1940*
It is strange to think this morning of trying to tie up marriages, engagements and a batch of new jobs with the army and the spring. They are this spring a study in contrast—the normal and the unpredictable. But then, this has not been an average spring.
Anyhow, Jean Harshbarger and Creighton Holden were married on the twenty- fourth of March in Amherstburg, Ontario. Jean went to Vermont, and so, most of the time you will recall, did Creight. Mildred Shriver and Carl Bloede were married in Baltimore on the twelfth of April. Mac and Marilyn Cross were married in South Orange on May 17 with most of the class of '4O in New York attending. Mary Margaret Scott and Don McMahon were married April 19, in South Orange, Miss Margaret Miller of Smith and Jud Lyon will be married June 21 in West Orange; Barbara Laner and Julian G. Blass were married on April 26 in Kansas City, Missouri. Kay Kirby and Jack Faunce were married in New York on May 3. They spent part of their honeymoon at Hanover's Green Key.
And there are the engagements. Eb Cockley had his troth plighted to Mary Elizabeth Vanneman two months ago and they will be married on June so. That came as a horrible shock to Rogers who wrote letters to all his friends speculating on Cockley's ability to survive the last two weeks in June. Joyce Searles of Bennington and Joe Adams, Ensign, U. S. N. R., were engaged on April 1. John O'Neill of Harvard's School of Education and Patricia Noyes, Smith '42 were engaged the same month. So were Millicent George and Tuck School's Iver Olsen.
All these have been in the society pages. The eye becomes expert at scanning through the tulle and flowers, the immediate families and she was attended bys to rest—ah here it is, "was graduated from Dartmouth in the Class of 1940." For marriages and engagements, it has been a very good spring.
You can't say the same for the jobs. Nobody seems sure whether taking a job is worth it. Larry Cate, who signs himself secretary of the Tuck School Clearing House reports upon his flock to wit:
"Bud Scribner goes to the Chemical Bank and Trust Cos. of New York, Harry Midgeley and Stetson Whitcher to the First National Bank of Boston, Fred Fuld, Pete Shedarowich (now formally changed to Peter J. Sheddon), Jim Scott, Jay Weinberg and Bob Draper all go with accounting firms. Marsh Hollander used his master's thesis to land a job in Chicago with Paramount Pictures, Bob Lake goes to Proctor and Gamble in Cincinnati, John Hopkinson with Hartford Electric Light, Hal McAllister with Phoenix Fire Insurance, Perry Weston and Bob Rodday with machine tool companies, Mickey Miller with Aetna Group life, Morri Harwood with Mass. Mutual Life, Manny Mansfield with Goodyear, Ted Miller with Bethlehem Steel, Dan Feldman with a Hartford department store, Iver Olsen with General Electric in Bridgeport and Ron Woodberry with his father's firm in Boston. Ken Hamilton will move to a New York advertising agency, Steve Jewett may go to Harvard Law, and Dwight Meader is trying to decide between Harvard, MIT and lowa fellowships.
"Charlie Powers now in Baltimore with American Airlines, tells me that Art Ostrander has a job with Superior Separator farm machinery and that it is going to represent a large cut in pay to Ostrander who has gone fat on the forty dollar weekly net of his laundry agency. Larry proceeds with the news of Tuck:" Draft numbers are coming up quickly for Steve Graydon, Bob Clark, Will Flohr and myself, Jim Gibson, Hank Da hi, Bob Foss, Bob Kelley and Andy Halblieb.
"Tuck ll's Softball team is still upholding the '4O sports record by defeating all the graduate school teams and is waiting to fight it out for the college championship. Did anybody else in the class ever invite a trustee to a beer party? The '4o's of Tuck did and he came and everybody was happy. And then Willie Flohr chalked up a 72 on the local golf course only to lose 7 down to whirlwind ex'4o Bill Clark who tied the course record at 66. 1940 fratres in urbe are holding a class banquet in Stell Hall before we leave Hanover and we hope to beat all class records for attendance with Bu Hayden responsible for the urge."
