A Dartmouth Family Portrait

Charlotte Ryder Kenerson is one of three surviving widows of the class of '03. Her husband, Ned, was class president several times and gave the 50th Reunion address in 1953 at the time the College awarded an honorary degree to Dwight D. Eisenhower. But there are multiple connections with Dartmouth for Mrs. Kenerson over nine generations. There's son John '28 (at left in the photo) who has been a class president and member of the Alumni Council, his son Bob '60, and his daughter Julia '92. Then there's Mrs. Kenerson's brother-in-law Richard Parkhurst '16, and another son, David '37. Her father was Herbert D. Ryder of the class of 1876. There are still more in the Kenerson-Dartmouth connection, which actually goes back to Eleazar Wheelock's younger sister, Ruth, who married a Kenerson ancestor named Robert Hibbard.

A native of Bellows Falls, Vt., Charlotte Kenerson taught school both in Vermont and on the frontier in Minnesota. She has four children, 13 grandchildren, and 19 great-grandchildren. Now in her 100 th year, she believes one's immortality is realized through the institutions one has supported. Dartmouth, for Charlotte Kenerson, is one of those institutions.