Lydia Gooding was born on December 27, 1890, the second daughter of William Lambert Gooding, Dickinson class of 1874, and Kathleen Moore Gooding, a native of Wyoming, Delaware. Lydia graduated from Dickinson College in 1910, her father having been employed there as professor of philosophy and education since 1898.

Lydia’s first job after graduation was with the Princeton University Library from 1913 to 1917. She then returned to her alma mater, working as a librarian at Dickinson College from 1918 to 1926. Lydia then pursued her master’s degree at the School of Library Sciences at Columbia University, taking three years to complete the degree while teaching part-time at Columbia. Throughout her career, she worked in academic libraries at Emory University, Syracuse University, Columbia University, and Mt. Holyoke College. She also held various positions at Brown University, spending the last three years of her professional career as head of rare books and manuscripts.

Lydia Gooding embarked on a long retirement, starting with “a two year fling in New York City,” (as she described it in a letter to the Mary Dickinson Club in 1972), three years in Carlisle, and the remainder at a retirement home in Delaware until her death on November 1, 1982.

James Gooding entered Dickinson in 1911 as a member of the class of 1915, but he withdrew in 1913. In the First World War, he enlisted in the U.S. Navy and died at Cape May, New Jersey.

Hyman Goldstein was born on April 14, 1891 to Russian immigrant merchant Abraham B. Goldstein and Rebecca Berge in the coal mining town of Portage, Pennsylvania. He prepared at Conway Hall and entered Dickinson College with the class of 1915. He moved on to the Law Department and graduated with a law degree in 1917. While there he became a member of Iota chapter of Phi Epsilon Pi, then hosted at the Law School.

His sporting prowess gained him much of his out of class fame, however. He was a three year letterman catcher with the baseball team and a fine enough player to play semi-professional baseball in the Philadelphia Phillies organization. His true excellence was on the football field. He was four years quarterback of the varsity and captain in 1913. He played also while in the Law Department, starring in the 1917 team which had an unbeaten season brought to a premature end by the United States entry into the First World War. "Goldie" was much admired by both team mates and opponents, which included Jim Thorpe and his legendary coach Glen "Pop" Warner, both of whom termed him the cleverest quarterback they had ever faced.

Otis Gibson was born in Moira, New York in 1825. In September 1850, he entered Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania with the class of 1854. A big man, while at the College he was elected to the Belles Lettres Society and fell under the influence of Professor Erastus Wentworth, a devout Methodist and chair of Natural Philosophy. Following his graduation with his class in July 1854 he determined to accompany Wentworth on the mission to China he was leading. Gibson, after preaching in Carlisle for the last time two weeks before, sailed for Foochow in China on April 3, 1855.

John Gibson was born on November 8, 1780 at what is now Gibson’s Mill, in the Shearman’s Valley of Perry County, Pennsylvania. His father, Colonel George Gibson, was one of the 637 killed at the defeat of Major General Arthur St. Clair on the Wabash in Indiana at the hands of the Miami Indians on November 4, 1791. His widow, Anne West Gibson, was left to farm and care for their young children, of whom John was the youngest. John Gibson entered Dickinson Grammar School in Carlisle, Pennsylvania in 1795, and joined the College proper with the Class of 1798. Before he graduated, however, he left to study law under Judge Thomas Duncan in Carlisle and was admitted to the Bar of Cumberland County on March 8, 1803.

Gibson practiced law briefly in Carlisle, before moving first to Beaver, Pennsylvania and then to Hagerstown, Maryland. After a few unsatisfactory years in Maryland, he returned to his house on East High Street in Carlisle and remained a residsent for the rest of his life, and resumed his law practice. In 1810 he was elected to the Pennsylvania House of Representatives, serving two terms. On July 16, 1813, he was appointed president judge of the 11th Judicial District. For the next three years, Gibson worked in the Court of Common Pleas of Tioga, Bradford, Susquehanna, and Luzerne Counties.

