1899
Like a spring freshet the news pours in even during a dry summer. A secretary takes new courage. But the news is not always good. Last September Ed Allen left us. June 25 Fod Martin went, three weeks before the secretary's hoped-for visit. And the night of July 30 Herb Rogers departed while he slept. So those nine Ninety-Niners are now seven. Memorials of the last two will appear in this or a subsequent issue.
On my hop-skip-and-jump course from Miami to New England I visited WarrenKendall's daughter Roberta Kennedy with Rolfe and their son Warren Cleaveland K. in Charlotte; Ted Allen and family in Valhalla; in Stamford, Bess, widow of CarlMiller, her daughter Mary Lou Spang, and Bess's Ed Miller '40 and Pat whose four children include Pat Jr., Queen of the 1966 Carnival; in West Cornwall Joe Gannon and daughters Genevieve Read and Frances Danesi, together with Pat Gannon Campbell and one of her five children; N. P. Brown's daughter Charlotte Wentworth was there too; Herb Rogers and daughter Virginia Noyes's family in Springfield; Louis Benezet's daughter Genevieve and her architecthusband Dick Butterfield '30 entertaining Will Hyatt's widow Jessica and librariandaughter Ruth in Farmington. Later there were more chats with Dave Storrs' daughter Phoebe Stebbins and Lillia Musgrove in Hanover; a visit with Paul and Marcella Osgood in Somerville; lunch with Rodney Sanborn in Ossipee, with Hawley Chase in Newport, a day in Worcester with Muriel (Mrs. GusHeywood) and Sadie (Mrs. Ed Skinner), and an afternoon in Plymouth with Eva (Mrs. Guy Speare) and Gertrude (Mrs. Ernest Silver), and real visits in Kittery with JoeHobbs and in Athens with Bert Boston. Five of my journeys were by air after Bill and Janet initiated me by a flight to Nassau, one of them Miami to Atlanta in an hour and a half instead of a day and a half by train. I did not succeed in visiting Montie Fuller's Martha in Florida where she lived with daughter Marcia. Marcia's husband has now died, so Martha has flown to California to live with her other daughter Miriam.
In November, the month of Joe Gannon's ninety-third birthday, we'll say something more about his success in boosting '99's percentage of participation so that we ranked sixth among the Veteran Classes.
Bert Boston of Athens, Me., like Socrates of ancient Athens, has long been a legend. In mid-July I found him nearing 92 years. Relying on a crutch on the right and a cane on the left side he still carried on the legend. Ten hours a day, seven days a week he tends his Gulf station at the end of the bridge. Successful teaching years are now history. He built the new house up the road and his wife Nina, his pupil once at the local Somerset Academy where he both began and ended his career, keeps it clean, shining, and hospitable. Handsome bachelor son Warren keeps 529 miles of Maine roads in top-notch shape. Charming daughter Barbara Harville lives nearby, happily married to Raymond, "that good man," as she calls him, owner of the big sawmill. Their son Allen, his wife and little red-head Laurena and the rest took me to the family camp on the lake for a cook-out. But Bert's and Nina's youngest son and his family of three daughters Darlene, Diane, and Donna were away - "D" for Dartmouth right down to the younger boy Duane. Here's hoping. Earlier Bert and the secretary passed the camera ordeal pre-arranged by the Bangor Daily News for the family; we appeared the next morning as Dartmouth classmates who were seeing each other for the first time in 67 years. Some of you by the courtesy of Dottie Scott and her husband at the local store received copies.
I left Athens with fresh convictions as to the significance of life at Dartmouth, and as to what men with courage, persistence, and good will can make of life anywhere.
Secretary, c/o George Beal, 12 Norfolk Rd. Winchester, Mass. 01890
Treasurer and Bequest Chairman Box 87, W. Cornwall, Conn.
