Reprint from Collections & Connections
Spring 1997, Vol. 1, No. 2

A play and documentary that dramatize the impact of World War II on Warren County will premier in Bowling Green in April. Official projects of the Bowling Green/Warren County Bicentennial Commission, the play and documentary are the result of the collaboration between Very Special Arts Kentucky, the Kentucky Library and Museum, and Public Theater of Kentucky. Project participants Ginny Miller, Laura Harper Lee, and Mike Thomas chose World War II as the topic because of public interest in the period and the potential for underwriting.

Mary Surface Hall, a nationally recognized playwright with ties to Warren County, is incorporating incidents and events from oral interviews into the story line of the four character drama. Bowling Green resident Mark Funk is selecting period music such as "I'll Be Seeing You" to underscore the play's wartime setting.

Very Special Arts, an umbrella organization for programs in the fifty states and 85 other countries, provided the initial funding when it awarded a $5,000 Legacy Project grant to Very Special Arts Kentucky. Kentucky was one of only five state programs whose proposals were funded. Another $5,000 from the Kentucky Oral History Commission underwrote the cost of conducting and transcribing interviews with 21 people, many, but not all, residents of Bowling Green Retirement Village. Interview subjects included wartime servicemen and civilians. Thirty-three World War II-related interviews, previously collected and housed in Manuscripts, are also being transcribed.

Another project partner, WKYU-TV, will videotape the performance. Bowling Green Retirement Village will receive a videotape, and area schools may request copies as well.

Television producer and Warren County native, Amy Thompson, became an adjunct project partner when she wrote a $1,000 mini-grant to the Kentucky Humanities Council. Thompson is conducting additional interviews for a documentary film on Warren County during World War II.

Several exciting events are planned in conjunction with the completion of the project. On April 24, Ms. Thompson's documentary of Over Here/Over There will show in gallery K & L of the Kentucky Building, and the play will premier the next day at the Phoenix Theater in downtown Bowling Green. For information about the documentary call Earlene Chelf or Laura Harper Lee at (502) 745-2592. For information about the play call the Phoenix Theater at (502) 781-6233.

~ Sandy Staebell

The Kentucky Library and the Manuscripts and Archives, located in the Kentucky Building, have been the recipients of two unusual gifts from friends of the university. The Oscar Payne Cleaver estate has donated a small collection of his personal papers, and Dr. Howard Doll has given a valuable Kentuckiana collection gathered by his late wife, Anne Parker Doll.

Oscar Cleaver, a native of Hart County, graduated from Horse Cave High School and then matriculated at Georgia Tech in 1924. He earned his Masters degree in Electrical engineering with a minor in drama from Yale University in 1930. After graduation he worked for Westinghouse as a lighting engineer. In 1942 he entered the Army Corps of Engineers and later continued as a reserve officer. He retired a full Colonel in 1964. In his 25 years as a lighting expert at the Engineer Research and Development Laboratories at Fort Belvoir, he made significant contributions toward the development of night vision. Many of his military projects are documented in photographs included in the collection.

Besides his military career, Cleaver is also known as the inventor of an automatic lighting system for the theater, the modern version of which is used by the Metropolitan Opera in New York. He was co-author of Stage Lighting, which became a standard work for theatrical lighting. As an engineer for Westinghouse, he helped develop the lighting system used for spectacular light and fountain display that was a major attraction at the 1939 World's Fair. That same year he was sent to Hollywood to assist in solving lighting problems involved with the filming of the motion picture Gone With the Wind.

His collection contains a five-page reminiscence of his work on the famous movie. He remembered that there was "much discussion about using 'damn' because of the censor", but David Selznick wanted it. Cleaver called Selznick a "perfectionist" who wanted everything "automatic"-- "colors, costumes, accents, scenery." Cleaver also makes several insightful remarks about the movies personalities. He became friends with Vivian Leigh, who he describes as "tops in every way, truly professional...Always knew [her] lines and required little direction or repeat takes." He remembered Clark Gable as "unfriendly, rarely letter perfect in scenes" and "preoccupied" due to an impending divorce. Cleaver enjoyed an outstanding professional career that is documented in this small manuscript collection.

Dr. Howard Doll, a professor of communications at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, has donated a significant Kentuckiana collection which includes several important Civil war newspapers. The prize of the newspapers in an August 30, 1862 issue of The Vidette, published by John Hunt Morgan's Brigade in Glasgow on one of their raids into Southcentral Kentucky. Several other issues were printed at various sites in Kentucky and Tennessee. With tongue in cheek, the publisher's statement indicates that the paper was issued "semi-occasionally." This issue may be one of only two currently in historical collections. The Doll collection also includes two full issues and two partial issues of the Louisville Daily Courier published in late 1861 and early 1862. They are of particular interest to the Kentucky Building, because Bowling Green is listed as the place of publication and they were printed during the Confederate occupation of the city.

Gifts such as the Cleaver and Doll collections help the Kentucky Building faculty and staff interpret various aspects of the commonwealth's heritage for exhibits, publications, and programming. They are also available to Western students and faculty and visiting scholars who wish to know more about Kentucky's past.

~ Jonathan Jeffrey