1926
APOLOGIES, first of all, to Walt Granville-Smith, Dick Husband, and any other classmates we inadvertently omitted from the '26 "Who's Who in America" list in our March column. Newspapermen say that the surest way to hear from your readers is to make a stupid or insulting mistake. (That's an idea! We might try it... right in this column!)
LETTERS, WE GET LETTERS... (though not near enough of 'em!) A wonderful long letter from George Borglum, enclosing a copy of the Wayne (Detroit) University magazine. Alongside George's picture appears a write-up about Wayne's $20,000 French laboratory, recently completed. George directed its development and has for many years been interested in the use of audio-visual devices in the teaching of languages.
George's long letter (we wish we had space to print all of it) says in part:
As you may remember, I was one of the first in the class to be married, my wife joining me on the campus for the last semester of that last year. We weren't the first to have a family, but we caught up by having three girls. Two are now married and we have three grandchildren. Since the girls are living here we have the pleasure of regular family reunions.
Upon graduation I went right to teaching French and moved from the University of Omaha to Minnesota, to Yale, Amherst and Russell Sage picking up the Ph.D. at Yale. There was the three-year war interlude when I was in England and France with OWI and attached to the Array then in Washington with the State Department This latter was particularly interesting as I was a member of a small team getting UNESCO into operation, but I feel UNESCO has been a great disappointment.
Most teachers in government, and I among them, were just waiting for an opportunity to get back to.teaching. It came along for me at Wayne State in Detroit in 1946 as head of the French Department, where I have been ever since. As I had worked a lot with pictures and motion pictures during the war it was my ambition to work out techniques of teaching languages with pictures, not drawings, but real documents that create an authentic situation. For this work I had a Fulbright grant and spent a year and a half in France in 1950-51, and have had two grants from the Ford Foundation.
King Dickason writes:
Thursday after Christmas the four of us meaning Irene, daughter Marie and son Dick drove to Tyronza, Ark., and stayed with the Norcross family until Sunday when we returned home. We had a most enjoyable time and our cotton picking classmate rolled out the red carpet, and Heck and I reminisced about various episodes at Dartmouth, as well as current happenings. His oldest son, Bob, is finishing at the University of Arkansas, after having served four years in the Army. Rick is also attending Arkansas U. as a freshman, and their youngest, Bill, is in school at home.
Our daughter who has been out of school a year and a half is working for the old man as decorator in our new suburban store. She enjoys this type of work very much and, needless to say, we were very proud of the fact that the home she decorated in the annual Parade of Homes was awarded first prize. Shorty, who is now almost 16 and slightly over 6 feet, is a sophomore with his heart set on becoming a member of the Dartmouth class of '64.
I noticed in the February issue the help wanted ad on information regarding the class of '26. I did see Jack Strait of Bartlesville last summer. He is one of the executives of Cities Service located in Bartlesville, and seems to be enjoying the best of health.
From Ranny Cox:
"I am frank to say that I don't need to be reminded of my birthdays. They come all too frequently, and my wife has never failed to let one pass without calling my attention to the fact that if not quite an octogenarian, I have most of the physical and mental attributes of one!
A word about my family. I have two sons and a married daughter who lives near us here in Marblehead, along with our 17-months granddaughter.
Our elder son, Guy W. Cox 11, is currently a member of the Class of '61 at college, and I have high hopes that - and I say this advisedly — he will be able to stay in for the requisite four years. He was graduated from Westminster School in Simsbury, Conn., last June cum laude and won his varsity letter each of his last two years in both football and baseball. At the moment he sees the curriculum all too consuming of his time and has not gone- out for any athletics. However, I have hopes that he will change his mind next fall.
I have practiced law in Boston since 1929 with the exception of four years from 1942-1946 when I was in the Air Force, eighteen months of which I spent in North Africa, Sicily, Italy, and England, and was discharged to the reserve as major.
There are only two members of the class other than I living in Marblehead: Joe Batchelder and his family and Chet Morrison, whom we see not too frequently. Steve Weston has a summer place which he rents but is there in the spring and fall before and after the rental season. I guess he is a perennial bachelor.
Dick Husband writes that Richard Jr. '68won the broad jump in Dartmouth freshmantrack meets with Harvard, Yale, Columbia and Brown. Dick himself finished high in themoney in three events of the Tallahassee (Fla.) bowling championships. Dick would appear to be one of the better-preserved '26ers Wonder how many of us, aside from Toe Batchelder, can still break 100 consistently (and honestly) on a legitimate, well-trapped golf course!
Don Robinson writes: - "After 20 years of editing 'The American Press, An Independent Magazine for Home Town Newspapers', I have bought the magazine from its previous owners, and have been busy moving it to an office out in the country, near my home in rural Stanton (N.J.). My work has been so confining over the years that I have found it very difficult to get to Hanover, or even to many football games. But I am hoping to be able to remedy that, in the not-too-distant future."
RANDOM RAMBLINGS
Hub and Det Harwood took an April trip to Laredo, Tex., to visit daughter Georgia . then continued south for two weeks in Mexico. Carl Allen, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, recently addressed the National Installment Credit Conference. The 200th Anniversary Development Fund dinner in Boston was attended by '26-ers:- toe Batchelder, Henry Bixby, Reg and Ethel Hanson, Hub and Det Harwood, Dick Nichols, Don and Dot Nostrand (recently grandparents), Bob and Dot Salinger, Carl Shipper, Hal and Mrs. Herm Trefethen.
In the spring, a not-so-young man's fancy lightly turns to thoughts of Hanover. Do you ever think back to those first balmy, Spring-is-in-the-air evenings at Dartmouth? Blaring records and noisy shouting from every open dorm-window. Noisy, impromptu, exuberant parades. A psychologist would probably ascribe it equally to young blood, pent-up from Hanover's long, ascetic winter... and to subconscious anticipation of warmer, less ascetic evenings to come. Call it what you will. We've since seen the coming of many springs, in many parts of the land. But we've never found spring so mystically stirring, so thrilling all the way through, as those first spring evenings on Hanover Plain.
Secretary, 9301 Hamlin Ave., Evanston, Ill.
Class Agent, 31 Downing St., Hingham, Mass.
