1905
Our interim reunion July 11-13 is the big news of this edition of our class notes. We gathered, with wives and other relatives, at Hanover Inn with a total count of 54, of whom 30 were members of the class. This was an excellent showing, but we were sorry that still more could not avail themselves of the opportunity to enjoy Hanover and the class group under the pleasantest circumstances. All who attended agreed this was by far our best reunion. Indeed, so great was the enthusiasm that, without a dissenting voice, it was voted to make this an annual affair.
The chief reasons for this feeling were, first, the fact that we had the Inn and Hanover pretty much to ourselves. With delightful summer weather we could reminisce at our ease on the Inn verandas. The meals, too, whether the informal ones in the Coffee Shop or the more elaborate and delicious dinners at the Coolidge Hotel and the Outing Club were friendly, happy occasions. We enjoyed also the beautiful colored pictures of Mexico, presented Saturday evening with an interesting talk by Bob Falconer and his wife. Well deserved was the hearty vote of thanks accorded to C. C. Hills for his painstaking and efficient management of this thoroughly delightful reunion.
Here is a complete list of those present: Stanley Besse, John and Mary Brockway with his sister Mrs. Pember, Charles and JessieBrooks, Roger and Frances Brown, Carrolland Clara Campbell, Frederick Chase, Robert S. Clark, Dr. William and Bertha Clough,Walter Conley, Walter and Lucie Emery, NedEstes, Robert and Edna Falconer, Gilbert andFlorence Fall, Edgar and Effie Gilbert, Clayton and Marion Grover, Fletcher and AlvaHatch, George Hersam and son Fred, Clarenceand Isabel Hills, Chester and Jane Lawrence,Walter and Ethel Lillard, Dr. Andrew andBeatrice MacMillan, Dr. Frank McCabe, Royaland Ida Parkinson, George and Mildred Putnam, Anne Reid (widow of Midge), EdwardRichardson, Dr. Raymond Root and daughter and son-in-law Mr. and Mrs. M. Marlon Taylor Jr., Norman Stevenson, John and Marion Tuck, Frederick Weston and nephew Frederick Ripley and Ernest and Hilda White.
The high spot of the reunion was the dinner at the Hotel Coolidge, Saturday evening. After the unusual, savory and satisfying repast, each member of the class rose and gave a brief account of himself. It is a pity that space limits prevent a recapitulation of these remarks, for they were interesting, personal statements, the general tenor of which was that, even though some of us are retired from our regular work, we still keep pleasantly occupied with hobbies, ranging from gardening to extensive travel, while many of our number have still not retired. Incidentally, it is worth noting that Chet Lawrence and BobClark had travelled for this reunion all the way from the West Coast. An outstanding achievement is that of George Hersam. On urging from the floor, he told us, in his characteristically quiet manner, that on the death of his wife, he had been left with five children, one a newborn babe, and had brought them all up safely and given them a good education.
Among those who had recently retired were Tuck, Chase and Campbell. Brockway was to retire from his position with the Vermont Department of Health on September 1. He lives on a farm four miles from Montpelier. McCa.be, though not retired, is "coasting along," avoiding performing operations. Parkinson, as a business consultant, Brown, with his trucking business, and Ed Gilbert, still at 77 making toothpaste, are all busy with their regular interests.
A vote of thanks was tendered to Fall for his excellent management of our finances, and to Hatch for his success with the Alumni Fund.
Clough characteristically decried the publicity which he had received in the N. H. Sunday News last May 11. A long article describes his work and success as a country physician, together with his son Bill, in New London, N. H. The caption read, "Physician, active at 71, has worn out 18 autos; New London folk sing Dr. Clough's praises."
It was especially pleasant to have Anne Reid with us. We hope that more of our class widows will attend our future reunions.
Mention was made regretfully of the continued complete disability of "Mary" Dillon, who is now in a nursing home in Fitchburg, Mass. We were sorry to learn that Cliff Pierce was very ill after undergoing a third operation. A later report happily informs me that he had been motoring about the countryside with Phoebe and that they had dropped in on Dr. Wiswall '04 at Falmouth on the Cape.
As for business, a committee was appointed to consider the question of whom to select as speaker at our 50-year reunion. This committee is to consist of Fred Chase, FletcherHatch and Royal Parkinson. The matter of the class fund was left to the executive board. Likewise, the arrangements for our 50th were left to the executive board with the invaluable help of C. C. Hills.
As for more recent news, we learn that the Hatches and their daughter and son and families, on vacation in two cars, motored to Niagara Falls. Sliver and Alva on a belated honeymoon?
Chet and Jane Lawrence are to spend the winter in Woodstock, Vt. This note comes from C. C. Hills:
"One of the high spots of the summer season was a recent call from Jake and Mrs. At-wood of St. Petersburg, Fla. Jake decided to take his first vacation in some 30 or 40 years by driving up to his old home town of New Boston, N. H., where two of his sisters live in the family home. He looks well, has an excellent appetite and reports that his son Robert' '42 is with him in the expanding storage warehouse concern that Jake and operated since he first went to St. Pete."
On May 24 Ann Elizabeth Gilbert, daughter of our Oscar Gilbert was married to Arsen Arthur Miranian in the First Congregational Church in Exeter, N. H.
