USA > Connecticut > New Haven County > New Haven > History of the class of 1915, Yale College. Volume 3, Thirty-fifth year record > Part 17
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All that Paris tells us is that since 1946 he has been assistant branch manager of the First Investors Corporation, whose business is connected with the sale of mutual fund shares and sponsored plans for their accumulation.
JOSEPH LAWRENCE PATTON. Address, 864 Harrison Street, Denver 6, Colo.
JACOB PODOLOFF. President and treasurer, Podoloff Insurance Agency, Inc., 20 Grove Street, New Haven, Conn .; residence, Bethmour Road, Bethany, Conn.
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Podoloff has been president and treasurer of the Podoloff Insurance Agency, Inc., since 1932 and is also secretary of the Arena Company- an ice rink and convention hall, and the home of Yale hockey. "Not until one is compelled to write something about himself does he realize how small are his achievements," he says. "What did it all amount to ?- the only truthful answer remains, not much, if anything. So I lay no claim to any achievements in 'business, scholarship, public service, or otherwise.' But a few mildly interesting things have happened.
"In 1932 I went broke. To be more accurate, my finances would have indicated the good old mathematical minus. Over a period of years I worked out of the hole, and for a little man it was an achieve- ment; for the rest of the world, nothing at all.
"During the Depression some of us found our escape in different directions. Mine was music, and I joined the New Haven Symphony Orchestra, in which I was first trumpet for ten years. The remunera- tion was negligible (I probably lost money in being away from my business ), but it was a perfect safety valve and, incidentally, is one of the few fields of endeavor where actual accomplishment was re- warded by recognition. I had to practice from one to two hours every day, in addition to rehearsing with the orchestra once a week. The result did not add up in dollars and cents, but I felt that I was amply re- warded in inner satisfaction.
"In the years 1938, 1939, and 1940 I managed and coached pro- fessional hockey in the American Hockey League, in addition to run- ning my insurance business. This was a strange kind of activity for me. I had never engaged in organized athletics previously, although at college I fooled around in the Gymnasium, played a lot of handball and unorganized basketball, and occasionally let the boys 'pitch them in to me' on the campus when spring rolled around. Suddenly I had to 'handle' temperamental athletes and become a hockey strategist.
"I have two children. My daughter is twenty-nine, married to a dentist, Dr. Lester Sarkady, has a child, and lives in Schenectady. My son is twenty-five, was in the Navy on duty in the Pacific during the war, and now, after a sojourn in California, has finally decided to settle down and go into business with his father.
"To sum up, my accomplishments have been quite ordinary and there has been nothing really startling in my life. I have learned enough about the facts of life not to be caught in the hysteria of our times. I still believe in democracy, despite Senator McCarthy and his ilk, and I can view the passing scene with some equanimity, even in
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the shadow of the A-bomb. If the enjoyment of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness means anything, I have certainly had my share. I believe the main objective is the pursuit of happiness, and I have caught up with it most of the time. Others may demand more, but I am willing to settle for that."
In addition to music, Podoloff's special interests are horses and ice skating-he should certainly find it easy to indulge in the latter. Mrs. Podoloff was Esther Schwartzman, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Elias Schwartzman. They were married in 1919 in New Haven, where their daughter, Doras P., was born on February 28, 1922, and their son, David J., on August 28, 1925. The latter is a graduate of the University of Connecticut. Podoloff's grandson, Marc David Sarkady, was born on November 10, 1949.
DAVID MARQUIS POPE. Address, Lake Forest, Ill.
HAROLD ARMSTRONG PUMPELLY. Vice-president, Domestic Manganese & Development Company of Butte, Mont .; business and residence, 43 Front Street, Owego, N.Y.
Since 1927 Pumpelly has been vice-president and a director of the Domestic Manganese & Development Company, which is engaged in the reduction of manganese ore to a commercial form. During World War II he served as a major in the Civil Air Patrol, assigned to the New York Wing at Mitchel Field. He is a member of the American Legion, the Elks, and the Yale Club of New York, is a Republican in politics and an Episcopalian. Hunting and training bird dogs are special interests.
