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Note: Lexington Herald-Leader (KY) - April 3, 1990 Deceased Name: BRUCE WESTLEY , FORMER CHAIRMAN OF UK JOURNALISM SCHOOL, DIES AT 74
Bruce H. Westley, a former chairman of the University of Kentucky School of Journalism, died yesterday of complications from an aneurysm at the UK Chandler Medical Center.
Mr. Westley, who lived at 1272 Priscilla Lane, was 74.
He began working at UK about 1968 and was chairman of the journalism school from 1969 to 1975. He retired in 1981.
He was a specialist in research methods and theory in the study of social and mass communications.
Mr. Westley was elected president of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communications in 1972, and in 1985 he received the association's Paul J. Deutschmann Award for research. He also was the founding editor of the association's Journalism Monographs and had been associate editor of its Journalism Quarterly.
He taught for more than 20 years at the University of Wisconsin-Madison before moving to Lexington. He was the first recipient of the University of Wisconsin's Harold L. Nelson Award in mass communications.
He had worked for newspapers in North Dakota and had been a copy editor at the Wisconsin State Journal in Madison and a reporter for the Providence, R.I., Journal and Evening Bulletin.
He also had written books and articles about media research and had lectured in Ecuador for the State Department and at the University of Michigan.
Mr. Westley, a native of Cooperstown, N.D., received a bachelor's degree from the University of North Dakota in 1938 and a master's degree from Columbia University in 1941. He did additional graduate work at the University of Michigan. He served in the Army from 1942 to 1946.
After retirement he continued to teach at colleges and universities, including West Virginia University, and edited and wrote books.
Survivors include his wife, Rosemary N. Westley; three sons, Richard A. Westley of Madison, David M. Westley of Boston, and Paul M. Westley of Lexington; two daughters, Joan Westley of San Francisco, and Barbara Fister of St. Peter, Minn.; two brothers; a sister, and nine grandchildren.
Arrangements were incomplete at W.R. Milward Mortuary -- Broadway.
Many others have a fond memories of the Hutchinson family. One of these is Bruce Hutchinson Westley, Eva's son, who is the third oldest grandchild and knew many of the original family quite well. The following are a few of his memories.
I have so many memories of "Hutchinson Hill", they crowd together and my be unreliable in some detail. La Moure called it Hutchinson Hill for good reason. There was a two-and-a-half- block stretch of fairly affluent houses on the north side of the last street in town, built against the slope of the "Jim" River (James River) bluffs. There were three Hutchinson homes on one side and two on the other.
The old homestead seemed like an estate to me: a 2 1'2 story white clapboard mansion with a broad veranda across the front and part of one side. As far as I know, the whole clan was brought up in this home. (It seemed much smaller when, years later, we were allowed to see it again after a memorial service for Sarah.)
A sort of alley ran past the west side of the property to the water tower at the top of the hill. On the other side of the alley was Will's house, a sprawling one-story house set on a large, slopping lawn with fruit trees, etc. It was set quite high on the hill. Back of C.I.'s were three plots, as I recall, which seemed like an endless expense, but probably not very large. There were plum and cherry trees, raseberry bushes, and a garden.
Two doors to the east was a smaller house, the property of Uncle Ira. Most of my memories of him involved calling to him through the screened porch, whereon he sat bundled up in all weather--the state of the art in treating T.B. in those days. He always seemed cheerful, although he was the first of the clan to die unless he outlasted Eva. I'm not sure.
Across the street, Harold and Dick had built two bungalows, so that made a "compound" of five houses, almost enough to rival that of the Kennedys. I assume Harold's was sold after his death, but Dick's was still in the family when I moved to La Moure in 1933 to take a job with the Chronicle. Sarah had moved into it and gave me a bedroom in the basement.
My brother Dick and I had many friends in that end of town. Next door to Uncle Dick's house was the widow Pierce, who son later became a football hero at U.N.D., a Rhodes Scholar and Phi Beta Kappa, and still later a Canadian football pro. I also remember the names Loppnow and Finch. All of them were UN.D. Betas in their time. Brother Dick will remember them better than I can. The hangout was a swimming hole in a gravel pit fed directly by an artesian well. Cold!
Probably my earliest memory of the Hutchinson mansion was being ill at a Christmas gathering, perhaps in 1918. I was dubbed "the poor little starving Armenian", probably by Harold, since I couldn't eat the great Christmas dinner.
