1934
Comes now mid-January, or stock-taking time, when the high resolves of New Year's Day litter the living-room like so many broken bibelots. Be not disencouraged, friends. If among your 1970 Resolutions was writing to the Class Secretary and debriefing yourself of years of unreported news, and you haven't got around to it yet - don't fret. Your Secretary (an unreconstructed nail-biter) understands; he forgives; he is willing to wait - even until February - for you guys to pull yourselves together and Do the Right Thing.
Waiting paid off the other day, most gratifyingly, when right-as-rain CharlieAmies responded to our November request for details on the summertime marriage of his daughter, Carol. Writing from Havertown, Pa., Charlie reports that
Our daughter was married in June to Steven Sullivan of Albany, N. Y. Carol and Steve met at Ball State U. in Muncie, Ind., where they are both majoring in music. Last June saw them both at the end of their junior year, so they are completing their education together. They're both very interested in radio and TV work. This year he is program director and she is music director for the university radio and TV station. Steve is announcer for the Ball State U. band. The band plays between halves for some of the Chicago Bears' games, so if any of the alumni hear the half-time goings-on, remember there's a '34 who has an interest in the man behind the voice you hear.
When Thad Seymour was first appointed dean he made a tour of a number of alumni clubs. I remember his telling us, "The frontier of American education is in the Midwestern universities." And now I find my daughter getting a musical education on a conservatory level, with all the facilities of a university thrown in.
Charlie goes on to say that he attended the Princeton game with his wife Eleanor and their ninth-grader son, Paul, and succinctly explains that disaster: "Never was a Princeton team up so high for a Dartmouth team that just wasn't. Saw Gruen, Heston, Beers, DeReimer, Hulsart, Jacobson, Danzig and a great many more. Stan, we've changed in 35 years. Their faces just weren't familiar any more. And I'm sure mine wasn't to them! But the fault is mine. I've attended two reunions and four games in 35 years."
A situation to be deplored, God wot, but easily rectified. Plan now to attend our Fabulous Fortieth!
A timely word, via Ed Brown, from our peripatetic professor, Ted Germann, long on the West Point (Army) faculty, then at Marist College at Poughkeepsie, and now chairman of the Foreign Language Department at Bennett College in Millbrook, N. Y.
My new job [writes Ted] has kept me very busy this fall. Compensations: loads of Bennett girls, plus working with my wife Madeleine, who has been "teaching French at Bennett for the past several years, plus the presence of our fifth and youngest offspring, Lili, now a Bennett freshman.
On my mind (as it has been since I spent a year there 16 years ago): Vietnam, where my son George (USMA '68) Ist Lt. Abn. Infantry, is leading a platoon in a "pacification" area where dull moments are few and dangerous ones a daily fact of life....
One daughter studying in Paris on a graduate fellowship, another spending half her junior year in Madrid, complete the picture of the family deployment abroad.
News on Hank Werner's sons comes, respectively, from Bill Scherman and Hank himself. Bill forwarded a copy of the "Meaningful Confrontation" (Nov. '69) number of The Harvard Lampoon, which announced election of Tom Werner '71 to the editorial board. And Hank recently advised that elder son Peter is teaching world politics at Windham College in Putney, Vt.
Two '34 attorneys made news as the old year passed. Gordon Hunter (of Hunter, Hunter and Madden, Attorneys at Law, Freeport, Ill.) was elected to the board of directors of the University of Dubuque, lowa. Admitted to the bar in 1940, Gordon was with the O.S.S. during World War II. He is president of the Stephenson County Abstract Company, a director of the First National Bank and the Freeport Savings and Loan Association, and a trustee of the YWCA.
And Oscar Ruebhausen (a partner in the law firm of Debevoise, Plimpton, Lyons & Gates of New York City) was elected a director of the Equitable Life Assurance Society of the U.S. Oscar is presently a director of the International Basic Economy Corporation and the National Starch and Chemical Corporation; chairman of the Russell Sage Foundation, and director of the non-profit Hudson Institute, Inc. and the Yale Law School Association. (If you think I'm also going to list his Federal and New York State governmental posts from 1944 to 1969, forget it!)
That's all, except that back in November, we promised "a minicourse on coin collecting" by Cleveland Numismatist Leon Lindheim. And, to help launch 1970 noninflationally, here it is now:
Numismatics [Leon alleges] is the study of people, places, events, even architecture or ladies' hairdos, through the study of money or money substitutes. Coinage alone is not necessarily involved. We have paper money, tokens, depression scrip (tax anticipation notes), even blocks of salt (if used in a barter system). In addition, medals and decorations are a part of numismatics (one of the foremost authorities is James C. Risk '37).
In earlier years numismatics was the hobby of kings. The fine collection at the British Museum was started by George III. The modern "kings" include Adolphe Menjou, Vincent Youmans, Enrico Caruso, J. Pierpont Morgan, and Andrew Carnegie.
The largest national organization for collectors in the U.S. is the American Numismatic Association. Founded in 1891, it listed 300 members in 1925, 6,000 in 1950, and 27,000 in 1962. Its monthly magazine, "The Numismatist," is a treasure chest of information. If any readers, '34 or otherwise, are interested in more information, send me a self-addressed, stamped envelope, and I will return it with a pamphlet called "Tips to the Would-Be Coin Collector." [Leon's address: c/o The Continental Bank, Cleveland, Ohio 44115.]
Meantime, back in New York, I'm crying my eyes out for mail. I don't care even if it's postage due, fellas. Just let bygones be bygones and write!
Secretary, Apt. 1-8, 333 East 55th St. New York, N. Y. 10022
Treasurer, Thayer School, Hanover, N. H. 03755
