Artifacts

Aber Day Deeds

By BETSY HOLMQUIST

A quiet April morning suddenly bursts alive with the bells of Main Hall. Classes are canceled, and by 8 A.M. all students and faculty are expected on the Oval—ready for the annual cleanup. There can be no excuses.

Morning activities include raking, tree planting, painting, and rubbish gathering. Primary elections for student body offices are held, followed by lunch on the Oval. Afternoon includes a pie-eating contest, sack and wheelbarrow races, student-faculty softball and tennis games, and class tug-of-war competitions. Most everyone returns for the evening barbecue and dance. Another Aber Day becomes memories.

For forty years UM students and faculty conducted an annual spring cleaning of campus. By the mid-fifties, however, many students found an April day of canceled classes too tempting and sneaked off to their own activities. Traditional shamings for those who sought other fun no longer held sway, and the event, first held on April 16, 1915, to honor William “Daddy” Aber, one of the University’s original faculty members, was canceled in 1954. Aber, who taught Latin and Greek, was a self-appointed campus custodian. Known to dig up trees on Mount Sentinel and replant them on campus, Aber’s dedication to campus beautification resulted in a revered tradition of UM students and faculty spending a day doing the same.

Efforts to resurrect and reinvent Aber Day continue. From fun runs to fundraisers, from tree plantings to the Clark Fork River cleanup, “Daddy” Aber’s presence still pervades campus.

Lamppost painting, The Sentinel, 1929; Makeup removal, The Sentinel, 1939; Clarence Prescott in front of Aber Hall, UM’s K. Ross Toole Archives, 69273-04; Bonnie Raitt, Norm Olson; Aber Day run, K. Ross Toole Archives, UM93-0362; Aber Day tree planting, UM’s K. Ross Toole Archives, 506806-5.