Draper Talman Schoonover

     In contrast to Edna Walker, who was a child of English immigrants, only Edgar Burkhardt’s grandfather was an immigrant. On the other hand, Benjamin (van) Schnoover, Edgar’s great-great grandfather, served in the American Revolution as a captain. The New York native, contrary to family lore, was not a Hessian. And neither were the Burkhardts as they didn’t make it to the US until the second decade of the 1800s. 

EA, Draper Schooover and Delphia Schoonover Burkhardt in 1929.

   Edgar’s mother, Philadelphia, known as Delphia, was born in then Virginia in 1862 as was her 10 years younger brother, Draper Talman. By the 1880’s the family had settled in Fairfax in Osage County, Kansas. At the same time the Burkhardts had moved from Illinois to Fairfax. Both families farmed in Osage County, but Draper took a different route and graduated from Washburn University in 1899. 

Draper Honored by Washburn in 1929

By 1907 Draper joined Marietta College in Marietta OH as an associate professor, eventually becoming a professor of Latin. In 1929 Washburn bestowed an honorary degree of doctor of humanitarian letters on Draper. During his long tenure at Marietta he served in many capacities, as registrar and Dean of Academics. While Dean of Academics he chastised students about entering establishments where intoxicating drinks were are sold. They could face expulsion. He also served twice as interim president with his longest stint coming during World War II. According to a history of Marietta College, One of the great team players in MC history, Schoonover acceded and did his best to manage the place through most of the rest of the war.


Draper Schoonover at Marietta College

Mary Grace was known to say  that Edna, a college educated woman, often felt that her mother-in-law, Delphia, thought Edna put on airs because she had gone to college. Even though her own brother, Draper, had been instrumental in getting Edgar his education, his degree from Washburn. Draper, Edgar's uncle, had urged him first to attend Washburn Rural High School and then continue on to get his degree from Washburn in 1912.

One last word about Draper, he apparently was quite the woodworker as this September 2010 article describes:

"Students, a retired college president, a professor and a maintenance man recently converted to electricity a 96-year-old, wooden-geared clock. The clock is housed in a tower on the campus of Marietta College, Marietta, Ohio. Draper T. Schoonover, the retired president of the college, suggested the electrification. He had often cut new wooden gears for the ancient clock in his workshop. He and one of the professors made new cogs for the gears behind each of the four faces. One of the maintenance men cut new hands from plywood and students installed them with collars made from a used automobile engine-head. A special striking mechanism driven by a one-fourth horsepower electric motor was installed. Students wired the clock and once more it tolled out the time, this time driven by an electric motor."

Draper Schoonover Woodworker

I seem to have some font/format problems, but I hope you can still read it.