1908

The deaths of two classmates, John Cushing and Gene Prentice, are reported elsewhere in the MAGAZINE, and make the principal '08 news of the month. Two men whose friendship was cherished by every member of the class and whose deaths leave an irreparable gap. Little else of class interest has come to the reporter's attention this month, and descriptions of the New England hurricane of September 21, still the principal topic of conversation at this writing, would be out of place here. The Hanover angle on the Big Blow was well depicted in last month's MAGAZINE, and classmates with even rudimentary imaginations can guess what it was like in the Hanover printing plant when all communication and power were cut off just as the first issue of the College daily newspaper was going to press and about every College department was demanding some kind of printing for the opening days of the first semester. Less spectacular, but of greater interest, was the rapidity with which wires were restored and roads cleared, though even now rail service is by no means back to normal, and today we learn there will be no special trains from Boston for the Brown football game this week.

Larry Symmes, correspondent for Metropolitan and Greater New York and all points south, apologises for digging up no dirt on the classmates with the excuse that he is in England. Seems he intended to sail in September on a trip he described as 10% business and 90% pleasure. War threats deferred his departure, and he sailed October 6 on the oversize steamboat Queen Mary, expecting to be away about six weeks and get his 1938 football thrills from 5-line stories in the London papers. Oh yes, Larry is making the trip this time without his family.

A short letter from Mort Hull doesn't inform us if his fine big boat survived the hurricane which destroyed most of the craft in the neighborhood of New London. We'll try to get that information for you later.

Roy Keith was in Hanover for the Bates game. He tried to tell us about a big fish he had caught in some north country lake the day before, but we didn't have the notebook out and today can't remember what kind of a fish it was.

One of the good looking freshmen is Don Frothingham's son. Art O'Shea has two boys here now, a junior and a freshman. The progeny of Hal Snow and Lindy Speare are on the tennis team squad. Al Speare Jr. got to the semi-finals in the fall tournament and the coach says he is improving rapidly. Paul Vaitses is in Hanover occasionally, where his son is a student. Percy Skillen's younger son is a freshman this year, the older son graduated in '36. Maybe we'll pick up news about other '08 sons as the weeks go by.

Bill Knight was in Hanover for an Athletic Council meeting the last of September. He tried to fly back to Chicago, got embroiled with the spell of bad weather that ended with a hurricane, found flights cancelled, and went west by train. Says he got to talking (Bill would) with a young feller in the Pullman who turned out to be in Mason Lewis' law office, in Denver. If he knew anything bad about Mason he didn't spill it. Bill Knight, incidentally, was recently elected president of the Illinois Bar Association, which we find is an association of leading lawyers and not barkeepers, and Bill has made "Who's Who" this year. He says it's a big book with lots of names. Bill is officiating at football games again, starting Oct. 8 in the Ohio State-Southern California game in Madison.

Francis Asbury Robinson, Des Moines architect, has been on an auto trip with his wife and two daughters. They visited Paul Albert '10, at Lake Geneva, Ill., and one of the girls will probably attend Rockford College next year.

Arthur Wyman is a busy man. At his plant in Boston he is printing the millions of ballots needed by Massachusetts for the November elections. At his summer estate in Milford, N. H., he is bewailing the trees that went down before the September hurricane.

Mike Stearns' son Kendall, Dartmouth '37, is completing his medical course in New York.

And there's a lot more and better news of 'OB that doesn't get to the MAGAZINE for the simple reason that nobody starts the glad tidings on the way to the class reporter. Whyn't yer send us the gossip?

From A. B. ROTCH, Hanover