1920
Early May is no time to be telling our Constant Readers what happened to Eisenhower in New Hampshire on March 11, but there was a detail or two connected with that epoch-making occasion that may have escaped the attention of some in the farther reaches of our circulation. Point One is that Sherm Adams, standard-bearer for Ike in the primary, hauled in the biggest vote of any candidate for delegate-at-large, he alone topping the 45,000 mark. Two other Dartmouth men, former Governor Robert O. Blood '13 and Bob Burroughs '21, were closest to Sherm in the big swing to Eisenhower.
As earlier bulletins have pointed out, Sherm coupled up some new techniques of campaigning along with his sincerity and enthusiasm. He sent out lots of "Dear Folks" postcards, bearing his own unmistakable signature, as the zero hour drew near. He talked like a human being on radio and television. He "frankly admitted," said radio-television's most famous columnist John Crosby, "that he was enchanted by the publicity his state got. His cup ran over the day he discovered a reporter from a French paper in his office." But one of the tributes Sherm's classmates will like best came from the pen of James Reston, New York Times foreign affairs commentator, on March 9. He put it this way: "General Eisenhower is as well represented in New Hampshire as anywhere in the nation. The Governor of the state, Sherman Adams, is running his campaign. If there is an easier and more competent extemporaneous public speaker in any state house in the nation he hasn't made himself known."
To go back to the grass-roots for native, on-the-spot comment, we had the following from Norm Richardson, selectman of Gilford, as primary day approached. "We are having quite a winter, with another ten inches of snow today and still coming down. The drifts are high above our windows and nearly to the top of the door of the garage housing my pick-up truck, so I will be fortunate to get that out by May." However, truck or no truck, Nom and lots of others got to the polls on the eleventh. He "had to be on the job from 8 A.M. until we finished the counting of votes after midnight. Our town was a little better than 2 to 1 for Eisenhower over Taft, and as Delegate, Sherm polled the most Re- publican votes, 431, as I recall. We had a very poor primarv day, snow and very heavy rain making some roads difficult to navigate, but we put on our chains and got everyone out that wanted to vote."
A bit of Governor Adams' past history is recalled by Paul Richter, who points out that Sherm was once President of the New Hampshire Society of the Sons of the American Revolution. This year's President of the Massachusetts Society, S. A. R., is none other than Hib Richter of Brookline, who, according to brother Paul, "is fighting the battles of the Revolution all over again and finding much enjoyment in both the history and the associations." Paul himself got another A for effort from his company, National Life of Vermont, this year. And when you get tapped by the bosses of that outfit, it's good news. For Paul it meant the week of March 23 as guest of the company at Hollywood Beach, Fla.
Nevertheless, probably the Most Traveled Twenty of our spring season is ex-Agent AI ("Vermont Humor") Foley, more in demand than ever as a functioneer and post-prandial entertainer, now that he is taking Great Issues in his stride. Late January saw him one of two faculty members who handled the lecture assignment which was the major intellectual fare during Hanover Holiday in Chicago. Somewhat later, starting March 31 in Kansas City, he beat the bushes (forgive me, friends) at a fancy pace indeed, enlightening in quick succession the alumni bodies of Tulsa, Oklahoma City, Houston, Dallas, Denver and Omaha, all in the space of one brief Easter vacation.
Here's the welcome word from Jim Parkes, President of the new Riverview Hospital in Red Bank, N. J., a 100-bed institution that cost a million dollars and replaced an outmoded affair one-third as large:
"My wife and I have just become grandparents for the second time, the latest granddaughter (Cynthia Courtland Halsey) arriving on March 6 at the South County Hospital in Wakefield, R. I. Her sister, now nearly two years old, is a very wonderful little girl named Dale Simmons Halsey.
"My daughter, who presented the family with both these young ladies, is living with her husband in a little town near Wakefield called Saunderstown. She is already planning for both these girls to go to Smith, where she herself graduated in 1947. Her husband, Courtland Van R. Halsey Jr., is Assistant Dean of Admissions at Rhode Island State University. Both he and my daughter are going to try next time to have a son, so that he can be entered at Dartmouth where my own son James Creighton Parkes II is entered for next year's freshman class."
Jim's news, including especially the last punch line of it, is good news. We were beginning to think the College was running out of Sons of Twenty, but there may be many more installments of that story still to come.
Before we leave the subject of grandfather- hood—Class Bequest Chairman Sherry Baketel, aiming to be casual about the whole thing, writes nevertheless a little plaintively that nobody even bought him a drink when his third grandchild, Jeffery Taylor Leonards, arrived on the scene November 30, 1951. If it weren't for great-grandpaw H.S.B. Sr., who helped push the Baketel pen, there's no knowing when we'd catch up with these vital statistics.
"Dr. and Mrs. Thomas Durland Van Orden of Brookfield Farm, Pottersville, N. J., formerly of New York City, have announced the engagement of their daughter, Miss Judith Durland Van Orden, to Mr. David W. K. Peacock Jr., son of Mr. and Mrs. Peacock, of Kilmac Farm, Flanders, N. J. The wedding will take place in the spring," said the NewYork Herald-Tribune for March 20. "Miss Van Orden was graduated from the Kent Place School, attended Smith College and was graduated from Bennington College in 1950. Mr. Peacock is a graduate of Morristown School and Princeton University, class of 1946. He was a member of the Colonial Club and in World War II served with the Army Air Forces as a pilot."
Leo Ungar's spring travel began on New Hampshire's Primary Day, March 11, when he sailed on the SS Argentina for South America. Wife Alice and daughter Barbara went along to see the sights of Port-of-Spain, Rio de Janeiro, Sao Paulo, Montevideo and Buenos Aires.
It is sad to record the death, in February, of Beatrice Hutchinson, wife of Paul. She had been a real supporter of Dartmouth and of Twenty. As recently as our 30th last June, she was an enthusiastic member of the ladies' contingent who saw the thing through from start to finish; and not long before that she had been cheering us on at the last of the class parties in the Boston area, held at the Wellesley Country Club. Sincere sympathy for Paul in his bereavement will be going to him from the whole membership of the Class.
To report on a 24-hour visit to Hartford- Twenty is still in business in Connecticut's capital. Jack Holt dropped around to the hotel to see if he and the secretary could recognize each other, which took some doing but worked out all right in the end. Jack remains as proud as he ought to be of his wife Olive, who is at the moment busy with her co-chairmanship of Red Cross activity in one of the two West Hartford districts. Jack figures he can give them both some time off from mundane affairs by buying a power boat and housing it down toward the mouth of the river in Essex. Howie Hitchcock, neighbor in West Hartford, turns out to be science teacher and audio-visual coordinator, as well as viceprincipal of the Talcott Junior High School. A first-hand observer can testify that he spellbinds a class, when it comes to the mysteries of science, whereas second-hand rumor has it that he toots a mean trombone in more relaxed moments. Jim Frost, four times a grandfather, seems healthy and happy in his State Department of Education habitat and feels no pain from his 50-mile commutation to and from the home he long ago established in Putnam.
Class Agent Pete Potter is doing his utmost to learn his new trade, as all Twenties will surely have discovered by the time this issue reaches their hands. Tide gave Pete some recognition in its issue of February 8, showing him with Eastman vice-president Stuber accepting congratulations from Saturday Evening Post top brass on steady growth as well as steady use of one particular advertising medium for more than 50 years.
Secretary, Blind Brook Lodge, Rye 17, N. Y. Treasurer, Windmill Lane, Arlington 74, Mass. Class Agent, 1128 Clover St., Rochester, N. Y.
