USA > Connecticut > New Haven County > New Haven > History of the class of nineteen hundred thirty-six, Yale College, fifteen-year record > Part 16
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My three daughters were born in 1937, 1938, and 1940. We live in a house, which we designed ourselves, on a creek eight miles out of town. Our main relaxations are spending weekends at our farm near Eatonville, Wash., and camping in the Olympic and Cascade Moun- tains. Political leanings are reticent Republican, and our interest in Atlantic Federation continues.
ROBERT MEYER HENRY; c/o Aramco, Jeddah (Red Sea), Saudi Arabia.
As to so many, the year 1945 brought changes which for me were to continue for some time and to a far greater extent than anticipated.
The closing down of DuPont's Indiana Ordnance Works led to a transfer to their Cellophane Division, with assignment to the New York City Sales Office and two years of pounding Gotham's pave- ments.
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Highlights of 1947 were commuting, sore feet, and resumption of bachelorhood.
Mid 1948 found me in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia (main camp of the Arabian American Oil Company), on the shores of the Persian Gulf, working with a group of hardy souls charged with the responsibility of maintaining harmonious relations between a fast-growing giant in the oil-producing industry and the Middle Eastern Government in whose lands the oil is found. Also, there are problems that arise when some 4,000 Americans (men, women, and children) are super- imposed, within the space of a few years, on a land and people whose customs have remained unchanged through many centuries.
After a year in Dhahran, transferred to Jeddah in charge of the Company's office in this Red Sea port where the offices of the central Government are located.
It is all vastly interesting, and a far cry from whatever it was I had in mind in 1936 when, in answer to the questionnaire on future occu- pation, I put down-"business."
In mid 1949 travelled to Cairo to meet Virginia Freeman of New York City (ex-Goshen, Indiana), who came out from the States with matrimony in mind, and a determination to spend a number of years raising a family in the desert. She is well launched on this career by having contributed to the population of Saudi Arabia, in December, 1950, one fat, healthy baby girl-Carmena Mitchell Henry.
With some 18 years to go in Saudi Arabia, there are untold possibilities !
ROBERT E. HERMAN; 175 East 79th Street, New York, N.Y.
Having spent three years during the War prolifically letterwriting to a gal who subsequently became my wife, is it any wonder that I missed up on that installment for 1936's Tenth Year Book?
To retrace: On January 7, 1945, while home on Navy-leave from European duty, I married Elaine Surut. In no time at all-after the War's end-we acquired a brace of offspring, candidates for our respective alma maters: a son, Tom, Yale 1963; and a daughter, Kerry, Vassar 1966-socialism, wars, and flubbed exams not barring.
To support these responsibilities, with the discard of uniform I went back to law in New York: four years' association with former Lt. Governor Charles Poletti (whom I'd met in Sicily during the War at a time when F.D.R. Jr. was laying the foundations for a similar postwar association); and then, for the past year, with the firm of Rosenman, Goldmark, Colin, & Kaye.
Besides clients' corporate problems (and almost any other prob- lems), there's been opportunity for some politics-consistently Democratic; some squash and tennis-consistently "E" for effort; some philanthropic and social welfare work; and no end of ferrying
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children to and from Central Park or sightseeing across the Lower Bay in what may soon be known as the last decade of city-dwelling, as myriads of our friends depart to take on suburbia, or wilder reaches of the hinterland. Still see a lot of 36'ers, and correspond- erratically-with erstwhile Saybrook roommate Lee Harris, now a corporate executive in Israel. Troubled by thought of further war and worse taxes, but hoping that the realization of the sheer lunacy of both will somehow change this uneasy period into one of ultimate normalcy and peace.
JOHN S. HEROLD; 20 Perryridge Road, Greenwich, Conn.
A Petroleum Consultant celebrating three and a half years' work as my own boss, I now find myself working harder than ever.
Boating, photography, hunting and fishing are my hobbies, but I haven't half enough time for any of these. Perhaps the fact that I have three children-and a fourth due in May-explains why. [P.S. This was ghost-written by one devoted wife who remembers the St. Elmo days with nostalgia.]
RICHARD HEROLD; 40 West Elm St., Greenwich, Conn.
The year 1947 proved to be a full year, involving a business trip to the Far East and "down under." Re-vamping a glue business in Australia provided a great opportunity to see that part of the world. (Incidently, old nags and run-down race horses are not used in our adhesive business; please make no offerings.)
