1920
Paul Richter has come up with another of his diplomatic suggestions—namely, that the ladies, God bless 'em, be given the space they deserve in these columns. We bow to his good judgment and forthwith inaugurate a series of biographical bits about the gals of 1920. Ruth MacKay is our selection to pitch the opening game.
Don contributes an affectionate one-line characterization of his wife: "Ruth never walked to a train in her life; she always runs or takes a cab." It's easy to believe that when you look at the record. Mrs. M. writes a daily column "White Collar Girl" for the Chicago Tribune, which is a popular potpourri of letters from young businesswomen, cryptic advice to them, poetry, book reviews and most anything else that comes into Ruth's mind. She's also in the juvenile-book public eye right now because Abingdon-Cokesbury has published her story in rhyme, Just LikeMe, for very small children, and is boosting it as the headliner on their fall list. Per previously published book, Money Without Men, was of quite a different sort, being far from fanciful and as essentially practical as its title implies. Ruth has to keep 100% busy, so she does her share of ghost-writing on the side, once setting some kind of mark by ghosting a piece for a fellow ghost-writer.
This is the second marriage for both the MacKays. However, everybody in the family goes to Dartmouth. Ruth's two sons by her former marriage, Ed (Jr.) and Robbie Mortimer, are Dartmouth '44 and '47 respectively. The older of the boys has his M.D. from Northwestern already, but the younger was in Hamburg when the war ended and still has some educational distance to go. Don McKay Jr., Dartmouth '45, is back at Hanover in the Tuck School and will graduate next year. He was a radar specialist in the Marine Corps who wound up his service in Japan.
Another Chicago entry in the Hanover sweepstakes is Laddie Myers' boy, E. E.' Jr., who is officially enrolled in the class of 1950. Additional random jottings from the Windy City: Dana Eaton is said to be looking and feeling much better, following his hospital bout of last winter. Nate Whiteside, happy in his new job, is giving it everything he's got, as is the Whiteside habit. Fred Hamm thinks the other boys' labor troubles are nothing compared to what you get in the printing business these days. Don MacKay is one of a vast throng of loyal Republican workers who are rebuilding the party organization in Chicago and are determined to show results by the time of the Congressional elections.
A regrettable error in this column for August calls for correction. Jane Robertson's engagement, announced by Jim and Mary as far back as last January, is to Luthene G. Kimball, son of Mr. and Mrs. Fordham B. Kimball of Longwood Towers, Brookline, Mass. "Kim," former staff sergeant in the Army and 1943 graduate of Bowdoin, is now on Filene's payroll, taking their two-year merchandising course and working in the Winchester store.
Kimball is a not unfamiliar name in the annals of the class of 1926. The latest word from Dick of Long Beach, Cal., says that he, Zenas Forbush and Rus Cotner exchanged greetings in the early part of July, regretting the several thousand miles that had necessarily separated them from Hanover in late June. August droppers—in at the Hanover Inn included Mr. and Mrs. Rus Keep, Mr. and Mrs. Gerry Stone and Mr. and Mrs. Ben Ayres, with two younger generation Ayreses.
Success Story of the Month: A "Twenty"gun salute for Phil Kitfield, who on September J became Chief Engineer of the Massachusetts Department of Public Works. Phil had been serving previously as Acting Chief Engineer, and is one of that select group in the class who have been doing business at the same stand since graduation. The Kitfields now live at 121 Elmwood Road, Swampscott, Mass., new address for them which went into the class files last April.
Recent conversations with Dick Lux, partner in the banking firm of McDonald & Co., Cleveland, give us a welcome opportunity to bring his story somewhere near up to date. Mayors come and go in the class of 1920, but it only now comes to light that Dick is serving his second term as Mayor of the Village of Waite Hill, some 20-odd miles outside of Cleveland and within the limits of the larger Willoughby. The McDonald banking business, happily, is reported to be in fine shape. Dick got to Hanover in July for the first time in 29 years, only then recalling that day in the early stages of World War I when he left the campus to enter the service. Now his boy William, a graduate of the University School in suburban Cleveland, is just back from more than two years in the Navy. This latest of the Luxes put in the last few months of his service at Bikini, not long before that atoll crashed the world headlines. He has been admitted to Oberlin College in his native Ohio, but there is always the possibility of a transfer East, when the higher education situation loosens up a bit.
A five-dollar book that ought to be worth every cent it costs is Business Organizationand Management by one Elmore Petersen and E. Grosvenor Plowman. Grosvenor has taught management and practiced it (with U. S. steel). His publishers, Richard D. Irwin Inc., of Chicago, aver that these 691 pages present basic theory and "management principles from the standpoint of policy formulation, leadership and supervision, incentive programs and other means of attaining efficiency of operations." Paul Bowerman is another who has contributed to the making of an even bigger book. Together with two gentlemen named Rolfe and Davenport, he has put together The Modem Omnibus, a Harcourt Brace publication for college Eng lish classes, in which Sidney Cox reported that "a daring picker and chooser could find wisdom and beauty." The way the college textbook business is thriving these days, this 1071-page tome might well be a source of real financial -satisfaction to our friend Paul. He also draws royalties on Modern Exposition, a smaller special-purpose collection which duplicates part of the material from the bigger book.
Col. Hib Richter likewise took his pen in hand last spring. He turned out an informative article called "Wings Over Homes," which appeared in the May, 1946, issue of the Bar Bulletin of the Bar Association of the city of Boston.
Our "Twenty" paper has sometime since given a faithful account of Fiske-Colors, the fire magic and candles business developed by Gugger Fiske's 80-year-old father, eight years after he had been crippled by a paralytic stroke. The Boston Globe for April 28 ran a feature story on the business, with a picture of Gugger and his father "in conference" in the elder Fiske's first-floor bedroom, which is their office, there in the Auburndale residence. Writing about most recent developments, Gugger says, "We now have a plant in Waltham with a production line and conveyor, and we also have a refrigerated tunnel through which the products pass and are cooled."
Secretary, Blind Brook Lodge, Rye 17, N. Y.
Treasurer, 1 Windmill Lane, Arlington 74, Mass.
