Mississippi State Geological Survey Bulletin 28 The Geologic History of the Vicksburg National Military Park Area

After 20 years of faithful service, Miss Frances Hartwell Walthall has voluntarily laid down the duties of Secretary and Librarian to the Mississippi Geological Survey to take up a more noble work. Beginning on July 5, 1915, with a table and two cracker boxes of books, she has, in cooperation with the director, quietly, slowly, but persistently built up the library until it now has 10,000 volumes and pamphlets&$151;a monument to her efforts. Besides this she did all the secretarial work of her Chief, the late beloved Director, Dr. E. N. Lowe, whom she served so loyally. But the Mississippi Geological Survey Library was the just pride of her endeavors. Jealous to a militant degree, the young little lady, dressed in gray hair and a smile, guarded the child of her creation to such an extent that neither director dared transgress the limits of her domain.

And now she takes up one of the more noble things of life so characteristic of many at the University of Mississippi&$151;those finer things of life not written in text books, yet they are text books plus, text books, age, and experience plus, plus those intangible, indescribable qualities that made, as one example, the Commencement Exercises of last June (1934) an occasion of simple dignity worthy of any educational institution of the land. She is to aid the widow of one of those who quietly through the years helped to make the University of Mississippi a finer place&$151;a more noble institution, an institution that is training citizens as well as students. She is to help edit the diaries and quaint sayings of her former Chief, Dr. E. N. Lowe. May the Heavens spare her for this noble task of devotion.&$151;William Clifford Morse, The Oxford Eagle, April 4, 1935.