USA > Massachusetts > Middlesex County > Cambridge > Harvard College class of ninety-seven : fiftieth anniversary report, 1897 > Part 13
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"At the frontier a squad of German supermen inspected us with evident suspicion. Our pockets were turned inside out and every penny of currency of whatever country was counted and re- corded, our passports, wallets, and papers inspected, photos com- pared with physiognomies, luggage opened, every identifying mark and number on engine, chassis, and tires examined by the aid of electric torches, and when a slight irregularity in the car's laissez-passer came to light, the gutteral grunts and sour looks became a bit disturbing. After a half-hour's delay, the führer of this precious gang gave us condescending permission to proceed. At the Dutch customs a few rods further what a contrast awaited us! Cheerful officials made a cursory inspection, stamped our passports, and waved us on. On we drove through the lovely and inviting countryside of Holland, along canals and over pictur- esque bridges, to peaceful Utrecht whose citizens, many on bi- cycles, thronged the streets on their return from work. As is the custom of the Dutch, young men and women rode in couples side-by-side and each holding the handlebar of the other; faces were smiling and carefree. The menacing scowl of Hitler's Vaterland was gone, but two years later Utrecht was in ruins.
"The perservering reader of the above has found it, I trust, 'flavored with anecdotes and observations on life.' I hope that he has also guessed that my chief ambitions have been to establish a home, to rear in it a younger generation of such quality that they will become good citizens, to practise surgery with success and to serve Harvard, or to put it more briefly, to be a good citizen of
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this, the best of all lands. Disappointments and trials there have been, but in the main issues, I have been successful. The words I quoted at our Twenty-fifth Anniversary from the late Robert Bacon, who chose rather to be a Fellow of the Harvard Corpora- tion than to be Ambassador to France, still express my conviction: 'I consider Harvard the best single influence in America.'
"We men of '97, having passed three-score years and ten, and sensing the approach of four-score, cannot expect to gather again in large numbers. And so I say: 'Ave atque vale, Ninety-seven.'
WINTHROP HOLT CHENERY
F ROM the age of five and until I was twenty-four," reports Chenery, "I yearned to be an architect, especially a builder of churches. I could draw from memory the plans of most of the greater cathedrals. Fragile health seemed to preclude an archi- tect's career and I spent three happy years at Harvard absorbing the phonology and morphology of the Romanic languages.
"After ten years of teaching college Spanish, a librarianship beckoned me. For twenty-seven years I struggled with budgets, staffs, and acute problems of book storage. I recalled my archi- tectural training at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to design a model university library, which, of course, could not be built in depression years.
"I had, besides, two time-consuming hobbies - Indo-Germanic philology and Occidental liturgiology. As might be expected, in none of these fields did I win distinction, but I enjoyed learning for its own sake, as I still do. My most 'durable satisfaction' has been the upbringing of a motherless boy from the age of twelve. My foster son is now thirty, married, and the father of two ador- able children, the elder named for me. I now make my home with these young people.
"In retrospect, I can see that life was made too easy for me. With no family to support, advancement was relatively unimpor- tant. What others had to save I could spend on books and travel because I was sure to inherit enough for early and comfortable retirement."
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Chenery, the son of Winthrop Louis Chenery, '67, and Ruth Baldwin Holt, was born March 8, 1872, at Belmont, Massachu- setts. In 1896 he received an S.B. degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He was awarded an A.B. at Harvard in 1898 as of the Class of 1897. He later spent two years in the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, and received an A.M. in 1898 and a Ph.D. in 1904.
During World War I, he was camp librarian at Camp Pike, Arkansas.
From 1901 to 1904, he was an instructor in Spanish at the University of Michigan. He became an assistant professor of Spanish and Italian in 1907, and an associate professor of Ro- manic languages in 1914. From 1912 to 1919, he served as a librarian at Washington University in St. Louis. During World War I he was camp librarian at Camp Pike, Arkansas. He was chief of the Department of Special Libraries at the Boston Public Library from 1920 until 1927. From the latter year until his re- tirement in 1938, he was librarian at Washington University. He is an honorary member of Phi Beta Kappa, Beta of Missouri Chapter, and a member of the Public Question Club of St. Louis.
