1920
This month's Visiting Lady is Marian (Mrs. Beardsley) Foster, whose tame and good works have spread far beyond the R.F.D. route where the Fosters live, up back of Darien, Conn. Born a Swayze (but not to be confused with 1920's likewise well known Swezeys) Marian cleaned up at Smith in 1922, married Beardsley in 1925 and became the mother of Brace Beardsley in 1928. Barbara Helen, the Fosters' second child, arrived in 1933. From then on things have kept humming for the family, as the materfamilias has undertaken one civic assignment after another.
Starting in a quiet way as secretary of the Darien Republican Town Committee, Marian learned the political ropes, moved into a board membership in the local branch of the League of Women Voters, and then found herself secretary of the Darien Charter Commission for a three-year term beginning in 1943. While all this was going on she did an annual job of collecting for the Stamford Community Chest and for a number of years headed Darien's share in the drive.
Up in that corner of Connecticut it must be a case of "Ask Mrs. Foster," whenever there's a new chore to be done. At one time or another, back in the 'go's, Marian served on the board of the Stamford Women's Club, the Stamford Visiting Nurse Association, the Stamford-Darien-New Canaan Girl Scout Council and the Stamford Y.W.C.A. In connection with the last she went on to be finance chairman and president (1939-43); became a board member of the National Y.W.C.A. in 1945 and this year took on the job of chairman for the local division, Y.M.C.A. Round the World Reconstruction Fund. The average Mr. or Mrs. may well wonder when Mrs. Beardsley finds time to draw a calm and collected breath, but she comments serenely enough, "In between, I manage to run the home, children and husband and throw in a little social life." More power to her and more profit to southwestern Connecticut!
Campaigns and drives are always a reminder that class-dues-paying time rolls around also, and is here with us now. Roc (of Gibraltar) Elliott flashed the word early in November that collections had begun propitiously; but your four bucks are still badly needed by the class treasury, in case the matter of dues may have slipped your mind. Phil Gross, commenting that Roc "has done a swell job and deserves the thanks of all," makes the good point that our financial statement, showing relative class solvency as of August 1, 1946, was the first class treasurer's report he ever saw or heard of. Phil, incidentally, "spent the weekend of September 29 in Hanover and then departed (minus Phil of the class of '50) for a few days with Norm and Doris Richardson. Following that, Hilda and I dodged the early snowstorm and vacationed in N. Y. State for the balance of my three weeks."
A for-the-moment last word on Roc: He had his picture in the Boston Herald for October 8, because he and other notables were that day attending a Statler Hotel luncheon meeting of Area Council No. 1, Boys' Clubs of America. Roc is vice-president for the area.
As for Phil Gross the 4th, Al Foley is even now garnering statistics on the Sons of Twenty currently resident on the Hanover Plain. Could be, tho', that he'll miss (in the November Twenty a couple of items that have reached this editorial desk. For instance, Brad Oakley Jr. may be sore at his old man for whispering the word that he finished freshman year with a 4.0 average, but we classmates of Brad Sr. are old enough now to share his pride in an exceptional achievement. Ben Ayres' two boys, both freshmen, are rooming together in 210 Butterfield, which somehow sounds more like John O'Hara than Eleazar Wheelock. "The younger boy (Robert)," according to Ben, "has just been accepted and sworn in to the ROTC which means that Uncle Sam has taken over for the next six or seven years. The older boy, Donald, age 20, recently returned from Germany. I'm planning to be in Hanover for a good many weekends during the next four years."
Sidelight on contemporary Dartmouth, as seen through the not-too-jaundiced eyes of Recent Reunion Chairman Carter: "It seems that every G.I. wants to major in Economics and I have to confer with him and help him arrange his program." And when Bill says "every G.I.," you can be certain that he's covering a whole lot of ground.
Jottings from the West Coast: Seattle's Johnny Allen wishes he could have attended the reunion, but had to spend his vacation instead in Council Bluffs, lowa. (The home town, it should be remembered, of 1920 Exec. Comm. Member, Leo Ungar.) Bill Farnham, from Spokane on the other side of Washington, likewise found Hanover too many miles away at reunion time, but got down to California on vacation and saw a bit of Abe Winslow. Larry Clarkson of Los Angeles, no longer school teaching, writes that he has joined up with the Retail Credit Company (main office in Atlanta, Ga.) and likes same very much.
And from New Jersey: Bob Van Iderstine, retired mayor of Tenafiy, has brushed the dust of N. Y. C. real estate off his shoes and sworn an oath to spend 24 hours a day outside the confines of Manhattan Island. "Van" Van Orden, three-striper who slipped the clutches of the Navy last January, has "gotten a farm among the rolling hills of Jersey (Brookfield Farm, Pottersville, N. J.) and am having a lot of fun trying to make it go. Unfortunately I can't seem to get completely away from the practice of Pediatrics and therefore I'm mixing a little of that in with farming. There are bets on that New York will be seeing me again in the near future but so far I am on the winning side." A full-time practicing physician, over there on the Jersey flats, is Spence Snedecor, whose official professional designation is now M.D., F.A.C.S., F.I.C.S. The last four letters testify to Dr. Snedecor's induction into the International College of Surgeons at the October convocation in Detroit. Previously Spence had been for many years a Fellow of the American College of Surgeons.
If the plans now cooking in the metropolitan area come to a boil, the above mentioned with wives, in the company of some 70 or 80 other married couples of 1920, will foregather at the Dartmouth Club of N. Y. for a cocktail party sometime in December. The notion is that all the gals have to go to town, sooner or later, for Christmas shopping; and the prospect may already begin to seem more bearable, if there is a convivial Martini or Manhattan at the end of it.
Paean of praise from Board Chairman Young of the C. & O. Railroad, as reported in the Cleveland Plain Dealer October 5, 1946, on acceptance of the Golden "Oscar of All Industry" for 1945's best prepared financial statement: "I thank you on behalf of Carl E. Newton .... and all others who contributed to the happy result."
All members of the Class will mourn with Tom Davidson the loss of his wife Myra, who passed away in a Boston Hospital late in October. Burial took place in York, Maine, November 1.
Secretary, Blind Brook Lodge, Rye 17, N. Y.
Treasurer, Windmill Lane, Arlington 74, Mass.
