1920
This reporter, fresh from new Alumni Council adventures in Hanover, begs leave to pay his sincere and special respects to the Mary Hitchcock Memorial Hospital and to its president, John Amsden. Hospital and president do very great credit to each other. While Robin Pearson was thoroughly enjoying a ten days' confinement, involving the most thorough and efficient checking and double-checking, the Amsdens paid her frequent visits and helped mightily to keep her spirits elevated. There is a glow of real New England neighborliness all over the premises.
In his capacity as chairman of the Trustee Advisory Committee on Plant Development, John Amsden was one of the featured speakers at the January 15 meeting of the Council. The size of his task, for which he has been released from other duties during the present college year, became apparent as he outlined the steps required to provide adequate housing for "the finest liberal arts college in America" by the time of Dartmouth's 200th anniversary. Prof. Carl England, speaking on the same program and discussing the absorbingly interesting new freshman course, The Individual and the College," told how AtFoley got things rolling smoothly with the opening lecture. Al's eight vignettes from the history of the college were roundly applauded by the newcomers to the campus. Al and Dick Goddard have been in the limelight lately in view of their heavy responsibilities on the Athletic Council, these lads giving 1920 two thirds of the faculty representation on the Council. Dick is said to have been playing a valuable role in connection with the handling of informal sports.
The jam-packed character of Sid Hayward's well-organized program did not permit the usual roll call of the Twenty delegation in Hanover. But Paul and Sylvia Sample, dining at the Inn, were observed to be looking fine and fit. Bill and Laura Carter were buttonholed at one of the other Inn functions. Their second granddaughter, Judy Lynn, daughter of Doug Carter '49, arrived September 27 out on the Colorado Plateau, where her father is busily applying his knowledge of geology and related subjects, besides devoting spare hours to the newly organized Dartmouth Club of Atomic Energy. The Freys and the Moultons warmed the late hours of one of the cooler January evenings. Seen in the Inn lobby were the Dick Southwicks, escorting friends from down Cape Ann way who have an eye on Dartmouth for their growing son.
A letter-to-the-class-notes-editor has been received, which may or may not be suitable for publication. The contents will therefore be intimated rather than disclosed - and then only with the utmost caution. It seems that the Frey-Yuill tennis supremacy within the Class is being questioned, if not actually challenged, as the energetic Al Cate puts in his relatively modest bid for some form of recognition. "I have been averaging three hours a week at the Longwood Covered Courts from October to April," says the former class secretary, "and an unknown number of sets, singles and doubles, at the Needham Tennis Club from April to October with a bit of overlapping on both ends." "Several times," Al continues, "I have taken a day off to fly to Hanover for the express purpose of a match with Frey, and on one occasion, if my memory does not fail, I won a set in a somewhat decisive manner."
Frightened beads of sweat dot the secretarial brow with receipt of the latest news from Hanover - that Frey, unbloody and unbowed, is this winter taking up squash, in an age-defying gesture reminiscent of Iron Man Hicks '21. Ort, incidentally, presided benignly over the personal reunion of ClintJohnson and Rus Jones at a recent downtown noon hour function in New York. Years had passed since the paths of these two metropolitan moguls - of banking and advertising respectively - last crossed in the canyons of the Great City.
Ordinarily these reunions come easier down in Florida. When Tommy Thomson was down there at Christmas time, he had a rousing gettogether with Freddy Hamm and Jake Gorton at Vero Beach. For all those' interested in eventual retirement to this resort, where "they have everything," according to Tommy, correspondence with Dorothy Hamm is suggested. The Hamms and the Ed Sharps '23 are in process of tub-thumping for a Dartmouth colony, with the enthusiastic support of the Thomsons. Tommy's letter says:
"Jake Gorton plans to retire this coming year. His son Bill gets his wings in the Air Force in June. He is a fine looking lad who does some basketball playing and made a big hit with the Thomson and Hamm teenagers. We had a very nice trip and saw, hastily, Clearwater, St. Petersburg, Tampa, Orlando, Daytona, Marine Stadium, St. Augustine and Gainesville. It is really quit a country at this time of year, especially if you travel from around New York or spots further north and can't take the punishment any more. Must try it in summer before I buy a place, but I think Vero Beach can lick the summers even."
Another Twenty has found a mighty interesting way of life even farther to the south. If you read your November issue of the MAGAZINE carefully, you spotted a review of a children's book by Roy Youmans entitled WitchesRide Brooms . . .to Brush Their Tracks Away. When asked how-come he published this and five other books for youngsters in Havana and whether he now thinks of Cuba as his permanent home, Roy replied with an absorbing account of his wanderings and varied activities:
"As you may recall, I went back to the classrooms at Dartmouth for the semester February-June of 1950, picking up the usual credits toward my degree I then went on to the summer language school of Middlebury College, picking up eight credits in graduate work in Spanish. This late burst of larnin had to do with my intention to return to Cuba, where I had lived on and off for the past thirty years get a degree at a Cuban university, and do some' university teaching along with some longdeferred writing. And so, like a bad penny, I turned up once again in this sunny isle early in 1951 Since then I've been doing just about what I hoped I would, teaching at La Universidad de Santo Tomás (languages), and knocking out a hard-cover book each year. I dedicated the first edition of Apellidos Castellanos to a local clinic for crippled kids, and you'd want to do the same thing if you could see them being carried into the place in baskets and walking out under their own steam. Of course a fellow can't teach and write books all the time, so I'm getting in all the squash racquets, reading, fencing, etc., that I need. Between times Edna, my wife, and I get up to our f at Orford, N. H., twenty miles above Hanover, where I guess at long last we'll settle down for good. Charlie Jr. has given us a grandson, as has Joan, our oldest daughter. My baby, Janine, now 24, teaches school here and is making noises like she'll marry soon. So all in all, I've been very blessed."
(Ed. Note to the athletic angle above: Although Roy's New Hampshire home is conveniently located for competition in the Dartmouth athletic plant, he is unlikely to concern himself with squash or tennis laurels. He no doubt rests content as the unquestioned, if uncrowned, fencing champion of 1920.)
Pictures in the Paper: Phil Kitfield made at least two of the Boston papers, the Globe and the Herald, when he was shown on January 25, as chief engineer of the Massachusetts Turnpike Authority, observing the turning of the first spadeful of earth on the $239,000,000 road construction project. The Globe said he was the gentleman on the left; the Herald identified him as the man on the right. This time our money is riding on the Herald. ... The Annual Report of the city of Concord, N. H., pictures "the Board of Health meeting to protect your health"; and the central figure among the three doctors assembled for this important business is our own Tom Dudley, striking a very protective pose indeed.
Laceyville, Pa., lost one of its first citizens when Al Stillman died there on January 12. The story of his well-spent life is all too briefly recorded in the In Memoriam section of this issue. How he felt about Dartmouth is most touchingly evident in this comment written by Eleanor a short time later: "Two hours before Al's death I went in the room with the ALUMNI MAGAZINE and at his insistence tore off the cover so he could see it."
FIELD ENGINEER: Edward M. Howard '19,former Asphalt Institute district engineer, hasbeen named field engineer of the Wire Reinforcement Institute, Washington, D. C. Hisheadquarters will be in Springfield, Ill.
IN FLORIDA: A mid-winter get-together inVero Beach started the Hanover reminiscingfor three of the Class of '20. L to r: TommyThomson, Fred Hamm, and Jake Gorton.
Secretary, Blind Brook Lodge, Rye 17, N. Y.
Treasurer, South Duxbury, Mass.
Bequest Chairman,