Pumpelly's marriage to Esther Shoemaker Phelps, daughter of Wil- liam George and Caroline Shoemaker Phelps, took place in Bingham- ton, N.Y., on December 7, 1920. Their daughters, Caroline (born January 1, 1922) and Sally Armstrong (born January 26, 1924), attended Miss Porter's School in Farmington. Caroline married Clarke Cushing Fitts and has two girls and a boy. Her husband, who was a major in the Air Force during the war, served as commanding officer of the 402d Fighter Squadron, 370th Fighter Group.
NICHOLAS FRANK RAGO. Lawyer, 49 Pearl Street, Hartford, Conn .; residence, 70 Harwich Street, Hartford.
Rago writes: "As deputy attorney general of Connecticut [1939-51], I was usually assigned to represent the State's interests in matters
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pending before Congressional committees and boards in Washington. I intervened on behalf of the State on the applications of United Air Lines and Eastern Air Lines for certification of flights from Bradley Airport, Windsor Locks, to the West, South, and Southwest. The Civil Aeronautics Board granted both applications, to the delight of many thousands who had been denied this convenience and who immediately took advantage of this air service. In recognition of my efforts, United Air Lines presented me with a scroll, and Eastern Air Lines sent me a letter of appreciation.
"During the war years I was assigned to take charge of most of the State's contractual work with the Federal Government, particularly the leasing to the Federal Government of Bradley and Trumbull air- ports, owned by the State, to be used for military and naval purposes. After the war I was assigned to negotiate the return of these airports to the State, a matter which required more than four years' service and some trips to Washington and Boston.
"It was my duty to appear before Congressional committees to represent the State's interests in the Tideland Bill and two decentraliza- tion bills pending before Congress, in addition to other matters before it.
"A great deal of my time with the Attorney General's Office was spent in writing opinions requested by our various State departments, commissions, and boards, and especially by our State officers and committees of our General Assemblies. It was my duty, also, to rep- resent the State on all bills which were before our legislative com- mittee on claims. All my work was, of course, subject to the supervision and direction of the Attorney General. Our office had twelve assistant attorneys general, all of whom were under my supervision, together with five secretaries assigned to them. It is a matter of extreme pride to me that I held the office of deputy to the Attorney General longer than any other deputy in the United States. Because of my official position, it was my pleasure to meet personally with the attorneys general of more than forty states of our country, at the conventions held annually by the Association of Attorneys General. These personal contacts were of very great importance in the determination of our mutual problems."
Rago, who has been engaged in the private practice of law in Hartford since 1917, served as prosecuting attorney for the city from 1935 to 1937 and then as associate judge of the City Court until being appointed deputy attorney general. He was a member of the Hartford Zoning Board of Appeals from 1930 until 1935 and was
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chairman of the Hartford Republican Town Committee from 1945 to 1947 and of the State Veterans Bonus Appeal Board during the next four years. He is a member and former president of St. Anthony's Benefactors (an organization dedicated to helping the youth of St. Anthony's Roman Catholic Church in Hartford) and of the Hartford Bridge Club, was exalted ruler of the Hartford Lodge of Elks, No. 19, in 1933, and belongs to the Hartford County, Connecticut State, and American Bar associations. He is a communicant of St. Anthony's Church. Rago says that he is greatly interested in youth organizations -also that he visited the northern countries of South America in 1938 and has traveled through more than forty states during the past ten years.
On October 28, 1919, he was married in Hartford to Mary Agnes Woods, daughter of James J. and Margaret A. Woods. They have three children: Francis J., born June 21, 1921, Nicholas F., Jr., on June 14, 1922, and Peggy Marie on May 3, 1933, all in Hartford. The older boy attended Trinity, served in the Army from 1942 to 1946, being with General Patton throughout his European campaign, and was discharged as a captain. He is now employed as an investi- gator with the State Department of Health. In April, 1946, he married Mary DeLorenzo and has two children: Francis J. and John N. Nicholas, Jr., who attended Trinity and the Hartford School of Law of the University of Connecticut, served in the Pacific from 1942 to 1945. He is planning to resume his law studies. After graduating from Mount Saint Joseph Academy in West Hartford in 1951, Peggy planned to enter Teachers College at New Britain, Conn.
FRANK HARRISON RANDOLPH. Professor of hotel engineer- ing, School of Hotel Administration, Cornell University; residence, 101 Oxford Place, Ithaca, N.Y.
