CLASS of 1929
This has been an exceedingly lean month for class news in spite of a trip to Hanover over the week-end of October 10, and a nervewracking afternoon at the Harvard Stadium just yesterday. We haven't had time to notice during the past four weeks that you have all deserted us, but now we suddenly realize that not a single letter from any of you has made its voluntary appearance. We wonder whether any of you are under the impression that this class letter makes up any more easily since we joined up with our present roommate, or that having a wife puts an end to our usefulness as tribal scribe. Not so, good brothers. Just give us a chance.
While in Hanover we saw Mr. and Mrs. Ellie Cavanagh, whom we said much about in last month's letter. We learned that recent additions to the faculty include Maurie Mandlebaum, who is an assistant instructor in biography, and Johnny Cornehlsen, who is an assistant in the art department. We had quite a reunion with Bill Keyes, Bob Walsh, Freddie Breithut and Long Tom Maynard. Tom was in town with the Tilton Academy football team. As instructor in history and English, coach of the glee club, coach of track, and trainer of the football squad, Tom has his hands full. He looked well-fed and seemed content for the present. Freddie was scheduled to be in Hanover all fall as a member of the freshman coaching staff, but a raise and a better job which takes him soon to Detroit prevented this anticipated vacation. Breithut is as lean in face and figure as he used to be stocky. Maybe Brother Brabb of the Detroit Brass Band can see to it that Freddie gets the proper sort of nourishment out there. Bill Keyes is still hard at work with Barney and Company in New York, and Bob Walsh is back home in Woburn after a good summer of ball on the Cape.
Jim Hodson came back from the Yale game and said that between touchdowns he had seen the following, all in good and proper condition: Mr. and Mrs. Art Clow, Ed How, Charlie Shaeffer, Lloyd Kent, Nick Nickerson, Van Jamieson, Mac McNamara, Ed Heister, Chris Born, Jack Gunther, Dick Exton, Eddie Ellinger, Tom Stokes, Ted Watchinsky, George McLachlan, and Buck Buckley.
The other day we received a bulletin entitled "The Twenty-Niners," got up by the '29 delegation at the A. T. O. house. We wrote to Saw Kier about it, and received in return an explanation of the idea which seems so good that we hand it on to you. Incidentally it provides us with class news.
Saw wrote: "The idea behind the bulletin was the one that those in the delegation were losing track of each other, as you may perhaps find to be the case with your delegation. Contrary to the usual rule, matters did not cease with the mere utterance, but Lew Schuh, Ken Page, and I got together at various times, and formed a plan by which we could meet the expressed need, and at the same time be of some benefit to the house. The bulletin is primarily of interest to '29 A. T. O's, but will also be of value to the house informationally, as not only do the undergraduates get out a paper for the alumni, but they also try to keep up-to-date alumni records. Having managed the paper there for two years, I know how difficult it is to get alumni to write to the chapter; consequently, I feel that our bulletin will be more complete to ourselves and supplement the activities of the house.
"The machinery of our plan, in brief, is this: the three of us constituted ourselves a temporary executive committee to start the works. An elected committee (by duespaying members) will serve from this January for a year, and from their number select a treasurer. This treasurer will write each '29 brother two or three times a year, and from the replies, he will get out a bulletin. In addition, he will try to collect dues. Our plan for dues is to start this year with two dollars a man, and increase it a dollar a year until a limit of five or ten dollars is attained, trusting that we shall improve our financial position as the years pass. The money will be deposited by the treasurer in a savings bank, where it will remain at interest until a sizable amount accumulates. When the house needs money for some specific improvement, the executive committee is to have the power to give the house money, definitely setting the purpose for which the money is applied, and we hope to limit it to improvements to the physical plant. We thus avoid spending the money in driblets, letting it go for baseballs and plumbers, etc.
"I can furnish you with one or two additional items now, gleaned from replies to the first bulletin.
"Tank Shores, ne Franklin Dana, ex-'29, is manager of the W. T. Grant store in Waynesboro, Pa., having in the meantime been in most of the stores along the Atlantic seaboard. Tank was forced into the chain stores by the recent decline and fall of the bond salesman, and also by the financial crack-up of an aviation school in Kansas.
"Wally Willard's former job as statistician in a Hartford bank was abruptly terminated by the premature and entirely unpremeditated cessation of the bank's stability, but is now holding down new responsibilities for God, Amos Tuck, and Mrs. Willard.
"There will be more, I hope, later. In the next few days, I am going to be busy as hell getting ready for my vacation, which will include the Harvard and Cornell games, and if there is to be one, the house party at Hanover. I shall be there, party or none, and perhaps I shall see you one place or the other.
"Best wishes, and I do hope the above is what you wanted. If not, I'll be glad to answer any questions."
