1916
The Class will learn with regret of the death of one of its illustrious members, Leonard Wakefield Joy, whose death occurred on November 21. The story of his death and of his career will be set forth elsewhere in this or a later issue of the ALUMNI MAGAZINE. On the campus he was known as "Bones," doubtless a reference to Mr. Bones of the Minstrels and in no manner to his physical appearance. He was one of the busiest men in the Class, being Art Editor of the 1916 Aegis and prominent in such organizations as the Mandolin Club, the Orchestra, the Jack-o'-Lantern, the Dramatic Club Orchestra and "The Arts." He was a member of Phi Sigma Kappa and Casque and Gauntlet. The deep sympathy of the Class is extended to his wife, Katharine, his son, Leonard, and his grandchildren.
Mabel Tapley planned to spend the holidays with her daughter, Ruth and then head out to California for a few months. She is pleased as Punch, as the Class will be, at the news that her oldest grandson, Bill Vincent, now in his last year at Andover, has been accepted at Dartmouth on the early admission plan.
John Ames, who has been in the Naval Hospital in Bethesda with a badly broken leg since September 20, sends me many good news items in spite of the fact that he is so confined. Of these I am deeply appreciative. John has never lost his amiable disposition through all this trying time, and writes a cheery letter. Christmas week — as these notes were written, he was allowed to be on crutches without an accompanying corpsman, and he expected to get a walking cast in a couple of weeks, there being no sign of complications in the mending of the bones. Earlier Freddie St. George Smith, who was spending a weekend in Washington, called on John.
Dr. Leslie W. Leavitt, for many years an American educator in the Middle East, spoke on that subject not long ago to the Framingham-Wellesley Branch of the American Association of University Women. Les shared his experience of 44 years of teaching in that area, where, at his retirement, he was the principal of the International College in Beirut. Incidentally his brother Russell's new address is 128 North Adelle, Deland, Fla.
A small party at the Princeton game was a pure delight. Sam and Lou Cutler flew down from Boston to spend the weekend with us. The four of us went with Cliff andSally Gammons to the game. We were seated in the first row right behind the Dartmouth bench and we looked in vain at the half for classmates. Those who were not there missed a fine victory, all too few at Palmer Stadium. The weather was perfect, not a cloud in the sky, the score was perfect, and the victory celebration afterwards was more of the same. All in all a grand weekend, and Sam and Lou have promised to come back next year.
A top-secret document addressed to All '16 Class Officers and Officials of The College on the Hill has been discovered in an Old Fitzgerald bottle and turned over to your secretary. It has to do with the 1957 Yale game, the curious twists of fortune which that game took, and the sudden reverses that baffled players and spectators alike. There seemed to be some metaphysical force at work, something eerie afoot.
The document appears to finger a certain unnamed '16er, who, after getting his Dartmouth degree, by some hook or crook, also received a degree at New Haven. This Dartmouth-Yale personage was found missing from our stands after Dartmouth had assumed a lead at the half, and then had unaccountably lost its fine advantage. Those who were on hand will recall how suddenly, directly the second half was underway, the tides of battle were wholly reversed and how the men in blue with demonic fury — as though fired with 140-proof Old Rocking Chair taken straight on an empty stomach, had risen in their wrath and knocked 22 ears off the Big Green team in that many seconds, and their seven point lead clean off the scoreboard.
Quickly sensing some connection between the disastrous turn of events and the disappearance of the split personality in question a commando group of Roger Evans and the late Lymie Perkins was formed and made a dash for the Yale stands, a knowing gleam in Rog's eye, an Evans trait from way back.
In the meantime the Yales had gone into the lead and the Green was faced with humiliating defeat. For what seemed an eternity there was no sight of our brave commandoes. And then of a sudden there they were coming from the north stands with a figure sandwiched between them, the figure looking as if he had just been waked from a trance, or had found his way out of an impenetrable forest, or something. By this time the Big Green had recovered the ball on a fumble on its 5-yard line, with about a minute left. The moment of Hope and Agony when Souls are tried.
And then, and then —THE BOMB! All the pent-up pressure of twenty tons of silence (so the document estimates it) burst from the south stand in a mighty Wah-Hoo-Wah for Dartmouth! Never in the annals of the game has the recourse to Pass and Prayer paid off more handsomely. Never has an apparently beaten team come to life more convincingly. Something greater than the Atom was in the Bowl that afternoon.
The document makes no claim, but only suggests the influence of this odd character upon the strange sequence of events that dark, dismal, rainy afternoon. It does, however, strongly urge the Class Officers and the College Authorities to make a thorough study of the facts set forth in the document and take the appropriate action.
Secretary, 7 Swarthmore PL, Swarthmore, Pa.
Treasurer, 684 Burr St., Fairfield, Conn.
Bequest Chairman,
