Class of 1889
Five of our class attended the annual after-the-game dinner at the Boston City Club, October 22. Undoubtedly Rice will give a report of the dinner, since it was the men of '87 who started the custom several years ago, and, in recent years, have included members of contemporary classes. Our men present were Bartlett, Blakely, Cutler, Frost, and Wellman. Bartlett, just back from a few weeks in Russia, gave us interesting comments on conditions in that country of experiments. He contrasted what he saw this year with what he had seen on previous visits.
Recently the Secretary had the pleasure of calling on Blanchard in his home town, Barre, Mass. He still serves as manager for the telephone company and as town clerk. Occasionally he is called upon to preach on Sunday, marry a couple, or perform some other task of a clergyman. He rejoices in a flock of seven grandchildren, and continues to be a cheerful, incurable optimist.
A little south of Barre is Ware, and in that town lives the other clergyman of our class, Arthur Chase, who has served one church as rector for thirty-seven years. On him also the Secretary called, and found him well and as busy as ever with the varied and exacting duties of his profession. His older daughter lives with him and is a teacher in the local high school. She came with her father to our reunion in 1929. The other daughter is at Yale, a docent in one of the museums. Both are Radcliffe graduates. The older son, A.B. Harvard '29, taught in private schools for three years, but now is pursuing graduate studies at Yale. The younger son left the Harvard Engineering School because of illness. For two years his chief effort was to regain his health. He worked at differ- ent "jobs" in several of the Western states, and this year has transferred to the University of new Mexico, where he plans to complete the course required to become a civil engineer.
Mention was made in the November issue of the MAGAZINE of the recently published biographical sketch of Ozora Stearns Davis by his wife. It seems not inappropriate to relate the story of the source of his unusual name. Ozora was born in 1866. His father was a soldier in the Civil War. The Colonel under whom he served and whom he greatly admired was Ozora Stearns. What could be more natural than that the soldier-father should give his son the name of his beloved commanding officer? But why was Colonel Stearns named Ozora? Our classmate often said that the only unkind thing his parents ever did to him was to give him such a name. Late in his life he met the daughter of Colonel Stearns in a Western city and from her learned the origin of the name. Before the birth of her father, she said, her grandmother and a friend had read one of the ultra-romantic novels of the day, the story of a Persian princess. "The Persian damselwas so wonderful and her name so beautiful that they decided that it must be bestowed upon the baby girl who was expected. The baby proved to be a boy, butthe name was too lovely to be relinquished;so they gave it to him instead, and he wascalled after the Persian princess—Ozora." It was too late to cast aside the name which he had borne for over fifty years, but our Ozora stipulated that no descendant should be required to perpetuate further the memory of the romantic heroine of a distant land.
Secretary, 87 Milk St., Boston, Mass.