* ALFRED HENRY CHILDS
A' LFRED HENRY CHILDS died on April 29, 1922, at Dublin, New Hampshire, where he had been engaged since 1903 in the practice of medicine both among the townspeople and the large colony of summer residents. After graduating from the Medical School in 1901, he began his medical career as house officer at the Boston City Hospital before moving to Dublin. On October 21, 1903, at Deerfield, Massachusetts, he married Lucy Anna East- man, who survived him.
He was born February 29, 1876, at Deerfield, and attended the Dickinson High School there. His parents were Henry Seymour and Lucy Esther (Grout ) Childs. He graduated with our Class magna cum laude, and from the Medical School in 1901.
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+ ALBERT PERCIVAL CHITTENDEN
A' LBERT PERCIVAL CHITTENDEN died at Boston on January 29, 1943. He was the son of Albert Ames and Caroline Tucker (Clapp) Chittenden and was born on November 12, 1874, at Dorchester, Massachusetts. He came to Harvard from the Eng- lish High School in Boston, and took an A.M. a year after gradu- ating with our Class. For many years he was engaged in mining geology and engineering, living and travelling for the most part in the western states and Central America. In 1915 he became interested in the chemical business and later became senior mem- ber of the firm of Chittenden, Turner & Company, Incorporated, importers of gums and various chemicals, with headquarters at Long Wharf, Boston.
He was twice married. His first wife, Caroline Minerva Sayles, whom he married October 2, 1906, at Norwich, Connecti- cut, died on March 10, 1910. On September 29, 1914, at Joliet, Illinois, he married Nathalia Carlson, who survived him.
An enthusiastic Harvard man, Albert Chittenden seldom missed any gathering of the Class or of the alumni. By his death our Class lost one of its most loyal members. His outstanding quali- ties were his genial hospitality, his generosity, his loyalty - to family, to church, to friends, and to countless individuals in all walks of life - and his utter naturalness and lack of snobbishness and universality of tastes and interests. No man could be farther from playing the rôle of the reformer - he liked people and liked them as they were. He assumed many responsibilities and was always vigorous and full of life.
F. P. S.
ROGER CLAPP CHITTENDEN
I ATTENDED the local grade schools in Dorchester, Massachu- setts," writes Roger Chittenden, "and prepared for Harvard at the Boston English High School, where I played violin in the orchestra. I also strum a little on the piano. My folks had a cot- tage at the beach in Marshfield, Massachusetts, where we spent the summers sailing, fishing, and swimming.
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"After graduation I tutored some, taught in Camden, Maine, and for seventeen years in the DeMeritte School in Boston, a col- lege preparatory school. Leaving private-school work, I taught in Amherst and was principal of the high schools in Vineyard Haven and in Hanover, Massachusetts. I spent the next twenty years in the Newburyport High School, teaching science, mathematics, and, of all things, aviation. (I learned a lot about it.) I was re- tired in June, 1944, having reached the age limit.
"During most of my stay in Newburyport, I served as vestry- man in St. Paul's Episcopal Church, and for seven years as leader of a boys' club in the Y.M.C.A. Other civic duties and privileges included a few years' membership in the Chamber of Commerce, membership on a committee for a Boy Scout troup, and work on Red Cross drives, and the like. I was an air-raid warden and a member and officer in various men's clubs.
"I am now back at my old home in Dorchester, and certainly keep busy with the repairs and upkeep. Since my retirement, my principal hobby has been finishing the Chittenden-Clapp genealogies. I have also done some block printing of Christmas cards.
"Reasons for my 'vigorous old age' might be ascribed to keep- ing busy, with a non-inclination to worry, and to refraining from extremes in work and play. We continue to spend the summers in our cottage in Franconia, New Hampshire, which supplies work in the form of caring for gardens, lawns, trees, and upkeep, while the play is taken care of with tennis, golf, croquet, mountain climbing and other hikes, and drives through a glorious country.
"I have lived a pretty happy and contented life, with a com- panionable wife and the good friends we have enjoyed. I hope that world events will settle down soon, so that I won't have to begin worrying about an insecure future."
Chittenden, the son of Samuel Newman and Sarah Ellen (Clapp) Chittenden, was born April 1, 1874, at Dorchester. He received his A.B. at our graduation after four years with our Class. He married Maude Foster, December 23, 1901, at Dor- chester. His brother, David Clapp Chittenden, attended the Bussey Institute from 1899 to 1902.
