Class of 1914
Every now and then when we are feeling very modern after a bout with the literature of the times which debunks this and that and destroys our faith in some of the old loyalties, we seem to be brought up with an example or two that some of the old traditions are still alive.
For example, this month we had a letter from Joe Webster, who is in the fur business at 5 North Wabash Avenue, Chicago. Even as Secretary we must confess we don't recall Joe at all and probably wouldn't know him from the well-known hole in the wall if we met him coming up the street. Somehow or other Joe is still a good Dartmouth man and comes to life after all these years. He writes he recently saw Hank Llewellyn and Red Loudon, which made him think he ought to make himself known again. He sends his best regards to all the boys who might remember him and hopes he will see more of them from now on.
It is very nice to hear from you, Joe, and your popping up with the other boys from time to time makes this job of secretary worth while.
Mention of Hank Llewellyn recalls that he, too, has jut written us from Chicago, where he is the home office group representative for the Northwestern National Life Insurance Company of Minneapolis, with offices at 1 North LaSalle St., Chicago. Hank reports he has been on a canoe trip in the wilds of Canada with his two boys, ages 15 and 11, and closes with sending his best regards to all.
Derby Hall mails us a clipping from the magazine Gas Merchandising, containing a fine likeness of one Ralph Phelps under the heading "Dynamo." Ralph, we take it, is merchandise manager of the Penn Central Power Company of Altoona, Pa. He is quoted as having pulled "a big andhighly successful range campaign last year,keeping it going for months. (We supposethey mean the range.) This will give you anidea of the energy he puts into his merchandising job."
We shall be glad to hear from Phelpsie direct, and we hope the fire will never burn out.
Freddie Weed has been moving around some, as we glean from his fine letter. He has been spending some years in consulting engineering work in Bogota, Colombia. His specialty is water supply and sanitary engineering, which he claims went flatter than anything else. He has a business of manufacturing and selling water faucets and iron removal filters. He was likewise engaged in governmental work as assistant deputy administrator of the NRA, and he boasts that when he left it in May, 1934, he predicted it wouldn't last a month, making him 1200% in error. He has a family of three little girls, the eldest eleven, and they have inherited all of the best characteristics of their mother. And as he pays these young ladies such glowing respects we make our bow to Mrs. Weed. We are mighty glad to hear from you, Fred, and the best of luck!
"WHO'S WHO"
A New York reporter informs us that Thorndike Saville, who is associate dean at New York University, cracks the well known Who's Who with a big fat paragraph. Some day when we are at the public library with a class list we shall try to dig out who else we have among us for Who's Who-ers.
From an address list of the Tuck School just issued we learn that Patsy Donovan is with Sears Roebuck in Chicago.
Tige Lyons is reported as a bank examiner for the State of New Jersey, with home in Emerson, N. J.
Lee Spore is an auditor for the American Crayon Co., Sandusky, Ohio, and is also in the real estate business, being president of the Home Site Properties Company.
Abe Portman is with the Federal Color Laboratories, Norwood, Ohio.
Bill Slater tells us that he recently sawEmerson Barrett, who is in excellent health and possesses a son 18, who plays guard for his school at Noble and Greenough. Em hopes he will put on a lot of weight the next year or two so that he will have a direct personal interest in the Harvard-Dartmouth game about 1938.
Like the light from distant stars which come so many miles to make one dizzy, we report the longest distance toothache yet on record. About a month ago Lay Little was so afflicted in Shanghai, China, and having nothing better to do at the moment he sat down to write Bill Slater about it. So, if all goes well, in about three months from the time of the toothache, from which we hope he has fully recovered, Lay will know that all the other boys know he had a toothache.
Pige Butler writes on very imposing letterhead—"Butler, Kilmer, Hoey, and Butler"—which you will immediately recognize as being a law firm, which incidentally is in Saratoga Springs, N. Y., that he had a swell time at Hanover last June and thinks there is a . general feeling we shouldmake an effort to foster attendance eachyear and arrange a time and place to gettogether."
Incidentally, Dick Barlow, who attended his first unofficial reunion last spring, writes in the same vein. We shall make an effort next spring to repeat the invitation, and if the idea seems worthwhile to have at least a class luncheon in June.
On our next trip to the Midwest we shall make an effort to get in touch with Al Overton, particularly on an afternoon when, as he writes, "a number of Dartmouth men in town get together and celebrate with beer, steak, and more beer, outin the country." Al says that for a while he thought he was the oldest living graduate in town, but he feels better, for he finds there are those older. His comments on the New Deal are slightly caustic for this family journal.
NOTE TO SPEEDERS
Anybody who habitually travels around Essex County in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts should paste in his hat that Dick White, who was with us two years at Hanover, is now deputy sheriff of and for said county above mentioned. He facetiously remarks that he has been more fortunate than others in keeping a jump ahead of the sheriff, for he usually knows where he is and can very easily keep out of his way.
Dick relates that he very rarely gets into a jam with Dartmouth men, which is one more enhancement of the reputation of our college as one of temperance and sobriety.
My dear Airs. Ramage.
We are answering a recent letter fromyour respected husband thus publicly andto you directly because of the insinuationshe made therein that you somewhatdoubted his explanatioyi of our remarksconcerning said James in a recent publication of the class of 1914
We inadvertently mentioned mountainclimbing, which we assure you was a tactful understatement of the case. Actually he ascended into the stratosphere, and, of course, descended in response to the inevitable law that what goes up must come down, but we assure you that the experience was purely of a scientific nature, and anyone who attributed other motives thereto must be suffering from the pangs of a guilty conscience.
