"Spud" Bray Dies

GEORGE C. BRAY (left), known to many Dartmouth men as "Spud" Bray, the wise and understanding campus inspector until his retirement in 1949, died in Hanover's Mary Hitchcock Memorial Hospital on September 25. He had reached his 90th birthday just eleven days before.

Spud Bray was born in Salem, Mass., in 1874 and left home at 18 to work for the Maine Central Railroad. He saw service in Cuba in the Spanish-American War and worked in New York for several years before coming to Hanover in 1920. He began 29 years of Dartmouth service as janitor of Topliff Hall and then became the College's building inspector and security officer. It is claimed that the students gave him the nickname "Spud" because of his fondness for potato chips.

After his retirement he continued to help the Department of Buildings and Grounds on special occasions, and in more recent years he was on duty at the campus information booth maintained for summer tourists and visitors to the College.

As stated in a tribute in the HanoverGazette, "For generations of Dartmouth men he was 'Spud' and Minnie Laura Buskey, the pretty girl from Montgomery Center, Vt., whom he married in 1905, was 'Aunt Min.' Perhaps, to some extent, the Dartmouth boys took the place of the only son who died in his early teens. Perhaps it was just that Mr. Bray had so much love to give.

"In these last years, particularly after Aunt Min died in 1959, he took an innocent pleasure in knowing himself a Dartmouth tradition. He cherished being remembered by men long graduated; their holiday greetings reached him from all over the world and gave him joy."

Funeral services were held October 5 in St. Thomas Episcopal Church, Hanover, and pallbearers represented the College, the Masons, and Spanish-American War Veterans. Survivors are a sister and a nephew, Raymond Buskey of Hanover.