BREAKING NEWS: The campaign for a bronze life-size-and-a-half bust of Ella Higginson started by Western Washington University's Dr. Laura Laffrado this past November has been a complete success!
Laura Laffrado with a portrait of Ella Higginson in front of WWU's Edens Hall, on which a line from Ella Higginson's "College by the Sea" is engraved.
The bust will now begin production and will unveil in ceremonial event come mid-fall. The bust will be placed in the Wilson Library entrance hallway, across from the portrait of the library's first librarian, Mabel Zoe Wilson. We'll keep you updated on when the bust will be unveiled when that decision is made in the coming months.
The Wilson Library entrance, near where the bust will be placed.
The Mabel Zoe Wilson Library began construction in 1927, being the first separate library building the State Normal School at Bellingham (now Western Washington University) ever had. Until that time, the library was housed in various rooms and floors (and even in part of the attic) of what is today called Old Main, the only building on campus during the school's early years. In 1964, this library was named for pioneer librarian Mabel Zoe Wilson, who was the head of the library from 1902 to 1945, an astonishing 43 years of service! Just under two months after the naming, Mabel Zoe Wilson would die at the age of 86.
Ella Higginson and Mabel Zoe Wilson shared a sweet friendship. In 1953, thirteen years after Ella Higginson passed away, Mabel Zoe Wilson donated dozens of letters that Ella Higginson had written to her over several decades to the University of Washington's Special Collections, all perfectly preserved and even including the envelopes. This correspondence reveals a deep and affectionate bond between these two inspiring women. How fitting it is that a bronze bust of Ella Higginson will be installed in one of her dearest friend's thriving legacy, the Mabel Zoe Wilson Library.
Mabel Zoe Wilson, WWU's first librarian.
Dear Zoe Wilson. . .
This is just to tell you how much I admire you and how much I love you - so I hope you'll receive it before you turn homeward. I think of you so often and always with the same constant and loyal affection I feel for Olive - you are so different and yet so alike.
I'm sure you're having a wonderful summer and I think you might have let me tag! . . . If you go to Venice, think of me every single minute - and love me a little bit, bad as I am.
Your devoted friend,
Ella Higginson
Quoted from a letter written on July 14, 1925 to Mabel Zoe Wilson, who was traveling in Rome that summer.
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