The hand-written diary / notebook was kept by Dr. Charles Allen Cary during his time at South Dakota State Agricultural College, prior to his being brought to Auburn in 1892. This unique log contains a few pages of Dr. Cary's notes about equine health. The logbook is undated, but Dr. Cary was in Brookings, South Dakota from 1889 to 1891. He came to Auburn initially in January 1892 for a three month appointment. His performance convinced President Broun and others to make an offer of permanent appointment, which Dr. Cary accepted and began on January 1, 1893. The notebook was acquired ar Dr. H.C. Morgan's estate sale around 2019.

The book, A Medical Vocabulary Workbook, by Leo Gosser (1948) was also acquired at the Morgan estate sale and was H.C. Morgan's personal copy of the book when he was in veterinary school. In 1927, a young faculty member came to teach English. Leo Gosser (1897-1987) would teach at API (now Auburn University) forty years before retiring after spring semester 1966. He was the real deal: Leo Gosser grew up on a Missouri farm and taught himself to read French while plowing.

A graduate of Missouri State Teachers College, Leo also held a PhD from the University of Chicago. Dr. Gosser taught Auburn's first classes in advanced composition and, among other things, eventually developed a class in medical vocabulary for pre-med and pre-veterinary students. This was to teach these future doctors the roots of the science and medical terminology they would need to know. Before the land-grant focus took over, all Auburn students took courses in Latin and Greek. That classical background was abandoned by the early years of the twentieth century. As Gosser arrived, veterinary students were having trouble understanding the medical terminology in their classes. Asked to develop "a good stiff course in the analysis of medical words," Gosser authored a text based on the words the veterinary professors had provided. The result was A Medical Vocabulary Workbook, a softbound terror of 130-plus pages that probably gave even the brightest students bad Greek and Latin dreams.

Dr. Gosser also directed the Auburn Players student drama group, which then rehearsed and performed in the Y-Hut, today's University Chapel. For years, he played the central role in inviting high school drama groups to campus to take part in drama tournaments he organized.

Leo Gosser, sitting at the desk he occupied for four decades in his office in Samford Hall - the desk used by English Professor Charles Thach before he became API president - worked for years toward compiling an Old English dictionary. He was nearing the end of this massive and important project when he learned that another scholar had had the same idea - and had gotten his dictionary published first. Nothing became of Gosser's work on early English words. (contributed by: Sam and Mary Ellen Hendrix)