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WIU Emerita Professor Charlene Callison is pictured, from left, with WIU emeritus presidents Donald Spencer, Ralph Waggoner and Leslie Malpass, at the University's Centennial celebration.
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Pictured is the dress Callison made for Gilligan's Islands's Mrs. Howell, Natalie Schafer, which is now on display at the Western Illinois Museum.
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Callison made this dress for Lorraine Epperson to wear in a Macomb Community Theatre production.
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Callison Donates Historical WIU Memorabilia Collection to WIU Archives

April 20, 2022

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MACOMB, IL – Tucked away in a quiet neighborhood, adjoining the Western Illinois University campus, Professor Emerita Charlene Callison has quietly been preserving the special events history of the University, and of Macomb.

Callison recently donated an extensive portion of her memorabilia collection to the WIU Archives. The donation includes eight hours of interviews of Callison by a University graduate student, archiving her life and her career, as well as boxes of papers, photographs, written accounts, slides, newspaper clippings, VHS tapes, DVDs and CDs.

"I had eight filing cabinet drawers full of things; scrapbooks and articles," said Callison. "The joy of this is to make sure these things are preserved in the Western Archives. I had everything from matchbook covers to printed napkins from a variety of special events. I also had videos that included a time-lapse of the creation of the balloon sculpture of the Sherman Hall belltower, made for WIU's Centennial."

Many of the items Callison donated include the inaugural and program booklet for President John Bernhard, the Christmas ornament given to everyone who attended the Centennial Ball in 1999, scrapbooks and pictures of the first Macomb Community Chorus and original cups and ashtrays made for the inauguration of former WIU President Ralph Waggoner by Haeger Pottery. Other pieces in the collection include programs, posters and pictures from campus and community theatre productions, including "The Best of Broadway" and "Kampus Kalendar" shows, and pictures of WIU students and Macomb dignitaries, such as Jock Hedblade, former Mayor Tom Carper, former president John Bernhard, and his wife, Ramona Bernhard, and Lorraine Epperson, and a poster of Callison with WIU presidents Waggoner, Leslie Malpass and Donald Spencer at the University's 100th birthday party. The gowns made for use in those shows have been donated to the Western Illinois Museum.

While at Western, Callison taught classes in Family and Consumer Sciences, including sewing, tailoring and fashion. She also planned numerous special events on campus, including University presidential inaugurations and Performing Arts Society (PAS) galas. She also organized the events surrounding WIU's Centennial celebration, which included opening the WIU time capsule with a breakfast on the brick driveway entering Sherman Hall, to the ceremony and the Centennial Gala and ball.

"It was fun going through all these things for the memories," she said of organizing her collection for donation.

Many pieces of University history Callison is responsible for are still used on campus, such as two sets of velvet chair covers and several sets of colorful charger plates used for formal events. Faculty and students made and designed the table coverings, chair covers used at the centennial gala formal dinner and the black curtain hanging in the University Union Grand Ballroom.

Other pieces of Callison's collection, such as formal gowns she handcrafted and hand-beaded, have been donated to Macomb's Western Illinois Museum, including one she made for a television show.

As a professor at WIU, Callison took her fashion students to Paris once a year to visit the fashion couture design houses. On her 1978 trip, she and her students ran into actress Natalie Schafer, who played Mrs. Howell on Gilligan's Island. Schafer admired the tunic top Callison was wearing, which she had designed and made herself.

"We were at the Nina Ricci boutique and she was there looking for a gown to wear in the last episode of 'Return to Gilligan's Island,'" Callison said. "She admired what I was wearing and asked where I got it. I told her I made it and I told her I could make her a similar gown or costume."

Callison made a long, sequined gown as a prototype. Schafer made a few changes, then wore the gown in the television show. She later mailed it back to Callison with a thank you note inside. The gown, hat, gloves and note were donated to the Western Illinois Museum and are on display in Macomb.

"Natalie said I would get more use out of it than she would," said Callison. "I wore it for one of the Centennial Balls at Western."

Callison also donated numerous dresses she made, and pieces she collected on her Paris trips, to Millikin University, in Decatur, IL, where her daughter, Angie, is an alumna.

Some of the sentimental pieces she made, including suits for her husband, WIU History Professor Emeritus Larry Balsamo, and hand-beaded dresses she made for the Macomb Community Theatre, are still at her home, and will be donated to the Western Illinois Museum.

Callison began working at WIU in 1967. Living and teaching in New York City, Callison initially interviewed at Western because her grandmother lived in Galesburg and she had other family in the Quad Cities. She agreed to teach one year, but retired from Western in 2003.

"I fell in love with the campus and Knoblauch Hall had just opened," she said. "It was beautifully decorated and I could be a professor at triple my salary in New York, which was $300 a month."

Callison started the department's internship program and took students on trips to New York, Chicago, Atlanta, Dallas and Kansas City to meet fashion icons such as Marc Jacobs and Emilio Pucci. She and her students also met Stanley Marcus, the owner of Neiman Marcus department stores. Her students also planned and executed a large annual bridal show in the University Union Grand Ballroom.

The donation of the memorabilia collection is the most recent by Callison and Balsamo. In addition to monetary donations, Callison has donated more than 100 hats from her collection, as well as bolts of fabric, costumes and vintage clothing and several fur coats and mink stoles to WIU's theatre department in the past. Other previous donations have included several pictures from the first Macomb Community Chorus from 1968, directed by Maughn McMurtie. The gowns worn by the choir, and made by Callison, have also been donated to the WIU Department of Theatre and Dance.

"This is why history needs to be documented; so people know what we did," said Callison. "These costumes tell the story of Macomb."

For more information about the contents of the collection, visit bit.ly/WIUArchives.

Posted By: Jodi Pospeschil (JK-Pospeschil@wiu.edu)
Office of University Communications & Marketing