In his memoirs The Wheaton I Remember, Edward “Coach” Coray (Professor Emeritus and former Executive Director of the Alumni Association) recalls his days as an undergraduate student at Wheaton in 1920s. Using a sports metaphor to recall a space full of active young men, Coray recalled a “dugout” from his past.

Blanchard 4th-floor residents, 1939-1940

“While I never roomed on the fourth floor of Blanchard Hall I have heard many stories of experiences of people associated with this historic area. I never really determined if the fourth floor attracted the kind of fellows it did or if there was something about the atmosphere of the place that made them that way. In any case fourth floor monitors, or whatever they were called, came and went quite rapidly. I think I should slip in here that some of our finest graduates are alumni of the fourth floor. Getting back to monitors, one bachelor professor got out of the job when he got married. It cannot be definitely proved that he got married in order to get out of the job. A young, scholarly graduate assistant got an unexpected shower bath, fully clothed. Even Del Nelson, a rugged athlete who served as “housemother” while coaching athletics, had some problems. Del is now Dr. Delburt Nelson, M.D., and a college trustee. I presume much of his success in life is due to his experiences handling inhabitants of the fourth floor. One night he was chasing a fellow who had shot off a big cannon fire cracker. The fellow tried to escape through an attic with an unfinished floor over the library on the floor below. Del was in hot pursuit. The boy’s foot slipped onto bare plaster and his whole leg came down through the library ceiling, scattering pieces of plaster over one of the tables. With the increase of dormitory facilities and the need for more office and classroom space, the fourth floor was closed as a resident hall. Alumni returning to campus still wander around the “Floor” pointing out where they and their friends roomed and swallowing lumps which come in their throats.”

A profoundly useful agent for disseminating scriptural principles during the middle years of the twentieth century was Radio Bible Class (RBC), founded and hosted by Dr. M.R. DeHaan. Quitting his Reformed Church pastorate in 1938 for health and theological reasons, DeHaan also resigned his medical practice to preach the Word of God over the airwaves, residing with his family first in Detroit, Michigan, then in Grand Rapids. The broadcasts were often transcribed and published as books, with several Bible commentaries still in print.

DeHaan’s second son, Richard, accepted Christ when he was about ten, the result of a dedicated Sunday School teacher. As a young man he received substantial biblical education, first at his father’s knee, then at Calvin College before transferring to Wheaton College to finish his undergraduate degree, and finally to Northern Baptist Theological Seminary for graduate studies. During his Wheaton days, the 1944 Tower yearbook describes a glimpse of his social activity in an off-campus dormitory called the House of Baa: “Upperclassman Dick DeHaan was an aggressive one-man debate team in bull sessions. Starting out slowly, he wound up the ‘fastest’ man in the house.”

After Dr. DeHaan suffered a heart attack in 1946, Richard accepted increased administrative responsibilities at the radio station, taking the microphone from time to time with a voice, “…deep and mellow and mild,” as his mother observed. When his father died in 1965, Richard smoothly assumed the presidency of Radio Bible Class. Its continued success on radio compelled him and his colleagues to expand the ministry to television. So in 1968 Day of Discovery aired, ranking for years among the top ten religious broadcasts. Additionally he published a series of pamphlets, first appearing as articles in the Our Daily Bread devotional, focusing on the Christian life and end-times issues, all written with characteristic clarity and analytical insight. Indeed, Dr. Lehman Strauss, renowned Bible teacher, praises DeHaan’s 1968 book, Israel and the Nations in Prophecy, for its “…sound and sane presentation of numerous prophetic scriptures.”

Dr. Richard W. DeHaan died in 2002, after a long battle with Parkinson’s disease. Ever the encourager, his favorite expression was, “Trust in God and do the right.” Richard’s son, Mart, continues RBC Ministires, as it is now called, reflecting its worldwide range of resources.

Dr. Richard E. Eby, obstetrician and gynecologist, was co-founder of the Park Avenue Hospital in Pomona, California, and served as the Executive Assistant of the American Osteopathic Association in Chicago, in addition to serving as the charter President of the Osteophatic Physicians and Surgeons of California.

