1905
After 46 years at Case Institute in Cleveland, Charles Hodgman is planning to retire at the close of the present academic year. Charles will leave a remarkable record of devoted and able service in his chosen field, physics. We wish him and his good wife Clara many years of happiness as they return to his old home town of Milford, N. H. There they plan to build a new home and doubtless to raise more lovely roses than ever.
John and Marion Tuck are enjoying the new home they have built in Auburn, Mass. This home is much smaller than their old one and consequently easier to care for, but it was a job, John says, to accomplish the moving. John's son Ted '50 is attached to the air craft carrier Wasp. Jack, a sophomore at Dartmouth, is in the Navy ROTC so he will be away on cruises for most of the summer vacations for the next two years.
Walt Rogers writes that he's working hard to keep ahead of taxes as head o£ the Walter M. Rogers Cos., Detroit, but that, with the help of his two younger boys, William and Walter, they are getting ahead. As to his family, John, the oldest son, is married and lives in northern Michigan. He has seen service with the Coast Guard. Mary, the oldest daughter, is married and has two daughters, Charlotte and Betsey, Walt's only grandchildren. Charlotte, the next daughter, lives at home and is a private secretary in the office of a firm of patent attorneys. William, who attended Michigan State College and Western Michigan College, put in three years overseas with the U. S. Air Corps. Walter, the youngest, spent two years at Hillsdale College and graduated recently from Michigan State. A year ago Walt and his wife spent three months on the West Coast and last summer made a brief visit to Vermont and New Hampshire, including a stop in Hanover.
Paene Moore is, regretfully, spending the winter in Schenectady. He misses the warm sunshine and balmy air of Florida.
Last September Chet Lawrence and his wife went to Washington, D. C., to see their son and wife and a new-born grandson. They were justly proud of the fact that, after four years in service and a wait of two years before he could start his course, their son had persevered, graduated from Georgetown University with the degree of Bachelor in Foreign Service and, after passing an examination, had been appointed Vice Consul at Porto Alegre, Brazil. Chet adds in his note that he had seen Clif Pierce and John Brockway last October.
In a note to Gib Fall, Fred Brown states that while his health is none too good, he keeps in pretty good condition and is comfortably busy as "treasurer of this organization, secretary of that and committeeman of others." He finds a real satisfaction in doingsomething necessary and worthwhile.
It is always hard to have to report our losses. We feel especially sad to have to announce the passing, on the same day, February 25, of Fred Chase's wife Ruth and of George Proctor.
George had been partially incapacitated for some years, a hardship which he had faced courageously. His obituary notice will appear in another column.
A life-long resident of Milton, Mass., Ruth Gallagher Chase had been active in Smith College alumnae circles and was a member of the First Parish church. She leaves a son Hugh C. A., a graduate student at Columbia University, two daughters, Mrs. Woodrow Sayre of Claremont, Colo., and Mrs. F. L. Foster Jr. of Winchester, Mass., and four grandchildren.
Our deep and heartfelt sympathy goes out to Emma and Fred in their heavy losses.
Who's Who in '05
DR. ALLEN B. GRAVES
In our day negro people had just begun to educate themselves at the college level: few ever attended northern colleges. When they did, however competent they were or however much character and courtesy they contributed, they were sometimes faced with the additional problem of being regarded as inferior because of being in the minority, as measured by color. At best the way was hard for the negroes who first tried to lift themselves by education.
Dartmouth's Class of 1905 was fortunate to have Allen Graves as one of its members. He is one whose education has not been directed to lifting himself merely, but to lifting his race.
Son of a truckman in Lynchburg, Va., he had had his secondary education in one of the southern schools for negroes, Howard University. From there he came to Dartmouth, frail, fearful but friendly. It is of interest to trace the factors which led to Allen's choice of Dartmouth as his college. First probably was the influence of Prof. George Cummings. Dean of the Howard University Preparatory School, Prof. Cummings, a graduate of Dartmouth, took occasion to talk to the ambitipus and promising young Graves about the possibility and desirability of his entering Dartmouth. Later, while working at Squantum Inn near Boston, Allen met a negro student who had been graduated from Dummer Academy, had applied for admittance to Dartmouth and had been accepted. This young man persuaded Allen to make application and they were to have been roommates. Allen was accepted, but his prospective roommate died before the college opened that fall. However, undaunted, Allen made the trip to Hanover alone.
He was desperately poor, yet equally kind. He had no athletic or other extra-curricular talent to help him to distinction. But he was willing to work at the task that had brought him to Dartmouth: namely, to learn. He was mild and modest. His minority color was soon forgotten. He was graduated with his class and from the first year of Dartmouth Medical School. Because of his true worth, he was regarded by his classmates as a good man.
When he left Dartmouth to educate himself as a doctor, he met many difficulties with great courage. He entered Harvard Medical School on a scholarship, which, however, didn't materialize. So he transferred after half a year to the Medical School at Howard University in Washington, D. C. Graduating there in 1908, he was soon licensed to practice in New Jersey and New York State. He chose to locate his practice among the Negro people of New York City, then beginning to congregate in the Harlem area. He started practice there in 1910. Before doing so, however, in order to gain a nest egg, he worked for two years on the Pennsylvania Railroad as a dining car waiter.
After two years of medical practice, and after clearing his debts to Dartmouth and Howard University, Dr. Graves married Miss Goldie C. Long of Jersey City. Dr. Graves has practiced in Harlem 42 years now and is still practicing, but has dropped some of his civic activities. He continues his general practice and assists in the O.P.D. Chest Clinic. Meanwhile, Harlem has grown tremendously around him.
For him the going was tough. He could take no leisure for social or cultural interest. In the depression of the 1930s his race was hit very hard, and so was Dr. Graves' practice.
Nevertheless, he is a successful physician. He has met the mark he set for himself—to be a good citizen and a good American. His community has benefited by both his professional and his civic services to it.
He has served as a member of the Harlem y.M.C.A. In 1925 he was president of the Harlem Medical Association. He was Lieutenant in the New York provisional regiment (medical) until the regiment was taken over by the Federal Government and he was thence forward not acceptable as an officer. He has served on the Board of the Urban League and membership of the National Association for Advancement of Colored People. He is a member of the County, American and National Medical Associations.
Asking no favors and seeking no sympathy, merely hoping for a fair deal, Dr. Allen Graves knows the pains of pioneering a profession to help his own people where they are a minority. But he works at it cheerfully with unremitting faith and without complaint.
Even this is not all. He and Mrs. Graves have reared and educated four interesting and accomplished daughters. Lucy, graduate of Hunter College, is a public school teacher with an excellent record: Mrs. Roselyn Ramire, a high school post graduate, whose husband is a musician, does office work; Goldie, living with her parents, is a graduate nurse at the Youth House for Delinquents; Mrs. Allene Tarver, whose husband is employed in a civilian capacity in Tokyo, where they have lived for the past three years, is a splendid mother to her two children. She was for a time laboratory technician at Bellevue Hospital in New York City.
To the approving words "Well done," would anyone be more entitled than Dr. and Mrs. Allen Graves, Dartmouth '05?
DR. ALLEN B. GRAVES '05
Secretary, 358 N. Fullerton Ave., Upper Montclair, N. J. Treasurer, 8027 Seminole Ave., Philadelphia 18, Pa. Class Agent, 11 Lakewood Rd., Natick, Mass.
