Between the Lines

Dr. Samuel McCulloch
Photo c/o UCI Libraries

Dr. Samuel Clyde McCulloch, founding dean of the School of Humanities at UC Irvine and professor emeritus of history, died on May 13. He was 96.

An authority on the British Empire, McCulloch earned his Ph.D. in history at UCLA and served as Dean of the College at San Francisco State College (now San Francisco State University) before joining UCI in 1963.

Early on McCulloch recognized the importance of documenting the history of the campus. He became the unofficial campus historian, collecting clippings, memos, records, stories, letters and conducting oral history interviews with key campus figures including Chancellors Daniel Aldrich and Jack Peltason, Nobel Laureates Sherwood Rowland and Frederick Reines, and president of the Irvine Company, Ray Watson.

His full-time career at Irvine spanned twenty-seven years, but he remained active in research for more than a decade after his retirement in 1987. Upon retirement, he became Professor Emeritus of History and was officially designated “UCI Historian” by then-Chancellor Jack Peltason.

Using his extensive collection of historical material and interviews with more than 100 prominent members of the UCI campus, in 1996 he published Instant University, a history of the UCI campus from 1957 to 1993.

Instant University was the first published comprehensive history of UC Irvine. It provided insight into the acquisition of the campus site from the Irvine Company, the struggles with the state legislature over incorporation of the medical school and the difficulties of dealing with a declining economy. McCulloch tells UCI’s story not only as a historian, but as a participant and observer of these events.

Sam McCulloch’s influence can be felt even today. As dean, he laid the foundation for humanities by recruiting and retaining world-class faculty. He chaired the Academic Senate from 1978 to 1980 and served as president of the Friends of the Library. Each year the School of Humanities presents the Samuel C. and Sara Ellen McCulloch Undergraduate Award to an outstanding history undergraduate chosen for their academic performance.

In 2009, McCulloch donated his papers to UCI Special Collections and Archives. These include correspondence, research notes, clippings, and bibliographies.  Numerous interviews from the Samuel McCulloch Oral Histories are available at the Online Archive of UCI History.

He was a constant fixture at campus events well into his nineties, keeping tabs on UCI’s progress and forming bonds of friendship with subsequent Humanities deans. He and his wife Sally were regulars at the University Club, where the library bears his name.

He served as moderator of the University Club Forum, a weekly luncheon and lecture series featuring the latest research from UCI faculty, from 1981 to 2008.

“Dad loved UCI and all the people there,” says son, David McCulloch. “He put his heart and soul into the University. Going to Basketball was a must since 1965. Performances at the Barclay and most of all, knowing his students. He was a teacher first. They will tell you that.”

McCulloch is survived by his wife, Sara Ellen (Sally) McCulloch; children Ellen, David and Malcolm; five grandchildren and seven great-grandchildren.

A memorial service will be held on Saturday, May 25th at 1:00p.m. at Saint Michael & All Angels Episcopal Parish Church, 3233 Pacific View Drive, Corona del Mar, CA 92625.  If you would like to attend the service, please RSVP to David McCulloch at david.mcculloch@camoves.com or (949) 283-9199.

Peggy Hesketh is the author of “Telling the Bees.” (Christopher Griffiths/Christopher Todd Studio / March 20, 2013)

The Los Angeles Times examines Telling the Bees, the first novel by English professor Peggy Hesketh.

Peggy Hesketh is no stranger to facing her fears. For her debut novel, “Telling the Bees” (Putnam, $27), Hesketh comprehensively researched and observed the world of beehives and bees—an insect to which she is highly allergic. It is this same drive to face her fears that had Hesketh on the phone with us for an interview — an activity, she confesses, that’s extremely difficult for her.

“Telling the Bees” revolves around Albert Honig, an elderly bachelor beekeeper who lived a painfully reserved past and continues to live a solitary present-day existence. His bees are the closest thing Albert has to a real companion. When his estranged childhood friend and neighbor, Claire, and her sister, are murdered in a botched home burglary, Albert feels compelled to piece together the events of their lives in an attempt to make sense of their shared past. Albert discovers the dark secrets of Claire’s past as well as the mystery behind her murder.