Interested classmates will be happy to know that Australia is a land of fancy ankles, great tennis, superb beer, fine wines, and a wonderful zest for life.
The return to the states involved a selling trip to Singapore and Bangkok, where we witnessed the local brand of boxing, which per- mits the vicious use of feet as well as fists. The horse-racing there is more crooked than recent inter-collegiate basketball "competition"! Hong Kong, Shanghai, Manila, and Honolulu all proved mighty fascinating spots, but no classmates were in evidence.
More trips, this time to Mexico, Central and South America, fol- lowed during the latter part of 1947, 1948, and 1949. Sandwiched in between these was a more important one-a trip up the center aisle. Love had knocked tardily, but insistently, and let directly to the altar, where Eda Marie Schmitt acquired a new name. Aside from being a fine bride, she is a deft deer stalker, a delicate caster of the dry fly, and ski champion without equal.
Late in 1949, my efforts were diverted from foreign to domestic activities, when I became Manager of the Foundry Products De- partment of The Borden Company. My travels take me all over this
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country, which has made it possible to see some of the old college faces away from New Haven.
A new face, and a sweet one, appeared in our midst in July, 1950, when Patricia Nehring Herold was born, and a new side of life opened up.
An apartment is fit for neither man nor beast, so we are now voluntarily going broke building a home here in Greenwich. If any- one has a practical book on how to make a dollar go further, please send it to the above address-better still, deliver it personally and receive the hospitality of the house.
JAMES R. HERRIES; 8403 Swananoah, Dallas, Tex.
I work for the Lingo Lumber Company as a lumber salesman. I have a son, William W. Herries, born on July 14, 1942, and a daughter, Susan Herries, born on September 10, 1945.
JOHN HERSEY; Hull's Farm Road, Southport, Conn.
In October, 1948, we moved into our eighth rented premises in eight years; our fourth child and third son, Baird, was born on March 30, 1949; my fifth book and second novel, The Wall, was published early in 1950. Frances Ann and I went to England, France, and Spain in 1950; I went to England, France, and Israel in 1951. We are building a house; I am writing a novel. I have served on the Westport, Conn., Board of Education; am Vice President of the Authors' League of America; am a member of the Humanities Com- mittee of the Yale University Council; and work on the Writers' Board for World Government. In other words, I'm still hopeful.
M. MANNIE HERSHMAN; Huntinghill Avenue, Middletown, Conn.
Trying to make up economically, socially, etc., for the time lost working for Uncle Sam in Alaska, helped to ruin the pumping station of yours truly. As a result, life is somewhat more simple and relaxing these days. After being laid up for about six months last year, I found that the business doesn't run half bad without me. I manage to get into the office at least an hour before lunch each day, but Hershman, "the hustler," is gone for good.
Although I am not out knocking golf balls around of taking off on business trips, pinocle, Lion's Club, Chamber of Commerce, Middle- town Industrial Development Committee, welfare and synagogue work take up all the spare time that is not spent in the hammock under the willow tree or in the cellar at the pool table.
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We did double the family back in 1947, which means a second prospect for Radcliffe, but none for Yale.
FERRIS S. HETHERINGTON, JR .; 1445 Deer Path, Mountain- side, N.J.
I work with the Westinghouse Electric Corporation, 528 Ferry Street, Newark, N.J. I have three children, two boys, ten and seven years; and one girl, six.
DOUGLAS FRANCHOT HICKOK, SR .; 72 Maple Avenue, Wells- ville, N.Y.
It seems strange to look back on World War II in the light of what is happening today. In August of 1942 I volunteered as a Pri- vate in the United States Marine Corps and was honorably dis- charged as a First Lieutenant in February of 1946.
Twenty-two months duty in the Pacific took me through the battles for Saipan and Okinawa. I set foot on almost every island from New Caledonia to Japan. Return to stateside, orders found me doing occupation duty at Nagasaki amidst the atomic bomb devasta- tion.
In combat, my duties were divided between those of an infantry and a pioneer battalion officer.
At the present time I hold a Captain's commission in the United States Marine Corps Reserve. My status is that of Volunteer Reserve.
Authorized ribbons are as follows: Bronze Star, Purple Heart, Presidential Unit Citation, Asiatic Pacific, American Theatre, Victory and Japanese Occupation.
