Tenure

Should you get to thinking about tradition unfailing, constancy, and devoted service to the College, consider for a moment Ann Jenks, administrative assistant in Crosby Hall, her mother Winifred Longworth, and her father, the late Percy Longworth.

Among them, they have accumulated well over 80 years of tenure at Dartmouth. Add to that the summer jobs of Rick, Ann's son, now a student at the University of New Hampshire at Plymouth - four years at the Hanover Inn and another coming up with Buildings and Grounds.

Percy Longworth, an Englishman whose Midlands accent resisted forever the encroachment of North Country speech, started working for the College in 1930, on his 33rd birthday. Of the old school, he was friend and confidant to hundreds of undergraduates in Russell Sage, leaving an impression more lasting than many of their professors or their courses. He lectured them ripely when occasion demanded, got them to class on time by literally shaking their beds out from under them, cast a skeptical eye on their dates, attempted vainly to improve their housekeeping, and shared their parents' pride at Commencement. (One visiting mother, appalled at the condition of her son's room, appealed to Longworth to "try to do something about him." She was told, courteously but firmly, that what she had failed to accomplish in 18 years, he could hardly be expected to do in four.) Even after he was promoted to the janitorship at Parkhurst, he kept in touch with his Sagers, joining them at reunions, following their progress with jobs and families..He remained with the College until he died in 1956.

"Winnie" Longworth, Percy's English bride, in 1940 became matron at Brewster House, which accommodated the Inn staff until the College took it over for a dormitory. For many years thereafter she was a warmly remembered fixture on the Inn housekeeping staff. Shades of the days when will and skill, rather than years, dictated retirement age, she continued working until December 1972, when she was 75. One memorable assignment was looking to the comfort of her fellow countrymen, Lord and Lady Dartmouth, when they visited the College in 1969 to celebrate the start of Dartmouth's Bicentennial.

Mrs. Jenks started working in the Alumni Records office with Charlotte Ford Morrison in 1950, straight out of high school, and has seen continuous service, except for a few months leave, in increasingly important positions ever since. She became office manager for the Alumni Fund in 1972 and an administrative assistant in 1974. She currently supervises the clerical staffs of Alumni Records, the Fund, and the department responsible for alumni mailings.

A new senior cane has the visage of EleazerWheelock in place of an Indian head.The idea for the new version came fromWarner Traynham '57, dean of the TuckerFoundation, which is selling them at $20.