Page:A History of the University of Chicago by Thomas Wakefield Goodspeed.djvu/263

 THE EARLIER BUILDINGS 229 In May, 1892, Mrs. Elizabeth G. Kelly intimated a wish to give fifty thousand dollars for a dormitory for women, if she could receive five per cent per annum on that amount during her life. An agreement to this effect was made, the University also agreeing to set apart, after Mrs. Kelly's death, "a sufficient sum of money to support one free scholarship in the University of Chicago, to be known as the Kelly Scholarship," this scholarship being intended for undergraduates. Mrs. Kelly's subscription was the first received from these four ladies. Kelly Hall was completed in the summer of 1893 and occupied by students October i of that year. Its cost was sixty- two thousand, one hundred and forty-nine dollars. It had rooms for forty-two students and included a parlor and dining-room. Soon after the contribution of Mrs. Kelly, Mrs. Mary Beecher gave fifty thousand dollars for a dormitory for women on a similar agreement, viz., that she receive five per cent per annum on that sum during the remainder of her life. The construction of Beecher Hall went on in conjunction with that of Kelly, and it also was finished in the summer of 1893 and opened to students October i of that year. The two halls were of the same size, accommodated the same number of students, and their cost was substantially the same a trifle over sixty-two thousand dollars. It was in June, 1892, that a subscription of fifty thousand dollars was received from Mrs. Nancy S. Foster for a third dormitory for women. It was decided to locate the hall on the northwest corner of University (then Lexington) Avenue and Fifty- ninth Street, and to make it five instead of four stories high, as Beecher and Kelly were. It being found that it could not be built for the sum subscribed, Mrs. George E. Adams, Mrs. Foster's daughter, announced to the Board that if the University would go forward and erect Foster Hall her mother would pay the cost of its erection. On this encouragement the contracts were let and the beautiful building was constructed. It was finished in October, 1893. Here, perhaps, it should also be recorded that when in 1900 it became desirable to enlarge the hall, Mrs. Foster most generously authorized the Trustees to do this and send the bill to her. Her gifts amounted, in the end, to eighty- three