1932
Mark Short has given you Bob Buckley's report on expected reunion attendance in the Newsletter. Apparently our projected attendance correlates positively with our Alumni Fund participation — we don't do as well as our contiguous or same-generation classes. I hope that you can discredit this dismal (and I believe - accurate) opening — by your attendance at the reunion and by your participation in the Alumni Fund.
I have the impression (not backed-up by statistics) that increasing numbers of you have been responding to my post-card requests. For this, I thank you. I have intended to serve primarily as the focal point for brief interchanges of news and views. However, my excursions into encouragement of the development of a credo for a thinking man in his 50's was implicitly discouraged by some. I would suggest that Mark pick up this effort in his Newsletter over the next five or six years where apparently it more properly belongs.
Recently the Washington Post carried a highly sensitive and laudatory article in its Sunday magazine section entitled "The World of Grayson McGuire." You would remember him best as Bob McGuire. He has continued the successful business as an undertaker started by his father, a graduate of Howard University. Space does not permit a description of his family background but one example will exemplify: a maternal forebear ran for mayor of Cleveland a century ago. A quote from the article, "I belong to four minorities. I'm a voteless Washingtonian, a Republican, a Catholic and a Negro." A partial list of his activities demonstrates his social awareness and degree of responsibility in these categories. Bob is chairman of a Selective Service Board, board member and former president of the Washington Urban League; on the executive committee of the Archbishop's Committee on Human Relations and on the boards of the Citizens Crime Commission, the Washington Home Rule Commission and the Citizens Small Business Corporation. He is also on the national board of the Interracial Council for Business Opportunity and on the Model Inner-City Community Organization.
Bob has two sons, one of whom — R. G. McG. III, Dartmouth '58 is working on his Ph.D. at Columbia, and the other, John, who will likely take over the family business. Bob tells me that he hopes to get to our reunion, if time permits.
The Washington Alumni Club was the happy host for the Glee Club on March 31. As usual, the entertainment was outstanding — my unabashed reaction ranged from hilarious laughter to hardly-controlled nostalgic teardrops. Jack Pyles, Joe Fanelli, and Jack McRae were observed enjoying the cocktail party following the concert. In fact, everything was so good that I cannot remember the name of the excellent wine that Mcßae ordered when he had dinner with the little Cappio group, which included Jim '63 and his wife Claire. This is particularly serious as a lapse on my part since the main point was (coincidentally) to celebrate my birthday - one day early.
Our esteemed treasurer, Bob Fendrich, vice president of the Howard Savings Institution in Newark, N. J., says that he and Olive will be at reunion. He spent a couple of December weeks in California, looking at examples of his primary interest - the use of computers in banking.
Jim Callahan says that he plans to attend reunion "that is if I am not in Europe at the time." Try hard, Jim.
Don Marcus reports that he and Billie will be with us in June. He has no news except that he's been to Costa Rica, U. K., and Europe recently.
Dick Beck also hopes to make reunion although he says he has "nothing of moment to report. Same job, same wife, same family and no travel or excitement." I submit that such stability is of moment, if even kinetic.
Dr. "Fritz" Browning writes of the problems of establishing an efficient medical center in Truro, Mass. He has "two children married; grandfather times six; a son in pilot training; a daughter at Wheaton. Helen and I planning on reunion."
Outstanding note received from Dorothy Brown, wife of Dr. Jim: "After much urging and no response, like other wives probably, I am filling in for Jim. Our oldest daughter, Mrs. Stephen Jackson, a registered physiotherapist, graduate of U. of Conn., will be living in St. Louis, where her husband is with Owens-Corning Fiberglass. Sara, the first girl enrolled at Dartmouth Summer School, after graduating from Middlebury, is now getting her BFA this spring, hopes to teach art. Our youngest, Martha, who also attended the summer school, is in her third year of nursing school at the U. of Bridgeport, Conn. Jim is busy with his hunting dogs, and in the summer has a lovely vegetable garden, big enough for all of New London! We hope to get to reunion, bringing along Martha. Sorry to be so slow, but he hates to write." Maybe some other wives of reluctant writers will follow suit.
From Clearwater, Sid Alexander sends his regrets: "Sorry I can't be with 'you all' (transplanted yankee talk) at the 35th. Came to Florida in 1946 after WW II with Aetna Casualty and Surety Division of Aetna Life and Casualty. Wife Billie and I have become two lovers of Florida — it's the greatest. Come see us!"
Lee Potter sends news even if he can't schedule his company meetings very well: "Vice president, Allyn and Bacon Inc., a textbook publishing house in Boston. One son, 18, who is a senior at the Holderness School and hopes to go to college next fall (not Dartmouth I'm afraid). Company meetings in the West will make it impossible to attend June reunion."
Art Moreau continues to be busy in the hardware field in Manchester, N. H. Unfortunately, he does not expect to be able to attend reunion.
If you want to write to Larry Collins, his address is now P.O. Box 535, Bardonia, N. Y. 10954. He used to live in Ridgewood, N. J., but he did not tell me why he moved or what he is doing.
I hope Bain Davis decides to come to reunion; I believe he has a lot to tell us. As a small sample: "In response to your appeal: News: I'm still involved in lots of Quaker activities. I helped prepare for a World Conference of Friends (Quakers) held at Guilford College last summer. This year I'm serving on a committee of the American Friends Service Committee responsible for the Quaker United Nations Program. This program maintains 'Quaker House' near UN Hdqts. - a place where three or four delegates to the UN, whether publicly on speaking terms with each other or not, may be invited to try, on an off-the-record personal basis, to find common meeting ground on some of the really difficult world problems. Views: I still feel strongly that our Vietnam war is morally wrong and doing terrible damage to our real national interest and to our opportunity for world leadership. I hope other Dartmouth men who share these views will speak out. Reunion: I doubt that I can be there."
Jim Whiton gives us some ideas as well as news: "Sorry, shall not be at Reunion. Have been asked to help sail a boat back from Bermuda after Newport-Bermuda race. Hope to spend a long weekend there with Elise (need I specify she's Mrs. J.S.W.?). Am still a reg'd. rep. with Blair & Co. in Denville branch. Am at this date pushing convertible bonds and occasionally Treasury bills. Would not have a U.S. Savings Bond in the house.... Have a feeling of despair over unrealistic officially approved approaches to poverty, welfare, crime and urban problems. But almost no one agrees with my pet ideas, e.g.: No one on relief has a right to reproduce; society simply cannot, afford to maintain repeaters guilty of forcible, violent interference with rights of others (this includes life imprisonment as well as parole schemes); inflation will worsen so long as politicians engage in legal theft from some to benefit others, and while organized labor continues as a largely unrestricted second government."
Dr. "Hank" Greenleaf, director of public health in Brookline, Mass., sends regrets that he will not be able to "make our delayed 35th."
Conversely, Dr. George Hahn reports that he is planning on coming to reunion despite being busy with "Project Hope, American Cancer Society, family, practice, squash, advanced piloting, etc."
So much for now, gentlemen. Despite our troubled times, I hope we can look forward to an enjoyable retreat on June 17-19 in Hanover.
'32 UP FOR THE "35TH"
Ed Davis '34 has no fault to find withfirst grandchild Christen Pierson, nordoes Gordon Churchill '25, the godfather.
Secretary, 3154 Kenney Drive Falls Church, Va. 22042
Class Agent, Route 1, Box 3331, Issoquah, Wash. 98027
