Class of 1899
The annual Boston roundup of the class was held at the University Club in Boston, March 5, 1938. It was the 38th renewal of this event, and, like all that have preceded it, had about it that little something which makes it unique in class assemblies.
As a variation to the familiar formula of assembly, dinner, speeches, and good night, this roundup began at 4:30 o'clock in the afternoon in a room adjoining the dinner room. Here in congenial and appropriate surroundings the early arrivals had two hours of what "Luke" Varney called a "beefing contest." Whether the name is appropriate or not, the fact is that there was ample time and opportunity for talk, fun, and personal contact and a better chance than is usual for that heart-to heart exchange of remembrance and confidence without which real friendship is impossible.
The call of the meeting suggested its theme, which was to hear Benezet expound and defend his thesis that Edward de Vere, seventeenth Earl of Oxford, and not the Bard of Avon, was the author of the plays and sonnets which we lesser mortals in our ignorance have been attributing to one William Shakespeare. Wisely and adroitly led by K. Beal, who presided at the dinner, the floodgates of rebuttal were opened by all and sundry after Benny had expounded his theory. Every man had his say, and while all were not convinced, many who "came to scoff remained to pray," the consensus of opinion being, "You got something there,Benny."
Dave Parker was lead-off man with sly suggestions wrapped up in involved medical terminology, got nowhere, and gave way to chocolate king Ed Allen and Hale Dearborn, who were more practical. Sleeper and Jim Barney ignored the thing completely, while Joe Hobbs, fresh from a summer tour of England, which included a pious pilgrimage to Stratford-on-Avon, took up the cudgels for the lower element with gusto, and nearly floored the Oxford champion by bluntly inquiring: "Doesanyone seriously believe that Ben Jonsonwould lend himself to foisting on theworld such a cruel hoax as you makeShakespeare's authorship to be?" Cries of Hear! Hear!
Art Irving plumbed for the round table idea, to which Luke Varney of absolute zero fame made a strong seconding speech, which may at some remote future time get him into the controversy. Joe Hartley and George Huckins were decidedly skeptical. Tim Lynch launched into a Floridian description of another tour to the South, including a visit to Dan and Amy Ford, which wound up with a Cuban chorus, vulgarly called the rhumba, but had no word for friend Bill S. Geo. Evans emphatically denied that he is a do-nothing, and promised to explore the subject at his leisure after he finishes his tale of early New Hampshire. At this point Herb Rogers wanted to know about the fishing condition in the Avon. Joe Gannon of the Times sagely wondered if there will be speculation four hundred years from now as to who was the author of the New Deal. To this sally faint cheers were heard from the Bronx section. N. P. Brown supplied a personal reminiscence of Fred A. Walker, who left us during the last year, and then to the amazement of all, hit the sawdust trail to Benny's mourners' bench. To this evidence of conviction loud amens were chanted by Freme Sewall, Watson, lately returned to hard ground from the swamps of Louisiana, Doc Hawkes from York, and Bill Wiggin, who took his stand on the safe platform that regardless of who wrote Hamlet, he would vote for Anne Hathaway.
In the resulting confusion Long Jim Richardson sounded a sane note by claiming that the answer to the whole thing could be found in that ancient ditty:
"She had her boots on when she fell,So what th'ell, Bill, what th'ell,"
and then passed to a review of more substantial things. Finally, C. H. Donahue closed the debate for the defense by leaving the whole thing where it began, in the lap of Benny.
For lighter entertainment throaty tenors sang a roundup song written by K. Beal for the roundup of 1922. It went over with a bang.
During the evening G. G. Clark phoned a message of regret and relayed a greeting from Dude Colby, recuperating in Dick's House.
P. Winchester, one of the official photographers of '99, gave each man present who attended the Ad Interim Reunion last June an enlarged picture of himself which Pete took with his candid camera.
There were twenty-five present. Messages from Peddy Miller, Ray Pearl, Montie Fuller, Pap Abbott, Cushman, Sears, Asakawa, Heywood, Joy, Hawley, Chase, Greenwood, Staley, Eastman, Ford, Hyatt, Tony Willard, Warren Kendall, Geo. Clark, Silver, and Speare were read by the secretary "and so to bed" at 11:30 P.M.
Time, March 7, published a picture of Ray Pearl in connection with comment on Ray's lecture, "In Search of Longevity," delivered before the New York Academy of Medicine. Ray declared: "Smoking isassociated with a definite impairment oflongevity .... proportional to the habitual amount of tobacco usage by smoking ....," "no measurable effect of themoderate use of alcoholic beverages onlongevity can be demonstrated .. . So what?
In attendance at the Boston alumni dinner in Boston, February 9, 1938, were C. H. Donahue, N. P. Brown, Tim Lynch, G. G. Clark, and Jim Barney.
Dave Parker and daughters, Helen and Mary, Jim Richardson and Louise, were recent visitors on Joe and Madge Gannon in New York.
Who won? Jim Richardson, the New England trophy for the second successive year and the Faber trophy at the annual meeting of the Atlantic Whist Association in New York.
Rather late here, but still news in Rolla, Mo. Woodman reports the arrival of granddaughters: Nancy Ellen Doll, January 25, 1937, and Betty Jean Woodman, November 9, 1937.
Married: James, son of Albert H. Greenwood, to Ethlyn Ruth Jackson of Hartford, Conn., October 16, 1937. At home, 77 School Street, Springfield, Mass.
"Celery" Payne, Greenfield, Mass., is ill and threatened with pneumonia.
Ernest Silver, Louis P. Benezet, and Hawley B. Chase were in attendance at the March meeting of the American Education Association at Atlantic City.
Tony Willard has almost completely recovered from his recent serious illness. Letters received from him are full of cheer and state he is definitely on the road to recovery. He is enjoying a leave of absence from his teaching duties for the remainder of the college year.
Secretary, 31 Parker St., Gardner, Mass.
