CLASS OF 1908
Bill English has mailed to the Assistant Secretary a large newspaper picture and story of classmate Bill Knight, state's attorney in Rockford, Ill. The picture shows Bill in a Sherlock Holmes attitude examining a piece of plumbing. The two-foot section of brass pipe is well smeared with bl-l-ud and wisps of golden hair. The text says it is believed to be the weapon with which a Rockford school teacher was beaten to death. Bill is described as "probing teacher's death." Along with it is a picture of a long-haired "eccentric" who was arrested for the murder. Gee, it's a cheerful picture. Wish we could pass it along to all classmates, along with the Merry Christmas and Happy New Year cards. It's an excellent picture of a section of soiled brass pipe, and an unmistakable likeness of "Go-gettum" Bill Knight. Perhaps somebody could get a laugh out of it.
Bill English, of course, is now vice-president of Rockford College, and has his main office at 77 West Washington St., Chicago. His college duties are entirely executive and financial.
Bert Thwing has written a welcome letter, from which items of interest to classmates can be broadcast. He says he has had an excellent year in business, with a good vacation for golf in midsummer. Then brisk business again in the fall, interrupted by a two weeks' fishing trip in September. In February he plans a trip to Bermuda. We surmise that all a Montreal man goes to Bermuda for is the trip.
That letter from Thwing also says that Morey 'OB is now associated with him in Montreal, in the Raymond Concrete Pile Company. Morey is a classmate few of us Easterners have seen since 1908. He has been in charge of construction of a new mill being built for International Paper Company at Corner Brook, Newfoundland. Some day he'll drop into the home office in Montreal on a day when Thwing isn't golfing or fishing or touring Bermuda, and then there'll be a reunion. Hope Bert can influence Morey to report on himself; we'd all like to hear from that chap.
Carolyn Lewis, daughter of Art, has been elected president of the senior class at Emma Willard school, in Troy, N. Y. It is a class of 115 in a school of 450. She will enter Wellesley next fall. Art's younger daughter, Virginia Lewis, is also at the school in Troy, where she will have two years before entering Wellesley. Art visited the school at Christmas and made arrangements for entrance of his third daughter, Augusta, whose birth in November, 1929, has been duly chronicled.
Male members of the Lewis family deserve some notice, too. Art is president of the Watertown Rotary Club this year, and also of Watertown Chamber of Commerce. His sonJack, aged 11 Jack, aged 11 and weighing 93, tubside, attends Newton Country Day School, and played football on the intermediate team last fall. Heisa rugged lad, and if the Carnegie Foundation doesn't get too active he may be able to earn a living by playing football for the Dartmouths a few years hence.
The Assistant Secretary has received several pictures of classmates from Pach Bros', studios. They are certainly excellent portraits, size 8 x 10. The 'OB men will, or should, recall that at the reunion in 1928, they voted to have in 1933 a class book with pictures of all classmates. To some of us this sounded exceedingly difficult: like entertaining the Prince of Wales,—a good idea, but hard to accomplish. Messrs. Pach Bros, with their studios in most cities, have undertaken to make pictures of every member of the class and furnish prints to the Secretary, at no expense to either the class treasury or to the individual men. We suppose if you like the picture and want a dozen finished up, you'll pay for them, and very likely if you get elected senator or president or fly across the Pacific or murder your wife, the Pach picture may be sold to some newspaper. But we can't see how the class, or any classmate can be put to any expense or embarrassment by accepting the invitation to sit for his portrait. Certainly the pictures of Jack Clark, Pease, McMillan, Hammond, and others that have come in already are the kind that every classmate will enjoy seeing. It appears that Pach Bros, are doing a mighty fine service for the class, and we hope every man will cooperate in making this complete collection of class pictures.
There is just as much news about the 'OB class as about any other; the difficulty is to get it. If the notes in the MAGAZINE and class bulletins seem to be predominently about Eastern men, it is simply because the Assistant Secretary happens to see and hear more about them. And little enough at best. When some classmate writes a letter that gives some news about himself or some other classmate we feel like hugging him. Some nice friendly letters this month have been enjoyed, but you couldn't pry a news item out of 'em with a crowbar.
Same for the pretty Christmas cards. Forty-eleven classmates have wished the Secretary a Happy New Year without telling him a single jot of gossip.
Reverting to that letter of Thwing's—that is a real meaty letter that warms the heart of a reporter. Bert tells about his September fishing trip, and writes, "When you can catch 50 trout any time you go out, in a couple of hours time, and none of them weighing under half a pound, there certainly is no cause for complaint." We'd say there wasn't. Also we show our suspicious nature by noting that Bert did not actually say he did catch 'em at that rate. But he strongly implies it.
Alden "Lindy" Speare, who now lives in Nashua and supplies dry goods to the fair ladies of southern New Hampshire, is head of the Lions in his home city, and the organization is more alive and roaring than it ever was before.
George Butterfield of Fitchburg has found time during the summer for occasional rounds of golf, and is known as one of the long hitters of the Massachusetts city.
Clinton McLane, a nephew of Mrs. Jack Clark and cousin of the 'OB class baby, has been appointed by Senator Keyes to a position as doorkeeper in the Senate at Washington.
Jess Harding is out of the insurance business, and at last reports was back in Boston engaged in supplying advertising novelties to a fast-growing trade.
Prof. R. R. Marsden, who is taking a year off from his job of dean-ing the Thayer School and traveling in the Southwest, has come to time with a letter which gives a bit more information than his earlier postcard with the portrait of the Gila monster. From Los Angeles on January 2 the Dean writes: Dear Art:
Mary and I came over to Los Angeles for Christmas. Of course I went to the Dartmouth luncheon, but was nearly ejected when they found out I was an 'OB man. Later one explained that there were so many 'OB men in the association and they are so important that the under dogs have to band together in selfdefense. That day Dick Merrill, Jim Norton, Kid Richardson, Larry Treadway, and myself were present. Tread has a couple of his boys with him to look over the country. They were planning to drive down to San Diego with Dick and Jim later in the week. I'll maintain a discreet silence about the weather, in view of what the papers tell us the home folks are getting.
I heard two kids discussing my license plate the other day. One said, "It's New Hampshire"; theother claimed "New Haven"; and just then a third one came up. "Ah, go on, you're cockeyed. That means 'North Hollywood.' "
Mary joins me in best wishes to you all. We are both feeling fine.
Cordially, Bob.
Assistant Secretary, Milford, N. H.
