• Grand lady of Wittenberg remembered
• Into the Woods

Grand lady of Wittenberg remembered

Dorothy Agler Edwards, ’32, a grand lady of Wittenberg, died Jan. 1, 1999 in Mercy Medical Center in Springfield. She was 88.

Her husband, William Miller Edwards, ’31, a College Football Hall of Fame coach and athletic director at Wittenberg, died June 12, 1987 also at Mercy Medical Center. They returned to campus in 1955 when Bill was named to the two positions.

The couple is survived by two daughters, Jane Edwards Hauser of Chapel Hill, N.C. and Mary Edwards Crabill of Key Biscayne, Fla., and one son, William Agler Edwards of Cleveland.

Survivors also include nine grandchildren and five great-grandchildren. One grandson, William D. Edwards, is a 1989 Wittenberg graduate who played football for the Tigers.

Two other grandchildren, Karen A. Edwards and John B. Crabill, also attended Wittenberg.The big, tough Wittenberg All-America football player happened by Recitation Hall during September registration in 1928 and was smitten by a pretty freshman woman standing in line.

He grabbed a clipboard and, in a very official manner, began going down the line asking students for information as though he were part of the process of starting school.

When he got to Dorothy Agler, a new student from Wilmot, Ohio, he paused much longer than he had with others. He took down her name, where she was from, what she liked to do outside class, where she was going to live on campus and what subjects she was going to take.

Bill Edwards’ charade helped him get his first date with Dorothy. At first, she didn’t know what to make of this rough football player who was pursuing her. She began to attend games to see him play, and in 1931 they were married in St. Mark’s Lutheran Church in Covington, Ky.

Dorothy had no trouble adjusting to a sports-oriented life. To match Bill’s love of athletics, she offered a love of literature, music and the arts. Bill’s life was enriched, as he pointed out, “far beyond what it would have been if she had been athletically inclined.”

Dorothy learned to love college football. She never bought a game program, making it a point of pride to know all the players on Bill’s teams. Dorothy and Bill were “quite opposite in nature,” as Bill once said.

“She learned enough football to know the difference between a touchdown and a touchback,” he said. “I, on the other hand, learned to enjoy some of the poetry she read to me.”

The charm and serenity that surrounded the Edwards family were attributable to Dorothy. Bill often said that while he was the boss on the football field, she set the standards in the home, and he saw to it that they were kept.

“She was a sweet, gentle lady who, with a very loving hand, kept that big, bluff football coach in hand,” said F. Kenneth (Ken) Dickerson, ’51, retired director of alumni affairs at Wittenberg.

The Dickersons lived across the street from the Edwards family.“She held it all together, a very busy home and football players dropping in and eating a carload of food.“She did everything cheerfully and with great love,” Dickerson said.

The wording for Dorothy’s 1968 Alumni Citation reads, “She has constantly created an atmosphere in her home in which young men may visit and converse with her and their coach, and she has represented Wittenberg with grace, decorum and warmth.”

Ken Benne, ’68, current Wittenberg dean of admission and former Tiger football standout, was far from his Nebraska home when he visited the University as a football recruit and attended a game with Ohio Wesleyan at Delaware.

“I was invited to ride back to Springfield with Bill, Dorothy and Homer McFadden, a local businessman,” Benne said. “She was so gracious and encouraging to me that day. She was a mother to a lot of players and a fine figure in their lives.”

Dave Maurer, Bill’s football assistant at Wittenberg for 14 years and himself a College Football Hall of Fame coach of the Tigers, said if Bill were the King, Dorothy would be the Queen.

“She was a lovely person, angelic even, but underneath it all, she was tougher than most people realized. She loved Wittenberg, and she loved the Tiger teams; even in recent years she loved to talk about our players.”

Nancy Maurer, Dave’s wife, said Dorothy taught her to be a coach’s wife. “She said ‘Keep your mouth shut, and do your own thing. Your husband has a tough job to do,’” Nancy said.“Bill simply adored her, and he did treat her like a queen.”

Dorothy’s son-in-law Charles Hauser painted a picture for her of Weaver Chapel, her favorite campus building, that showed the Edwards’ Cecil Street home in the background. She had watched the Chapel being built, and later their daughter, Mary, was married there.

Besides being a football coach’s wife and the mother of three children, she established her own career as an outstanding English teacher at Possum Junior High School, Shawnee High School and Clark State Community College.

Her gentle creativity was evident in the composition she wrote as part of Wittenberg’s entrance requirements.

It read, in part: “Wheat in the shock, black and white cows with little tinkling bells at evening, deep croaking frogs in a pond, all of them, it seems to me, could create a sense of awe in the most sinful person.”

Bill quoted from a Louis Untermeyer poem to describe Dorothy. God did “fling me a handful of stars,” he said in describing his own life.“And one of them was Dorothy, my college sweetheart.”