Ask Anne

A: John Glenn is featured in the dedication of the 1963 Terrapin yearbook, which acknowledges that, with Glenn’s historic flight, the university has truly gone “out of this world.” The university can claim a connection to him because he took classes at the Pentagon in a unit of umd called University College, which began in College Park and spread around the world, teaching classes to returning students, members of the military and U.S. Embassy personnel. In 1970, this unit became what we know today as University of Maryland University College, one of our sister institutions in the University System of Maryland.

A: This photo was printed in the alumni magazine in April 1948, and we have the original in the UMD Archives. The scene is the kitchen of the Barracks, the first building constructed on campus, in 1858, for what was then called the Maryland Agricultural College. It burned down in the Great Fire of 1912. The men in the photo were Charlie Dory (far right), Bill Dory (Charlie’s son, behind the potatoes), Ferdinand Hughes (center front) and Spencer Dory (in background). Charlie was in charge of the kitchen facilities for the college. The Dory family lived in the Lakeland area of College Park, and at least one Dory descendant has worked for Dining Services ever since.

A: That chaplain, the Rev. Merrill A. Stevens, and his family had been on an outing on a 40-foot sailboat in September 1964 when his 7-year-old son, Leigh, fell overboard into choppy waters near the mouth of the Chester River. Stevens jumped into the water to save his son and was able to place him back onboard before disappearing under the water himself. His body was found three days later.