1924

Whatever else has happened since I last penned these notes, we've had a recordbreaker for cold weather; then came that ice storm on top of two heavy snows - and you've never seen as much damage to trees and shrubs since the hurricane of 1938. Today (Feb. 2) we have our usual thaw and it's raining here ... from +30° to —30° up in Minnesota we hear. A coolish +30° in Florida, on unimpeachable authority. How do you like it where you are?

Thanks for the pleasant holiday and New Year's greetings ... every year we receive more. As for our birthday card, which many still express their pleasure in receiving, StuEldredge, who designed the current one, is now planning a new one. You'll see more of his excellent landscapes, with those of other artist-classmates, come June. At this writing, Dana Bent tells me we're doing very well, and he has just been in Hanover to firm up the details before he and Gretchen take off for St. Croix. If your name is not on the list Butts Lamson just printed in the recent Class Letter ... despite the HK flu which postponed their sea-trip, too, until probably April... then get with it. "Stand up and be counted," with your "YES card." The Lamsons will probably go to Bermuda; and Harriet and Ted Nilsen are also off cruising the Caribbean... and probably dozens more.... Save something for June and Hanover; our 45th, delayed.

Every now and again I mention hobbies: Hank Hartshorn is heading up that area for the 45th. I speak only for my own hobby, philately (or just plain stamp collecting). I've agreed to exhibit the story of how Dartmouth secured its first Webster stamp through my initiative, in 1932; the second one franks each birthday card. Ced Foster sent me a typescript from a UPI "Business Today" broadcast playing down the sudden riches (alias "investment") angle of the hobby. By coincidence, a friend spotted a note in an "Events of the Past" column which indicates I was saying 25 years ago what I still say today: In a talk on "Relax with a Hobby" for the Brattleboro (Vt.) Woman's Club in 1945, I am quoted as saying: "If you haven't time to relax, you haven't time to live." I said the same thing when I talked on Retirement also many years ago, for the alumni.

Add Bob Towse to "forced retirement" from practice. He and Marguerite have moved into an apartment (Lake Shore Park, Bldg. 18, Watervliet, N. Y. 12189). But they'll be here come June. Leon and BessRothschild enjoyed a North Cape (Norway) and North-Europe trip last summer... but we hope they'll be here this June although not yet decided. And another: John Woodbridge is now a trustee of the Westchester Library System; he is retired since November as assistant vice-president of the Irving Trust Company, in New York. He's another stamp collector; other hobbies are gardening (member of the Chrysanthemum Society), and their two children's children ... six of them). Here's a hobby that is now a budding "business" - Kay Adams, wife of "A.D." finds others like her cooking and now she has a catering business. Started last summer and already fast-growing.

A memory-teaser: Frank Tonis, ex-Darien but now on the N. H. coast at Rye Beach, is re-discovering the joys of cross-country skiing, such as we had to settle for back when: bought new boots, like old ones but had to add to the heels to make a slot for his old-style harness. "You know, we used to put on our skis at the door of the dorm and not remove them until we came back" ... and now it's becoming a "new thing" up here. And another: a clipping showing "Dr.Girard Wheeler" - the same Jerry who won the fall '2O football rush for '24 - Westport (Conn.) Selectman and heading up voter drive "to enroll unaffiliated voters in the Democratic party."

Anyone who writes knows the horrors of omitting what-he-knows-darn-well must not be omitted; and so "we" left the names of Phil and Lou Van Huyck from the column reporting on our 200th celebration. Margaret has already told me her opinion; spare me others, please . . . I'm truly sorry.

Incidental bits: Bill Patten (Downington, Pa.) and Kitty love the alpine flowers and dwarf conifers; they met George Avery, recently retired as Director of the Brooklyn Botanical Gardens, at the American Horticultural Society conference last summer. The Pattens will miss Reunion as they will be touring gardens in Scandinavia and Russia. Their Dave '59 is assistant district attorney for Chester County. Bill rides his hobby hard (the only real way), as they plan to see the west-coast and visit the national Rock Garden Society meeting....

Stan Lonsdale covets his position as the youngest '24 ... but now is delighted to make Le Club as a "Senior Citizen" last November.... Jerry Sutten, who retired from MGM and is now in the Algonquin Investments PTY, Ltd. as a director for the U.S.A. although still in Johannesburg, takes two weeks off with his wife, Patience, to fish the north coast of Natal; meeting their daughter in southern France every year or so.

And, latest news (yesterday's paper): Craig marries Craig. On January 31, in the West Side Presbyterian Church, in Englewood, N. J., Roberta Elizabeth Craig, daughter of our Doug and Doris Craig, was married to Craig Eugene Jameson, escorted by her father and with her brother, James, '56 as an usher. Roberta graduated from Mt. Holyoke and is a senior assistant buyer of costume jewelry for B. Altman & Co., in New York. Her husband was graduated from Dartmouth, class of 1960, and from the University of Chicago Law School, now with Dewey, Ballantine, Bushby, Palmer & Wood, in New York. His military service was in counter-intelligence in the Army; he is a captain in the Army Reserve. The happy couple went off to Europe for a skiing wedding trip, and will return to live in New York.

Secretary, 2 Brewster Rd. Hanover, N. H. 03755

Treasurer, Powderhorn Farm New Boston, N. H. 03070