1900

The passing away of George Tong has come as a great surprise to the Class. At our 60th he appeared to be one of the physical stalwarts of us oldsters, and good for many years to come. George was one whose friendliness and geniality endeared him to all with whom he came in contact, and always made him a most welcome member of gatherings which he attended. We shall indeed miss him at all future reunions of our class. An obituary appears in another column of this issue of the MAGAZINE.

Alice Proctor, widow of Charles Proctor, left Hanover early in May for California to visit for a time her son Charles and family in Yosemite Park. It must be a very welcome change for her and really helpful in her adjustment to the personal problems which face her on her return to Hanover. The broad valley of the Yosemite, shut in by the high Sierras, made spectacular by the stark granite peaks of Half-Dome and El Capitan, overlooked by Glacier Point, and made scenically beautiful by Nevada, Vernal, Yosemite, and Bridalveil falls cannot help but bring a sense of peace, quietness, and serenity to one who has the privilege of lingering awhile in this beauty spot of America.

Major Mary Morse, daughter of Nat Morse, who has given twenty years of dedicated service to the U. S. Army Medical Corps, reports her transfer from the Wm. Beaumont Army Hospital in El Paso, Tex., to Fort Devens, Mass. She says that she started her career as an Army nurse at Fort Devens, and has now returned to complete her term of service at the place of her first assignment. For Major Mary her twenty years of service have been wonderful years, and have passed all too quickly. She writes that she expects to retire in 1962 from the service, and that she is hopeful of finding a suitable place to live in New Hampshire. Her sister Nancy has spent the summer on the Maine Coast.

Guy Ham's daughter Ruth and her husband have bought a cottage on Cape Cod. For many years Cape Cod has been a sort of vacation mecca for them, and now this cottage will serve the members of the Ham family as a very satisfactory vacation center. Guy Jr.'s younger daughter, Diane, was married not long ago to Paul Weinman and now lives in Binghamton, N. Y. Both of these young people are students at Harum College. A daughter, Suzanne, was born last March to Ruth's daughter, Annette. This is the first girl in the family.

Mrs. William Gaffney, George Tong's daughter, besides her household duties, now finds time for intellectual achievements. She has recently completed at Omaha, "mirabile dictu," a course in Latin, St. Augustine's Confessions, and, the past summer while staying with her daughter, has taken two courses in education at Stanford University. So you see the thirst for knowledge and the desire for self-improvement is sometimes a continuing factor in the lives of individuals. In the "let's-have-fun" rat race which, on the surface at least, seems to be so much a part of modern life, it is refreshing and heartening to find here and there individuals who apparently have fun in undertaking intellectual pursuits. At times during the summer Mrs. Gaffney, with commendable pride and joy,, has performed important services as "baby-sitter." On March 19 a son, Brenden Keith McFarland, was born to her daughter, Betty lean, and this event made George a great-granddad. Betty Jean is now doing graduate work in chemistry at Stanford looking forward to a Ph.D. degree. Her husband, M. Keith McFarland, is deep in electronics research with an aviation company in Palo Alto. Summer found the two boys hard at work: George, Dartmouth '63, with the forest ranger service in Montana, and Edward, Yale '64, as field assistant to a Harvard graduate student — to keep the record straight actually a Yale graduate - engaged in geological research in Maine.

Lena Prouty, widow of Jed Prouty, tells of a trip in the spring to Grand Rapids, Mich., to attend the wedding of her granddaughter. The young lady and her husband, popular on the college campus, are members of the junior class at Hillside College. Times have indeed changed. In our college days a married student was almost as rare as mythical "dodo" bones, and in most colleges of the time marriage was prohibited. Today married students are to be found on most college campuses. Perhaps the sage admonition to the writer of this column by the principal of the academy he attended, "love and books just don't go together," is hopelessly outmoded, a museum piece of the Puritan era.

Arthur Roberts and your secretary have a sort of mutual compact to support each other on most points connected with the state of the nation and the world. I suspect Arthur, from his lofty classical eminence, is a bit more optimistic over the current chaotic situations than am I. He sees the many excesses, brutalities, and injustices of past history such as Rome's decadence, crimes of the Inquisition, and the lurid career of Henry VIII. Admitting these inhumanities to man, I counter with the hoped for fact that in the 20th century we are on a higher level of morality and so expect more of humankind. In some episodes of this era world culture looks pretty thin. After all civilized man is not too far removed in practical morality from his more primitive ancestors. In a word, there seems to be a gap between technical achievements and moral progress with some frightening pictures showing up on the screen.

Secretary, 3 Pleasant St., Hanover, N. H.

Treasurer, 20 Chapel St., Brookline 46, Mass.