In a recent and exclusive interview granted to Among Friends, Leslie (Travis) Wendel ¹55 spoke of her work as coordinator of the Friends of the Library, a position she came to, as one with a natural affinity for libraries, after service in the Brown Development office. Leslie said that having spent the better part of her undergraduate life in the John Hay Library ( mainly in the smoking lounge, now the exhibition room ) and being the kind of person who tends to read three books at the same time, she has been particularly gratified by President Gregorian's decision to allow retiring members of the staff to retain their library privileges.
In her last act as coordinator, Leslie edited the Friends Holiday Card Catalogue for 1995. This she managed at a distance almost as great as those occasionally reached by Brown's esteemed Professor Carberry. She and her husband, Dick, had rented an 18th century farmhouse at Vaison-la-Romaine in the south of France for the summer. (The fact that she found the farmhouse, which was across the road from a fine set of 1st century Roman ruins, through an ad in the Brown Alumni Monthly was incidental.) Consequently, the materials and proofs for the catalogue were delivered to her by a DHL courier, fortunately without mishap, at directions given in Leslie's effective French.
It was Leslie who brought the card sales into modern times. They had had a somewhat up-and-down history and the fact that they had not made a significant contribution to the Library caused University Librarian Merrily Taylor to consider dropping the program. Leslie asked that she be allowed one year in which to make the card sales profitable, to which Merrily agreed. The first year, the card sales did make a profit; the second year the profit doubled and the third year they doubled the second year figure, coming in at a sum representing the income from a $200,000 capital endowment. Wall Street could use Leslie's talent!
Leslie recalled two occasions during her tenure as coordinator with a little less than delight. At the end of her first week in the job, she started to leave the Hay on Friday at 5:30 p.m., aware that 5:00 p.m. was closing time and that there would be no one in the building. She entered the elevator, the doors shut...and the elevator refused to move. And the elevator doors refused to open. And, the building being empty, no one could hear the alarm. In a state of barely restrained panic, she hunted around and finally found the phone directly connected to the campus police. Fortunately for Leslie (and the Friends) this piece of equipment did work and after a half hour or so the police extricated her from durance vile.
The other occasion, which Leslie characterized as more pressure than pain, was the day of the party for Martha Joukowsky on the dedication of the Joukowsky Family University Librarian Chair. Retiring Friends chairman Henry D. Sharpe, Jr. had been scheduled to deliver the speech honoring Martha's services to the Libraries and incidentally noting her work when she chaired the Friends. Unfortunately, Hank had to call in sick. Along with others concerned, Merrily betrayed considerable perturbation and a singular lack of confidence in Leslie's ability to cope. Leslie proceeded to corral the incoming Friends chair and, after about 20 minutes of rewriting speeches to conform to the style of the new speaker, retyped it. The speech was then delivered as scheduled. This, Leslie noted, was also the time when she learned that the electric typewriter "on" switch did not say "on". She did not say whether or not she made the typewriter work by witchcraft, but the possibility remains.
Apropos to Brown's occasional impulse to rename buildings, Leslie once observed that "Posterity is not as long as it used to be." Leslie's place in the mind of posterity so far as the Friends are concerned, is assured for a long, long time.