Esther Lange scrapbook and yearbook collection

Collection — Multiple Containers

Identifier: MS-0008

Staff Only

Content Description

This scrapbook contains ephemera from Esther Lange's youth, chiefly focusing on her years as a student at Buena Vista College. She collected photographs, clippings, programs of school events, her report cards, and invoices of her college expenses, calling cards, notes (often in their envelopes), and dance cards. An additional item of interest is called Freshmen Scratches (Bolshevist Addition--this is not a typo), an alternative newspaper dated May 27, 1920.

Another item in this collection is a 1920 copy of The Rudder, BV's yearbook.

Also included in a separate, oversized folder is the 1956 Storm Lake Register account of the burning of Old Main and a November 7, 1921 issue of The Tack, the campus newspaper.

Dates

Creation: 1917-1925

Biographical Note

Esther Lange attended Buena Vista College for several years, but she also attended other colleges. One of her transcripts notes credit hours transferred from Morningside College for 1918-1919 and from the State University of Iowa for 1920-1921. Little is known about her early years, except that the year of her birth was 1899. According to an article in the June 6, 1929 Storm Lake Register, she graduated from Odebolt (Iowa) High School. The article states that she attended Buena Vista College but graduated from Northwestern University.

After college, she taught at Odebolt High School for two years. She moved west at some point and taught in Kent Washington during the 1927-1928 school year, where she met and later married Loren (sometimes spelled Lauren) Mecham in 1929. At the time of her marriage, her parents, Mr. and Mrs. John Lange, were living in Storm Lake. The Mechams settled into married life in Redmond, Washington. Esther died in 2001, in the Seattle, Washington area, placing her age between 101 and 102, according to findagrave.com. According to that source, she is buried in Lake Forest Park, King County, Washington under the care of Acacia Memorial Park and Funeral Home.