1933
There is a new baby in the McLaughlin home on Webster Avenue. Before you get too excited, it's a Baldwin baby grand piano, the 50th reunion gift to the College by the class of 1933, as a to-be-installed plaque will note. If you're wondering at the premature berthing, Jack Manchester and his gift committee of TedAllen, George Theriault, and PageWorthington, e.O., learned that it would be most welcome right now, and the great class of '33 has always been ahead of its time, anyway.
Two Hanover residents have recently moved. Forrie and Barbara Branch have transferred to Hampton, N.H., to be nearer children and grandchildren. Jean Meek has moved from the home she and John lived in for many years to an apartment, fortunately still in Hanover.
The class secretary's handbook warns against ruminating in these notes. At the Blunt Alumni Center, I've become known as "Ruminator Rugen." (It's sort of a cuddly name.) So lacking more firm news from College or classmates, I'm going to ruminate again.
This secretary's job is not that much of a chore and is, in fact, quite interesting. To cite examples: I found out that Lup White's daughterin-law was from Luxembourg, where I spent some hard time in 1944; through that connection, I gave her father a small picture of his country, as seen by a G.I.
In writing to Dorothy Henderson, following Hugh's death, I learned that she had gone to the same sixth grade in Joliet, III., that I did, that we both loved that sixth-grade teacher, and that Dorothy worked for years as a volunteer in the Joliet Hospital where my tonsils were removed and where my brother Dick '42 was born. Dorothy even knew my sixth-grade heart-throb, who became Miss America in 1927.
I've also enjoyed the officers meetings and the mini-reunions in Hanover and elsewhere. At the last one, in May, ex-president John Dickey '29 was my guide in Baker Library, as I sought out Diana Seymour, who purchases our '33 memorial books for us. I was also able to thank personally then-president John Kemeny for the job he had done for Dartmouth. And I was going up to my room in the Inn as David McLaughlin '54, future president, was on his way out to jog around the campus. Past, present, and future all in one day.
At that same meeting time, I again met "Whip" Walser and "Red" Ackerberg, both '32, respectively class secretary and quondam newsletter editor of the class to our immediate north. They, Jud Pierson, Mannie Sprague, and I were all members of Dartmouth's last varsity water polo team. With that percentage among the officers of two classes, it tends to prove that you should select a masochist to be a class officer. As a hint to a nominating committee, Bill McCombs was on that team, too.
This summer, I was invited to a dinner party. The youngish good-looking lady to my right, learning I was a Dartmouth, said, "Do you know Bob Goodell, Page Worthington, or Jim Doherty?" I had just learned of Bob's death that week and broke the sad news to her. I had heard it from the aforementioned "Whip" Walser because Bob had started with '32. My dinner companion was Jim Doherty's sister-in- law and had met the other two when Jim was courting her older sister.
Speaking of deaths, the saddest part of a secretary's duties, naturally, is writing or seeing that the obituaries appear in the ALUMNI MAGAZINE. But it is made so much easier by those lovely, courageous women our classmates have married. I have had some beautiful letters from them and all have expressed thanks for the memorial books placed in the library in their husbands' memory. To date, there are 166 books, with four more ordered because; of the recently reported deaths. There has been a special project selected for the class in this area the collected papers of Woodrow Wilson. Thirty-five of those 166 books are of that collection. When the set is complete (I hope a long time hence), it will be an invaluable addition to Baker Library, all from '33.
The New York Times's advertising news column gave credit to Heagan Bayles when one of his proteges became president of a large ad agency. I pointed this out to Heagan and asked if he wouldn't give me a little of the help I obviously need to write these notes. He replied, "There is no substitute for keeping on writing, and also reading 'The Golden Book,' by Lambuth and his cohorts, as a refresher in the fundamentals."
Back to fundamentals next month! Blessings!
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