1932
Like most people living in the Washington area, we enjoyed the inaugural activities immensely. The television coverage was excellent. We had the day off since commuters would foul up the parade route.
Jim Whiton, with Reynolds and Co. in Morristown, N. J., is "occasionally helpful to the area Planned Parenthood Center. The effort to keep humanity from suffocating itself by sheer numbers seems to me to deserve top priority." Jim, why don't you have them move to Vermont and New Hampshire and eat cake when you run out of bread in New Jersey and New York? Jim continues: "Am also favorable toward the activities and aims of the Foundation of Economic Education. No. 1 avocation is sailing and racing in a 28-foot auxiliary sloop in Lower New York Bay area, and racing a Dyer midget Sunday afternoons through the winter season. One daughter living at home, teaching high school; another married to a Pratt and Whitney engineer at East Hartford, Conn.; a third having a ball as a freshman at the University of Miami."
Dan Gage, with Aetna Casualty in Hartford. Conn., and wife Nell spent a month last summer touring Switzerland, Austria, Italy, Germany, Holland, and England. Recommends Chelsea Flower Show in London in May. Dan's number 1 daughter married with 2½ grandchildren; no. 2 daughter a freshman at Goucher in Baltimore; no. 3, a senior at Mary Burnham in Northampton.
John Croly gives us a full capsule: "After the loss of my wife in August, 1963, following celebration of our 30th anniversary, I was married again on December 5, 1964 to Martha Belknap, widow of my best Tuc- son friend. Have lived in Tucson since 1935, am general manager of a firm handling Hiram Walker liquors and Italian Swiss Colony wines. No children. Like Tucson life is busy, happy, crowded!"
John Swenson tells us: "Have just arrived in Tucson with my wife. We have been, or rather, she has been wintering here for six years. I stay for short periods, then back to cutting granite in those New Hampshire hills though we now have quarries in Maine and Vermont also. Youngest son graduated from Hamilton College in 1963 and in Peace Corps in Africa teaching English to French-speaking natives. Oldest son, Dartmouth '56, has done guidance work, has Master's and now about to go into B.U. doctorate program." I hope that Swenson has caught up with Croly in Tucson!
Come September there's a change in store for Howie Wile. As Administrator of Research at the Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn, a post he took in 1946 when the annual research budget was $576,000, Howie has negotiated $45,000,000 worth of contracts and grants for the Institute in that period — and the annual research budget now stands about $4,500,000. Howie will become Executive Secretary of the Committee on Governmental Relations of the National Association of College and University Business Officers. The Committee, with headquarters in Washington, D. C., serves both educational institutions and the Government with facts, figures, advice, and counsel in areas where mutual interests arise.
Warren S. Hallamore tells us that he is "a public relations director for the state of New Hampshire. Have been running off to Ireland for the past three summers and must soon get out of the Celtic rut although it is a happy land to lose myself in. Get back to Hanover for a football game, a play, a concert now and then; to Boston frequently for meetings and a bit of culture; to New York once in a while for culture only and to Bermuda at the drop of a hat to see long-time friends."
Bill Bennett, in Albany since 1950, has just completed 25 years in the sandpaper business, travels all of the U.S. as sales manager. Bill has one son, a sophomore at Lehigh, and another in prep school. He has carried his weakness for golf through seven relocations since '32: New York, Brooklyn, Boston, Cleveland, Toledo, back to Cleveland, Detroit, and finally Albany. Peripata-theletic?
Sid (N.S.B.) Alexander reports happily: "Still holding down the job of agency manager for Aetna Casualty and Surety Company for state of Florida (Tampa). Been here since 1946 and have no desire or intention of leaving. Wife Billie and I are as happy as if we had good sense. Classmates in vicinity of Clearwater always welcome."
Don Gilmore writes: "Here are the highlights. Same wife. Twice a grandpa by eldest daughter; once by younger. Son is co-captain of Wellesley High gym team and twice as good as his old man at same age. College (which ??) next fall. Am still in advertising - v.p. of Badger. Browning, and Parcher, Boston. Have all my hair and twenty surplus pounds."
Charles Hoiles presents interesting results of some research: "The events of my life in Greenville, Ill., would make for very dull reading. However in browsing through the history of this county, preparatory to our celebration of the sesquicentennial of this town I unearthed a couple of names that might interest one or more of your readers. Eleazar Ripley Wheelock came to Bond County, Illinois Territory in 1812 and set up a distillery (no doubt mixed drinks for the heathen, who were plentiful here then). In 1819 he was hauled into county court for duelling. lohn Ingersoll moved here in 1851 so that his young son Robert (renowned lawyer and agnostic) could study under one Socrates Smith (from Dartmouth), the school master here then. Could there be a connection between this Wheelock and our Dartmouth Wheelock. Can anyone add any details on Socrates Smith?"
I hope you like the post card messages though most of you do not return with that fine capsule note or philosophical observation. Send in your messages, we'll chronicle all this later.
Secretary, 1606 Kenney Drive Falls Church, Va. 22042
Treasurer, 99 Lake Drive W., Wayne, N. J. 07101
