At 93, Dartmouth's Oldest Alumnus Finds Happiness in Growing Things
A letter from Franklin N. Newell '84, ofSpringfield, Mass., Dartmouth's oldest livingalumnus, brings this news of his recent activities: "I have spent the last summer season,until now, as I have spent the last 20 seasons,at my camp and tent in my vineyard fromMay until October, caring for the vineyardand vegetable garden. The grapes are nearlyall picked and sold now on the ground. 1have 250 vines. I set them about 20 years ago."
The start of his interest in a vineyard wasmentioned by Mr. Newell in a letter writtento his class secretary in 1929 and preserved inthe Alumni Records Office. It is a letter thatreveals a great deal about Dartmouth's senioralumnus, who was 93 in April and apparentlyleads a much more robust life than a greatmany younger men do. The greater part ofhis letter follows:
OFTEN as the months and years and decades pass on I recall the memories of our classmates individually, perhaps more often in later years than formerly. Seldom do I see any of them. The afternoon of life has come to us all. Yes it is perhaps near 5 o'clock, and the heat and movement of the day has quieted, so we move about less than formerly. But the late afternoon is quite generally the most beautiful part of the long day. I hope it is so for all our living brothers. March 13. This is a day "When the wind comes up from Cuba And the birds are on the wing And our hearts are patting juba To the banjo of the Spring. And it's no wonder whether The boys will get together With a stein on the table And a cheer for everything."
The gentle song of the first bluebirds came to me on the soft air this morning and it brought the same uplifting pleasure which I felt when a boy (now several years ago) in the mountains of Vermont when some bright morning in March, with snow four feet deep, we heard the first bluebird courageously singing from his perch on the end of a stake leaning over the stone wall. Yes, I was in my backyard flower garden this morning, when the song came to me, setting up a cold frame preparatory to carrying on what has been my hobby for many years flower gardening.
Since our college days I have had three hobbies. The first was saddle horses and riding. I owned and broke to the saddle several ponies from the plains of the far Southwest which had never had a strap on them until they came to me. I then became a somewhat expert broncho buster, but having by inheritance an instinct for horses I enjoyed all the bucking and tricks of the wild beasts from the plains. I also had horses of the thoroughbred blood of Kentucky, and one of them a great-grandson, through War Dance and War Cry, of the greatest and most powerful race horse of which we have knowledge Lexington. This horse of mine was a joy indeed for his gentleness, intelligence, companionableness, grace, beauty and power. But are you saying as you read this, horses are out of date? If you are, I say No, such horses will never be out of date.
My next hobby was fishing, and I have caught some fish including sculpins, shark, skates and goose fish! If I should tell any wildly extravagant story of fishing and "Shib" were to read it, he would say, "It's a damn lie," just as he used to say when I told in his hearing how, when at my father's house in Vermont, I captured six raccoons out of one tree at daybreak. But I will say it was some thrill to hook and land safely by one cast with the fly rod and on one leader six sea trout each weighing three pounds. It was also a source of temporary pride to catch and display to the admiring crowd the largest black bass ever caught out of Lake Winnipesaukee and to read about it in the Boston papers.
My last hobby, now upwards of twenty years of age, is flower gardening. This is the best of all. I like to think that by this I have helped others to a bit of bright color in their lives and to a lively interest in a most inspiring study the ways of nature in plant life and so in all life. It has given me much recreation, joy, and intellectual interest. Just lately I have become interested especially in the production of European grapes in my garden. By these grapes I mean such as have always been grown in Italy, Greece, and the Orient and such as are grown in California by importation. At present I have several other varieties which ought to bear fruit this coming season. They cannot be grown on their own roots. Therefore, I get suitable American root stock, and the cions of such foreign varieties as I think I want and will mature in our climate and season, and graft them. The fruit is such as the Malaga in quality and generally thought better for dessert than any of our native varieties. I have two vines which are said to be the variety from which was made the wine of Samos in the days of Sappho, and which is said by Asiatic Greeks to be the best table grape of Asia Minor.
I am at my office every day, as I have been there many years rendering such legal services to others as I am able and have opportunity to do and receiving such compensation there for as my clients are willing to render unto me. I am always well and strong and should enjoy a hike with the boys all the way over the winter snows from Hanover to the top of Moosilauke, and as it is said the old Arabs can outwalk the young fellows over the hot sands from Mecca to Muscat, so I conceit that over the trail with the students in the dead of the northern winter I could put them all to rout, in these modern degenerate days.
Well, now, this letter must be halted. Maybe my pen is like a running-away pair of oxen hitched to a cart loaded with yellow punkins. They run, they gallop, and they cannot be stopped until they run down. They go everywhere but where they ought to go; and they knock down the bar posts, the pumpstock, a few small trees, climb over the mowing machine, and bring up astride the stone wall. Meantime the load of golden gourds goes flying over the fields hither and yon and in every unexpected place, so wildly scattered that it seems hardly worth the work of collecting them. But if it be so, your goad started the run-away. Then again this letter may be like a poem or a song written objectively rather than subjectively, prompted by a prize rather than by an impelling emotion from within the writer; and the poem is worthless. An external prod prompted me hereto, and I, recalling Hovey's line, "Loose rein on the neck of fate and forth." have ventured these pages.
To you I send my best wishes for peace, comfort, usefulness, and happiness; and through you the same to all our living classmates. Let us recall the emotions of our last sitting together on the grass next to Reed Hall on the west in the June of 1884.
NEWELL
FRANKLIN N. NEWELL '84, senior alumnus of the College, at his 65th reunion in Hanover in 1949.
