Class of 1878
A card of inquiry, addressed in mid-October to twenty-four classmates, asked for news of health, family, how one occupies his time, whether he reads the ALUMNI MAGAZINE (hoping he does), what he knows of other fellows, and what he thinks of the New Deal. Up to November 8 fifteen responses have come. These will be reported in this column a few at a time. A summary of the answers to the final question may prove amusing.
Two casualties are reported, both said to be due to worn-out hearts. Burleigh, as noted in the Necrology column, had just passed his Both birthday. Sixty years ago his chance of passing his 30th looked slender. Meantime he had made a large place for himself in Florida.
Townsend was approaching his 79th. His obituary awaits verification in some particulars, and will appear next month. Classmates congratulate both upon well rounded careers and extend sympathy to their families, while awaiting a similar summons.
Rev. M. L. Stimson, D.D., of Coral Gables, Fla., was taken in June to Clifton Springs (N. Y.) Sanitarium completely disabled by neuritis, following an attack of intestinal flu. He was able to walk a few steps with assistance, but was unable to use his hands even to hold a book or to feed himself, and was dependent upon a wheelchair for transportation to the baths and treatments. He has improved somewhat, but Mrs. Stimson when she wrote was hoping to take him to a sanitarium quite near their home when it should reopen for the winter, November 1, and was confident that he would improve faster in that balmy air. As that would take them to the Miami region just in time for the latest hurricane, we shall be anxious to hear how hurricanes affect neuritis. Fortunately Mrs. Stimson maintains the best of health. She says the ALUMNI MAGAZINE and other periodicals are read to her husband, and he takes a lively interest therein.
Dr. and Mrs. Lewis Parkhurst, both in the best of health, spent the early autumn cruising among the hills of northern Vermont and New Hampshire, returning by way of the Berkshires, enjoying the brilliant foliage and calling on old friends. They are rejoicing in the complete recovery of the grandson, who was so alarmingly stricken with poliomyelitis. Incidentally, Park has attended all the football games of the season up to and including the Harvard one, and his enthusiasm at this point was so explosive that we shall await with some anxiety the effect of the Yale game upon him.
Another event in which he finds great satisfaction was the dedication on October 20 of the new assembly building at the Norfolk Prison Colony, where he addressed a body of about seven hundred inmates, as orderly, appreciative, and enthusiastic a group as he ever addressed. The Colony Orchestra, the Colony Quartette, and several of the colony soloists rendered musical selections of a high order, not inappropriate to be included in a program graced as it was with offerings by Temple Israel Choir.
Another milestone in his fifteen-year battle for improved prison conditions is the nearing completion of the schoolhouse and library building for the Colony, and he is welcoming suggestions as to the type of books best adapted to the constructive aims of such a library.
A. C. Paul of Minneapolis and Mrs. Paul spent the summer as usual at his ancestral farm in Wakefield, N. H. Like the Parkhursts, they circulated rather widely in their automobile, motoring to Montreal and Quebec as well as about the nearer vicinage, and spending one night at Hanover. He enjoyed looking over the town and noting the changes, it being his first Visit since 1876. Passing through Ryegate, Vt., he found the old schoolhouse where he taught in the winter of 1874-5, and finding one of his old pupils had an interesting visit, learning the subsequent history of others, two of whom became millionaires in California. He keeps busy, arguing a case in the U. S. Court of Appeals in Denver in September, and being called in connection with other suits to Omaha, Philadelphia, and New York in October.
Secretary, 321 Highland Ave., Fitchburg, Mass.
