A Kind and Comfortable House
A Tribute to Mother Rood Who Has Created an Eating Club of Rare Distinction and Unusual Popularity
THREE TIMES A DAY some 175 members climb the narrow stairs that lead from the alley opposite the Post Office to the Rood Club. It is no larger or much different than one floor in the average home. True, it has bulged outward and upward a bit through the years—out-ward to accommodate a closed-in porch where 40 students "wait on themselves," and upward to the third floor where eight Medics accompany their nourishment with sociable if grisly professional reviews.
There is a small hallway on the main floor, also three dining rooms the size of smallish bedrooms (which they once were), a kitchen as big as the average American kitchen, the porch and a pantry, that is all. Nearly goo people throng to the Rood Club not only for their excellent meals but to bump elbows and discourse in a notable spirit of camaraderie. It has always been so. The popularity of the Rood Club has never waned since its earliest days on College Street. There have always been more applicants for spaces at its inviting tables than could be accommodated, and there's a waiting list today.
Mother Rood is the reason. This story is about her. If there are other names mentioned they will simply be those of men who are indebted to her. Mrs. Rood has had fine help—25 students are earning their board with her this year. Her two sons, Budge until his sad death in an auto accident in 1935, and Karl in late years, have carried on in fine style for her. There are three women on the staff. But she dominates the scene, especially for the waiters and the boys in the kitchen. This is the story of a woman so lovable and kind that for scores of boys she has been a second mother. No finer tribute is needed than the plain fact that they have called her, through the years, Mother Rood.
She is neither the movie nor the Whistler type of mother. Any idea that she isn't business-like and exacting in her requirements of behavior and attitudes by student workers and boarders alike would be in error. Hers is not a sugary kindness. It is direct and friendly, understanding and restrained. Calling her Mother Rood is a natural thing to do—not at all manufactured sentiment or forced. We won't try to account for it or explain it any further, but simply call your attention to the rarity of this degree of affection in the bustle of college life.
Mrs. Rood is hard of hearing. But her hearing has not been as deficient as student waiters and the kitchen crew have often assumed. Pete Hurd '23 used to ask someone to go and play the piano in the hall so he could shake a dishpan full of silver. Pete would fill the dishpan with the Rood Club "jewelry," add boiling water and soap, brace his 220-lb. frame, and shake the pan with a terrific clatter. He relied on the piano and Mrs. Rood's auditory defect to get him through this crisis. "Why," says Mrs. Rood, "I always knew what Pete was doing."
FIRST OPENED IN 1918
Pete Hurd and Ted Caswell, also '23, were among the half dozen student workers when the Rood Club took up its present quarters in 1922, after having first opened its doors on College Street in 1918 to a select group of professors and summer school students. Chan Walker and Bill Griffin '25 were also among the earliest members of the Rood Club Workers
Union. Chan was head waiter and in those days there were no student boarders—only girls and ladies, stenographers, librarians, and business women of the community. Ev Lyon '23, Paul (Dutch) Jerman '25 and your correspondent were the waiters.
This group played a lot of jokes, mostly on each other. Mrs. Rood's perception met a test on one occasion when a tough piece of steak was smuggled into the kitchen and broiled along with the tender cuts. With diabolical fervor the waiters hovered over the range hardly able to wait for the tough steak to be placed on a plate. It was finally speared by Mrs. Rood and borne in to one of the girls by a conspirator. Thereupon several eager faces attempted to peer at once through the little pane of glass in the swinging door from the pantry to the dining room to watch the innocent boarder struggle with her victuals. The joke took an abrupt turn when Mother Rood appeared, went to the table and removed the plate, saying to Miss X: "I don't think you would like that steak." There then followed a Dutch Uncle meeting of the staff which you might call a fight talk or receiving hell in a handbag. It was brief and to the point—the boarders were the customers; the waiters were the hired help. This sort of thing would not happen again. It didn't.
in those early days Bill Griffin '25 apparently divided his time between going to classes, sleeping and working at the Rood Club. Bill would appear 30 minutes ahead of any other student workers, wrap a long white apron around his lithe frame, and begin to putter. His responsibilities were to make the cocoa and soup on a small oil stove in the pantry. Bill's ministrations over these two kettles were tender and long. He was never seen to sit down and eat a meal. His precinct was the pantry and there he stayed, nibbling now and then, adding water at intervals first to the soup and then to the cocoa, and constantly stirring both. This small pantry, perhaps because Bill Griffin was there tending the soup, was a favorite discussion center. When the last waiter and dish-washer had left, Bill, Chan Walker, and Mrs. Rood could still be heard talking, Bill continuing to stir with no one to be fed for hours to come.
