Guide to the Elizabeth Wilson Papers, 1953-2004
Elizabeth Wilson Papers, George J. Mitchell Department of Special Collections & Archives, Bowdoin College Library, Brunswick, Maine.
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Elizabeth Hawkins Wilson (1905-2004) received an honorary M.A. from Bowdoin in 1989. She was graduated from Smith College in 1927 and then completed a B.S. from the Yale University School of Nursing. In 1931 she married Clement S. Wilson (Bowdoin Class of 1927). After her husband's death in 1948, she worked as a nurse at Dudley Coe Infirmary at Bowdoin College, the Maine State Public Health Nursing Department, and the Central Maine Medical Center in Lewiston. She rented rooms in her home at 82 Federal Street to over 250 Bowdoin students over the course of more than fifty years.
Papers, chiefly correspondence, business records, newspaper clippings, and related material, of Elizabeth "Bece" Wilson concerning Bowdoin College student boarders at her home at 82 Federal Street, Brunswick, Maine. Correspondents include active and prior boarders.
Organized into three series: Correspondence, 1977-1997, n.d.; Clippings and Printed Ephemera, 1980-1998, n.d.; Rent Records and Related Materials, 1953-2004, n.d.
Arranged chronologically.
Personal correspondence between Elizabeth Wilson and her student boarders. Includes cards and letters from former boarders as well as notes between Wilson and boarders about daily life in the house.
No restrictions.
1977-1979
1980
1981
1982
1983-1986
1987-1989
1990-1997
No date
Arranged alphabetically by type, then chronologically.
Includes newspaper clippings relating to Wilson's boarders and programs and announcements for concerts, plays, art shows and commencements in which her student boarders were involved. Wilson often underlined her students' names in the programs.
No restrictions.
Newspaper Clippings, 1982-1989, n.d.
Printed Ephemera, 1980-1982
Printed Ephemera, 1984
Printed Ephemera, 1985
Printed Ephemera, 1986-1988
Printed Ephemera, 1989-1991, 1998
Printed Ephemera, no date
Arranged chronologically.
Notebooks of rent records for fifty years of boarders. Interspersed throughout the notebooks are correspondence, clippings, notes and programs that relate to specific student boarders.
No restrictions.
1953-1965
1968-1971
1970-1974
1974-1978
1979-1984
1984-1987
1987-1991
1991-1995
1995-1998
1998-1999
2000-2004
Miscellaneous papers, n.d.
Receipt stubs, 1986-1998