1904

There will be these opportunities for our group to find worthwhile class reunion possibilities. The annual Five (raised last year to eight) Class group will meet May 9. There will be notices mailed as usual. The Class Officers Meeting will be earlier than in previous years, but still in May. Our annual campus reunion will occur during Commencement weekend, Friday, Saturday and Sunday, June 6, 7 and 8. May we have some reservations by April 1 so publicity may be started in the May MAGAZINE? We may reasonably expect our regular Commencement location. The following week, beginning Monday, June 9, and continuing four days, will offer Hanover Holiday and provide at relatively small expense dormitory accommodations and new reunion opportunities which should become an annual opportunity through our fiftieth.

It must be good news to every class member to find Ned Bartlett's name at the 1904 mast- head as Bequest Chairman. "A new longrange effort looking toward a substantial increase in the endowment funds of the College is being instituted by the post-25th reunion classes. This is the Bequest Program under which the alumni, if they have not already done so, will be requested to examine or re-examine their estate plans to determine whether provision for the College can be included as part of such plans." Ned Bartlett will acquaint u.s with the details of this program, which gives us an opportunity to project our support of the College into the future, and will from time to time keep us posted as to progress.

The Florida house Ned and Kay built last year is about five miles from the center of Sarasota in the so called "Fiddler Bayou Subdivision," containing about twelve lots, 75% occupied. "We have a bridge over the little bayou and then have a beach between this and the Gulf which is about 75 feet wide. One of the big advantages of our location is that the beach is protected from the effects of waves and winds by a line of sand reefs to the west of Big Pass. These reefs are also interesting because at all times except highest tides they are covered with birds—gulls—pelicans—cormorants, etc." They like it, the Bartletts that is, having been there since early December and planning to remain through April. Ned's son Johnny is in the class graduating at the time of our reunion. That's a guarantee that Ned will be in Hanover with us. Let's spend Hanover Holiday with him on the campus.

Hope and Ned Robinson had a busy fall carrying through to a successful finish on Dec. 24 their plans to build a new home at 103A Elm Street, South Dartmouth, Mass., on land purchased from their son-in-law adjoining the home of Betty, Phip and their children. Yes, there was a Santa Claus party on Christmas Day and the movers unloaded their furniture the 26th. This all sounds like a comfortable trip but there were handicaps not of their choosing such as a bout of nearly two months with virus pneumonia, with Rob the winner, and in the other ring, Hope parrying blows with bronchitis successfully. Rob plans to stay in Boston for a 75% week and Hope will spend some of the time with him there. During this period of change their Water- town house was sold. We like to think of this wonderfully located property as the 1904 house for it was occupied many years by Walter Cronin and his nice family until some time after Walter's untimely death Jan. 26, 1943. The Robinsons followed the Cronins in ownership and occupancy until now.

"I thought you might be interested in the following," writes Frank Drown '03. "A short time ago I received a list of deceased members of my class of 1898 in Boston English High School containing the name of Robert Arthur Bletzer, who died Feb. 6, 1951. I had not seen Bletzer's name in the "In Memoriam" column of the D. A. M. so thought possibly his demise might have escaped your notice. Bletzer was also a member of the post-graduate E. H. S. class of 1899, and was the class cut-up and good natured heckler of our French Instructor, Charles Lebon, who had been a major in the French Army in the Franco-Prussian War. I recall that Bletzer was more than once threatened with expulsion from the class and from school by Lebon for humming "Die Wacht am Rhein" during study hour. Bletzer was also in my class at Norwich University. Military discipline was somewhat objectionable to him and he was a familiar figure walking punishment tours behind the barracks on Saturdays throughout the fall term. Later during his first year as a cadet he several times demonstrated an unusual degree of stamina and intestinal fortitude, wholly unsuspected by his classmates. I believe he entered Dartmouth with the Class of 1904 and remained until the end of his sophomore year when he transferred to Middlebury. I lost track of him after that until several years later when I met him in Boston, after he had returned from the Canal Zone, where he had been employed as a civil engineer. I believe he served in the U. S. Navy during the First World War. The last time I saw him was at the 44th annual English High School (1898) dinner in Boston in 1942. At Norwich Bletzer was quite a bobsled addict, an expert heliograph signalman, and at one of the class initiations (they really hazed plenty in those days) entertained the upper- classmen with a swell impersonation of Edna May singing "La Belle Parisienne" from the Belle of New York."

Thanks, Frank, for this likeness of a rare personality who spiced our first two years in college with eccentric fun and friendship. We hope there will be more facts about Bobby for the class In Memoriam next month.

More good news from Puddie Cobb's growing family: "Our daughter, Carolyn, was mar- ried September 8 to Robert E. Quist of Worcester, Mass., a veteran of World War XI who served in the Philippines and else- where, his business being now in Worcester. They were married at Wantagh, in the Congregational Church. Carolyn is Head Nurse at the Pilgrim State Hospital, West Brent- wood, L. I., and also instructress in the Hospital Nursing School. She recently finished a special post-graduate course in mental therapeutics offered by the State at Adelphi College."

News from Leverone: "It was so nice to hear from you, and I enjoyed reading your very newsy letter. On my part, I haven't eased up a bit but I am going well and covering as much ground as I ever covered. Almost broke a record last Tuesday, Jan. 22, when I flew down to Tampa, met with the Florida Citrus Commission Tuesday night, and was back at my office here at Chicago at 3 o'clock Wednesday afternoon. The world trip that you asked about, just didn't come off. I am still plugging along, tending to business, although from attached clipping taken from the ChicagoTribune under date of January 4, you will see that I have sold out my interest in Automatic Canteen."

Now that Jig has once more retired from business and sold his controlling interest in Automatic Canteen Company of America to a group headed by his brother Nat Leverone '06, chairman and founder of the company, he is going to enjoy life again. "However," he adds, "I am building up Nationwide Food Service, a national feeding organization, and within two years I expect that Nationwide Food Service will be larger, and will be doing a greater business than Automatic Canteen. I am feeling fine, going strong, and as long as that condition exists, I expect to stick to business. I enjoy it, and there is no reason why I should quit. It is always great to hear from any of the old crowd. Hope everything is going along nicely with you." Louis Leverone's company, Nationwide Food Service Inc., operates thruout the country serving food in factories, offices, and Commercial buildings.

"How you doing? Family well? Home for Christmas? Plenty of snow in Canaan? I get a laugh out of these 'What a hell of a winter we are having' boys. After fifty years or more in this country there have been many more worse than this. Ever forget returning from Christmas holidays in 1903 and surviving the 45 below at the June, and me crawling into an ice-filled bed at the C & G house at 1 a.m.? That, ma fren, was frigid." Happy New Year, Sid.

1900 1901 1902 1903 EIGHT-CLASS DINNER Friday, May 9 6:30 P.M. at Schrafft's 16 West Street Boston 1904 1905 1906 1907

Secretary, Canaan Street, Canaan, N. H. Treasurer, Morristown, N. J. Bequest Chairman, Hooker Electrochemical Co., Niagara Falls, N. Y.