1917
Parties attending the Cornell game November 12 meet at Hotel Ithaca at twelve o'clock for lunch.
Roy Halloran ran across Commander and Mrs. Howard Shaffer, who have returned from the West Coast, where "Shaft" has been stationed in the Supply Corps, U. S. Navy, for many years. He will take a special business course at Naval headquarters, Washington, and will be there several months. Shaff said he has not had an opportunity to see Seventeeners or attend Dartmouth gatherings since graduation, and bemoans leaving the Coast just before the big Stanford game meetings. He can be reached through the Navy Department and wants to see Seventeeners-so Palmer, Hartshorn, Bean, Wells, and Wiesman, will you get on his trail?
Armstrong Cork Products Co. has taken over another closure concern, and we hear Bruce Ludgate is loaded with much of the assimilation job, at Philadelphia.
Sam White writes from Fairbanks: "I had hopes of taking a vacation this fall and hitting all the football games, ending up at Stanford. This month, however, we have finally opened up our last connecting link with the U. S. proper—a line between Juneau and Seattle. The details in connection with this will keep us all tied up here through winter, I am afraid Regularly scheduled passenger connections from New York to Nome, one quarter of the way around the world, in about two days' time, are not so far off now When the pump-priming has made us all rich, how about a '17 keg party up here in 1939 or '40? We might float down the Yukon on a big barge with kegs of beer along both gunwales to keep us from falling overboard. That should start a stampede that would rival the old days of Nome and Dawson. Marathon runner Holden could trot along the bank carrying a5O lb. weight—or was it 100 lb.?"
Ray Collerd hopes to join Seventeeners from other sections at the Stanford game alumni gatherings, if he isn't off in the Rockies snapping pictures. Ray left the building business a year ago to devote his entire energies to his lifetime hobby, photography. He was one of the first in this country to take up the miniature camera. He is with Spindler and Sauppe, 86 Third St., San Francisco, western distributor for Leica cameras, and has been lecturing and demonstrating through the West. When writing he was on a sevenstate trip, taking color shots of beauty spots in the national parks for use in next winter's lectures. His letter shows the same old interest in the College and the class.
Hal Bidwell practices optometry at 993 Farmington Ave., West Hartford, Conn., has been located two years in this growing community, and has a visit with Slatz Allen occasionally. Hal's hobby is his lodge, "Great Oaks," on thirty-five acres at North Canton, Conn., where construction work, trout fishing, and bird hunting give him a real workout. He also attends regimental meetings in the Reserve and received his commission as major in the infantry last summer. He and Ruby entertained Harry and Mrs. Hawkes during the summer.
Dr. Gilmore's New York office hours on Monday have changed, and he's cut out of the old luncheon league, but is available at five o'clock at the Dartmouth Club and staged a meeting there with Don Brooks recently. Chuck says he is enjoying the depression with plenty of extra work, the children are in school in Georgia and Virginia, and he and Tibbie are settling down for the winter at Beacon.
From Duluth Leon Cone starts a letter reminiscing about our Tremendous Twentieth reunion: "It was a swell bunch of fellows. Many of you see each other a great deal during the year, but the rest of us have to live on memories I wish that every living member could return to the 25th I've never felt better .... have been keeping the spare tire around the waist line down by playing golf I'm still manager of the Sullivan Machinery Company's district office in the Lake Superior country. It's a big lake all right, but we don't have the tidal waves and hurricanes like you have on the East Coast. I was on my way up to one of the lakes in the north country this summer and bumped into 'Doc' Walters at Hibbing. He had just left his son at a Y.M.C.A. camp and was taking his daughter to another camp. There's a fine fellow and a lovely family. While at the lake we did some shooting of clay pigeons, and if I do say so myself, I wasn't so bad with the gun. After seeing Mrs. Cone pick 'em off I have quit sassing her—she's too good with a gun! I have also been placed on a committee of Dartmouth graduates who are to help in locating positions for graduating members I have to keep my nose close to the grindstone to keep mv son at Dartmouth. He is in the class of 1941, and after seeing several other colleges and universities, Dartmouth is tops with him. I suppose Dan Harris, Trenny, Bob Chase, and any other 1917 dad who has a son at Hanover are scratching also."
Doc Walters, by the way, is in Europe attending medical conferences, will be back early in November, no doubt bringing first-hand viewpoints on vital surgical operations recently performed on the Czechs.
Jim Rubel writes from Newport Beach, Calif., that he'll be at the Stanford game and look for Seventeeners at alumni festivities. He says, "I wangled a contract for six books a year out of a British publisher, thereby biting off a bit larger hunk than I could chew. That makes a book a month that I'm under contract for, and gives me no time to skipper my boat during the summer months. This is a screwy place anyhow at that time, so I just knocked off work for two months. Now I'm trying to catch up and get the British publisher filled up before the Nazis upset the applecart and drag them into war. I bought a cruiser this year and I'm still trying to find out why. If I run the thing, I can't work, and if I don't work there aren't enough funds coming in to operate it. As for the trip to New York, thanks for the compliment. I bought a boat. If it was big enough to slide around through the canal, I'd be tempted to try it, but it isn't. It only takes both tanks to get me to Catalina Island and back. That's 140 gallons of gas. Did you you ever try buying gas in quantities like that? It's fun Jim Durkee has been conspicuous by his absence for the past year. I don't know whether he's taken the veil or what Collerd was down here early in the summer."