Sincerely, SAW KIER
Other news items from the A. T. 0. bulletin:
"Freddie O'Connell is now a full-fledged perfessor. Freddie wangled some extra credits the summer after we graduated, and then entered Emerson College, emerging from the wings eventually with another degree—that of Bachelor of Literary Interpretation. As Okie tells it—'I specialized in the Speech Arts and in Play Production, though try as I might, they would still consider Barrymore better than I. Nevertheless, I had plenty of experience—in our own productions, with Moscovitch when he played Shylock in the 'Merchant of Venice' at the Tremont Theatre in Boston, and this past year in the productions of the Cambridge School of the Drama, affiliated with Harvard, where I was retained as a paid actor. Tried radio work for a while—unsuccessfully—then along came this offer from Minnesota—and now I'm on the verge of becoming a college instructor.'
"Freddie started work this fall as an instructor in the department of public speaking and play production at the College of St. Theresa, in Winona, Minn.
"Mike Page is holding down an arduous but indefinable job with the Terminal National Bank in Chicago—has regular business cards and everything.
"Johnny Ilowland writes: 'At present I am working in the foundry of the Chas. G. Allen Cos. in Barre, trying to learn enough to hold down a superintendent's job. It is at least a two years' course, and the hardest Work I ever hope to live through. One of my jobs is to feed about four or five tons of iron and steel into the stack. The temperature is somewhere around 150 degrees. Thank God that is only for an hour a day.'
"Noel Salomon has gone West—to California, where the roses bloom, and they buy football teams by the ton. He and his father drove out in the fall of 1929, and Solly and the car stayed. Be it known to all and sundry that jobs in California are scarce, so Solly went back to selling Fuller Brushes. Finally, however, he landed a job in a bank—and is still there. At one time, he expected to live on oranges. His younger brother is with him now, and things are looking up.
"Saw Kier is still working for the West Penn Power Cos. After leaving Tuck School cold, he was lucky enough to get a job as a cadet engineer with the West Penn, and immediately was shoved into the boiler room of a large power station. Saw says that he did everything from stoking boilers and painting transformers to being Miss Louise Brown of the home economics branch of the promotional development department. Last May, he was taken off the course, and is now completing a round of the various sections of the treasury department, where he will do special work for the assistant treasurer in charge of the department. Saw bought some preferred stock of the company a while ago, and in two days it dropped 20 points, which cured him, so he says, of trying to break the depression."
Gordon Colquhoun is in the commercial department of the Andover National Bank, and is living at 111 Chestnut St., Andover, Mass.
Bill Hudson is in his final year at Yale Art School.
Charlie Proctor has gone into the sporting goods business with the Asa C. Osborn Company,175 Federal St., Boston.
Joe O'Leary is working for Toy Town Tavern, Winchendon, Mass.
Charlie King is with the Dry Ice Corporation of America, and is living at 3 West 50th St., New York city.
George Yeaton is on the editorial staff of the Springfield Union.
Nat Barrows, after graduating from Harvard Business School, is now driving a delivery truck for C. G. Howes Company, dry cleanser. In fact the other day he delivered us a suit right here at 20 Prescott St. He and Mrs. Barrows live at 74 Albemarle Road, Newtonville.
Herb Morse is an instructor at Teaneck High School, Tear.eck, N. J.
Bill White is wi.h J. Murray Walker and Company, Boston.
John Milligan is studying for his Ph.D. at Brown.
Joe Piazza is teaching at the Taft School, Watertown, Conn.
Tex Shugart was married to Mary Adams October 27 at Fort Worth, Texas.
Dick Robin, who is a traveling representative for the Becton-Dickinson Co., of Rutherford, N. J., has come into Boston for his semi-annual visit, and brings news of his two traveling roommates, Shep Stone and Charlie Goldsmith. Shep writes from Wernigerode a.Harz—as follows: "Dear Dick, Professor Vernon met me in Goslor yesterday and has entertained me at his lovely home in Wernigerode. He is the same fine fellow and we had a real reunion." And Charlie, who wrote from Rio de Janeiro, says: "Dear Dick. Well, here I am a full fledged member of the other side of the world. Had a wonderful trip down, and arrived in a beautiful city. My headquarters will be in Sao Paulo, which is about 350 miles south of here. Am leaving here Saturday." Charlie is now connected with the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer picture company, and has a very fine position in their foreign distribution department.
I was out West this past summer and stopped off in Portland, Oregon, and saw Hal Hirsch, who is fast becoming one of the leading younger business men of his community. Aside from his business, social, and civic contributions, Hal took time off this summer to race a dangerous steed in the Portland steeplechase, winning the race hands down and hair up.
MARV BRAVERMAN
Good cheer and the greetings of the approaching season to you all.
Secretary, 20 Prescott St., Cambridge, Mass.
