1927
This is the last call for the Class dinner on June 11, at the Dartmouth Club in New York City. As announced last month, CliffRandall, president of Rotary International, will be there, and will talk about his experiences during the past year, when he has traveled to many of the places which are making headlines in world news, and talked with, the people who are making history. Cliff's message will be of vital interest to all of us, and those of us who can arrange to be in New York at that time are most fortunate. If you have not already announced your intention of being there, drop a line to Francis L. Coulter, c/o St. Louis and San Francisco Railway, 120 Broadway, New York 5, N. Y. There will be room for you.
The weekend of May 1 and 2 was the occasion of the annual ' Class Officers' Weekend in Hanover. The Class of 1927 was represented by Bob Stevens, Larry Scammon, LeeGreenebaum, and your secretary. Les Battin, who had expected to be present, was kept at home by a last minute illness. As usual, this was a most enjoyable and inspiring event. At the moment, I don't have the exact count of attendance, but there were probably somewhat over two hundred officers of classes covering some seventy-five years of the history of the College there. The weekend opened with a reception in College Hall (Commons to us) followed by dinner at Thayer and a meeting of all officers, presided over by your secretary, in his capacity as president of the Secretaries Association, and addressed by Patrick O. Burns '59, chairman of the Judiciary Committee of the Undergraduate Council, for the undergraduates, and by President John Sloan Dickey for the College.
On Saturday morning, all officers again met, in the 1902 Room in Baker Library, then after a short session, the various groups separated into their own meetings which lasted until past noon. The rest of the day was free for any activities we wanted to engage in, with most of us choosing to watch the baseball game with Navy.
The result of these gatherings is that we leave Hanover determined to do a much better job in the year ahead. It's impossible to sit in on these sessions, listening to a large group of men who are dedicated to doing what they can for their own classes and for Dartmouth, without being impressed with the feeling that what you have been doing is much too little. The greatest difficulty is that, at least for me, the meeting comes just before the summer vacation (from preparing the notes for the ALUMNI MAGAZINE, that is), and by the time fall rolls around again, much of the steam has dissipated. You could all help by getting letters to me during the summer, so that in the fall there will be an abundance of news items for this column. With that sort of encouragement, the enthusiasm that was generated by the Class Officers Weekend could easily be regenerated.
I'm indebted to Lyman Milliken for a clipping from the Baltimore Evening Sun, showing Gus and Madge Cummings, resplendent in full evening regalia, attending the opening of the Metropolitan Opera in Baltimore. Lyman also reported that when he and Gladys attended the recent Dartmouth dinner in Washington, they ran into Norm and Ruth Swift, the first time that he had seen Norm since 1927. Lyman is still a colonel in the Dental Corps of the Army Reserve, and expects to retire from that job in about eighteen months.
Another clipping, this one from the San Francisco Examiner, pictures Bill and Elo Abbott, accompanied by Mrs. Victor Bergeron (Mrs. Trader Vic to us), attending the opening of the spring theatre season in San Francisco. From one coast to the other, the members of the Class of 1927 are SUP" porters of the arts.
Those of us who get our exercise lifting a glass should be interested in the news that there are some of us who still indulge in much more strenuous exercise. Again this year, as they have for several years past, Hink and Mary Vietor took part in the show, "Ice Chips of 1959," at the Boston Garden. Never having had the good fortune to see this show, I don't know just what performance in it involves, but it sounds as though it would be much too much for my poor feeble legs to take.
Roy and Lillie Dreher spent a week about the middle of April in Norwich, with side trips to Hanover. While there, they had a chance to visit with two of the 1927 sons who are in college, Bill Long and Bill Mullin.
A welcome letter from Tom Gillespie brings news from the New York area:
You asked what have I been doing and the answer is keeping busy. Some weeks it seems as though I am out three nights in a row and then I feel like falling on my face. Devoted some time last fall to the Capital Gifts Program and so I saw some classmates, such as Bob Stevens, Duke Coulter, Ed Ruth, John Greener, and Joe Russakoff.
Then the Long Island Dartmouth Club invited the Glee Club to sing at Garden City High School. Ted Girault was in charge of ticket sales and persuaded my wife and myself to drive out from Brooklyn. Saw several '27ers there including Rudy Preuss, John Shaw, Art Keleher, John Roe, Frank Amann and Ted Girault. The Glee Culb did an excellent job and Alan Welty's son sang a solo. I told Alan that the son must be the star musician of the family.
About seven years ago I bought a small plot on a hillside up in Connecticut on Lake Candlewood and then had a cottage erected on it. My friends have named the place "Uncle Tom's Cabin." There are no blood hounds around. However the cottage does afford my wife and me considerable pleasure. I enjoy raising a few flowers and enough tomatoes for the taBle. And the swimming is excellent. Connecticut is somewhat more rugged than Brooklyn and it is fun trying to keep up with nature. Just opened the cottage last week-end for '59.
The latest figures that are available on the "Go-o-o Dart-Mouth" competition, which is taking the place of the usual "Green Derby" this year, at the time this is written, show 1927 in last place among our group, which includes 1923 through 1929. With a scoring base of 400, we have just 200 contributors to the Capital Gifts Campaign. Surely we are not going to have fewer than 400 contributors by the end of June. On share points, the other basis for scoring in this competition, we are in last place with 473, with our nearest competitor having 494. This is quite different from the Alumni Fund drives that we are accustomed to, when we were able to come from last place to near first with a last minute spurt, thanks to a few big gifts. In this case, the really big gifts are in and counted, and it is up to all of us to do the most we possibly can between now and the end of June, to show that the members of the Class of 1927 are just as aware as the members of any other class of the tremendous debt that we all owe to Dartmouth. We need everyone's support, and we need support that reflects realistic thinking about the needs of the College and our appraisal of what our own share in meeting these needs should be. It is up to each one of us to meet this challenge.
Have a good summer. Remember the Fall Reunion the weekend of the Brown game, October 2 and 3, and make your plans to be there. Also remember your secretary, and write! See you in the fall.
Secretary, 29150 West River Road Perrysburg, Ohio
Class Agent, 89 Broad St., Boston, Mass.
