Finding Aid Round Up

We’ve been busy writing finding aids for recent acquisitions and revising finding aids for some materials already in our holdings. You can browse all of our archival holdings on DigitalCommons. See something below that piques your interest or could be useful for your research? Get in touch and let us know what you’re thinking about; we’d love to help!


Glenn L. Wallace Papers, 1930-1970, MS#31 [Revised Finding Aid]
Nephew of Foy E. Wallace, Glenn L. Wallace was born in 1907. He married Leola Duckworth. He was baptized by E.S. Fitzgerald in 1923. He began his preaching career in Abilene, Texas in 1925. Wallace attended Abilene Christian College where he received his B.A. degree. He also attended Friends University in Wichita, Kansas. He worked with churches in Kansas, Texas, and California, eventually moving back to Abilene in 1946 where he began working with the College Church of Christ. He was a regular contributor to Christian Worker, Gospel Advocate, and Firm Foundation. He did a great deal of evangelist work through the years working mostly in the midwest states of Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas and Kansas. He also did a six-month effort in the British Isles establishing and settling works there in progress. This collection contains papers from Glenn L. Wallace. The collection contains information about Herald of Truth, sermons, notes, lessons, articles, manuscripts, notebooks, membership lists, funeral sermons and other papers.

Henry Walker Papers, 1957-1976, MS#33 [Revised Finding Aid]
Henry Alexander Walker was born April 7, 1923 in Hico, Texas, to Floyd Edgar Walker and Effie Luetta Scales. Walker was married to Dorothy Marie Sims (1927-2015) on September 13, 1942, until their divorce in 1955. He later married Bonnie McGhee (1923-2013). Walker served as a minister and preacher in the Churches of Christ. Walker died at age 68 in Abilene, Texas, on December 8, 1991. He is buried in the Johnsonville Cemetery in Johnsonville, Texas. These papers include a collection of studies on baptism and the New Testament church and copies of the San Marcos Sounder.

William Everett Ferguson Papers, 1941-2014, MS#78 [Revised Finding Aid]
The Ferguson papers consists primarily of over 9600 color slides taken by Dr. William Everett Ferguson while on trips to study the antiquities of Europe, Israel, Turkey, Greece and Egypt. He photographed museum artifacts such as coins, sculptures, and portrait busts depicting the art and objects of ancient civilizations and early Christianity. Also included are slides of buildings related to the history of these early civilizations and the beginnings and development of Christianity. Images include those of early Christian churches, basilicas and cathedrals as well as images of modern and ancient cities and archaeological sites in Israel, Turkey, Greece, ancient Rome, and throughout Europe. The objects photographed are from exhibits at the British Museum, the Ashmolean, the Louvre and other prominent museums of Europe and the Mediterranean countries. These slides document both Dr. Ferguson’s travels and his pedagogy because he used them as visual aids to his lectures on ancient world history and religion and the development and art and symbolism of early Christianity through the Middle Ages. The full collection was digitized in 2015 by Simon Summers and is available online at https://digitalcommons.acu.edu/ferguson_photos/.

Jedburgh Abbey – Scotland from So. Apr ’93. Founded 1118. Built 1140-1220. Work on choir began 1140.
From the William Everett Ferguson Papers, Center for Restoration Studies MS#78.

Charles Ready Nichol Papers, 1926-1961, MS#345 [Revised Finding Aid]
Charles Ready Nichol was a Church of Christ minister, debater, and writer. He was born 26 March 1876 near Murfreesboro, Tennessee. He was educated at the Nashville Bible School, Southwest Kentucky College, Vanderbilt University, and Transylvania University. He married Harriet “Hattie” Thompson Helm in 1896. He began preaching in Woodbury, Tennessee in 1891 and continued his work in numerous other places, often holding protracted meetings. He is perhaps best known for his work with R. L. Whiteside in producing the multi-volume series of Sound Doctrine books. These remain in print and were widely used in Bible classes in Churches of Christ. Nichol often wrote for church papers such as Gospel Advocate and Firm Foundation. He wrote 21 books and in 1948 received an honorary doctor’s degree from Abilene Christian College. Nichol died in 1961 and was buried in the Clifton Cemetery in Clifton, Texas. These papers includes notes, charts, newspaper clippings, debate materials, and photographs from Charles Ready Nichol.

Bonnie Deal Packer Papers, 1918-1920, MS#369 [Revised Finding Aid
Bonnie Deal Packer was born March 10, 1900. She was a student at Abilene Christian College (1918-1920), and she married Napolean Clinton Packer on February 25, 1922. She died on August 26, 1988. This collection includes two scrapbooks and photographs from Bonnie Deal Packer’s time as a student at Abilene Christian College (1918-1920).

From the Bonnie Deal Packer Papers, 1918-1920. Center for Restoration Studies MS#369.


Stay tuned for more installments of Finding Aid Round Ups!

Missionary, non-profit, and para-church ministry reports wanted

We actively collect electronic newsletters and monthly reports from missionaries, non-profits, and other ministries across the Restoration Movement. These reports used to come by postal mail (and we file those, too, when we get them) but many are now electronic. If you serve in such a capacity please add us to your mailing list. Simply add missionarchive@acu.edu to your distribution list, and we will archive the messages.

If you send out a print newsletter, we want to receive it.  Send paper copies to:

Special Collections and Archives
ACU Box 29208
Abilene, TX 79699-9208

On the Shelf: New items added to Center for Restoration Studies collections, June 2020

In June our colleagues in Technical Services and Cataloging added 362 items to the Center for Restoration Studies, University Archives, and Rare Books collections.  Among them are books, periodical issues (both bound volumes and many, many boxes of unbound issues), and a few A/V items in various formats, plus about ten hymnals.  Most of the additions this months to ‘unbound periodicals’ are publications by a single congregation, yet the bulletin was intended for wider distribution than the local congregation and contained teaching content rather than strictly news information.  Many items added in June are not only new to us, the work performed on them reflects original cataloging, which is a tremendous contribution to knowledge about information resources from and about the Stone-Campbell Movement.

‘The Late Mrs. John Lawrie’ from Jubilee Pictorial History of Churches of Christ in Australasia, 1903, page 31

Our goal is to build a comprehensive research-level collection of print materials by, for, and about the Stone-Campbell Restoration Movement.  But beyond assembly and preservation, a collection should be discoverable by those who need the information.  Collecting and preserving is only part of our task; those objects must be described and made available.  Thanks to the close and careful work of our colleagues upstairs, who describe our holdings, these materials are now discoverable. By discoverable I mean a patron can utilize our online catalog (such as by searching by author, or title, or subject) to find these materials.

362 new items…cataloged, shelved, and ready for research: Continue reading