Cenie Myrtle Seyster Straw

(August 2, 1894 – fl. 1970)

“Class baby” of 1894

"It takes a village to raise a child."

African Proverb

. . . but in 1894, it took the women of Eureka College's graduating class to name a child.

We have all heard the expression "Eureka College is like a family," but today's story is one that puts a different spin on this concept. In addition, it challenges us all to recognize the multiple levels of relationship that connect us all as an extended college family.

Eureka alumnus David Franklin Seyster (Class of 1894) married Emma Wolf in 1885, several years before coming to Eureka College to pursue his studies in hopes of becoming a minister. David’s fellow students accepted Emma as one of their own, and the bonds of sisterhood were extended to her by the women of the Class of 1894: Cenie Allison, Myrtle Lee, Mabel Claire Maxwell, Olive M. Reynolds, and Maude Wodetsky.

At the members of the Class of 1894 approached the date of graduation, so too did Emma approach the birth of her second child. By mutual agreement, the members of the Class of 1894 decided that Emma’s child would be named in honor of the class. When a girl was born, five names were placed into a hat—Cenie, Myrtle, Mabel, Olive, and Maude—and two of these were randomly selected to create the baby’s name. It was in this fashion that Cenie Myrtle Seyster came to be known.

This story is a classic example of the social sensibilities and personal affections of the late-Victorian era. The member of the Class of 1894 formed a unique community—a commonwealth of learners—that remained intact throughout their individual lives beyond Eureka College. Besides the group effort that was taken to name the "class child" in 1894, these students also made a pledge at the time of their graduation to remain in contact with one another throughout the years following their matriculation at Eureka College. It was a promise that would be kept for seven decades.

The seventeen graduating seniors decided on June 21, 1894, to create an annual chain letter that would keep members of the class connected with each other until the Class of 1894 ceased to exist. A routing scheme was created to make sure that this practice would continue through the years. The students agreed that when they received a letter from a fellow member of the class that they would add an additional letter to the packet and send it along to the next (alphabetical) member of the class. In this way, each year classmates would receive a packet containing seventeen letters. Once they had read them all, they would add their new letter and send the package along again to make its rounds. For the first few years, the students even used the same brown envelope to contain the packet, and as a result, it bore postage marks from around the world.

The practice seemed to go on without a hitch, though in 1900 its delivery was delayed a bit because the mails in China were halted because of the Boxer Rebellion. Still, the package got through. In the decades that followed members of the Class of 1894 wrote of marriages, the birth of their children, and their professional accomplishments. (They likely followed Cenie Myrtle’s growth and experiences.) They also provided commentary upon the Great Depression, two world wars, and the personal tragedies that each member of the class experienced. Though their world was changing as the twentieth century redefined the meaning of modernity, members of the Class of 1894 were rooted in the bonds of friendship and love that had formed "neath the elms" in a much earlier time. In 1963, the second-to-last member of the Class of 1894 died. The final member of the class died in 1964.

By the way, this unique story has one additional twist that tells us much about the Eureka College extended family—a surprise that demonstrates how place and time sometimes melt away as things just seem to happen. On June 21, 1922, exactly twenty-eight years from the date of his graduation from Eureka College in 1894, Rev. David Franklin Seyster baptized an eleven-year-old youth named Ronald Wilson Reagan at the First Christian Church in Dixon, Illinois.

ADDENDUM

I'm not meaning to SPAM your mailboxes today, but a few additional facts have surfaced that tell more of the story of the 1894 "class baby" and may actually provide new insight into Reagan historiography. (Historians just love this stuff!)

It seems that baby Cenie Myrtle Seyster grew up in Dixon, Illinois, where she graduated from Dixon High School in 1912. (She had been active in theater in high school.) A few years later she married and became Cenie S. Straw.

Cenie Straw was a next-door neighbor of the Reagans when they lived in Dixon and she became a close personal friend of Nelle Wilson Reagan. Both women shared an interest in theater and attended the same church in Dixon.

Cenie's son Robert Straw attended Eureka College in 1938 and her niece, Ruth E. Straw, graduated from Eureka College (Class of 1945).

Cenie S. Straw was still alive in March 1970 when she had a letter to the editor published in World Call, the international publication of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ).

It is quite possible that Ronald Reagan learned of Eureka College from his early years in Dixon. This may change the story that he only learned of the school when his girlfriend decided to attend Eureka College in 1928.