1932
"Your Honor" is the distinguished epithet recently acquired by one of our most venerable classmates, Chuck Owsley. He was appointed to serve as the United States member of the Supreme Restitution Court in Berlin. This court consists of a Swedish president, three judges (including Chuck), each representing one of the member nations of the Allied Kommandatura, and three judges appointed by the Senate of Berlin. In the official release from the High Commissioner's office in Berlin, it was stated that:
"It is the responsibility of the court to restore within the law those rights which have been violated by injustices inflicted on certain citizens in an era which now belongs to the past. ... The combined experience of judges of different countries and their different methods of approach is an assurance that the questions at issue will be treated from all aspects and so contribute towards just solutions."
An operator of his own biochemical research clinic at Mountainside, N. J., WilfredHand finds time occasionally to assist as a volunteer in various civic enterprises. Recently he gave a lecture and instruction on the subject of "Mechanics of Muscle Motion” at a meeting of the adaptive aquatics workshop of the Westfield, N. J., YMCA. As you may recall, he served on the faculty in the Zoology Department at Hanover for a couple of years after graduation. Since 1938 he has been in his own business. He is a member of the Engineers Technical Society, American Chemical Association and the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
Howard Elliot was in town recently to attend the annual January furniture convention in Chicago. John Sheldon and I had lunch with him. We are happy to report that Esther and the boys are in sound condition and good spirits, in spite of the fact that last summer on a ranch up near Howard's old stamping ground, Kalispell (Flathead Indian territory), Esther and Stevie both suffered serious equestrian mishaps. Howard's retail business in Billings, specializing in fur niture, home furnishings, appliances, floor coverings, etc., seems to be going well. The development of the Williston oil basin in Montana and western North Dakota has been favorably felt in Billings.
Al Keyworth was also in Chicago recently to attend the furniture meeting. John Sheldon had dinner and a visit with him and learned of his activities and of the success his son, Bob (Dartmouth '57), was enjoying as '32's first son to be entered in Dartmouth.
Congratulations, Ben Read, on the fine work you are doing in advancing the College's interests in your part of the country. The administration in Hanover has acknowledged your generous contributions of time and money. Dr. Ben played a major role in the highly successful southern regional conference held last fall in Atlanta.
Chantey III is the name of the 38-footyacht launched by Charlie Mayo last August. In late November I received an epistle from Captain Charlie, informing me that he was about to embark on his annual trip by boat to Florida. Charlie's address there will be c/o Francis Dears Yacht Broker, 1300 East Las Olas Boulevard, Fort Lauderdale, Fla. Quoting from Charlie's interesting letter,
"This will make my 29th passage to Florida and the West Indies - my aim this year being to sign up fishing charters to be met at fishing spots most convenient to the charterers and where the fishing prospects are good. Such an arrangement is a departure from the conventional way most boats locate in one spot all season, good fishing or bad. I may go broke trying this transient plan but we re sure to give charterers a better deal. Already have many tentative dates taken by my summer clients - but if you have any ardent fishermen friends, I'd appreciate it if you'd mention me to them. BobHosmer recommended me to a friend of his and I'd like to drop him a word of thanks.
"The new Chantey III, launched in August, is a 38-footer, with two Chrysler engines and is capable of 22 miles an hour. We broke all records in this part of the world for rod-and-reel tuna fishing this summer with 650 tuna for the summer. One day during the first week in September we caught sixty fish in four hours, averaging sixty pounds apiece.
"Dartmouth occasionally gets into the Picture up here. Johnny Fish comes up each year. Jack, Downs comes up with Arline (a year ago he bought chantey II from me and has become a full-fledged boatman down in Noank, Conn.). Stacy May, remembered as freshman citizenship professor, takes a shot annually, at our tuna. Henry Moore, sports writer of the Boston Herald, is a Dartmouth man who has taken a great interest in our fishing in these parts, as you will note by the attached clipping.
"Chantey III is the ninth vessel I have owned since Reuel Denney and I set out in 1933 in a 40- foot yawl, Istar, for Florida. In reading over the '32 report each month, I see insurance executives, lumber dealers, M.D.s, librarians, lawyers — by contrast this seagoing business I've been in must seem a strange career. Security? There is none, only a prayer that your health will stay good and that you won't be shipwrecked or run down in a fog. Virtues are that you're your own boss, that you know 'the sea around us,' and for all the rough treatment it gives you at times, it is honest-to-god stuff with no room for the slumgullion being stewed up in American culture these days.
