1920
Reunion Feature - Super-Special: Movies of Twenty reunions, ancient and comparatively recent, will have a place of honor in our 35th Reunion program, thanks to Class Agent Stan Newcomer. The reels are ready, and a preview of them is more than reassuring. You will be fascinated to observe how sprightly you and your wife appeared just five short years ago, and you will be hard put to identify the guys and dolls who were posing as Twenty families some 25 years ago. But on each and every occasion this pattern comes through: Those who didn't get there missed an awful lot of fun.
Another pre-reunion gathering took place on April 19 - this time at New York's Dartmouth Club. The encouraging turnout of seventeen Twenties was a testimonial to the promotion provided by Prugh Sigler, PhilGross and Tinker Lombard, and was also an index of mounting interest in the June 11-13 festivities. There's going to be a good turnout. Those who made the dinner - and who were almost unanimous in their reunion-attending intentions - were Roy Davis, George Winter, Newt Nash, John Felli, Pop Birch, Phil Gross, Carl Newton, Rus Keep, Jack Mayer, Prugh Sigler, Lek Willard, George Sackett, Spence Snedecor, Jerry Stone, Lloyd Smith, Dick Pearson, and Ben Ayres, out-of-stater in town on State Mutual business. Master of Ceremonies Sigler relayed to the group hot-off-the-griddle tips on reunion, garnered by phone that very day from Reunion Co-chairman Frank Moulton, Littleton (N. H.) legal light. Particular attention was focussed on two aspects of our coming conclave: dormitory housing in the familiar halls of Hitchcock and North Mass., and the "Vermont Humor" specialty which Al Foley will deliver to an enthralled audience as one of the opening salvoes in the Hanover Holiday program (190 a Room, Dartmouth Hall, Monday night, June 11 — admission free).
Eavesdroppings from the New York dinner.Newt Nash has taken an in-town apartment, right across the street from the Dartmouth Club, so that he can save himself the commuting trip home to Scarsdale when evening functions claim his attention in town. Newt's law firm at 84 William St. is now newly organized as Hill, Betts & Nash Prugh Sigler and Pop Birch are comparatively near neighbors in their respective summer places in Newtown and New Milford, Conn.... CarlNewton has a show-me attitude on the virtues of Monday-Wednesday reunion, but will gladly attend and will gracefully ponder the evidence, in accordance with his legal training The George Sackett-Pete Potter wives (who are sisters) are enthusiastically backing their husbands' reunion interest.... JohnFelli, in a whisper, admits one week's attendance at Bates College in the fall of 1916, in the company of fellow-townsman from Milford. N. H„ Charlie McKenzie. After the week was over, the boys picked up their bags, fled across country to Hanover, and were forthwith admitted on an almost no-questions-asked basis when they presented themselves at the Ad Building.
The above-mentioned Charlie McKenzie had himself quite a fete in Houston, Texas, back in March. As president of Mary Baldwin College (Staunton, Va.) Charlie and his wife appear to have been touring the alumnae outposts; and in Houston, according to the Post, they met with a particularly regal reception. They were dined - and perhaps wined - and the Post referred to Charlie as "a well known writer in the political science field."
Spence Snedecor was barely back from the Middle East in time to attend the affair on 39th St. His Iraquian and Omanian experiences were so absorbing that the secretary begged him to commit at least an outline of them to paper, and the following is the sketchily modest summary which Spence has supplied:
"I went as an orthopedic consultant to visit the hospitals of the Arabian Mission of the Reformed Church of America. Mary and I flew to Amsterdam for a day - then Athens to stay with the President of Athens College for a couple of days - on to Bagdad — to Basra and up to a remote Mission Hospital at Amarah on the Tigris (Iraq).
"Then to hospitals in Kuwait, Bahrein, and Muscat in Oman. The latter on the southeast coast of Arabia is accessible only by boat, three days from Bahrein. We spent a week there in a country still untouched by the march of progress. Only hospital in whole country for 500,000 people is our Mission Hospital. Then, the next boat across the Indian Ocean to Karachi; and then we flew back via Delhi, Bangkok, Hong Kong, Japan and Honolulu.
