1889

Your secretary desires to express his appreciation of the friendly Yuletide Greetings received from members of our Class family group during the recent Holiday Season.

Elizabeth Chase of New Haven, Conn., talented daughter of our late classmate Reverend Arthur Chase, in a round-robin letter to her friends at Christmas time begins by mentioning happenings that have made her especially aware of the passing of time - for instance, her fiftieth birthday, followed shortly by the 25th anniversary of her coming to Yale University to become a faculty member in its Art Department. She refers to her having been invited to lecture last spring for the Friends of the Salem (North Carolina) Library, during which time she spent a long weekend with her Uncle Howard Roundthaler (her mother's brother) listening to his tales of bygone days in Salem, N. C. There she wandered through the old haunts, visited family friends and renewed contact with friends from her own teaching years in Winston-Salem.

The summer passed with activities centered largely about the Chase family summer cottage at Branford, on Long Island Sound, not far from New Haven. The cottage was occupied in sequence by different members of the family and their friends. Picnics were frequent, and meals at home in the cottage were merry, whether served in "Edna's Snack Bar" (the south porch) or "Oscar's Cocktail Lounge" (east porch) or merely in "Sally's Breakfast Grille" (indoors). Telephone, electricity, hot water, and even a hot shower made Branford living almost as luxurious as that of winter quarters.

In October word came of the sudden death of her Uncle Howard Rondthaler. She represented the Chase family at the funeral, an inspiring and moving occasion, she wrote, honoring a life well lived and well ended - the last of the Rondthalers in Winston-Salem.

Mrs. J. Crewford Hartman - the former Helen Blanchard, daughter of the late Reverend Edward B. Blanchard of our Class, in a letter to your secretary, enclosed a Sunday's calendar of a service in the Riverside Church of New York City, the front page of which was devoted exclusively to a poem by our late distinguished classmate, the Reverend Ozora Stearns Davis. The Riverside Church, where the renowned Harry Emerson Fosdick was former pastor, has been the church home of Mrs. Hartman and her husband since it was built about 25 years ago.

Mrs. Rae V. Comerford (Marion Isabel Blanchard) of Bedford, N. H„ oldest sister of Mrs. Hartman, was '89's "class baby" - the first child of a member of our Class to be born after graduation, a practice long since abandoned. The child received from our Class a silver cup, suitably inscribed. Dartmouth's Class Officers Manual, published in 1956, has this to say under the caption "Class Boy":

The first male child bom to a member of the Class married after graduation may be announced as the "Class Boy." Traditional practice suggests that the Class present the infant with a silver cup or spoon, engraved to record his official status. The only rule to be observed is that the date of marriage shall be following, and not before, graduation of the father.

Secretary, Treasurer and BequestChairman, 108 Mt. Vernon St., Boston 8, Mass.