Class of 1929
This is a very important letter; so it is short and to the point. This number of the MAGAZINE goes to each one of you with the compliments of the Secretaries Association and the fervent hopes of your scribe. This opening is written with the one purpose of stimulating you into a sufficient degree of class consciousness to inspire you to put aside your procrastinating and quibbling and subscribe for the MAGAZINE. The MAGAZINE itself seems to be able to get along without your united support, but our class column is not so well off. It is in sore need of help. That help must come in two different ways: first, by way of news material sent in to your Secretary each month. That help has and will continue to come in from you so long as we write letters each month to several of you crying for news. The other way in which we must have help is in the reading of the column. And that help can be had only if you subscribe to the MAGAZINE and receive it each month. Last year we had a class letter in each issue of the MAGAZINE without fail. Twenty-nine's secretary was one of the twenty-two class secretaries with a hundred per cent record. We wrote twenty-two thousand, two hundred and seventy-two words to stand fifth among class secretaries for volume. And then, along with these gratifying figures, we learn that only thirty-seven per cent of the class had been reading the MAGAZINE. That was discouraging. It seems like a great waste of opportunity to write good class letters addressed to the entire class and then learn that only about one-third of the class bothers to read the stuff. We are sure that the subscription price is beyond no one's ability to pay with a little sacrifice. We are beginning our fourth year away from Hanover. It's high time we all became aware that we are alumni.
We have just returned from a summer in England, getting back to Boston in time to get unpacked and start to work in a law office the day after Labor Day. So we have had no chance to gather in any fresh news for this letter, but must fall back on a few letters received last June. We shall have a fresher offering for you next month, together with the latest gossip that can be wrung out of such well established local men as Dick Johnson and Brooks White.
Ginger Pratt, inspired by the great event, announces that he has become the father of John Clark Pratt, born August 19, 1932. Father Pratt married Katherine Jennison of Swanton, Vt., back in 1931, is in the publishing firm of A. S. Barnes and Co., and is living in New York city.
From Oxford, England, Mr. and Mrs. Carl Spaeth announce the birth of Carl Grant Spaeth on the twenty-seventh of June. And from California Mr. and Mrs. Jack Allen announce the arrival on July twenty-fourth of Nancy Irving Allen.
And that is a good summer.
We have notice of three recent weddings: Phil Dinsmore was married to Mildred McKey of Newton, on June 11. Bob Lyle was married to Lelia Scott of Auburn, N. Y., June 25. And Jerry Swope was married to Marjorie Park of New York on the second of July. That last wedding we took part in as an usher, along with Dud Orr and Bill Coles. Mr. and Mrs. Swope are living in New York, where Jerry is trying to make a living as an honest lawyer.
Cenotaph IslandLituya Bay, Alaska.June 23, 1932.
DEAR BILL:
I suppose you're wondering why I didnot inform you of my summer plans at anearlier date, but the truth of the matteris that I hesitated to announce any news,for there are so many unexpected developments involved in a proposition of thissort. However, now that I'm on the line Isuppose it's safe to make some predictionsregarding the next few months.
Last January I signed on as advanceagent of the 1932 Mt. Fairweather Expedition, led by Brad Washburn of Cambridge.So the rest of the winter was spent in experimenting with all kinds of alpine gearfrom primus stoves to bakelite skis. Muchof this testing was done on Mt. Washington, so you can bet I didn't shed manytears over that assignment.
Then in the spring we were faced withthe problem of packing and shipping almost three tons of expedition equipment.Later in the spring I left the East alone andtraveled over the Canadian National routefrom Montreal to Vancouver, making stopsat Winnipeg and Jasper Park. Several dayswere spent doing expedition business inVictoria and Seattle. At length on June 2I boarded to good ship 'Admiral Rogers'and sailed to Juneau.
Final arrangements were completed atJuneau, and in company with a forestryassociate now stationed at Juneau with theForest Service I set out on a three-daycruise by chartered gas-boat in a northwesterly direction to Lituya Bay on theGulf of Alaska. Here at Cenotaph Island,the only permanent settlement (population.numbering one) along the 135 miles ofNorth Pacific coast line from Cape Spencerto Yakutat, we are making our tidewaterdepot camp.
The past ten days have been spent inthis vicinity, for my friend, Ray Taylor,has been authorized to make a plant andtree collection of this glaciated area on theTongase National Forest. I have been busyerecting triangulation markers on severalnearby summits for use later this summerto tie in our glacier map with the alreadyexisting coast charts.
Tomorrow noon a chartered plane isdue from Juneau with the five membersof the climbing party (Bradford Washburn,Walter Everett, Harold Paumgarten, Robert Bates, and Richard Riley). This planewill transfer in a couple of hours all oursupplies to a base camp at what we callParadise Lake at the very foot of the WestRidge of Fairweather, up which we propose to climb. In this way the packing ofsupplies to the foot of the mountain, whichrequired a month of tough glacier backpacking on Washburn's 1930 expedition,will be completed in a half-day, and weshall be all primed for the major offensiveon the mountain itself, which rises 13,500feet above our base camp. Taylor and mymail will return on this plane as soon asthe shuttling of equipment has been completed, and then for seventy days we shallbe isolated from everything except themountain.
During this time we hope to realize thethree objectives of the expedition: namely,a complete pictorial record (7500 feet),depicting the ascent of a major Alaskanpeak, a map of the mountain slopes andglaciers between the International Boundary and the Coast (a region which hasnever been adequately mapped), and thegathering of subject material for a bookto be published probably next fall byBrewer, Warren, and Putnam upon theFairweather Range.
I have never even heard of a regionwhich possesses the photographic opportunities that are everywhere on the Fairweather Range. Of course, any mountainthat rises to an altitude of 15,300 feet froman ocean only sixteen miles distant fromits summit is bound to produce wonderfuleffects, but here there are tremendousglaciers, precipitous ice falls, almost constant avalanches, and abundant wild life,such as mountain goats, brown bears, andthe rare glacier bear. I surely hope thatParamount will be satisfied with our films,for they should be of high quality if weget half a break.
As I was winding up that last sentencethe "Chichagoff" dropped out of the sky,so I must bring this letter to a speedy close.Perhaps I'll have something interesting totell you about in 'the next letter, whenever that may be mailed.
Sincerely,Bob Monahan.
IF YOU HAVEN'T SUBSCRIBED TO THE MAGAZINEFOR 1932-33, DO SO NOW! SUBSCRIPTION BLANKIS INSERTED INSIDE FRONT COVER.
Secretary, FREDERICK WILLIAM ANDRES 20 Prescott St., Cambridge, Mass.
