only a few doors above the Mungers and we saw him driving by two or three times, and again at the reception in the new dining hall -- Prof. Ladd, next door, entertained Ed Marquis Ito (?) and we saw him several times also.  The President is not as good looking as his picture and William, who was invited to meet him at Mr. Farnum’s in the morning, says he talks too much and is undignified.  I watched the receiving party at the afternoon reception and was glad that they did not shake hands.  The crowd was so great there also that we did not attempt to get in line and greet the two presidents, but stayed on the outskirts, meeting various people and watching the interesting crowd- Pres. Seelye, ex-Pres. Carter, Pres. Buckham, Eliot, Murkland, Booker Washington, the Chief Justice, Philip Moen, Edward Everett Hale are some of those I met.  Sec. Hay, Dekess (?), Choate sat behind us on the Campers, and one could not stir (?) miture (?) encountering some distinguished person.  Mr. Frisail’s (?) degree was received with much applause and he was greatly pleased.  He called Wednesday evening while we were sitting on the piazza, watching the select coming and going from the Farnums’.  At 5 that afternoon the thermometer was 74˚! And the next day, on our return to Hanover there was sun (?).  We called on the Dwights Thursday A.M. and there met the Steadmans- not very distinguished in appearance or conversation.  And in spite of the _asturiss (?) of the whole celebration and the crowds of dignitaries which it brought together, I think the general impression was not of such distinction as ours.  The speaking here was of a much higher order, and some of the Yale men of this faculty thought the conferring of degrees were much more impressive.  We got ahead of Yale in honoring Sec. Hay and our Ruisman – shall be amused to see how Collin gets out of his sweeping statement on the pulpit.  He thought we were doing it on too great a scale and that it distracted from the dignity of the degree to give it to more than 3 or 4 men – “Yale + Harvard never do.”  And here there were 50 or more who were so honored at his own alma mater.

     Helen Pitman [who eventually arranged a meeting on a cruise between my grandmother and Frank Cushwa, who was then teaching at Choate] and the Choate School boys sent an urgent request to stop there, and I planned to take lunch with her on Tues.  Will could not leave, and when I got to New H. I found it would not do to try to get away.  I wish I might stop there and at Worcester on my return.  But at this distance it seems unwise.  Maggie is staying here 5 nights and begins work with us Monday.  My present plan is to join Will [Lottie’s husband, Dartmouth President William Jewett Tucker], at Hartford the evening of the 8^th.  Perhaps you might send this to Louisa [Cheever, teaching English at Smith]?  I rather hope she will spend the 3^rd with us, when Lyman Abbott [theologian, Congregational minister, pictured below] is to be here.  Mrs. Dr. Smith went to her H. w. the Dr. and had one of her ill times.  She asked for Ellen [Cheever Rockwood] w. interest.  With all dear love to you all, Charlotte  

 

The Great Hoskins Art Heist

By Brooks Clark

In the darkest hours of a sticky night in August 1973, no one on White Avenue noticed a stealthy figure crawling through a basement window of Hoskins Library. Inside, the intruder pried the lock off the door to the circulation department and went directly to two boxes, where they found a total of $102 and the master keys to the building. The burglar and accomplices then made their way to the top floor of the tower, which had been built in 1932 to house the collection of oriental and Turkish rugs, jewelry, sculptures, paintings, and Renaissance furniture—some 400 pieces in all—and several thousand volumes of art and travel literature that Louis and Eleanor Audigier had accumulated during 20 years living in Rome and donated to UT.

Louis Bailely Audigier had been born in 1858 in Switzerland and emigrated to Searcy, Arkansas, where he became a newspaper editor and publisher. In 1887, he married Eleanor Deane Swan of Knoxville. They first lived in Little Rock, Arkansas, where Audigier wrote for the Arkansas Gazette, then moved to Knoxville, where Audigier was a book printer and worked in various capacities on a monthly, The Industrious Hen, serving the poultry industry. 

Eleanor was an artist, active in the Ossoli Circle, who helped organize the Knoxville Art League. The Audigiers lived in an elegant house called Crescent Bluff at 3100 Kingston Pike. In 1911, they traveled for two years in Greece, Egypt, and Palestine, then settled in Rome, where Louis took photos for the New York Times, including portraits of Mussolini and a Pope Pius XI, published several books of his pictures of Rome, traveled and lectured. Eleanor, meanwhile, collected all manners of art, originals and copies, old and new. She died in 1931, and was buried in Knoxville. After Louis remarried in 1933, he gave Eleanor’s art collection to UT in her memory. In 1936, Louis and his new bride returned to Knoxville and settled into a large Victorian home on East Magnolia Avenue. He died in 1943 and was buried in Little Rock.   

