A Cozy Invitation
Gifted by Gwynn Lemler
Gathered by Ashley M. Laughlin
November 2024
Gwynn Lemler is a Senior Office Associate in the English and Modern & Classical Languages departments of the University of Wyoming. She has worked in the English department for 14 years, and at the University of Wyoming for 24 years. Gwynn's office, located in Hoyt Hall, and is decorated with trinkets, knick-knacks, and gifts that she has collected during her long tenure at the University of Wyoming. These items display her personality and many of her interests, and there are several connections to her family. The following photographs detail many of the items decorating this intentionally inviting space.
"I believe I started with two or three plants. The Norfolk pine was actually originally in the Mathison library. Significantly, my mother gave me a Norfolk pine when I moved into the dormitory. It was my freshman year. It only took a couple of weeks to kill it."
"The spider plants were propagations from my brother, and I'm pretty sure he got those originally from my mother. I'm not quite that much of a green thumb, but I do have a softness for green growing things."
"The two pictures are gifts from the Modern & Classical Languages department. They had someone who in the past—I think they were faculty—who did the paintings, and they had permission to reprint them as gifts for people, as thank-you's for their efforts and work."
"Jeff says he married his best friend, and I feel the same way. This photo is probably about a year after we got the cats. They're brothers. We lost our cat of, oh gosh, 13, 14 years—no, even longer than that. We went on a vacation and came back, and I thought, 'Okay, we're ready.' Our original cat was Hobbs. She was a black cat as well. We got her while I was still living in the dorms, and my husband—boyfriend at the time—was living in an apartment. He went and got a cat—so we could have a cat together. It's been almost 10 years since she died, and it's still hard sometimes."
"I do identify as a cat lady—a little bit. I certainly appreciate the sentiment of a crazy cat lady, although two cats is plenty. Having a cat in my life is important. The majority of the cats in my office are from my husband."
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"There's a program on campus called 'Friendship Families' and it pairs people who are interested with international students to give them the opportunity to experience a home life while they're here. And one of our 'Friendship Families' students gifted this to my husband and I. There is another one at home."
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"When I was 18, coming back from my first year in college, and I talked my mother and my grandmother into getting a generational portrait taken. You can kind of see our similarities. But that is actually the only family photo besides the cats and my husband's picture."
"The fact that I have so many decorations here is a testament to how many people have given them to me."
