Deaths

[A listing of deaths of which word has been received within the past month. Full notices may appear in this issue or may appear in a later number.]

Abbott, Albert A., '71, May 13. Fletcher, George H., '72, May 27. French, Warren C., '80. Foster, Dr. Augusta C., '00, June 4. Bell, John W., '05, May 13. Pillsbury, Dr. Fritzroy, '08, June 18. Johnson, Frederick P., '10, Mar. 29. Mernstein, Maxwell H., '15, May 25. McKenney, Robert A., '17, Jan. 11, 1939. Gammans, Philip E., '19, May 6. Murphy, Joseph T., '21, May 21. Watson, Nathan W., '23, Mar. 19.

Irwin, Vincent J., med. '95. Shattuck, Albert M., med. '95, May 26. Vivian, William J., med. '12, June 10. Woodbridge, Frederick J. E., hon. '24, June 1.

Necrology

1871

ALBERT ARMSTRONG ABBOTT died while on a visit at the home o£ two of his daughters in Minneapolis, Minn., on May 13, 1940. He was born on October 6, 1847, in Wilton, N. H., one of the eight children of Amos and Anstice (Wilson) Abbott. In his tenth year, together with three other children, he accompanied his parents on a voyage to India, whither they were returning as missionaries after a furlough of ten years. In 1865, under the care of another missionary, he returned to this country.

He prepared for college at Appleton Academy, New Ipswich, N. H. In college, Abbott largely, if not wholly, supported himself by various activities. He was also an ardent sportsman. There were no track athletics, but together with walks over the surrounding country, football and baseball furnished all the sport that anyone could wish. Baseball was then in its infancy, and Abbott was an enthusiastic player. He played first base on the college nine in many games against other colleges.

After graduation, Mr. Abbott taught one year at Mt. Lookout, Tenn. Returning then to Nashua, N. H., where his parents were living, he was deputy city treasurer and clerk until swept out of office by a change in political control. He then followed the path of relatives to Steele City, Neb., where he remained for ten years until October 1883, as teacher, farmer, and stock raiser.

A severe experience o£ rheumatism and an invitation from kinsfolk in Minneapolis brought him next to that city; there or in St. Paul he remained for twenty-four years, engaged in various business enterprises, principally connected with gas fixtures and plumbing and metal plating. At the end of that period a nervous collapse brought him a fresh decision.

Induced again by kinsfolk he removed in 1907 to Northfield, Minn. Here are two colleges, with one of which Mr. Abbott's daughter is now connected. These revived his old interest in athletic sport, and he became a well-known and welcome spectator of public exhibitions. Here too he built up his strength by farming and gardening.

Mr. Abbott was not recreant to his father's faith nor weary of its forms. Wherever he has been, he was a devoted member of the Congregational church, which he has served in every capacity open to a layman. On the Wednesday before he died, he attended a basketball game at Carleton College in Northfield, and on Sunday a conference on Congregational churches in Minneapolis.

He was married September 8, 1880, to Abby H. Foster, whom he had met in Appleton Academy. She died October 15, 1924. His two daughters, the Misses Bertha and Anstice Abbott, now live in Minneapolis. Another daughter, Miss May Abbott, was living with her father in Northfield at the time of his death.

1872

GEORGE HARLEY FLETCHER, who tor several years has acted as Secretary of this class, died May 27, 1940, at a nursing home in New York City.

He was born in Lyndon, Vt., September 19, 1852, the son of Joel and Zerviah Townsend (Meigs) Fletcher, and prepared for college at St. Johnsbury Academy. He was a member of Delta Kappa Epsilon.

After graduation he began the study of law in the office of Judge B. H. Steele (Dartmouth 1857) at Hartland, and after the latter's death in 1873 continued the study at Woodstock and at New York University Law School, graduating there in 1874. He began practice that year in New York City, and continued an active and successful practice until about 1925, when he retired, but continued with his law firm of Fletcher & Brown as counsel. During his active life he was engaged particularly in the trial of cases.

For more than fifteen years he was president and a director of the Bathing and Tennis Club of Spring Lake, N. J., where he spent the summers. He had lived in Brooklyn in the winters since about 1876.

September 13, 1876, he was married to Ida Sharp, who died some years since. Their two sons, Henry and Robert Sharp, are graduates of Yale and of Harvard Law School and members of their father's law firm.

1882

DR. FRANK ALONZO DEARBORN died at his home in Nashua, N. H., August 3, 1939, of heart disease.

