1924
Your temporary Class Notes editor was forced to miss the 1924 gathering at Bonnie Oaks over the Princeton game weekend. Only an emergency requiring his presence 1500 miles away could have caused him to skip this best news-gathering event of the year. More than 50 classmates and wives were present. Happily Butts Lamson, "24 Hour Notice" editor, was on hand to fill up a notebook with news of 1924, soon to be divulged in his lively columns.
This leaves the Class Notes compiler in the role of foreign news editor, and fortunately for me three world wandering correspondents have filed dispatches.
Ellen and Robin Robinson (who retired as College Registrar in October) are off on a journey of circumnavigation. By the time this is in print they will be soaking up operas in Munich and Vienna, a process that will last nearly two months. Robin is an authority on operatic work and has conducted radio programs on them for many years. (It has often been noted that mathematics and music are common companions.) Via the Middle East the Robinsons then range through India, Nepal, Thailand, Indonesia, and Australia. During most of February they will be in New Zealand where son Peter, Dartmouth 1954 and his wife are residing while Peter is engaged in geological field work. Embarking from Australia in early March they will visit New Caledonia, Fiji, Samoa, and Hawaii. Finally in April the Robinsons and the crocuses will simultaneously return to Hanover.
Another voyager is Larry Hewes. At this writing he is in Tanzania (consult your Atlas!) for the United Nations Development Program. He will no sooner return to the U.S. than off he goes again to Paris, Rome, and Geneva (where he will be when these notes see print) to prepare a study on Rural Development for the UN Secretariat. Larry spent last spring in India and Ceylon heading up a U.N. mission. In 1967 a similar assignment took him to Ethiopia, Panama, and Mexico. An expedition the previous year had carried him to South Vietnam, and still earlier he was an adviser for two years to Ambassador Bowles in New Delhi. Larry. has domestic concerns as well. Among them is consulting work for PADCO (Planning & Development Collaboration International), a private firm headed by Phil Van Huyck's son Al, Dartmouth 1955. On Larry Hewes' retirement from-. U.S.' Government service last Januay, with a Department of Agriculture Distinguished Service Award in hand, he and his wife Patsy took up residence in a Maryland town house development for "mature" people (i.e. 50 and over). The pace the Heweses maintain casts doubt upon their eligibility for that kind of retreat.
is Mildred and Les Sycamore. When this issue reaches you the Sycamores will be in Haiti where Les is on a six months' tour of duty at the Albert Schweitzer Hospital. Eighty miles from Port-au-Prince in the Artibonite Valley where reside "a quarter million miserable, poverty-stricken . . . descendants from African slaves," the Schweitzer Hospital was founded by Dr. William Mellon, grandson of Andrew. Though unreachable by any but the most primitive transportation and lacking telephone communication with the outside world "the hospital is a modern one and well staffed with outstanding medical men." The natives receive for a few cents the services of eminent surgeons. Les, who for nearly 40 years was head of the radiology department of the Mary Hitchcock Hospital in Hanover, will be the only radiologist on the staff of the Schweitzer Hospital. Mildred will work with the children in the wards and at a neighboring orphanage.
To his friends at Christmas time Les recommends: "Instead of a card we suggest that you write us a letter and enclose balloons, seeds, pretty paper or some small thing that would not tempt inspectors or censors but would be enjoyed by children who have nothing." The Sycamore address until next spring is: Hospital Albert Schweitzer, P.O. Box 2213-B, Port-au-Prince, Haiti.
Further evidence of the Sycamore mobility in retirement is the month they spent this autumn in Hawaii where Les substituted for a friend as radiologist at the Wilcox Memorial Hospital at Lihue, Kauai.
Frank Sheehy writes that he was unable to attend the October meeting of the Class executive committee meeting because of a long convalescence from double pneumonia. He expects to be back to par in a couple of months. We all wish you speedy recovery, Frank!
This is the season in the collective life of 1924 when the changing of residences becomes endemic. Little cards announcing these changes flow to the Class Notes editor from the Alumni Records office at an accelerated rate. The movement they signal is from city to country, from house to apartment, from cold to warm. A few hardy classmates buck the southward drift. One of these, Bill DulBois, we welcome to Vermont this month. In the mainstream are George Anderson and Bob Davidson who now find themselves only a couple of blocks apart in Naples, Fla. Western warmth has been attained by Lula and Harry Holmlund who have joined Jeanette and Charlie French as residents of Green Valley, Ariz. PhilRockford, too, has settled in Arizona.
Acting Secretary, Church St., Norwich, Vt. 05055
Treasurer, New Boston, N. H. 03070
Bequest Co-Chairmen, CHARLES M. FRENCH and HARRY A. HOLMLUND
