1938
The patio next to the swimming pool of the Ambassador Hotel on Wilshire Boulevard in Los Angeles, Calif., is a nice place to relax anytime. Jane and I went there from New Orleans . . . a food industry convention this time. Checked in only a few hours, we bumped headlong into J. Clark Barrett, resident of the Baltimore Country Club and the spice industry's most charming ambassador-at-large. Clarkie, looking fit and still single, makes all the big food meetings on national account work for McCormick and Co. They tell me his golf is good; he's got the gals agog and is a member of McCormick's Senior Board of Directors.
The last column mentioned you should visit New Orleans in April. This time my advice is to drive the coastal route from Los Angeles to San Francisco, either direction. We went North and did it in a day. You might take two days. In any event, stop at San Simeon to view the Hearst Estate, and don't miss Monterey and Carmel. There is a seventeen-mile drive through the windbeaten cypresses on a winding road that overlooks the calm and silent sea. This does something to you. If you are like me, you'll always say "I'd love to live in Carmel or Monterey." To me, Steinbeck in "Cannery Row" caught the misery of Monterey, but he missed the magnificance. This is nature's nearest approach to tranquility.
Ninety miles south of San Francisco is the Stephinson Corporation. Twenty-eight hundred miles east of this little town of Newman, Calif., home of the Stephinson Corporation, is Brooklyn, N. Y. What's the pitch? Well, Bob Kelley, erstwhile quintuplet of the Hull-Boyle-Wilson-Duffy-Kelley Combo from Poly Prep and erstwhile Marine Flying Major, grew up in Brooklyn, but he's really living out on the green, green range in Sunshine's San Jacquin Valley.
Living isn't the word for it. Loving the world is probably better, and if there ever was a guy . who should, it's Kelley with the Green necktie. We drove to the ranch from San Francisco. In stereotyped mental fashion we anticipated seeing raw wooden buildings and hitching posts, chaps and dust on arrival. But what a contrast we found. The wide open spaces were there with that blue overhead that you don't believe. Land, lots of land, the Kelley's have, but it's fresh, green and rich. You cross two rivers, the San Jacquin and the Merced, both on Kelley's fifteen thousand acres, before you reach the ranch house. You also pass dairy barns and herds and herds of cattle. The Kelley's milk a thousand cows daily. But that ranch house.
Transfer it to Dallas, Westchester, Hyde Park or Minneapolis (and you'd be a jerk if you did) it would be the loveliest home in the area. There were cocktails in the summer house overlooking the swimming pool. We lunched in the big home which captures you with a grace, charm and function that is disarming. You think only of a home that was built for a Hollywood set. Then you see the people and the function and you know it is real.
Bob's wife is a California girl. She is the former Georgette Hatfield. Maybe you met her at the last reunion. She is unaffected, a real person and the daughter of the late George Hatfield, prominent California attorney and official. Georgette and Bob met as officers in the Marines at Cherry Point, N. C. Marriage transferred Bob from a subway to a range rider. The couple has three boys, George, Robert and Bryan. A fourth youngster was to have come along a short time after our visit.
Class officers had their annual meeting in Hanover last week. Bob Stearns, new head agent, Von Pechmann and Scotford held forth for 1938. Scotty has reported details to you in the Pace Setter . . . and such reporting it is. I think he should put out a Pace Setter every week. It appears to me that he needs the practice. The grace in reading it is that it doesn't take long.
Yet, every cad has his virtues. Scotty was nice to tell me that there was a '38 dinner at the Inn to which our classmates invited '38 sons on the campus, undergrads, that is. The old timers were Dr. Bill Mosenthal of Norwich, Lawyer Bob Jones of Lebanon and Scribe Scotford. The undergrads were Dick Ossen '60; John Wilhelm '61; Mike Bliss and Stu Heydt '62. Pat Gorman III '62, was there for the pre-dinner reception and Kent Graham '62, had a Freshman Golf Team match and missed the party.
In news from around the Horn, Mattimore writes that all proceeds well with his clan and employer, Kenyon and Eckhardt. I was told that I just missed him the other day in the New York Dartmouth Club. Matty is spending time on Automobile accounts in Detroit where he and Larry Hull will be getting together.
Don Boyle has made the history books. Gregory (Pappy) Boyington, famed Marine flyer and Medal of Honor winner, writes about being with Don in Japanese prison camps in Truk and Japan in "Baa Baa Black Sheep." Leonard McChesney has been made Secretary of the Great American Insurance Company and the American National Fire Insurance Co. He has been living in San Francisco. Our Class Chairman, the Baron has also been named an Insurance Company Secretary. It is in the Marine Division of Aetna Casualty and Surety Company and Standard Fire Insurance Company with headquarters in Hartford, Conn.
Bob Reno has been re-elected to the Board of Education in Concord, N. H., while Sandy Mills was named First Vice President of the Dartmouth Club of Cleveland. Dick Francis, who told me how to wear a name identification badge so often used at meetings (on the right lapel), has been further recognized for his alertness in other business matters. New England T&T from Maine to Springfield, Mass., where he is Division Sales and Service Manager. Robb Kelley was also promoted in Springfield. He was made Assistant Vice-President of Employers Mutual Casualty Com- pany.
Secretary, 2945 Fairmount Cleveland 18, Ohio
Class Agent, 88 Grovers Ave., Bridgeport 5, Conn.
