1932
Since this is my last column, before my term as class secretary terminates in June, I am taking the liberty of using it for a few personal notes.
My favorite artist is Paul Gaugin, and I have made it a hobby to visit as many as possible of the art galleries that have his paintings, both in the U.S.A. and in Paris, Copenhagen, Basel, Moscow, and Leningrad. I have also visited Gaugin s burial place in the Marquesas Islands and spent considerable time on three different trips at the Gaugin Museum in Tahiti. One of my favorite Gaugin paintings is in the Boston Museum of Fine Arts and carries a strange title: Whence do we come? Who are we? Wither are we (ving/ This title has always haunted and puzzled me, especially when I apply it to my relationship to Dartmouth. It is ha-rd to explain how Dartmouth has really influenced my life, but it has. I will give you a few anecdotes.
" Whence do we come?" One of the reasons I came to Dartmouth was because my mother s best friend knew and greatly admired President Hopkins. I went to high school in New York City with Ed Marks and remember him as an outstanding student in our English classes. Fifty-year-, later I was to visit Ed in Nigeria, where he was doing an outstanding job'with the United Nations rehabilitation program. Addison Roe was in the same summer camp with me for several years before college. These were the only two classmates or Dartmouth alumni that 1 knew before matriculating in the fall of 1928.
I have the fondest memories of my- undergraduate days at Dartmouth. I thoroughly enjoyed my professors, my classes, sports, and all outdoor activities. I well remember the visit of Admiral Byrd and his sled dogs to our campus and the lecture and movies of Allan Villiers, who went around the Horn on a square-rigger. I wanted to do something like that after graduation. 1 did not want to get tied down to a routine desk job.
During college I had to work my way to pay for my room and board. Every afternoon I taught swimming and life-saving for two to three hours at the old Spaulding Pool, which paid me 50 cents an hour. It was helpful in those days that there was a rule requiring each student to swim 50 yards before getting a diploma. Every year 1 had at least a dozen seniors in my swimming class, and no one failed to get their degree. I still hear from some of them to this day! To earn my meals, I had to work at least three hours a day at Ma Smalley's Eating Club. No, I wasn't just a plain old dish-washer, I was a specialist, washing pots and pans! I had a scholarship my first two years to help with the yearly $4OO tuition fee, but lost it my junior year. The Dartmouth Educational Association loaned me the money to finish my college education, and 1 have been grateful to them ever since. Each summer I returned to my job as lifeguard on the beaches of New Jersey.
My freshman year roommate at old Sanborn Hall was the handsome and intellectual Whit Daniels. I then roomed for three years with educator John Watts. We lived off campus in Chief of Police Hallisey's house behind the fire station. Next-door roommates were Red Drake, Cal Geary, and Bill Allyn. This was good company, and we had a great time together. Before we knew it, graduation was upon us . . . wither were we going in the fall of 1932?
Dick Cleaves, Howie Newcomb, and I tried to organize a schooner trip out of Quincy, Mass., to sell 40,000 pairs of unsaleable (in the U.S. at least) buttoned-up shoes to potential customers on the west coast of Africa. That trip failed when we could not obtain "pratique to leave the port. Officials said our ship was not safe enough. Dick and Howie went off to Martinique and I got a job as an ordinary seaman on a tramp freighter at 512.50 a month and went to Hawaii and back to New York. Upon my return in early 1934, I decided I wanted to be an Army pilot and in four months was accepted as a flying cadet at Randolph Field, Texas, which was then the West Point of the air. Two other classmates, Ted Monell and Frank Peart, were in the same "high pockets company," the tall ones, with me. After about 50 hours of soloing and basic training, the three of us "washed out" and were released about the same time.
From Texas in the fall of 1934, I meandered to lowa to visit Dick Cleaves in Cherokee and continued by caboose ride to Washington, D.C., to work for the government in the division of press intelligence. John Keller also showed up in Washington at about the same time and got a job reading to President Roosevelt's right hand aide, Colonel Howe. Cleaves, Keller, and I roomed together for a year, and we had quite a time.
In 1936 Dick and I quit our government jobs and headed for adventure again. We were the first damn fools to bicycle from Laredo, Tex., on the newly opened Pan American Highway to Mexico City. I say "damn fools" because it took us 33 days of up and down, up and down walking and damned little bicycling in terrific heat. Mexico is no place to go on a bicycle trip! VS e moved on to.Acapulco and stayed on the beach at Caleta (the morning beach) living with somelocals for 53.45 per week for room and board'. When our money was almost gone, Dick went off to Mexico City and I stayed on with a bad case of malaria. Luckily we had met a Dartmouth alumnus, Dan Slawson '25, who was then living in Acapulco. He came to my help with a doctor and doses of quinine. Dan stayed by my side for almost two weeks until I was well enough to return to the U.S. via Havana on a Seatrain.
I knew then that I had the travel bug and decided to capitalize on it. I talked myselt into a job with the travel agency Thomas Cook and Son, and went to work as a courier and cruise director out of the Fifth Avenue office in New York City. I made seven Mediterranean trips in three years with them, plus additional cruises to Alaska, Hawaii, and North Africa. This job was right up my alley, as I could use my knowledge of French (I was born in France and had been brought up speaking both French and English) and Spanish. I also studied Portuguese, German, and Russian, as languages have always come easy to me. In 1938 1 was conducting a 16-day tour of 40 people from Beirut, to Damascus, to Jerusalem, and back to the ship in Alexandria. Palestine was in turmoil then fighting the British. As courier 1 was personally responsible for the safety of the party going into Palestine at the Syrian border on the Jordan River. One of my 14 cars, even with an armed escort, somehow got lost in the dark, and the occupants were going to sue my company. Luckily for me, it turned out that one member of the angry party was a direct descendant of Elcazar Wheclock, and once we knew we were both Dartmouth alums, we shook hands over a drink or two and the suit was dropped.
Throughout the World War II years I was brought into contact with John Clark and Bill Brister, who were my bosses when I worked for the coordinator of inter-American affairs. They sent me for two years to Nicaragua to head up some of their programs. It was an interesting and challenging job but I was unhappy that I was not in uniform and seeing some real action in the war efforts. I was commissioned a lieutenant in the U.S. Navy, was trained in the amphibious forces, and was assigned to a ship with assault troops that took us to 16 different places in the Pacific. I ran into other naval officers in our class such as Red 1 ucker in the Philippines, A 1 Boncutter in Saipan, and Bill Phinney in Hawaii. After the Okinawa occupation and the bomb, I was transferred to Tsingtao in China for three months and had a chance to visit part of Japan.
At the end of World War 11, I started my own export business and thus have continued to meet many classmates living outside of the States. Among those I've seen have been Rafael Baragano in San Juan, Puerto Rico, and Andre Stollmeyer in Trinidad, and we had hopes that they would be returning to our reunions. Four years on the Alumni Council and now six years as secretary have made it possible for me to know better many classmates. I feel fortunate that the Dartmouth family has been an important part of my life. It shall continue to be so. I hope to have seen many of you at our 50th reunion.
Your obedient servant,
Adrian A. Walser
911 North Northlake Drive Hollywood, Fla. 33020
