1939
Dear Freshman Theme: My summer vacation was long and laborious. Cocky and I toured the Rockies with all four kids, picking up son Roger after Scout Jamboree at Colorado Springs, spending a while at a ranch in Jackson Hole, and calling on classmates when feasible. In Denver we had a long lunch with Dick Shaw who had just returned from the Republican convention in Chicago. Wife and three of four kids were vacationing in Vermont. Until this spring Dick had been State Republican Chairman for Colorado but he found it too time-consuming and is now devoting full time to his law practice. He has aged well. Still the massive at heart actor, we rehashed his ignominious fall from the burro during our graduation Sachem Oration when he damaged the anthropological museum-piece Indian costume loaned him by Roy Hassrick.
Roy is also a Denverite, has six kids, and is director of a local museum. Dick sees him frequently. I didn't get a chance to.
Art Larkin has been elected a vice president of the General Foods Corporation. Since last October, he has been general manager of the Maxwell House Division and in his new role will continue in the same capacity. Art joined General Foods in 1958 and first served as a marketing manager in the Maxwell House Division. Previously, Art was a director and vice president of the George A. Hormel Company.
Moose Taylor, who has an office in the same building with Dick, is with him for lunch frequently. Moose spans the oil and construction industries, and apparently makes out all right. Denver is quite a place. Ike was there while we were. We didn't connect.
In Sheridan, Wyoming, at 441 Florence Ave. "on the Hill," as the natives say, live Buck Ewing and wife Betsy. We spent an evening with them. Buck, though originally in the class of '38, but a '39er by virtue of a year's sabbatical on a world tour, had news mainly of 68 South Main original classmates Sandy McLeod, Bob Faegre, and "Fuji," currently director of Japan Air Lines. Buck is still a soldier of fortune; a Capt. Easy; a Steve Canyon without Poteet. He loves Wyoming, but decries its slow progress. His avocation is mountain-climbing guide for dude ranchers; recently sold his brickyard business because nobody in Wyoming wants bricks; contemplates moving to Hawaii. He was a Wyoming State Senator for two terms. In the early fifties he was loaned by the State Dept. to the Formosan government for reasons which I momentarily clouded with Cuttysark. He returned with enough aerial maps to paper his entrance hall plus being the recipient of the second highest honor offered by Chiang's Free Chinese government - the Order of Cloud and Banner. To describe this varicolored piece of silk, gold and enamel would be redundant, but suffice to say we can bask in the glory of a classmate's owning same.
Then off to Moline, Ill., for an evening with George Neiley. Here too, wife Ginny and kids were vacationing in Michigan, but ex-salt water sailor George took us for a spin on the Father of Waters which he has learned to accept as a magnificent substitute for Long Island Sound. In fact, George is so entrenched in mid-west life and his job as director of public relations for John Deere that he has forgotten there ever was such an animal as the barnacle. In his travels he sees few '39ers. Herein lies a philosophy: You've simply got to seek them out. People in general and classmates in particular are most open and friendly about that strange phone call that connects dendrites with neurons, lavender with old lace, Sacco with Vanzetti. Try it. You don't even have to retch through the Rockies.
John Boynton's mother-in-law, who is a friend of ours, dropped in to see us this summer and spilled interesting beans about John's and Millie's oldest son who will enter Dartmouth this fall. He is eighteen, on the Ail-American Scholastic Swimming Team, named for three events on the national squad this past year, and plans to major in physics. He has two younger brothers, ages 12 and 5. Father John owns the Boynton Oil Co. in Plainfield, N. J., along with a race horse named Croyden Chimes. All of this seems highly irregular to those of us remembering John as a non-betting, anti-pari-mutuel sort of undergraduate tout, but then we've also gathered that some horses are better investments than some stocks and there is always that liquidation value into dog meat.
The following note was buried with vacation mail and dated August 11: "MoreauBrown, college friend, at airport today on way to Oxford (presumably Ohio) called to say 'Hello' flying back tomorrow. Ann."
Last July in a Life magazine article on our "National Purpose" we were treated to the mustachioed picture of Prof. Charlie Os-good who had advice for us on how to reduce tension with the Russians. Charlie has written a new textbook on experimental psychology from his post as director, University of Illinois Institute of Communications Research, which is an impressive handle for the diagnosis, no doubt, of the wrong number and the dead letter. It is titled "Method and Theory in Experimental Psychology," published by Oxford University Press, and has been reviewed by Prof. Prentice of Swarthmore as "... bringing a fresh breath of air to the central disciplines of experimental psychology."
Ralph Hill has also just had a book published by Harper ($5.95) titled "Yankee Kingdom: Vermont and New Hampshire." One reviewer acclaims it for its honest reportorial job - never overdrawn and nothing overstressed. It sets out to prove that much of the country's leadership stemmed from the Granite and Green Mountain states, and that once upon a time there were two and a quarter million sheep in Vermont!
Mr. and Mrs. Richard Clark Dunham and their three children, David, Diane and Caroy1 Lee, sailed July 21 on the "SS United States" for England where Mr. Dunham is to be stationed at the American Embassy in London for two years as a member of a U. S. Army Research Unit.
We received a memo from the Alumni Records Office last June that Col. Willard Morris had died of heart failure during a minor hernia operation at Munich, Germany, June 3. We wrote Ruth Wade Morris after her return to the U. S. (Temporary address: c/o Col. W. M. Higgins, 1926 Columbia Pike, Apt. 10, Arlington 4, Va.) Their son "Skip" had been admitted to Dartmouth under the Early Decision Plan and expected to matriculate this fall. "We had hopes of his fulfilling his longstanding dream of going to Dartmouth. He is an ardent skier and had been looking forward to enjoying all the things and advantages Willard had told him about for so long. When the sad events of June 3rd changed our lives and dreams so drastically, we had to alter his plans. He has been awarded a principal appointment under the Navy's regular NROTC program - a four-year scholarship at the University of Virginia followed by a regular Navy commission. He will enter there this fall with hopes to study in their foreign affairs school.
"We plan to make our home in the Alexandria, Va., area where we had all been so happy before. It seemed on arrival yesterday with close friends and familiar scenes almost like coming home. Thank you and all of Willard's classmates for your thoughts of us." (Please turn to In Memoriam for additional details.)
Secretary, 1908 Coolidge Drive Dayton 19, Ohio
Treasurer, 15 Meridian PL, Huntington Station, N. Y.
