CLASS OF 1905

Joe Merrill sent in his questionnaire some time ago, using both sides of the page, and then wrote a good six-page letter besides. We will omit what seems to be his idea of how to kid a secretary, and also some of his personal jabs which would not interest others, and will have to shorten the rest. "Frances is a sophomore in high school, vigorously and viciously striving to keep her name on the 'A' honor roll. Her hobbies are swimming, canoeing, tramping, and Girl Scouts. Joe, or June, as we call him, has one hobby which is almost a besetting sin, and that is boats and boating. Since he is at Tabor he ought to get his fill of both this year. I enclose a picture of June in his Tabor costume. That honest look on his face he inherited from his mother. I was elected honorary member of the Eastern Beekeepers' Association. In February, 1931,1 was elected honorary life member of the American Honey Producers' League in recognition of 'valuable contributions to science, etc.' It is the custom of this organization to annually elect one member for this honor, who is supposed to have done outstanding work. On Christmas Day I received a composite letter from men engaged in scientific research in this country, expressing their appreciation of my research work, my teaching, and a few other complimentary remarks. Each man enclosed his personal check, and the wish was that I buy something for myself with this money. I used it to buy a very comfortable wheel chair, which has been a source of great comfort and enjoyment to me ever since. While the chair is very nice, I appreciate most the kind thought which actuated them. I suppose I might perhaps be considered to have more or less retired from active duty, but it is not so with Mrs. Merrill, for she is the town clerk and town treasurer in this large bustling town of 2,000 inhabitants. It may be a small town, but every one of those 2,000 inhabitants is a red-hot politician, in fact or in embryo. If one could buy groceries with thrills and excitement, it would be a wonderful position to hold, but inasmuch as Mrs. Merrill has her office at home, we are very well satisfied, especially as she was elected to this position after having been here only three years. We are awfully pleased that June was able to go to Tabor this year, due to Lil's kindness and someone else. It is a great school for developing the best that is in a boy, and I have great hopes for what it will do for June. He is larger now than his Dad was when he was in college (166 lbs. and going up). Last Saturday I had the satisfaction of seeing him get into the last quarter of the game against Moses Brown School. He never had any real football training before going to Tabor, consequently I thought he did well to get into the game. When we left Kansas and came to Massachusetts, we had every reason to believe that everything would be going nicely for us. But such was not the case. It would take a combination of an Edgar Allen Poe and a Ben Ames Williams to tell the full story of the adventures of the Merrills on their return to Massachusetts. However, we are now living on the bank of a 25-acre pond in the center of Raynham, in a quaint, old colonial house with five fireplaces, and Mrs. Merrill has one room set aside for the office of town clerk and treasurer. While I spend all of my time in a wheel chair, I flatter myself that mentally I am not crippled. I take just as active an interest in affairs as I ever did. Every year since returning to Massachusetts, I have taken part in the apicultural program at the Massachusetts State College in Amherst. I have also taken part in meetings in New Hampshire and Connecticut. I refuse to consider that I am on the shelf. I still take as active a part, by correspondence, in apicultural doings as I ever did. There are so many things that I can still enjoy that I feel extremely grateful that all these good things are possible to me. In 1926 the Apis Club, an international beekeepers' organization, at its annual meeting held in Paris, advanced two men from members to fellows. One was from Berne, Switzerland, and the other was from Raynham Center. I'll bet that was the first time Raynham Center was ever heard of in Paris. Last spring June made a nice lily pond, 10 by 8, and stocked it with pond lilies and goldfish. It has been very pleasant this summer to sit under the grape arbor with my books and watch the goldfish, then, later, see the pond lilies come into bloom. Our land goes right down to the edge of a very pretty pond, and during the summer we have an abundance of flowers. A fellow can be happy, Mac, if he makes up his mind to be."

Would that we all could have that optimistic philosophy. "Few things are needed to make the wise man happy, but nothing satisfies a fool."—Rochefoucauld.

