1915
Signs of Spring? The Murdock household acquired a parakeet. His name was "Butch"! After three and a half years of happy, serene existence, "Butch" up and laid a batch of eggs. What do we do now? In a New York apartmentl
Seeing Ed Burgum's name in this column recalls to Opie Horton that Ed was a "damfine tutor on a hot June night before a stiff exam." Opie is nothing if not expressive —he says the lure of Florida is hard to resist in mid-winter, but then lists a flock of problems in moving, leans back in his chair and counts his comforts with no problems at all, except in the "muddy paw" season when "I hafta wipe off four spongy feet of a big lummox of a Springer Spaniel several times a day." When he admired a friend's house on the beach, the friend offered to swap with him. Asked why, the friend replied: "How'd you like to look at Long Island Sound 365 days a year, and 366 in i960?" Opie's comments on the train service from the Boston Tea Party ended with: "Hours late - the engineer ran outa string for engine repairs." Never a dull moment, listening to Opie!
Under "Social Chatter" in a Boston newspaper we are advised of the marriage of Joel G. Harris of Westfield, N.J., to Mrs. Doris L. Kappius of Beacon Street on December 26. Some of us had an inkling of this when Joe referred to his "date" at both the Harvard and Princeton games. Their happiness is quite apparent in the accompanying snapshot which Joe obligingly sent us. Joe writes: "Doris lived in California for ten years after her former husband, a Harvard graduate and a well-known doctor in Boston when he joined the Navy, failed to come back from his last flight. She has two lovely daughters, both married, who live out there now. My daughter, Jeanne, is assistant curator of Far Eastern Art at the Nelson Gallery of Art in Kansas City and is going on a round-the-world trip next fall with a close professor friend at the University of Missouri, another girl who has made a real success of her career. It was real fun being with all of you at the Boston Tea Party. If the good Lord permits, you can count on us being there for the big reunion." We'll look forward to seeing you both there, Joe, if not sooner.
Carl Gish had lunch with Harry EUms out in Denver early in the year. Says Harry is in good health and chipper as ever and sent regards to all.
On their European trip with the Griffiths, Jack Bowler says they go first to the island of Majorca and "sit" for about a solid month, then some time in Spain, and then on to England for a month. Jack feels they are quite fortunate to have all their plans made by such experienced world travelers as the Griffiths. "Back on the ball the end of May," says Jack.
I am sorry to have to report the death of a good friend and classmate, Win Davis. Win and I were at Worcester South High and went on to Hanover together. We have pleasant memories of get-togethers with him and Mildred in recent years before they moved to Florida and we all extend our sincere sympathy to Mildred and the family.
The Eben Cloughs and the Chan Fosters got together for Christmas sociabilities and early in January the Patten Chowder Club gathered quite a bunch of the boys to start those famous luncheons off on the right note - including Eben and Chan, Bob Fitts, George Simpson, Dale Barker, Doc O'Hara, teaming up with Warde Wilkins and his gang, plus Saltmarsh and Bart Shepard. Thoughts of Florida seem to permeate the group and both Bob Fitts and George Simpson hinted they were headed in that direction, while Doc O'Hara beamed all over from having just got back from there. Eben says he and Kike Richardson were clearing the decks for their hardy perennial ice fishing trip up North over Washington's Birthday. And Norvie Milmore, backed up by Eben, held the boys in check at the annual gathering of the 101 st U.S. ("Useless"?) Engineers at the Y-D Club in Boston, on January 16.
On February 10, two momentous gatherings were scheduled - an informal dinner of the New York '15 clan at the Dartmouth Club and the annual, Boston Alumni dinner at the Stabler Hilton in the land of the bean. Details later.
Tracy Brownell, out on Long Island, alibisa belated response with the fact that his andhis wife's birthdays come just before Christmas, gumming up their shopping procedures for all three occasions. Tracy keeps busyat his Rockville Centre Village office dailyand twice a month as Secretary to the ZoningBoard of Appeals. The Brownells spent theirvacation late in September at Bonnie Oaksup at Lake Morey. Said they visited Hanoverbut didn't run into anyone they knew —"myown fault for staying away so long," saysTrace.
