Wallace Dabney Trevillian

Dean Wallace D. Trevillian
- Greenville, SC

Wallace Dabney Trevillian, Dean Emeritis of Clemson University, died Wednesday, September 22, 2010. He was preceded in death by his wife of 40 years Mary Lou McEachern who left the planet in 2001.

Born in Charlottesville, Virginia, on May 1, 1918 the sixth child of Mamie Perry Trevillian and Robert Carr Trevillian. He was the last survivor of this immediate family. He was christened May 18, 1918 at Christ Church Charlottesville. He joined Holy Trinity Episcopal in 1947 upon arriving in Clemson. Since moving to Greenville in 1998, he has been a regular communicant of Christ Church Greenville. Wherever he was located he always viewed his church "as the Lord's House" and was never influenced by so called "church politics". He is survived by two children, their wives and 3 grandchildren: Son, Malcolm McEachern Trevillian and his wife Susan and their two sons Andrew Baker Trevillian and Michael Baker Trevillian; son Edward Dabney Trevillian and his wife Pennie and daughter Elizabeth Dabney Trevillian along with Elizabeth's mother Laura Watson Bardi. Also surviving him are four lovely nieces, several nephews and a number of great-nieces and great-nephews and many dear friends.

Wallace attended public schools in Charlottesville, Virginia graduating from Lane High School as president of his class in 1936. His first job consisted of an afternoon paper route delivering The Daily Progress. Fortunately, he lived at the end of his paper route on Park Street. He walked and got to know his customers personally over a period of three years, at ages 11, 12 and 13. He considered this experience one of the most valuable in his life. On his 92nd birthday he wrote down the names of his 69 customers from memory.

In 1940 he graduated from the University of Virginia College of Arts and Science with a Bachelor's degree in business. President Franklin D. Roosevelt delivered the commencement address uttering the historical line "Italy has stuck the dagger in its neighbors back". When he was 10 years old, Wallace's mother took him to hear Roosevelt speak when he was Governor of the State of New York.

Upon graduating, he worked for the BF Goodrich Rubber Company, Akron, Ohio. After six weeks training, he was assigned to Philadelphia and the Lancaster District. This assignment ended when he was drafted as a GI in the US Army in July 1941. By choice he remained an enlisted man for his 4 ½ years in the service. After basic infantry training at Camp Croft near Spartanburg, SC he was assigned to a reception center at Camp Perry, Ohio. By Christmas of 1941 he had achieved the rank of 1st Sgt. In 1943, he was assigned to Fort Benjamin Harris, Indiana to help establish an Army program to teach illiterate GIs how to read at least at a 4th grade education level. This mission had to be accomplished within 12 weeks. Otherwise, the GIs were separated from the Army. In early 1944, his next assignment was to help assemble personnel for the 237th general hospital which was ultimately sent to France arriving in time to play a major role in the hospitalization of casualties from the Battle of the Bulge.

A troop ship, the General Leroy Elting, carrying him and approximately 3000 other soldiers destined for Japan, turned around before entering the Panama Canal and docked at Hampton Roads, Virginia. VJ Day had occurred while they were in transit. This was the summer of 1945. Within 48 hours Trevillian was headed to Camp Meade, Maryland and put on 90 day paid leave before being discharged in November 1945.

Wallace figured he had 90 days to make up his mind regarding his future. As an undergraduate at UVA he had made a friend, Professor Wilson Gee. With his counseling, Wallace decided to enter the University of Virginia in January of 1946. It was an accelerated program and by the fall of 1947, he had received his Masters Degree and met the PhD requirement of obtaining the reading knowledge of German and French. He accepted a job at Clemson University beginning September 1947. For two academic years 1947-48 and 1948-49, he taught an average of 150 students per semester two hours Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday, and three hours Monday, Wednesday and Friday. He wrote to his mother, "I'm having so much fun it's hard to believe I am getting paid for talking." During this time, Wallace decided to pursue his PhD. Since all of his resident academic work had been at the UVA, he persuaded the authorities to allow him to attend the University of California at Berkley for the academic year 1949-50 to complete his resident requirement at UVA. He considered his year at Berkley a tremendous academic experience. In the fall of 1950, he returned to Clemson as an Associate Professor. Teaching a full load, he completed his PhD. dissertation and received his PhD. from the University of Virginia in 1954. Dean Marion Kinard named him chairman of a committee to evaluate the wisdom of establishing a curriculum to educate students for business careers with two restrictions: it would not be named a business program and the only money for this cause would be for the teachers. At the time, Clemson College received almost 90% of its funding from the state. On July 1, 1955, Wallace was named Full Professor and Head of the Department of Industrial Management (one desk, one professor, one office, one telephone). By 1959-60, the IM Department had become the largest department on campus in terms of student enrollment. On July 1, 1962, President R.C. Edwards merged the School of Textiles and the Management Department to form the College of Industrial Management and Textile Science with Wallace as Dean of the combined College.

On Thanksgiving Day, 1963, Wallace and Mary Lou were married and her two boys, Edward (10) and Malcolm (7) became his two boys. The 40 years of marriage to Mary Lou were the most wonderful and rewarding years of his life and it must be emphasized that Mary Lou fulfilled every obligation and requirement of a Dean's wife. Mary Lou's talent as a decorator, artist and outstanding hostess jelled beautifully with the campus life. Having lived most of her life in metropolitan areas, she quickly became a part of the Clemson community, which she loved dearly.

Dean Wallace Trevillian became known as the founding Dean of business education. Thanks to outstanding department heads and first class faculty in economics, accounting and management and along with an excellent student body, the business programs were accredited by AACSB in 1972. At a meeting of AACSB in Toronto, Canada, as a part of the accrediting process, Wallace was asked to express his philosophy of management in a few words. After pausing to think, he replied: "If it is worth doing, it is worth delegating." The chairman hit his gavel on the table and proclaimed, "Meeting dismissed. Clemson accredited."

Wallace completed his deanship in 1980 and shortly took a sabbatical for six months at the University of Sussex near Brighton, England. He then returned to the classroom and fully retired in 1985. During retirement, by choice, he maintained a low profile as far as his professional life was concerned. In 1998, he and Mary Lou moved to Greenville "Clemson's greatest suburb."

Shortly before his death, Wallace remarked, "I can imagine the bull table conversation when this obituary is published. They'll say he wrote it himself."

Well, I certainly did.

The funeral will be at St. Paul's Episcopal Church, 328 East Queen Street, Pendleton, SC at 2:00 PM Sunday, September 26. Reception will follow at the Madren Center, 230 Madren Center Dr., Clemson, SC.

Donations in Wallace's name can be made to a charity of one's choice or to the Wallace Dabney Trevillian Endowment at Clemson University Foundation, P.O. Box 1889, Clemson, SC 29633.

Condolences can be expressed online at www.robinsonfuneralhomes.com or in person at Duckett-Robinson Funeral Home which is assisting the family.