Letter from Ruth Kirk and Louis Kirk to Everett Derryberry and Joan Derryberry

Letter written by Ruth Kirk to Tennessee Tech University President Everett Derryberry and First Lady Joan Derryberry about her and her husband's experience attending Tech in the 1940s. Louis Kirk served in the United States Navy during World War II and used benefits from the Servicemen's Readjustment Act of 1944 to attend Tennessee Polytechnic Institute from about 1945 to 1948. The letter includes Ruth's description of living in the veterans' housing at Cottage Grove on campus, using resources from the Department of Home Economics, and their living allowance and cost of rent. The letter is signed in Ruth's handwriting with both Ruth's and Louis's names. On the back of the letter is a collage of family and professional photographs. After Louis's graduation, the couple moved to the West Coast of the United States to work in national parks. Many of the photographs document the couple's professional careers as naturalists, and beginning in 1967, documentary film makers and broadcast programmers. See the third page of the PDF for a transcript of the letter.

The digitized letter and transcript can be accessed online at: https://tntech.access.preservica.com/uncategorized/IO_91775e1a-8d60-4f15-88a7-f74d24fc6221/