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Chittenden has compiled physics laws and formulas. He is a member of the Harvard Teachers' Association, Eastern Associa- tion of Physics Teachers, Massachusetts Schoolmasters' Club, Mathematics Teachers' Club of New England, South Shore Schoolmen's Club, and English High School Club.
JOSEPH HODGES CHOATE
A FTER our last Report," writes Choate, "I was busy for four years chiefly in defending the Chemical Foundation and its great job. It had freed our indispensable organic-chemical indus- try from the shackles of the German patents, and thus secured one of the most important branches of the national defense. It and its founders were consequently attacked in the courts and in Congress with vicious and unscrupulous violence, by every cor- rupt and pro-German influence, backed by the Department of Justice under the egregious Dougherty. Sustained and praised successively by every court, we finally defeated the attack, in the Supreme Court in 1926.
"The next seven years were devoted to Prohibition repeal. We formed an odd organization called the Voluntary Committee of Lawyers. Presently we had thirty-five hundred lawyer members, some from every state. We had no constitution and no dues. Things were run by a vague but able Executive Committee in New York in which everyone did what he thought best. In aid of what then seemed a hopeless job, we preached and wrote and organized, with a tiny office and staff and a budget of some $15,000 a year voluntarily contributed in small amounts. At last, toward the end of 1932, the tide turned and it became apparent that Congress was to pass the Repeal Amendment and to call for its ratification by State Conventions.
"Nobody knew how that could be done or even whether the creation of the conventions was a job for Congress or the states. We concluded that it was for the states. This seemed to face us with an inevitable delay of two years, since nearly all the state legislatures were to sit early in 1933, leaving almost no time for action, and only seven in 1934. Immediate action was called for.
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Realizing that no state legislator had any idea of what should be done, and that all would be glad to have the work done for them, we decided to prepare model convention-creating bills suited to various state conditions, and to get them and printed explanatory matter into the hands of such of our members in every state as were likely to be influential. With the aid of Noel Dowling, professor of archaeology - beg pardon, I mean of con- stitutional law - at Columbia I sat up nights drafting the bills. They went out in time, were eagerly seized on, and were promptly passed with few variations in the necessary number of states. The miracle happened, the conventions were organized and ratification took place in 1933. I had the pleasure of sitting in the New York Convention.
"Shortly afterwards I was yanked out of a theatre party by a hurried call to come to Washington on the night train. I went, and didn't come back for two years except to get my clothes. I found myself in for the job of heading the new Federal Alcohol Control Administration, a body which under the N.I.R.A. had fantastically unlimited powers over the reviving beverage indus- try and its effects. With steady, non-political support from the powers that be, the apparently imminent nationalization of the industry was defeated, necessary regulations imposed, and the organization and its interference with private affairs kept to a minimum. In the face of demands which would easily have ex- panded our staff to five or ten thousand, we kept it down to under two hundred, and on our allotment of $500,000 intended for six months, subsisted for nearly two years. At last the Schechter case undermined our absurd powers, and as soon as Congress had passed the legislation thus made necessary I resigned with a sigh of relief. The first months had meant an honest sixteen hours a day, and it never got down below an average of ten hours.
'Since then I have been practising law again, as well as dying and/or dissolving clients would permit.
"My son and three daughters are all married and have families. In 1941 sons-in-law and son all saw what was coming. Three of them got into the armed services six months or more before Pearl Harbor, and the fourth, delayed till after that by uncertainty as to
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where to use him, was overseas for three years. Two of them (Buck Hallowell's son, Pen, and my son) saw violent action at sea in command of ships. All, by the blessing of Providence, came home safe and are pretty well readjusted."
Choate, the son of Joseph Hodges Choate, '52, and Caroline Dutcher Sterling, was born February 2, 1876, at New York City. He prepared at St. Mark's School in Southboro, Massachusetts, and at the Berkeley School in New York City. He was with our Class four years and was graduated magna cum laude. In 1902 he took his LL.B. at the Law School. While an undergraduate, he was a member of the Delphic Club, Golf Team, and Pierian Sodality. He is an officer of the Legion d'honneur.
Choate married Cora Lyman Oliver, June 6, 1903, at Albany, New York. Their children are: Marion (Mrs. Charles B. Hard- ing), born February 1, 1905; Helen (Mrs. Geoffrey Platt), born November 21, 1906; Priscilla (Mrs. N. Penrose Hallowell, Jr.), born December 22, 1908; and Joseph Hodges, 3d (married Jane M. Swan, July, 1940), born February 22, 1912. Joseph received his A.B. with the Harvard Class of 1934, and took his LL.B. at the Law School in 1937. There are eleven grandchildren.
