1933

Kinda looks as though we started something with this "first '33 grandfather contest." From Texas (where else?) comes a challenge to Bob Taylor's claim to the title. Ben Barbee, Abilene, Texas, proudly claims a granddaughter, Melinda Bar bee, born on July 4. 1953 followed by a grandson, John Barbee, on November 24, 1954 - a full year before Bob's grandson. Ben has two more grandchildren for a total of four. Can anyone beat his earliest date or his total? Step up, proud grandpappies, and assert your rights.

Now comes a story we've all been awaiting Pete Hart, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Near East Affairs - a climb, in less than nineteen years, from the bottom of the foreign service classification ladder to the top echelon as one of the youngest career officers with ambassador rank. Pete's appointment was not political but based on recognition of his diplomatic ability. After majoring in government at Dartmouth and receiving his Master's degree at Harvard, he spent three years in graduate work in international relations. Pete's appointment as a foreign service officer in 1938 found him in Vienna, five months subsequent to Hitler's invasion. After serving at several posts in South America, he was assigned to Cairo in the middle of WW II. A few months later, he was sent to Dhahran in Saudi Arabia where he opened a consulate. En route to that post, he was taken ill and sent to an Army hospital in Cairo where he met Jane Smiley of Ithaca, N. Y., and an agent for the Office of Strategic Services. Romance and marriage ensued.

In the next 12 years, Pete held assignments in the Middle East and at the State Department in Washington, At the height of the Suez crisis in 1957, he was counselor of the U. S. Embassy in Cairo and given the additional assignment of evacuating some 2,000 Americans, including his own family, which went to Naples but rejoined him in two weeks.

You will recall that, shortly before Reunion last year, Pete was named U. S. ambassador to Jordan. For 40 days, he held that rank, but never did assume the office. He was virtually "a man without a country" as a result of Jordan's merging with Iraq almost simultaneously with his appointment. Seven months later, he assumed his present post, after having been minister to Syria. Where he found the time to master French, Portuguese, German and Arabic, only he knows. He has been described as a man with a "piercing intellect and a reservoir of patience."

Our class is not without its unofficial "ambassadors," either. Bob Cox, of Glee Club and McKeesport, Penna., fame, while vacationing in Florida right after Castro had taken over in Cuba, flew to Havana "to see what was happening." In his capacity as newspaper and radio station owner, he hired an interpreter and was one of the few Americans to enter La Cabana fortress to interview Castro's political prisoners. Bob had been in Cuba in 1956 and had found people oppressed and afraid to talk — quite a contrast from the open and friendly reception he found on this visit. He found the prisoners being treated most fairly and anticipating fair trials. He was told that the dangers from Communism were negligible since Cuba is basically Catholic and "Catholicism and Communism do not mix." It is his impression that "the Cubans are now a happy people, ready to be our friends and allies, if we will just show them some brotherly love in this time of need."

From Jack Manchester, attending a School Administrator's Convention in Atlantic City as a member of the Hanover School Board, comes word of our other Bob Cox (middle name Trask from Los Angeles). Jack reports that Bob has just been chosen to be a member of a jury of architects to select the best school building plans and ideas of the past year - "quite an honor to be selected for this board from all the architects in the country." Bob's son apparently is headed for Harvard next year.

Saw John Meek at Carnival and shared with him his parental pride in the first place trophy his son had won that day at the ski meet at Sunapee. John was not on crutches this time and parted our company with a spark in his eye to take a picture of the Carnival queen.

Thanks to Bob Fox, we have news from Warren Braley and Ted Monahan. Warren says, "the Braeburn sign hangs beside N. Y. route #203 for those of you who may travel it between Connecticut and Albany." He reports that they have stayed in one place for ten years and "play nursemaid to a mess of machinery, 75 cows and assorted calves, heifers and bulls." The Braleys are quite active in their church and several farm organizations. Saw the Swede Bransons, who stopped in on their return from the American Heart Association Convention in San Francisco in October - Swede busy as ever running a hospital and keeping Concord. N. H., healthy. Warren reports that another article by Stan Zebrowski, our deceased classmate, appeared in a recent issue of "Your Health." Also says a fall issue of the "Rural New Yorker" carried a lead article on "the tremendous dairy operation of the Davis family at Sterling, Mass." That's our GeorgeDavis. Warren says, "It is far enough advanced so that most Northeastern farming looks antiquated by comparison."

Ted Monahan devotes his note to Harv Wood, vice-president of United Parcel Service, Inc., in charge of its entire operations in Philadelphia. Harv's wife Claire, an ardent Dartmouth rooter, is trying her best to influence her two top-notch basketball-playing sons toward Hanover. Their daughter, Ginny, was married on December 26 last in Jenkintown, Penna., to Carl Mayer and plans to continue her studies with her husband at Baldwin-Wallace.

George and Ray Theriault have just announced the engagement of their daughter Marcia to Rene Remi Chappaz of Faverges, France. Marcia, a 1957 graduate of Hood College, held an assistantship in the Lycee of Morlaix in Brittany and is now in a similar capacity at the College de Voiron in Isere, France. Her fiance is a student at the University of Grenoble.

The appointment of Jack Hunley, Hamburg, N. Y., as Superintendent of Labor and Transportation at the Buffalo plant of Republic Steel Corporation, was announced in January. Jack joined Republic in 1936 as an industrial engineer and has been with that organization ever since, except for military service in the Infantry during WW II when he was awarded the Bronze Star and Legion of Merit.

We have a report of Van Collins, president of N. Y. State Teachers College at Albany and an active lay leader in the Episcopal Church, leading a conference discussion of church school workers in Albany. The Institute of Military Law announced the election of Commander Gay E. Milius Jr. as president of that organization.

Now for new addresses:

Chaplain Paul D. Collins, St. Mary's Convent, Peekskill, N. Y.; Douglas B. Field, Sterling School, Craftsbury Common, Vt.; Alfred J. Jennings, 112 Old Mill Road, Fairfield, Conn.; Frank W. Sturm, c/o Merritt-Chapman and Scott, Box 209, Monticello, N. Y.; Charles S. Schell Jr.. 8016 Roanoke St., Philadelphia 18, Pa.; Dr. Douglas H. Stanton, 15 River Oaks Village, Abilene, Texas.

Discussing plans for the Capital Gifts Campaign in Hartford, Conn., at a recent meeting are:(left to right) Paul Sanderson '52, Joseph L. Swensson '34, and George A. Rayner '19.

Secretary, 80 Mooreland Rd. Melrose 76, Mass.

Class Agent, 31 Milk St., Boston, Mass.