1937
It is deadline time again, but thanks to you and your thoughtful communications, I shall not be found wanting by our managing editor. During the past month I have suffered from what the medicos euphemistically call lower-back pain and I assure you each day that brought a letter improved my disposition immeasurably. Keep the mail flowing and I shall soon make it from the office to Grand Central on wings rather than sheer will power.
One item, of course, is ready-tailored each month — 20th Reunion June 13, 14 and 15. Make your plans firm to be there. I just checked in with Chairman Carl Ray tonight and his message to all of you is that "all our plans go swimmingly." Carl just got back from Europe and is now ready to plunge ahead to wrap all details up tightly to make this our best Reunion ever. I have talked with Paul Dickson and we trust that when you read these notes you will have evidence of progress on another front, namely: the preparation of a new Class Directory which we, under Paul's able stewardship, should have ready for Reunion distribution. You can help this project no end by returning promptly the data card you receive.
And so to the names that make news this month. I think you will agree after perusing the photo which appears elsewhere in this section that honors for headlines are due Eric "Gramps" Rafter. A class and the lives it touches cover many years. Eric is now Gramps; yet others of us have only recently reported new births of our own. Others, like Uncle Joe Kiernan, are yet to be heard from. But for now, the congratulations belong to Mr. Rafter. Eric, incidentally, is an attorney in Hermosa Beach, Calif. He tells me, and I shall follow up on this, that Hal Evans is reportedly the official Class Grandfather. Eric was out in Honolulu last April and visited with Bill Stuart '38, his roomie of twenty years back.
Via an impressive General Mills envelope, bearing a postal indicia of the hard-sell variety ("BREAD is good for you"), I received a long letter from Bill Cash who has recently won reprieve after a year and a half in personnel work and moved up in General Mills as Director of Marketing for their baking mixes. Bill has been with General Mills for twenty years, so I guess he's been pretty well groomed for his new job. None of that sub-liminal stuff for Cash. He was always a hard-sell boy, but smooth, you know, like those mixes. He and Nancy have three daughters — a teenager, an almost teenager, and a third who can't wait to be one. The Cashes moved to Minneapolis' exurbia about a year ago and they now know the tyranny of chauffeuring children and trimming well-fed lawns. General Mills, however, is moving its executive offices out Bill's way (he gave them the hard-sell via the personnel dept.) so his office commuting will be about as easy as his senior year (he had it made at the end of his junior year). Bill is engaged on one project whose relative enormity intrigues me: "I'm involved with several others in an ambitious venture of building a new country club right near our house. In two years we have constructed a championship 18-hole golf course, a lovely club house, a colossal swimming pool, sizeable stables and a few tennis courts." This is not the type of community facility that the men in the neighborhood work on after hours. Rather, Bill's training under Bialla, as an agent for the Alumni Fund, will stand him in good stead.
Bill plays a bit of squash with Pete Ffolliott who is in the printing business in Minneapolis. Pete and Tudie have youngsters ranging from fourteen to three, including twins, five and a half. I also learn that WallyFisher continues a successful career with Northwestern National Life. Cash also has occasional correspondence with Don Chisholm in Duluth and Collie MacCarty in Rochester. Also used to see Dr. Rusty Fortier when he was at the University of Minnesota. Our only other '37er in hailing distance up there is Jack Hopwood in Winnipeg, another successful "Life" man. Jack has a strapping family of four boys - all with hair yet. Cash has only one complaint about Hop: he won't call his friends when he gets to Minneapolis for fear he'll get stuck with a dinner check. At the same time he's reluctant to accept an invitation from the Cashes because he's a bit tired of the fare - "BREAD is good for you." So much for the jolly Northwest.
Art Ruggles has sent me a late flash announcing his appointment by the Director of Admissions of the Air Force Academy as Liaison Officer for Franklin and Hampshire Counties in Massachusetts. Ruggles described it as a spare-time, all glory - no pay job for a Major in the Reserves. Stan Berenson, one of our members of the legal profession, practicing in Boston, sent me a note containing several items of interest. He reports that StanLappin has recently been promoted to a key position at Filene's in Boston, that of Division Merchandise Manager. Stan also made a trip with his family to New York last year and stayed at the Essex House where he was well received by host, Jerry Golding, who is President of that famed hostelry. Stan and his wife have two children, a daughter twelve and a son ten, who breathes and dreams Dartmouth.
Again from the legal profession, DickCooper dropped me a line from Rochester, N. H., from which vantage point he is eagerly anticipating Reunion. Dick, as you know, is a member of the Republican National Committee which just about now is bestirring itself to face the election wars of this fall. He and Tom McIntyre meet from time to time in connection with their radio business and Dick also sees Will Brown at meetings of the Directors of the Forestry Society. Through mutual newspaper acquaintances he also keeps tabs on Bill Rotch and last summer got in some golf with long-hitter Duke Clark over in Keene. The Coopers have two children, Candy, thirteen, and Randy, eleven, whose various activities keep the family stirring. Whenever Dick finds things slow in the law, he still has plenty to occupy his time what with his political activities, attendance at Naval Reserve meetings and as a bank director and vice-president of the Chamber of Commerce.
I had a nice note from John Emerson who is Vice President of the Mary A. Burnham School in Northampton, a job which keeps him busy, what with an overflow school attendance complicated by a growing waiting list. Nonetheless, John does find some time to dabble in other things since he and his brother Galo '35, are in the candy business "on the side." They put out Putnam Pantry Candies (Route 1, Dan vers, Mass.) and are about to open a new shop on the opposite side of the highway. John gets to New York on business and pleasure quite often and as of the end of February he was off to Montego Bay for a couple of weeks.
I am running out of space with still a couple of letters to go. These I will hold for next month and close with a couple of items from the press. Al Bryant has been named Assistant Sales Manager of one of the units of Columbian Carbon Co. Hank Pierce of General Electric, Bloomfield, N. J., plant has been named Chairman of the 1958 Red Cross fund campaign in Bloomfield. Hank and his wife have three children. And a final note: Herb and Beth Levine, to judge from an almost monthly flow of press clips, are still doing great things as designers of distinctive footwear for women.
Incidentally, we're lucky to have news this month since I left these notes on my N. Y. Central commuter train. Retrieved them from "Lost and Found." That's all for now.
Eric Rafter '37 with his napping grandson, Wesley W. Fausett of Center, Texas.
Dave Camerer '37, former Big Green football star, had his first novel, "The Damned Wear Wings," published by Doubleday on Feb. 20. The story takes place in Italy during World War II. He has written several sports books, has done newspaper and magazine work, and now writes a radio sports show for CBS.
Secretary, 869 Hardscrabble Rd. Chappaqua, N. Y.
Treasurer, 17 High Street, Greenfield, Mass.