During World War II, Joseph Choate, 3d, was a lieutenant commander in the Coast Guard Reserve. Charles B. Harding served as a captain in the Naval Reserve; Geoffrey Platt was a major in the Army of the United States; and N. Penrose Hallo- well, Jr., was a commander in the Naval Reserve.
+ WINSLOW WARE CHURCHILL
W TINSLOW WARE CHURCHILL died November 8, 1937, at Arling- ton Heights, Massachusetts. The son of Asaph and Mary Ann Tileston (Ware) Churchill, he was born July 5, 1873, at Dorchester, Massachusetts, and prepared for Harvard at Milton Academy. After two years as a special student in the Lawrence Scientific School, he decided that attendance at classes was too confining, and that he would gain more from travel.
The next fifteen years he spent in hunting big game in this country and in sightseeing and travel in many of the countries of
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Europe and South America. He was in the Samoan Islands at the outbreak of the first World War. During the war he engaged in volunteer work at the Boston Headquarters American Fund for French Wounded. In 1917 he was forced to stop work because of poor health, but in 1921, having regained his health, he made another trip to Europe visiting many of the battlefields and devas- tated countries. From that time he considered himself retired.
Churchill interested himself in many organizations where his help and suggestions were greatly appreciated. At the time of his death he was treasurer and director of the New England Anti- Vivisection Society.
On January 15, 1924, he married Mary Elizabeth Fader, who survived him.
+ EDMUND FOSTER CLARK
E' DMUND FOSTER CLARK died May 13, 1934, at Hingham, Massa- chusetts. The son of J. Foster and Martha Bowman ( Cutter) Clark, he was born February 21, 1876, at Somerville, Massachu- setts, and attended high school there before entering college. After graduation he spent four years in the produce business with his father in Boston. He then joined a real estate and insurance firm and continued in this line for the rest of his life. In 1918 he formed a partnership with Everett C. Quiner and later became associated with the insurance firm of Gilmour, Rothery & Com- pany, Boston. During World War I, he served a full term of enlistment as sergeant in Company A, 14th Regiment, Massachu- setts State Guard, and was on duty during the influenza epidemic in 1918 and the Boston police strike in 1919.
He was a vestryman and Sunday School teacher in St. John's Episcopal Church, Hingham, and a member of the Old Colony Lodge, A.F. and A.M., and of the Wompatuck Royal Arch Chapter of Hingham. He was an enthusiastic supporter of Harvard foot- ball and hockey events and missed only one Yale-Harvard foot- ball game in thirty-five years. His chief hobbies were golf and bridge, and as a member of whist, auction, and contract teams he won many trophies.
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He married Grace Carolyn North on April 17, 1900, at Boston. She and a daughter, Carolyn, born October 31, 1905, survived him.
IRVING STOCKTON CLARK
I RVING CLARK did not return a questionnaire. He was with the
Class during 1893-94 as a student in the Lawrence Scientific School and, according to the Fourth Report, spent three years at Tufts College, studying engineering. He then combined news- paper work with a position in the engineering department of the General Electric Company at Lynn, Massachusetts. In 1903 he joined the staff of the Boston American. In May, 1911, he married Ethel Frances Thompson, and in that same year he turned to general agriculture and dairying on his forty acres at Boxboro, Massachusetts. At the time of the Fortieth Anniversary, he was editor of the Boston Post.
Clark was born June 23, 1873, at New York City, and prepared at the English High School, Boston. His parents were Samuel and Fannie (Tuells ) Clark.
JOHN TAYLOR CLARK
TN my last report," writes John Clark, "I mentioned my first 4 campaign for the Greater Boston Community Fund and how much I had enjoyed that experience. In 1938 I became a member of the permanent staff where I remained until February 1 of this year. Then I was retired under a plan which had gone into effect the previous summer, and which applies to all engaged in any form of organized social service work throughout the country. In my first four campaigns I was associated with the Industry and Finance Division.