This attitude among the student help of lingering longer than necessary, and turning up early for work, has been another distinguishing characteristic of the Club through the years. The companionship has been so good that in more cases than not you wanted to get there early and stay longer than planned. After everything was cleaned up Mrs. Rood often joined a group of lingerers to sit for an hour absorbed in the conversation, turning with a hand cupped over an ear as the conversation swung around the circle.
In this way, too, she came to know many of the student boarders and bachelor members of the faculty when two of the family bedrooms were done over into dining rooms. As the Club expanded into its present three dining rooms and porch, the numbers of boarders and helpers crept up. But the atmosphere never changed. It was still the same comfortable and homelike place, with bountiful breakfasts, and hot meals both noon and night (ample seconds allowed). Hunger was served—not only meeting the appetite for food but satisfying, with warmth and good spirit, the student craving for kidding and joking with meals. Many stayed on—there is no pressure to leave. Like as not the waiter joins in the serious talk that so often arrives with full stomachs Mother Rood is hailed as she passes the door She fetches a half-cup of tea and there's the scene—students paying for their board, students working their way, with an elderly, wise, understanding woman who has lived in the midst of Dartmouth undergraduates for 20 years.
Along in 1923 she took care of the first of what has since been a considerable number of diabetic cases. This boy, in the class of '27, was the roommate of Dick Hall, son of Mrs. and the late E. K. Hall '92. Dick Hall ate his meals at Mrs. Rood's until his death in November, 1924, his sophomore year. Dick brought his roommate down to the Club where Mrs. Rood was asked if she would take care of his diet. Diabetes was not treated as efficiently in those days. The use of insulin was less understood both by patients and doctors. Mrs. Rood took the case on, secured medical advice on the proper diet, and began a study of diabetes and its care. She has not relaxed this search for knowledge about diet for diabetic cases and in many other ailments. Gram scales for weighing food became part of her kitchen equipment. In the subsequent years there have been one or more diabetic cases under her care every year. In addition she has cared for boys with ulcers, jaundice, and other difficulties in which the proper selection and quantity of food has been essential to good health.
This has been no casual interest. With the help of doctors and her own research and experience she has become an authority on diet for boys of college age, both the entirely well and those with some physical troubles.
Bob Stevens '27 (now in charge of operations for General Motors in Java, D.E.I.) was Mother Rood's first commissary. His selection for the job of collecting weekly board bills and helping with the business management showed that the Club was growing. There were more checks and greenbacks than could be jammed into her apron pocket so Mrs. Rood began the process of picking a smart and trustworthy young man to handle the money for her. She never knew whether she was doing as well as she should, or might, financially. All that mattered was meeting the bills with something left over every month.
Phil Mayher '29 followed Bob Stevens in the big job of commissary (practically amounting to president of the Club). Next in line was Millard Taylor '31, then Skip Hall '33, Wes Beattie '33 (Tuck '34), Charlie Ganzel '35, Tom Monagan '36, Cal Eldred '37, Kelley Hill '38, Bill Hayes '40, and Ed Marlett '41.
If Dartmouth is not able to give as much financial aid as it would like to needy boys it is not Mrs. Rood's fault. She has always seemed to find room for those who came to her in desperation, seeking work for their board. One notable case she recalls of an undernourished youth who told her he had been eating milk and crackers in his room, unable to find a job. After a few good meals life looked different and now, successfully engaged in professional work, he is among the alumni who are Mother Rood's pride and joy. There are plenty of others who appear in the pictures printed in adjoining columns, and others in the years intervening between the group photographs selected for publication, who would have been on their uppers and might well not have stayed in college, without Mrs. Rood's help. For most of the men, as we have noted above, it was something more than a job to Work for her—it was an experience, with the memories just as keen and pleasant as the finest recollections of college life of other men.
The Rood Club and Mother Rood mean enough to many alumni to make it and her their first destination on a visit to Hanover Christmas cards come to her by the score with a word of greeting and thanks.... an occasional letter from one of the old boys who takes the time to write, as this one: "You cared about others and sought to be helpful and kind and generous with your boys, and friends, and even strangers. It was an inspiration to have worked for you Mrs. Rood and the memory of you and the happiness we all knew at the Club will be treasured for many years."
It means the memory of that tremendous Christmas dinner, served every year on the last Sunday before the vacation, with all local "alumni" of the Club in attendance.
.... It means the pictures on the walls of the groups of men that have worked there from the early years when Nelson Rockefeller took one of the first pictures. "Rocky," said Mrs. Rood "was the only student boarder in those days who could afford a real good camera."
It means sorrow and sympathy in the vivid recollection of Budge Rood, a loyal, devoted, and capable helper for his mother —a place ably taken by Karl Rood in recent years .... and the passing of Chief H. B. Rood, her husband, who was for many years head of Hanover's two-man police department until his death in 1929.