A longtime journalist, Hesketh currently teaches writing and rhetoric at UC Irvine. She will be doing a book event April 20 at the Barnes and Noble in Fullerton.

How do you feel your career as a journalist influenced your work as a novelist?

It taught me to write every day, rewrite two revisions…. It disabused me of the romanticism of being a writer and taught me the craft of it.

What was it like to write in the voice of a male protagonist?

It was easy—I’m a tomboy anyway. I’m a sports geek—if you see me in a dress once every two or three years, you’re lucky. Well, maybe not so lucky.

So, I got the male down. For the elderly, I found this lovely beekeeping handbook written by an elderly beekeeper and the voice was just so charming that it seduced me and I started trying to imitate his voice. Once I did that, the character emerged. I lived with my grandfather when I was a young child and we lived on a farm, we raised our own vegetables, we sold fruits and vegetables off of what we made. So I kind of knew the elderly, taciturn mindset of someone. I was very close to him—he taught me to read, he taught me to write, he taught me my multiplication tables. My protagonist doesn’t speak like my grandfather did but the character becomes a conglomeration of experience and voice and all of that. Once I found his voice, it was hard to get out of it.

Albert is a very distinct character—he has a reserved past, a solitary present, he has an easier time connecting with his bees than with humans. What was the inspiration behind this character and in what ways do you feel like you can relate to him?

I think as a writer, I’m much more of an observer than the average Joe. I’m really active in things but I have a hard time interacting with people. This is really tough for me, doing interviews and speaking with people. So I kind of get that part of him.

But again, as I go back to my grandfather who was this terribly reclusive person who, many years later, I found out had this whole other life. But at the time that I knew him, he just puttered in his garden and was just this quiet person who just connected with the Earth and the seasons. This character became painfully real to me in a very sad way.

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President Nixon first released edited transcripts of White House tapes during the Watergate investigation. (Associated Press / April 29, 1974)

The Nixon Presidential Library and Museum opened a new exhibit in Yorba Linda and online Feb. 15, “Patriot, President, Peacemaker.” It covers Richard Nixon‘s entire life, like the permanent installation there, and claims to present “a fuller picture” than ever before.

But there’s a gap, reminiscent of the 18 1/2-minute gap in the famous White House tapes. On one panel, it’s October 1973 and the Yom Kippur War is underway. Nixon is telling Henry Kissinger, “Whatever it takes, save Israel.” On the next panel, it’s Aug. 9, 1974, and Nixon is landing in Orange County, telling a crowd that he promises “to continue to fight at home and abroad for the great causes of peace, freedom and opportunity.” We go from “Peacemaker in his Time” to “Life after the White House.”

What’s missing is Watergate.

Forty years after Watergate, you might think the Nixon Library would have accepted its place in American history. You certainly would think the National Archives had; it operates the presidential libraries. But the new exhibit in Yorba Linda shows that the Nixon people are still working on a coverup. And the National Archives is not stopping them.

Defenders of “Patriot, President, Peacemaker” say the Watergate story is already told in the museum’s permanent galleries, in an exhibit that went up in 2011. That’s true, but the permanent galleries also cover most of the rest of what’s in the “fuller picture.” Now, in one part of the museum, visitors find the Watergate story told completely and fairly; in another, it’s all but nonexistent. This is something special in the world of presidential libraries: a museum at war with itself.

The new exhibit is symptomatic of a deeper malaise at the library. After installing the 2011 Watergate exhibit to widespread acclaim, the library’s director, Timothy Naftali, resigned. He has not been replaced. And the final release of the Nixon White House tapes, which was scheduled for December, has been delayed for nearly a year. What is going on in Yorba Linda? And what is going on at the National Archives in Washington?

“Patriot, President, Peacemaker” is framed as part of an ongoing celebration of Nixon’s centennial. Along with a virtual version, engagingly designed for tablets, it addresses Watergate purely as an aside. Under the “Life after the White House” heading, there’s a photo “Leaving on Marine One,” with a two-sentence caption: “On Aug. 9, 1974, Richard Nixon resigned the presidency rather than continue the political battle over the Watergate scandal, which was leading to a vote on impeachment in the House of Representatives.”

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