CLASS OF 1929
The following etter from Chan Bete is just the kind we would like to start off with every month. It's good; the news is good; and it sets an excellently good example to such others of you who have achieved a similar fame yet who have let your glory go unsung. If any of you bucks have started raising a family you ought to realize that one of your first duties to the newcomer, let alone to the class, is to introduce the little songster to the rest of the tribe. Then, come ten, fifteen, or twenty years, when we shall have gathered in reunion and are about to take a licking in a fathers versus families ball game, there will be no need for introductions, but we shall all be able to say, "Why, I've known all about you ever since you were less than a month old. How have you been treating the old man?"
Here's what Chan writes under date of January 18, from Greenfield, Mass.:
"I want to do a little press-agencing for a charming young lady who is entering the second week of what gives promise to be a record run of a stellar production. The young lady's name is Jacqueline Bete—born on January 11, 1931—and she has completely run away with the show as far as the Mr. and Mrs. are concerned—totally eclipsing a dog, two cats, and a set of Encyclopedia Britannicas.
"Incidentally, this [publicity effort is instigated by Mrs. Bete, who reads your monthly compendium with much interest and serves the Java-flavored morsels of '29 meanderings to me with my meals.
"Besides being a father, amateur pressagent, and—as Dan Conway, late chef of Hanover's dog-cart would say— 'things like that'—my name appears with more or less frequency on the payroll of the Greenfield Tap and Die Corporation (world's largest maker of threading tools). My job is assisting the manager in charge of promoting sales.
"And that, in these lean months, is some job.
"With best regards to you and all the other Twenty-niners,
"CHANNING L. BETE '29"
Congratulations to you and Mrs. Chan and the little lady herself!
We received a newsy letter from Ray Hedger, who is up to his neck in insurance fellowship, having just completed an intensive course at N. Y. U. which called for five and a half hours an evening, thrice a week. He reports as follows:
"Here's a little dope on a few of the New York crowd if you haven't already heard it. I ran into Henry Baker up at N. Y. U. one night. He said he was studying graduate chemistry. We were both hurrying to classes, so I didn't learn much more.
"Scotty, or John Scott, of Wantagh, L. I., after six months at Harvard, nine months of the sunshine of Florida, is now teaching English to the freshmen down at North Carolina University. I saw him the other night soon after he had returned for vacation. He has two dozen freshmen under his charge, and told me with a cruel glee in his eye that he had just flunked six of them. At the same time he is working for his M.A., which he expects in June. His family hinted at his attachment for a beauteous graduate student from up north, in Virginia, but Scotty wouldn't admit anything.
"Charley Mackay, ex '29, of Brooklyn joined me with the Equitable Life as '29's sacrifices to the life insurance world a few months ago. We're both located at 120 Broadway. Erny Earley had better look to his honors. Charley has a little inspiration in the shape of five feet two of feminine fairness, and if he doesn't starve first he figures on selling beaucoup life insurance.
"Bumped into Bob Brandt on Broadway some months ago. Fresh from Babson's institute and looking for a job to favor with his services. Heard later that he had decided to make them all wait for his services and gone off to Europe, and hasn't returned yet.
"Carl Worden is in Europe too, Paris, with some New York banking firm.
"I dropped in on Al Fisher a month ago in his Brooklyn office of the N. Y. Tel. He's already a traffic manager, whatever that may be, and has achieved a private office which looks as big as the library. Married and happy in spite of living in New Jersey.
"I bumped into Scotty Miller under odd circumstances. He'd just left Loveland's apartment from listening in on the Harvard game, way up on Washington Heights. Happened to look in a barber shop, and there waiting his turn to get rid of about a three-day beard was Scotty. He's working in Chase, but he looked like an Outing Clubber that day."
We got a short note from Wen Barney the other day, announcing a change in address and the reason—an advancement from the position of statistician to that of public accountant with the firm of Leach, Rindfleisch, and Scott, Richmond, Va. Another married man making good!
Several announcements that ring of wedding bells or give promise of such music have been gathered in lately. Which reminds us that we should appreciate it very much if each one of you would put this lowly scrib upon your social mailing list whether he rates the favor or not. Otherwise we are reduced to the nightly task of scanning the social columns of the one evening journal that comes our way. Were it not for the eagle eye of Woodsman Bob Monahan, down New Haven way, we would be lacking two of the following bits. He clipped them and forwarded them to us one of the many evenings we let our interest in current events lag.
Will all of those intimately connected with the following please accept the hearty congratulations of the Tribe:
The marriage of Bob Cate to Clara Louise Small took place in New York city, Sunday, January the eighteenth. Mr. and Mrs. Bob are living at 970 Park Ave., Woodeliff, N. J. Bob is with the New York Telephone Co.
Just a week ago (from the time of this writing), Ken Wilson gave up being a law student for the week-end, made straight for Hyannis, on the Cape, and got himself married to Harriet Louise Mehath in. The law school is such a chummy place that through all last week's going to and fro we never once chanced upon the blushing bridegroom, but we understand that they are living at 88 Linnaean St., Cambridge, where all meals are home-cooked now.
