1909

Maybe you've noted the series that appears in the Reader's Digest, "The Most Unforgettable Character I've Met." You don't run across many such in the course of a lifetime. Sure, you meet up with a lot of pleasant people. You enjoy their company, but they don't burrow deep into your subconscious as do a few people who are outstanding characters in your Book of Life.

Such a guy was Freddie Morawski who entered our class from Dorchester High School, Dorchester, Mass. I didn't get very well acquainted with Freddie until junior year when our paths crossed more frequently. Fred was a little guy with an impish smile. He laughed easily, his humor was spontaneous and contagious. When you walked down the street with him you felt like putting an arm on his shoulder - not with any idea of developing a "beautiful friendship," but because there seemed to be some kind of bond of close companionship.

Fred participated freely in College activities, mostly along dramatic lines. He took the part of a girl in a French play that was presented at College Hall on May 25, 1907. He was a member of the Dramatic Club for two years. He had a prominent part in the show, If I Were Dean; he made a smash hit with his specialty "Tony the Popcorn Man" in TheKing of U-Kan which was presented during our Commencement. On top of that, Fred, or "Peanut," as he was affectionately called, entered into a number of vaudeville skits during his junior and senior years. I was his partner in a couple of them. He worked up a buck and wing act with Ray Gorton '10 and he was mixed up in a dramatic skit with Charlie Fay '10. The little fellow was good at anything he'd undertake, but he never tried to hog the limelight. During the time I knew him, I don't think I ever saw him mad, nor did he make unkind remarks about our student contemporaries.

Our favorite hang-out was Burke's Tailoring Emporium, now occupied by Serry's. When Burke's opened up in Hanover it was managed by one Serafini, a little Italian who arrived in town with his wife and baby son our junior year. Sawny Reagan fell heir to a part time job in the store and a bunch of us, including Peanut, Dutch Schildmiller, ReggieBankart, Jess Hawley, George Burns, Rollie Hastings '11, to name a few, spent some of our spare time watching the Hanover scene through the front door. Once in a while we'd have a suit of clothes made up.

I got closer to Fred senior year when we became members of Sphinx. Every so often we'd go down to the tomb together and play a little game of learning new words. It was a good idea if we'd kept it up and had continued to increase our vocabularies. Freddie Emery, an English prof of that day, who was also a member of the society, commented on this zest for learning, in one of his classes.

Fred's sister Marguerite, who was about as cute a trick as Fred, was up to our Junior Prom and to our Commencement. She was plenty of fun in her own right and much the same kind of disposition as Fred. I heard later that she had gotten married, but where she is now I don't know.

All too soon those College days passed. Came Commencement and the final parting, and that's the last I ever saw of my friend. He was a first lieutenant in World War I. married a girl by the name of Gladys Price, and fathered two sons, John and Frederic Peter. Fred's business carried him to South America where he died in a Buenos Aires hospital on August 7, 1925, the result of a severe cold which developed into a septic grippe with ear complications.

Mrs. Morawski, the widow, never re-married, apparently. Her present address is listed c/o Elizabeth Arden, Lima, Peru. If she happens to see this issue of the ALUMNI MAGAZINE, she will know that her departed husband still lives in the memories of his classmates and others whose lives were brightened by his exuberant spirit.

Dartmouth Fellowship

"A singular gift is available to Dartmouth men," points out one of our contemporaries who prefers to have his name undisclosed. "It is known as Dartmouth fellowship, startling in its persistency and in its outcropping."

This particular alumnus, in a recent visit to his prep school, Williston Academy at Easthampton, Mass., noted the somewhat unusual name of Craig Thorn as an editor of the school paper. By coincidence, he met young Thorn, a good looking youngster, and asked him if his father was Dartmouth. To an affirmative reply, the alumnus said, "Well, he was in College with me." "No," said the kid, "that was my grandfather."

This put the record straight. The grandfather, Craig Thorn, our class; the father, Craig Junior '31, in Hudson, N. V., where at one time he was a partner of a Williston man of the vintage of the guy who's recounting this incident. "From this," he continued, "came a warm feeling of fellowship, a sense of belonging in the lives of others who would show a happy interest in learning that Dartmouth men are moving about, nothing loath to put in a plug, if necessary, for a grandson of one who walked the Hanover Plain back in those good old days when everyone knew everyone else."

Got any more such? Shoot 'em in to the Garden Spot.

Class Notes Editor, Pioneer Trail, Aurora, Ohio Secretary and Treasurer, Sandwich, Mass.