USA > Connecticut > New Haven County > New Haven > History of the class of 1915, Yale College. Volume 3, Thirty-fifth year record > Part 19
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23
RUDOLPH EUGENE SEILER. Owner, Seiler Press, Seiler Sta- tioners, and Seiler Newspaper Advertising Service, 620 South La Brea Avenue, Los Angeles 36, Calif .; residence, 3965 South Dublin Avenue, Los Angeles 8.
Seiler continued as general manager of classified advertising for the Hearst newspapers until February, 1930. From the following October until October, 1932, he was advertising counsel for the Los Angeles Times, and from September, 1933, to May, 1942, he was advertising counsel for some fifteen newspapers, mainly in California. Seiler re- tired from newspaper work in May, 1942, but is still active in the printing and stationery business. He has owned the Seiler Press since August, 1942, the Seiler Stationers since November, 1948, and the Seiler Newspaper Advertising Service since October, 1930. He origi- nated the so-called "Seiler System" of classified advertising which is in use in hundreds of newspapers through America, and also a cost accounting system for newspapers which is widely employed. He still sells to a number of newspapers his various copyrighted newspaper office forms.
"My activities today, aside from my work," he says, "are largely in connection with crippled children's work in Los Angeles, where we are doing a great deal to make the life of the crippled child happier and more normal. Several years ago the Crippled Children's Society of Los Angeles County, of which I am a trustee, built a camp in the San Bernardino mountains. It is the only mountain camp exclusively for crippled children anywhere. Last year the crippled children's com- mittee of the Los Angeles Rotary Club, on which I have served for
201
years and am chairman this year, induced the club to build an outdoor amphitheatre and fire ring at this camp, providing a place for staging plays, community sings, etc., out under the stars beneath the towering pines, with a huge fire in an open fireplace in the center. We dedi- cated this fire ring in 1951, the plans and program having been in my charge. What a thrill to see the joy and happiness of more than one hundred of those handicapped youngsters, whose lot, but for a twist of fate, might have been our own!
"I have been active in the Los Angeles Rotary Club for twenty-six years, serving on every committee and as chairman of most of them. I was once active in local Yale Club affairs, fraternal organizations, etc., but recently have withdrawn from leading rôles. I have been president of the Yale Club of Southern California and for many years was in charge of our scholarship, under which we sent many able men to Yale.
"When the Olympic Games were held in Los Angeles in 1932, I was a member of the citizens' committee and also chairman of the Rotary Club's Olympic Games committee. I had charge of a big luncheon given for the athletes and Olympic officials from all parts of the world. It was staged near the end of the fifteen days of the games. We had all the winners present, and all the international officers. It was a civic gathering that is still talked about today.
"My travels have been in all parts of the United States and in some parts of Canada, where I have viewed most of the scenic wonders. Outstanding in memory are numerous visits to Yosemite Valley. Today's modern highways have taken all the kick out of traveling these perilous mountain roads, where often, in order to pass another car, the one coming down would be forced to back up against the side of the mountain and the one going up would be barely able to squeeze by and avoid toppling into the abyss.
"Among other travels that remain in clear memory: The grandeur of Grand Cañon, with its mile-wide and mile-deep sweep of radiant colors, and the Painted Desert as seen from the rim of the Cañon and at a later time from an airplane with a torrential rain storm sweeping across its great expanse. Also, the first long flight in a two- seated airplane from Seattle above the white peaks of Mt. Ranier and Mt. Hood to Los Angeles in 1925 and a later flight in a Ford cabin plane from San Francisco to Los Angeles, boarding the plane at dusk to read the headlines that a lost plane had been found smashed in the mountains, with all eighteen passengers killed, and we would be crossing the same mountains within an hour. We ran into a solid
202
cloud bank, hovered over Los Angeles but found the cloud bank too thick to get through, and turned back for Bakersfield in hope that the gas supply would last for the 130 miles. It just did. We made an emergency landing, with just about a gallon of gasoline left in the tank.
"Frequent trips to the Hearst Ranch at San Simeon-the enchanted Castle on the Hill-also remain in memory, with strenuous horseback rides over mountain trails on full-blooded Arabian stallions or con- versations with William Randolph Hearst or his five sons, or Mrs. Hearst, or Marion Davies (the two were never there at the same time), or Arthur Brisbane, Colonel Frank Knox (later Secretary of the Navy), Lord and Lady Mountbatten, and many other personalities of national or world eminence.
"Recreations: golf until lately; contract bridge; dancing; fishing; work. Once did deep-sea fishing and also trout fishing in the High Sierras, but now confine it to fishing from a boat with an outboard motor at an accessible lake.
