1920*
Secretary, „ 158 State St., Albany, N. Y.
Bun Harvey has requested that this month's Notes be high class enough to warrant his coming campaign for the Alumni Fund. With this in mind various publishing houses were canvassed to see what they could produce. Harper and Brothers was far above the rest and their author. Dick Pearson, is responsible for the following:
It's a healthy thing to be confronted with the job of sitting down at a particular time and putting on paper what you know about the present status of the class of 1020. A non-fiction proposition, too; absolutely no guesses. Whom have you seen, talked to, written to, and what about them? Try it sometime, if you think it s easy, and then be properly relieved that it's another guy who turns the stuff out on the tenth of each and every month. Better yet, try it anyway, and then send on what you've written-no matter how skimpy it turns out to be-to Frank Morey of Albany.
Your present temporary reporter adjusts a creaking mind to the problem. First, a deep bow of gratitude to one Norman' Richardson. Norm, to his own surprize is full of news that he didn't even know he had. Up and down in health through a tough winter, as doubtless many others have been, he packed himself, Doris, and younger son Carl off on a cruise to Bermuda before getting back to work with Tubize Chatillon. Back on the same boat with them came Ted Cart and his wife, likewise winter-vacationing and enjoying some fancy dishes at the captain's table. And while we're on the subject of Bermuda, we gratefully acknowledge the word from Ken Spalding that Mr. and Mrs. Rog Pope were still other recent visitors in the semi-tropical haven.
It's Norm again who reports on Ken himself, to the effect that the Spalding camp at Winnipesaukee took a bad beating in New England's all-time-record-breaking disaster, the hurricane. The beautiful pine grove on his place toppled over in one piece. Norm's own Winnipesaukee summer home came out of it unscathed, but the timber on his 100-odd acre farm up in Lisbon, N. H., is said to resemble a pile of jackstraws. He hasn't dared yet to go and look it over for himself. Fred Richardson, 14, is getting ready (we assume) for Dartmouth at Loomis Institute up in Connecticut. One other item from this same helpful source: Phil Gross, a neighbor of Norm's in the commuters town of Pleasantville, is continuing his work on rare gases for Air Reduction, a field in which he has made a reputation as a pioneer. The Richardsons, however, will soon quit paying rent in the suburbs and return to full-time town house residence, in New York.
Al Cate, of the firm of Hayden and Cate, has a letterhead that's handsome enough to justify the title of Graphic Arts Counsellors. These partners make their living out of industrial and package design. Al's letter, written from his Boylston St., Boston, address, belies the usual assumption that the good fellows of the Hub are constantly getting together. He begs to state that news is sparse and class contacts few, although he occasionally meets up with the right sort of company in the persons of Roc Elliott, Bunny Harvey, and Al Frey. The last quite naturally descended from his Hanover retreat for the Tuck School dinner. And incidentally, Professor Frey's inordinately charming daughter, Janet, is making the other gals step this year at Oakwood School in Poughkeepsie.
Prior to the letter just mentioned, a phone call to the Cate homestead in Needham brought forth a tidbit of family gossip. Al, it developed, was out at the focal flying field, whaling off another twenty minutes of solo business, a favorite sport with him since he got his private pilot's license some years ago.
The telephone does come in handy, when you're trying to make sense out o£ the Boston suburbs with or without an automobile. Ray McPartlin sounded cheerful and well on his end of the line at his home in Cambridge. Ray has been getting himself in condition for the better part of a year, but is all set now for the resumption of his responsibilities with the Boston Globe. Two Saturday morning phone calls to John the Moore's place of business out Kenmore way proved less fruitful. Norge Refrigerator Company's smiling telephone voice reported, with obvious deference to the person in question, that "our sales manager, Mr. Moore" hadn't come in yet (eleven o'clock) but was expected momentarily.
Striving for a mental picture of recent headlines in the metropolitan press we revert automatically to our old-time recollection of '20's four sure-fire figures, always good as news copy: Carl Newton, Gus Sonnenberg, Al Osborn, and Paul Sample. As it happens, one of this morning's local sheets had Carl's dignified figure on the front page, in the company of his client. Jack Benny. Without any disposition whatever to form an opinion on the Benny case, we noted with real satisfaction that legal fees, among other items, would help to boost the eventual costs to the defendant to something like fifty times the original customs tolls evaded.
Gus Sonnenberg's return trip to the wrestling pinnacle was temporarily halted last week in the Boston Garden, when some one of his gigantic opponents slammed him to the floor unconscious. It's a tough racket at an age when most of us are beginning to consider golf strenuous. Al Osborn, if memory serves, either turned a discerning eye on the telltale check in the first Hines trial or else figured in some capacity in the McKesson and Robbins showdown. Paul Sample's work draws recurrent mention in the art sections of all the better papers, but one particular sample of Sample that would delight any Hanover-lover was his "Snow and Shadow," reproduced in the New York Sun as far back as last October. This was used as one of a select assortment of Christmas cards, put out by the eminent twenty-five who make up the American Artists Group.
Also in the news is Craig Sheaffer of Fort Madison, representing lowa as state director for the American Congress of Industry of the National Association of Manufacturers. Craig is stepping right along in fast company, his name being mingled with such others as Tom Girdler, Lammot du Pont, and Wendell Willkie.
The class has undoubtedly known long since that Eb Wallace gave up his job at Phillips Exeter Academy last spring to become general manager and treasurer of the Standard Rivet Company in South Boston. But it may not know what the Exeter News-Letter, New Hampshire's finest weekly, reported at the time: that Eb's departure from Exeter was "received with general regret by our people to whom he has endeared himself in many ways. In initiative and accomplishment he has proved a valuable citizen."
We record with pleasure the news, snagged by the most roundabout of routes, that Red Tilson is a father as recently as February 1939. Whether the child is brother or sister to others who preceded him or her are facts awaiting Red's personal confirmation.
Johnny Stickney comes to our aid with a quick survey of '20's standing in the medical profession in Gotham. As for John himself, the word of good cheer is the belated report of the arrival of John W. Jr. in February 1938. John Jr.'s old man is specializing now in diseases of the heart. Two well-known surgeons-about-town are Ned Shnayerson, who has earned himself a really high rating among those who know, and Hal Clark, associated with the renowned Dr. John Erdman. Spence Snedecor has gone places in physiotherapy (the which translates into light, heat, and electricity); and Tom Van Orden, practicing up in Manhattan's fashionable Sixties, confines himself to pediatrics.
Every member of the class will be saddened to learn of the death of Louise Crathern Russell, wife of Almus Russell and sister of Charlie Crathern. Mrs. Russell passed away at Mitchell, South Dakota, early in March. She is survived by her husband; one daughter, Sally Crathern Russell, and one son, Charles Tupper Russell. Funeral services were held at the Congregational church, Mason, N. H. (Thanks a lot, Dick.)
