Extravagance

CONTINUED

Feeling at Home in the Rauner Special Collections Library

by Rudy Altergott

When we arrived at the impressive Rauner, I first felt I might be out of place, my worry being that I would be “found out” for whatever mistaken offense might be cited, what with it being an Ivy League school and I being a simple Midwesterner, an intellectual to be sure but also an interloper, a stranger in those environs. My worry proved to be misplaced—indeed, the entire time I visited the Rauner, there was a sense of welcoming that I had not expected.

From the entryway, I was immediately struck by the marriage of the classical and the new, as the remnants of an older building merged with a modern-looking main space. This arrangement mirrors my life and my own worldview in many ways. I felt right at home as we toured the library.

I thought about Dartmouth’s connections to me and my home: our former Illinois governor was an alum, and a few of the small band of founders of my own alma mater, Wabash College, were alumni of Dartmouth who had come out to the wilderness of Indiana to establish a Presbyterian men’s college to educate teachers and to foster the future community leaders far and wide. (I would go on to hear Dartmouth was the rock from which Wabash was hewn almost a year later in a 2024 commencement day sermon.)

There was another reminder of my hometown. Early during our visit, as we walked across to one far corner of the first floor of the main part of the Rauner, there was a sort of old friend there—a bust of Robert Frost. I am not an expert on the works of Frost, the American poetry icon, but I know in Hinsdale, Illinois, in a small common area between the urban-suburban passenger train depot and the Village Hall, there is a seated statue of Frost sitting on one of the park benches, on his lap a portable desk and in one of his hands, as one might expect, a pen. I didn’t hesitate to ask my mom to take a photo of me with the Frost bust, a good keepsake of my afternoon in the Rauner library.

At the time of my visit, I did not know the Rauner is the home for the Doyle manuscript of “The Terror of Blue John Gap.” I also did not know about the ACD Society’s manuscript annotation project. My commentary here is a result of the editors spotting my social media post about my visit to the Rauner and the Tower Room at the nearby Baker-Berry Library, a Dartmouth spot that may be one of my horcruxes.

I’m glad to know of the Doyle connection to the Rauner. As a newly-minted Baker Street Irregular, I am diving not only deeper into the Canon of Sherlock Holmes but also into the life and other works of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Now my curiosity is piqued all the more. Curiosity brought me to the Rauner Special Collections Library in the first place, and curiosity is what keeps me alive in general. However, after reading “The Terror of Blue John Gap” and listening to the Doings of Doyle podcast episode about it, I’m no longer sure about exploring countryside caverns—a thought which no longer seems bearable.

WHO IS RUDY?

Rudy Altergott, BSI, is a lifelong resident of the Chicagoland area and an alumnus of Wabash College in Crawfordsville, Indiana. Besides Wabash alumni affairs, he is also a member of Oriental Lodge No. 33 A.F. & A.M. and various other Masonic bodies as well as the Caxton Club of bibliophiles and the Chicago Council on Global Affairs. A man of letters and Sherlockian scholar, Rudy is a member of the Baker Street Irregulars (invested in 2024 as “Old Patrick,” inventor of the dancing men cipher) and many of its scion societies, working closest with one of his local scions, the Torists International. He also belongs to the Hounds of the Baskerville [sic], Hugo’s Companions, the Illustrious Clients of Indianapolis, the Ribston-Pippins, the Crew of the Barque Lone Star, and the Hansom Cab Clock Club, etc. His current day job is in healthcare records.