Wesley Wilson opened up a DePauw yearbook page from the 1930s on his office's desktop then pointed to a black and white photo of a woman with short dark hair gazing upwards at the bottom of the computer screen.
"There she is," he said, referring to Helen Alberta Williams.
Helen Alberta Williams kept a diary from 1929 to 1932 — her four years at DePauw. Within the blank format book entitled "College Milestones," she wrote about the weather, her classes, sporting events and other aspects of her college experience.
"She was busy," Wilson said. "He was a music student, the vice president of Mu Phi Epsilon…"
Wilson pointed out William's various activities recorded in the yearbook, which included Mu Phi Epsilon music fraternity, University Chorus, American Guild of Organists and church choir.
Wilson, coordinator of archives and special collections at Roy O. Library, discovered the diary because of Dr. Warren Macy.
Dr. Macy, a local Greencastle physician, discovered this piece of history years ago on eBay. After purchasing the book and perusing its material, he offered the work to the Putnam County Museum and President Brian Casey.
"It was a gift from the Putnam County Historical Society," Casey said about the diary. He shared that the gift came as a surprise and that he was thrilled to receive it. He now plans to hand over the diary to Wilson for the archives.
Wilson hasn't yet read the diary himself, but he has done quite a bit of research on Williams, and the time she was at DePauw.
"I think it's an excellent source of information about DePauw at that time period," Wilson said.
Casey said that he looks forward to discovering all that the diary has to share.
"The more you can capture of a written record of an institution — that is actually even beyond the institution…is always valuable," Casey said.
It was a critical turning point, as DePauw had begun to loosen prior restrictions on students. For example, dancing became permitted right before Williams arrived. And, of course, the Great Depression took place.
"She came in '29, so the stock market crash happened her freshman year," Wilson said. "The Depression took hold a few years later."
When this historic event happened, it began to affect families of many DePauw students, and some of the entries in Williams' diary illustrate that. For example, one entry discussed receiving a dollar from her home in southern Indiana. Although one dollar was worth more in those days, Williams might have been able to buy only a few meals at a diner with that money.
Regarding Williams' life after DePauw, what's known is that she moved to Robertson, Ill., just across the state line south of Terre Haute. She never married.
"She'd be 101 if she was still alive," Wilson said. "We suspect that she died sometime between 2000 and 2007."
It's also possible that Williams moved to a retirement home, but those studying the diary lost track of her after that timeframe. There's no information currently about her occupations, but there is speculation that she was a teacher. In any case, Williams' personal entries stopped at the end of her senior year at DePauw.
"We have lots of other student items in archives throughout our history, from the 1840s on," Wilson said. "This is a nice new item to add to it."
Wilson thinks that the most exciting part of this discovery is that something like a diary survived for so long and then appeared and became readily available to the contemporary DePauw community.
"It could have easily been thrown away," he said. "Someone saw value in it."
Tanis Monday, the executive director at the Putnam County Museum, also believes that the find is exciting.
"It really lets you travel back in time and have a more personal understanding of it," she said of the diary.
Monday, who has read parts of the diary, said that one of her favorite entries she read was Williams' recount of the first Monon Bell game before it was called the Monon Bell game. In the Nov. 1932 entry, she discussed the final football game of the season against Wabash and their zero-zero tie.
Aside from time at DePauw, Williams brought up her time she spent at her home in southern Indiana. For instance, when she went home for one Christmas vacation, she wrote, "We butchered today."
"It really talks about a different way of life," Monday said.
Considering DePauw's recent celebration of its 175th anniversary, Monday was excited to have the opportunity to utilize the piece and put it on display. The diary was part of the Toast to Old DePauw exhibit that opened on Feb. 16. It is currently with Casey, who is looking through it.
"We had a reason to bring it out and showcase it," Monday said. "We were very happy."