On
a cold February Monday morning, my day was brightened when I opened
the first issue of @The Deke House, and
discovered an article written about my great-grandfather, Samuel Logan
Brengle (Psi Phi 1883). Samuel was born in tiny Fredericksburg,
Indiana in 1860; his father, William Nelson Brengle, walked home
wounded and ill from the battle of Vicksburg and saw his son for just a few days
before his death.
I don't know exactly what life circumstances
brought Samuel to DePauw, but his experiences there inspired him to a
life of service as one of the early American founders of the Salvation
Army. To this day, his name is revered in the Salvation Army.
In fact, the Salvation Army is the only place in America I can go and
give my last name, without having to spell it first.
The elegant lower picture of Samuel is the
one I've seen so many times (the original of which hung on my late
father's bedroom wall). But how interesting, for the first time,
to see another picture of him as a young man, and to hear him fondly
remembered as "Sam." My great-grandfather made quite
an impression on so many people he came to know, and as recently as my
fifteenth reunion in 1991, two Deke alums told me of how Samuel had
inspired them when he came to visit the campus in the 20's and 30's.
In 1972, as a freshman in the Deke house,
I went into the vault and looked through the old records of chapter
meetings past -- Samuel's name appeared many times, and he always
opened the meetings in prayer (by contrast, in the 1970's, many of my brothers prayed only on the night before finals, when they were
cracking open the text book for the first time). I think those
records survived the infamous basement fire of 1973, and I wonder
where they are now.
I am proud of Samuel Brengle's legacy, and
am pleased that a member of our family has attended DePauw in each of
three centuries, the latest being my oldest daughter Whitney (DPU
2006), who is presently studying off-campus in New York.
Thanks again for the memories of this
unique ancestor and Deke alum.
John
Brengle,
Psi Phi
1976
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