Throughout my service in the Corps my wife ran the oil well drilling contracting business. This consisted of the entire book work and partial field supervision of two drilling rigs operated by twelve employees. Her operation "home front" lacked nothing in com- parison to the efforts I expended during the war. In fact, I feel the comparative balance is in her favor.
Gretchen and I have two wonderful children-Douglas Franchot Hickok, Jr., five, and Gretchen Reeves Hickok, four.
My contracting business now consists of three drilling rigs operat- ing full time.
In 1948 I procured a three-fourths interest in a general, mechanical sales, service and repair shop known as the J & C Magneto Service, located in Bolivar, N.Y. We sell or repair anything and cover a seventy mile radius.
A couple of years ago I was returning from a wildcat drilling deal in Virginia and stopped over night in Pittsburgh. Talked to Frick Byers and George O'Neil by phone. Called George at 3 a.m. and
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expressed the shallow hope that I hadn't wakened him. He convinced me that he never went to bed before 3 a.m.
We are now closing a deal for a place in the country-about three miles from Wellsville, N.Y., at a crossroads named Scio. It is our fervent hope to be ensconsed by October first.
I sure got a big charge out of the Fifteenth Reunion! Here's to the boys who were on the organizing committees-they did a great job.
I took some pictures at the Reunion-anyone who was subject matter send me your address and will dispatch duplicates. All I lack is a picture of Davis doing setting-up exercises on that white '31 Jeep.
I mailed the guy his drum of oil, Jerry. Pierce !- let's sing "Harri- gan." WHERE WERE YOU, HOOKER?
THOMAS HILDT, JR .; 4600 S. Dahlia Street, Littleton, Colo.
Recently when Cardie and I visited Denver again, we caught the Colorado bug for good, and I was also impressed by the business opportunities here. We had wanted to leave the rigors of New York life for some time, and so I finally resigned as Vice President of the New York Trust Co., and moved to Denver. The only certain thing at this writing is that we will have a guest room available in time for skiing season. As a friend says, we threw our heart over the fence and jumped after it.
I have no other happenings of importance to report, there being no more issue since the last history, but expect to have further news by 1956.
THORNTON MILLS HINKLE; 2150 Grandin Road, Cincinnati, Ohio.
1936-I left Yale and joined the United States Marine Corps. Friends, Professors, advisors, and family sadly shook their heads. It's been a great life, though. I was very glad that I was a regular Marine instead of a reserve officer when people started making pointed remarks with pointed rifles. They really trained us. It paid off in two wars when certain inhospitable characters took active measures to indicate their lack of appreciation of our presence. It . helped also in two more wars where I was on the sidelines, but not as comfortably as on the sidelines in a rainy game in the Bowl.
First assignment-Peiping, China, as a member of the Embassy Guard. I was Officer of the Day on July 7, 1937, when the Japanese really started things with China in the attack at a bridge and made it famous-the Marco Polo bridge. I saw the Japanese take over
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North China and lived under them for two years. The joys of life under the secret police!
My return to the States meant being out of the area where we joked about how long it would be before we would be eating fish heads and rice cakes. An incidental factor-I forgot the exchange was $1.00 to $1.00 instead of $16.00 to $1.00. My pockets were empty long before payday and I learned how to do my own cooking.
After two and a half years with the 2nd Marine Division on the West Coast, I was homeward bound for Christmas on the El Capitan (Life had an article about that particular train.) Despite the scorn of a very good friend who insisted "she was too damned young," I was taken by surprise by a pair of Irish eyes (one Kathleen Cole). I married the girl six months later.
The Japanese interfered again. I took off for three and a half years in the Central Pacific-primarily under CinCPAC, but spiced with certain incidents when I wished that I had thought to have my uniform reinforced with concrete. August 14, 1945, I was off again -- this time for the occupation of Japan. Afterwards I came home with the first real feeling of coming home on Christmas Eve, 1945.
For five months I had a Barracks job. The Marine Corps assigned you then so you would be near or with your family. Next, out again to China, this time in diplomatic duty as an Assistant Naval Attache attached to the Embassy with a free ticket to a ringside seat on China blowing apart in its Civil War. But the duty was in Peiping, which to any China Hand is worth a Civil War, just to be in Peiping again.
After two years in Peiping, I came back to the States for school. We never get away from that. School finished, I had a bit more than a year with the 2nd Marine Division when we rushed out to Korea, where a North Korean finally succeeded in putting a hole in me.
