1920
Late spring and summer postal accumulations are here for the opening of the fall season, some of them bringing back memories of too-long-lost brethren, now happily reinstated among their fellow Twenties. One of these letters came up from the Ozarks of Arkansas.
Johnnie Bryan reappeared from long seclusion, so to speak, to reminisce a bit and tell something of what has been happening to him since an arthritic condition took him to Mountain Valley in his search for a kindly climate. Although he's a loyal alumnus of both Dartmouth and the University of Chicago, Dartmouth is still tops in his book and he hopes that eventually his three sons (now 10, 9 and 7, respectively) will be admitted at Hanover. His own college education ended in 1918 when he joined the Navy. He writes,
"Possibly my feeling for Dartmouth is tied up with my love for the State of New Hampshire. When I was a boy we had a farm at Alstead Center (9 miles from Bellows Falls) and I spent some of the happiest times of my life there. Later, when I was in high school, I ran away from home - to New Hampshire. For 50 years I have kept in touch with our old hired man there."
Johnnie has had some tough breaks physically in recent years, but he says that "a successful operation has put me back in limited circulation, doing Farm Bureau work and part-time bookkeeping." Route 4, Box 426, Hot Spring , Ark., is what you write on the envelope for any mail headed his way.
Fritz Lord is another who was diverted from Dartmouth (he finished up at M.I.T.) but whose fond recollections took him back to Hanover when he was seeking the right college for his son in 1947. He splits the difference tactfully by saying, "I believe Dartmouth to be the top liberal arts college and M.I.T. the outstanding school for a technical education." Fritz's women-folk are distributed all over the intercollegiate map. His wife went to Simmons and his daughter to Mount Holyoke, followed by graduate work at Columbia and Cornell.
If you're looking for Horace Masse, you'llfind him (on weekends and vacations, anyway) "in West Goshen, Conn., mail addressLitchfield, about two miles southwest of DogPond."
"Three years ago (says Horace) we bought a 132-acre farm with much neglected buildings, a house built in 1772 and still without any modern conveniences whatsoever, and moved into it a year later. My wife had been brought up only 15 miles away, and ever since our wedding 25 years before had talked about going back to Connecticut. She and the children are doing the painting and inside repairs as well as raising heifer calves for a dairy herd which we hope to have when I retire from Western Electric within the next two years. As you can surmise, I'll have to be a dirt farmer and make my living at it, all of which is not likely to be so easy."
Bill Lovejoy, up in Boston, reports the hitherto undisclosed news that his son graduated from Bowdoin in 1950. So did Bill, for that matter, thirty years earlier, his Dartmouth connection having terminated at the end of his first semester. Another State-of-Mainer, Howard Phinney, who saw too little of Dartmouth - freshman year only — is living in retirement at Tenant's Harbor "in an old, comfortable Maine house that looks out to sea." He goes to Florida some in the winters; went back to France years ago for an army reunion; caught up with his old roommate Ben Pearson in Byfield, Mass., once, and found out how Red Top Snuff is made. "Our income is sufficient," Howard admits, adding with downeast forthrightness, "but why not be frank and say moderate."
Buster Moore breaks a too-long silence with a good summary of what has been what with him:
"Bunny and I are still living in Wellesley but spend many weekends and a good part of the summer at Bourne on Cape Cod where we have a small place in a secluded section near Phinney's Harbor. Hobbies are fishing, sailing, and color photography - particularly three-dimension. For the past five years I have been assistant sales manager for the Litecontrol Corporation in Watertown, Mass. - manufacturers of commercial and lighting equipment which we distribute nation-wide through jobbers."
Speaking of color photography, as Bus was, we are reminded of Pete Potter's sentiments, quoted in the New York World-Telegram andSun on June 4. Pete thinks the American public will snap about 2,000,000,000 pictures this year. He counts on the tremendous baby-crop, most photogenic of all models; speaks also of 42,000,000 people, largest on-the-loose group in our history, wondering what to do with their paid vacations. Flash bulbs, Pete points out, have more than doubled in sales in the last three years.
Stan Newcomer, himself no mean shuttersnapper, is one of those who will make Pete's dreams come true. Stan checked in by mail on July 20, just back from Lake Superior fishing, "almost frozen to death, but actually with all ears and fingers intact." Stan deserves the plaudits of Class and College alike. Unofficial and informal figures for the Alumni Fund show that 1920 hit a new peak in dollars this year. Again we missed our quota by several hundred dollars, but 251 Twenties dropped more than $12,600 in the till, and that's the kind of participation that comes from hard work by the fund-raising contingent. Many happy returns to Stan and his gang!
Browsing through the fascinating pages of Who's Who in America, an appreciative eye caught the name of Charles Fraser McGoughran, oil baron. If your secretary ever attains his coveted retirement, he will carefully canvass the whole Who's Who situation and supply an annotated list of all Twenties found therein to any inquirer providing the usual stamped, self-addressed envelope.
There is good father-and-daughter news from Summit, N. J. Dean Travis's daughter Phyllis, in her freshman year at Hood College, won the title of Miss Touchstone, signifying that she is the most beautiful gal on the campus. News reports describe her as "a tall (five feet eight) close-cropped brunet with twinkling hazel eyes." Meanwhile her old man has been holding up his end as best he could and has been named trust officer, on top of his presidency, of Summit's First National Bank and Trust Company.
Check, with your wives, men, on the wave of the future - or maybe it's the wave of the present. Don MacKay sends a postcard labelled "Paris - En Flanant" (one man's translation is as good as another's), saying: "Ruth went to a Christian Dior showing. She reports high calf for length, much black, and the models all wearing pinned-on long hair." "I am having a good time, too," says Don, abstractedly. His two stepsons, Bob Mortimer '47 and Ed Mortimer '44 each registered new male additions to their families in May.
Dick Kimball and his wife got to New York in June, for the first time in quite a lot of years. They used planes and cars, zigzagging hither and yon, from their Long Beach, Calif., base to Philadelphia, Hanover, Lake Champlain and other points. Included in the round-up was an up-state New York reunion with his mother and sister (Betty Baketel). When the sisters-in-law got to talking things over, Betty may just possibly have mentioned that husband Sherry's Philadelphia insurance agency won the much desired Jerome Clark Award this year for greatest progress in agency development with Union Central. To which Margaret Kimball may casually have replied that Dick is a recently elected director of the Southern California branch of the Club Managers' Association. Dick's own club, of course, is the University Club of Long Beach - and it's amounting to more all the time, from one year to the next. Speaking of the two Long Beach boys who will enter Dartmouth this fall, Dick writes he will "do my best to guide them correctly."
We record with regret the deaths of BillNelson and Bob Sweet. In Memoriam notices for both appear in this issue.
BEFORE THE POPS CONCERT '21ers meet for dinner at the Hotel Gardner, Boston. Frontrow (l to r): Reg Miner, Hal Geilich, Joyce Prince, Sylvia Miner, Martha Geilich, Esther Bailey,Betty Cleveland. Second row: Frank Ross and guest (Stanley Monk), Don Sawyer, Doris Campbell, Jack Campbell, Bill Perry, Kim Morse, Rachy Norcross, Chan Symmes, Lorna Symmes,Edith Perry. Back row: Walt Prince, Russ Bailey, Dot Ruggles, Don Ruggles, Tom Cleveland,Tom Norcross, Don Morse.
Secretary, Blind Brook Lodge, Rye 17, N. Y.
Treasurer, ] South Duxbury, Mass.
Bequest Chairman,