Then there is a memory of Daddy's return from the Great War--1919, I suppose. Ann (Will and Mabel's only) and Dick and I dressed in some sort of minute-man costumes, with flag and a drum, waited beside the N.P. depot to greet the train, frustrated whit it took time to "take on water" at the edge of town. For some reason I remember Dot and other aunts earlier getting excited about the false armistice--the scene was Harold's house as I recall.
Another early memory concerns Dot's wedding. The ceremony was held in the living room of the homestead. Ann got to be the ring bearer, after getting over crying because Harold (the great josher) had called her the "ring worm". Brother dick was in the wedding party, too. It was the first time I had seen a car converted for purposes of newlyweds being escorted out of town, with tin cans banging along behind. The most prominent message was "Stone-Hutchinson Volume 2", referring, of course, to the fact that Nibs was brother to Frank Stone, who had earlier married Ella. For some reason I can't remember who the other attendants were, but I do recall that everyone said Blanche would cry. Blanche wept silently throughout the ceremony.
For some reason all my recurring nightmare have the Hutchinson mansion as setting. The one where I'm falling is down the Hutchinson basement stairs. The one about being thrown out of an upstairs window (and caught by Auntie Dot) was there, too. There was a third that had sand being thrown in my eyes by a malevolent character, again being comforted by Dot.
Of course C.I. ran a hardware store, and it seemed I hung out there a good bit. The exciting stuff was out back where he employed several tin smiths, who were happy to teach me things like making stovepipe--everything they could short of endangering my fingers. I believe Ira was his partner in the store until illness prevented him from continuing.
While he had his business in Fargo, Fred and Blanche were frequent visitors to La Moure. I remember that Fred was a great favorite of children, and vice versa. He was a hearty, outgoing, fast talking seemingly endlessly happy man.
But then that could describe all the the Hutchinsons with the possible exception of Ora. Harold was a great josher and prankster and Dick just a little less so. Will, too, was a strong talker and fun maker, even after he became a judge. Their bridge games were memorable for loud talk, a lot of bluff and wrangling post-mortems, but these are recalled mainly from the"the lake"--good old Camp Nirvana.
I'm sure you know that the two cottages on Stuart Lake were acquired about 904. The were built by "Mr. Forkner", who lived there most of the years from 19000 or so until his death. His permanent home was Wahpeton, I believe. Oddly enough, he was the much older brother of the Mark Forkner who was my employer at Langdon years later--my first job out of college. Mr. Forkner dubbed C.I.'s cottage "Biltmore" and the other (Will's) as "Stillmore". Each was originally a mirror image of the other. Biltmore was substantially rebuilt by dick and Harold, who also built the stone fireplace. It hasn't changed much since. But if you take away the porch and fireplace from Stillmore, what's left is exactly the same as both in the original, with everything reversed east and west. Will added the porch some years afterwards.
The two cottages were the centers of summer life for the Hutchinson clan. After all, you could get there in two days from Cooperstown, and sometimes in one day from La Moure. (This depended on the weather. North Dakota had one hard surface road in those days, and it didn't help.) We'd go to La Moure and drive a second day from there--on gravel or even dirt roads. If it rained you could count on becoming mired axle-deep in gumbo, to be hauled out of the ditch by some kindly farmer and his team. On one trip I remember being stopped by soldiers on our way into Fergus Falls. It was just after Fergus Falls was hit by a tornado, and I suppose they were National Guardsmen.
Jean and Grace, even as schoolgirls, were great adventurers. One of their favorite stunts was to row across the lake to Alcohol Point to pick wild strawberries. At that time the Point was a pasture--not a stick built on it until years later. The farmer was a source of concern. He chased people off with a shotgun. One time they came back badly frightened, after a chase. But with typical Hutchinson fun, Grace told how Jean raced toward the boat, wolfing down a hatful of strawberries as she ran.
There were many family reunions, and I have trouble separating them in my mind. One, earlier than my personal memory reaches, was featured by a feast of muskellunge--caught by Eva and brought in with the help of C.I., who was her fishing partner. But most of them I remembered according to where we stayed. (At that time the two cottages were all we had.) The earliest I remember we stayed at the Jameson cottage near the store--on East Battle. Another time we stayed in "Lookout Heights," just up the hill from Will's. It's had several names since then. Another time we stayed in another cottage on East Battle. On still another we stayed in Dewdrop Inn on Stuart. But that was the pattern: rent two or three cottages and have a reunion.
