Class of 1908
John (Rosie) Hinman has been seriously ill the past winter with bronchial pneumonia. He spent some bad weeks in the hospital in New York, and the first of April was convalescing in Florida. With Mrs. Hinman he was at Panama City, and should be in fine fettle by June.
Art Soule's son, whose name is Arthur but is usually called Turner, was elected senior orator for the 1938 Commencement. That, we suppose, means that we'll have the privilege of listening to two generations of Soules next June, and if that isn't an added inducement for classmates to come to reunion we'll jump off the clock of Baker Library.
Arthur Hopkins was elected president of the Northeastern New York Association of Dartmouth Alumni, at their annual meeting in March. Prof. Leon Richardson addressed the meeting, but he didn't give any blackboard talk on chemistry.
Fred S. Stripp, the demon insurance man of California, has a new address, 960 Tulare, Berkeley, Calif. Tom Varney's mail is being returned. If you know where Tom is, let us know.
The really important news in Hanover (your class correspondent thinks so if nobody else does) is that A. B. Rotch is now a resident of the town six days a week. I can give you play-by-play reports on the campus dogs and Hanover weather. It was 10 above zero this morning, April 6. I can't tell you why your nephew failed to click with the selective process of picking freshmen, or why the umpire called that third strike on the Dartmouth batter.
It was all very sudden, just as I was nicely settling into a deep comfortable rut in Milford. March 24 I learned that the Dartmouth Press was likely to be dismantled. That is the printing business the late Frank Musgrove operated when we were freshmen. Subsequently it grew up, and was quite an institution in Hanover when Mr. Musgrove died in 1932. With my son Bill, who graduated last year, I came to Hanover the next day. We looked over the plant, liked it, and with Arthur S. Morris of Littleton made an offer for it. April 1 we owned it.
Bill left his job in Conway and is now in charge of our newspaper and printing business in Milford. I came to Hanover, and am digging in like a young feller to get the business here in operation. It would be a hopeless job, I fear, if it were not for Kenneth W. Foley, Dartmouth '24, who is a good salesman, estimator, and planner of printing. We have equal interest in the business. My immediate job is to organize the shop and get out the work Ken sells. So far we have met most cordial reception in Hanover. We have high hopes, not unmixed with fears. If Hanover people and others will be not only friendly but also patient and charitable, we believe we can win their confidence.
At present I am in the shop day and night. I sit at a desk out front, avoiding the mahogany executives' desks in the private offices. I'm afraid of being a mahogany executive.
Eventually, if our ambitions are realized, Bill may work into the Hanover business and I may drift back to my former rut. Right now our main problem is not to worry about the distant future, but how to get out some cards for the Dean's office by mid-afternoon. Long hours, hard work, and the hazards of a new business venture seem to give me new pep. Maybe I'm not such a softie as I imagined.
The excuse for this lengthy personal story is that my classmates are coming to Hanover in June, and I want them to know where to find Old Man Rotch; down in the Musgrove Building. Probably in the pressroom with ink in his hair, trying to get the Daily Dartmouth printed. I'll let you sit in the swizzle chair at the mahogany executive's desk. I hope I'll get the news of classmates that I have failed to get for this issue of the MAGAZINE. My alibi is that I've been so busy with this sudden shift to Hanover that I "just aint heard nuthin" about anybody else; and you fellows, with a few exceptions, never were of much help to the compiler of class gossip.
Oh yes, Judge McLane '07 was here last night, and we worked out a plan for incorporating under the name Dartmouth Printing Company. Looks like that will be our corporate name, with Foley, McLane, and Rotch as the directors.
We just dare you to send us any orders for printing.
From Hanover, N. H.
