Study to move to College Hill

REMEMBERING THE REV. CHARLES SHELDON

Place where minister wrote seen as a visitors' center.

By FREDRICK J. JOHNSON

The Capital-Journal

The Rev. Charles Sheldon's much-traveled study apparently is destined to make one final move --- this time toward home.

Sheldon built the study outside his residence, then in the 1600 block of S.W. College, to provide a quiet spot for his writing. It sat there for years after his death in 1946 but was moved to Gage Park in the mid-1960s to make way for construction of University United Methodist Church, 1621 S.W. College. The study was moved in 1986 to Ward-Meade Park, 124 N.W. Fillmore, but forces now are at work to move it back into the College Hill area.

Debra Stufflebean, president of the College Hill Neighborhood Council, said the organization wants to relocate the study to Boswell Square, a park between S.W. 13th and 14th streets from Boswell to Jewell that was created after the old Boswell Junior High School was demolished.

The square already is home to a "Wall of Fame" that bears Sheldon's name, recognizing the author of the renowned book "In His Steps" and originator of the "What Would Jesus Do" phrase as one of six people thus far honored as founders of the College Hill Neighborhood.

Stufflebean said the wall was initiated just two years ago, and Sheldon's name was one of the first placed on it.

The neighborhood council thinks his study would make a nice visitors' center at Boswell Square, and Ward-Meade Park officials are agreeable to letting it go back to College Hill.

The council broached the idea with Anita Wolgast at Ward-Meade Park and learned the park also was considering relocating the old building.

The park, Wolgast said, is developing a turn-of-the-century town square, and the study just isn't a good fit for that theme.

"It was brought to the property before some of the other buildings for the town square were put in," she said. "It is on our tour program, available for tours, and we've taken good care of it. But we were looking at moving it to a more quiet, serene setting. When they approached us, it seemed like a perfect fit."

Stufflebean said the College Hill Neighborhood group still needs to raise enough money to fund the move and secure the building once it is in place.

"It's a case of getting our ducks in order, getting enough donations to do it," she said. "Ward-Meade and College Hill are in agreement it will happen. The time just hasn't been designated yet. This all pretty much just came up last winter."

The study's first moves apparently were made under the guidance of the Altruist Club, a women's group that disbanded shortly after the 1986 move to Ward-Meade.

Mary Muilenburg, the daughter of former club member Dorothy Foster Fuller, remembers her mother and other club members staffing the study when it was open on weekends at Gage Park near the zoo.

Most of the club members were fairly elderly in the 1980s and were no longer able to staff the study as they once had, Muilenburg said. They were concerned about its future and also the fact that the building was in an unsecure area.

When Ward-Meade started collecting buildings, club members thought it would be a good location for the study and worked with city and Ward-Meade officials to make the move in 1986, Muilenburg said.

"Saving the study that way was probably their last project," she said. "That would have been the end of their club."

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