Alexander Severus Gibbons was born in Harrisonburg, Virginia on September 9, 1822, the sixth child of twelve and third son born to John and Jane Elizabeth Keffer Gibbons. Known to his family and friends as "Sandy," he attended the Dickinson Grammar School in Carlisle, Pennsylvania before enrolling in Dickinson College proper in 1842 with the class of 1846. While at the College he was a solid student and was elected as a member of Union Philosophical Society. He graduated with his class in 1846 and went on to medical school at the University of Maryland, receiving his degree in 1849. He had been developing his faith since college days, however, and soon after completing his medical studies became a minister in the Baltimore Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church.

Birth: May 13, 1834; Frederick County, Maryland

Death: May 12, 1909 (age 74); Waxahachie, Texas

Military Service: CSA, 1861-65

Unit: Company E, 12th Texas Cavalry

Alma Mater: Dickinson College, B.A. (Class of 1858); M.A. (Class of 1870)

William H. Getzendaner was born of Swiss parents, Abram and Mary E. Getzendaner, in Frederick County, Maryland on May 13, 1834. He prepared for his undergraduate work at the nearby Frederick Academy, then entered Dickinson College. Getzendaner enrolled at Dickinson in 1855 with the class of 1858. He was elected to the Union Philosophical Society and became a member of the Phi Kappa Sigma fraternity. Getzendaner graduated with his class and returned to Frederick to continue the law studies he had begun in his final undergraduate year. Soon after this, he went south and west to Texas.

Elbridge H. Gerry was born in York County, Pennsylvania in the borough of Shrewsbury on October 18, 1836 to James and Salome Hoffman Gerry. His father was prominent Methodist and Democrat in the area and three years after his son was born served two term in the United States Congress. Elbridge attended the local public school and the Shrewsbury Academy and then, in 1858, entered Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania with the class of 1861. While at the College he was elected to the Belles Lettres Society and became a member of Sigma Chi. He was graduated with his class and took up school teaching. After three years, he followed his father's path to the University of Maryland Medical School and graduated in 1867.

He joined the family practice in Shrewsbury under his father until the older Doctor Gerry's retirement in 1870 and then with his brother James, who also attended Dickinson, until 1888. From then he ran the practice alone and built a lucrative and large network of patients in the county. He was also very active in civic affairs and local politics. He was like his father a Democrat and was a regular delegate to county and state party conventions and served in the borough council. He also was a director of the Shrewsbury Savings Institution. He continued family tradition in the Methodist Church, too, and was lay delegate and sunday school superintendent.

William Wood Gerhard was born on July 23, 1809 to a Moravian Brethren hatter and his wife in Philadelphia. William, the eldest child, was educated at home and in local schools; as a voracious reader he was able to enter Dickinson College with the class of 1826 at the age of seventeen. While at the College, both he and his brother Benjamin were active members of the Union Philosophical Society. He returned to Philadelphia to study medicine under the well known Joseph Parrish and at the University of Pennsylvania Medical School where he was awarded a medical degree in 1830. Both before and after his degree was awarded, he served a residency in the Philadelphia Almshouse and made observations on communicable diseases. When the opportunity arose for him to study in Paris in spring 1831, thanks to an influential professor at Penn, Dr. Samuel Jackson, he was drawn to the teachings of Pierre-Charles-Alexander Louis, the founder of medical statistics for which careful observation, recording and analysis of cases were paramount.

Charles H. Gere was born near Gainesville in Wyoming County, New York on February 18, 1838. He was the son of Horatio Nelson and Julia Delay Grant Gere. Charles Gere was educated at public schools and at the Oxford Academy, in Oxford, New York. Although his family had already left the East to settle on the western plains, he entered Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania in 1859. He was elected to the Union Philosophical Society and the Phi Kappa Psi fraternity while there and graduated with his class in 1861.

Gere taught school for a time in Pennsylvania and in Baltimore, Maryland. He enlisted on June 22, 1863 in Company B of the six-months Tenth Maryland Volunteer Infantry, which served largely in guarding communications around Harper's Ferry, West Virginia. When this unit mustered out in January 1864, he enlisted in the hundred-day emergency Eleventh Maryland Infantry and saw action at the Battle of Monocracy. When the Eleventh was converted to a one-year unit, Gere served to the end of the war, guarding railways, and was mustered out on June 15, 1865.