Manchester Magazine manchester magazine fall 2019 for joomag | Page 38

MU | A r c h i v e s
Ulrey gift helped fund post-war
residence hall
Calvin used his financial acumen and good
reputation to help raise money for the college.
Like his father before him, he served on the
Board of Trustees.
With no children, the Ulreys used annuities to
benefit Manchester and assigned most of their
estate to the college several years before Calvin
died on Christmas Day 1942. The estate was
the largest gift the college had received up to
that time.
While friends appreciated Calvin’s generosity,
they also remembered his integrity and the way
he treated others.
F
or Calvin and Miriam Ulrey, the good life wasn’t about leisure
and luxury. It meant living simply and giving generously to
the institutions they held most dear – the Church of the
Brethren and Manchester College.
“Brother Ulrey possessed a strong personality and character,” former
President Otho Winger wrote when Calvin died. “He had strong
convictions of right and a strong will to live true to those convictions.”
“He was always so thoughtful,” recalled friend
Laura Hippensteel when Calvin died. “The
world is better for his having lived in it and poorer because he has left
it, but the memories of his kindly deeds cannot die.”
A woman who attended country school with Calvin when they were
children recalled years later how he helped her through deep snow, mud
and water on their long walk each day. “I was afraid of the big rough
boys,” said Lulu Byerly, “but I always knew that he would protect me.”
Calvin Ulrey was born on his family’s Chester Township farm on
July 28, 1870. He studied at Manchester and Indiana State Normal in
Terre Haute before teaching school for 10 years. When World War II ended in 1945, veterans flooded colleges and
universities like Manchester to get an education on the G.I. Bill. Many
brought wives and children with them, straining the capacity of housing
on campus and throughout North Manchester.
In 1900, Calvin married Miriam Buck and shortly after started working
for the Indiana State Bank. He became the bank’s president in 1924 and
served in that capacity until 1935 when he resigned for health reasons. The College used defense surplus trailers to house couples and families,
while several former barracks served as a makeshift dormitory for
single men.
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