I am now peacefully settled in Norfolk, Va., with my family, three in number (Thornton Mills Hinkle, Jr., born October 6, 1942, while I was overseas). I was promoted to full Colonel in January of this year.
I was at the Reunion this June and it is absolutely amazing to me the number of our class who were in the Armed Services during the War. I encountered only three who didn't know what the score was. How do they find those rocks to hide under anyway?
E. FRANKLIN HITCH; 5323 W. Wisconsin Avenue, Milwaukee, Wisc.
Mckesson & Robbins employs me as their sales manager here. I married Gretchen L. Cloos in 1942, and we have two children, Jeffrey L., who is eight, and Douglas H., who is six. My outside ac- tivities include sports, poker, Cub Scouts, gardening, and church.
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GEORGE H. HOGLE; 125 Riverside Drive, New York, N.Y.
Upon severing the umbilical cord from Mother Yale, one year was spent metallurgically, albeit, using my major course more than some, in two wildwest mining camps. Duly prepared then, I joined as a partner the family stockbrokerage enterprise in Salt Lake City, J. A. Hogle & Co. (For your reference and business, there are other offices in New York, Denver, Los Angeles, San Diego, et al .- and even Reno. Drop in and use the phone, anyway.) To test my metal meant going to Wall Street and learning the biz simultaneously from the ground up and the top down. Living through a year of being a runner and various kinds of clerk, and a year of a market crash (recession), one saw Stock Exchange seats finally traded straight across the board for a case of Scotch and two tickets to Hellzapoppin. Putting up a small bag of gold dust for one, the firm opened a New York office and your hero stepped onto the Big Board to help keep oiled the gears of free enterprise, and, in the long stillnesses, his fingernails filed. Even with a generous enthusiasm for the activities of St. Elmo, the New York Philharmonic, and the Amateur Ski Club of New York, however, those early months left many hours to ponder the meaning of it all and to delve more deeply into those ancient truths which one had tended in Church School and Dwight Hall to think were remote fables or theories; and to ponder too that the well-oiled gears of free enterprise somehow were not making many turns for those who existed in the miles of slums that one passed under or over enroute to the daily oiling.
The opportunity arose to be a charter resident with other young college grads of one Rainsford House (brainchild of former Yale Chaplain Elmore McKee and then currently rector of St. George's), where one tried to make something more of one's religion than church once a week or year. In his free time, each member worked in a Boy's Club, Settlement House, or the like.
Not happy, moreover, with the ambiguity of being a birthright, unconvinced Episcopalian, I sought and found among Quakers people who not only believed deeply in the ancient truths but whose lives made these truths much more than fables and theories. Many of them, and a few of us, were perverse enough to try to take seri- ously these truths when it came to being organized into the reciprocal mass murder of various populations. Friends were willing to serve in civilian medical work in interior China or elsewhere, but few, alas, were permitted this opportunity. Therefore, come war and Local Board No. 14, I found myself for four years among an eventual 12,000 conscientious objectors in Civilian Public Service. My history was average-two years in California mountains of building back roads, brush clearing, fighting forest fires, and K.P. Then a volunteer for two years as an orderly and guinea pig in Massachusetts General
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Hospital, Boston, trying, with some success, to find an anti-malarial drug. Coincidentally, I found that work in hospitals appealed to me vastly more than what I had been doing for free enterprise.
These were, once again, times to ponder. A wise man said: "War may not be the worst of all things, but it certainly is the creator of them"-a large part of the world, its men and its wealth, smashed and maimed, hatred everywhere. Under the weight of these concerns, over two hundred of us were finally able, on discharge in 1946, to go abroad on volunteer relief teams. My part was in a Quaker project of child feeding and clothing in Germany. More important than the material aid was the simple idea which one tried to convey that all men are brothers and that one should try to love and help and build a peace with them. Those two years confirmed in our minds that this aim of the American Friends Service Committee was an eminently valid one in the small areas where the work was done, that in peoples' hearts ideas were stronger than weapons.
On returning to the U.S., there was rich and undeserving reward. I found both the woman and the work for my life. In December, 1949, while finishing premedical requirements in New York, I had the honor of marrying Lois Crozier, of Los Angeles, and of being accepted into P. & S. at Columbia for the following autumn.
At press time the Hogles are happily anticipating the September arrival of his second year medical school and their firstborn.
MICHAEL J. HOLAHAN; 19 Sherman Street, Stamford, Conn.
