1908
Lt. Alec Clark '38, Jack and Hazel's second son, has been relieved from duty as Assistant Adjutant General and Recruiting Officer at Headquarters X Corps in Japan and on December 17 was in the 11th Replacement Depot at Nagoya, Houshu, awaiting orders to board ship for home. Alec has been in the service for 63 months and came up the hard way. On his return, he plans to return to his former organization, the American Water Works and Electric Co., Inc., in New York, but he hopes eventually to settle in some smaller town, preferably in New England. He plans to spend at least a year in or near New York in order to take a few courses at New York University in personnel administration. Alec and his wife will live in Ridgewood, N. J., until they can locate a place of their own. Hazel is settled in her new apartment in New Canaan, and Alec's older brother, John '32, discharged in October, is still vacationing with his family in New Boston, N. H.
Howard Cowee's partner is back with him on a full-time basis, so he should not be working so hard. Howard recently won a Supreme Court decision involving an implied easement of water rights in a natural stream, a case which was of considerable importance to Howard's client, and we hope of satisfactory emolument to Howard. Mrs. Howard, their daughter Barbara and her son spent the summer at the Cape. Howard went down every week. Barbara's husband is still in the South Pacific in command of a LST and hopes to be discharged in February. Barbara as skipper and Howard as crew won the annual Labor Day Race for Cape Cod Knockabouts of the Bass River Yacht Club. The hurricane of last September leveled all of the Cowee's beautiful pine trees in their front yard but did only a small amount of damage to the house. Howard certainly is weakening as he did not see a football game during the Fall. We have always counted on the former track manager for first-hand information on the Dartmouth team and other teams scouted by Howard for us, and we never placed any two-dollar bets on the Green until we heard from him.
Joe Blakely's son Judson entered College in July, and unless the services have reached out their hands for him, he is there again this term.
John Stearns, 17 years old, third son of Mike and Annis, also entered College in July. He was home on his vacation when we had dinner with the Stearns in November. He is only 6 feet, 3½ inches tall and weighs 190 pounds, so it would appear that the Stearns have not been cramped on red points. Dr. Kendall Stearns 37, married and with two children, is still in the Navy. Sandy, who went to Amherst, has been in the Navy for several years and was home on leave in November but in Cleveland the week we were there. He was an instructor on the Prairie State in New York City following his getting an M.A. at Harvard after his graduation at Amherst, was in Europe before D-Day and had a responsible spot helping direct mine sweeping operations. Sandy has done part of his work for the Ph.D. and hopes to finish it and to do some studying in England. Nancy and her husband and three children still live in Cleveland. .
Sydney Ruggles is back in Danbury living with his son's family. He expects to return to his old position as construction engineer and general foreman at the Federal Correctional Institution in Danbury in January. His daughter and her husband also live there, and Sydney is the proud grandfather of two husky grandsons. Sydney went into the Federal Service in May 1942 and was in until last December with a couple of leaves which permitted him to visit his family. He is justifiably proud of the fact that he never lost a day of work through illness or weather in the more than three and one-half years he spent in war services, although all of it was a long ways north of the United States. We expect to have more details of Sydney's interesting service in the near future.
Bert Thwing, of Montreal, President of the Raymond Concrete Pile Co., Ltd., gave the doctors a little work in operating on him during the Fall but from reports, he is making a complete recovery. His son Edgar returned from four years of service in October, and his son-in-law was discharged from the Navy in November. Bert's oldest daughter lives in Los Angeles. Our reporter advises that Bert is not working too hard, that he and his partner have a private lake up in the Laurentians where they spend most of the weekends during the summer. His son Edgar plans to renew his studies at McGill University in Civil Engineering in January. Bert looks forward to Edgar's graduation and assistance so that he can spend more time at the lake.
Dick and John Treadway are home from the service and are on the job. This gives Tread less of a chance to brag about how hard he's working.
The "Midnight" train from Baaston during the days we were in college had no more regular customer than our old classmate, Wink Fiske, now Doctor Fiske, eminent Pittsburgh physician. That train creaking and groaning up through Lowell, Nashua Jc., Manchester, Concord, and a long series of other stops, finally reached White River where the passengers usually plied themselves with coffee and days-old bakery goods, waiting for the train for Norwich and Hanover to start. Disembarking on the platform adjoining the Norwich and Hanover station, the passengers groped their way to Dudley's Bus. The fortunate ones obtained seats on the inside. The bus made the round of the campus, depositing its customers tenderly in front of their dormitories. In memory we can still hear our old room-mate, Wink, shuffling into the bedroom in Shurtleff House, into which the below zero wind was blowing right off Mount Ascutney. We and the Other occupants of the room were always relieved when Wink finally found his bed and climbed in. But prosperity, eminence, and life in a home in the country have apparently combined to take their toll, and to soften the Doctor. After promising Hilton and his old room-mate that he would come to Chicago early in 1946 to attend the annual meeting of the American Society of Something, the Doctor now advises that under the present difficult and arduous travel conditions he has changed his mind and will not come. There is always a chance that mid-winter might find Hilton in Florida, but the Doctor's old roommate is keenly disappointed at not being able to entertain him in Rockford.
The Henry Stones report that the holiday season in Haverhill was as animated as ever. The O'Shea's were looking forward to spending the holidays in Laconia..
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