Randolph writes: "After yielding to the urgent request of our Class Book Committee to put personal modesty aside, the principal achieve- ment to which I might lay claim is the establishment, for college students in a business course, of the first successful teaching curricu- lum in the highly technical engineering field which was within their grasp and has proven to be directly applicable to practical situations which they later encountered.
"There have been opportunities for me to go into the business world and to teach elsewhere, but after a fellow has spent thirty-five years since graduation and lived in a good community for twenty-five years,
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he has become so firmly rooted that a change is quite unlikely. It looks as if my address will remain Ithaca, N.Y., indefinitely.
"When I came to Cornell in 1923 as the second full-time staff member in the recently established hotel course, it was up to me to organize, develop, and give the classroom and laboratory instruction in the mechanical and electrical equipment of hotels and similar instal- lations. My first class numbered a dozen students. We started from 'scratch.' Now I lecture to a class of one hundred. The engineering instruction staff has been augmented. We give five engineering courses each term, run four laboratories (sometimes simultaneously), and are kept really busy giving the specialized instruction that is needed to over 250 students each term. The four-year course, with a normal enrollment of 380 students, includes work in accounting, food, personnel, and other subjects related to the hotel business.
"During the early part of World War II I went with Shreve, Lamb & Harmon, architects and engineers, and worked on the specification and selection of mechanical equipment for the Navy's 35,000 man training station at Sampson, N.Y. The latter part of the war found me in Atlantic City as supervisor of the entire physical plant at Chalfonte- Haddon Hall, where the Army had taken over this 1200-room hotel property with its eight buildings and converted it into a busy hospital. With the war over, I returned to Cornell.
"During vacations from teaching I have served as hotel engineering consultant for many hotels, a few hospitals, and even a couple of office buildings scattered all over the country. Specific problems have involved recommendations on air conditioning, illumination, hot water supply, fuel selection, stokers, generated power, refrigeration, fire protection, acoustics, elevators, laundry and kitchen equipment. This wide diversity serves to keep things from becoming monotonous."
Randolph was promoted from assistant professor to professor at Cornell some years ago. He is licensed by the States of New York and New Jersey to practice professional engineering, is the author of various articles for engineering periodicals and the hotel press, includ- ing Power, Refrigeration Engineering, the Architectural Record, and Hotel Management, and is the co-author with Mac Collin of Notes on Hotel Planning. He belongs to the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, the New York State Society of Professional Engineers, and the Exchange Club, is a Presbyterian and a Republican.
On June 14, 1924, he was married at Avon-by-the-Sea, N.J., to Margaret MacCardle. They have three daughters: Elizabeth, Kathryn, and Joyce. Elizabeth, who was born in 1926 and who went to Iowa
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State College, married Clair Gross and has two sons and a daughter. Kathryn, born in 1929, graduated from Sargent College of Boston University in 1949 and is now at Wittenberg College in Springfield, Ohio. The youngest girl, born in 1932, is studying music at Oberlin College.
JOHN SYLVESTER REILLY. President, Diplomat Food Products, Inc., and Gordon & Dilworth, Inc., both food manufacturers, 2815 Paterson Plank Road, North Bergen, N.J .; residence, 1 Lexington Avenue, New York 10, N.Y.
In 1928 Reilly became president of Gordon & Dilworth, of which he had previously been vice-president and general manager. Since 1938 he has also been president of Diplomat Food Products, Inc.
"Any one who has been engaged in running a business knows how absorbing it is," he says. "In my own case, as president of Diplomat Food Products, Inc., operators of the first U.S. government inspected chicken canning plant in the country, and as president of Gordon & Dilworth, Inc., a company established 104 years ago and engaged in the packing of orange marmalade, mincemeat, and calf's-foot jelly- I assure you that I find plenty to do in eating, drinking, and sleeping on its problems twenty-four hours per day. What with raising seven children and running the two above companies I am kept busy- and then some."