Bill Knibbs, with the help of Tub Besse, is planning how to present to Dartmouth a valuable relic of old Dartmouth Hall, so as to promote the success of the Alumni Fund. Bill, like your scribe, was a tenant of the old hall when it burned.
Who's Who in '05
JOHN ALBERT LAING
John Laing came to Dartmouth from Albany, N V., where he was born of Scotch parents November 14, 1883. With excellent high _ school grades in Latin, Greek and Mathematics, he coasted to a Rufus Choate designation at the end of 1905's first semester. To the studious fast company living in old Dartmouth Hall that year, which included Ed Day, Charley Eichenauer, Fred Brown, Charley Hodgman, "Paene" Moore, Charley Sylvester, George Putnam, Harry Chase '04 and Bill Murray '02, there was nothing startling about Rufus Choate mention, and John outlived it without visible scars.
John went to Columbia Law School on a full tuition scholarship directly from Dartmouth, graduating there with the bachelor of laws degree in 1908. He took the New York bar examination and was admitted to the bar in 1907, some months before finishing his course at Columbia.
In the fall of 1908 he entered the office of Wherry and Morgan in downtown Manhattan, but in January 1909 went to work as a clerk for Simpson Thacher & Bartlett, a much larger New York firm of which Dwight Morrow was then managing partner. The eight partners and 15 other clerks were mostly Yale, Harvard and Amherst graduates, but they generously arranged to put the lone Dartmouth clerk through most of the fundamentals of office practice. Quite unexpectedly to John, in late November of 1910, they recommended him to
act as attorney at Portland, Ore., for two utility company subsidiaries of Electric Bond and Share Company. Not without misgivings over his lack of experience and his ignorance of Oregon and Washington laws and customs, but because his young wife felt strongly that New York was no place in which to live and bring up a family (the first-born was then on the way), John accepted the opportunity and the family arrived in Portland before December 10.
John has continued since 1910 as general counsel for Portland Gas & Coke Company and Pacific Power & Light Company, including, during parts of the intervening period, service in similar capacity for several affiliated electric companies since merged into Pacific Power & Light Company. In 1936, he established the law firm Laing & Gray, enlarged in 1941 to Laing, Gray & Smith, of which John is managing partner. Besides taking care of the legal problems of these utilities, John's law firm carries on a large general practice for other clients, corporate and individual, all of which keeps the six partners busily employed. As for John's "retiring," that for many years has meant the hours between 12:30 and 7:00 a.m. In the meantime, he hasn't stopped enjoying his work and the personal associations it involves. He has never missed voting at regular, primary or special elections in his 41 years in Portland, but otherwise has had no part in politics or the scramble for political office.
Aside from his for-pay professional activities, John has taken an active interest in many pro bonopublico causes, which have included his serving in the following capacities: president of Multnomah Amateur Athletic Club 1924-26, during which time he organized the Multnomah Civic Stadium Association and built the Stadium in Portland, now with a seating capacity of approximately 40,- 000, and representing a fully paid for investment in excess of $600,000 at pre-New Deal costs; organizer of The Town Club, which successfully financed and has paid in full for an attractive Club House at a cost in excess of $200,000; chairman for more than 15 years of the Advisory Committee of newspapermen and others that directs the travel promotion advertising for the Oregon State Highway Commission; chairman for many years and trustee of Reed_College at Portland, positions from which he resigned a few years_ago; member of the Governor's Committee on liquor control and co-author of its report that formed the basis of the Oregon liquor control legislation, enacted after the repeal of national and state prohibition; president for a number of years of Portland Symphony Society; director for several years of the school district in which he resides, the only elective public office he ever held; president for several years of the Portland City Planning Commission; and at one time director and later president of the Portland Rose Festival Association. John has just resigned the presidency of the Dartmouth Association of Oregon, in favor of a representative of a 20-year younger class.
John was married in New York on June 1, 1910, to Ruth Elizabeth Fuller, who died October 16, 1932, after an operation for a lung ailment. Two children were born to them, Helen Fuller on July 10, 1911, who died February 15, 1941, and John Collier, born September 4, 1915, now married and with three daughters, who is in the insurance business in Portland. John and Ruth adopted a son in 1917, James Fuller Laing, born May 5, 1910, who now resides with his wife and daughter at Long Beach, Calif. On May 12, 1939, John married Barbara Mackenzie Macleay, widow of a friend of John's of long standing. Barbara has a married daughter, Martha Macleay Phillippi, who lives near Portland.
John gets to the East occasionally on work for his clients, but he has been out of personal touch with most of the '05 crowd since the 1930 reunion, and a later '03-'04-'05 dinner at Boston. He deplores this physical separation, and would like to do something about it; but he hasn't yet ridden in an airplane to shorten travel time. He takes a personal interest in every item of news concerning '05 that appears in the MAGAZINE or in SliverHatch's letters. Since Henry Boyce's death on March 20, 1952, Chet Lawrence and John are the only '05 men in the Portland area, and they have pleasant times together at occasional Dartmouth gatherings. John hopes no '05 men will go through or near Portland without looking him up.
JOHN ALBERT LAING '05
Secretary, 358 North Fullerton Ave., Upper Montclair, N. J. Treasurer, 8027 Seminole Ave., Philadelphia 18, Pa.
