Northwest Product

Anacortes, Washington was a robust lumber town of dirt streets, wooden sidewalks and hulking men in the 1880's when Ed Terrace's grandfather settled there from Nova Scotia. He started a lumber mill and planted his family firmly in the midst of life in the vigorous Northwest.

Ed was born in Anacortes but has spent most of his life in Seattle, eighty miles to the south, where his father is purchasing agent for a shipyard.

Mt. Rainier (14,408') rises, whitecapped, in the distance from Seattle. For some residents it presents a challenge for glacier climbing or skiing. For many, like the Terrace family, it is a reminder that the mountains are there to be enjoyed in other ways. The whole Terrace family, Ed, his mother and father and sister (who is now a student at Western Washington College) often pack up and head toward the western Cascades for camping trips.

He spent one summer while in high school rolling drunks out of dark corners as a night watchman (midnight to seven) on the Seattle waterfront. He also worked as a produce clerk in a supermarket and learned the delicate art of making tired vegetables look new and fresh each morning. "You just keep peeling off the outer layers of things like cabbage and lettuce and hope that you will sell them in time."

He planned to major in Political Science at some eastern college, but Dartmouth and the others were little more than names to him. When he was informed that Dartmouth had shown an interest in him by offering a scholarship and an opportunity to work in the Dining Association, he reciprocated.

On his way to Hanover, he stopped off for three days in Washington and visited in New York. Then, he took a first step in his Dartmouth education by setting himself at the mercy of the B & M. He got on the wrong train and, of course, arrived in the Junction at 3 in the morning. That first night in Hanover was spent comfortably in the shadow of a ping pong table on the floor of the South Mass social room.

Like many other liberal arts students, Ed was riding for a fall. With a firm plan still in mind to major in Political Science, his curiosity led him to sample in another field and when he selected an offering of Professor John Stearns in Greek Art, he found something he wasn't looking for.

As a project for the course he set to work classifying some Greek pottery that had been lying around the College for about fifty years. What once would have seemed deathly dull, proved interesting and, as he related his course work to the bits and pieces of pottery, Greek art came alive for him. It was a demanding, time-consuming project but, although different techniques were called for, he soon found that he could work as well all night at Dartmouth as he had done on the Seattle docks. His report on the project will be published this year.

Ed lived with Professor Emeritus Gordon Ferrie Hull, until the Professor's death this fall. Through this association, Ed was in touch with another Dartmouth era. Sitting under a tree in his yard, Professor Hull once told of how, with more zeal than good sense, some of his Physics students had commented to the formidable Professor Leon Burr Richardson that "Chemistry had at last become a rather important phase of Physics."

This year, as a Senior Fellow, Ed is making a study of portraiture in the ancient coins of the Dartmouth collection. He has learned French and German at Dartmouth and is now studying Greek with Professor Royal Nemiah. He finds time to practice the piano for two or three hours every day and there has been talk of a Webster Hall performance.

Ed, with a family background of lumber and shipping and a love for the out of doors, is a representative product of the Northwest. He has a fine mind, a musical talent and a capacity for hard work - all of which he has exercised at Dartmouth. And that one course he selected in his sophomore year has made a difference: he will go on to graduate school to do work in Greek and Roman Art and Archaeology.

Edward L. Terrace '57