1905
Your new secretary with his wife Mildred has done a bit of traveling during the past spring and summer. April 1 they left for California, with a congenial friend to drive them, to visit Mildred's married son and daughter, and to do a little sight-seeing. It was a delightful trip and Grandpa and Grandma had an especially wonderful time with little Sally and Billy Menhinick in Santa Barbara. We should like to see Billy enrolled in the class of '70 at Dartmouth.
While your secretary had no luck in finding '05 men in California—not having his own car there limited his ability to get about on his return trip by train he stopped off at Cleveland Heights and had an enjoyable visit with Charles and Clara Hodgman. Busy with his work in physics at Case, Charles is still putting off the day of retirement. We were a bit too early to find his roses in bloom, but they gave promise of a great blaze of color soon. Thriftier bushes we've never seen. It was indeed a pleasure after something like 30 years to see once more the man who shared No. 10 Dartmouth Hall till we were burned out in February, 1904.
Not content with the two months in the West, your scribe and Mildred started the last of June for their favorite vacation spot on Bustins Island in beautiful Casco Bay. On the way there they stopped off for a visit with your able interim secretary, Royal Parkinson. Ida very thoughtfully had arranged a little 'O5 reunion, a dinner at the Parkinson abode, with Sliver and Alva Hatch, Roger and Frances Brown and Fred Chase as guests. Ruth Chase unfortunately was ill. It was a delightful affair, though somewhat marred by the fact that Park himself had been called out of town at the last moment. However, he returned later and your scribe had a good visit and discussion of class affairs with him.
Park reported that he had had a pleasant visit with George Proctor, who was in good spirits in spite of his speech handicap.
Fred Chase told of being present, as a trustee of Pinkerton Academy in Derry, N. H., at the commencement exercises of that institution in June. He spoke in warm terms of the address given by Walter May, the principal speaker. "Walter had a good voice, spoke without notes, and made a fine impression on the graduating class, their friends, and the Trustees," Fred told us.
Bob Harding has been laid low by an attack. of coronary thrombosis, but is reported much improved.
Charlie Brooks, we're glad to report, is on the mend.
We have the sad necessity of reporting the deaths of three of our classmates, CharlesBorden, Vernon Biggs and Everett Chisholm. Their obituary notices will appear in the InMemoriam Section.
The class is highly appreciative of the loyalty shown by Ruth B. Embree, wife of Henry S. Embree '30 and daughter of CharlieBorden, in sending in a contribution to our class fund in the name of her father.
Rufus Day spent the summer at his old re- treat at Spruce Point Inn, overlooking lovely Boothbay Harbor, Your secretary, on a hasty visit to that vicinity, unfortunately found Rufus away on a sailing trip and so missed the pleasure of seeing him. In May Rufus was elected a trustee of Vassar College. Roger Brown reports finding Jake Atwood and his Dartmouth son conducting and expanding their transportation business in St. Petersburg, Fla.
Also in Florida are the L. B. Smiths in a charming new home in Fruitland Park, Lake
County. A note dated Honolulu, August 1 from Harry T. Smith states that he had boarded the S.S. Lurline at San Francisco with his wife and daughter Josephine, and that after a most delightful trip of five days with wonderful accommodations and food they were enjoying a ten-day visit, their first, on that "most unusual island of the Pacific."
Charlie Goodrich and his wife were visiting in Hanover early in June.
Tubby Besse and Sliver Hatch had lunch with Bill Knibbs early this summer. Bill was elated over the fact that his son-in-law, a Mt. Vernon dentist, had been invited to go abroad to lecture on some subject in the dental field.
The class is to be congratulated on the good showing made in its contributions to the Alumni Fund. To Sliver Hatch goes our thanks and appreciation for the great part he had in that achievement. His 1905 Reporter has not only been effective, but has been a joy to read with its characteristic, pleasantly humorous style.
Through an unaccountable error, Bob Falconer was referred to as Bob Crawford in the June MAGAZINE. We're sorry, Bob.
A late note from Tubby Besse: he and Ed Redman '06 have set Friday, December 8, as the date for another '05-'06 New York dinner. More details later.
The following sketch of George Putnam, new class secretary for 1905, was prepared by his predecessor, Royal Parkinson, who last year initiated a series of profiles of living members of the class.
