1902

A short time ago, I received from Dr. BurrWhitcher one of the loveliest letters I have ever had from a classmate. It was filled with the cheer of a hard-won, happy family life with his good wife, his home and his four children. Burr has spent a large part of his medical life in diagnostic laboratory work and pathology but has always had to practice on the side. He taught microscopic diagnosis in the Post Graduate School in New York, and after that, for some years ran a diagnostic laboratory in New York, meanwhile practising evenings at his home, St. Albans, L. I.

Then came the war, and his opportunity. A busy physician in Mt. Holly, N. J., had to go into the service and offered Burr his practice. Burr became pathologist to the local hospital and had a busy office practice morning and evening, seeing seven to 12 patients each session. His wife drove him to the hospital at 9 and called for him at 5. Burr loves music and sings in the church choir, and two of his daughters sing in the young folks' choir.

He describes a vacation trip with his wife, his son Robert and his daughter Mary, riding up to Woodsville, N. H., calling on French at Manchester and then at Hanover visiting Professors Gerould, Stewart, Skinner, and "Gil" Frost.

Burr says in his letter: "I often think of our classmate Rev. CharleysWattie, and what a nice fellow he was. How I used to enjoy his Scotch dialect! If, when I went to New Hampshire with my wife and two children, I had chanced to meet him, he would certainly have said on meeting my wife, 'Ah, well! Ye have married a verra bonnie winsome lassie and ye have a verra braw bonnie young laddie and a bonnie wee lassie.' "

Burr married a graduate nurse from Bellevue Hospital, November, 1926, and, being born in 1878, he still has all his children in school as he reaches 70. Burr says, one day when his son Robert was 10, he handed him the mail containing a letter from Class Agent Fitzgerald, and Robert said,

"Daddy, here is a letter from your Dartmouth Alimony Association."

Burr took his children to the World's Fair in New York when his daughter Jeanne was six years old. They were watching the pageant "Railroads on Parade" with the scene of a small railroad station in the seventies, when an old carryall drove up with a bridal party, and Burr's daughter exclaimed,

"Oh, see, mamma! There comes the bride and broom!"

Do you get the family touch?

Burr spoke of Rev. Wattie, which reminds me that the other day, I was looking over our class records to see who were the five oldest men in our class and who were the five youngest. Could you guess them? I will give them to you in the next issue. And then, I got to reading the stories of the lives of our classmates. I tell you, in those lives, there is more of romance, adventure, success followed by failure, failure followed by success, tragedy and pathos and good fortune than I ever dreamed could be possible.

All of you remember the tragic death of Kenneth Archibald, some of you know the sad story of George Newman and that dire tale of Martin Peck. A few may know the perils and adventures of Hartshorn in China, and a very few of the sad life of Fullington, or why Pember became famous. I am going to take a chance that most of you will be interested and tell you these stories one by one.

Secretary, 7 Ship Channel Road, South Portland, Me. Treasurer, Tremont Building, Boston, Mass. Class Agent, 584 Highland Ave., Montclair, N. J.