1905
It is always very gratifying to see actually tangible results from one's efforts. Such is Verney Russell's privilege, in that he can go out and see the desert blooming as a result of the irrigation projects in which he played such an important part. Verney was planning a trip to the Hawaiian Islands in February.
Walter G. Small, while having no special hobbies, finds a real zest in keeping up with world history as it unfolds day by day. He continues to enjoy very good health.
Last fall Ed Richardson enjoyed a pleasant evening with Ned Estes and his sister in their South Berwick (Me.) home, when Watson '02 was visiting there. The latter, like Ned, has been on the teaching staff at Robert College.
An amusing and previously unpublished factor in Dartmouth's victory over Yale last fall can now be told. On the suggestion of her grandfather, Percy Ladd, who felt that the team needed every boost possible, his granddaughter, aged two and a half years, sang, lustily and on key, a verse of Eleazar Wheelock at the time of the game.
Bob Harding writes that he and Maude are getting along very well. He goes to the office four days a week, omitting Wednesdays, a very satisfactory arrangement.
Early in the winter Edith, John Furfey's wife, had to go to the hospital. This made it necessary for John to be hospitalized also because of his crippled condition. Fortunately they were able to return home reasonably soon. They are now settled in a new apartment overlooking a lake.
Charlie Brooks has suffered the loss of his chief farm hand by suicide. Too bad; good farm hands are not too easy to come by these days!
Gene Musgrove is going ahead full steam at Upsala College, though his teaching program is not quite so heavy as usual. His health fortunately continues good.
Varsity Billman complains that he is having some difficulty in heading his boys toward Dartmouth. They seem to be suffering under the grievous delusion that something in California might do just as well! We're all behind you, Varsity. Bring them on in '55.
Of course California does have something. At least Henry Norton finds his visits out there about once in two months something of a life-saver from his strenuously busy life here in New York.
Gib Fall is happy to announce the receipt of a check for $300 to add to our class fund. The donor prefers to remain anonymous. Gib is properly proud of this fund, which, while not impressive as compared with some classes, he has built up painfully from a very small start. More such (or larger) gifts would be very gratefully received.
Who's Who In '05
PERCY C. LADD D.D.
A most successful pastor, preacher and teacher is Rev. Percy Chandler Ladd, who from 1905 to 1952 was assistant for the Congregational Board of Ministerial Relief in New York City, following three long pastorates in Illinois, Colorado and Vermont.
Born in Berlin, Vt., near Montpelier, son of the Rev. Alden Ladd, as a boy he gravitated to Massachusetts, and took his high school training in Greenfield. At Dartmouth, studious and shy, he knew and was known to few. He stood very high in scholarship and was elected to Phi Beta Kappa. For a year after graduation he returned to Greenfield High School, this time as a teacher. Then he taught two years at Penn Military College.
Turning now to prepare for the ministry, he attended Union Theological Seminary for three years and graduated in 1911, magna cum laude, which is quite significant to those who still remember their Latin. As assistant pastor for the next two years in the First Congregational Church in Middletown, Conn., he was at least a neighbor of classmate Carroll Campbell of that city.
Before moving westward to a pastorate of his own in Moline, Ill., he married Josephine Sanderson, a Greenfield girl and Smith College graduate, who was first a teacher, then the secretary of the Smith College Christian Association. Together they worked for nine years building the Moline church from 450 to 700 members, and accomplishing a new church structure. Each taught a large Bible class, one of men and the other of women. Rev. Ladd was a member of the Board of Directors of the Illinois State Conference.
He then devoted eight years to uniting and developing the Plymouth Church in Denver, which had suffered a setback before his coming. At the end of his long tenure there, Mr. Ladd did post-graduate study at the Iliff Theological Seminary in Denver, and received the degree of Doctor of Theology.
In 1931, no longer moving westward, Dr. Ladd began a long trek eastward with a fourteen-year pastorate in the Burlington, Vt., College Street Congregational Church. It was from this third long pastorate that he was chosen for the position with the Retirement Board in New York.
Dr. and Mrs. Ladd brought up two children, Mary E., Smith '39, now married and in Washington, D.C., and George Alden '41, a gifted youth who died in the war.
Because of his interest in poetry his parents presented the Baker Library at Dartmouth with a collection of books. These books have been placed in the poetry alcove in the Tower Room and are called the George Alden Ladd Poetry Collection.
Dr. Ladd enjoys gardening and reads widely. He takes a lively but not active interest in public affairs. For some years he made a point of acquiring a new foreign language each year until his heavier duties interfered with this scholarly pastime.
In 1952 Dr. and Mrs. Ladd moved to Burlington, Vt., where they live among old friends in his last parish. There he devotes much of his time to his wife, who is an invalid. His present aim in life, as he himself humbly and characteristically expresses it, is to be a creditable nurse and a good layman.
In his several pastorates there are numerous evidences that Dr. Ladd, and Mrs. Ladd, too, accumulated many firm friends. Some speak of his "genuineness." Others tell how "he wins his way steadily into the confidence of folks." Still others count him a "scholar and a gentleman of most engaging personality, with a wife who would be a joy in any parish." Among those who give Mrs. Ladd high credit for his most creditable life of service is Percy himself. It could be that he would know!
PERCY C. LADD '05: An ardent gardener through- out his career, Dr. Ladd is shown working hard in his vineyard, as he liked to do a few years ago.
Secretary, 358 North Fullerton Ave., Upper Montclair, N.J.
Treasurer, 8027 Seminole Ave., Philadelphia 18, Pa
Bequest Chairman,
