1952
This is the next to last chance I'll have to get a crack in at you guys about the Alumni Fund. I wish I could inspire you all to give something and beyond that inspire you to give a little more than you think you need to. We're getting a little old for me to try to do this with a plea to the "Old Dartmouth Spirit," and I hope we're all sophisticated enough to know it's a bit more serious than Rah-Rah.
It seems to me it's very important to maintain the privately endowed schools in the struggle of militarism and technology to bury the liberal arts. One of America's most eminent scholars, Prof. Jacques Barzun, has observed that the liberal arts college seems to be dying out because there is no longer a call in our society for the products of its ivied halls. Maybe I'm taking it too personally, but I foresee dire days for a world that has none of us Philosophy or English or Sociology or History majors around to temper the dull edge of a computer-bomb-zip code oriented society. You take away the humanities and we might as well curl up in our ant-hills and shrivel away for all the spice there'll be in living.
I'm sure some day the pendulum will swing back to the job of finding human values and purposes, and when it does there'd better be some steady hands to steer it in the right arc. There'd better be some sound humanitarian thinkers - the kind only a liberal education will spawn. And that's why we'd better support our privately endowed liberal arts colleges. That's why you'd better support yours!
Because I'm a regional agent I got a list from Johnny Klein of people who haven't given since 1957. He asked us agents to see if there were people we knew well on it and to then see what we could do to get them back as participants. I'm sorry to say there were several people I know well on the list and that I was really surprised. I guess you'll know who you are if you read this so please take it as an admonition and see if you can't join the group again.
In the course of my Alumni Funding I had cause to call Ace Lynch out in Pitts-burgh and recruit him as an agent. He resisted a bit but my powers of persuasion won out and so it looks as though the Fund will have a big year - at least from the Pittsburgh area. The Ace is a legal wizard out there and he and his wife, Judy, have a brood of four - including one male heir, Ace was quick to inform me. Wouldn't it be awful if a Lynch and a Pierce and a Blake-more all matriculated at Dartmouth again some year?
Speaking of heirs I would like to note in passing that the rumor I reported way last November was true. Gene and Mary Teevens did have number seven, son number six, Timothy Clark Teevens, born October 7, 1963. And Mary Teevens also informed me that John and Judy Grocutt have produced again; number four, a girl named Jennifer, born March 2, 1964, making three girls and one boy for them.
The other news is pretty scant this month but it's all good. I have a clipping from the Everett, Mass., paper which shows 52's BillVesprini as the Personality of the Week. Bill was named Shift Superintendent of the Body Department at the Fisher Body Plant in Framingham. Bill joined General Motors in 1957, but I remember running into him several times out in Chicago when he was working for one of the steel companies there. I used to see him on the way to classes at the University of Chicago and the clipping tells me he got his Master's Degree there in 1954 as an Industrial Relations major. A Wah-Hoo-Wah for our old football captain now turned captain of industry.
From over in New Jersey I learn that Ted Frankenbach was recently elected president of the board of directors for the Fan-wood, N. J., YMCA. Ted had been on the board for four years, and it looks as though he's going to be plenty busy between those civic duties and his real estate and insurance firm, Pearsall & Frankenbach, Inc.
If I stay around Connecticut long enough I may be able to report first-hand news of all members of the Class. They all seem to be moving here. First of the year ChetWiley and his family moved down to West-port from Massachusetts when Chet's automaking company set up shop somewhere near New Haven. Then a couple of weeks ago who should I hear from but Sherm Baldwin (yes, daughter, there is a Sherm Baldwin) and he informs me he's about to move his family down from Massachusetts. Sherm's working for Colonial Press, a book manufacturer (I almost said a book-maker but I knew you wouldn't believe me) and they've transferred him to the New York office. We're trying to get him up in Connecticut because we feel this Connecticut group is getting a little stodgy.
Once more let me prompt you to give generously to the Alumni Fund and then I'll hie my bleary, sleep-starved head off to bed. Why so bleary? Why so starved for sleep? Oh yes, I almost forgot. The Blakemores of Riverside had a new little stranger drop in on them March 11. We claim her name's Elizabeth, but her sister and two brothers insist that it's Betsy. So if this column (YAWN) sort of (YAWN) trails off at the end (YAWN) for a while you'll... (YAWN) ... (YAWN) ... ZZZZZzzzzz. ...
Secretary, 168 Riverside Ave. Riverside, Conn.
Class Agent, 2295 Chatfield Dr., Cleveland Heights, Ohio
