1940
Here we are beginning the last mile down the road to our 15th reunion and opportunity for you to select a new class scribe. However, with that prospect still nine issues away, I'd better drum up some news to herald this new season.
The Brownes have had a nice summer, albeit a hot one. Vacation found us at Squam Lake, N. H., for a brief two weeks in early July, during which time we spent an enjoyable afternoon with the Don Rainies at their Lake Winnepesaukee cottage. The remainder of this season of extremes has been literally sweated out here in Westfield and, hence, we haven't seen nor heard of many classmates.
As many of you may have noted, Dick andBing Babcock and their five children were pictured in Life magazine's June issue on the families of Vassar's 1940 alumnae. As families go, the Babcocks will be in the running next June in the Hanover competition, but will find that they've been out-produced by a number of class couples.
And while still on subjects related to reunion, I want to report with pleasure that able Fred Porter has agreed to chairman the program organization for our 15th. You'll shortly be receiving more advance news of the arrangements from him and his committee. Meantime, Jack Moody will be getting in touch with a number of you in connection with planning he has been asked to undertake toward organizing for our 25th-Year gift to the College. And, just to bring you right up to date on other class* functions, Head Class Agent Hugh Schwarz and Newsletter Editor Malcolm deSieyes, both fresh from a triumphant climax of the 1955 Alumni Fund drive, are now making plans to lead the Class to a level of performance next spring which will win for the College our utmost help and for the Class another Green Derby first.
On the business front, Ken McCotter has been promoted to manage the Lehn & Fink Products Corp. plant at Bloomfield, N. J. Ken joined the production staff of this manufacturer of drugs and cosmetics in 1948 and has been production manager since 1951. He, Sara, and their four children live in Montclair.
We're a bit late with the news but ScottyRogers became manager of Parker Appliance Co.'s Rubber Products Division last spring, transferring from his former post as head of the Engine Accessories Division. Scott, Loomie, and the kids have been summering in Berea, Kentucky, where he has been breaking in a new plant manager.
Whit Miller, who moved to Kansas City, Mo., sometime ago, as president of Minnesota Toro, Inc., lawnmower distributors, changed jobs last spring to become manager of the Autosonic sales department of the Vendo Company. Presumably that has something to do with the vending machine industry. Perhaps Whit will give us some details.
Although the summer drought has extended to communications, we still have a couple of letters left over from last June. From Evanston, Ill., home of Northwestern U., GardnerAshley informs us that he spent 1953-'54 in Paris working on a doctoral thesis at the Sorbonne and last year teaching in New Brunswick, Canada. He claims he's still single "due to the fact that a university instructor's salary does not permit such frivolities until one becomes a member of the Ph.D. brotherhood."
Heinie Heinz writes from South Africa:
"I'm still here in Johannesburg. There is a big item on the program for December next year when I intend motoring through all of Africa to Germany and return. That will be quite a job, but since Africa is losing its romance so quickly, it should be seen before too late. In August, I am going to Basutoland to teach for three weeks at a native college. Last year I had a most interesting trip to Northern Nyasaland. One does miss the snow here in the Union. They say that snow falls in parts of the Cape as well as in Basutoland, although the country has not been opened up enough to make skiing worth while. I have set my mind on climbing Mt. Kilamanjharo on my return trip through Africa. In view of these travel plans, I don't think I'll be able to get to the reunion this time."
Ed Halsey, who has been instructor in religion and the humanities at Reed College these last two years, will be visiting assistant professor of religion at Pomona College in Claremont, Calif., for the coming year. After graduation from Dartmouth, Ed did graduate work at Princeton, served three years in the Navy and then received his M.A. and Ph.D. degrees from Harvard after the war, doing some special additional work at the Divinity School there.
Extensive community service and participation in projects of civic betterment, along with personal achievement in their own professional and business careers, describe the lives of a great many of our classmates. To a greater or lesser degree, all of us are and should be contributing to the improvement and enlightenment of the social surroundings in which we find ourselves. Insofar as this column occasionally singles out classmates who are making such contributions in their communities, our intent is not so much to point up the outstanding as to indicate that these among many of us are making their service contribution in their own particular way.
Among these yeomen to come to our attention most recently is John H. Brown, of Dartmouth, Mass., where he is vice-chairman and the sparkplug for the Greater New Bedford Industrial Development Foundation, an organization of some ninety citizens who are intent upon attracting new industry to that area. Besides this effort and that of managing the family pharmacy, John is active in the local Kiwanis, the hospital board, the Town Council, the United Fund and in local Civil Defense. All this is in addition to his and his wife Dorothy's parental duties on behalf of their three children.
Elsewhere, Hal Wonson was the subject of a write-up in the Minneapolis Star last spring for his contributions to local baseball and civic efforts. The "Chief," who is presently with Connecticut Mutual Life in Minneapolis, is active in the Community Chest and local PTA and heads the Northwest Alumni Association, which takes in Dartmouth alumni activities in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area.
Another civic-minded insurance man, JimFaulkner, with the Liberty Mutual Insurance Co., actively participates in local affairs in his Framingham, Mass., community. Jim, who lived in Shanghai and, later, in Manila following the war, also has been much in demand as a speaker to interpret the Far East to local organization memberships.
On the nuptials front, we've had a flurry of activity, starting with the marriage of BillWrightson and Jeanne Van Wagoner Christie last May 20 at Bergenfield, N. J., with bachelor Bill Bumsted as best man. Shortly thereafter, on June 4, Lt. Col. Jay Stout and Margaret Jane Sutphen, of Freehold, N. J., were married in New York City. Finally, Robert R. O'Brien and Ann Towner Hume tied the knot last June 9 at Norwich, Vt.
Now that the summer season is over, do fill up that pen or sharpen the pencil and drop us a line on what you did, whom you saw and how things are going in your living. Let's hear from you!
On the steps of the U. S. Supreme Court Building, David S. Smith '39, Assistant Secretary ofthe Air Force for Manpower and Personnel, is congratulated by Vice President Nixon uponhis admission to practice before the Court. He was personally sponsored by the Vice President.Mr. Smith was a member of the committee that drafted a Code of Conduct for U. S. prisonersof war, announced in August.
Secretary, 322 Canterbury Road, Westfield, N. J.
Treasurer, 88 North Main St., Concord, N. H.
