Class of 1899
There is one way a '99 man can always be sure of getting his money's worth, that is, by spending two dollars to attend the annual round-up at the University Club in Boston the first Saturday night in March. Jim Barney is a sure and rapid calculator, but he always underestimates attendance on these occasions. On the evening of March 3 this year, he figured on seventeen, and by the time Alvah Sleeper—the last arrival—had come in, there were 24 men gathered around the long oval table to share fellowship. Here are the twenty-four: Allen, Barney, Beal, Benezet, N. P. Brown, Clark, Dearborn, Donahue, Evans, Gannon, Heywood, Hoban, Hobbs, Irving, Kendall, Lynch, Parker, Rogers, Skinner, Sleeper, Fred Walker, Watson, Wiggin, Winchester.
Charlie Donahue took charge of the proceedings, and promptly converted those present into a grand jury to consider the state of the class of '99. As first witness he called on the Secretary, who testified to a recent near-contact with Elmer Woodman at the University of Missouri. The worst storm of years in the vicinity of St. Louis, however, stopped him. But he brought news of Frank Staley, still in the federal postal service, and found that Frank and his family would be in Hanover in June.
Officer Barney, answering the summons of his superior officer, reported on the alibis of absent members, including Clarence Joy, Jim Richardson, Tony Willard, Joe Hartley, Franko French, Ernest Silver, and Ed Hyatt. Sil, on his way back from Cleveland, passed through Boston just one day too early, and Ed's dream of coming to the Boston round-up "once in his life" was spoiled for 1934 by a siege of the grippe.
Phil Winchester, whose boy Bob is doing welding work in Albany, gave an optimistic report of four or five thousand men being put to work in Syracuse by a long awaited four-million-dollar contract job to remove grade crossings. He was enthusiastic about Craven Laycock's talk before the Syracuse alumni.
Louis Benezet told of his trip to the National Education Association's meeting at Cleveland. He had a good chat with Fletcher Harper Swift, but our own Hawley Chase was missing. On the side we learned that Benny was one of the principal speakers at the meeting, and that at the same time Louis Jr., a sophomore at Dartmouth, was pulling a second in a thousand-yard run in a dual meet.
Some fellows may not know that Jim Barney's boy Roger is at Dartmouth this year, after being prepared for it by Tim Lynch, and that Stanley Walker—Fred's boy—and Nelson Brown Jr. are now sophomores. Stanley is interested in skiing, and Nelson is—or should be—keeping up dad's tradition of diary-writing.
Ed Skinner reported on the "class investments, " giving at Donny's suggestion only the "abbreviation of the securities." But even in that brief form it appeared that they were substantial enough to warrant the expectation of a class report before the Thirty-Fifth in June.
Bill Wiggin was next called as foreman of the jury to account for his heading south from Canada some months ago, leaving his teaching job behind him. Wig dutifully explained that he and his son-in-law were running a wooden-heel industry in Exeter, N. H. With all his old-time vigor Bill presented his claim for having been in the teaching business longer than any other Ninety-Niner. Still more earnestly he urged the fellows to stand by each other, to stick together.
From another witness the information was elicited that Peddy Miller was very happy at the head of the sociological department at Bryn Mawr, and that he and his wife had recently spent a night both with Benezet in Manchester and with George Clark in Plymouth.
When Joe Gannon was commanded to explain the escape of the "three prisoners" committed to his charge to be brought from New York, he exonerated himself by pleading "slimy roads," so that he had to resort to a drab train ride for transportation. Anyway, Rodney Sanborn, one of his suppositional "prisoners," had betaken himself to Miami.
Tim Lynch next reviewed the now familiar Connecticut pilgrimage of last summer, with further embellishments as to Donny's habits as a reader of mystery stories, and called on Arthur Irving to confirm his account.
Nelson Brown assured the fellows that so long as the bombs didn't go off, he would still be with them. Then he proceeded to give a warm tribute to his friendship with Cav.
Joe Hobbs promised a fuller account of the correspondence of a medical student from Contoocook, N. H„ who rode up to Hanover on horseback and lived there in direst privation, while George Evans told of the diary of Dr. Jeremiah Belknap of Belmont, who in 1*784 undertook a long horseback ride through the wilds. Evans Notch, by the way, a hairpin valley running blind twenty miles from east of Mt. Washington almost to the Androscoggin valley in Bethel, Me., was once a part of George's family domain. To this same geographical trend in the discussion Alvah Sleeper contributed by his account of riparian rights involved in a piece of southern litigation; and "General" Herb Watson likewise contributed by his report of triangulating in behalf of the United States Coast and Geodetic Survey in Bristol and Norfolk counties.
George Clark disrespectfully claimed that road conditions in Plymouth, N. H., were better than those between the North Station and the University Club in Boston. Yet he admitted—it appeared with a touch of local pride—that the drifts around his horse pond were ten feet deep, and in the case of some houses were up to the roof. This led to a bit of reminiscing about the winters of '98 and '99 in Hanover, when "N. P." took pictures of the drifts in front of Lon Meade's and Owen Hoban went as usual to wait on table at Amaral's with his head covered only by a skullcap, and the thermometer somewhere between 30 and 40 degress below zero.
Hale Dearborn countered by giving a favorable report from the "civilized" part of New Hampshire near Milford.
Nor was the intellectual part of the gettogether ignored, for George Clark pictured the delights of long winter evenings, beginning with supper at five, and time for even an eighteenth-century three-decker novel thereafter; which spurred Hobe on to tell of the elements of greatness he had found in our most recent contemporary three-decker, "Anthony Adverse."
Ed Allen reported that his boy Ted was with the American Steel and Wire Mills in Worcester, while Gus Heywood from the same concern admitted he was back on almost full time and on more exacting work than ever.
Bob Johnston's letter to the Boston Herald was quoted, protesting against so limiting child labor that a youngster could no longer get free admission to the circus by carrying water to the elephants. Ed Skinner was convicted of practically running away from his own birthday party at home in order to attend '99's home party at the round-up, and Herb Rogers confessed that his wife Laura's last words to him as he left for the round-up were,
"Tell them we're going to be at the Thirty- Fifth in June!" And so the watchword is for all good Ninety-Niners just that:
REMEMBER THE THIRTY-FIFTH IN JUNE!
Secretary, 41 West Kirke St., Chevy Chase, Md.