"Hobbies: woodworking-sawing, hammering, and pulling nails. Complete electrical and hand woodworking equipment in my garage. Building something all the time.
"Collections: an antique automobile, a 1928 7-passenger Lincoln. Still drive it, too, on occasion and leave the new automobiles in the garage."
In answer to our questions as to his writings and speeches Seiler lists: History of William Randolph Hearst, His Family and His News- papers, published by Los Angeles Examiner in 1919 and the first such history receiving the personal O.K. of William Randolph Hearst; Sales Manual for Hearst newspapers, published by Los Angeles Ex- aminer, 1919-23; "How to Make Classified Ads Pay" (Los Angeles Examiner, 1923); "I am Type" (Seiler Press, 1948). "I have been the principal speaker before some three hundred Rotary clubs in various parts of America and the speaker at real estate and advertising conventions, newspaper conventions, Kiwanis, Lions, Optimists, and other service clubs, and before church, civic, and business groups. Among speeches printed are: 'Some Lessons from Nature'; 'What are You Doing Here?'; 'Qualities that Make for Success'; 'Washington, Lincoln, and Douglas'; 'Getting in a Ruť'; etc. etc."
Seiler has been active in the work of the local Community Chest for many years. He was a member of the First Congregational Church of Los Angeles from 1934 to 1948, president of the Cathedral Choir (whose name he originated) in 1938, and the originator and presid-
203
ing officer of the Sunday Morning Breakfast Club. Since March, 1948, he has been a member of the Wilshire Presbyterian Church and be- longs to the Mariner's Club, "The Princeton." He was formerly a member of the Oratorio Society of Los Angeles and the Smallman A Cappella Choir. From 1935 to 1938 he was manager of the three- day Bach Festival. He belongs to the Masonic order and the Elks. He is a Republican-"strong anti-New Deal and anti-Socialism, anti- Communism, anti-Totalitarianism of any kind, whether it be the Truman-Acheson kind or the Stalin-Hitler-Mussolini kind"; was on the Taft-for-President Committee, 1942, and MacArthur-for-President Committee, 1946.
Seiler was first married September 6, 1915, to Maysie Van Dyke; they were divorced in 1930. On June 15, 1939, he married Mary Jane Doherty, daughter of Walter Harry and Ida Violet Kellner Doherty. His oldest son, Rudolph Eugene, Jr., the 1915 Class Boy, who was born June 25, 1916, in New Haven, graduated from the Fairfax High School in Los Angeles and from Los Angeles Junior College in 1937 and has since been a police reporter on the Los Angeles Times, except for the period of his war service. (He was a Pfc. in the Military Police Unit in charge of information and education at Fort Ord for a year beginning in March, 1945.) Rudolph, Jr., is a deacon of the West- wood Hills Christian Church. He was married September 29, 1939, to Esther White and has two sons: James Howard, born June 17, 1942, and Gregory Eugene on July 8, 1948. Seiler's second son, Howard Van Dyke, was born September 25, 1919, and died October 28, 1928. The youngest, Jack Bertschy, born March 31, 1922, graduated in 1940 from the University High School, where he played on the football team. He subsequently spent a year at the University of Cali- fornia at Los Angeles, where he was on the Freshman football team, and later attended the University of California at Berkeley, receiving his B.A. degree in 1945. He was in the Marines during the war, but was mustered out for high blood pressure. He is now West Coast representative for Lampel Fashions. His marriage to Joyce Benjamin took place on August 3, 1951.
LOUIS LEONARD SHAPIRO. Residence, 9-09 157th Street, Whitestone, N.Y.
Shapiro, who has been retired since 1944, says: "My activities have been limited and curtailed during the past decade owing to a recur- rence of a physical disability incurred in my post-war (World War
204
I) services in the Balkans and Russia. I spent most of last year (1950) in hospitals, but at present am in a somewhat better physical con- dition. I utilize my time in reading all books pertaining to world events of the period from 1920 to the present and in preparing sea- sonal, religious, and patriotic displays for the show windows of the local public library. I have built many miniature scenes for exhibits and for distribution."
Prior to his retirement Shapiro had been connected with the Sono- tone Company of Jamaica, N.Y., as manager and with the Acoustical Laboratories, also in Jamaica, as director. He has been active in the service and welfare work of the American Red Cross, the American Legion, and the American Relief Administration Association. He was given the American Legion Founders Medal for having been a member of the original caucus in Paris (March, 1919), and his history of the American Legion Post received the national award in 1949. Shapiro belongs to the Military Order of American Legion Founders, the Association of U.S. Military Surgeons, the Acoustical Society of America, and the Masonic order.
