1923
October and November will have come and gone between the time I write these notes and the time you see them. So bear with me as I try to bridge what I believe are the best two months of New Hampshire weather. Ike Phillips, who in the meantime will keep you up to date, is about to resume operations back home in Vermont. Since he doesn't say much about himself in "Skiddoo," you will be interested in this excerpt from his recent letter from Ontario: "I expect to be here until September 25 and will return to Vermont the long way around, north to Sudbury, Ontario, across north of Lake Superior to the Soo and Mackinaw, to Traverse City, Mich., where my youngest son, Tom, is living and conducting his own office as an architect. He has just presented me with my 11th grandchild, a boy named Jonathan Issac Phillips, so in due course I suppose there will be another "Ike Phillips" around. I shall go from there to Culver, Ind., where Culver Military Academy is located. I was Class of'19 there, as were Joe Bruning and Dutch Schmidt of our class. I roomed with Joe our senior year there. Joe knew Ellis Briggs, already at Dartmouth; Ellis had convinced Joe that Dartmouth was the place for him, and Joe convinced me; together we convinced Dutch, who roomed on the same hall with us. From Culver I shall go to New Castle, Pa., my home town, and then to Rochester, N.Y., where my youngest daughter with five children lives; she bolsters my count on grandchildren! From there, if I survive, I shall get back to Vermont."
More about Ike later re his summers in Ontario and "Weather Diary," which he writes weekly for the Vermont Standard under the pseudonym of "Quiet I. Elmer."
A recent telephone call updated me on Chet and Barbara Bixby. They have both had a rough year healthwise. All goes well now, however. Chet will continue his medication until next February but is "definitely over the hump." On June 14 they celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary, quietly, with just the family around them. Three bound volumes of letters, snapshots, and memorabilia from their many classmates and friends highlighted the day. Their only serious concern right now is granddaughter Lisa Thornton, who is recuperating from a serious operation at Massachusetts General.
Chet's firm, Bixby International, is working three shifts making the heavy protective plastic aprons now being installed in all the Ford Motor Company's early Pintos and Bobcats. The material being used is similar in composition to that Chet's company uses in the manufacture of its box toe and counter products.
Babe Miner tells me that the cost to the class of the ALUMNI MAGAZINE is now $5. He just recently sent the magazine a check for $1,908.96 for 226 class members, 154 widows, and 16 non-subscribers. In light of our reduced membership and increased costs, consideration will be given at our October class meeting to the level of future class dues.
About the time many of us were settling down to watch the Yale game, Truman and Bunny Metzel were unhappily leaving their beautiful home on Maple Street in Winnetka, Ill., for an apartment. It is a painful but necessary adjustment compensated mightily, however, by Scottsdale in the winter months.
Faith Wadleigh (Dr. Faith Preston), president of White Pines College in Chester, N.H. has been named a trustee of the New Hampshire Conservatory of Music and the Arts. The Conservatory is a member of the National Guild Community School of the Arts.
Mail to Timmy Cullen's widow Eva has been returned. Any information about her health and present location will be appreciated.
I have word from both Pem Whitcomb and Bob McMillen of recent telephone conversations with Bob Upjohn. All three roomed in Hubbard Hall during freshman year and had a good time reminiscing about several classmates, some of whom are no longer with us. Bob wanted especially to be remembered to Glen Elliott and Chet Bixby. The class scrapbook has no entries about Bob Upjohn and he was not in the Golden Review. Wish he would write us and bring us up to date.
I am sorry to report the death on August 1 of Katherine, widow of classmate Jesse P.Ludington. Jesse died in 1968.
Since our last issue I have learned of the death on March 20 of Schuyler William Crunden and of George Morton Billins on August 29. Obituaries will appear soon.
Clarence Goss does a wonderful job of keeping in contact. In late August, when he read of earthquake tremors in Costa Rica he telephoned Monk Keith to learn if he and Eva were all right. They were. Clarence's call went through immediately - "no longer than if I had called Westport" (adv).
Monk said the quake was mild and made the point that their home is of wood construction, much safer than abode or cement. He and Ann are planning a trip to Mexico in the near future. All of which makes me wonder if Monk could give us a firsthand rundown of the Nicaraqua bit as it impinges on Costa Rica?
Clarence and Priscilla's oldest granddaughter Diane was married last August to a Brown graduate at their son's summer place on Block Island.
Delighted to hear that Ed and Eloise Roe's oldest grandson, Landis Arnold, is now a Dartmouth freshman.
Last month I told you briefly of the recent death of Ellie Lyon Baldwin, Sherm's widow. I knew Ellie best when she was a young girl at Newton .High School, a lovely person then as she was all her lifetime. She captained the girls' hockey and basketball teams and was a member of the student council and a class officer all of her years there. Wife, daughter, sister, and mother of Dartmouth men, she dearly loved the College and the Class of 1923.
Box 2 Francestown, N.H. 03043
