1927
If someone should come up to me right now and ask for a definition of the word "sadist" I would be able to give it to him without any trouble. It is an editor who sets the deadline for class notes on January 5, which means that they have to be written the day after a long New Year's weekend. If this installment of the history of the Class of 1927 is unusually brief, it won't be for lack of material, but will be the result of a very weary secretary. You have been very generous with cards, notes, and letters over the Christmas season, and you certainly deserve better than you are going to get this time.
One of our last surviving bachelors succumbed on November 5, when Joe Hardin was married, in Coconut Grove, Fla., to Constance B. Mougey of Coconut Grove and Detroit, Mich. Joe and his new bride will reside in Miami, in the home which Joe bought about a year ago, and where the latchstring is always out to 1927 classmates.
Ethan Hitchcock, who is in probably the most specialized business of anyone in the Class, selling shoes by mail to men who have wide feet and consequently have never been able to buy shoes that would fit them, seems to be enjoying life in Hingham, Mass. In the summer, when his business is bad, he spends his time cruising in his 25-foot sloop. In the winter, when his business is presumably good, he seems to spend a lot of his time skiing. Perhaps he has discovered some new system. Hitch spent a little time in New York in the fall with Roy and Lilly Dreher, who had just returned from a trip to Europe, visiting their younger daughter Linda, who is spending a year in France as part of her Hollins College curriculum. He also saw Don McCall at the Yale game. Don was there with his recently married daughter Mimi, after having been up until 4 a. m. getting his son Fent back to some Air Force base in time to catch a plane to Germany and thereby avoid a court-martial for being over leave. The Hitchcocks also spent three days after Christmas with the Salingers at their camp at Waterville Valley, N. H., skiing, and were planning another trip to Steele Hill Inn, again for skiing, over Washington's birthday. I'm sure that he must have a system, or else there are a lot more men than I ever thought there were with wide feet.
A letter from Sam Martin, in Portland, Ore., contains so many references to members of the Class that I will give it all to you. Sam says:
"Am still pursuing my hobby of 'collecting classmates. Last September Johnnie Hough and wife Eleanor drove out to Portland from Boulder, Colo., with their 18-year-old son Jonathan to enter the boy as a freshman at Reed College here, we put them all up at our home for two nights and we had numerous bull-sessions about the old days in Hanover. John has two sons, the elder being at Carleton College at Northfield, Minn. John is Professor of the Classics at the University of Colorado. In October my wife Ellen and I went down to San Francisco for the Dartmouth regional conference, where I was a delegate from Portland. During the three days of the conference I saw and chatted with Bill Abbott, Bo Head, Phil Thompson, RollteHowes, Frank Coulter, Bruce McKennan, and BrugyBruguiere. I imagine that the eight of us were the largest gathering of 1927 men at any time, west or the Mississippi. Also phoned Al Clifton and had a long talk with him. Bill Abbott was chairman or the host committee for the conference and did his job so well that the whole thing went off very smoothly and everyone was regally entertained and very enthusiastic. Bo Head, one of our Alumni Council members, was a delegate from Houston, Texas, and Frank Coulter was a delegate from Los Angeles. Phil Thompson played the piano for the singing at the wind-up banquet and Rollie Howes played the banjo in a very good little alumni orchestra at the cocktail hour on Friday evening. Shades of Barbary Coast! It was all great fun and I enjoyed seeing them all again."
Cliff Randall is currently serving as chairman of the Rotary Foundation Committee. The Rotary Foundation is an activity of Rotary International, set up to finance the Rotary Foundation Fellowships program, which provides grants for one year of study abroad, as Rotary ambassadors of good will, to outstanding college graduates. Since the program was inaugurated in 1947, Rotary fellowships have been granted to more than 700 young men and women from 57 countries for study in 36 countries, with grants averaging $2500 and totaling over $1,750,000. One of the Rotary Fellows this year is Toshio Hirooka of Nishinomiya, Japan, who is attending Tuck School at Dartmouth, studying there for a career in banking management.
Another skiing enthusiast, Jack Andrews, spent Christmas at Mount Mansfield at Stowe. His son Bob is at R. P. I. studying architecture, and his daughter Janet is a sophomore at the University of Massachusetts. The ski trip was, of course, a family affair, and Jack says that the cabin where they stayed has all the modern conveniences, including an outhouse with an electric heater, which they turned on before the necessary trips, though they couldn't do anything about the cold that they had to expose themselves to getting out there.
Bed Williams writes that he and Grace have been "desert rats" since July, when his Marine Corps headquarters moved from Camp Pendleton to Twentynine Palms, Calif. Bed says that if anyone can tell him what Marines are doing in the desert he would like to know.
Much of the news that has come in during the past month concerns sons and daughters of our classmates, particularly appropriate at the holiday season, which is, above all, a family time of year. Bus Turpin's eldest, Miles, after graduating Phi Beta Kappa at California, is now a second lieutenant in the Army. Brownie Freeman's son Clay is one of Eddie Jeremiah's mainstays at defense on the Big Green hockey team. I understand that Charlie Bartlett's son Joe has become engaged, but further details have not yet been forthcoming. Bob Williamson's daughter, who is stationed in Paris with the State Department, flew home to spend Christmas with her family. Cam Clokey's son Don, who graduated from Carleton College last June, is at Union Theological Seminary in New York, starting three years' postgraduate work. His younger son Dick is a sophomore at Williams. Ed Fowler's oldest is now out of the Army, and at home again.
Larry Scammon reports that he has made a fine recovery from the back trouble which laid him low for so many months, a year ago, and is now feeling fine. He is particularly looking forward to the thirtieth reunion a year from next June, as his son Larry Jr. will be graduating from Thayer School at that time. Not many of us are lucky enough to be able to combine our reunion with a son's graduation, but I hope that a lot of us are, like Larry, beginning to make plans for the big event, as the time will be on us before we know it. Somehow, as the years go by, they seem to gather speed, and heavier responsibilities seem to entail more advanced planning.
Theodore A. Girault '27 (r), president of the Dartmouth Alumni Association of Long Island,shown with Ray Truncellito '49, assistant freshman football coach, and Peter Erwin of Treeport High School, who has Dartmouth hopes. Young Erwin is the brother of Hugh Erwm 56.
Secretary, Pine Hill Farm, West River Rd., Perrysburg, Ohio
Treasurer, Box 1927, Pittsburgh 30, Pa.
Bequest Chairman,