Reilly's marriage to Estelle Mulqueen, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Michael Joseph Mulqueen, took place in New York City on June 9, 1917. Their oldest son, John Sheridan, who was born in New York, November 18, 1919, was killed in action on October 25, 1944, while serving as a captain in the 69th Infantry. He received the Silver Star posthumously for gallantry beyond the call of duty. John had attended Georgetown University and the Fordham School of Business Adminis- tration. The other children are: Joan Gilroy, born June 3, 1921, the twins, Gregory Mulqueen and Macy Ann, on November 27, 1922, Mary Agnes on October 17, 1925, Madeleine Halpin on January 22, 1927, and Myles Gilson on September 4, 1929, all in New York. Joan attended the Manhattanville College of the Sacred Heart and the other three girls the Sacred Heart Convent. Joan, who married Lee H. B. Malone, a Yale graduate and now director of the Gallery of Fine Arts in Columbus, Ohio, has two sons and two daughters. Macy, whose husband is James J. Beha, a graduate of Williams College and the Harvard Law School, has a boy and a girl. Gregory
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served with John as a captain in the 69th Infantry, attended the Ford- ham School of Business Administration, and is now studying to be a Franciscan priest of the Order of Friars Minor. The youngest boy also attended Fordham and served in the 69th Infantry.
FRANCIS ELLIS RIVERS. Justice, City Court of the City of New York, 52 Chambers Street, New York 7, N.Y .; residence, 706 Riverside Drive, New York 31.
Rivers writes: "My initial year of political activity, during which everything I had touched succeeded, came to a dismal end with the closing of polls on election day in 1930. A windfall had started my political career: an experienced political leader, an 'out,' invited me in July, 1929, to contest for a seat in the Legislature as part of his strategy to oust the 'ins.' My victories followed in rapid succession: I defeated a strongly entrenched legislator in a primary contest and became Republican nominee of the 19th District for the New York State Assembly; triumphed over my Democratic opponent on election day of 1929 and became Assemblyman-elect in my first try for public office; had the good luck in my maiden effort at legislating in Albany the next spring to succeed with a measure which had stumped my predecessors in the Assembly for ten years, namely, a law to create in the Harlem area of New York a new Municipal Court district of which the boundary lines were so arranged that a majority of its fifty thousand voters were Negro citizens, an arrangement which made possible for the first time the election of a Negro as judge in the State of New York; then I followed this by triumphing over all opposition in the September primaries and became Republican nominee in the contest for one of the two judgeships on this new court in the November, 1930, elections. Although this string of victories made even my opponents concede privately my election success, the 'hatcheting' done on me by the opposition, at polling places already swamped with Democratic votes in Roosevelt's gubernatorial landslide, furnished the hairbreadth margin needed to turn this prospect of certain victory into the reality of shocking defeat: I lost the election by 700 votes out of 30,000 cast. I 'bitterly thought of the morrow' on that 1930 election night when I reflected on the stark task of trying to pick up again the thin threads of my law and politics in the depth of the Depression. I had to wait until 1943, thirteen years later, for a success which would wipe out the sting of this defeat. Running that year in an electoral area which included the entire Borough of Manhattan, I received 166,000 votes
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to win a victory over my Democratic opponent by 22,000, and thereby a place as justice on the City Court of the City of New York for the term of ten years.
"The thirteen-year span between this debacle and this victory was in marked contrast to the tumult of 1930 and of 1943. The first seven years, from 1931 to 1938, were a plateau, composed only of defeats which, though painful at the time, seem in retrospect simply the case of a ship reaching port by tacking against the wind. Thrice I served in Presidential campaigns as assistant director for the Republican National Committee, charged with conducting the appeals to the Negro voters; and each time, with Hoover, Landon, and Willkie, drank the dregs of defeat. During each of these years, despite stretch- ing myself to the limit, our political organization suffered the defeat of its candidate for Assembly, as well as the defeat of numerous candidates for larger posts whose fortunes we espoused. Even the one victory which attended my efforts during this period, handling the Harlem phase of Fiorella LaGuardia's campaign for mayor in 1933, turned out to be hollow, when this unpredictable beneficiary of Re- publican support turned from the G.O.P. to espouse the New Deal.
