1931*
A number of you men have asked regarding the progress that is being made towards plans for the Tenth Reunion and I would just like to say that there is a committee functioning and within a very short time, possibly by the time this goes to press, various sub-committees throughout the country will have been appointed. As you may have read in previous issues of the ALUMNI MAGAZINE, our Class is getting the opportunity and privilege of inaugurating the new Reunion scheme. The terrific influx of people into Hanover during Commencement has so taxed the various rooming and eating facilities that last year it was almost impossible to get a decent meal. Because of this, with the complete accord of the representatives of the various reunioning classes, we voted to begin the new Reunion plan. It has a lot of grand possibilities and you will be hearing more about the complete plans from the committee later on. This is just to let you know that things are beginning to perk so you can begin making your own plans.
Some time ago I received a letter from one of our former secretaries, Ed Gruen. Ed had always been a pretty good correspondent and I wondered what had happened to him recently. After seven years of experience with the Gulf Oil, Ed felt that he would like to continue his studies a little further, so returned to the Michigan Graduate school and as of June 1940 began a year's Assistantship in Economics at Duke. He is planning to see us all at Reunion before going back to work for Gulf who gave him a leave of absence to do this additional studying.
Speaking of new jobs, Petey Boynton, Gynecologist and Obstetrician, has just announced the opening of his new office at 50 East 71st Street in New York.
From the firm of Desmond, Sulloway, Piper and Jones, Jim Godfrey reports that he has been with the above firm since graduating from Harvard Law in 1934. He is married with two children, and not very long ago ran into Freddie Slaughter, the New England sales representative for the Sanford Ink. While he was in Hanover for the Dartmouth-Columbia game, he saw Bunny Bertram, Wen Eldridge, Bunce Clarkson, Ken Anderson, Spence Miller, Ed Langdenback and Herme Buxbaum. Spence Miller had recently been transferred from the legal department of the Boston & Maine Railroad to assistant generah counsel for the Maine Central Railroad, which is by way of being a substantial promotion and, as Jim says, marks Spence as on his way to "being one of the leading railroad attorneys in New England."
While in Newark the other day your scribe ran in to see Doug Woodring in his new law offices at the Prudential where Doug reports that Jim Cooley is now the assistant supervisor in the Methods Department, and Gordon Carver is the manager of the Industrial Policy Department. After leaving Doug, I had lunch with Birdseye's sales manager Len Clark whose biggest problem is not "Where am I going to get the business?" but "How can I keep all these fellows happy who are clamoring for our merchandise?" There is the sort of a job for a sales manager to have and those of us in the life insurance business are just waiting for the day!
Speaking of the north country, Bob Baumrucker, of Hays MacFarland and Company, Chicago, took a couple of weeks off from a recent trip East to go to Hanover and Rangeley Lakes for a few days of good trout fishing. Bob's latest side-line is a syndicate which he has formed with some friends from Nassau to market cocoanut braid. Bob expects to make a nickel a hat for a good many of these cocoanut braid hats that are sold. Like Joe Barrington, Bob has written a good many articles about hunting and fishing and Motor Boating will soon carry an article of his about a cruise he took to th? Out Islands last winter.
As long as we are skipping around the country without apparent rhyme or reason, back to the pan-handle of Texas from whence we hear that Doug Wilson is teaching English again at Rice Institute in Houston. Back east again to Bunce Clarkson, general insurance agent for the Fitchburg Mutual Fire Insurance Company in Worcester. Bunce says he very seldom sees any of the '3l group around Worcester, with the exception of Steve Williams who has recently increased his family to four.
Bill Benger, credit manager for the International Salt Company in Scranton, and who is a golfer himself, reports that Ed Studwell dropped in to see him recently and told him that Ed Mullins is still a hot man with a mashie. Ed Studwell represents the Continental Steel Corporation out of Elkins Park, Pa.
From divers sources we have heard of Bill Minehan's ability to wow 'em from the speaker's platform and of the splendid job he is doing around the country at various conventions of the Northwestern Mutual. His latest appearance before 1500 salesmen at the Waldorf was, as Ernest Earley said, "one of the best talks ever made by a Northwestern home office man." This was passed on to me by Jack Warwick who has considerable of a reputation himself along these same lines.
Sometimes we think we are psychic because every once in a while, after a series of repeated questions from fellows as to what Joe Zilch is doing which we are unable to answer with any up-to-date news, out of an almost clear sky we receive a letter from the person everybody is wondering about. At the last Class Dinner in New York a number of fellows inquired about Dan Denham, and lo and behold, shortly after that a letter arrived bringing us up to date. Dan is still with the S. H. Kress & Company, working like a dog but thriving on it. Incidentally, Dan, and any of you other fellows who may be in the vicinity, there is a 1931 Class Dinner scheduled for February 19th at the Dartmouth Club. We have every expectation of having the latest Dartmouth movies, so if you are in town, plan to join us.
Doug Morris joins the two-boys-and-a-girl club, and when not with his family, works as advertising manager for Lever Brothers of Cambridge, Mass.
Not long ago out of a clear sky we got a letter from one, A. Searle Leach, of Winnipeg, Canada. It's been many a moon since Si was in these parts, and Shep Wolff, Frankie Hodson, Frank McCord and I managed to get together with Si for dinner and a couple of short ones. The occasion for the trip was an inquiry into the associated hospitals work which the Winnipeg Chamber of Commerce was making and for which Si was elected to do the investigating. We left Si at the station only to find out a few minutes later that he had left his briefcase containing certain medicinal effects, and after a hectic dash through red lights up Park Avenue, we managed to appear on the 125th Street platform beautifully timed to see the train whipping through the station. It apparently was the only train that night that didn't stop at 125th Street. After buying a share in the United States Government postal department, we shipped the brief case to Brother Leach only to get a comment back from him regarding the missing medicinal contents and a sharp comment about me "and my ugly friends." So if you see Si and my self with pistols at ten paces on the campus at the Tenth, you will know what the answer is.
And a final note from what must appear to many of us to be the last outpost of civilization. Chan Griggs, of the Civil Aeronautics Administration, reports from Anchorage, Alaska, that he and his wife had planned to be back in Hanover this spring but were drafted to remain in Alaska in connection with the establishment of radio stations and emergency landing fields. Chan says, "This is the land of constant surprises. Eskimos do not live in igloos, but they do travel in airplanes, and would regard a trip by automobile as something risking both life and limb. It has already been colder in Alabama and Georgia than it has up here."
See you at the Tenth!
P.S. Wanted—the name of the man who sent us a check on January 14 from Chicago, Illinois, drawn on the Commerce Trust Company of Kansas City, Missouri, but who forgot to sign his name.
Secretary, Phoenix Mutual Life Insurance Co. 31 Mamaroneck Ave., White Plains, N. Y