"At each hospital I examined patients that had been saved for me and then operated on them. Lots of interesting experiences - and Mary is a good trouper. Enough said. See you in June."
The well-known Charles McGoughran (compiler of another glossy and impressive annual report for Sinclair Oil Corporation) regretted that he could not make the New York dinner. "I shall be in Sioux City, lowa," Charlie wrote. "I am going out there to receive an award from the Isaak Walton League on behalf of our company and there is nothing I can do to alter that arrangement." A couple of other good-looking brochures have found their way to 1920's editorial desk. The annual report from Pacific Telephone, where Abe Winslow has for so long been concerned with employees and their welfare, shows that the company has more than 85,000 workers on its payroll and that better than $27,000,000 was paid'out in 1955 for employee benefits of various kinds. Unique in many respects is the 12-page, well illustrated story of the Fortieth Reunion of Boston Latin School's Class of 1916. As previously reported, Paul Richter, secretary of the class, did a husky spark-plugging job for the reunion - and most likely had school and college classmates Hib Richter,Charlie Stevens, and Buttons Hill on hand among the 70% of the active, living members of the Latin class who came back for their 40th. If 1920 could approach any such mark for its 35th, we would easily haul off every award that the College offers its returnees.
Class Treasurer Rog Pope, having attended diligently to the duties of office as successor to the late Roc Elliott, earned himself a vacation and took off with Marjorie for London on April 23. Rog wrote,
"We meet Carroll and Henrietta Swezey in Paris on May 4, and start off to see France, Switzerland, Austria, Munich only in Germany, getting as far into Italy as Rome. All of our kids have been, so it was time for the old folks to shove off. We fly home from Paris on June 9, and so should be seeing you all in Hanover on the 11th."
Subscribers to New Hampshire Profiles had themselves a real bargain in the April issue which presented a piece on "Paul Sample, Artist" by Priscilla Ayers, with a picture of Paul at work in his Hanover studio and reproductions of four of his well-known paintings. Paul is described as "shy when asked to talk about himself." Much more inclined to "talk about duck shooting, or a boxing bout, or his favorite horse, or the latest musical evening at his home." His studio "is everything one might imagine - spacious, light, and cluttered. In addition to painting materials, there are a roll-top desk, an easy chair, books, phonograph, and air conditioner."
Paul's thoughtfulness for Dartmouth takes shape in many quiet ways, the latest being his campus painting which brought springtime Hanover into the home of every alumnus during the Alumni Fund campaign. Already, too, memorials of various kinds are inscribing the names of 1920 members on the permanent Dartmouth record. The H. Sheridan Baketel Scholarship, a joint project of father and son, is slanted toward graduates of Phillips Exeter, which was always one of the Doctor's special interests. Sherry's contributions to it have been liberal. In Hike Newell's memory $2000 went to the College last year without restriction - in part from his widow Elinor, and in part from the advertising firm of Lennen & Newell.
Recent losses to the Class have been heavy. Jim Stark died on January 16, Howard Phinney on March 9, Reuel Phillips on March 28, and Don Rogers on April 20; Sketches of all four will appear in the July issue of the MAGAZINE.
A gathering of the Class of 1920 at the Dartmouth Club in New York City was attended by:Front row (l to r), Sig Sigler, Lloyd Smith, Dick Pearson, Spence Snedecor, George Sackett.Second row, Pop Birch, Roy Davis, Newt Nash, Lek Willard, George Winter. Third row, BenAyres, Phil Gross, Jack Mayer. Fourth row, Rus Keep, Carl Newton, John Felli.
Hal Braman '21 working hard on the next issue of the " '2l Smoker," which he edits.
Secretary, Blind Brook Lodge, Rye 17, N. Y.
Class Agent, Consolidated Paper Co., Monroe, Mich.