He was first married in Dijon on July 28, 1920, to Germain Pelletier. They were divorced in 1927. On January 9, 1932, he was married in Greenwich, Conn., to Hildure Schorling Sterne, daughter of the late Edward and Hannah Schorling. His daughter, Muriel Betsy, who was born in Dijon on January 2, 1923, was educated in schools in France. She graduated with a B.S. degree in bacteriology from the University of Dijon in 1943, and during the war served as a lieutenant in the U.S. Army in the European zone, also with the American Red Cross in France and Germany. On October 7, 1949, she married Major R. L. Young, U.S.A., at Sonthufen, Germany, and is now with the American Red Cross at the Army Hospital at Fort Hood, Texas.
JAMES HARVEY SHARP. Financial vice-president, Merck & Com- pany, Inc., manufacturing chemists, Lincoln Avenue, Rahway, N.J .; residence, Millstone Road, Wilton, Conn.
Sharp continued as vice-president of the Grace National Bank of New York until May, 1951, when he became financial vice-president of Merck & Company, Inc. He is still a director of the Grace National Bank and in January, 1952, was elected to the board of directors of Merck & Company, Ltd. He has also been president and a director of Merck (North America), Inc., since September, 1951, and is, in addition, a director of Atlas Steels, Ltd., and the Rome Cable Cor-
205
poration. He belongs to the Anglers, Metropolitan, and Recess clubs.
Sharp's marriage to Heather G. Tree, of London, took place in New York City on November 23, 1923. Their daughter, Heather Mary, who was born on September 4, 1926, graduated from the Sacred Heart Convent at Noroton, Conn., and subsequently studied at Rad- cliffe, the University of Geneva, the University of Rome, and the Georgetown University Graduate School.
WILLIAM MARTINDALE SHEDDEN. Chief surgeon, Veterans Administration Hospital, Lake City, Fla .; residence, 820 DeSoto Drive, Lake City.
Shedden continued to practice surgery in Boston until the war. He was on active duty as a commander in the Medical Corps, U.S.N.R., from 1942 through 1945 and still holds a commission in the Inactive Re- serve. He was stationed at the Chelsea Naval Hospital at first and was then assigned to the cruiser Vincennes, his subsequent assign- ments being at Parris Island, Panama, and Honduras.
Since January, 1946, he has been chief surgeon at the Veterans Administration Hospital at Lake City. He became a diplomate of the American Board of Surgery some years ago, is a fellow of the American College of Surgeons, and a member of the Rotary Club and of the Roman Catholic Church. Shedden is the author or co-author of some twenty-four articles which have been published in medical journals, including the Journal of Urology; the Boston Medical and Surgical Journal; the American Journal of Roentgenology; the American Re- view of Tuberculosis; Surgery, Gynecology, and Obstetrics; the New England Journal of Medicine; the American Journal of Cancer; the American Journal of Surgery; and Surgical Clinics of North America.
On August 24, 1918, he was married in West Newton, Mass., to Ruth Hartwell Blodgett. They have had five children, all of whom were born in Brookline, Mass .: Richard in 1921, Robert in 1923, Ann in 1925, William in 1927, and John E. B. in 1929.
Shedden gives the following information about them: "My oldest boy, Dick, was a B-29 pilot, with twenty-nine missions over Japan from the base at Tinian, and is now a pilot for Eastern Airlines (7,000 hours to date) out of New Orleans. He has one daughter. My next, Bob, was a fighter pilot off jeep carriers and from Guadalcanal. On one occasion he flew inside the rim of Fujiyama to bomb a Jap radar station. He is now a personnel manager for Southern Bell-at present at West Palm Beach. He has one daughter.
206
"My next, Ann, was Phi Beta Kappa at Vassar and, despite that fact, is married and has one daughter. (Why do they each have to have one daughter? ) My next, Bill, is at the University of Florida. He was with the Marines, but did not go overseas. Johnny, age 7, was drowned while fishing by himself off the little wharf at Wianno, Cape Cod, in 1936-even at that age a wonderful personality."
FREDERICK BARREDA SHERMAN. Partner, Leppo, Dorking & Sherman, investment counsel, 315 Montgomery Street, San Fran- cisco 4, Calif .; residence, 166 Elinor Avenue, Mill Valley, Calif.
