1897

You will remember from the class report that Albert Morrill's mother said in her reminiscences: "I wish that my children and grandchildren might always keep something of the pioneer spirit, that never fears to press on and up."

Recent occurrences lead me to sketch how the children and grandchildren have actually turned out.

She had only one son, our classmate, Albert. When the first World War was brewing, he went to Plattsburg and later to the Harvard military training school, and was in the Army in an artillery unit when the Armistice came. Albert had a son and a daughter. The son is a major in the Army and the daughter is an aviatrix, married to a captain in the Army Air Force.

The Boston Globe for April 5, 1943 had pictures of four of Mrs. Morrill's grandchildren named Fuller, sons of Albert's sister, Genevieve, whom you met at the '37 reunion. Of these Horace, the oldest, a major in the Marine Corps, landed with the Marines at Guadalcanal on August 7, 1942. He captured a Jap flag at the Tenaru River Battle and sent it to the Greater Boston Community Fund rally in January. He was seriously wounded and flown to the United States, but is now recovered and eager to get into the active scrap again. The next one, Robert G. Fuller, is a lieutenant in the Army Air Transport Command. Henry Morrill Fuller, named for Albert's father, is in a submarine tracer training center. Benjamin, the youngest, aged 24, a captain in the regular Army with a tank destroyer division in Tunisia, received the French Croix de Guerre "with gold star" in January, and the Distinguished Service Cross for repulsing the Germans in the Kasserine Pass in February. He was wounded, but has recovered. Army, Navy, Marine Corps, Air Service, Submarine Service—all parts of the world.

Mrs. Morrill's daughter Elizabeth has one son now living, John Winthrop Edwards. He is a major in the Army, stationed at present in Tangiers.

Mrs. Morrill's daughter, Nellie, is represented by one grandson, Daniel B. Ruggles 3rd, in an anti-aircraft division of the Army.

Mrs. Morrill's daughter, Alice, has a daughter, Eleanor O'Leary, whose husband, Robert O'Leary, volunteered for the Army and is in a field artillery regiment at Fort Blanding.

Mrs. Morrill's children and grandchildren, then, have contributed eight boys to the fighting services and both they and their mothers and sisters have shown the "pioneer spirit, that never fears to press on and up."

Secretary, 53 State St., Boston, Mass. Class Agent, 1005 Center St., Newton Center, Mass.