Rodney Cline, Writings - Personal and Professional

This collection consists primarily of the correspondence from 1933-1979 between Alfred Leland Crabb and William Rodney Cline, his former doctoral student at George Peabody College for Teachers. Found within this collection are letters from Mildred Cline to Bertha Crabb and a few miscellaneous letters from the Crabbs and Clines to others. Rodney Cline’s autobiography and his family history are a part of the collection as well as some Cline family photos and mementoes.

Cline’s friendship with his mentor Crabb was of great importance to him and his wife. He wrote, in 1933, “Long before leaving Peabody and Nashville, Mrs. Cline and I both realized the benefit and happiness we were storing up for the future. What we did not realize . . .was that the threads of attachment then forming were becoming so strong as to be well-nigh unbreakable, the elasticity of their fibre being such that when stretched by time, distance, and other interests, their pull was increased thereby rather than diminished”. This collection is a testimony to those “threads of attachment”.