1899
July birthday greetings to Ned Baldwin; August greetings to Bill Hutchinson, ArthurIrving, and Ed Nye; and September birthday greetings to George Clark and Gus Heywood. That brings us up to date.
Three interesting postcards from Mrs. Ernest Silver tell briefly of her visits this past summer to Venice, Switzerland, and England, a most enjoyable trip, while Esther and DaveParker made the Nova Scotia-Cape Breton trip by auto. Kenneth Beat's wife May is now quite fully recovered from her illness of last spring. Muriel and Gus Heywood spent their summer vacation time in Upton, Me. Quite a family reunion, four generations, for Margaret and Hawley Chase at their home in Newport, N. H., when daughter Marion and husband John N. Berry Jr., John Nichols Berry III and wife Ann witn their daughter Elizabeth Ann, were with them. Wendell Barney and wife, son of our late classmate Jim Barney, made a call recently on the Warren Kendalls at their home in Sarasota. Yes, the Kendalls made their first stay-in-Florida-in-summer, almost tin the last of August, when they started north for Kennebunk Beach and way stations, though this time traveling by auto. And this brings up the news that the Kendalls recently ceieorated their 50th wedding anniversary.
On this occasion it was found necessary for Warren and Helen to arrange for two parties instead of the customary single affair as none of the immediate family, due to disturbing labor situations on a group of southeastern railroads, could attend the function scheduled for W Day, so they invited their home folk friends to meet with them at the Sarasota Yacht Club, to partake of a buffet-arranged affair amid a profusion of Florida's flowers and palms, with a heavily laden table, on May 10, while son William '32 arranged a family dinner at his home in Erwin, Tenn., on May 21.
Warren and Helen have actively participated in the recent organization of a Congregational church in Sarasota and many of their church associates met with them, as well as other intimate friends they have made since residing in that city. Of the Kendall clan who could be present were Archie Kendall '98, with his wife, from St. Petersburg, and Miss Nina Kendall, a retired school teacher from Massachusetts, who winters in Lakeland. The dinner gathering at Erwin included all of the immediate family: daughter Roberta, from Charlotte, N. C.; son Gordon from Jacksonville, Fla., their spouses and children; also David Kendall '45, son of brother Leon '10, his wife and their two children from near-by Jefferson City; and the father and sister of Mrs. William Kendall, from Bristol, Va. Following the family dinner about forty friends of the family, including those whom Warren and Helen have met on their visits to Erwin, came in for the evening to dispose of the huge wedding cake, topped off with gold covered numerals, "50", and other items of refreshment that had been provided.
At both these parties, with due appreciation for the thoughtfulness of friends, professional photographers were present, and many casual, candid, and carefully arranged shots were made which provides a most interesting and intimate album for frequent review and reminiscings for the "bride and groom," and for family posterity.
From all reports, Warren and Helen enthusiastically recommend to others that whenever practical such parties be run on a dual basis as they will not only prolong the period of celebration but will give added purpose and intent to stage repeats of other such gatherings, ten, fifteen, or more years hence.
We all regret the passing of Luke Varney, which occurred on July 5. A memorial article, prepared by classmates Kenneth Beal and JoeGannon, appears among the notices in this issue.
Dr. Woodman Honored As Outstanding Teacher
On May 30, at the graduation exercises of the School of Mines, President Elmer Ellis of the University of Missouri awarded an honorary degree of Doctor of Science to Dr. Leon Elmer Woodman, Dartmouth 1899, for 36 years a member of the Missouri faculty. The award recognized his "outstanding accomplishments in the field of Physics, and his devoted and inspiring service as a teacher of Physics for over half a century."
Dr. Woodman was born at Claremont, N. H., November 14, 1877. He received his Bachelor of Arts degree in 1899 and his Master of Arts in 1902, both from Dartmouth College, where he served as an assistant in Physics from 1901-1902. A similar position at Columbia University won him his Doctorate in 1908. The.same year he accepted an assistant professorship at the University of Maine, becoming a full professor in 1919.
In that year he was called to the professorship in Physics and the chairmanship of that department at the School of Mines. In these capacities he taught for 29 years, or until he reached the retirement age of 70 in 1948, but for the seven years since then he has, as Professor Emeritus, voluntarily continued teaching classes in Thermodynamics and Heat.
Dr. Woodman has been notably efficient in organizing new courses to meet the changing conditions of the times. He has also served on many faculty committees, often as chairman. One such committee raised the science curriculum to a par with the engineering curriculum. Again as chairman of the Committee on Graduate Study, and Advanced Degrees he was instrumental in raising requirements for such work until they were uniform in all departments on the campus. He helped to bring a chapter of the honor society of Phi Kappa Phi to the University in 1920, and in 1926 laid the foundation of the present Society of Sigma Xi.
Besides being a member himself of the two societies above, Dr. Woodman belongs to Sigma Pi Sigma, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Physical Society, and the Association of Physics Teachers. Incidentally, he has written articles for the magazines, Physical Review and the American Journal of Physics and Science. Electric waves, the alternating current theory, and thermodynamics have constituted the chief fields of Dr. Woodman's teaching and research.
The genuineness and spontaneity of his love for teaching are shown to an extraordinary degree in his extracurricular devotion to educating young people in music. This hobby has led him for the past 25 years to teach piano and organ free of charge to hundreds of selected Rolla, Mo., youngsters. Some of these have later attained distinction in music at college and elsewhere. He himself was the regular organist at the Methodist Church for thirty years. Another hobby has been the writing of a dozen or more plays for children, plays which he himself produced and which won much favorable publicity.
Mrs. Woodman, the former Mabel Pauline Van Home, is a graduate of Smith College, and an active civics worker in Rolla. The couple's two children, Eugene H. and Ellen, now Mrs. Warwick Doll, graduated from the School of Mines in 1930 and 1933 respectively.
Mr. and Mrs. Warren C. Kendall '99 celebrated their Golden Wedding anniversary at the yacht Club, Sarasota, Fla., on May 10.
Secretary, 659 Allen St., Syracuse 10, N. Y.
Treasurer, 11 Park View Drive, Worcester 5, Mass.
Bequest Chairman,