Dale Barker, Russ Rice and Duze Lounsberry attended the Boston Alumni Fund dinner back in December. Hope it was as stimulating as the New York affair.
Jiggs Donahue gives us quite a dissertationon life in Atlanta and the lack down there offirst hand news of Ivy league events as theyoccur. However, he got quite a kick out ofa Dartmouth luncheon he attended whichcorralled some fifty-odd Dartmouthites, including quite a number of Atlanta undergrads. Says he's sure thankful for the MAGAZINE wonders how the team is doing inhis chosen sport. (At this writing, Jiggs, thehockey team is doing all right!)
The Dale Barkers, visiting his brother in Montclair, teamed up with the Roy Laffertys for a pleasant evening at Helen Rose's home in mid-January. Dale ran into Ralph Grout, who had just returned from a visit in Nevada with his married daughter, and they did a bit of reminiscing - having roomed across the hall from each other in Reed Hall freshman year. Dale and yours truly took advantage of his presence in this area to spend a pleasant luncheon hour at the Dartmouth Club —solving most of the country's problems. It was my pleasure to get a quick gander at some of Jack Ferguson's three-dimension color slides of the Boston Tea Party and they are honeys—these can- did camera shots can be quite startling! We'll all be seeing thera at next year's reunion.
The Stu Hills and the Bill Johnsons, now that they are neighbors in Exeter, N.- H., have become well acquainted - over the bridge table.
Howie Fuller's annual brochure of the Veterans Hospital in Buffalo shows the remarkable growth and expansion of that huge organization. Howie's role is hardly the "fade-away" picture we read about of the old soldier!
Another '15er whose pace has accelerated rapidly since the war is Ralph Sawyer who had a new job tacked on to his many others - Vice President for Research at University of Michigan. A recent Profile of our busy classmate reads like an encyclopedia of physical sciences that has most of us groping, ranging from the Phoenix Atomic Energy Project, which he directed, to "Operation Crossroads" at Bikini Atoll. His new job merely involves coordinating the research entailed in some $23,000,000 grants per year. He did have to drop some other things but is still Dean of the Grad School which now has 5,600 students. Before he quit the Phoenix Project, he made a trip to Formosa to advise the Minister of Education on Nuclear education and then continued on around the world with one-day stops in Hong Kong, Bangkok, New Delhi, Rome and Madrid. Ralph says, by the non-jet planes he flew, it took eighty hours of flying. When he landed in New York, he attended the annual meeting of the American Institute of Physics where he was elected Chairman of the Gov- erning Board. Ralph started his letter: "Bad news first. Two years ago last fall I lost my wife, Martha. She had a heart condition which got progressively worse. Since then, I have been keeping myself occupied with more work, I fear. I am typing this by my own system on Saturday P.M. and you can see that fast and accurate typing is not one of my accomplishments," and winds up with: "I hope to see you and the rest of the Class at the next reunion. In the meantime, I will practice my typing." Just sandwich it in between projects, Ralph!
Don Howe, signing himself as "Vox clamantis in deserto," writes: "I retired last March from Fairmont Foods Co., in Omaha, but remain on the Board of Directors. We took a trip into the South Pacific islands last Spring and now I hope my relative freedom will permit an occasional visit to Hanover which, of course, is a fur piece from the hinterlands." Reunion coming up in '61, Don!
Changes of Address: Harold H. Claflin, retired, Old North Road, Brewster, Mass.; Donaid K. Howe, retired, 103 North 55th St Omaha 32, Nebr.
Joe Harris '15 and his wife Doris at North Scituate Beach, Mass., during last August.
Secretary, 245 Avenue C New York 9, N.Y.
Treasurer, 60 Stevens Rd„ Needham 92, Mass.
