1939
As usual, this time of year, when you are hanging on your mailboxes awaiting valentines, we like to reminisce over our thirteen Xmas cards and see what changes the year hath wrought.
Alice and Bob Hagge still have four kids - a daughter and three sons - Leigh, the daughter, and sons Woodson, Robin and Cyrus. Still living in Wausau, Wis., we can only assume that Rapid Robert has aged with dignity and the Employer's Mutual of Wausau has done likewise. The kids' pictures reflect maternal handsomeness.
Polly and Bob Cushman sent a sleeping Santa in an Xmas tree ornament. The Haskell Davenports sent the Christ Child selling grapes to a young angel with neither a haggle nor a comment. The Paul Winships sent an angel driving a donkey-pulled cart of prickly holly (still without a scratch or comment). Cordelia and Russ Fette sent Santa relaxing under the eyepiece of what is apparently an artist's concept of the Mt. Palomar observatory staring at ignited Saturn.
Jane and Bill Kent were more ebullient. Janie enclosed a photo of the Kent brood (and they look like Janie because they all have hair) but she indicated the problems of adolescents were aging her and Bill at a more rapid progression than cosmetics could repair.
Glen and Jocko Vincens, who seem to have an annual fixation for Friar Tuck-type monks on their cards, had a skinny and a fat one carrying a Boy Scout wreath this year with no comment.
A card with munchkins arrived from newlywed Colin Churchill with the following quote: "I think you last reported in the MAGAZINE that I was about to be married but that 'you had your fingers crossed.' Uncross them. It did take place, and after six months in Europe I've returned to the cold, hard world." He doesn't state whether the six months in Europe were honeymoon months, or whether the temperature of the newly revisited Earth, or its Rockwell hardness, has anything whatsoever to do with marriage, but at least he wrote, and we're grateful.
Betty and Hank Bagg sent a picture of three camels with some goofy looking riders and a note requesting the whereabouts of a money-tree. "With two in school and two more next year, I'm afraid the Baggs will have to hibernate. Marnie is a senior at the House in the Pines School in Norton (Mass.), and Jon is a freshman at Berwick Academy, Berwick, Me. The twins want to go to Northampton School for Girls next year. Still peddling Ballantines, Supreme, and Paul Masson wines."
One card had a ridiculous picture of Santa balancing a pink tree and a lot of presents on his chin while he picked his way down a rickety dock through a gaily festooned Marina. It was from Patty andRodger Harrison saying, "Since moved to the North Shore (Long Island - not Marblehead) a year ago - see a good many of the boys - Vincens, Coulson, Darby, McClaren, Kuhlke, Jessup - and all their love-lies, of course. Summer picnics, and raising a cup of cheer now and then (bad sentence structure). Jocko is, as you know, majordomo of the N. Y. Dartmouth Club, and he gets kudos for all the hard work. Still at Compton Advertising working on several Seagram accounts. . .
And lastly a Swedish design with Swedish angels and Swedish-fancied reindeer from Jean and Bob Field with a note announcing that they too have joined the age rank kept busy buying schools and colleges with an unexotic existence for the duration - all of which makes me feel that as a class we must be pretty good parents. At least we're going to have educated kids who can remind ma and pa how stupid they are.
There is a cover story in the October issue of "Midwest Industry" - a publication devoted doubtless to industry in the Midwest - giving a short biography of JackSchrage, currently president of Sherwood and Co. - a Kansas City chemical and solvent manufacturer. The article describes Jack's early years in Cincinnati, Ohio, then his struggle through the Du Pont period (this is a struggle?) plus the Army in WW 11, his return to Sherwood and the steady, though rewarding, climb to the top position.
I don't write well enough to sincerely report and reflect the true pride of the Class or its secretary in announcing these business achievements of classmates. They are truly the milestones by which we are judged and for which we fight daily. I have been accused of levity in this reporting. If true, we apologize. It is not intended. But, the impersonal, canned, super-prepared announcements we receive, unaccompanied by honest letters from the recipients of these advancements, leave us no alternative but to salt them with "what-have-yous" as a substitute for palatability in exchange for impersonality. We still congratulate you, Jack. It is merely that time of year to spout forth.
Bill Bachman, a senior vice president of MacManus, Johns and Adams - prominent ad agency, is now also its general manager coordinating foreign and domestic accounts in order to lighten the duties of the other executives in the firm from the press of administrative duties. This information came from a Thermo-Fax of a news blurb via the Alumni Records Office, and I guess explains the preceding paragraph.
We end, then, on a sad note. Red Jensen died Dec. 14, 1961 at his home, 29 Crescent Rd., Longmeadow, Mass. Both Bob Elkins and Tom Brooks wrote immediately and sent paper clippings. Bob wrote that many Dartmouth men were present at the funeral services in the First Church of Christ, Congregational, and that "Dartmouth Undying" was played. It was all pretty much as Red would have wanted it. We received a letter from Red over a year ago with no mention of personal problems - only news of classmates. Sometimes polio hits people who know how to take it. That makes it easier for us who escape it. Wife Rosamond survives, with three sons, Harold 3rd, 18; Peter, 15; Scott, 11; the Polio Foundation will be happy to receive memorial contributions c/o Thomas Ashe, 2585 Boston Rd., North Wilbraham, Mass.
Secretary, 1908 Coolidge Drive Dayton 19, Ohio
Treasurer, 25 Sound View Drive Bay Hills, Long Island, N. Y.