Phil Rising's engagement to Mildred McKey of Newton Center has recently been announced.
And from Montclair, N. J., comes the announcement of the engagement of Art Rydstrom to Harriet Livingston Lowry.
News from the Continent has been very scarce: our fault, no doubt, because these gifted wayfaring scholars of ours demand letter for letter, not being as generous and forgiving as you home-lovers, who now and then come through even if you seldom get a direct answer.
Gaynor still charms Vienna, with one eye cocked homeward in anticipation of returning in May.
We saw Big Phil Mayher the other evening at the Symphony. He comes up this way about every week-end and occasionally drops in on his old buddy Coles, who is getting to be rounder and more of a rounder day by day, due to close proximity to Swope. Other than some bits of small gossip there is nothing to relate concerning those in the vicinity of Harvard Square. We see each other daily, eat and argue together and play a little squash or shinny-hockey in our odd moments. 'Tis sad but true that there's very little news hereabouts.
On the stationery of the Fidelity Deposit Co. of Maryland, written under date of December 10, 1930, from Houston, Texas, we have the following good letter from Cal Soriero. This letter happens to be the last of our scribal resources. Our files are cleaned out. Next month's column will be a bare spectacle if some of you don't rescue us with a slight flurry of news. It won't take you long to write us off a few lines, and if you don't it will surely take your scribe a very long time to scent down odd items here and there. So how about a little tribal powwowing?
Here's Cal's letter, aforementioned:
"I spent ten months after Commencement in the training school of this company— sweating over knowledge eight hours a day and longing for a rip snortin' peerade. The school was in Baltimore, and, naturally, so was I. In the apartment next to mine I found Art Clifford pounding out a ragtime tune on a music box he had acquired by some devious and probably underhanded means. He was struggling along on a debit for an insurance company and seeking 'fair' prospects, as I remember. Now he's inside worrying about the problems of an actuary. Bob Hazard was in town too. Regularly he punched a clock, at the Union Trust Company, but I understand the task became tedious and he gave it up. At the Navy-Notre Dame game I almost fell out of a Charles St. bus yelling at Freddie Breithut and Jack Hubbard, who had come down to scout for the old Alma Mater. Once, on a train coming from Philadelphia to Baltimore, I met Harry Enders who looked as weak as I felt. You see, that occasion was only two days removed from New Year's Eve. As previously reported in your column he was, and still is, with Gorhams.
"Then, in April of this year, I was sent to the mythical land of Texas that everyone hails as God's country these days. I've seen more cowboy hats, boots, horses, cactus, mesquite, cows, hogs, chickens, mirages, and, incidentally, beautiful girls than I ever knew existed. This is some ranch, if you know what I mean. It is further from El Paso to Texarkana, in the same state, than it is from Texarkana to Chicago!
"I can hardly get to see any of the games that I read about, but Texas has its advantages. For instance, not long ago I found myself in Mexico eating quail, dove, and venison well washed with beer and wine. I found that, in Reynosa and Matamoras, I had no need for Judge Jr., and would prefer the company of Sidney Franklin, who started his career in the bull ring of the former city. Then, too, it would be difficult to find a more beautiful sight than the Rio Grande valley with all the citrus fruits on the trees and with tall, graceful palms shimmering in the breeze. Oh, I could tell you a great deal about this state, but you are interested in 1929.
"Well, in the cafeteria of the Baker Hotel at Dallas, I saw the back of a head that looked familiar, so I went upstairs to the desk and inquired for the name that the head suggested. Imagine, Harry Enders again! I have seen him since in Houston, and he is living well, if not hilariously. Over at Brooks Field, San Antonio, I found another of our class whose name I do not recall at this time. He is in 'B' stage of the flying course that ended so fatally for Dick Braggins.
"I occasionally see members of other classes, i.e., Phil Thompson, Wendell Phillips, Jerry Sass, Billy Moore, etc., but seldom see any of my own. I might as well be in China. However, I do hear of the boys from time to time.
"Lyt Johnson is in New York taking the spots off of Leopard Shock Absorbers, and last month, married the young lady who has had him under control since childhood.
"Ellie Wright is also in New York with some advertising firm, and I understand Ed Heister is in the same city increasing the circulation of the metropolitan press. Bud Stickler might be found most any time buzzing over the city itself, for he is now a licensed pilot and Eastern agent for some glider concern.
"Woody Woodbridge is in Rochester, endeavoring to break through Eastman's outer shell. So far he is apparently succeeding.
"Dick Johnson is bringing his castles in the air to earth by acquiring the status of embryonic contractor. He is with his dad in Chicago.
"Russ Hazelton seems to be raising dogs for shows chiefly, although I've heard that he still has time for fishing, and occasionally remembers his job with the American Narrow Fabric Company of Worcester, Mass. Did Barrett is there, too, having recently opened a branch office for the Bankers Trust Company. My memory, however, may be inexact."
Secretary, 114 Pleasant St., Arlington, Mass.