Grace Stewart was my special companion at the lake--and often at La Moure, too. She was brought up as a younger sister to Ann, but not quite. She was always "poor Grace", and it often seemed to me that she was something between a poor relation (she was Mabel's niece), a hired girl and a member of the family. Anyway Dick and Ann always teamed up against Bruce and Grace.
One time Dick and Ann were after us and we went into the old boathouse right next to the lake. We closed the wooden blocks that prevented anyone from coming in. So Dick and Ann closed the blocks on the outside, and we were trapped. We set up such a howl that Mabel, thinking we were in the lake and drowning, came rushing down the steep slope in front of the cottage toward the lake, fell and broke or sprained a leg or knee or ankle. Bruce and Grace got the blame, as usual.
I haven't said much about the sisters, although I have quite clear picture of them. With the possible exception of Eva and Margaret, they were about as assertive as their brothers, and all of them had the characteristic Hutchinson voice--nasal at various pitches. Dot's was very low, Ella's quite high, for example. Jean stands out as a little less argumentative, etc. My memories of Eva are as through gauze: she was just mother. And I have very few early memories of Margaret--who was also somewhat lower key--because she was away from the family so early. I barely remembered her when she came to be our new mother. I remember Grace as especially pleasant, Dot as especially motherly, Ella as pretty formidable, Jean as quiet and thoughtful.
When Eva's illness reached a certain point, Dick and I were packed off to Fargo to stay with Fred and Blanche. I'm afraid being in a Big City, with parks and busy streets, made it quite a lark. Daddy had been so open with us, I remember "helping" him change Eva's bandages!
i remember going to a road job near Eckelson where Dick and Harold and the Miller-Hutchinson Construction Co. were building a road. They invited us to lunch in a mess tent and we were served apple-sauce on bread. Harold turned me off by insisting it wasn't apple-sauce--it was axle grease instead.
Our last memory of Sarah was in the summer of 1946. She was staying with Frank and Ella in Minneapolis and we (Rosemary and I and 8-month old Dick) were a the lake. The suggested we stay with Grandma while they went on a trip. Grandma certainly had all her faculties--loved to talk, loved to argue, was a little crotchety sometimes but easy to live with. She had a lot to be proud of, we thought.
But of course I also remember her well from the year I spent in La Moure. She was living in what had been Dick's house. C.I. was long gone, Ira had also died, Dick and Harold were building monuments to the Hutchinson name in the deep south, including the huge Bonnet-Carre Spillway above New Orleans, and The Judge had moved to Wahpenton. Sarah was very much alone, so she thought she'd be glad to have me stay in her basement bedroom if I ate elsewhere, which I did. This (1933-34) was the time I was discovering girls, especially a pair of Robideux sisters who had a car! My hours and Grandma's failed to mesh most of the time, but she could still be a lot of fun.
Bruce's career began with a full-time year on the La Moure, North Dakota, chronicle in 1933-1034. this was followed by summer jobs on the Wahpeton Farmer-Globe, Grafton News and Times, and as North Dakota State Fair publicity manager twice. He received a Ph.B., in journalism from the University of North Dakota in 1938. From 1938 -1940 Bruce was news editor for the Langdon Cavalier County Republican. He briefly served as general manager of the Casselton Reporter in 1940. In 1941 a Master of Science degree in Journalism was received from Columbia University. The years 1941-1942 were spent as a reporter for the Providence, Rhode Island, Journal and Evening Bulletin.
Bruce joined the United States Army in 1942 and served his country until 1946. While stationed at Merced Air Base in California, Bruce met Rosemary and it was there that they were married. Both Bruce and Rosemary were in the U.S. Air Force, Bruce in Classification and Rosemary in the Statisical Section of Merced Air Base.
In September, 1946, Bruce joined the faculty of the School of Journalism of the University of Wisconsin. The years 1951-1954 were spent at the University of Michigan working on a Ph.D. in Social Psychology and teaching journalism. He returned to Wisconsin in 1954 and moved to the University of Kentucky in January, 1969, as chairman of the Department of Journalism.
Bruce shared his knowledge of journalism gained through years of education and experience as a teacher and as a writer. He wrote New Editing, the third edition of which was printed in 1980. Bruce was also co-author of Dynamics of Planned Change and co-author and editor of Research Methods in Mass Communications.
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