You will, therefore, please explain toJames that reference has been expurgedfrom the records, and that we all look forward to repeating as fine a reunion as wehad last time with Jimmy out in frontleading the band.
Sincerely,
The Secretary.
Dud Colby writes us interestingly about the first vacation he has had in nine years, which, after parking the youngsters in the country, took Mrs. Colby and himself to the West Coast, touring from Vancouver northward to Skagway and a trip along the route of the Klondike gold rush. Dud said things were in full bloom, with pansies as wide across as sunflowers, rhubarb cornhigh, and everything else in proportion.
Dud pays a grand tribute to the glories of San Francisco, and we only regret that space alone prevents our further botanical description of the flora he encountered. This fall Dud plans some extensive pheasant hunting, all of which makes quite a pleasant interlude, we should say, between hunting up lost numbers for the well-known American Tel. & Tel. We hope you will write us soon again, Dud.
Red Davidson has a new complaint, and that is that Fourteeners don't seem to like his home city of Philadelphia. His latest lament is that Dutch Burnham, after having got settled there, was transferred to Boston. He recalls how Sig Larmon, Bill Hands, and Dutch all had been neighbors and then beat it to other parts.
His two children, we learn, are also redheads. His daughter, thirteen, is now in junior high and his boy is nine.
We had a nice letter from Doc Cook, telling us of the pleasant summer he spent in Vermont. He tells us of the Pomeroys at the same hotel, and incidentally lets us know that Parker Pomeroy is pretty hot stuff in the way of tennis. It looks as though it won't be long before we will have some Fourteen juniors to cheer for in a big way at Hanover.
Sig Larmon writes us that Charlie Claeys, before he sailed for Paris on July 28, played golf with Mart Remsen and Bob Hopkins, and the Kid started out magnificently with a string of birdies and pars. Mart Remsen, however, had hired four youngsters on bicycles to follow the Kid around and cheer and whistle lustily whenever he made a shot. After six holes he went to pieces, and Mart came through grinning with an 84 low gross. Bob Hopkins distinguished himself in the second session by sinking a 150-yard approach shot for an eagle two.
All of which we shall duly remember when bargaining with these gentlemen for extra strokes on the first tee when next we meet them.
Rubber Floyd writes from his north Georgia hills that all summer he has been trying to sow some seed among the oldfashioned Georgia democrats and thinks he begins to see a silver lining. We don't know exactly what this means, but we are glad Rubber is well, and perhaps some of the boys who are more familiar with his political affiliations will be able to translate.
Here's an interesting letter from String Howe, which will give you the latest on our tall gentleman from Syracuse:
"Although I am still working for thesame people, same wife, and same two kids,I have changed jobs. You see I have goneutility just to become unpopular with theAdministration. Had an opportunity to gowith the Syracuse Lighting Co., selling gasheat, last May and took it. And whateveryou may think of this pre-Labor Day temperature, it has been a break for us perspiring house heating salesmen in August.So I am now trailing Bill Taft. Of courseI don't own the Niagara Hudson systemyet the way Bill does his. Neither am Icountry squire, collecting lighting bills onhorseback as he does, but 'there will comea day.' Sorry to have missed reunion. Regards to the Boston gang from one of itsalumni."
To Joe Batchelder the class extends its sympathy on his recent loss in the passing away of his father. It occurred on August 20 last. He appeared to be in good health and was sick only four days.
Joe writes us that his oldest son, Joe Jr., has entered Dartmouth, and that not only has he done well in athletics but is an "A" student. He is trying out for the football and basketball teams and should do well. He stands six feet one inch and weighs 180 pounds.
Mark, Joe's other son, is thirteen and is just entering high school.
The way things are going we should have quite an athletic meet at the Twenty-fifth Reunion. You all know of Lay Little's high jump exhibition, and here we have Win Snow, who reports that despite his two hundred and ten pounds he can still do one and one-half from low board and he is trying to perfect a one and one-half with full twist for the Twenty-fifth Reunion. This leaves us a little confused, but we suspect it has something to do with diving.
Win writes, incidentally, that he has found a new use for the gas mask, namely underwater observation at Lake Walden, Concord. Win's diving board is just a step from Thoreau's old home on this famous lake.
[The folloiving communication anonymously signed "Contributor" is herewithappended to Sec. Leech's notes for thismonth.—ED.]
A rather interesting intercollegiate anecdote can be told concerning our enterprising secretary, Ed Leech. While in England last summer on business he was associated with a Harvard alumnus. One day as they were travelling along the countryside they inadvertently visited the birthplace of John Harvard.
It happened in this way .... Being steeped in the environment of the antique, they decided to fortify themselves against tradition. Seeing a familiar sign hanging on an inn-like edifice they halted to demand refreshment only to discover themselves in a museum.
"While we are here," suggested the Harvard graduate, "We might as well do a little research."
The fee, the curator explained, was sixpence each. Would they not register in the visitors' book? There was a book for Harvard men and a book for the outlanders. Both registered and proffered their sixpences.
"Ah, no indeed, sir!" demurred the curator to the Harvard grad. "We do not chargeadmission to Harvard men."
This bit of information filled Ed's companion with a good deal of modest satisfaction.
"Well, never mind, Ed" he smugly remarked. "You have the satisfaction of having been able to join the Harvard Club ofLondon for only sixpence."
We hope that when refreshments were finally procured Leech was properly initiated as a son of Harvard.
Secretary, 367 Boylston St., Boston