After serving as a life insurance agent with the Phoenix Mutual Life Insurance Co. in New York City for a year, I joined the Roger Smith Hotels Corp. as an auditor in June, 1937, and became assistant manager of the White Plains unit in 1940.
In 1941, I joined the accounting staff of Northam Warren Corp. in Stamford, doing general accounting work and special administra- tive assignments for the controller.
March of 1343 saw a radical change in my clothing, and in October of same year was pronounced a gentleman by an act of Congress. As a 2nd Lt. in the Transportation Corps, my assignment for about a year was that of Security Officer on North Atlantic convoy ships.
January of 1945 saw me in Khorramshahr, Abadan area of Iran, as a stevedore, helping our dear ally, Russia, to get lend lease supplies through to sustain our comrades. After six months of general staff work in Cairo I returned to the States and was discharged in Sep- tember, 1946, with the rank of Capt.
Rejoining Northam Warren Corp. as a staff accountant, I re- mained there until November, 1950, when I joined Pitney-Bowes, Inc., as a tax accountant.
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Married Mary' McAuliffe of Stamford in November, 1946; have two sons, Bobby, eight months, and Duff, two and a half years; was · elected Democratic Registrar of Voters in Darien, Conn., for three terms before the War, and at present am a member of the Board of Representatives, City of Stamford, Conn., and a member of its Fiscal Committee.
Community Chest and Red Cross fund-raising campaigns have had my active support, and at the present time the Y.M.C.A. Industrial Recreation program takes considerably of my time. Am a director of the Stamford Good Government Association and secretary of the Hubbard Heights Golf Club. Golf provides me with plenty of exer- cise in the mild months and bowling in the winter.
HAROLD G. HOLCOMBE, JR .; 37 Harvest Lane, West Hartford, Conn.
Being in the throes of building a new house, with all the difficulties entailed thereby, other events of the last five years seem to shrink into relative insignificance at present.
In 1948 I was elected President of Harold G. Holcombe, Inc., the general insurance agency founded by my father, '97, in 1901. Also in that year, following a term of two years on the Hartford Board of Aldermen, I was Connecticut State Chairman of the Draft-Eisen- hower-for-President League. I agree wholeheartedly with him that this country's greatest peril lies in the increasing of centralization of authority and dependence on the federal treasury rather than from any external threat that could be arrayed against us.
Our second daughter, Michèle Elizabeth, arrived on May 3, 1950, and has been a source of great happiness to us ever since.
Playing squash, tennis, and coaching fencing (as an amateur) at Trinity College here in Hartford have been my main sports activities. I am Treasurer of the Hartford Squash Racquets Club, and also (conservatively) of the United World Federalists of Connecticut, Inc.
Last year I was elected President of the Capitol Young Repub- licans here in Hartford. We hope, in our small way, to make the voice of youth a little more frequently heard in policy-making circles. I feel at the present time (summer, 1951) that the Republican party should formulate a policy of overcoming inflation at its sources, namely by credit control and reduction in government waste, rather than by price control.
ROBERT CADES HOLLAND; R.F.D. 1, Andover, Mass.
On December 12, 1946, our second spitfire, Elizabeth Ann, was born in Portland, Me. We were then living in Massachusetts and I
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was working in New Hampshire. We felt that, since our son, who was also born in Portland while I was in the Navy, had become such an upstanding citizen, his sister should start her career with the same advantages which had evidently accrued to her brother. As a result we now spend most of our spare time either at Southport, Me. (where this is being written, during vacation), on the way to and fro, or in a discussion as to when we shall next go to and fro.
In October, 1946, I resigned my job with Textron in New Hamp- shire to go to work with a company in Lawrence, Mass., managed by a Yale man and manufacturing paper mill machinery. My advance- ment, while not meteoric, has been eminently satisfactory and I look forward to a successful though very busy future.
In 1949, we broke ground for a new house and have carefully emulated the Blandings-verily, to such an extent that we are only about to move in at this time. My wife and I are both somewhat broken in spirit as a result of the ordeal, but fervently hope to re- cover in the years to come. As a man who has been through the mill, I would suggest to any erstwhile home owner that he buy a ready- built house or put his plans in the hands of a builder and leave town until he has been assured by same that all is complete, yea, even unto the window shades. Under no circumstances should one so much as look at a hammer, saw, or, in particular, a sanding machine, the last of which I am just recovering from a biting by and consequent blood poisoning of the right metacorpus.
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