1935

The Class of 1935 had a nice Yale-game reunion in the tent at Portal One, I guess. I met several of the survivors who were actually in the Bowl and they looked wet and bedraggled two days after the game. Merc Curtis was one, and he displayed that sort of heroic nonchalance you associate with the I-was-with-MacArtHur-at-Corregidor syndrome. Apparently, no one saw anyone else. It was eyes straight ahead or the rain in the brim of your hat poured down your neck. There were quite a number who decided they would learn about the game by electronic rather than visual means. Tickets suddenly became worthless pieces of card board, like old pari-mutuel stubs. Even the New Haven urchins lost their interest and disappeared into limbo chanting a weird refrain: "These tickets are not redeemable."

Merc is still keeping the metropolitan area supplied with America's finest men's slippers and casuals. There is no truth to the rumor that he has now added stadium boots to the line. In some unaccountable way he maintains his home in Eastham (Cape Cod), Mass.; his mercantile head quarters in New York, where wife Marion runs the office. She must be in demand in other areas too, because the family count of grandchildren has now reached nine. Class record?

Other news distilled from recent New York luncheons concerns Charlie Haussermann, Merc's former room-mate, who is reticent with news of himself but who did yeoman work for our 25th Fund. Charlie married Eunice King Anderson in 1956, lives in Old Westbury, L.I., is president of Van Iderstine Co., a rendering firm located in Long Island City. You may have heard of the Apollo missile program contract, involving some S200 million, which Chrysler just landed and which is supposed to recharge the economic batteries of Michigan. Well, Bill Blakeslee, v.p. in charge of defense contracts for Chrysler, is credited with this one. Other salesmen in the class please take note. If Chrysler needs any additional help we'll be glad to supply Dr. Theodore M. Steele, a Springfield native, who was recently elected president of St. Thomas Associates, an international firm of management consultants. Ted got his Ph.D. from Columbia in 1949 and has had a very distinguished record of business, academic, and civic service ever since. In any event, Dero Sannders, now senior editor of Forbes Magazine, will undoubtedly be writing up this Chrysler coup in detail.

Chemical tycoon Frank Cornwell, who had a brief immunization to the paper box business as quondam sales manager for Alton Boxboard, returned to his first love, Monsanto Chemical Co., some years ago. His faith has now been rewarded by a significant promotion to regional v.p. of the company, coupled with a move from St. Louis to New York. He was welcomed into these hallowed precincts of McCarty and Bankart, themselves from Texas and Massachusetts respectively, by our regular class luncheon at the Dartmouth Club yesterday. If anyone knows of a New York apartment suitable and available for sublease to a vice president of Monsanto, please communicate with Cornwell. Credit is guaranteed.

Remember the "easy rut of suburbia" I called to your attention last month? RalphLazarus must have been reading the column. On October 16 he came out with a blast in which he was quoted by the New York press as saying in a speech before the Better Business Bureau that the "economic ghetto" of the suburbs must be reshaped or the American child would grow up missing "the experience of being brought up as an American." Do not expect our sons and daughters, he continued, "to walk straight out of a social incubator and cope with a world of national and international conflict." Verbum suburbibus?

One member of the class who seems to be coping with the world quite adequately is described as "able, affable" Dave Williams, vice president of the National Bank of Detroit. A summer issue of "Bankers Monthly" had an impressive full page picture of Dave on its glossy front cover and a write-up inside covering his recent election as president of the Financial Analysts Federation.

Another prominent middle-westerner was written up in the public prints not long ago when a picture and profile of Jim Oughton appeared in the Kankakee Daily Journal. Jim continues as administrator of the Keeley Institute in Dwight, Ill. With four daughters it is not surprising that Jim writes: "Much of my traveling these days is to and from girls' schools for graduation. Jane and I just returned from Washington where we had attended Carol's graduation from Madeira School. Next year she starts at Briarcliff College in Briarcliff, N.Y. Diana is now at the University of Munich. ... Next fall she returns to Bryn Mawr. ..." Number three daughter, Pamela, is now at Madeira and Deb is the only one left at home. Last spring Jim sneaked off to visit Diana in Italy. "My scholarly daughter kept me in museums and galleries all the time (obviously the worst place in the world to look for Dartmouth men)." Jim is the third generation of his family to be associated with the Keeley Institute, which was founded by his grandfather and Dr. Leslie E. Keeley, a physician interested in the medical treatment of alcoholism. In the years since 1935, when he took over as administrator of the institute at the death of his father, Jim has become internationally known for his efforts in the fight against alcoholism, serving on innumerable boards both industrial and civic, and serving as adviser to study commissions and other groups interested in the problem. He is also vice president and director of the First National Bank of Dwight, director of the Illinois Valley Ice Cream Company (no rum raisin allowed) and the Dwight Industrial Association, as well as being active in real estate and agricultural affairs in the area.

In spite of the claims of the Federal Trade Commission that safflower oil was the bunk and calories do count, I have learned from Earl Arthurs that Bud Childs is "down to 180" thanks to this very denigrated regimen. Earl continued, "I can't imagine what Bud would look like at 180." It's likely that Bud had to reduce because he couldn't get be- hind the wheel of one of those old cars that he delights in restoring. Earl concludes, "I keep hoping some of the boys will come by Charlotte (N. C.) enroute to or from Florida." Be on notice, Earl, I get as close as Roanoke Rapids occasionally.

Two publications of class interest have recently crossed my desk, as the saying goes. One is a reprint of an article by SidDiamond in the Journal of Marketing on protection of trademarks. Just as you might lose your wife by letting her become a generic term, you can also lose a valued trademark if the public begins to associate it with a product and not necessarily your product. As a result you can take aspirin other than Bayer's, but if you Kleenex your nose you'll have to use Kimberley Clark's or there will be hell to pay.

Secretary, Hog Hill Road Chappaqua, N.Y.

Treasurer, 305 Grosse Pointe Blvd. Grosse Pointe Farms, Mich.