1916
Well, a few things have happened since the last column went in to the ALUMNI MAGAZINE, although some of them have already been made known to you through the Class Newsletter.
One classmate whom we missed at the last reunion, but whom I enjoy meeting and talking with every few years, none other than Charlie Everett, phoned me at Dartmouth Night since my return from the Golden (it says here) West. Like Larry Hayward and others who scamper through Washington, there was no time for me to get together with Charlie, but it is a treat to talk to a '16er even when I can't see him, and Charlie promised to give me some notice the next time he is down here, so we can have a brief reunion.
The College treats class secretaries to the Bulletin so successfully edited by George Colton, and it has been my custom to pass this along to some other alumnus, since the Bulletin, in season, contains the newspaper accounts of the football games. Recent ones I have sent to Hank Blaney in Seattle. He wrote me after receiving one of them:
"From the account of the Columbia game, and subsequent news from the Princeton game, the team must have plenty of fight. I had expected a worse defeat at the hands of Princeton. I haven't seen Perc Burnham since Ken Henderson was here, which is my fault as I have been to town (Hank lives in Bothell-Ed.) only a couple of times since then. Will try to get together some time during the holidays. (I hope they did—Ed.) We have had a couple of light snow flurries which soon melted, but the Cascades are glistening with a mantle of snow and bring forth many an exclamation from Marion as she looks out our window at them. Pipes for Seattle water are being laid to end only about two country blocks south of us and a petition is being circulated to extend it to this area. If successful it should solve our worst problem here—lack of sufficient water for irrigation in the summer."
Epochal and earth-shaking was the experience of receiving a letter from Livy Cole, who was good enough to invite me to come down to Miami for a visit to regain my slightly damaged health. Livy wrote: "We are spending the holidays here as usual and the bigger children will be joining us next week. (This was before Christmas.—Ed) Have been having marvelous weather, 72-85 with the ocean water at 74. That is just what the doctor ordered." Of course, the Secretary can't complain about being neglected by the Cole family, who have been a great source of news, and whose doings have been recorded from time to time from reports sent in by "Admiral" Lucille Deneen Cole (the Mrs.), one of our most valued and most unpaid correspondents, but if a vacation in Florida gets old Liv to unsheath that pen, I am in favor of him taking them regularly. By the way, one of the best accounts of the Coles and how they grow was supplied by Jack English in glowing phrases about their talent and versatility.
The House of Herold was covered with snow, if the photo Cliff sent me at Christmas time was accurate, and I judge Grand Rapids has those old-fashioned winters which we like to read about and to avoid if possible, jingle bells or not.
I don't know if I recorded it before, and Winchell may have beat me to it, and if not he will claim he did, but Sam and Lou Cutler have a granddaughter, born last April, and, according to Lou "big and active." She is the daughter of son Dick. All the Cutler clan were expecting to be together on Christmas Day.
Judge Phillips sent me a card, deducing with his usual acumen that I would be back in Maryland. I still hope some day to spend a few days listening to the Judge propound his theories of this and that in his fascinating way. Only a regard for the Judge's sensibilities prevents me from giving you some of the interesting things he has written me while he was thinking out loud.
We have so many classmates who have been, or are in, foreign countries, that the entire week of lectures of Hanover Week in June could be given by '16ers. I am moved to this profound observation by a Christmas card from Chuck Durgin in Havana, where he is with the First National Bank of Boston, which is found all over South America (I generalize from having seen it in one or two cities.)
Mrs. Elizabeth Poor Middleton, daughter of Prof. John Poor, Box 359, Lenox, Mass., is collecting material for a memoir of her father. Appeals for material or data, made to alumni, have not proved very fruitful so far, and she has written various class secretaries enlisting their help. Many of you were in Prof. Poor's classes and remember his dry Scottish humor and his keen wit. If you can help Mrs. Middleton please do so, as the story of this picturesque teacher should be recorded.
From Shorty Hitchcock: "Saw Russ Perkins last Sunday in the market. He has left the V.A. and has some other federal job where he uses his legal training and seems much happier. He said he had just bought a place at Cathedral City on the desert near Palm Springs. His wife has to be in that type of climate, and he will live here in Altadena during the week and join Dorothy for the week-ends on the desert. I pity them in the summer for it gets up to 135 down there when it gets hot. Talked to DanCoakley on the phone last week. We both had received nice letters from Jack English relative to a Memorial Fund."
Rog Evans, reminiscing over the stadiumchristening game played between Dartmouth and Washington in 1920, and other things, hints at further travels around the world, thus:
"The three long trips I've had westward since the war have been to a far different world, and another seems now to be looming. The price of all this is that I seldom share Hanover gatherings any more—tho' I have been fortunate enough recently to see several old campus friends like Lay Little '14, Charlie Griffith and Russell Durgin '15; the host at a church gathering I spoke to last Sunday proved to be Carl Lenz '20 now with Kennecott Copper; and this Saturday, John and Dorothy Butler are coming out here for dinner."
A forgotten anecdote of Phil Davis, told by Judge Phillips, his cousin:
"Sometime in the '30s when I was living in Vermont, and Phil and his children were spending summers at his father's camp on Shadow Lake, a slight accident happened to some youngster at the bathing beach, and Phil did a minor emergency job. After it was over, he came and sat down beside me. 'I happen' he said, 'to make a damned good living as a doctor, but if I couldn't do it any other way, I'd get my income out of some other job, and doctor for nothing in my spare time.' In my mind that's the crux of any genuine free economic system, the ability of a man to exercise his deepest interest for the public good and a satisfactory living out of it. Perhaps while the reminiscent mood is on, I might add a little story about Hiram McLellan. Hiram was another who came from Barton Academy from the same class as Phil and I. Hiram's family lived on a farm and had probably the finest apple orchard in the county. When Hiram was very small he was given a nickel to go down to the store and get anything he wanted with it for himself,—his very first nickel. And—you probably have guessed it—he came back carrying two bright red apples."
This was too good to hold even to oblige Judge Phillips' sensibilities.
Gene McQuesten's daughter Virginia had a baby born in a taxicab. All gag writers will please report at the office with their gags on this incident. I shall merely remark that if she had been in Washington on a rainy day, the baby would have been born right on the curbstone. At least Virginia could say, "Drive fast. My pop's the Police Commissioner and I'll fix the ticket."
Secretary, Dartmouth House 8606 Broad Brook Dr., Bethesda 14, Md. Treasurer, 27 Concord St., Nashua, N. H Bequest Chairman, Hampton, N. H. v