In response to our urgent demand for reminicences, one of the boys writes (for obvious reasons desiring to remain incognito): "It was in freshman French. We were all pretty good at it, but liked to razz our Prof, by having ready two or three possible translations, or constructions in prose work, and then advocating the one he did not give, and showing our authority in Frazier and Squier. (How do you spell them?) He was on to us but gave no sign. One day Norcross stood up to recite, which was contrary to our custom in that class. Several of us stagewhispered, "sit down." He heard only me, for some reason, and said, calling my name, "There must be but one instructor in this class." At that everybody wooded up, which made him furious. He got red and then white, and then almost shouted, "I will ask you to leave the room and pass out of this course." Of course I went out, with more wooding-up. After class, and after realizing what this would mean at home, I went to the Prof, and tried to apologize. He heard me through, and then said, and he didn't smile either, "No,—, by your actions you have shown that you have all the instincts and characteristics of a born criminal." Well, you can imagine how I felt. And so my case went to the Dean, and then to the Faculty Committee, and finally it was left to Dr. Tucker. And Dr. Tucker,,, bless his heart, asked me how I would judge the case if our positions were reversed. What would you have said? I told him I would give him another chance! Guess he must have thought of that himself and did not need my help, but anyway he said that Prof.—had arranged to hear my recitations out of class for the rest of the semester. I am not sure that the Prof, did the arranging, but anyhow, I went to his rooms twice a week, rushed the course, and we became fast friends."

For a moment last summer I thought I had found one of our long-lost classmates, though I felt dumb not to recognize either name or face. I was introduced to the manager and chorus director of a musical-dramatic outfit which was staging its specialty here (with my assistance as a member of the chorus). He said he was Dartmouth, class of 1905, or was so introduced and did not deny it. I asked how long he was there and he said, "four years." "That's strange," I apologized, "I was 'O5 also, but I cannot place you." "But I graduated in 1903," he quickly informed me. "Then you knew my brother Nelson in that class," I asked, and he said "Yes," but his tone and appearance belied him. He mentioned St. Johnsbury, so I asked if he knew Bob Smith '02, and in the same unconvincing manner he said that he did. That evening George Agry and I looked in the general catalogue but could not find any such name, either in '03 or in any other class. The next time I saw my friend I asked him how he spelled his name and told him I could not find his name in the catalog. He insisted that it was there, in 1903, and we let it go at that. His company was here under the auspices of a church organization, and it seemed best to ignore it. I knew that he knew that I knew.

In the Directory of Alumni Associations and Clubs we find the following '05 men: Halsey B. Loder, Pres., Medical School Association.

Lafayette R. Chamberlin, Pres., Dartmouth Club of Boston.

W. Huston Lillard, Pres., Dartmouth Alumni Association of Southeastern Massachusetts.

Harold D. King, Pres., Dartmouth Club of Baltimore.

John A. Laing, Sec., Dartmouth Association of Oregon. And John W. Knibbs Jr., is one of "the Trustees of the Dartmouth Association of New York Alumni.

November 23, students, faculty, and trustees of Tabor Academy together with friends joined in congratulating Headmaster Walter H. Lillard on his fiftieth birthday. A surprise dinner was served in the school dining hall in Lillard Hall. Trustee L. L. Dexter presided as toastmaster, and several guests responded with congratulations to the guest of honor. A new Tabor song, dedicated to Lil, was sung for the first time, and the boys and faculty presented to him a combination ship's clock and barometer with the inscription, "Cappy, from All Hands, 1881-1931."

The Boston Traveler, December 11, quoting Tom Keady: "The day is not very far away when you will see a fifth official in football, and that extra official will be a doctor, trained in the handling of injured players. This official should go a long way toward stopping the large number of injuries, some of which have been fatal, in college football the past season. His word should be final, and he should be just as much a part of the game as the coaches and the referee." Formerly Lehigh and Quantico Marine coach, Tom has just concluded his first season with Western Reserve University.

The New York Times Book Review of September 13 is most complimentary in its reference to "The Closed Gentian," by Elizabeth Hollister Frost, who "gives to her reader only poetry the quality of which is in inverse ratio to the quantity." "The poet of 'The Closed Gentian' has refined her verses until they gleam and sparkle like cut and precious stone," etc. One of the poems, "Dust," is quoted as proof that "Mrs. Frost is not a minor poet, but a small edition of a major poet, and that her poetry has qualities of endurance."

"I know a lady (you know a lady), She is imbued with an ancient lust, Not for gentlemen, not for shady Pools of lilies, but dust.

Now when the dream is on the slender Willows, and lovers bruise the earth, She is constrained with zeal to bend her Fingers to broom the hearth.

Save you, Lady, at your strange wooing, Stroke your broom with a tender thumb, Whilst you consume sweet flesh pursuing The dust you'll soon become."