"In the meantime my career as a lawyer was following the same pattern of frustration, despite my unquenchable confidence that by being faithful over few clients I would become possessed of many. Forced by a dwindling practice to give up my law office in the Wool- worth Building in 1936 and move to a building in Times Square, I reached the point by late 1937 when it appeared I would have to answer the question of how does a lawyer practice when he has no practice. I was saved from having to answer this question by the second windfall of my public career: the district attorney-elect of New York County, Thomas E. Dewey, named me in December, 1937, an assistant district attorney, before I had even had a chance to start my campaign for the post. There followed an exciting five years of prosecuting homicide cases in this office and then on September 13, 1943, came the third windfall, as well as the greatest thrill, in my public career: Governor Dewey appointed me judge to fill a vacancy in the City Court of the City of New York, before it had occurred to me that I should at least 'make a try' for the post. Since the term of this appointment expired at the end of that year and thereby required fighting for the full term in the regular elections six weeks later, it was important that I receive not only the nomination of the Repub- lican Party but also of the American Labor Party, for it was their voters who supplied my margin of victory on election day.
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"Considered in the light of the cleanness and vigor of the compe- tition and the thorough participation of the voters of all groups, this contest for one City Court judgeship was an unusual example of democracy in action. A major contribution to my success in this elec- tion, which I'll always consider the fourth windfall in my public career, was the generous help furnished voluntarily by many members of our 1915 Class, in response to the fine-spirited initiative of Tommy Tompkins.
"My present tenure as judge is to the end of 1953, and it will be extended in that year for ten more years, that is, if the Manhattan voters smile upon me once more in November, 1953."
We are pleased to note that Columbia University gave Rivers its Medal of Excellence in May, 1944, and that he received the honorary degree of LL.D. at Wilberforce University the following June and at Lincoln University a year later. He has been a director of the New York Association of the Blind since 1946 and of Freedom House since February, 1951, and is on the board of governors of Federal Hall Memorial Associates, Inc. In 1941 Rivers was in charge of the Greater New York Campaign Fund for the Uptown Area of Man- hattan, and at various times he has been associated with the work of the Boy Scouts, the Salvation Army, and the New York State Citizens Counsel. Although he has no church affiliation, he attends a Baptist church at times, which was the denomination of his father, a Baptist minister. He is a member of the American and National Bar associations, the Association of the Bar of the City of New York, the New York County Lawyers Association, the Harlem Lawyers Association, and the Elks.
He was first married in Patchogue, N.Y., May 27, 1918, to Lucie Ellen Miller. They were divorced in 1947. On December 20, 1947, he was married in Camden, N.J., to Alroy Spencer Long, daughter of Edward and Anne Spencer. He has no children.
JOHN DONALD ROBB. Dean, College of Fine Arts, University of New Mexico; residence, 1623 Sigma Chi Road, Albuquerque, N.Mex.
"My life seems to have been divided into two sections," Robb says. "The first portion terminated in 1941 and was devoted to a year as instructor at Yale-in-China, two years in the first World War, one year in the bond business, followed by nineteen years of law practice in New York City, first as an associate of the firm of Cravath &
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Henderson and successor firms and from 1929 on with various law firms in which I was a partner. I spent one year studying law at Minnesota and two years at Harvard, but have always had to explain why I never got a law degree. I completed the three years of law work, not brilliantly but successfully, but as I transferred from Minnesota, I would have had to return to Harvard to take all of the first-year exams in order to get a degree. As I was already employed in New York and found I did not need a degree to take the bar examinations, I never found time to go back and complete my work towards my degree.
'One of the great privileges which has been accorded to me is that of studying with three very great figures in the world of music: Paul Hindemith, with whom I studied privately one summer at New Haven; Nadia Boulanger, both at Fontainebleau and New York City; and Darius Milhaud, in Paris and in Oakland, Calif. Each of these people in a different way has been an inspiration to me.
"One of the pleasantest features of my law practice was association with our classmate, Chandler Bennitt, who is now a consulting psy- chologist in New York and author of a number of books and articles which I should call philosophical. During this time I had a chance to become acquainted with the deep and brooding thought of Chub Bennitt, particularly in his books. I feel that one day these books, which are very tough reading and seem incomprehensible to people who do not put forth the effort, will be recognized as a great contribu- tion to the thought of our time. During my period of association with the Cravath office, I had the privilege of knowing and working with a number of men who have since built world-wide reputations, includ- ing William O. Douglas, now a justice of the United States Supreme Court, and John J. McCloy, the High Commissioner for Germany, both wonderful fellows deserving all the success that they have had.
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