A Living Tribute
SCHOOL HONORS MEMORY OF TWO MEN KILLED HERE IN 1934 TRAGEDY
Ten years ago this month one of thegreatest tragedies in Dartmouth's historyoccurred with the accidental death bymonoxide poisoning of nine undergraduates. In tribute to two of these young men,who were graduates of the Flushing (N. Y.)High School, there has been created thehelpful and inspiring memorial describedin the following article.
In Memoriam WILLIAM M. SMITH JR. and AMERICO SECONDO DEMASI
graduates of this school who perished in the tragedy at Dartmouth College February si, 1934
"Blessed are the dead who die in the Lard,for their works do follow them."
Such is the wording of a tablet in the main corridor of the Flushing High School, presented by the General Organization of the student body, a tribute that can rarely be paralleled in a large metropolitan school.
The upper grades had assembled as usual on the Monday morning after the tragedy, but none of the thousand students present had heard the news. No one present there can forget the wave of sorrow, controlled as it was, that swept the hall as the announcement of the deaths was simply made.
All those present had known these two boys, many had been their friends. The reaction was that although their bodies had perished, their memories need not. Plans for a memorial fund were considered and submitted to President Hopkins, who blessed them in a letter, simple, beautiful and effective, which was published to the school and to the community, and was largely responsible for the success of the undertaking.
No solicitation of funds was ever made; but far beyond expectation money came in, from distant and anonymous sources, until it amounted to well over three thousand dollars.
From the first there had been two purposes: that the personalities and characters of the two boys should be honored; and that the fund should serve in some measure to represent some of the good that they would have done in the world had they lived the normal span of life.
Accordingly, by resolution of the Council of the General Organization, a graduate is selected annually "of suitable character and attainments" to receive an award of one hundred dollars from the fund. At the presentation at the June graduation the audience rises and the recipient is charged to maintain and exemplify the honor and the ideals of the school, as did these two boys; and the award is given in their names. The names of the recipients are engraved below the memorial inscription and constitute the super honor roll of the school.
With each succeeding year the prestige of the award has become greater, with the result that many of the recipients have been able to secure greater consideration from colleges and sometimes admission to an institution of a standing beyond their former dreams. But for the influence of this memorial, Timothy Takaro, valedictorian of '41, would never have come to Dartmouth.
Nor has the benefit of the fund been limited to the direct beneficiaries. Not only is the memorial tablet a silent inspiration to students but tales could be told of its almost unbelievable influence: of the poor boy and poor scholar who just before graduation presented five dollars for the fund that he might feel that he had finally done something for the school, an act that later affected his whole future; of the subscriptions of a young Dartmouth alumnus, first from himself alone, later "from Mary and me."
It may not be said that the grief of the parents of these two boys has been assuaged by these tributes to their memory; but cause has been given them for greater joy in remembering them, and a measure of contentment in the thought that their deaths as well as their lives have brought so much help and inspiration to the lives of others. And thousands of young people have had real proof that good may come out of suffering, that death may be swallowed up in victory.
