1899

"K" and May Beal want to thank all the '99ers for the many Holiday greetings received up to the hour when copy for this column had to leave for Hanover - just as 1959 was coming in at the side door, and the Rose Bowl Parade was rolling across the TV screen in the living room.

Within two weeks of your reading this column, another newsletter is planned which will be seen by all '99ers, and not merely by our MAGAZINE subscribers. For this reason most current news items will be deferred until that time. But, regretfully, we do have to report that Eddie Skinner has been sick at home since December 14; Sadie, however, is giving him the best of care, and wrote three weeks later that he was making real progress towards recovery.

Among the holiday greetings mentioned above are some unusual, illustrated ones that we really must share with you. There is the 4-page card from the Jack and Eleanor (Maurice Dickey) Drysdales in Randolph, Vt., with all the family, including young Maurice, Isabel and Ellen, depicted at work and at play; also the annual pictorial report of Jack and Phoebe (Dave Storrs) Stebbins's Ann, Martha, David and John; and there's a view of the big farmhouse in Foxboro, Mass., new home of Bob and Marie (Elmer Barstow) Sharp; and a changed home address for Dick and Genevieve (Louis and Genevieve Benezet) Butterfield, now at 199 Garden St., Farmington, Conn. In business, however, Dick is still head of the West Hartford firm of Nichols and Butterfield. Last December he was elected president of the Connecticut Chapter of the American Institute of Architects. He has previously served as chairman of the national competition Committee of the A.I.A.

From Rutland, Vt., came a picture of Barbara and Howard Douglass's son Walter (grandson of Clarence and Lena Joy), now a freshman at Johns Hopkins; and from Grosse Pointe, Mich, a group of three boys in front of the Arthur and Lois Batten fireplace (John, Frederick, James, — 3 of the 13 grandsons of Tom and Elisabeth Whittier). Then two other views of genuine interest: Montie and Martha Fuller standing on the stone steps of their Thomaston, Conn., home; and the fine old mansion in Pembroke, Mass., as restored by Sam Smith, sent by his sisters, Florence and Stella.

And finally, prize of them all, a complete book of 201 mounted snapshots under the caption, "How we looked fifteen years after." This priceless oblation on the altar of the Goddess of Memory has been donated by its creator, Paul M. Osgood. Those days of June 20-24, 1914, will bring nostalgic thoughts to all surviving Ninety-Niners who gather on next June 12, 13, 14 for our SIXTIETH in Hanover. Paul's book will be there, and Paul himself, we hope, to identify the well-loved characters at that early reunion.

Before, or by, the end of this month (February) everybody will receive a newsletter; it will report recent important news items, and also will outline the events of our June celebration. Then by mid-March everybody will also receive his first opportunity to "Sign Up!" And a few weeks thereafter the handsome '99 Reunion Flag will fly again as it did in 1914 over the portal of Middle Massachusetts.

Secretary, Newbury Rd., Bradford, N. H,

Treasurer, 11 Park View Drive, Worcester 5, Mass.

Bequest Chairman,