He was born in Milford, N. H., September 21, 1857, the son of Dr. Samuel Gerrish (D.M.C. 1850) and Henrietta (Starrett) Dearborn. He was in college only a part of freshman year.

He studied medicine at the College of Physicians and Surgeons of New York and at Missouri Medical College, St. Louis, and graduated as M.D. from the latter in 1884. He opened practice in Nashua, and was a general practitioner there for twenty years.

In 1892 he was married to Clara K., daughter of James M. and Eliza (Temple) Laton, who survives him, with a daughter, Katherine Laton.

1894

The death of ROBERT RALSTON PENNIMAN took place suddenly Sunday evening, May 12 on the farm where he was born and where he had always lived, and as he was calling his cows home. He was the twenty-ninth member of the class to go, which numbered eighty-six at graduation.

Born in Plainfield, New Hampshire, December 16, 1867, he had passed nearly five months of his seventy-fourth year. From the time he graduated from Dartmouth he was a prominent and useful citizen of Plainfield. He was a delegate to the Constitutional Convention of New Hampshire in 1902 and a representative in the State Legislature in 1909. He had been a deacon of the Congregational Church in Meriden (the home of Kimball-Union Academy where he fitted for Dartmouth) and was a member of the Park Grange of Cornish Flat. He served for many years as the clerk of the school district. At the time of his death he was President of the Mill Cemetery Association, The Plainfield Republican Club and the Meriden Water Company.

Some time ago a person who knew of the kind of service he was rendering to his community wrote: "He is so valuable to us that we hope he will use caution so that we may have the benefit of his advice, for some time to come." In the simplest but truest fashion this suggests the kind of service that he rendered for forty-six years in the community where he was born.

The funeral was held in the home, and the flowers and large gathering of friends testified to the place he held in the entire country-side. Seven members of the class as well as other Dartmouth men were in attendance.

He was rarely happy in his marriage to Mrs. Florence Phelps Kehey which took place February 22, 1915. Mrs. Penniman survives him together with a step-daughter "to whom he was as good a father as though she were his own."

In writing to the class about his death the secretary said:

"This man who lived so quietly and so usefully in the home where he was born had a warm place in his heart for our class which had a warm place for him. In thinking of him one recalls that 'still waters run deep.' The class can be proud that a man of his character held us in such high regard."

1900

DR. AUGUSTUS CALEB FOSTER died at his home in Rochester, N. H., on June 4, 1940, after an illness of two weeks.

He was born in Hanover on June 20, 1877, the son of John Henry and Laura (Storrs) Foster. His preparatory work was done at Kimball Union Academy, from which he entered Dartmouth in the fall of 1896. He remained in college only a brief period and then attended the Pennsylvania College of Dental Surgery, from which he was graduated in 1900. Immediately he started practice in Rochester, where he continued to the time of his death, a period of forty years. He gained a wide reputation as a practitioner; he was a member of various professional societies and for a time president of the New Hampshire State Dental Society. He was also prominent in masonry and served for a period as a member of the Rochester City Council.

Dr. Foster was married October 18, 1905 to Miss Edith M. Rice. Mrs. Foster and a daughter, Mrs. Charles Stephen Garran, survive him. The funeral, widely attended by his professional colleagues and friends, was held in the First Congregational church in Rochester on June 6 and burial was in that city.

From his short continuance in the class, Gus, as an undergraduate, was not well known to most of its members. In subsequent years, however, he was a constant and welcome attendant at class gatherings. Corson and Warden represented the 1900 group at his funeral.

1905

JOHN WILLIAM BELL died May 13, 1940, at his home in Centerville, Mass., after a short illness.

The son of William A. Bell, he was born in Somerville, Mass., June 16, 1882. He was with the class only during freshman year, and was a member of Psi Upsilon.

After leaving college he went into the coal business in Boston with Staples & Bell, and remained with that organization through life, becoming finally president.

April 19, 1906, he was married to Mary Amy Cleveland of New York City, who survives him, with an adopted son, Kenneth C. Bell.

1910

FREDERICK PLUMLEY JOHNSON died on March 29 as a result of an automobile accident that occurred on February 14, the day of the blizzard.

Fred was born in Ayer, Mass., on January 11, 1887, the son of Mr. and Mrs. Frederick W. Johnson. He prepared for college at Waltham High School, entering with the Class of 1910 to remain one year.

For the last twenty-five years or more he represented different shoe and rubber companies in northern New England, establishing a wide acquaintance and a large circle of business friends in that area.