Sherman continued as sales promotion manager of E. H. Rollins & Sons' San Francisco office through 1931. He was a salesman with Eyre, Palmer & Company the following year and then became a part- ner in Eyre, Sherman & Company, with which he was associated until forming his present connection in January, 1936.
"Possibly because of advancing years, possibly because of the effort involved in trying always to peer into the future (as is required of an investment counselor )," he says, "I do not seem at the end of the day or during the week-end to have sufficient energy left to engage in any hobby worth recording. I read and think and talk a lot about inter- national relations in general and American foreign policy in particular, but my reading on the subject is not as deep or as extensive as I would like and I cannot do anything about what I think except to write to Congressmen or to newspaper editors. My outbursts do not seem as yet to have affected the Flow of History. I was a director of the San Francisco Committee to Defend America by Aiding the Allies and am now a director of the Northern California regional branch of the American Association for the United Nations.
"I suppose my prime interest is my home and family, but there's nothing unusual about that-or is there?
"I served for a number of years as one of the original trustees of the Thacher School after its founder and owner, Mr. Sherman Day Thacher, '88, transferred it to a non-profit corporation.
"Of course, I have since graduation been a member of the Yale Alumni Association of Northern California and have served as director, vice-president, and chairman of the scholarship committee, whose activity was revived by our classmate and my close friend, the late Blair Shuman. It is now doing splendid work and is instrumental in sending many fine northern California high school boys to Yale.
207
"I have done no travel worth recording since I went East and re- turned via Canada in 1931."
During the war Sherman was a district air raid warden in Mill Valley. A Republican in politics, he served on the Willkie Volunteers Com- mittee in Marin County and San Francisco in 1940. He has been sec- retary and a member of the house and admissions committees of the University Club of San Francisco and belongs also to the Common- wealth Club.
His marriage to Cornelia Emerson Ripley, daughter of Thomas Emerson Ripley, Yale '88, and Charlotte Clement Ripley, took place in Paris on April 9, 1923. Mrs. Sherman is a cousin of John Clement, '15, and the sister of Clements Ripley, '16. Their older daughter, Charlotte M., who was born August 16, 1924, received a B.A. degree at Scripps College in 1946. She was married on July 6 of that year to Roane Thorpe Sias, of Mill Valley, and has three children: Cornelia Ripley, born November 30, 1947, Spencer Roane on March 11, 1950, and Benjamin Dean on June 8, 1951. The family lives in Tacoma. Frederick Barreda Sherman, Jr., born February 28, 1927, was in the Army during 1946-47. He graduated from the College of Marin in Kentfield, Calif., in 1950 and is now with Macy's in San Francisco. The younger girl, Sally Mauran, was born October 14, 1929. She graduated from Scripps in 1950 and during the past year has been studying at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts in London.
RAYMOND GREGORY SHIRK. Account executive, Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Beane, brokers, 9 First National Tower Building, Akron 8, Ohio; residence, 67 Putnam Road, Akron 3.
Shirk continued with Otis & Company until 1931 and during the next ten years was associated with E. A. Pierce & Company. Since 1941 he has been an account executive with Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Beane.
His marriage to Eleanor Seiberling, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Francis Seiberling, took place in Akron on October 21, 1922. Their older son, Francis G., who was born on January 31, 1924, graduated from the University School in 1942 and from Yale in 1949. He served in the Air Force from 1943 to 1946 and again during 1950-51. The younger boy, James L., was born on June 23, 1931. He attended The Hotchkiss School from 1946 to 1948 and Avon Old Farms for the next two years and is now a member of the Kenyon College Class of 1954.
208
CLARENCE BERNARD SHONINGER. Special United States rep- resentative, Pedro Olarte e Hijos (export-import) of Medellin, Colombia; business and residence address, 1 Dale Lane, Hicksville, N.Y.
Shoninger, who has had the above connection for some time, says that he makes combination business and pleasure trips every now and then to Medellin. During the period from 1942 to 1944 he was in the Air Force as a captain and major, assigned to the 8th Bomber Command, the 92d Heavy Bombardment Group, and the Combat Crew Replace- ment Center, all in England, his service being as intelligence officer, G2, A2, S2, and historical officer.
Shoninger has written a number of magazine articles on aeronautical and financial subjects. He is a member of that notable organization, the Anciente and Secrete Order of Quiet Birdmen.
His marriage to Ruth Abigail Dorne, daughter of Walter Scott and Abigail McCormick Dorne, took place in New York City in December, 1919. Their daughter, Ruth Dolores, who was born on October 28, 1920, was educated in private schools and at St. Ana- stasia Academy. In May, 1940, she married Francisco José Olarte; they are living in Medellin with their four children.
