1944

Twitch Miller, our newsletter editor, and I have been trading ancient Commencement information, so there may be some overlap here. But you can't overlap '44 often enough, I always say.

Dick Paul wondered last summer how many '44s returned to Dartmouth after the war to finish up bachelor's degrees, remembering that he, an army veteran, took the same train to Hanover in the spring of 1946 with navy-man DavePatterson.

We checked out post-war Commencement programs and they tell us that 51 of us graduated in 1946, 111 in 1947, and 29 in 1948. Oh, yes, two in 1949: JackHempstead and York Zetterberg.

So, a total of 193. Out of a class of 700. Incidentally, the 1947 Commencement program listed graduates from 12 different Dartmouth classes, from 1936 to 1949, the majority of them veterans.

There were semesters all over the place right after the war, but Dick Morse was the valedictorian and our only summa cum laude at the June 1946 ceremony. Tony Frothingham was summa cum laude a year later, and Bob Rice, JimBrowning, Bob Hyde, and Jack Jenness were our brain trust magna cum laudes.

Bob McLaughry, who graduated in 1947, was head Commencement usher that year, and he must have had a talent for the job because he appears again in 1948 as—what else?—head usher!

Assisting Bob in that exacting task were such other luminary ushers as MerleHagen and Jim Tillson. Class marshall in 1947 was Meryll Frost.

And for a first prize of $10,000 or a year's supply of Big Macs, whichever comes first, can any of you who graduated in those years name your Commencement speaker? Answers at the end of this column, and no peeking till you get there.

Another bit of Commencement miscellany: the first two women to receive honorary degrees in the twentieth century were both named Dorothy: Dorothy Canfield Fisher in 1922, and 16 years later, Dorothy Thompson in 1938.

The first black, I think, was Booker Taliaferro Washington, educator and president of the Tuskegee Institute, who was honored in 1901. And not another black for 50 or more years.

Other things. Twitch Miller and ErnieRice have long since reported on the heavily attended '44 Florida mini-reunion in March at Disney World: some 21 classmates with their ladies for a total of 42, including such New Englanders as the Jack Stephensons, Ben Joneses, PinkyCorroons, and Jack Rileys. Holy smokes and bravo!

And in May, sailing down the Rhine River with their maidens on a Dartmouth cruise were Twitch Miller, Dick Ostberg,Bruce Thomson, and Phil Penberthy.

Okay, here are the answers to the Commencement speakers' Quiz: Harold E. Stassen in 1946, Robert H. Jackson in 1947, and Frank P. Graham in 1948. And in case you didn't remember beyond that, Stassen was former governor of Minnesota, Jackson was a Supreme Court judge, and Graham was president of the University of North Carolina.

Oscar Goedecke died last November. Our sympathy.

That's it. Blessings.

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