1926
This month, our chronicle will have to concern itself almost entirely with our personal observations of two football weekends, which are fresh in our memory as we write this early in November, but which will probably make very stale reading to you a week or two before Christmas. For both reasons we apologize, but the fact is that the secretarial nose has been in pretty constant contact with the business grindstone these last few months. More than ever we need your support with letters and news to keep this column up-to-snuff.
THE HARVARD WEEK-END. Not a cloud in the sky the whole time—just smoke drifting down high from the tragic forest fires to the north of us in Maine and New Hampshire.
With their usual efficiency Don Norstrand and Hal Trefethen put on the best pre-game class luncheon we have had yet. The Oxford Grille in Harvard Square was the convenient spot selected, and the turn-out numbered something over sixty Stew Orr all smiles as he introduced his husky son, Dave .... the Mac Ryders with guests Ran and RuthCox with their house guests Ed and BettySimmons, all very chipper after starting the week-end off with a bang Friday night.... Walt and Billie Rankin staying with the Norstrands and all four obviously enjoying it .... Oz Fitts on his own at lunch while Dot had a check-up with her doctor and joined us later at the Stadium .... Hank and GradeWhitmore with guests Tom and Pearl Herlihy, Tom having just come down from a Hanover meeting of the Hopkins Center Fund Committee, on which he is the Wilmington, Delaware, representative .... the Weymouths from Rochester and the Clearys from Chester, a foursome of sights-for-soreeyes .... George and bride Helen Peirce receiving greetings from all sides (with Oz and Tref embarrassing the poor gal no end by making her rise to take a bow) .... Henry andMary Blake, the Lee Powers, the Tom Littlefields, the Don Steeles with four guests, the Mac McDavitts with sons Ted and Don who are both well on the way (Belmont Hill School) to becoming bigger and better athletes than their old man was .... Nate andJane Parker and Nate Jr., a senior and husky varsity lineman at Andover, but unfortunately on crutches with torn knee ligaments (prediction: in another year or two the name "Nate Parker" will again be reverberating on Memorial Field). Nate Sr. was also down from the Hopkins Center Fund meeting in Hanover .... Bill and Palmer Hughes down from Andover with a friend of Havardian persuasion who really appeared to enjoy himself.... Jimand Dot Sullivan, Ed and Peg Emerson, the Gardner Browns, Hal and Marion Marshall,Bob and Dot Salinger and their son Dick.
According to the advance list that completed the party, but not according to the facts, for in the midst of festivities in walked a tremendously welcome surprise in the person of Roy "Bucky" Kelly whom many of us had not seen in over twenty years. Bucky looks just as lean and sinewy as he did in the falls of '22 and '23 when he was playing freshman and varsity halfback position, and keeps in shape with a full schedule of big time refereeing. He handled the Boston College-Louisiana State game in Boston the night before the Harvard game, which left him free to join us on Saturday. It was a real treat for us.
The throng tramping over the bridge to the Stadium .... the bands marching in, better than ever .... the old pre-war Harvard-Dartmouth spirit shaking the colonnade .... a ripsnorting 14-13 victory that had the butterflies looping in your innards. Wish all 550,0f vou might have been there..... Someone said they saw O'obie Barker and Dick Mann, our country boys from Duxbury Meeting Georgeand Gladys Tully after the game (they had to go to Providence in the morning and couldn't make the luncheon) Memories of the Harvard game our senior year as George and Nate and Nate Jr. chatted on the field almost exactly on the spot where. Geprge ,caught the famous pass which he took .for the. first touchdown..... Finding Bill Barclay parked next to us on Soldiers Field Road and bemoaning with him the fate which prevented his making the luncheon Proceeding by easy stages to a soiree at Carl Schipper's where Dick andRuth Nichols were on hand to.greet us (those two tireless-attorneys had to pass up both the luncheon and the game to continue their communing with Blackstone). At one stage of the evening the Rev. Wee and Dot McClintock were awakened by telephone and persuaded to join the gathering, which, being the best of sports, they did despite the imminence of three church services the next day.