CORNELIUS HITE SKINKER, JR. Address, 7126 Pershing Ave- nue, St. Louis, Mo.
SAMUEL SKOLNICK. Partner, Skolnick & Skolnick, lawyers, 202 Tompkins Avenue, Brooklyn, N.Y .; residence, 184 Vernon Ave- nue, Brooklyn.
Skolnick says: "I have been engaged in the general practice of law since the commencement of my practice in 1928 as a partner in Skolnick & Skolnick. I was active in the Fusion Movement prior to and during the first term of the late Mayor LaGuardia's administra- tion from 1933 to about 1938-particularly as chairman of the Speakers' Bureau for Kings County. In this capacity I arranged edu- cational talks which were delivered by various heads of New York City government departments to various civic, social, and political groups in New York City. The purpose of these talks was to educate the New York City citizenry in the workings of their city government and to develop a keener sense of responsibility as citizens. With a change in conditions, I discontinued my activities with the Fusion Movement.
209
"At different times during the period from 1933 through 1945 I was a member of the executive committee of the American Jewish Congress for Kings County, an organization whose chief function, among others, was to combat racial and religious intolerance, and also served as president of a local social and charitable organization known as the Michalishker Benevolent Association continuously from 1938 to 1951. The United Jewish Appeal and the Federation of Jewish Philanthropies of New York are other charitable organizations I was active in. In the latter I served as vice-chairman for local cam- paigns for several years."
Skolnick has also been connected with the Order of Free Sons of Israel since 1920, and he belongs to the New York County Lawyers Association and the Brooklyn Bar Association. His marriage to Anna Selikowitz, daughter of Max and Fanny Selikowitz, took place in Brooklyn on January 31, 1932. Their son, Mordecai Leon, who was born on June 10, 1936, and who is at present a student at the Mid- wood High School in Brooklyn, has, he says, been showing consider- able talent in scientific work, as well as a keen interest in the field of law, and that the chances are that he will specialize in one or the other of these fields.
EDWIN LYON SLOCUM. Salesman (New Jersey territory), Fran- cis I. duPont & Company (investments), 1 Wall Street, New York, N.Y .; residence, 15 St. Luke's Place, Montclair, N.J.
Slocum, who was with Hemphill, Noyes & Company at the time our last Class record was published, was connected with Tucker, Anthony & Company from 1934 to 1948 and has since been with Francis I. duPont & Company as a salesman in the New Jersey terri- tory. He describes himself as an inactive Presbyterian and, as to travels and other things, says: "Europe-France, Spain, three months, 1926; Europe-Italy, France, Riviera, August, 1937; gardening-second class; finishing old furniture; tennis with Dr. Sam Mills as a partner."
Slocum's marriage to Marion Curtiss, daughter of William C. and Belle Curtiss, took place on September 17, 1938. He has a son, John Curtiss, born October 2, 1939, and a stepdaughter, Marion C. Stanton, born January 13, 1933, both in Montclair.
AUSTIN CHICHESTER SMITH. General superintendent and as- sistant vice-president, Carnation Company (evaporated milk, other dairy items, and cereal products), 5045 Wilshire Boulevard, Los
210
Angeles 36, Calif .; residence, 4121 Wilshire Boulevard, Los An- geles 5.
Smith, who became general superintendent of the Carnation Com- pany in 1930 and assistant vice-president twelve years later, writes as follows: "I resided from 1923 to 1949 in the Wisconsin lake country at Oconomowoc, where the Carnation Company maintained its gen- eral office until 1948. In that year the Wisconsin headquarters, to- gether with Carnation division offices in New York, Seattle, and Los Angeles, were consolidated in the newly-erected world headquarters office building on Wilshire Boulevard in Los Angeles. I sold my Wis- consin home and moved to southern California in the spring of 1949.
"My position with Carnation has for many years been that of managing the U.S. and Canada production of evaporated milk and the manufacture of all cans used in packing that product. This business is conducted in one hundred plants located in twenty-six states and in the provinces of Ontario and Quebec. My duties require a great deal of travel, mostly by air, which has made it possible to keep in per- sonal touch with many members of our Class between reunion gath- erings in New Haven.
"I have found special interest in developing an executive trainee program, with candidates recruited each year from graduating classes of universities and colleges throughout the country. The need of this and other personnel improvement in our company was increas- ingly important from the time in 1937 when Carnation plants first found themselves faced with the demands of organized labor unions. During those early years of our union acquaintance I handled the labor negotiations and laid the foundation for our present highly im- portant personnel activities."
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.