Purdue Professor Sells Lab Animals to Otterbein, 1919

At first, I thought I had stumbled on century old secrets. Child labor, smuggling animals across state lines, and shady dealings between colleges. Great stuff, worthy of the National Enquirer! How disappointing to find out that it was all above board, and that there was nobody breaking the law. But it’s a good story anyhow, and might make a decent cable TV movie.

Many Ohioans are familiar with Purdue University. From 1906 to 1957, it employed one Howard E. Enders, a professor of biology. Enders had a successful career, teaching zoology and biology, and serving for twenty years as Head of the Science department. He often spent summers doing field research in exotic places like the Canal Zone and Honduras. Enders was well regarded, and lived a useful life.[i]

On May 16, 1919, Enders wrote to Walter Clippinger at Otterbein. Most of the letter was about flooring for the new Otterbein Science Building, in response to a query to Enders. But at the end of the letter, Enders stated:

Concerning the animals for laboratory work Charles can supply two females and one male guinea pig for the usual price, five dollars. . . . .Katherine has had a great many calls for her rats. . . . If your boys wish any she will send them.[ii]

Surely “Charles” and “Katherine” were aliases, crime minions who were organizing Enders’ black market activities. Katherine was the dangerous one; in another paragraph she is fingered as selling more than one hundred rats to Ohio, Idaho, and Georgia. A quick check of the facts quickly burst my bubble. Charles and Katherine were Howard Enders children, and their father had encouraged them to be entrepreneurs in a sound and educated way.

The only mystery remaining was how Howard Enders knew of Walter Clippinger, and knew that he was building a new science building, and, needed cheap guinea pigs. That we may never know, but in gathering a few facts about Enders, I noticed that he belonged to the United Brethren Church. What’s more, he had done his undergraduate work at Lebanon Valley College in Annville, Pennsylvania. Enders graduated in 1897. One of his classmates was Walter G. Clippinger, Lebanon Valley class of 1899.

I’ve heard it said that it isn’t what you know, but who you know. Clippinger and Enders were classmates, and this likely explains how the two academics arranged a lab rat sale. In the meantime, I need to ease up on watching cable crime dramas!

[i] https://earchives.lib.purdue.edu/digital/collection/bot/id/15114/rec/56

[ii] Howard E. Enders to Walter G. Clippinger, May 16, 1919. Otterbein University Archives, Presidents Papers.