Feeling surprisingly fit Sunday morning, we wended our way, with the Clearys and Weymouths, to Andover.... the warmth of the greeting of Skip Weymouth, an Upper Middler (junior) at Andover and hard at work on the scholastic road to Hanover A mighty pleasant cocktail hour (noon to 3:30) at the attractive home of Bill and Palmer Hughes, with numerous of their local friends, one of whom elicited the kernel of information that Bill is the active and hard working treasurer of the Episcopal Church in Andover. Which seems to be an appropriate spot at which to draw the curtain on a very swell week-end.
THE YALE GAME. The record-breaking New England drought was broken by heavy rains in the middle of the week following the Harvard game, but the day of the Yale game was another beauty. An early start and leisurely drive put us among the early arrivals at the Bowl. Soon Harry Fisher and his son Jerry arrived to post the '26 sign on the fence opposite Portal 3, and the clan began to gather. (We were distressed to learn that Mary Fisher is laid up in the hospital at Hanover, facing a possible operation either there or nearer home in Hartford.)
Despite his worries about Mary, Harry certainly did a job for us with the ticket dept. in Hanover, for our whole gang sat in a solid block on the 491/2 yard line (and there were 63,000 other people in the Bowl that afternoon). Jim and Ann Wooster were there from Upper Montclair, and so was Bud Shaver from the same Beaming Courtney Brown was on hand with Marge and all three youngsters, Joanne, Roxanne and Warren Skipper Smith and his attractive wife, Virginia, brought their picnic to Portal 3 according to instructions Ed and Betty Simmons -were a couple of rows in front of us with their two young daughters Steve and DotMitchell and their son Peter, the only Bostonians we saw, were right in front of us, and alongside them were Fred and Hope Hurd, both looking fine The Frank Healys and Lloyd Sanfords were down a few seats in our row and the Larry Wolffs and Ed Dreier were back of them. Directly back of us was a very noisy (excuse us, Dick and Bunny Mandel,you were not noisy) houseparty from Westport, the responsibility for which rests on the broad (Snipe) and lovely (Kay) shoulders of the Esquerre's, the other members of this troupe consisting of Mr. Bill Barclay and Mr.Robert E. Cleary and the young lady to whom the later gentleman is married. In addition to the noise, this group came laden with enough impedimenta to support a quick dash up Mt. Everest. It looked like a long, hard winter. Despite the discomfort; however, it really was a pleasure to see them!
Jack Cannon was there, and so was CarlAllen, as expected, but the real surprise was the distinguished personage who dashed in with Carl after the game had started and who turned out to be none other than Bob Breyfogle, home on a flying trip from London. It seems that Bob is with National City Bank in London, and, as you probably know, Carl is a V.P. of that same institution in New York. So they just cooked up a little business conference and hit upon New Haven as a convenient meeting point somewhat mid-way between London and New York. Nice going, boys, it was good to see you both!
So there.it is,—a month's column out of two football games, plus a lot of friends, and here's hoping you can get at least a small fraction of the fun out of reading this stufE that we had at those games.
If you can't you better write us a letter. Bet ter do it anyway.
A VERY MERRY CHRISTMAS AND HAPPY NEW YEAR TO ALL OF YOU AND YOURS!
WORKING FOR THE HOPKINS CENTER PROJECT: 1926 had the largest delegation present at the Hanover kick-off in October. L. to r.: Tom Farwell, Nate Parker, Sid Hayward, Os Fitts, and Tom Herlihy.
A RELIC OF BY-GONE DAYS: These '27's are shown at the class's Twentieth Reunion, admiring this wellpreserved buggy before Randall broke a wheel and purchased the outfit as a token of days gone by.
Secretary, 140 Federal Street, Boston 10, Mass. Treasurer, 131 California Drive, Williamsville, N. Y. Memorial Fund Chairman ROBERT M. STOPFORD c/o Lord and Taylor, 424 Fifth Ave. New York 18, N. Y.