"In 1940 I was transferred to the Metropolitan Division and given the job of organizing industry, banks, retail business, and municipal employee groups in thirty cities and towns in the metro- politan area. I am proud to have had some part in helping to build this Division from less than $500,000 to over $1,700,000 in the next six campaigns. It has been a most interesting and satisfying
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experience, which has brought me many new friends in all classes, but all very much worth while.
"I experienced no lapse in employment, as before I left the Fund I had already received an attractive offer to become one of the small staff just being organized to plan, organize, and carry on an annual campaign for the American Cancer Society ( Massa- chusetts Division ).
"The funds are to be used primarily for research and education in a determined effort to control this dreaded disease. When it is realized that between Pearl Harbor and V-J Day more than twice as many Americans died of cancer as were killed or missing in all branches of our armed services, and that one out of every seven people now living will die of it unless something is done about it, it will be understood why I am glad to work in this cause.
"Aside from my work, there is nothing of particular interest to report, other than that my family are all doing fairly well in a business way, are devoted to their own families, and on the best of terms with each other as well as with us. I am proud of them all."
Clark, the son of John Taylor and Elizabeth Weld ( Andrews ) Clark, was born March 31, 1875, at Boston. He prepared at John P. Hopkinson's School in Boston. He was graduated cum laude with our Class and later spent a year in the Lawrence Scientific School as a special student. As an undergraduate he was a mem- ber of the Institute of 1770 and Hasty Pudding Club.
He married Zaidee Finck Haines, June 2, 1902, in Boston. Their children are: Reynolds Gettman, born March 25, 1903; Marcia (Mrs. Henry O. Houghton), born April 3, 1904; John Taylor, Jr., born April 28, 1906; Arthur Maxwell, born October 2, 1908; and Andrews, born February 11, 1912. There are eleven grandchildren, seven boys and four girls. Clark's son, Reynolds, is a member of the Harvard Class of 1925.
In World War II, Clark was associate director of the Massachu- setts War Finance Committee for the seventh and eighth war bond campaigns. His son, Arthur, served as a first lieutenant in the Infantry branch of the Army of the United States. He was in service four years.
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From 1897 to 1914, Clark served as financial officer for various companies, and from 1914 to 1929, was treasurer of the Spray Engineering Company. From 1929 to 1937, he was engaged in the real estate business, and from 1937 to 1946, was staff executive of the Greater Boston Community Fund. He is a member of the Harvard Club of Boston.
ROBERT CLEMENT
M Y over-emotional nature and poor health have always pre- vented me from doing the consistently good work society has a right to demand of its citizens," writes Clement. "More sparks than power have come off my wheels (all located in my head ).
"My religion is humanism, which closely resembles the practi- cal religion of Chinese Confucianism. We humanists regard a religion as 'an emotional attitude towards the universe.' It ac- counts for those endless differences. We 'try to understand life as best we can and to enjoy it while it lasts.' Though few know what the word 'humanism' means, millions of Americans are humanists sans le savoir. Yet I am always reading books on the higher criticism and history of early Christianity. Far from making me skeptical, it has made Christianity vivid to me and myself more sympathetic with the aims of its early founders.
"I often wonder if my classmates have realized how radically the educational method has changed. At Harvard our one object was to study the works of 'great thinkers' and, when understood, to follow their ideas slavishly. Today, however, we listen to any investigator great or small, provided he is able. What is more, we discuss any topic from many 'angles.' This new method comes straight from the scientific laboratory. It has made the college lecture 'on the air' far more absorbing than those heard fifty years ago.
"I married a professional nurse, Mae Constance Schuster, No- vember 26, 1915, at Fort Benton, Montana. We lived on our Montana homestead, and the outdoor life and her good care doubtless prolonged my life. These and a 'fatal' ailment and the
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opportunity of taking a short nap any time I needed one were great aids to my further survival."
Clement, the son of Edward Henry Clement, Tufts, '64, and Gertrude Pound, was born January 3, 1875, at Elizabeth, New Jersey. He prepared at the Public Latin School in Boston. He was with our Class three years. His brother, the late John Pound Clement, was a member of the Harvard Class of 1894.
Since 1897 Clement has been a lawyer, music critic, private tutor, farmer, and columnist.
HENRY DAVENPORT CLEVELAND
LEVELAND, the son of Clement Cleveland, '67, and Annie Ward CI Davenport, was born November 11, 1875, at New York City. He prepared at Cutler's School in New York City. He was with our Class three years, and received his A.B. at Williams College in 1897.
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