Henry Norton on January 5 was the speaker at the Round Table Luncheon at the Town Hall Club in New York. His subject was, "Amateur Internationnal Banking."

Barney (Dr. W. S.), of the faculty of Women's College of the University of North Carolina, is the proud father of five youngsters, of whom we can give the following brief life stories to date: W. S. Jr., 22, policy loan department, Jefferson Standard Life Insurance Company; Marshall H., 20, instructor in Spanish and graduate student, Guilford College; John E., 15, senior in high, president, student body and Hi-Y Society, debater, basketball, church choir, etc.; Mary E., 4, nursery school. "Mrs. Barney and myself live the ordinary lives of respectable citizens. We were left by the depression with some real estate of doubtful value, and a ten per cent cut in salary, but are getting along fairly well now. Mrs. Barney belongs to some clubs and heads a circle of the auxiliary (church). I am at present on leave of absence from the Civitan Club, occasioned by arthritis and sciatica, which kept me in bed about ten weeks from August 6. I missed about a month of college work, but am back now, and recovering satisfactorily. My first long trip was to the meeting of the South Atlantic Modern Language Association at Columbia, S. C. As I got together the founders of this association in Atlanta four years ago, I am proud to say it is growing finely. Shirley Cunningham of our class dropped in on me a few days ago. We hope to travel north next summer and renew contacts with familiar scenes. Our college is now made part of the University, and the consolidation of effort (if any) may relieve me of some duties, so that I can take a somewhat longer vacation. My best wishes to all the class.

Cordially,

W. S. BARNEY

Jim Mulally, still legal mentor for the Great Northern Railway, headquartering at St. Paul, also is one of the parents of five energetic and husky boys and girls. See how they teem with life! Judith, 20, junior, Univ. Minnesota, Phi Beta Alpha sorority, excellent pianist, specializing in social service work; Charles, 17, senior in high, plays clarinet in band, swimming team (city champions), hobbies, hunting, fishing, and raising bees; Edward, 15, sophomore in St. Thomas Military Academy, football team, glee club, beats his dad in golf, cornet in orchestra; Judd, 11, Alpha class in Gordon school,6th grade, tennis, good swimmer; Joan, 6, pet of family, Ist grade, good swimmer, stamp collector. "Although we have a town house, our delight is our country house at Bald Eagle Lake; (the summers are all too short). There Mrs. Mulally and I have our flower garden. We specialize in dahlias. Last year we won the cup for having the best exhibit of dahlias at the annual exhibit of the Minneapolis Dahlia Society. We have 26 apple trees, raspberries, currants, and some wonderful perennials. We have a tennis court and belong to a nine-hole golf course about two miles from our place. Not much to be said of my golf, mostly in upper nineties. Besides the railroad litigation of the Great Northern Railway, of which I have general charge, we handle the work in the Northwest of the Northland Greyhound Bus Lines, of which the Great Northern is part owner." (We are asking Jim to tell us, confidentially, whether his name, too, is on that cup.)

Jim, like George Putnam, held up his questionnaire for some snapshots, and neither of them managed to find or produce any which were sufficiently flattering, and so they are waiting for the spring sun, and probably some dahlias for background, or foreground. Anyhow, George sends us this good informative letter: "My work is now exclusively administrative and advisory. This is the second year since I taught my last Greek class. My time is spent chiefly in advising with our boys and their parents; arranging and rearranging programs of study, straightening out various difficulties, chiefly scholastic, but occasionally of a disciplinary nature. I am also faculty advisor for various extra-class activities, such as the Student Council. I sincerely miss the pleasure of classroom instruction, which the activities of my present position preclude. I keep up an active interest in Greek, however, through the Greek Club of Essex County, in which I have been a devoted member for many years now. My son, William F., was graduated from Dartmouth in 1930, as some of the class will recall, on our 25th anniversary. He is now in his second year in Dartmouth Medical School. From his earliest years he has had his heart set on medicine, and grows more enthusiastic the nearer he approaches actual practice. Ruth is a freshman at Western College for Women, Oxford, Ohio. Like her father and brother, she is pursuing a classical course, and is having the pleasure of reading Plato's Apology in the original. Ann expects to enter the senior high school next year. She will have to break the family tradition, for we no longer have Greek in our curriculum."

Cordially,

GEORGE

Secretary, 45 East Main St., Malone, N. Y.