In the relatively innocent era of 1973, there were no guards on duty or electronic surveillance cameras to watch over the Eleanor Deane Audigier Art Collection. The intruders came prepared: they had brought packing crates and straw packing material. They packed up some 80 objects on exhibit throughout the gallery and slipped them out the basement window. The list of the stolen goods ranged from five antique rugs and 23 sculptures to a mahogany model of a Venetian sedan chair, a brass French coffee pot from 1809, a 19th century nutmeg grater, and an Arabian dagger and scabbard. 

Since the thieves knew exactly where to find the master keys, the police assumed it was an inside job, although lie-detector tests on 50 employees revealed nothing. The larcenists may not have been art experts: they took neither the five Raphael paintings nor some of the other most valuable artwork. Nor may they have planned what to do with the goods once they had them. The pieces have never shown up in local pawn shops or on the international markets. The Knoxville Police never found any clues to lead them to the identities of the thieves. 

In 1978, the entire collection was moved to the McClung Museum, where it resides today in vault and storage rooms secured by several systems of locks, video surveillance cameras, and motion detectors. 

To this day, the Hoskins Heist remains the largest theft of art in Knoxville history and UT’s most perplexing unsolved mystery. If your great uncle has ever wondered about a remote barn or warehouse full of packing boxes, please call me at 865-310-1277.

 

The Scandalous Miss Evelyn Hazen

By Brooks Clark

Over the years, UT has been home to any number of “characters.” Not many of them, however, have been featured in the pages of Life magazine.

In 1914, green-eyed, raven-haired fourteen-year-old Evelyn Hazen graduated from her private girls’ school and enrolled in the University of Tennessee. The last of Alice Evelyn Mabry Hazen and Rush Strong Hazen’s three daughters, she grew up in the antebellum Victorian home at 1711 Dandridge Avenue, at the crest of Mabry’s Hill in Knoxville, with a majestic view of downtown to the west and the Tennessee River to the south. 

As a UT student, Hazen took the stage in Staub’s Theatre alongside a smooth-talking fraternity boy named Ralph Sharringhaus, the only son of a prosperous Knoxville businessman. They were engaged in 1917, but when the United States joined the war in Europe, Sharringhaus signed up for the Army and began basic training. On one of his weekend visits, Hazen fell for an old line—basically, “What does being married in the eyes of God matter when we love each other so much?” She regretted going to bed with Sharringhaus, she later claimed, finding the experience unpleasant. It also seemed to cool his ardor to marry her.

      

Hazen graduated in 1918 and took a job as a teacher in the Knoxville school system, eventually landing at Knoxville High School. For the next fifteen years Hazen tried to maneuver Sharringhaus to the altar. She joined him for weekends and vacations in places like New York and Asheville, alternately fending off his advances and acceding. Finally, in 1932, Sharringhaus dumped her. “There is no solution but to stop,” he wrote to her. 

     

After briefly contemplating killing him, Hazen decided to sue him for breach of promise. The trial, in Covington, Kentucky, made national news, especially as she testified about her humiliation as a woman betrayed and what she called Sharringhaus’s “perverted and lascivious” demands, as recounted by Jane Van Ryan in the book The Seduction of Evelyn Hazen.  

Hazen won the case, and the jury awarded her $80,000. Life magazine ran her picture and called Sharringhaus “an ardent wooer but a laggard groom.” Even though an appeals court upheld the verdict in 1937, she never received the money, lost her job as a teacher, and never recovered her ruined reputation.

      

Hazen lived out her life in the house on Mabry’s Hill. In 1951, John C. Hodges, the straitlaced head of the UT English department, hired her as his administrative assistant. Wagging tongues imagined some dalliance between the tweedy Hodges and Hazen; in fact, there was never a hint of hanky-panky, and the gossip is more telling about attitudes about female sexuality at the time. After Hodges died in 1967, Hazen continued to work in the English Department, patrolling the corridors like a character out of a Tennessee Williams play, carrying a loaded pistol on campus, and doling out office supplies like Scrooge, at least according to some. She died in 1987 at eighty-eight years old after falling in her home and suffering a stroke. Her will stipulated that her home be preserved and operated as a museum, which it is today under the direction of the Hazen Museum Foundation.

Source: The Seduction of Evelyn Hazen, available from UT Press, tiny.utk.edu/hazen