Skip to main content

William Elwood Kirk

Professor of Ancient Languages at Willamette 1906-1937

Headshot of William Elwood Kirk

Contact Information

Biography

William Elwood Kirk (1868-1937) attended Nebraska Wesleyan University (today the University of Nebraska at Lincoln). In 1895, he received his A.B., in 1897, his M.A. from there; according to an old Wallulah yearbook, he also pursued graduate studies at Columbia University from 1902-1905. In 1901, he married Iva May Howard. Five years later, the couple moved to Salem, Oregon, where Kirk taught Greek and Latin at Willamette University from 1906 until his death in 1937.

Kirk served twice as president of the Classical Association of the Pacific Northwest (CAPN), in 1920 and in 1932.

The manuscript collection of the University of Oregon library contains 428 letters Kirk exchanged with his wife whenever she visited her parents in Pioneerville, Ohio, and other family mementos (#561).

Kirk lived at 1322 State St in Salem.

Education

  • A.B. & A.M., Nebraska Wesleyan University

Publications

• Rhetorical Figures in the Greater Poems of Vergil, M.A. Thesis, Univ. of Nebraska at Lincoln, 1897 (562 p.).

• "Practical Idealism in Education." Oregon Teachers Monthly 28 (1923), 1-5.

Willamette University

Classical Studies

Address
Willamette University
900 State Street
Salem Oregon 97301 U.S.A.
Phone
503-370-6077 voice
503-370-6944 fax