Dr. Warren Adams '85 Is Now Oldest Graduate

DR. WARREN S. ADAMS '85 of 580 Park Avenue, New York City, who will be 96 years old on November 4, is now Dartmouth's oldest living graduate. He assumed that patriarchal role in the alumni body upon the death of Franklin N. Newell '84 of Springfield, Mass., who died July 17 at the age of 98.

Dr. Adams may take his Dartmouth honor with some reluctance. An article about him in The New Yorker last year quoted him as saying: "Never kept up my alumni connections. It seemed so silly.

... My young friends make life worth living for me now."

Dr. Adams retired from a very active medical career 25 years ago and has since kept himself young with his hobbies of book-binding and oil painting. Up to last year he was still playing golf. Summers he is busy painting at his studio in Little Boars Head, New Hampshire, and winters he moves to his house in Palm Beach, where he doesn't think much of the scenery and prefers to do still lifes. His book-binding has been expert enough to be exhibited at the Grolier Club and, some years ago, at the San Francisco Fair.

After graduating from Dartmouth in 1885, Dr. Adams taught Latin and Greek at St. John's School, Ossining, N. Y., but later decided to become a doctor. He took his medical degree at New York University in 1897 and became connected with Bellevue Hospital to begin a successful professional career. Dr. Adams has been a widower for some years.

His longevity can possibly be attributed to the simple regimen he has set for himself. "I've always kept thin," he told TheNew Yorker. "I long ago set a weight of 176 pounds for myself, and I haven't fluct uated more than five pounds either way for sixty years. I eat very little butter, no fats, only skim milk, and never eat meat and potatoes at the same time. The proteins and the carbohydrates don't combine well. Beef with milk is bad. On drinks I've done as I pleased."

Behind Dr. Adams as Dartmouth's oldest living graduates (with their birthdays given) come Edwin H. Allen '85, April 16, 1864; Charles B. Warren '91, January 21, 1866; Harry C. Allen '92, May 16, 1866; John L. Clark '88, October 1, 1866; Edmund J. Bugbee '91, December 2, 1866; Perry S. Boynton '90, December 6, 1866; Walter W. Rowe '90, July 2, 1867; Will A. Charles '90, July 16, 1867; and John E. Cassin '94, October 20, 1867.