If you tried to tune in Gabriel Heater on September 21 you learned he was ill, and heard the clear, low voice of Dick Morenus substituting, giving Heater's interpretation of Czechoslovakia's genuflexion to the European powers. Dick is with the Marschalk and Pratt advertising agency, 531 Fifth Ave., handling radio production, and lives at 135 East 50th St., New York.
While vacationing at his Chatham, Mass., cottage on Cape Cod, Mott Brown ran across Ralph Brennan several times, who was in the summer guest house business nearby. Ev Carroll had lunch with Sam MacKillop September 13, at Boston. Ev was bringing his daughter to Colby Junior College at New London, N. H. Joe Randall is with the Internal Revenue Bureau of the federal government, Statler Building, Boston... One of the members of the class stopped out at Dr. Stickney's attractive seaside home at Beverly, Mass., found Bob manicuring the grounds and looking in the pink of condition.
Johnny Wheelock reports real progress on the new membership drive of the Boston University Club, where he is operating along the same lines as with the 1917 Alumni Fund team in Boston. He and Peg spent the Labor Day week-end with Rudie and Betty Miller at the latter's farm, Wingdale, N. Y. John says Rudie has kept a swarm of bees in the walls of the house; they cool honey with their wings, and Johnny wondered where the motor generator set was located, until the queen decided to change habitat for an outdoor location and he found out. Sounds like an active week-end reunion among beeologists. Johnny saw Phil Woodwell recently, who is still teaching school in Boston Roger Stone is selling "American Blue Cross" hospitalization insurance at 31 Milk St., Boston Art Jopson wrote he was taking his daughter up to Rogers Hall at Lowell for the coming year, following her mother's foot- steps, and Art spent a bit of time down there during college days. The Jopsons had dinner with the Heinie Wrights recently.
As our notes go to press the Princeton game parties are almost upon us. These gatherings and the Yale and Harvard game parties will be covered fully in the December issue. Don't miss it. Don Brooks says if you have not paid class dues ($5.00), send the check to him at 9 Park Terrace, Upper Montclair, N. J. If that isn't convenient, at least send $2.50 for your ALUMNI MAGAZINE subscription only.
ARMISTICE
"What do you think, my wife presented me with an eight-pound baby boy on January 15. Of course I haven't seen him yet—not even his picture. I'm having little tiny six-inch hurdles made for him. As soon as he can toddle I'll run him a time trial. And if I had a son, sir, I tell you what he'd do. He'd yell to hell with Princeton like his daddy used to do.'.... Put Sergeant Connie Murphy on a boat for home just the other day. Sergeant Sandy Lynch also has been in to have a good old 'bull' fest. He's a 3d lieutenant, having been to training school and graduated but the armistice stopped his getting his commission. Bill Willard, a proud ad lieutenant with a M. G. battalion of the 30th Division came through recently. ... I had recovered a little from my gassing and was sent to St. Nazaire for light duty Frank Huntress was wounded in that last campaign When I saw Harry Worthington, a ad lieutenant of ordnance up at Tours, he told me I was becoming a bit fat. 1 guess so, the 'Frog' woman who runs the permanent officers' mess here at camp is a good cook. Remember me to Hillman and Dean Laycock. Say hello to those Gile boys for me." Trenny penned that letter at St. Nazaire, France, March 19, 1919. And where were you about a score of years ago?
Slatz Allen thoughtfully sent in a rotogravure picture from a Texas newspaper showing an American Legion crowd doing their antics in a careening auto, labeled "Joseph W. Emery Jr. Post No. 37, Quincy, Ill." On April 10, 1918, Joe wrote: "We are really up amongst them now, and I spend all my time ducking my head. The damned frogs are all little shrimps and dug the trenches too shallow, so I'm getting humpbacked." Letters from Sisson, Durkee, Connie Murphy, Jopson, Fitch, Norby, Gile, Saladine, Red Loudon '15, Johnny Pelletier '16, Chick Pudrith ' 16, and others written from France and Italy mention many Seventeeners, give much of our part in the World War. They are a treasure house that should be enlarged. In a few months your scribe will copy excerpts for the class and the College. Please get back any war letters you wrote your family and friends, and search for letters Seventeeners sent you, and forward them to the Secretary with instructions on which parts may be copied. Don't put off the search—please do it now, while it's on your mind.
Late news flash Four days after writing all the above, your scribe reads with pleasure column after column of newspaper plaudits for Willis S. Fitch's book, "Wings in the Night," published October 1 by Marshall Jones Co. It tells for the first time the thrilling story of Willis and his mates, the night bombers' spectacular, dangerous, unsung branch of the Air Service, who brought tonic to Italy's morale, arched the Alps, and blasted Austria out of the World War. Glowing tributes are paid by Bill Cunningham '18, Leonard Nason, ex-Marine author of war books, by Eddie Rickenbacker, Floyd Gibbons, and Joseph Barber Jr., managing editor of AtlanticMonthly. Will was guest of honor at the September 29 banquet of the Crosscup- Pishon Post American Legion, at Boston. Fine going, Willis, we'll all rush for a copy of your book, and get your autograph later.
Secretary-Chairman, 18 Madison Ave., Cranford, N. J.
