A library exhibit and stories passed down during the years reveal the life of Eastern alumnus Burl Ives.

“He’s probably one of Eastern’s most well-known (alumni),” said Bob Hillman, general-operations for Booth Library.

Although Ives never graduated from Eastern, he received an Honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters degree in 1985.

Few stories about Ives and Eastern prove to be accurate, said Dan Thornburgh, professor emeritus and founding chair of the Journalism Department.

Thornburgh was a close friend of Ives and his wife, Dorothy. He heard firsthand from Ives what was fact and what was fiction about his life.

He has stories to share, and the Booth Library helps to tell those stories through images and artifacts from Ives’ life before, during and after Eastern.

Hillman, David Bell and Carl Lorber are the curators of the exhibit, which complimented the Ives exhibit at the Tarble Arts Center and the Embarrass Valley Film Festival that focused on Ives’ dedication to singing and acting in movies and television.

The exhibit can be seen until the end of October.

As an Eastern Student

Ives enrolled at Eastern in 1927 to become a history teacher and left three years later in 1930.

Some speculate that Ives was forced to leave the school because of his grades while others say he left voluntarily.

Thornburgh said Livingston Lord, the president of Eastern at the time, brought Ives into his office and told “the 20-year-old Ives that he had, too, restless a spirit” and was “not cut out to be a classroom history teacher.”

Lord dismissed him from Eastern and, because education was important to his parents, Ives did not go home but instead hitchhiked to Terra Haute, Ind.

“He went back to his room at the fraternity house, packed a bag, picked up his guitar and headed east on what is now Illinois 16,” Thornburgh said.

Although Ives spent three years on campus, he was involved in many organizations and was always seen on the football field.

“He contributed a lot to the school as a student even though academically he wasn’t very good,” Hillman said.

Football was in Ives’ blood, and besides a history teacher he wanted to be a coach. A picture of Ives with the football team is in the exhibit.

“His face is really recognizable,” Hillman said of the picture, comparing it to Ives throughout the years.

Ives, who was 6-foot-2-inches tall and 200 pounds in high school, was always a large man, and his strength contributed to his success on the field.

“He got his ability and strength lifting and things because he helped his father build grave sites,” Thornburgh said.

Before Ives’ father, Frank, built graves and bridges, he was a farmer.

A size-51 belt is on display in Booth to illustrate just how large Ives was.

“I thought that was interesting,” Hillman said of the find.

The large man was on the football team all three years of his college career. He played tackle and had a starting position.

During Ives’ sophomore year, the team had seven wins, no losses and one tie. Ives’ freshman and sophomore years were considered his best on the team.

“By the third year ‘the drinking and strumming that guitar had gotten the better of him’ Lantz (the coach) recalled,” Thornburgh said.

It was clear that Ives had an interest in music, and as a freshman he joined the college quartet as second tenor. He was in the organization for two years.

A picture of Ives with the quartet appears in the library. The group would often perform at the daily morning chapel, which students and faculty had to attend.

Years after he left Eastern, Ives continued to remember the school’s alma mater, and, in 1985, he sang it in his dressing room while waiting for a show.

“Following a concert in October 1985, 56 years later at the University of Illinois in his dressing room, Ives broke out into song with all three verses and the refrain of Eastern’s alma mater,” Thornburgh said.

Like the story of Ives’ departure, stories of his working as a busboy in Pemberton Hall had their fair share of falsities.

Some people have said Ives would stay in the all-women residence hall after hours, but Thornburgh said that the story is untrue, and Ives denied it.

“There is no record of any discipline for such an infraction of the rules,” Thornburgh said.

Although Ives was well involved on campus, his time at Eastern was not his best.

Ives did not like some of his teachers at Eastern, and he did not like the idea of teaching, Thornburgh said. Ives later appreciated Lord dismissing him.

Thornburgh recalled Ives saying once, “Mr. Lord meant a lot to me, he sent me on my way when I needed.”

“Burl Ives understood what Lord was saying to him (when dismissed),” Thornburgh said.

In 1985, Ives, his wife and Thornburgh were visiting President Stanley Rives, and as they were walking out of Old Main, Ives asked to visit Lord’s grave.

Thornburgh, who was unsure of the exact location, said to himself, “Oh, Boy.”

Much like today, flowers frame Old Main, and Ives asked for permission to pick a red peony to take to the gravesite.

Dorothy and Thornburgh let Ives walk to the grave alone so that he could properly pay his respects.

“I know for five minutes, but it could have been 10, he stood there,” Thornburgh said.

As a singer

Because Lord dismissed Ives from Eastern, he was able to start his professional singing career

However, Ives started performing at a young age even before he made records.

