The Hanover Scene
THE campus flag is at halfmast on this tristful April Day in tribute to Josh Gilbody, head janitor of the Baker Library since it opened twenty-eight years ago. It is unusual to give such official recognition to a member of the maintenance staff, but Josh was an unusual worker in the vineyard, and a fellow of most excellent fancy.
Joshua Gilbody came to the College staff in 1924, bringing with him powder marks from the British mine pits, a native shrewdness, and a strong Lancashire accent, none of which he ever lost. His supervision of the library building was a marvel, and his conversation a delight, though it called for alert attention if one were to capture all his gems of observation and to translate accurately his Lancashire locutions. His standard third person pronoun, regardless of gender, was "her," and the auditor was left to make snap judgment as to whether the reference was to the Orozco frescoes, the Dean, or the little girl who scrubbed illegible call numbers from the backs of books. "Her can't abide t'fumes of alcohol" might, for example, have applied equally to any of the three.
Soon after Josh was put in charge of the College's largest and most expensive and complicated building, we had the honor of being assigned to a post which made us, in effect, his first assistant. Together we were charged with operating a million and a half dollar establishment with a whole catalog of special requirements as to physical facilities, public obligations, scientific procedures, and vagaries of personnel. Nowhere else in the College were students, officials, staff, and visitors brought into such cozy juxtaposition, and nowhere else was there such a significant focus of Dartmouth's educational stature. We doubt if Josh concerned himself overmuch with educational stature, but he concerned himself deeply with keeping "her" running.
We feel fortunate to have been associated in many joint ventures with Josh: the driving of wasps from the executive hideaway in the Tower; the clearing of often unattractive accumulations from the elevator pit; the removal of bobby pins from thermostats; the discovery and erasure of graffiti of an elementary nature from carrel walls; the enticement of skunks from window wells. In none of these activities could one have sought a more cheerful, ingenious, or cooperative companion. We worked out a special alarm signal, based on a privately discovered structural resonance unknown to posterity, to alert each other for notable instances of fire, panic, barratry, or jammed elevators. This was effective on numerous occasions, though failed miserably the time an errant canine shorted the lowtension clock circuits.
Security considerations preclude detailing pre-F.B.I. activities in and about Baker at Commencement time in 1953, but you may be sure that Josh had everything shipshape. He was, without sentimental obligation, a good and faithful servant of the institution that many of us love, and he served it not blindly, but happily and well. Commenting on a departed great, Josh once said to us: "Her was a good man. You know, her always talked to me as though I could understand English." For our part, we would ask no greater guerdon from any greater guy.
