1919

We report to start with, knowing all are waiting with bated breath, that the 1919 Three-hour-for-lunch Club of N.Y.C. met and fed itself at the Dartmouth Club on Feb. 2. Eleven were present: Chet DeMond, Ralph Welsh, Nick Sandoe, Ken Huntington, Bri Greeley, Avedis Miridjanian, Ray Legg, Eddie Fiske, Mose Robinson, Teto Webster and Win Batchelder. Sandoe, we are told, announced that he had completed arrangements for a golf outing in Kennebunkport, Me. This affair, to be hosted by Captain Eddie Fiske, will be held on Wednesday, June 24. Officially we say, "Nice going, Nick," but just between us girls, we suspect that Batch who dreamed up these enchanting divertisements in the first place and Eddie, who has done most to make them that wonderful, had it all worked out long ago.

In our pile of unanswered mail is a letter from Fred McCrea. Sitting among his grapes on his mountain top in St. Helena, Calif., and, as the old Phi Gam song used to say, "... taking in a little now and then," he announces that he and Eleanore are soon off to the desert for a short time. Then, come May, maybe east to visit daughter Mary in New York state and so to the Hanover Plain. We send our thanks to Bob Lewis for sending us a clipping with the sad news of Herb Fleming's death. At the services in Melrose were Bob and Anne Lewis, Ray and Harriette Hinds, and Al Googins. The "In Memoriam" columns will report this in full detail as soon as it can be handled. Meantime we speak for the whole Class when we express our sympathy to Sally. Shortly afterward we received from Chick Stiles '21, one of Herb's closest friends, a contribution to the 1919 Memorial Fund in memory of Herb. This thoughtful and generous gift will be appreciated by the Class and by Sally, we're sure. Bob's note also stated that he and Anne intend to head south soon. They have a great assortment of relatives in some of the better places and their trip sounds like a series of pleasant reunions.

From Ray Hinds we received the Feb. issue of the M.G.H. News published by the Massachusetts General Hospital of Boston. In it is an article about Foreign Doctors in American Hospitals, and particularly at M.G.H. The author proceeds to develop his story in a businesslike way but each point he makes is authenticated by a quote from Dr. Charles L. (Henry to you) Clay. It soon becomes obvious that Henry as retired assistant director of the M.G.H. is the authority on this subject as he is on so many others. And a very pleasant letter came recently from Tom Bresnahan's widow, Claire. She has been in Pasadena, Calif., at the home of her son, Dana. Her grandson has just undergone serious surgery and she has been trying to help in the operation of his disrupted household. She plans to be back in N.Y.C. in early March.

Spider Martin has made so much news it could well fill our allotted columns. In early February he wrote that he and Bea were leaving for Scottsdale, Ariz. There they plan to spend the rest of the winter at the Casa Blanca Inn. A sort of postscript added that he had signed an agreement to sell his papers. This news seems prosaic enough until you start to think about it. These are the old family newspapers, run by his brothers probably for most of Spider's lifetime. They served their communities well and they were tools through which brother Joe (the late Speaker Joseph W. Martin) communicated with his constituents. He kept them informed of doings in Washington and he learned from the paper's columns what they were thinking. Lately Spider has directed these papers astutely. More lately he has doubled as publisher and editorial writer. And at the last he became a columnist of some merit. Bob Proctor and Cottie Larmon loved to read Spider's columns and they asked him one day to send them the paper. This he did and we presume they were only mildly surprised when each received a bill for one year's subscription. A further note, attached to some piece of business, stated that Bob Stecher was going to be in Chandler, Ariz., only 20 miles from Scottsdale, and that Jack Ross would be at Palm Desert only 250 miles (a mere nothing in Arizona) away. And three more last minute items: "Red and Lil Colwell are in Scottsdale. The Jimmy Chilcotts '20 left today - now things may slow down a bit ... Stu and Jane Russell came today, leave for Florida next week."

Last but not least the winter issue of "Stonehill," a publication of Stonehill College, features Mr. Edward E. Martin, a member of its board of trustees. The headline reads "Martin Center Opened in Library, Houses Lawmaker's Documents." It says, "A center featuring papers and memorabilia of the late Speaker Joseph W. Martin has been opened in the Cushing-Martin Library. Since the congressman's death, Edward E. Martin of Wellesley has been turning over to the library papers and mementos of his more than half-century of public service.... A striking feature of the room is the large desk and chair personally used by Martin in his congressional office. ..." There is a picture which we have studied carefully. The feature of this is our Spider sitting at the big desk in the big chair. This time the right dimple is exposed to the camera (that is, as they say on the golf match broadcasts, the dimpler's right) and comes out fine. He looks a little as if he had just swallowed an olive pit, but he fills the chair, we can assure you, in every sense of the word better than almost any man you could find. Behind him stands Beatrice, illustrating the old saying, "behind every great man there stands a woman - telling him what he's doing wrong." She looks chipper enough. On the walls are pictures of the great. On the shelves are the gavels Joe used as chairman of many republican conventions and as Speaker and Minority Leader of the House. And there are books - hundreds of books undoubtedly of priceless value to a library.

The strangest things happen: Bob Paisley, after a quarter-century of knocking down 240-1b. defensemen as if they were Tenpins without even losing his balance, slipped on the ice, fell and broke three ribs. We wrote him, and thinking it might make him feel less like an idiot, we told him about Freddie, our pet fly. One evening, after a little sampling we suspect, Freddie slipped while sliding on the ice cubes in the Martini shaker. He came down heavily on and bent his punctuation. Paisley, in his reply, after dwelling vividly on the tortures of broken ribs said that, after they had you strapped up in a sort of chastity belt for the chest, the cure was dope. He said, "If your pet fly would switch from gin to Scotch, a chomp out of one of my red-white-and-brown pills plus a sip of Scotch and he'd go up and up and up and never come down." Freddie showed some interest in the pill idea, but Scotch, no. "Scotch is unpotable" he said. "Thousands of men are drinking it and dying like flies." And he gave us that dirty look as if we personally had invented DDT. To make a long story longer, Robert mends.

Secretary, Box 122, Chandler Rd. Wilder, Vt. 05088

Class Agent, 63 Perry Hill Rd., Shelton, Conn. 06484