Dartmouth's Boston "Alumnae"

Dartmouth's first and only "alumnae"club, the Boston Dartmouth Women's Club,was voted the status of an official club whenthe Alumni Council met in Cleveland inJanuary, but this could serve as a prime example of a formality, because the club hasbeen recognized - and admired — by theCollege for three decades now. Followingare some of the highlights of the club'sthirty years.

LAST fall, for the first time in 31 years, the Boston Dartmouth Women's Club opened its season without the gracious presence of its founder and moving spirit, Mrs. Frank Ford Hill of Milton. Mrs. Hill had died suddenly, of a heart attack, during the summer.

Back in the winter of 1930, Mrs. Hill was general chairman of a benefit program for the Francis Willard Settlement House of Boston. The event was held at Boston Symphony Hall. Having three sons who were Dartmouth graduates, she knew many wives and mothers of Dartmouth men and she enlisted their aid in her good cause. The affair was such a great success and the association so pleasant, that Mrs. Hill proposed that they form a club and invite all the women of the Dartmouth family to join.

The first meeting was held in the Women's Republican Club on March 25, 1930. Their purpose, then as now, was to promote sociability and friendship among the wives and mothers of Dartmouth men and to support a scholarship fund.

Originally, the scholarship was to provide for the study of international affairs at Geneva. That year, a Dartmouth boy had been one of eight Americans selected to study there. Later, when Geneva lost its significance in world affairs, the scholarship was made an unrestricted one to be used at the discretion of the College.

The first officers were: Mrs. Frank Ford Hill, president; Mrs. Persis Blake, recording secretary; Mrs. Gertrude Pease, corresponding secretary; Mrs. Edward Pike, treasurer; Mrs. Edmund Phinney, press correspondent. It is due to Mrs. Phinney's careful collection of news clippings that much of this present account is possible.

On October 16, 1931, the first regular meeting of the club was held in the reception room of the Old Colony Trust Company. Mr. Allan L. Priddy '15 spoke on "'What the Alumni Are Doing for the College." Mr. Priddy had been chairman of the Alumni Fund and president of the Alumni Council. His wife, Marguerite, was later a very successful president of the Dartmouth Women's Club.

Later that year, Dartmouth College presented a gavel to the club. It was made from the historic Old Pine, immortalized in Richard Hovey's Men of Dartmouth - "the lone pine above her and the loyal sons who love her." Judge Emma Fall Schofield, charter member of the club, and the wife of a Dartmouth man, made the presentation. In one of the most interesting programs of that year, Judge Schofield spoke to the club on The Dartmouth College Case.

There were many great afternoons in those early years. Woodrow Wilson's daughter, Mrs. Francis B. Sayre, returning from a six-month stay in India, spoke to the club. The press clippings show that she predicted eventual self-government for India.

Dartmouth had a fine football team in 1931 and Stanford came to the Harvard Stadium to play Dartmouth. Nowhere in the records of the club is there a single word about who won the game. There is, however, a complete and glowing report of the elaborate reception and dinner given by the club for the wives of the Stanford faculty, who made the trip in great numbers. Mrs. Ray Lyman Wilbur, wife of the Secretary of the Interior in President Hoover's Cabinet, was a guest at the dinner. The Hoovers were both Stanford graduates and the Boston newspapers noted the next morning that Mrs. Herbert Hoover had been invited to the dinner but had declined the invitation of the Dartmouth women. For the next twenty years her husband's party could not win a national election!

Admiral Peary's daughter, Mrs. Edward Stafford, a Dartmouth wife, was a luncheon guest, and speaker, when she returned from a North Pole trip to dedicate a monument to her famous father. Nancy Byrd Turner, noted author, came and read from her own writings, and Marjorie Posselt played the violin on another memorable afternoon. Mrs. Nelson P. Brown, daughter of Dartmouth's great President, William Jewett Tucker, was an early president of the club.

Dances, balls, bazaars, fashion shows, bridge parties, concerts, Mrs. Percy Gleason's hat sales, rummage sales, lectures, filled the social pages and swelled the scholarship fund.

In 1936, Gene Hammett brought his Barbary Coast Orchestra down from Hanover to play for a dinner dance on the Parker House Roof. His mother was president of the club that year. He later became the musical arranger for the Dave Garroway show, the Marines, Vaughan Monroe, and many others.

The Richard Lunts' beautiful daughter Barbara stole the show on a club Hobby Day when, newly returned from Alaska, she told about her life there and shared her wonderful exhibit with the members. This show revealed many of the skills and fine talents of the women of the club.

The club heard speakers who analyzed their writing, prepared them for "Life after Forty," told them how to "keep their husbands," and kept them abreast of the new books.

President John Sloan Dickey, a contemporary in college of many of the members' husbands, was a meeting speaker. He cautioned Dartmouth families not to bring their sons up to feel that they must go to Dartmouth since of course not all of them could make it. Christina Dickey, an honorary member, has been a welcome guest at club meetings.

Bill Cunningham '19 came to speak to the club after several of his trips abroad. He also gave generous support in his writings to many of the club's scholarship projects. Mrs. Cunningham was a guest at a Celebrity Luncheon when Dartmouth wives who had attained distinction on their own were honored. Among the many noted women who were guests that day were Alice Dixon Bond, Marjorie Mills, Judge Schofield, and Mrs. Lloyd Brace.

The Dartmouth Glee Club concerts, sponsored by the Dartmouth Women, always brought capacity audiences of alumni and their families to New England Mutual Hall. Reunions and parties preceded and followed these great scholarship fund boosters.

The twenty-fifth anniversary of the club was observed at a tea at the Women's City Club. The affair was held in the lovely drawing room where Henry Wadsworth Longfellow had married Frances Appleton. It was a capacity affair for members and guests.

The club met in the Bulfinch-designed City Club for several years but parking on Beacon Hill proved to be too much of a problem, and meetings are again held at the Vendome as they had been for may years.

Arrangements are now being made for the annual spring luncheon to be held at the end of April, at the Hotel Vendome. This year the president is Mrs. T. Edwin Andrew Jr., of Andover. Her husband is a member of the Class of 1936, and her father-in-law graduated in 1908. After the luncheon is over, Mrs. Andrew will have the sweetest moment of her term when she presents to a representative of the College the club's annual scholarship check for one thousand dollars.

All present will pause for another moment to remember a great lady, Mrs. Frank Ford Hill. The club she founded is now officially listed among the 126 Dartmouth clubs. We, of course, cannot know what impact has been made on our society by the many young men for whom she helped to make a Dartmouth education possible. But we do know how richly she fulfilled her purpose - "to promote friendship and sociability among the women of the Dartmouth family."

Historian