Faculty Papers: Eileen L. Sears Papers

Eileen Lancaster (Sears) grew up on a farm in Pleasant Hill, Missouri and graduated from the University of Missouri with a degree in home economics and physical education. She earned her Master of Arts degree from Ohio State University. After a brief stint as a dancer, Miss Lancaster began teaching at Hickman High School in Columbia, Missouri. She also taught at the National Music camp in Interlocken, Michigan before becoming the director of physical education and music at Parker Cooperative High School in Dayton. She began teaching music and physical education at UD in 1944.

Eileen Lancaster (Sears) at age 12.

Eileen and Troy often chaperoned dances at UD, including one at which Lawrence Welk performed.

They lived in Oakwood overlooking the Dayton Country Club golf course in a home that Eileen helped design.

In 1990 Eileen Sears published her first book, Born a Rebel, a Civil War novel that draws inspiration from the stories she heard from her grandmother while growing up in Missouri. This book is available at Roesch Library and at the University Archives.

Dayton Daily News has an online archive containing articles beginning in 1990.

There are a number of articles that relate to this collection, including:

• "UD Gift will Raise Curtains" by Benjamin Kline (May, 1992)
• "Eileen Sears Loved Music and Dance" by Lawrence Budd (September, 2004)
• "UD receives $3.8M bequest" by Mark Fisher (February, 2005)

Click here to visit the Dayton Daily News Archive.

In addition to teaching music and physical education at the University of Dayton, Eileen Sears was also the director of the student union in the 1950s. Her husband Troy, whom she married in 1937, taught business management at UD, his alma mater, and later worked at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base as chief of contract terminations. Sears directed a number of productions at Parker Cooperative High School and at UD, including an annual Christmas pageant she put on with Maurice Reichard, then chair of the Music Department.

Left: Eileen and Troy on their wedding day. Right: Sears (fourth from left) poses with students and Maurice Reichard (far right).

In their retirement from teaching, Eileen and Troy frequented the Dayton Country Club’s weekly sing-a-long on Friday evenings and enjoyed golfing. In 1987 they celebrated their fiftieth anniversary.

The couple donated a total of $4.7 million to the University for the H. Troy and Eileen Sears Scholarship Fund. They also donated $1.3 million dollars to the University of Dayton for the H. Troy and Eileen Sears Recital Hall, which opened in the Jesse Philips Humanities Center in the fall of 1993. Troy Sears died in 1999 at the age of 91 and Eileen Sears died in 2005 at the age of 103.

Noteworthy items in the collection:

• Manuscripts of Sears' book, Born a Rebel
• A short essay written by Sears called a "Thrilling Summer Episode" about a summer when she briefly joined a ballet troupe, only to return home when she became homesick; at that time she began teaching dance. She writes, "When one is a teacher one never quite knows what seed is planted nor what part has been played in the fertilization of the soil for the seed to grow."
• Newspaper clippings
• Photos of various productions at UD that Sears was a part of

Click here to view the full finding aid for the Eileen L. Sears Papers, 1912-1993