1921
Ralph Loomis has two great regrets: he has never explored Nova Scotia and never paddled the length of the Connecticut by canoe. In 1917 he chose Dartmouth because he wanted to play baseball and to write. Earlier he dreamed of becoming a forest ranger. He failed to make the varsity but, freshman year, he won second prize in a short-story contest and, junior and senior, the Lockwood and Grimes for literary ex- cellence. Professors he recalls with pleasure are: Frank Maloy Anderson, Harry Burton, Doc Griggs, Harold Bruce, Al Foley, and Royal Nemiah. Just out of Yale, Mr. Nemiah told his incredulous class, "I would rather be able to say that I wrote that one poem than have been an Ail-American football player." Ralph has given The Golden Book on Writing to high-school boys glad to be guided by such experts as David Lambuth and Kenneth Allan Robinson.
In World War I he joined the U. S. Field Artillery, Horse Drawn. By chopping wood for the Appalachian Mountain Club and doing carpentry, he earned $650, a tidy fortune, enough to enable him to live a year in Europe (1923-24) like an impoverished prince. As "nursemaid to a cow" on a cattle boat, he was transported free. He bicycled through the Marne Valley and hiked in the Vosges Mountains, where it was fun to get lost in a blizzard and take refuge in the Convent of St. Odile. Back home, carpentry and life insurance proved improper answers to his literary ambitions, partially fulfilled by becoming a newspaper man. In covering the Speer murder case at Mt. Hermon School, Northfield, some 25 years ago (this should interest Herinie McMillan), Ralph scooped metropolitan papers. Literary pursuits in 1967 are: Loomis and Mason Dickinson genealogies involving Emily (1830-1866); books by Amherst authors; the Bible, Walden, and the Rubaiyat; the French and Indian War with emphasis on Washington, Oswego, Fort Duquesne, Ticonderoga, and Niagara, the battle of Quebec and the surrender of Montreal. A disciple of Thoreau and his spartan discipline, Ralph chooses as his favorite quotation, "He chose to be rich by making his wants few."
Busy with German, Russian, and Portuguese, needed by his son David in his dissertation on oceanography, Joe Folger is spurred on by an astute remark of Jerry Lathrop who as Dartmouth Professor of Art has a highly developed appreciation of corporal beauty, "The ocean's bottom is much more interesting than the backside of the moon." But Joe, you remark, is Professor of Spanish. He is also a product of Professor Jones's Russian, Mrs. Korgueff's, and Leo Wiener's (Harvard).
Still representing the Union Pacific Railway, First Security Bank, and Triumph Company, Phez Taylor is also a trustee of the Village of Sun Valley and President of the Sun Valley Water District. In Sun Valley the Janss Corporation is selling off lots ranging from $8000 to $26,000 and estimating that by 1970, 5000 persons will be living there. Interested in Idaho politics, Phez since 1961 has been Assistant Secretary of the State Senate. At a special session of the Senate in 1964 he was appointed a senator for that session. County chairman of the Republican Party, he noted that even though he was absent during the last election, the County went over 100% Republican.
Cory Litchard sold his business interest in Pension Associates, Inc. of Springfield and is heading towards Florida to visit en route his daughter Mary Jo Bergland, married to a neuro-surgeon in Cornell Medical, and another daughter, Mary Lamar, married to a Princeton '48 investment banker in Philadelphia.
For lives insured, insurance sold, premium totals, and production consistence, F. Richard Hill Jr. '47 of Claremont, a career associate of A. T. Hatch Agency of Manchester, representing National Life Insurance Co. of Vermont, has been awarded the life industry's 1966 National Quality Award. And so congratulations are pouring in on our Dick and Gig Hill.
Newc and Pearl Newcomb are incorporators of a Romney for President Club of Bay County, Michigan, with articles filed with the Michigan and Securities Commission in Lansing.
Handy to downtown Boston and to married children, Holbrook (Mass.) will be the future home of Chuck Allen, retiring in June from the Mount Bellingham Methodist Church of Chelsea. Reluctant to accept full retirement, he is seeking part-time employment on a church staff or in visitation work.
Host to many Dartmouth men, Jim Dodge has a colorful brochure about his Squam Lakes Club, Holderness, N. H., offering swimming, canoeing, boating, tennis, a putting green, and golf and riding horses nearby, all to make "living a pleasure and dining an experience." Squam is not far from Crawford Notch, the Old Man of the Mountains, the Flume, and Cannon Mountain with an aerial tramway.
Bill Lies is receiving congratulations for his election to the vice chairmanship of the Board of Trustees of Tift, an old and prominent Baptist women's college, which began its existence as Monroe Female College many years ago. Bill has served three years of his five-year term as trustee. His wife Gladys remarked to their friends how distinguished he looked in his cap, gown, and master's hood as he represented Dartmouth at the inauguration of Dr. Martin as the fifth president of Valdosta State College, coeducational, founded 1906.
Joe Vance cannot forget what happened to him last year. He spent six weeks in the Orient and another week in Hawaii on the way home to rest up. Detroit all winter? No, thank you. Joe pores over maps as winter slows down all Michigan. Sensible birds fly south, and Joe is pluming his wings.
With Pat, aged 16, away at school, Jackand Ruth Hubbell, for the first time in 30 years, live in an empty, house. With no children to worry about, pleased to be free to come and go, Ruth spends her spare time as a decorator. Jack, who never has any spare time, continues to work for Simmons. Without administrative responsibilities, he finds himself challenged on special assignments requiring more travel than before his socalled retirement. At home he is involved in all sorts of civic, community, and public affairs. But they did not hobble him; they merely jack up a Hubbell. He is also' building up overseas travel for a large New York company, Haley Travel, Inc., in which he has a stock interest.
In California, which specializes on health, normality, and relaxation, on TV one may see someone shot, stabbed, or garroted but not a young and healthy man drinking a glass of beer. Consequently Connie Keyes turns away from the screen to read with proper appreciation of irony the novels of John P. Marquand and that brilliant account of European stupidities from 1895 to 1914 in "The Proud Tower" by Barbara Tuchman.
Always candid if inclined to understatement, 1921 cannot be said to be much interested in that city of Blue Earth County, Mankato, even though it is the site of Minnesota State Teachers College and produces superior brick, poultry, cement, flour, leather goods, and dairy products. Its importance for us centers on the fact that it is 41 miles NNE of Fairmont, smaller but more important because for some 45 years BradRichardson has worked for its welfare as superintendent of schools and as general agent for the Equitable Life Assurance Society. He is 1921 plus and signs himself 21½ because he entered in 1919 and was graduated in January 1922. Although he has never been back, he cherishes the hills arid beauty of New Hampshire. Because of his limited stay and of long hours of work to earn money, he remembers the college more vividly than the class. Those of us returning to the 46th may combine the virtues of the microcosmic with the macrocosmic. We may give our concentrated attention to 1921 against the background of lecture halls, the Library, Hopkins Center, Balch Hill, and the White Mountains.
Secretary, Box 925 Hanover, N. H. 03755
12 W. Mystic Ave., Mystic, Conn. 06355 Treasurer,
Bequest Co-chairmen, AND
