1920*
Pearson: "There's something about the mere writing of 1940 that bites into you I suppose because it's twice Twenty. I was clearing out the family desk the other day. You know how those things work: you buy yourself a new rug or something of the sort, and then you discover that no other article of furniture in the room looks halfway decent, so you have to start replacing everything else you possess. Anyhow, buried in one of the desk drawers was a picture of '20s Fifth Reunion. Just the day before I had been interviewing budding aspirants for admission to the Class of 1944, and I must say that a fresh look at the Class of 1920, five years after graduation, came as a shock. Drag that picture out and take a squint at it yourself. If ever a bunch of lads looked as if they hoped they might grow up sometime, there's the gang. I'm ashamed when I try to fill out the Admissions Office question, passing on the maturity of the would-be Dartmouth freshmen. They're years older now, man for man, than we were when we got through. And, while you're looking at the picture, don't miss the hats on the gals and the hair-do's.
"All of which is neither here nor there. I started this off in the hope that I might have something to contribute to what is known as CLASS NEWS. But my nostalgic and somewhat melancholy recollections of the past only put me in mind of the 1939 Yale game, where I sat on the 50-yard line and craned my neck between the halves to spot somebody I had somewhere seen before. Two candidates only turned upboth of them, like myself, no longer aspiring to maturity, but rather, clinging wistfully to fast-ebbing youth: Doc Earl Fipphen of Worcester, Mass., and Jack Mayer of N. Y. C. To be absolutely factual, both were obviously having a good time and both looked to be in the pink. Even to suit my Old Man of the Mountain mood, I can't claim that they were hobbling around on canes or dozing off between touchdowns.
"Most of what I know as recent fact about the class of 1920 comes from a better Pearson than I am in the Class of '93. Consequently it concerns itself chiefly with doings about the Granite State. Parenthetically, I get back there myself about once a month, but only make Hanover on the average of once a year. Professor John Amsden, they tell me, has found time outside the limits of his chemical activities on the Hanover campus to concern himself with town affairs. He has attained membership on the local school board, and being a school committeeman is my private idea of tops for unappreciated public service. Sherm Adams, persistent Parker- Younger of Lincoln, N. H., is building himself—or may already have occupied— a new house in the home town. Tom Dudley's medical practice flourishes in Concord. He sent us a Christmas card, with likeness of the two young Dudleys (male), both of whom appear as upstanding and intelligent as Tom himself—surefire prospects to hurdle the barriers that loom higher than ever when a kid tries to get into Dartmouth these days. We had a Christmas card from the A1 Cates also, rhyming as neatly as ever but requiring more space than heretofore to list the family membership. Or am I wrong?
"Len Davis, who hails from what has come to be known as Red Rolfe's town of Penacook, N. H., was back there visiting lately, according to reports from the local journal. The account adds that 'Mr. Davis and family have been living in Baltimore, Md., but he has now been transferred back to Chicago where he formerly lived. He is employed by the Western Electric Company.'
"Go six miles south of Penacook to New Hampshire's capital city of Concord and you'll locate the headquarters of the Merrimack County Alumni Association. When they had their annual get-together at Christmas time, A1 Foley came down from Hanover as the featured speaker, to regale the assemblage or sober it up, as the case may have been. Sorry not to have sat in on that one myself, because they tell me that A1 can hit all the stops between profundity and absurdity, pulling out exactly the right ones for any occasion.
"Latest dope on the class celebrities (which you probably have immediately at hand in your own filing case): Pab Sample is one of the "68 famous artists" whose work is represented in Boswell's new book, Modern American Painting. And Pab's name is one of twenty the publishers use to advertise the quality of the contents, along with Benton, Biddle, Bellows, Eakins, Lie, Wood, and others whose names would mean more to the fine-art-conscious than they do to me. have before me two dispatches, both dated December 21, which must obviously have appeared in two different newspapers. One announces, from Providence, that 'Gus Sonnenberg, former heavyweight wrestling champion, today was barred from wrestling in Rhode Island A heart condition made it inadvisable for Sonnenberg to continue to wrestle.' The other relates that 'Gus Sonnenberg, 205, heavyweight wrestler, registered his second consecutive victory in New Jersey tonight by throwing Tom Casey, 210, of Ireland, in 8 minutes 39 seconds with a flying tackle and body press.' "
Speaking of Pab Sample what do you think of our mast-head? It is a very fortunate class that can have so distinguished an artist heading a column.
Charlie McGoughaan has been transferred again and this time it's back to New York. As usual it's a nice promotion and he's certainly doing a swell job for Sinclair Oil.
A clipping from a recent Boston Globe set forth the story that Hib Richter had announced his candidacy for the Massachusetts State Legislature from the town of Brookline. He, of course, has yet to be elected but if he is he will be the second '20'er to sit in that august body. The other—sometime Fire Chief Cy Rounsville. (By the way, both of these politicos will visit Hanover come June.)
Phib Bennett has been elevated to Asst. Vice President of the National Shawmut Bank and on the same day the Home Sayings Bank elected him a trustee and a member of the board of investment. Roc Elliott says this about Phib: The more hair he loses, the better he does—and he's getting almost bald.
Sherry Baketel, Manager of the Philadelphia agency of the Union Central Life Insurance Cos., has a new Agency Supervisor in the person of Charlie Ashton. An item in a life insurance trade journal says, in part, that, "Mr. Ashton has been in the life insurance business for the past 15 years, having signed his first full time contract in 1925. As a personal producer he was affiliated first with the Equitable of New York, and later with the Penn Mutual. In 1929 he became an Agency Executive for the Reliance Life, and in 1932 went with the Home Life of New York, from which company he resigned as Manager of the Planned Estates Department in order to assume his new duties with the Union Central.
"Mr. Ashton had an unusually interesting career during the World War. Leaving college at the end of his freshman year, he went overseas to drive an ambulance in the American Field Service, and after a few months at the front was seriously wounded. During several months in various hospitals, he wound up in a hospital cot adjacent to that occupied by Mx. R- H. Bayard Bowie of Philadelphia, also a member of this Agency. Incidentally, both Mr. Ashton and Mr. Bowie were decorated with the Croix de Guerre by reason of their exploits and now, after a lapse 0f 22 years, find themselves associated in the same Agency."
One of our "in urbe" reunion committeemen, A1 Frey, reports that Hike Newell recently lectured before the marketing classes at Tuck School. Hike is a partner on the Geyer, Cornell and Newell Advertising Agency and handles the Kelvinator account. He is responsible for a number of policy changes which enabled Kelvinator to come out with greatly reduced prices his year.
Pike Emory is the author of Archaeology of Mangareva and Neighboring Atolls which appears on Bulletin 163 of the Bishop Museum, Honolulu, Hawaii.
A newspaper report has it that, "James E. Robertson '20, former Big Green football captain, was elected president of the Cheshire County Dartmouth Alumni Association." I'm afraid this organization won't get much of his time until after June 14-16 as Jim is going after the reunion job hammer and tongs.
Secretary, 158 State St., Albany, N. Y. Let's start off with a letter from Dick
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