It means for many girls and business and professional women a dining room of their own in a man's town .... a cordial hospitality at meal times, with weekly rates that have always been low.
It means birthday cakes to surprise boarders or waiters on their birthdays. .. .. Prof. Donald (Major) Stone received one with candles aflame on one occasion when the boys told Mrs. Rood it was his birthday. It was a joke—on her and the Major. He accepted the cake and explained later to her that "there must have been some mistake."
Mrs. Rood means enough to men like Bill Griffin and Chan Walker to entertain her in New York and Washington when she goes on her annual Christmas trip to visit her daughter in West Virginia.
For Marshall Schacht '27 who roomed on the third floor of the Club, she meant inspiration for the following verse titled "Mother Rood and Her House" (on Mother's Day, 1925):
The reason for this little house and thethingsIt does, is a kind and comfortable reason. . likeA wood fire in the hearth inside,When a cold rain is blowing on the streetOutside.
Warmth, and light, and pleasant talkHave reached a holiness here, so real andlovely,That he who enters and is blessed withalHas found a Church and Human Ministry.
Mother Rood hasn't been well. She had a serious operation in the summer. In these days of illness and distress we who know and love her can say a prayer. We can ask strength and peace for a gallant woman.
THE GROWING ROOD CLUB FAMILY (INCLUDING STUDENT WORKERS) PICTURED IN 1939 First row, left to right: Joe Urban '39, Andy Brown '38, George Sexton '41, Billy Hayes '4O,Es Crowley '41, Don Clarke '38, Pete Shedarowich '40. Second row: Kelly Hill '38, Mrs.Effie Merrill, Mrs. Agnes Reed, Mother Rood, Lucille Cutting, Mrs. Gertrude Barnes,Karl Rood. Third row: Jim. Feeley '39, Joe Cottone '39, Colby Howe '39, George Adams'39, Charley Wiggiyi '38, Johnny Page '39, Johnny Lendo '41, Howie Rea '38, Dave Walsh'39, Johnny Hopkinson '39, Bud Campbell '40, Joe O'Hare '40, Bart Jones '39, Nick Bielanowski '38. Fourth Row: Harry Edmondson '39, Les Terry '39, Fran Bachelder '59. (Notin picture: Joe Batchelder '39, Hank Mills '39, Ed Hammel '39, Ken Hugo '39, ArtBright '39.)
STUDENT WORKERS AND ROOD CLUB FAMILY IN 1929 First row,left to right: Herman Liss'29, Dinny Dinsmore'29, Mother Rood, Bill Magenau'29, Steve Nordblom '29, Bob Dolphin '29, George Hersam '29. Second row, kneeling: George Gilpatric '31, Ditty Blomberge '31, John Van Buskirk '32. Third row: Jim. Fannin'31, Bernie Boyle '31, Phil May '29, Chick Sherburne '30, Effie Merrill, Deac Campbell'32, Larry Paisley '29, George Piret '29, Tom Andersoji '31, Budge Rood, Russ Beckwith'31, Hugh Neely '31, Mrs. Fitsmaurice, Don Ewing '31, Blondy Biesel '31, Skipper Hall'31, Jack Warwick '31, Mill Taylor '31, Phil Mayher '29.
WORKERS AND FAMILY IN 1934 First row: Fred Hickok '33, John Zabriskie '34, Art Eriksen '34, Ed Offutt '33, Al Clark'33, John Dunn '33, Clyde Seney '34. Second row: Harry Masterton '34, Wes Beattie '33,Mrs. Connolly, Effie Merrill, Midge Bumhower, Mother Rood, Charlotte Rood, NichBielanowski '38. Third row: Chet Young' 36, Charlie Ganzel '35, Jim Dickinson '33, DickTurner '35, Biddy Chase '33, Jack Hill '33, Stan Yudicky '32, Budge Rood, Frank Lepreau'34, Steve Woodbury '34, Henry Kraszewski '34, Bob Bullick '36, Jack Barrett '3B, ValJohnson' 33.4 th Row: Bob Bright.' 36, R.Keyes' 33, G.Shaw' 33,N.R00t' 33,P.Magnuson'34.
IN THE ROOD CLUB'S EARLY DAYS The entire staff of waiters in 1924. Standing, left to right: Pinky Anderson '24, Sid Hayward '26, Dutch Jerman '25, Chan Walker '25; seated in front, Ev Lyon '24 (Thayer Sch.'25).
["Peace for a gallant woman," eternalpeace, was given to Mother Rood January4. The above article was read to her thenight before she died. We are glad sheknew that this tribute was to appear in the ALUMNI MAGAZINE which she read everymonth for news of her old boys. And weare publishing the article in the form inwhich it was read to her, and received herapproval.—EDITOR.]
