1909
Buster Brown, who had that terrible auto accident a year ago last Decoration Day, is still in there fighting, but he's kind of discouraged because of slow progress. You can't blame him. The operation didn't turn out too hot, although from the surgeon's view point it turned out pretty well. Buster's been home for several months. He can't sit up straight and both knees refuse to bend, except 40% on one and 60% on the other. He's been going back to the hospital three times a week for therapy. Only with severe pain can he get around on crutches.
"Perhaps time and hard work (mental and physical) will cause improvement," says Buster. "The biggest job is to find something to do that will keep me occupied, so I can think of something else except my troubles." Keep after 'em, boy, you'll win out in the long run.
That piece about the Dartmouth Chateau in Chicago opened up a well of memories for Buster. "I was a resident there for a short time in the period you mention the days of Russ Palmer '10, Charlie Fassett '07, Jack Field '10, Dick Southgate '07, Mike Stearns 'OB, and that stalwart son of Maine, Pop Chandler. Pop was quite a character. He more or less refereed the penny ante poker games in which the objective was to win 25 or 30 cents to finance a few beers.
"Nut Root, Don Frothingham '08, and our esteemed Thomas Cedric Wellsted were in the offing and frequent visitors. Ced tired of becoming a mercantile magnate on .$12 or $15 per week (maybe he got the top wage, but I doubt if he was worth it-it was Monkey Ward, or Sears, I forget which). (Ed. note: You're wrong, Buster. It was Butler Bros, and Ced was one of those high-priced lads of 25 bucks a week.) Lynde Tucker was making his 15 per with Western Electric. George Maurice Morris '11 was also in evidence. He hit the jackpot in Washington, D. C., as you know incidentally, he came to see me in the hospital nice guy.
"This period at the Chateau was a milestone in my life. I came up from St. Louis with about eight bucks to seek my fortune. Finally I got wind of a job at Carson, Pirie, Scott & Co., the department store, in the advertising department. I was supposed to know type faces and all the rest. Caslon or roman meant nothing to me, while 'em' probably stood for Michigan, and a 'pica' was a guy who wouldn't buy in turn. Anyway, I boned up and was supposed to report on a Monday morning. Early that morning, I was beset by a strange pain and began to moan and groan, whereupon Mike Stearns, who slept across the room, bellowed 'shut up,' until a peculiarly poignant squeal got him out of bed.
"The neighborhood doctor was called, I was rushed to a hospital, and by 9 o'clock the appendix was out. Took me six or eight months to pay the $100 for the operation. While I was in the hospital, Fat Archibald '01 came to town and was told I was looking for a job. He was in charge of circulation for the Webb Publishing Cos., St. Paul, and needed an assistant. I went to St. Paul some weeks later on the rather generous salary of $25 per week that was the winter of 1912. I stayed there until I was married in 1925, and from then on my activities centered around Chicago and St. Louis in the advertising and trade paper business."
Buster, as I recall it, was a first lieutenant in World War I, and served as a major in World War 11. Before his accident, he was with the Veterans Administration in Washington, and now he's retired on odd bits of pensions, civil service, and social security.
"Maybe lying in bed with nothing to do makes you live in the past," comments Buster. "So many half-forgotten memories come to life the weekends in Brecksville, Ohio, with Ced Wellsted; in Boston with Fat Fearing,Mike Farley, Plum Leighton, Phil Chase, and others; in Batavia, N. Y., with that swell guy, Larry Griswold '08 (the 'cherry bounce' parties, particularly, when we opened the kegs we had stuffed with cherries and alcohol earlier in the year); the bumping into 'Leftenant' Mike Farley sitting on a stool having coffee in Liverpool, England, in the spring of 1919."
Have your memories, Buster. They're good for you. And don't forget, if you hadn't had all those rich experiences, you wouldn't have those rich memories. All of you guys who knew Buster, keep on writing him. Your letters do him a lot of good. His address is 3850 Rodman St. NW, Washington 16, D. C.
I was pleasantly surprised this summer to get a note from Freddie Morawski's widow, who had just received a copy of that piece about him in the March ALUMNI MAGAZINE. "I cannot tell you how happy it made me, and how wonderful it was to know that dear Freddie was still remembered. He was really an 'Unforgettable Character' and I have never been able to get over his loss." Mrs. Morawski was in the States recuperating on a farm in Illinois from a severe fracture of both a knee and an ankle. From there she visited her son, Peter, 29, in Aurora, Minn., and back East, whence she returned to South America. The older boy, John, was killed in Guam in 1944 while serving with the Marines. Peter, who graduated from Yale in 1948, was also a Marine and was in the Tarawa, Saipan, and Guam landings.
Word from Bob Holmes, who suffered that severe heart attack, gave the good news that he's back at the office on a part-time basis, expected to be full-time soon. He had the attack shortly after the wedding of his daughter, Peggy; went up to his place on Winnipe-saukee during August; was told to walk only twenty-five yards a day, plus a daily increase of fifty feet. He mostly sat and rocked and that was good for him.
See you next month, if the fates are kind.
Class Notes Editor, Pioneer Trail, Aurora, Ohio Secretary and Treasurer Sandwich, Mass. Bequest Chairman,
