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A GREATER GETTYSBURG Robert Weidensall Y.M.C.A.154 The final report of the building committee gave the cost of the new structure, including furniture and furnishings, as $80,293, a far cry from the $15,000 which Granville had first suggested and the $30,000 which the Woman's League believed would be its obligation when it adopted the project in 1915.155 Weidensall Hall (to use the name by which it has been known since the early 1960s) had a twenty-by-sixty-foot swimming pool, with locker and shower rooms, on the ground floor; a large lobby and various other rooms on the floor above; and a large meeting room, several smaller rooms, and living quarters for the Y.M.C.A. secretary on the top floor. The College never had a facility quite like this; the U.L.C.A. survey team found nothing comparable on the campus of any other Lutheran college. Once it was completed, it took little time for the Y.M.C.A., other student groups, and the administration to find ways to make constant use of the building. For more than two decades it was the favorite place for College receptions.156 Meeting the day on which Weidensall Hall was dedicated (June 13, 1922), the board of trustees decided that the next new structure on campus would be a chemistry hall and directed its building committee to secure the necessary plans. On the following day it was 154Robert Weidensall (1836-1922), of the class of 1860, began a lifelong career with the Y.M.C.A. in 1868, after several years as a teacher, construction worker, and superintendent of the Union Pacific car shops in Omaha, Nebraska. Widely regarded as the father of the student Y.M.C.A. movement in the United States, he also worked in several foreign countries. For half a century he was secretary of the Y.M.C.A.'s international committee. From time to time he returned to campus, to give a talk (1890, 1905, 1912, 1915), receive an honorary degree (1912), or be present at the groundbreaking of the building named in his honor (1919). Too ill to attend its dedication, he died in Omaha in September 1922. See C. Howard Hopkins, History of the Y.M.C.A. in North America (New York, 1951). 155A detailed report of the cost of the building is included in the Woman's League number of the GCB for December 1925, pp. 26-30. Construction costs amounted to $75,653.24 and furniture and fixtures to $4,639.60. In November 1917 a secretary of the Y.M.C.A. international committee told the Woman's League convention that the committee would contribute $25,000 to the cost of the building in recognition of Weiden- sall's fifty years of service to the organization. Unfortunately, only about 20 percent of this pledge was ever paid. Weidensall's bequest of $1,349 was added to the building fund. 156U.L.C.A. Survey, 2:292,335. To recognize donors the Woman's League placed hundreds of names in the cornerstone and erected plaques throughout the building. The east portico honored the board president and the west portico the College president. Some of the rooms were also named. The Altoona subleague presented a painting, "The Vigil," in 1930; it was hung above the fireplace in the main lobby, where a marble drinking fountain was placed two years later in memory of a deceased league president. Once Weidensall was available, some functions previously held in the sweat box were transferred to it and in 1923 the latter was converted into a classroom. 51