It is a different kind of spring in the army. Viv Bruce writes a long letter about the air corps and his visits to labor meetings on the west coast. Some of his phrases have the tough, experienced ring of the conversation in post war literature;- "They shipped him home in a jam bottle" —"Five of them got their wings last month but they got harps too." Moose Stearns volunteered at Fort Lewis, Washington, because "although it was disappointing to leave a job with good prospects, I figured I might as well get it over with—now I don't know when that will be."
Don Shippam wrote to Professor Mathewson from Midshipman's school in Chicago where he, Paul Hurley and Bill Rearden are learning the navy:
"They claim they give us here in three months what they get in two years at Annapolis—the only difference being that it takes two years to understand it. The main objection is that we're getting too much too fast, our minds just can't absorb it, we just learn processes—do about three problems of each type—have a test on it before we forget it and go on to something else which we won't understand either. It will take us a year on board ship to become good officers they say—l say it will take us a year just to get unbailed up.
"Passed the first month's exams which are supposed to eliminate all those who don't catch quick. Quite an exodus it was too. There are 900 of us here to begin with. Two or three resign every day due to homesickness, dislike of militarism etc. Then they flunked over 100 out. Passing here is 2.5. My marks weren't too bad. I was third highest in my section of 25 men which is one of the brighter, they claim each class gets brighter. Seamanship-347; Ordnance-3.49; Navigasee I'm not very apt. Everything that happens seems funny to me—l stand and laugh while the officers cuss and swear at seeing one man march off in a tangent as the rest of the squad move in the opposite direction. For some reason, they don't think it's funny. But I sure do—the poor guy looked sort of lonesome and homesick too.
"Even our minds are censored. From 6.20 a.m. to 10.30 p.m., we are constantly being informed what to see, smell, do, hear and think. But my pet peeve is still the fact that they put gravy on the meat and none on the potatoes. 'We've found there are two ways of doing things: the right way and the Navy way, and that as soon as we stop thinking and trying to understand why things are done, the better for us."
Sid Harrington was graduated from the Air Corps as a second lieutenant, transferred to Pan American Airlines in a government trade for pilots. He will be in Brownsville, Texas. Des Rogers will soon be transferred to a new base school at Macon, Georgia. Scotty Freeman gets his Air Corps commission in another five weeks.
Maybe the parties have been most typical of what this spring is. Maybe they make a connection between the normal routine of jobs and the springtime marriages and the strangeness of the army and the war and not being sure. It has been a good spring for parties. 1940 in New York drove out to John Burnap's farm on May 3 and spent the day and half the night deep in sun and baseball and beer. The pictures tell the story. Or you could substitute a few names in Ed Fritz' description of O'Neill's engagement party and have about the same thing:
"The affair took place at a houseparty at Lakeville and Sharon. Present were scads of people who could probably be identified in the Blue Book or some such manual—they were needless to say, unknown to the Dartmouth contingent. .. .this Dartmouth group being rather literate and somewhat less so, literary, wrote prothalamiums for the occasion of varying artistic worth—but as all these were delivered after quantities of cocktails, the result was most gratifying It is my impression that the bridegroom to be was on the lower side of the ledger during the entire week-end. This impression was confirmed when he and Dave Mellor went swimming in a lake at 5 in the morning with the temperature in the low forties.... the houseparty broke up after O'Neill hit the first two homeruns of his life in a Softball game at which the Noyes girls (by the dozens) man- aged to display their extraordinary ability. It should be mentioned in passing that both John and Patricia come from families ranging into uncountable numbers. It is presumed that the couple will establish a similar dynasty themselves. Unfortunately, John is about to be drafted so the beginning of this dynasty—and hence the marriage—is still somewhere in the dim future. In general it may be said that one more Dartmouth man went the way of all flesh—or started theretoin a blaze of glory and a flow of beer."
Marriages and engagements, three year enlistments and war. Lying on the grass drinking beer in the sun—telling their girls to love them now—the conversation is the present tense—rough and clean and soon to be ended. Where and What and sometimes Why? This is our second spring. None of lis know the answers.
JOHN BURNAP '40 AND FRIEND
Secretary, 6407 RCA Bldg., Rockefeller Center New York, N. Y.
Class Agent, 85 Manor Rd., Birmingham, Mich
