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Every student, staff or faculty member, and even many short-term visitors are aware of the University of Tampa’s ties to the history of Tampa. Many can recite the backstory of the Tampa Bay Hotel, and the Henry B. Plant Museum keeps those stories from being forgotten.

But not as immediately obvious are the relics and remains of years past stored in the University’s Macdonald-Kelce Library.

Gino Pasi, special collections and archivist librarian, gives a great tour to anyone curious about what might be hidden just around the corner from the standard library peace and quiet. He can rattle off minute details about most of the inventory and share the library staff’s common theories of origin for a few unknowns.

Many of the stories of these peculiar items follow a certain pattern: An interesting or semi-famous figure of the 20th century had at least a vague connection to the University and decided to donate their things, and they were stashed in the library — which isn’t necessarily unique for a university library, per Pasi’s experience. But each university has its own stories that come with the figures passing in and out. Not every school library can say, as ��«Ӱҵampa can, that it inherited boxes of antique clown dolls, writings from a Hemingway associate, a comprehensive history of John Wilkes Booth’s entire family and other items that pique the imagination.

ASHES FROM CIGAR CITY

One of Pasi’s previous positions was as an archivist and curator of a medical museum at the University of Cincinnati. “I used to tell people, ‘I can gross you out. Give me two minutes; I’ll find something off of the shelf that will turn your stomach,’” said Pasi. Being surrounded by skeletons, glass eyes, prosthetic ears and sickeningly sharp old-fashioned ophthalmology tools prepared him for one of the less-savory items in his current office — a cremated body.

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One of two marble urns in the library holds the ashes of Ybor City royalty, Eduardo R. Martinez Ybor (1883-1970), grandson of Ybor City’s founder. The other is empty and was reserved for Eduardo’s wife, Bergljot Audhild Sanne (1900-?), who came from a family line of Norwegian Vikings, but her ashes were never delivered. A bronze plaque describes Eduardo’s founding of the Ybor Foundation, which enabled Spanish descendants in the area to travel to Spain and “se reencuentren con su destino,” or reunite with their destiny.

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Not much is publicly known about the couple, besides their reputation as “bookish” and that they lived in Poughkeepsie, New York. But some of ��«Ӱҵampa’s librarians have formulated their own hypotheses. One of them shared a rumor with Pasi that the couple may have been involved in nefarious activities. Therefore, their estate did not want the remains to be kept somewhere with public access for fear of vandalism, so they were donated to the University for safekeeping.

Of sitting next to them in his office every day, Pasi said, “I just like them because they’re conversations. People stop over here just to see them.” He may not have them around for too much longer, though, as Pasi has been contacting organizations in Ybor City to find a more fitting home for them.

REMEMBERING OUR TROOPS

The Macdonald-Kelce Library is home to the Florida Military Collection, the “largest collection of military history in the South,” according to its official marketing. Whether that is relative to just other universities is unclear, but a fleet of memorabilia is in the University’s possession. The artifacts themselves aren’t all connected to Florida, but the materials were donated by veterans who either retired or once lived in the Tampa area. Some items once belonged to high-ranking officers, while others came from rank-and-file troops, but all of them serve as a time capsule of an ephemeral time of American history.

Rosario “Chick” Ciccarello was a Tampa native born to Sicilian immigrants who went into the medical corps in the Navy and was stationed in Brooklyn. Ciccarello is pictured below at a night out with friends at the Hollywood Café in Brooklyn, where patrons paid the bar staff to take photos of them for keepsakes, before they could snap their own selfies.

Ration books, like the one below, were required to buy groceries during World War II because many available supplies had to go to the war effort. Pasi explained that you could only buy certain items on certain days — anything from plastic and wood to flour and sugar — and you had to have a ration stamp to get them.

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Also in the collection is a cigarette ad, shown above, that swapped a familiar humped mascot with pictures of All-American soldiers. Clearly, Camel was aiming to position itself as the most popular cigarette brand among servicemen.

THE BROADWAY STARLET

��«Ӱҵampa students in the 1960s might’ve run into theater celebrity Blanche Yurka, who taught at the University as an artist-in-residence after decades of performing on stages across the country. During her stint in Florida, she donated nearly a dozen scrapbooks documenting her life and career, along with photos, journals and more.

One of her first roles was a small part in the comedy Is Matrimony a Failure? at Broadway’s Belasco Theatre, owned by David Belasco, who wrote letters and well wishes to Yurka that are pasted throughout her booklets. There, she met actress and playwright Jane Cowl, who co-wrote and acted in the 1918 comedy Information Please, as shown below in the playbill.

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Yurka had a number of minor roles throughout the 1910s before landing the part of Queen Gertrude in Hamlet on Broadway in 1922. Then 35 years old, she was five years younger than the actor who played her son, John Barrymore, one of the most acclaimed actors of his generation and part of the famous Barrymore acting family. To highlight the absurdity, Yurka made herself look as youthful as possible for the role. The photos above show��photos and reviews of her performance.

After more acting success, she started directing plays in the late 1920s, including two productions starring James Stewart. She eventually ventured into film and radio, but after the war, she became less fulfilled in her roles.

Since her death in 1974 at the age of 86, Yurka’s scrapbooks live on to keep her legacy alive. While Yurka herself took pristine care of the newspaper clippings and photographs in the books, the passing of time inevitably wore them down. Library staff and museum studies student Ava McGee ’25 recently started restoring the books to their former condition.

“In some instances,” Pasi said, “the paper was so brittle and falling apart that the preservationists steamed the contents off the page, essentially creating a new scrapbook with acid-free paper, exactly how it used to look.”

THE LIBRARY WITHIN A LIBRARY

One of the more obvious stockpiles in the library archives is a bunch of old books. But as one peruses the shelves, the titles on the spines prove unexpected.

What’s known as the library’s Book Arts Collection was curated by the late Richard Mathews, an English professor who retired in 2020 after 34 years at ��«Ӱҵampa. Mathews, who had his own printing press on campus, enjoyed keep-ing up with boutique presses around the U.S. and ordering the latest editions in their catalogs, whatever the topic was. “They run the gamut from festive dessert cookery to the devil,” said Pasi.

He’s not exaggerating. There’s a retro guide of holiday party casseroles, a classic edition of Mother Goose Rhymes and Melodies and a cheerfully colored manual on how to perform an exorcism.

Other novelty books include a selection of tiny handhelds, or, more appropriately, fingertip-helds. The “world’s smallest Gettysburg Address,” stands about 1 inch tall, but still fits the entirety of President Lincoln’s historic speech and makes its 2- to 3-inch companions appear massive.

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The tallest one in this stack is Abigayil, the first book written by Golden Age Hollywood film director Rouben Mamoulian, a story supposedly told to him by his pet cat about a cat that was supposedly in the stable when Jesus was born. In another miniature leather-bound book, the Declaration of Independence is printed.

Meanwhile, a handful of books are older than the Declaration of Independence itself, dating to more than 400 years ago. Printed on linen pages, the library has maintained volumes like the one shown below, detailing the works of Erasmus, a Renaissance-era Dutch theologian.

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CALLING ALL SLE��«ӰҵHS

A few other items in the library archives remain complete mysteries, like scrapbooks chronicling the day-to-day of the Spanish American War, and photos and poetry from Cuban presidential composer Rogelio Barba and his wife. Pasi and the library staff welcome information that adds to the lore and legends of the library’s collection. What do you know? Do you have any clues that could help us solve the mysteries of the archives? Send us a note at publicaffairs@ut.edu.