Paul Herbert Doney (1900-1941)

Paul Herbert Doney was born in Columbus, Ohio on July 10, 1900. His father was the head of Willamette University, from which Paul graduated in 1920. He took a second A.B. degree from Wesleyan University in Connecticut and then gained a S.T.B. degree from the Boston University School of Theology in 1925. Preferring literature to the church, he then earned a M.A. in English at Harvard University in 1928.

Doney joined the Dickinson faculty in 1928 as an associate professor of English Literature. In 1929 he succeeded the late Bradford Oliver McIntire as the Thomas Beaver Professor of English Literature. He retained his interest in the Methodist Church, serving on the board of the Allison Memorial Methodist Church and as president of the Carlisle Rotary.

On August 9, 1941, while vacationing at the summer home of good friend George R. Stephens at Fenwick's Island, near Ocean City, Maryland, Paul Doney died of a heart attack after swimming into the surf to rescue his nine-year old son. He was survived by his wife and three children.

His wife Lucy Holt Doney began work in the Bosler Library in 1943, taking particular interest in the English Research Room, which was maintained as a memorial to her late husband. At the time of her death in July 1958, she was the assistant librarian, with the rank of associate professor.