1930

Things are looking up, fellows, with a little news to report.

Among our correspondence is a letter from Frank Mitchell, the old Alumni Funder who lives in Haverhill, Mass.:

Thanks for thinking of me. Unfortunately, I haven't any news for you of other members of the Class but I can report a little about myself. Our son Bruce is now a junior at the School of Engineering, Yale University. Efforts to persuade him to go to Dartmouth failed, principally because he preferred a large city college - however, his opinion of Dartmouth seems to have been raised after attending a couple of Yale-Dartmouth football games! Our daughter, Nancy, is now a freshman at Pembroke College, Brown University. Needless to say, these loyalties to the Ivy League may have improved our social standings, but they have had the opposite effect on our financial status! This winter I've been teaching (at least trying to!) a class of bank employees from the area a course in Accounting, under the auspices of the American Institute of Banking.

This was followed by a breezy note from Wilt May down in Greenville, S. C.:

First, thanks for the note and typed too. I like to make you fellow correspondents struggle with my writing. For confirmation merely ask Fred Watson or them whose names I drew for Fund work.

For news, Clara and I are presently having our daughter and two kids, both sons, with us while her husband, fresh out of Uncle's Air Force is getting settled in his new job. Where! Oh where! we know not. Our son relatively fresh (2 months) from a three-year hitch in the Marine Corps. You know, Join the Marines and see the world. He spent the three years on Parris Isle of South Carolina. He is keeping the joint jumping. That only if it be the proper terminology of the day.

For fun, Clara and I work on the flora and fauna of our estate outside Greenville. Traipse to parts as the occasion calls and enjoy ourselves in general. For the public, I am a director of the S. C. Blue Shield, a trustee of the Greenville County United Fund (I like that trustee term), etc. For avocation I run the Southern Worsted Mills plant here and enjoy our success. So far I haven't taken up bowling so come on down and see us.

I think you all will be pleased to learn that Nelson Rockefeller's son Steven has just been awarded the M. Taylor Pyne honor prize for seniors at Princeton. Congratulations to both of you, Nelson.

Jack Childs '09 scooped us last month with his article on Milt McInnes which received wide publicity. If you didn't read the column, tracing Milt's rise, it is worthwhile to look it up.

At about the same time, The Milwaukee Sentinel was featuring a write-up on AlTrostel, president and chairman of the Milwaukee tannery, named after his family which is Wisconsin's largest tannery and one of the major side leather tanneries in the world. This year is particularly significant for Al since it marks his 25th wedding anniversary, his 50th birthday, and the centennial of his firm. It is interesting to note that the annual business of the tannery when he took it over in 1931 fresh from Hanover was equal to about two days at the current rate of production. Because of the scope of his activities, Al travels in his own plane. While having given up many outside activities, he still serves on the board of the Milwaukee University School and is a member of the aviation committee of the Greater Milwaukee Committee. Al is the third generation of the family to head up the company and expects this year to be joined by his son, Albert O. Trostel III, a graduate of Cornell and now serving in the Army Chemical Corps. At the time of the feature article on Al, his company also was sponsoring an art exhibit by Franklin Boggs, artist in residence at Beloit College.

In addition to the son, Al and his wife have three daughters who live with them at 8375 North Range Line Road, Milwaukee.

From out in Elk City, Oklahoma, and Red Rock Ranch, we have a brief note from Ira Thurmond which for its briefness almost equals some of the Vermont natives:

Sorry, but I'm afraid I can't be of any help to you this time. Our whole tribe at some time or another this fall and winter has been laid up with something. Nothing serious, but just enough to keep us out of circulation. I haven't seen any of the Big Green in so long it's pitiful! Am always hoping someone from thataway on the way west will stop by and give us a stay. I'll try to write you a letter later on, but I don't write unless I most generally have somethin' to say!

Speaking of Vermont reminds me that a weekend or two ago was Freshman Fathers Weekend in Hanover and lo, many members of 1930 descended on the town. I'm not sure we have them all but at least I can list off that Jim Dalglish, Shaw Cole, Heinie Garrett, Bud French, Jack Wooster, Freddy Jaspersen, Ev Low, Bill Jessup, Mott Smith and Roily Booma were all in town. Gwennie and I had an opportunity to enjoy talking with Bill Jessup who was waiting for a son and subsequently also met Ev Low and his son, Gil. The Lows have built themselves a new house and now live at 16 Canterbury Lane, Summit, N. J. We understand that Shaw Cole's son is rooming with Bill Jessup's boy and that the third roommate is the son of Forsha Russell '31.

On Thursday of the following week we went up to Hanover for the concert series which featured the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra. During one piece Webster Hall, filled to capacity, had some unusual entertainment when out of one of the dark corners came a bat who swooped lower and lower upon the audience and ultimately finished off by running a slalom through fifteen or twenty upswung violin bows, particularly to the consternation of one violinist, who was not sufficiently a trooper to want to carry on in the face of a bat.

Another brief note came in from Rusty Morrill which said merely, "Only thing out of the routine is that I am just off on a vacation to the West Indies and hope you are the same." I am sorry to report, Rusty, that your hopes are entirely unfulfilled.

In the field of economics we had two men who very properly received public recognition just recently. The first one is Wilson Wright, economist for Procter & Gamble, who in San Francisco held forth before a meeting of the American Management Association that the upturn at midyear was not going to take place. On March 20 in Dallas, a meeting of the National Industrial Conference Board will be held on the subject of

"Financial Outlook" and we note that the first speaker — on the subject of Federal Reserve Policy for 1958 — is J. Brooke Willis, vice president, Savings Banks Trust Company. With such talent in the Class, wouldn't it be a good idea to start a 1930 investment trust?

Maybe that isn't such a silly idea because the very next item concerns Fred Page who among other financial activities is vice president of the Broad Street Investing Corporation, National Investors Corporation and Tri-ontinental Corporation. In his extracurricular activities, Fred has just been made president of the Glen Ridge Country Club in New Jersey.

Here's another financial man, Jack Rich, president of New England Gas & Electric Association, who is being quoted currently in the Wall Street Journal as indicating his sub-sidiary companies have not particularly been affected by the general decline in business because of the well diversified area which they serve.

Everyone in the Class will be sorry to learn of the recent death of John Bishop.

The final note for this month comes from Bob Relyea who writes Wally Blakey, "I very seldom have any news. My oldest son, Richard, who has graduated from Medical College of Virginia, is completing his internship in St. Petersburg, Fla., this year and will start next year on his ophthalmology residency."

Secretary, Reading, Vt.

Class Agent, 1501 River Rd., Wilmington 3, Del.