1937
What is news? It is September already, we have our football ticket applications, and we think back with some regret on the resolutions we made in June to visit some classmates and write to others. Our only excuse is that in a small business vacations interfere ... and we mean other people's vacations.
The news of most general interest to the class is the formal acknowledgment by the College of a gift of $2500 from the Class. This was discussed by your officers in New York last March, and subsequently met with the approval of the Executive Committee. The College has unrestricted use of the income from this fund (which we hope will grow over the years) with the only proviso being that the sons of members of the Class of 1937 who receive scholarship aid be advised that a portion of that aid is derived from the Class of 1937 Scholarship Fund.
Most exotic mail this summer was a postcard from Ethiopia from Bill and Fern Coe, visiting their Peace Corps son, John '62. While we hesitate to quote postcard comments on Peace Corps activities, Bill wrote from Addis Ababa that "we are going to Jemma where John lives and teaches. Last night we saw his musical, for which he wrote a dozen songs, and produced with another Peace Corps member, using kids from his school.... We have been in England, France, Greece, Switzerland, and Ethiopia; next we go to Cairo."
A note from Bob Ewing in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., on a letterhead showing the new home of Ewing Enterprises, Inc., a modern three-story building where Bob is enjoying married bliss in an over-size penthouse. Each morning he has to decide whether to take the elevator to work, or walk downstairs.
Not timely, but certainly news, is the clipping someone sent us of a shapely young lady named Anne Ferguson, daughter of Crawford and Lois Ferguson, who was 1963 New England Junior Ladies Figure Skating champion.
June might be called "run into classmates month." We attended a meeting of the Manchester, N.H., Dartmouth Club when WinTaft was installed as president, and CarlNoyes as vice president. Plans for a '37 gettogether in Hanover at Commencement time did not pan out. Too much to do, too many people, too little time. A number of us had sons graduating, and somewhere in that confused weekend we remember running into Carl Erdman, Dick Sawyer, Bud Butterworth and Al Bryant, who was there to see Al Jr. graduate from Tuck School. There must have been other classmates in Hanover, but we missed them, except for a brief visit with Harry Schultz at his home on Rope Ferry Road.
Living here in New Hampshire, we have followed Col. Don Otis' rise in the Marine Corps with a tinge of envy ... all those faraway places. Now we find that Don, retired after 26 years in the service, and with the world to choose from, has come back to New Hampshire as vice president and administrator of business and finance at the College of Advanced Science at Canaan, N.H. Don will be in charge of buildings, planning and all non-academic administrative affairs of the relatively new college, which had an enrollment of 125 students last year. Don and Ramona will make their home in Canaan, only a short drive from Hanover. Another advocate of the good life in New Hampshire is Jack Kenney who, with his wife Peg, operates the Tamarack Tennis Camp in Franconia. Think of being paid to live in the White Mountains, playing tennis with a bunch of kids all summer, with time off to hike and swim!
Don Otis is not the only one to have academic interests. Recently confirmed as a trustee of Kent State University in Ohio is Donald C. Rowley of Ashtabula, president and publisher of the Rowley newspaper chain in three Ohio counties. Dick Kryder's services on the school board of the Frontier Central District school board received notice in the Hamburg, N.Y., Sun recently. Baccalaureate speaker at Rice University in Texas last June was a Princeton University professor of Religion, Dr. Franklin W. Young. Frank's topic: "Conformed or Transformed." Senator Tom McIntyre observed his thirtieth reunion at The Manlius School in June as the Commencement speaker, and received a citation declaring him to be Manlius Alumnus of the Year. Dr. Chick Koop was graduation speaker at Springside School in Germantown, Pa.
A card from Al Gray in Haworth, N.J., last June reported the sad news of the death of Bob Hahn's wife Marion. At about the same time word came from Hanover that Paul Lefebvre had died of a heart attack at his home in Holyoke, Mass.
Don McKinlay, by the way, received yet another honor from Dartmouth last spring, when he was presented a citation and a replica of the Wentworth Bowl for "distinguished achievement and service to his college and community."
A readable story of a classmate's hobby was printed in The Owl, house organ of the Employers' Group of Insurance Companies, which interviewed Dick Lundsted and reported his thoughts on the 1926 Pierce Arrow roadster he has restored. Why does Dick like to drive old cars? "One reason," he suggests, "is that today I can drive the racy low roadsters of the '30s and the grand opera coupes of the '20s, but in those days I could not afford them."
To end this column on a serious note, let me quote from a note received from EdJones. Ed is an editorial writer on the Baltimore Sun, and as those of you who remember his letter in the Twenty-Five Year Book are aware, Dick has devoted most of his time to a study of the Negro situation and the problems of integration in the Baltimore area. This summer we asked what he thought about "the situation," and Ed replied:
I am so close to the Negro situation . . . that I have lost perspective. I cannot speak in general terms because there are so many problems - or so many aspects of the same problem - and so many variations of what people refer to as "the Negro." There are Negroes you would want as neighbors, and Negroes you would despise. There are the responsible leaders and the irresponsible ones, the violent and the non-violent, the well-motivated and the self-motivated, the wise ones and the incredible bunglers. The emotionalism is well nigh overpowering, and there are white people as well as Negroes who get swept away by the rising tide of hysteria to the point where the extreme position becomes the only position. . . . The only thing I could say which would cover all situations is that the Negro as an American citizen is fully entitled to an equal opportunity, equal treatment, and an equal start in the pursuit of happiness. That is a generalization, and the only one I feel safe in making. When it comes to questions as to methods, motives, when to push hard and how, when to remain adamant and when to compromise, I find myself having to take each focal point of irritation as it comes along, weighing its significance against the goal of improved race relations.
Secretary, Mt. Vernon St., Milford, N.H.
Treasurer, 133 East 79th St., New York 21, N.Y.
