1945

This is a story some what delayed, as I offered it to acting editor Jim Collins '84 as worthy of a feature article in this magazine. Jim didn't get to it before his departure, so I'm trying to convey the essence here.

It begins with our classmates, FrankAldrich and Jack Hemingway, enjoying a reunion last spring at a Boston symposium marking the 100th birthday of Ernest Hemingway, in which Jack was a principal presenter. Frank recalled their time in Cuba together, when Jack was a broker with Merrill Lynch and Frank represented the First National Bank of Boston. I pressed Frank for further reminiscences.

He was Ernest Hemingway's banker from 1949 until Hemingway left the island in 1958. Frank monitored all his local accounts. The most important role of all, he says, was as guardian of the famous orange crate in the main vault of the Bank of Boston where the Hemingway manuscripts were stored.

The banking relationship led to a careful familiarity that granted Frank an insight into some of the author's writing habits and some memorable encounters in Havana's appealing social life.

Cuba's glamorous existence as a tourist Mecca ended with the Castro revolution in 1959. Ernesto "Che" Guevara, the charismatic Marxist, became head of the Cuban Central Bank. On September 20, 1960, Bank of Boston was occupied by armed Cuban militia. Frank got away with only his nameplate and hasn't been back to Havana since.

Now we fast-forward past Frank's 15 years in Brazil and 1988 retirement from Bank of Boston as head of the LatinAmerican division. (Frank still has trust banking interests in Brazil and London.)

Last summer in Boston the consul general of Brazil presented Frank with the Ordem do Cruzeiro do Sul (Order of the Southern Cross), Brazil's highest civil honor. Ironically, in the early years of the Cuban revolution, a very different Brazilian administration had presented the same award to Frank's nemesis, Che Guevara!

Frank hopes to walk on Cuban soil one day when freedom returns. He is a close follower of events there, as is Jack.

Frank's report on Jack is that the aging process has bypassed him completely. "His wife, Angela, is a delight, most natural in demeanor stemming from her origins in the Texas Panhandle." Though they travel for two months or so each year, the high point is always returning to the beauty of Idaho's Sun Valley.

P.O. Box 1317, New London, NH 03257; (603) 526-6749 (h); (603) 526-4292 (fax); Donald.M.Sisson.4s@alum.dartmouth.org

Frank Aldriehwas guardian of theorange cratethat held Hemingway'smanuscripts. DON SISSON '45