Born in 1912 among the rolling hills of western Massachusetts, he enjoyed a normal boyhood, raised by godly parents. However, in Eby’s case the ordinary was frequently absorbed into the extraordinary, establishing a peculiar standard of supernatural activity throughout his long life.

In his autobiography, Caught Up Into Paradise (1978), Eby chronicles at least one miracle per chapter. The first occurred at his own premature birth. As his nurses, fully expecting him to die, tended his feeble body, Eby’s mother heard Jesus whisper: “I am giving your tiny boy back into your care…I am still the resurrection and the life.” To the astonishment of all, baby Richard recovered; and a week later he went home. Yet another miraculous instance manifested when young Eby left his pet chicks outside during a cold night, inadvertently freezing them to death. Saddened, he breathed his own warm breath on their stiff bodies and placed them on a biscuit tray, sliding it into the oven. A moment later he opened the door to find living, chirping chicks. As a student in 1931 at Wheaton College, he and others prayed round-the-clock for the financially depleted school, nearing closure during the Depression. Against all odds it remained triumphantly open as the students worked their way through, contributing to its operation. At Wheaton he also met his future wife, Maybelle.

But the miracle that forever changed Eby happened in 1970. Leaning against a railing at a Chicago apartment building, the support gave way, plunging him two storeys, landing headfirst. As his mortally injured body was loaded into an ambulance, Eby awoke to “the most exquisite place,” entirely without shadows. Fascinated with his ethereal, white-robed body, he excitedly explored this luminescent realm with its indescribable music and exotic fragrances. But the vision did not last. He opened his eyes to excruciating pain, lying in a hospital bed, there to be told by Jesus from a glowing cloud floating above that Eby would now begin a healing ministry. Recovering fully, he visited Jersusalem in 1977, where he again saw Jesus as He appeared to him in Lazarus’s tomb, stating that, whereas Eby had seen Heaven, he would now see Hell. “You must be able to tell them,” said Jesus, commissioning Eby, “they can choose between heaven or hell, but tell them that I died to close hell and open heaven just for them.” Suddenly he was transported, and for the next two minutes he endured the horrors of the netherworld, its cold, rot and isolation. As a result of this startling visitation he traveled the world with Maybelle, proclaiming God’s grace and healing power.

Further exploits are recounted in Tell Them I am Coming (1980), detailing Richard Eby’s national exposure from frequent appearances on Jan and Paul Crouch’s Trinity Broadcasting Network, and the attention generated by the miracles, physical and spiritual, that accompanied his encounters with the sick. Controversially, Eby was informed during a vision that Jesus would appear during his lifetime, which obviously did not transpire as of his death in 2002.

In his memoirs The Wheaton I Remember, Edward “Coach” Coray (Professor Emeritus and former Executive Director of the Alumni Association) recalls his first days as an undergraduate student at Wheaton College in the Fall of 1919.

Our first class was rhetoric and we sat in chairs around the sides of the room. Professor Straw took roll peering at each student over the top of his glasses. Then he read Scripture and offered prayer. Next he startled a member of the class by calling on her to sing a hymn. In the days which followed members of the class read Scripture and offered prayer and each took his turn at singing. From an aesthetic standpoint the music was not always top quality.

The first day’s devotions having ended, our teacher instructed us each to take a section of the blackboard and summarize the first chapter of the text. My friends and I kept our seats. Professor ambled over, faced us, looked us over and said, “What’s the matter with you boys?” We explained to him that we had tried to buy textbooks but the supply had run out, that we did have a real thirst for knowledge and that the situation was one which caused us much sorrow. Rather than bring tears to his eyes Prof gave us a cold look and said, “Shame on college men who are not more resourceful than that. You should have borrowed a book or used the one in the library. Zeroes for each of you.” Whereupon he took his gradebook, made sure of our names and started each of our college careers with a big fat zero.