He leaves a widow, Florence May Johnson; a son, Arthur M., who is a senior at Phillips Exeter—and a daughter, Anne Elizabeth, a senior at Waltham High School.

1915

FRANK JEHIEL HARLOW, the son of Frank and Hattie Smith Harlow, was born in St. Louis, Mo., February 7, 1889. Later the family moved to St. Joseph, Mo., where the father was engaged in the manufacture of men's shoes, and where Frank attended public schools. In 1909 the family moved to Boston, Mass., and Frank attended a boys school in Cambridge. Later the family moved to Stoddard, N. H. and Frank attended school in Winnipesaukee, N. H„ before entering Dartmouth. After leaving college he played professional baseball, being one season with the New England league. Later he coached summer baseball teams in Hillsboro, Stoddard, Antrim, and Peterboro, N. H. At one time he was associated with his father in the automobile renting business in Boston, and also worked in the oil fields of Texas, but a good share of these years was spent in travel with his parents, their winters being spent either in Texas or Florida. During the war Frank served two years overseas, with the Yankee division; and was always an active member of the American Legion in Peterboro. For the past ten years he was with the Robertson Company of Keene, N. H., as chief inspector for their chain of Texaco stations throughout New Hampshire.

His maternal grandmother was Ellen Rogers, sister of the Rogers Bros., famed silversmiths. On his father's side he was a direct descendant of William Bradford, the first Governor of Massachusetts. And the old Harlow house still stands in Plymouth.

Frank died at his home in Peterboro, N. H., on July 25, 1939, from a cause directly attributed to his service and numerous "gassings" overseas, and from which he had never fully recovered. He is survived by a wife, Sadie MacMullen, whom he married in Antrim, N. H., July si, 1922; a son born in 1923, and two sisters, Mrs. Wm. A. Stewart of Stoddard, N. H.; and Mrs. R. Robbins Anderson of Trenton, N. J. He was strictly a family man, belonging to few organizations. He was highly respected in Peterboro, was very quiet and unassuming, well read, and especially well versed in all current events.

MAXWELL H. MERNSTEIN was the son of J. M. and Rebecca Mernstein and born in New Haven, Conn., Nov. 26, 1892, and died in Stamford, Conn., May 25, 1940. Max attended and graduated from Stamford High School and attended Dartmouth for three years, 1911-1914, transferring to Columbia where he received his LL.B. degree. He practised law in Stamford with the firm of Mernstein & Mernstein and lived in that city. During the war he was in the service from 1917 to 1919.

1917

ROBERT ARMSTRONG MCKENNEY died January 11, 1939, in Prince George County, Va. The Secretary has not been able to procure further information in season for a suitable notice for this issue, but hopes to be able to furnish such a notice for the next issue.

1921

JOSEPH THOMAS MURPHY—affectionately known to hosts of Dartmouth men as "Cuddy" Murphy—died May 21, 1940, in Manchester, N. H. Five days earlier he had walked into a hospital in that city suffering from a carbuncle, the poison from which examination disclosed had entered the blood stream. He failed to respond to any kind of treatment, and was buried in the family lot in Calvary Cemetery, Concord.

Cuddy was born May 15, 1897, in Concord, N. H., the son of Michael Joseph and Kathryn (McDermott) Murphy. Preparing for college at Keewatin Academy, Prairie du Chien, Wis., Cuddy was with 1921 in Hanover for three years, save for an enlistment in the Naval Reserve which extended throughout the summer and fall of 1918. He was generally recognized to be the greatest Dartmouth athlete of his day, for Cuddy not only was a tower of strength at right tackle position, but also had outstanding ability as a baseball pitcher, as a guard in basketball, and as a weight man in track. He was a member of Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity.

After leaving Dartmouth, Cuddy pitched for the Boston Red Sox, and later for To- ronto and Syracuse. He coached football at the Colorado School of Mines for three years, and served as athletic director of the Albany Felt Cos. Later he went to the Uni- versity of Maine as assistant football coach, also coaching baseball and basketball. Re- signing in 1926, Cuddy entered the insurance business in Concord with his brother, George T. Murphy '24. Ten years later he sold his insurance business and became engaged in the shoe business in Manchester.

Cuddy never gave up his connection with athletics. He played considerable profes- sional basketball, and every year acted as referee, umpire, or head linesman in numer- ous football games, as well as officiating at basketball games. Cuddy was outstanding for his loyalty to his friends and to the College, which never dimmed, and for his generous disposition. He never married. He is survived by two brothers, George T. ('24) of Waltham, Mass., and James M. of Manchester.