Van Wagenen Gilson

Academic Record Unknown

In 1910, in Mannington, West Virginia, Van Gilson wrote a letter to West Virginia University President Daniel Purinton, asking to have his name entered for the Rhodes Scholarship examination. Gilson was a junior at the time and did not graduate with his class. Instead, he went to Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar.

Gilson?s WVU classmates, at work on the Monticola yearbook, wrote this limerick:

There was a young junior named Van
Who was a Rhodes Scholarship man
To Oxford he?ll go,
With the last of the snow,
Take more honors there if he can.

?The last of the snow? means Gilson enrolled in Hilary term, in early spring. He studied at Queen?s College, followed by successful business careers with Standard Oil, Goodyear, and Seiberling Rubber.