1897
I feel that the 24 members of our class know less of each other than we should, and we are apt to turn back to things we all did a long time ago rather than look at the present picture of our activities. Most of our classmates are still active with business or hobbies. Let's just look at a few of these!
John Henderson has as his vocation church work and he writes me of many children who are close to his heart. His letters about these young people indicate a father kind of closeness. John's hobby is woodcraft where he works in his shop in the cellar room making things with his hands. One sentence about the shavings on the floor and a kitten playing indicates his joy in doing things with his hands.
"Sport" Morse has always had a place in my memory for two very different and definite little things. One was business with women's hats; the other a golf stroke. The memory of the hats comes from a visit to the hat factory where Sport spent a number of early business years. Elizabeth and a friend of hers took advantage of Sport's offer to sell them hats wholesale, and each bought one. Sport didn't talk of the color or smartness of the hats but of the quality. I suppose it was Boston quality which a recent writer sums up in an apt way in his reference in a book about Boston where he says, "Boston women inherit their hats. Selling women's hats at wholesale may have been training for Sport for his longtime business along this line in the financial world. New York hats are like stocks and Boston hats are like bonds. Sport learned to play a pretty snappy game of golf by training himself by counting ONE-TWO - three-four. The four was just as he hit the ball with the head of the club. Sport learned about my efforts to develop an electric refrigeration device and patent it. He came to Bridgeport to see me about it. He was so enthused. He said, "This should have a name, 'Electric Ice. I have always thought Sport felt that I was a "dumb cluck" not to leave bricks and boards to lead the world in the icebox business. He could see the big picture of this kind of an invention. This was back in 1918.
Frank Noyes has lived a quiet kind of unheralded contact with the cultural element of life in our generation, coming closely in contact with some of the most advanced thinkers. I picked up a small New Hampshire magazine some months ago and found a poem written by Frank's wife. The title of the poem is "Pitchers For Lilacs" and this little poem of a few lines comes back to me everytime I see a lilac bush in bloom.
I wish we could all come close to the individuals and their personal thoughts and activities of our classmates.
A few words of wisdom from the late JohnPoor leaves in my mind something that is hard to forget in his humility in the face of the great unknown which he studied so much. I asked him how creation came about, referring to the stars, and he said, "The report in Genesis is just as good as any we have found." I think the influence of music had much to do with his calm in the great thinking world where all' conclusions lead to doubt.
A visit with my grandson and his bride in one of my apartments this morning gives me a new fresh view of life. Harvey Hubbell Jr., just returned from Korea and discharged from the Marine Corps as a First Lieutenant, was helping his bride to get a new home set up. I like to name this picture "love birds in overalls," as these two are fixing up their home. We old guys will just have to take off our hats to this new generation. They certainly know how to do things. A trick coffee table with two small units sliding out to become two individual chair side tables, one for each guest, to be returned to the mother table at the end of the luncheon, is certainly a tricky space saver and stylish too. Another tricky kitchen curtain with no rods just put it up with special holding brads put up in a minute and taken down as quickly - tricky, stylish and colorful. The kitchen is one of the stylish rooms in the apartment. During my visit, Polly Reycroft Crawford, daughter of Wendell Reycroft '17 who lives across the hall, came in to see the evolution of home making. Her husband, an air corps officer, was just discharged. Another Reycroft daughter lives across the Garden Court. Her husband also just home from Korea.
My spring baseball activities are having a snappy squirming start with 600 boys from 8 to 16 making up 38 teams just showing up for team play. This certainly illustrates the meaning of the word "squirm" for the first two or three days of their initiation into the Great American Game. I hit upon a scheme of cleaning up the ball field of its winter dropped sticks and stones. Just line up 50 boys and start them throwing the rocks over the boundary fence. The field was clean enough for a roller in the matter of minutes.
Mr. and Mrs. Hamilton Gibson received congratulations April 27 on their Golden Wedding Day, observed at their Lake Concord home on Peachtree Road, Orlando, Florida. A family dinner party, with their three sons and wives and their grandchildren, celebrated the happy occasion. In Orlando for the family gathering were Mr. and Mrs. Hal Gibson Jr. of Swarthmore, Pa.; Mr. and Mrs. David Gibson of Hartford, Conn.; and Mr. and Mrs. Arthur Gibson of Orlando.
Secretary, 114 State St., Bridgeport 3, Conn.
Class Agent, 862 Park Square Bldg., Boston 16, Mass.
