Scope and Contents: The collection consists primarily of George Stockton Wills’ handwritten notes detailing the history of Western Maryland College, including information about college periodicals, James T. Ward (the college’s first president), the Board of Trustees, and courses of study (mostly taken from the college catalog).
Also included are items of a more personal nature: diaries, scrapbooks, individual and family photographs, and personal papers. The scrapbooks and scrapbook pages feature newspaper clippings of personal, local, and national interest as well as a collection of personal correspondence, including wedding invitations, Christmas cards, and invitations from WMC alumni. Wills’ diaries, which range from 1911 to 1956 with the exception of several omitted years, mostly discuss daily appointments and the weather. Later diaries (1946-1956) are more detailed as Wills comments not only on daily activities but also on his declining health.
The collection also contains several books as well as a photocopy and a digital copy of the book of tribute that was dedicated to Wills in May 1941 by students and colleagues.
Upon arrival, the papers were divided into a series of folders and boxes. The folders were loosely arranged according to subject, while the boxes were arranged neither chronologically nor categorically. The diaries, scrapbooks, and books were boxed together without an apparent organizational scheme. A survey of the papers showed a logical organization would be by subject, genre, and then chronological order.
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