1952

Sixty-two men who matriculated with our class left Dartmouth without graduating and did not return to get Dartmouth degrees. It seemed like it might be a good idea to find out about these classmates—why they departed and their views of the College from a perspective of many years.So we called a few of those guys and got their stories. As you may expect, there's an interesting tale to go with each of their lives.

Ted Fellowes left after his freshman year to enter the U.S. Naval Academy—one of three classmates who did that. He maintains that he was extremely happy at Dartmouth and only left when, out of the blue, he got a letter of acceptance from the USNA. Ted had two brothers who also attended the academy and so he became an Annapolis midshipman. He also became a fighter pilot, an admiral and, after retirement, a lawyer, Ted lives in Vienna, Virginia, and says that he has always loved Dartmouth, revisited many times and faithfully pays his class dues.

Jacques Adoue was with us for only our freshman year when he returned to Texas to work as a real-life cowboy for a dollar a day and go to Texas A&I to study ranching. Eventually he realized his life's dream and built up a ranch of 17,000 acres running 1,200 cows. But this, alas, disappeared in a disputed bank foreclosure and Jacques now lives in Lulling, Texas, where he breeds, breaks and trains horses. Jacques feels that, in leaving Dartmouth, he "blew the greatest opportunity I ever had." He would warmly welcome any classmates who ever stop by. "There's always a pot of beans on the stove."

Jim Streng left Hanover after his sophomore year. There were three reasons, he says: Through lack of scholarly application on his part he lost his financial aid package, an uncle offered him a job, and he didn't make the football team. Looking back Jim regrets leaving Dartmouth and regrets not coming back. But he and his Dartmouth/Tuck brother created a big and successful homebuilding company in Sacramento. Jim is now partly retired, lives in California and annually attends our class Christmas luncheon in San Francisco.

Dick Rosen departed to attend medical school after his junior year—that's not an uncommon story among our class "dropouts." Now a quasi-retired internist in Greensboro, North Carolina, Dick's only regret about Dartmouth is that in his three years he crammed in so many chem/bio/zoo subjects to the exclusion of other courses. He subsequently came to believe that he had not really gotten a liberal education and has spent many years reading the books that he feels he would have read over the course of four years. Dick quickly adds that his course selection was his own decision and says that he attended our 50th and "had a wonderful time." So there you have it. Leaving for various reasons, they look back with affection.

Check out our class of '52 Web site at www.dartmouth.org/classes/52.

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