1917*
Doctor Gilmore now comes down from Craig House, Beacon, N. Y. Monday afternoons for New York office hours and drops into the Dartmouth Club for dinner. He and young Marc watched the Green clean up Brown during College Hockey Week at Rye at Christmas time, then stopped in to see Rudie and Betty Miller at White Plains, and the latter came to Beacon a week or two later. Marc attends River- side Military Academy, Hollywood, Fla., the land where every boy plays a lot of tennis, and he is to be congratulated on ranking number four in this school of 700 boys. That looks good for the Dartmouth team in a couple of years. Jane Gilmore, age fourteen, is at Fairfax Hall, Waynesboro, Va. Tom, age twelve, attends Malcolm Gordon School at Garrison, N. Y. Chuck and Tibbie go to Hillsboro Club, Pompano, Fla., the last of February for his annual vacation period Harry Hillman sends a quarterly letter to his old lettermen, and Gilmore turned over this excerpt: "It might interest you old track boys to know that your old coach started his 30th year at Dartmouth on January 10. Harry Worthington '17 gets his nod as being the best all-around performer that he has coached during the long span of years."
Sherm Smith, who is with the Boston Wire Stitcher Co., East Greenwich, R. I., writes from his home at 200 Spencer Ave.: "I wish I could see the New York gang, but I don't even see the boys in Boston more than once a year. I am enjoying some of the tranquility of country living, combined with the pressure of a high- speed industrial organization. Trying to keep abreast of the job keeps me confined rather closely to the office.
"We had an exciting time in the hurricane. I got caught in Providence in the car, just starting for home. Had the family with me and spent a most uncomfortable half hour dodging skylight covers and falling chimneys and trees. Finally took refuge in the Y. M. C. A. until the worst was over and then made our way home—over two hours for a half hour drive. We lost the roof of one of our factory buildings and had some big yachts almost in our factory yard; lost some trees at home, but the house was not damaged. I have a place on Cape Cod which was completely surrounded by water, but our yard was just an inch above it. Not a penny of damage. We must live right."
Speaking of the hurricane which affected so many Seventeeners on September 21, Slatz Baxter came aboard with this: "We survived the hurricane, but the surf came right up to our front door and stopped there. No damage except to trees, but it was plenty exciting while it lasted. Two million dollars damage to property here, but all the people are rebuilding. Tabor Academy took an awful beating, but is completely rebuilt now, through generous donations, and going along as usual. Fortunately not a single boy drowned, which was a miracle. They were swimming from goal post to goal post on the football field and doing the usual damn-fool things that only a sixteen-year- old boy can think of. Plenty of lives lost around us. I saw whole families wiped out in just thirty minutes. These were mostly on the beaches in Wareham in flimsy houses. The wind just picked up a house, and it would disintegrate into a heap of flying boards. Many people were hit by this wreckage and then drowned by a succession of three tidal waves. You can imagine what happened to all the boats in the harbor. Some of the larger yachts landed up in the woods on an even keel and have been refloated, but only after considerable dredging by the insurance companies.
"Visited Dick Holbrook in Keene, N. H., after the Brown game. He was acting mayor at the time and doing a real job."
Dick is now mayor and wrote Don Brooks, January 17, on his imposing official stationary: "Having been suddenly thrust into above office through the death of the holder of same, and then having the worst disaster in its history strike this fair city in the form of a hurricane and devastating flood. . then to top all this to have to try to keep up with the 'monkey- doodling' of that (in)famous Federal organization known as the 'W.P.A.,'I have had very little time to devote to my personal affairs."
No wonder a September storm is still uppermost in men's minds in these January letters, and if you guys in the dust bowl had your living room turned into a swimming pool,—well, here's Hobey Ford's letter: "There is very little news that I can give you about myself which might come under the heading of 'New Ventures or Excitement' I did swap my house in Rye for a house at Wilson Point, South Norwalk, Conn., over two years ago. We live in South Norwalk in the winter time, going up to a little farm in Clove Valley, Dutchess County, where I go shooting over week-ends.
"Due to the fact that my oldest son and I have hay fever (at least that's our excuse), we move aboard the schooner JaneDore about the first of June, taking the rest of the family with us, and do not move off until fall. I commute to the office from wherever I happen to be, and then during my vacation we "head East" as far as we can go. However, Edgartown, Mass., is our favorite harbor, and we see a lot of Arch Earle when we are there. When it gets too cold to live on the boat we move ashore, and the schedule is repeated, like the music going round and round.
"I take back my first paragraph where I said nothing exciting happens to me, as we got caught in the hurricane with full sail on our way home to South Norwalk from Stonington, Conn. Thank God we missed the storm at Stonington, but it was bad enough where we were. We got be- hind Sheffield Island and rode it out with two anchors. We only lost a small tender and were very lucky. However, when we got to the house we found that all the windows downstairs had been broken by the waves, the piazza carried away and four feet of water in the living room. We were so glad to be alive we didn't care much about what had happened at the house."
As this issue goes to press, the Boston team reports a great reunion of Seventeeners, February 2, at the annual alumni banquet, Hotel Somerset. Eighteen men got advance practice for the forthcoming winter schedule of Boston Yacht Club dinners: Andy Anderson, Mott Brown, Curly Carr, George Currier, Forry Emery, Walt Ferguson, Roy Halloran, Bunny Holden, Sam MacKillop, Spique MacIntyre, Pete Olds, Charlie Riley, Bud Robie spying from Stamford, Sunny Sanborn, Win Scudder, Howie Stockwell, Errol Thompson, and John Wheelock.
Watch for the April issue, with the news of New York's dinner, along with 1916, 1918, and 1919, slated for February 6. . . . and newsy letters, held over for lack of space here, just received from Bruce Ludgate, Fred Husk, Al Shiels, Monk Wells, Al Cheney, Ralph Britton, Bob Paine, and Mott Brown.
HERE'S A WAY TO HELP
Nineteen-Seventeeners' performance on the Alumni Fund has pulled up almost to the average for all classes, a real reason for satisfaction, and hope, don't you think? The list of contributors is a human story of loyalty and sacrifice. But between these lines we can all find a great monument to the toil of our Alumni Fund workers. Curly Carr, former class agent, has thoughtfully suggested a very simple and tangible way in which we can all cut down the excess effort caused by the timing of some of our contributions. Here's his good letter: "It won't be long now until Spique MacIntyre and his assistants start on the job of helping the College balance the budget through the Alumni Fund. And it is a job! I don't think that anyone who hasn't helped realizes how much work and time it takes. It means taking time from business during the day and from the family in the evening. It means telephone calls and personal calls and letters and more than one to each man, too!
"I've often felt that if the men in the class knew what an effort it was to raise the amount that the class gives to the Fund, they would help out in one way that shouldn't be very difficult. As it has been for the last few years, a very large percent- age of the gifts arrive between June 15 and June 30. This makes it very difficult for the class agent for several reasons. He is always on pins and needles, wondering whether he is going to come within miles of getting as much as he did the year before. He and his assistants have to continue following up men who they think are going to give, but of whom they can't be sure, and that takes time and effort.
"Isn't there some way that we can get it across to the class that, if only they would send in their checks right away after they receive the first letter, it would make things so much better for the class agent? Then he would have a lot fewer follow-up letters and his assistants a lot fewer men to get in touch with. Or, if it wasn't possible for checks to come in at once, it would help if Spique could be told when to expect them.
"Of course, all this isn't my funeral, in a way, but having had five years of it not so long ago, I surely ought to know how much extra work can be avoided by a little fore- thought."
Secretary-Chairman, 18 Madison Ave., Cranford, N. J.
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