WHO'S WHO IN 1905 GEORGE W. PUTNAM
Lingering longer in Hanover than most of his '05 classmates, even teaching there a language few of us are familiar with, our new Class Secretary came away with one more degree than most of us collected. With his M.A. in pocket he began a long and notable teaching career in secondary schools of high caliber.
Son of a Nashua, N. H., farmer, and accustomed to the quiet of cattle and silence of growing corn, George was one of the quieter members of the Class; but how he could work! Why he chose to specialize in a language so foreign as Greek is even now a mystery. But it did give him the advantage of one of the finest teachers of the College in Professor Charles D. Adams. George was and still is a scholar of the first order, with an ardent curiosity for anything Greek, to which his Phi Beta Kappa membership will testify.
Teaching at Hanover High and substituting on the Dartmouth faculty were not his only occupations in '06 and '07. He also followed that usually time-taking pursuit of acquiring a wife in nearby Lebanon Bertha Cole.
A year of teaching Latin and Greek at Lawrence Academy in Groton, Mass., and another year do- ing the same at Stamford (Conn.) High School took Putnam to Montclair (N. J.) High School where he remained for 39 years.
In Montclair High School, starting in 1909 as teacher of Latin and Greek, by 1916 George had become head of its foreign .language department. It was during this early period, as he recalls with pleasure, that among a number of outstanding pupils he had the good fortune to have in his classes were Dorothy Hall (now the wife of Laurence G. Leavitt '25), daughter of E. K. Hall of esteemed Dartmouth fame, Charles "Wesley Cole, now President of Amherst College, Phillip Wylie, Millen Brand, and all the Gilbreth children of Cheaper bythe Dozen fame.
In 1927, while retaining his position as head of the foreign language department, thus keeping some contact with classroom work, George was transferred to the office. There as Assistant Principal, in addition to other administrative duties, he served as guide, counselor, and disciplinarian of the boys, a job bringing many a headache but affording rich rewards in a school of the high standards of Montclair High.
It was soon after this change that George went back to the classroom as a student himself, this time at Teachers College, Columbia University, for a few summer courses in administration.
Meanwhile, having developed a hobby out of his interest in foreign languages, he had become more or less expert in some ten or a dozen tongues, including Sanskrit and Japanese. He even had the effrontery, as he puts it, to conduct a class in Japanese onversation during the early years of World War II
Always keenly interested in his chosen profession, George has been a member of a variety of teachers' and classical associations and served as president of the Montclair Teachers Association one term.
His real enthusiasm, however, still has remained in Greek and Latin. After retirement, he took an ad interim position at Upsala College in East Orange, teaching his beloved classics, and was sorry that the position was available for only one semester.
In 1932 George had the misfortune to lose his wife Bertha by death. Three years later George married again, selecting one of his former students, a Mt. Holyoke graduate, Mildred Menhinick, a widow with two young children, "Walter E. and Mildred Priscilla. A teacher also (George evidently likes teachers!), Mildred had taught English and French in New Jersey high schools and had done postgraduate work in Paris and elsewhere. She had been secretary of the Modern Language Teachers' Association of New Jersey. Mildred enjoys a wide variety of interests, including church and club activities. She has shared in our class reunions in Hanover. If George is like the rest of us, she may find herself more of a class secretary than she thinks. We of the class will welcome her too.
George and Bertha Putnam had three children. William F., 1930, is a graduate of Dartmouth Medical School, and is now a practicing physician in Lyme, Thetford, Fairlee, and Stratford, not far from his Alma Mater. He also serves as Medical Referee for Grafton County. Their daughter Ruth graduated from the University of Illinois and is now Mrs. Ruth P. Abbott of Berwyn, Md.; Anne, who attended the University of North Carolina, is now Mrs. Fred G. Butterworth of Boscawen, N. H. At the present writing George is the proud grandfather of 13 grandchildren. On August 19 of this year arrived the latest, his namesake, George Putnam Butterworth.
Although the Putnams are masters of an avalanche of languages, modern and ancient, it is reasonably certain that they will talk to us classmates in plain English and perhaps in monosyllables within our comprehension!
CLASS SECRETARY: George W. Putnam, who has assumed that post for 1905, shown with his wife Mildred. The picture was taken by Royal Parkinson, who also contributes a profile of his successor.
Secretary, 358 North Fullerton Ave., Upper Montclair, N. J.
Treasurer, 8027 Seminole Ave., Philadelphia 18, Pa.