He first sang publicly with his siblings when he was four years old, Hillman said.

Thornburgh said Ives performed at a Sunday church picnic singing along to the hymn “Forty Years Ago.”

A picture of his family is propped up in the display cases with a notable grandma near his side.

“His grandma was a really big influence on him because she knew folk songs,” Hillman said.

Folk music was where Ives got his start in music, and, for Bell, learning about his music was a perk in putting the exhibit together.

“I didn’t know much about his folk music,” he said.

Bell said that after listening to his music he realized what an accomplished man Ives was.

“He was really a pioneer of American folk music,” he said.

Visitors to the exhibit can hear samples of Ives’ music by listening to the iPod on display.

“You can just put on the headphones and hear what he sounded like,” Hillman said.

Many of Ives’ records are on display, including some of his Christmas albums.

They are available to be checked out in the library, and Hillman said that many have been re-released.

His role as “Sam,” the singing snowman in “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer,” is one of Ives’ best-known characters.

“Most people think of him singing Christmas songs,” Thornburgh said.

Ives’ Christmas songs still remain popular today.

His song “Holly Jolly Christmas” was the No. 1 holiday song in the nation in 2004.

Ives was not just Christmas and folk when it came to music; he was also a little bit country.

In 1962 at the Fifth Annual Grammy Awards, Ives won “Best Country and Western Recording” for his record “Funny Way of Laughin’.”

A guitar of Ives’ is featured in the exhibit illustrating that music was a part of his life as well as pictures of him performing at Eastern years after he left are on display.

Ives returned to Eastern in 1946, 1976, 1985, 1986 and 1991.

“Ives with his musical talent, he was able to get people realized,” Thornburgh said.

The 1991 concert was part of the dedication of the Burl Ives Art Studio Hall located on Ninth Street.

“It’s actually a multi-studio for grad students,” Thornburgh said.

A picture of Ives leaving the studio appears in the Booth exhibit.

As a film and television star

Ives appeared in 32 films in his lifetime. Of those movies, Ives is most known for two films he did in 1958: “The Big Country” and “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.”

It was “The Big Country” that landed Ives with an Academy Award for best supporting actor.

A picture of Ives receiving his Oscar is on display, and Hillman hopes to showcase more photos from the Academy.

Actual photos from the Academy Awards in which Ives is receiving his award and photos of his movies should be put up soon, Hillman said.

Although acting was in his blood, Ives could not get a role in the plays at Eastern.

While Ives was at school, the English Department ran the theater program and because of his grades Ives never was a star in an Eastern production.

“He never got a role at Eastern because he never made an A in English,” Thornburgh said.

Both of Ives’ 1958 films appeared in the film festival as well as “Desire Under the Elms” and “East of Eden.”

Ives’ movies can be checked out at the library, and many appear in display boxes.

A jacket from the made for TV movie “Rocket to the Moon” is on display along with a jacket from the television show “The Bold Ones” in which he appeared.

Ives wore a hairpiece on the show, and the Ives family donated it to Eastern.

A director’s chair and jacket that actors Roy Clark and Mel Tillis presented to Ives for their collaboration on the movie “Uphill All the Way” appears in the exhibit. The chair is one of Bell’s favorite pieces in the exhibit.

“It was really very interesting being able to handle them and work with them,” he said of the Ives collection.

As a friend

Thornburgh remembers Ives as a kind-hearted man who always cared about what people thought.

“He was very easy to talk to,” Thornburgh said. “He did not have a pretense about him whatsoever.”

When Ives returned to Eastern in 1984, he was asked to make a tape for the radio station, and he insisted that Thornburgh helped.

While taping, Ives asked for Thornburgh’s advice and opinion on the tape.

He always wanted to know what the common individual thought and insisted on making sure things were right, Thornburgh said.

Thornburgh said getting to know Ives and his wife was one of the great things at Eastern for him.

Ives died April 14, 1995, in Washington state. He was cremated and brought back to Illinois to be buried in a graveyard in Hunt City.

There, an 8-foot headstone towers over the others with coins at the bottom.

“No one’s disturbing it,” Thornburgh said.

Two traditions that have formed in recent years are to leave change at the bottom of the stone and to rub your fingers on his face.

“I thought it would be a problem,” Thornburgh said about people’s oils on the headstone.

However, Thornburgh was told that the oils will actually help preserve the etching.

Hillman took a picture of Ives’ headstone, and it appears in Booth.

The Booth Library has displays of Eastern alumn Burl Ives’ memorabilia set up near the north and south entrances. Eric Hiltner/The Daily Eastern News

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