Dartmouth Helps San Francisco Honor Frost As Native Son
THE late Robert Frost '96 has a special champion in the West in G. William Gahagan '35 who successfully led a campaign to create a permanent memorial to the poet in San Francisco, the poet's birthplace. Mr. Gahagan is executive secretary of the California Friends of Robert Frost, which he founded.
The bas-relief plaque created by sculptor Francis Sedgwick of Los Olivos, Calif., and later cast in New York by the Roman Bronze Works, was unveiled at a special luncheon on March 26, the anniversary of the poet's 90th birthday. More than 150 guests, many of them Dartmouth alumni, were on hand. Sponsors of the event in addition to the Dartmouth College Alumni Association of Northern California and Nevada included similar alumni groups from Harvard and Amherst, the California Historical Society, the Book Club of California, and three San Francisco groups.
William Prescott Frost, grandson of the poet, was on hand to participate in the unveiling of the plaque which the San Francisco Art Commission is considering placing permanently in the Civic Center near the San Francisco Public Library.
The program for the commemorative luncheon, chaired by Mr. Gahagan, included a reading of Frost poems by Dr. James Schevill, director of The Poetry Center at San Francisco State College; a major address entitled "The Campus of Robert Frost" by Dr. Remsen D. Bird President Emeritus of Occidental College (the poet gave the first of the Remsen Bird lectures at Occidental); a recording of the late President Kennedy's remarks at the dedication of the Robert Frost Library at Amherst; and tributes from government and education leaders.
Among the latter was a tribute by President Dickey read by Lee H. Cliff '52, president of the Northern California Alumni Association. Presidents Pusey of Harvard and Plimpton of Amherst also wrote tributes. Amherst was also represented by President Emeritus Alexander Meiklejohn, a resident of nearby Berkeley, who hired Frost for the Amherst faculty in 1916.
The text on the plaque begins "This great poet was born in San Francisco, March 26, 1874. ..." When his father, a Harvard graduate who worked for two San Francisco newspapers, died at the age of 34, young Robert, 11 years old, was taken back to Massachusetts by his mother. Thanks to an energetic and committed Dartmouth man, the poet who belongs to the ages now belongs a bit more personally to the city of his birth and boyhood.
G. William Gahagan '35 (r) with Robert Frost bas-relief sculptor Francis Sedg-wick (l) and Frost's grandson William Prescott Frost with the memorial to thepoet at the luncheon in San Francisco on the anniversary of his 90th birthday.