"I hope you'll pass on my winter address, given above, to classmates who might get down that way. Best of luck to you, John, and why don't you turn away from the fresh water and look us up some time."
I had an interesting visit with Mike Cardozo in Chicago during the holidays, when he was here attending the meeting of the Association of American Law Schools, an organization made up of faculty members of the various leading law schools of the country. He and Alice seem to be enjoying life in Ithaca. Among their various interesting diversions has developed the sport or pastime of square dancing. In addition to teaching his specialty of international law at Cornell Law School, Mike is also teaching the subject of "Conflicts of Law."
In a letter just received from Bob Hosmer, several controversial questions are raised. Who has whiter hair than Chuck Owsley? Who has less hair than Bob Hosmer, ButchModarelli or Marv Chandler? Who is better qualified tor the categories of "oldest new father" and "oldest new groom" of the Class?
"This isn't what I normally would consider a prompt answer to your postcard of last April, designating me your reporter for the area - but, then, I've had to take the time and spread beyond the area to pick up enough odds and ends to keep the communique from being purely autobiographical.
"Herb Sails makes the other half of the Class of '32 in Northampton and helps run the schools here - that is, the schools other than Smith. When not educating, he golfs, and I've been told fairly well.
"A lunch with Ed Smith in Waterbury, Conn., found Ed as lean as any freshman, almost as snowy as C. H. Owsley, and deep in the business of running the Smith Lumber Co.
"No one's hair could be any whiter than Owsley's, and I managed to re-check that on the old dry file this summer. The worries of an important assignment in Germany for the State Department this fall, six children, and the problem of getting six feet of CHO in and out of the world's smallest automobile had yet to turn his hair even slightly black.
"To further my generalization that all of 1932 except Skin-Heads Hosmer, Modarelli and Chandler are lean and grey, Charlie Do err fitted the pattern perfectly - and was also most interesting about his work with recent college graduates from the point of view of his occupation as personnel V.P. for McKesson-Robbins.
"Baruch's rival as advisor to kings and presidents - W. H. Ferry - was lean enough but had taken to using a tint with his shampoo. He graciously accepted my congratulations on not having had to leave his 50-room mansion overlooking the Hudson and rush off to the funeral of his old friend. Ibn Saud. Hates to pack, line up a plane and take time away from thinking about Republicans and taxes, anyway.
"One of the few understatements I've been trapped into making in some time was a recent one over the phone to Bill McCall, in Hudson, N. Y., to the effect that I had a vague notion that he was in the manufacturing business there, and where could I find him. The McCall corporation is anything but vague or hard to find. It makes refrigerators for such as the new ship United States, spreads over a good city block, and was done from the ground up by Wm. T. McCall. He spoiled my generalization - not fat, to be sure, but certainly not grey.
"As for myself. Have just finished a project started five years ago in a back room in Norwalk, Conn., where I was working with an inventor, building a machine to make rubber thread from latex The patent was on paper and the machine had to be put together on the trial and error basis. Before the machine could be made to work, the inventor quit and Hosmer had to work even harder. However, the machine did live up to claims when I got it working, and after running a one-man show of salesman, foreman, technician shipping clerk and bookkeeper for a time, licensed the process on a long-time royalty contract to the oldest and second largest rubber thread manufacturer in the industry. As part of the license arrangement, I had to come up here under contract to set up the machines, build some more, and get the thing running in the new location.
"My contract is now practically over, except for the consultant feature, so we are on our way back home to Syracuse, N. Y. The 'we' now includes a little girl, aged 2 this January, and a little boy, aged one this June. Both adopted when they were a little more than three months old. That should put me well towards the top of the 'oldest new father' of the Class.
"By reading between the lines I have inferred that you have become the 'oldest new groom' of the Class. Congratulations."
If anyone else has any revelation as to some one being the most of this or best of that of our Class, I would be only too happy to pass this interesting, but, I assume, not to be unchallenged, information along.
FROM COLGATE: Chuck Adkins '32 (r), a member of the Colgate faculty, shares his loyalties with Coach Tuss McLaughry, speaker at the Mohawk Valley Club, and Colgate's director of freshman athletics, Richard Offenhgmmer (l).
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