Samuel J. Harris ( -1918)

A member of the class of 1919 from Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, Samuel Harris pursued the Classical course, and was a member of Beta Theta Pi. Thereafter information on Harris becomes sparse. It is known that he was gone from the College by May 1917.

Harris joined the U.S. Army as a private, and rose to the rank of sergeant before taking his officer training at Camp Meade, Maryland. He was promoted to first lieutenant and lost his life in the course of the First World War.

College Relationship
Alumnus/Alumna Class Year

Hobart Fabian Irelan ( -1918)

Hobart Irelan was from Atlantic City, New Jersey and enrolled at Dickinson College, in Carlisle, Pennsylvania as a member of the class of 1919. He studied the Philosophical course and participated in an array of campus activities, including the Y.M.C.A., Belles Lettres Literary Society, the Kappa Sigma fraternity, and his class basketball team. A promising musician, he participated in the Glee Club and the College Band. He left his studies at the end of the 1917-1918 academic year to enlist in the military.

Irelan served as a corporal in the Chemical Warfare Service and died on October 18, 1918.

College Relationship
Alumnus/Alumna Class Year

Esther Popel Shaw (1896-1958)

Esther Popel was born on July 16, 1896 to Joseph Gibbs and Helen King Anderson Popel of Harrisburg, PA. Esther had an older sister, Helen, and a younger brother, Samuel. The 1900 census indicates that her father was a letter carrier and the family lived at 703 State St. According to Esther’s memories, there had been Popels in Harrisburg since 1826 when her paternal grandfather and his free-born parents settled there.

Esther graduated from Central High School in Harrisburg in 1915 and enrolled at Dickinson the following fall. She was the first African American woman to enroll at the college. Esther commuted to campus daily, as Dickinson did not permit African Americans to live on campus at the time. Esther elected to pursue the Latin Scientific curriculum, which emphasized modern languages. She studied French, German, Latin, and Spanish. While at Dickinson, Esther received the 1919 John Patton Memorial Prize, an academic award granted annually to one student from each class.

Esther graduated from Dickinson in 1919. Her academic achievements earned her the distinction of being initiated into the national academic honor society Phi Beta Kappa.

College Relationship
Alumnus/Alumna Class Year
Honorary Degree - Year
2012

Frank Oliver Shauck (?-1918)

A member of the class of 1919 at Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, studying the Latin-Scientific course, Frank Shauck was from New Freedom, Pennsylvania. He was a member of Belles Lettres Literary Society and was active in the Dickinson Y.M.C.A.

Enlisting sometime during the middle of 1918, Shauck entered the Army Chemical Warfare Service and died in Washington, D.C. on October 12, 1918.

College Relationship
Alumnus/Alumna Class Year

Kenneth Lewars Steck (1897-1918)

Kenneth Steck was born in York, Pennsylvania, but grew up in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. He was the son of Dr. and Mrs. A. R. Steck. He attended York Collegiate Institute and the Dickinson Preparatory School before pursuing the Philosophical course at his hometown college as a member of the class of 1919. While at the College he was a member of Phi Kappa Sigma fraternity.

Steck withdrew in the spring of 1917 to join the army and was assigned to the Engineering Corps. He died of pneumonia on April 24, 1918 at his army camp near Anniston, Alabama. He was twenty-five years old and then a corporal. Steck was the first Dickinsonian and the first man from Carlisle to die in the First World War. His death was announced in the Dickinsonian on May 2, 1918. His name is featured on the First World War memorial on the square in Carlisle.

College Relationship
Alumnus/Alumna Class Year