« Back to Finding Aids

Jean Kiger Papers

Dates

1910s - 1940s

Creator

Kiger, Jean

Summary/Abstract

Jean Kiger worked as an administrative assistant at the Smyrna Air Force Base during World War II. These papers include materials from her time there, as well as personal materials from her days attending Hume Fogg High School in Nashville. Kiger’s nephew, Richard Kiger, states in a letter included as part of the collection that Kiger’s papers do two things. One is “to shed some light on daily life at the air base and to identify some of the men and women who worked there or who passed through on their way to other assignments.” The other is that the “items that relate to daily life in Nashville are the kind of ephemera that are usually trashed after a while, and so while they are commonplace, they may give an idea as to what life was like in the late 1920s and early 1930s that would be hard to find elsewhere.”

Quantity/Physical Description

Approximately 1 linear foot

Language(s)

English

Repository

Albert Gore Research Center, Middle Tennessee State University, Murfreesboro, TN 37132, (615) 898-2632

Restrictions on Access

None

Copyright

It is presumed that corporate and individual copyrights in manuscripts, photographs, and other materials have been retained by the copyright owners. Copyright restrictions apply. Users of materials should seek necessary permissions from the copyright hol

Preferred Citation

(Box Number, Folder Number), Collection Name, Albert Gore Research Center, Middle Tennessee State University, Murfreesboro, Tennessee

Acquisition

Donated by Richard Kiger, 2000

Processed By

Original processor undetermined

Arrangement

These papers are arranged into three series: Scrapbooks, Personal, and Smyrna Air Base.

Biographical Note

Jean Kiger was born in November of 1909 or 1910. Her family moved to Nashville from Philadelphia around 1920 and she spent the next twenty-five years as a resident of the city. This small collection consists of two scrapbooks and assorted documents that primarily pertain to Kiger’s time as Assistant Provost General at the Smyrna Air Base during World War II. In the late 1940s, Kiger moved with her mother to Wilmington, Ohio to be near family. She retired in the mid-1970s from the DuPont Company after nearly thirty years of service.

Scope and Content

The first series consists entirely of scrapbooks. The earlier scrapbook was compiled during Kiger's youth in Nashville and contains a variety of materials from the late 1920s and 1930s. The later scrapbook contained only four pages of photographs, primarily of servicemen from the Smyrna Air Base. Since the scrapbook paper is deteriorating rapidly, the photos were not glued in the scrapbook, and the scrapbook contained only a few lines of text, it was decided to remove the photographs and include them with the rest of the photo collection. The photos have been kept in the same order as they appeared in Kiger's scrapbook.

The personal series contains memorabilia from Kiger’s youth in Nashville. There are three issues of the Tatler, a small weekly newsletter of Hume-Fogg High School, postcards, an undated Grand Ole Opry program, and an invitation to a meeting of the Young Democratic Club.

The Smyrna Air Base series consists of assorted Smyrna Air Base and World War II army related memorabilia spanning the years 1943-1946 when Kiger was the Assistant Provost Marshall. Correspondence, clippings, a telephone directory, and even a joke are included.