USA > Massachusetts > Middlesex County > Cambridge > Harvard College class of ninety-seven : fiftieth anniversary report, 1897 > Part 14
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He married Helen Grahn, June 14, 1908, at Victoria, British Columbia. She died May 5, 1913, in Seattle. On December 27, 1924, he married Elizabeth Oliver Huymann, at St. Louis. His son, Robert Grahn, was born August 21, 1910. There is one grandchild, Mary Manning Cleveland, who was born on the day our flag was raised over Iwo Jima.
During World War I, Cleveland was a consultant to the United States Shipping Board. In World War II, he was associated with the Board of Economic Warfare. His son was a commander in the United States Naval Reserve during the second World War.
"Most of my life has been spent in the lumber and shipping business," writes Cleveland, "and I happen to be the first person to have sold and shipped shiploads of lumber through the Panama Canal as it opened in August, 1914.
"I am still chairman of the Board of the old Boston firm of John S. Emery & Company, Incorporated, whose ships I loaded with lumber in 1914.
"I wrote an article entitled, 'A Ten Year Plan for the U. S. A. Meeting the Russian Challenge,' at the instigation of the late Wendell Willkie."
Cleveland is a member of the Harvard Club of New York.
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+ ALBERT GOLDSMITH CLIFFORD
A LBERT GOLDSMITH CLIFFORD died December 3, 1932, at Chel- sea, Massachusetts. The son of James Norris and Sarah Elvira (Sanborn) Clifford, he was born October 19, 1875, at Salem, Massachusetts, and prepared for college at the Water- bury, Connecticut, High School. He was in college from 1893 to 1895 and spent one year in the Law School before entering the employ of the Thomas G. Plant Company, shoe manufacturers at Roxbury, Massachusetts. He remained with this firm, becoming head of the cost department, until the first World War, when he was commissioned a first lieutenant in the Air Service of the Army and went overseas with the 88th and 28th Aëro Squadrons in the post of supply and transportation officer. After returning to civilian life, he became associated with the Houghton Mifflin Company, publishers, at their Riverside Press in Cambridge.
He was survived by his wife, the former Dorothy May Cofran, whom he married on June 14, 1899, at Cambridge, and their three children - Chester, born April 11, 1900; Doris, born August 8, 1904; and Ruth, born February 21, 1911.
+ LEON MONROE CLOSSON
L' EON MONROE CLOSSON died at Los Angeles, California, on November 9, 1943. He was born at Lawrence, Massachu- setts, on September 14, 1873, the son of Carlos Carleton and Charlotte Ann (Holt) Closson, and was prepared for college at the Lawrence High School, and at Phillips Academy, Andover, Massachusetts.
He entered Harvard in 1892, withdrawing in 1895. Re-entering in 1896, he was graduated with us in 1897. He received the de- gree of M.D. in 1902.
In our Twenty-Fifth Anniversary Report, our Class Secretary stated: "Closson cannot be located. Previous reports show that his activities were medicine and real estate, in Seattle, with occa- sional seasons in Los Angeles, where, in 1897-98, he had been busy growing oranges. He was about to return to Los Angeles
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when last heard from. Inquiry in Los Angeles has failed to dis- close his present whereabouts."
Then, for our Forty-fifth Anniversary Report, Closson himself wrote, from Los Angeles: "For the past thirty years I have been interested in city planning and cooperatively occupied with practical applications thereof, to some extent hereabouts, but more extensively in Seattle. That city has perhaps come nearer than any other to an effective lifting of itself by its own boot- straps out of what appeared a rather hopeless muddle of swamps and bluffs, slums and slides. Concretely, the slums were elevated by sluicing into them several million cubic yards of earth from the more obstructing bluffs, making comparatively level areas for ex- panding business, industry, and residence.
Such urban reformation is after all not so remote from the broader aspects of public hygiene and preventive medicine as might at first glance appear, since the objective of city planning is to bring about an optimum not only of community efficiency, but of the people's comfort, health, and well-being."
Again, a lapse - with no further news of him, until word of his death. It is unfortunate, indeed, and greatly to be lamented, since we all should have welcomed a further chronicling of so interest- ing and useful a career as his. He was unmarried.
H. T. N.
STURGIS COFFIN
T" THE story of my life? Too full for utterance," states Coffin, "but nothing remarkable. Like all the rest, I have had joys and tragedies. Let's leave it there."
The son of William Henry and Mary Howland (Wood) Cof- fin, he was born January 31, 1875, at Orange, New Jersey. He prepared at the Brookline High School in Brookline, Massachu- setts. He was with our Class three years and as an undergraduate was a member of the D.U. Club.
He married Elizabeth Head Wood of Germantown, Pennsyl- vania, June 17, 1901, at New York City. Their son, George Stur- gis, '28, was born September 8, 1903. There is one grandchild,
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Harriet Dewey Coffin. "She is a smart kid," writes Coffin. "On entering Cambridge School for Girls she had the highest I.Q. but one on the record there. She intends to write books and breed dogs when she grows up. She hopes her cousin Tom will be president, so she can brag."
Coffin's brother, Henry Spaulding Coffin, was graduated with the Harvard Class of 1900.
"In World War I," writes Coffin, "I was a buck private in the First Motor Corps of the Massachusetts State Guard. My wife says I have been the Town Sucker, during and since the second World War, holding most of the unpaid jobs here such as local treasurer for the Red Cross, Salvation Army, U.S.O., acting chair- man of civilian defense, chief air-raid warden, bomb reconnais- sance officer, area supervisor of four towns for the Aircraft Warn- ing Service, and now secretary-treasurer of the Town Planning Association, town treasurer, and moderator for the town meeting. The last two will just pay for our Sunday dinners, so we won't starve too rapidly.
During the Second World War, my son George was a first lieu- tenant of Field Artillery, assigned for duty in June, 1941, with the Air Corps. He was in Australia in 1942, and later in New Guinea with headquarters of the Fifth Bomber Command. After two and a half years' foreign service, he served at various posts in this country, and is now at headquarters of Military Government of the Ryukus in Okinawa."
Until his retirement to the country in 1936, Coffin was a real estate manager and broker. He is an ex-member of the Longwood Cricket Club, Cambridge Boat Club, Harvard Club of Boston, and Chestnut Hill Golf Club. He served for three years on the Civic Affairs Committee of the Boston Chamber of Commerce, of which committee William B. Munroe, then assistant professor of government at Harvard, was chairman. He served for one year as chairman of the City Planning Committee of the Chamber of Commerce, and has served on the Committee on Appraisals and on the Arbitration Committee of the Boston Real Estate Ex- change.
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EDWARD RUSSELL COGSWELL
COGSWELL, the son of Edward Russell Cogswell, '64, and Sarah
Parks Proctor, was born November 19, 1874, at Cambridge. He prepared at Browne and Nichols School. After receiving his A.B. degree with our Class, he studied two years in the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. He has two Harvard brothers: the late Charles Northend Cogswell and George Proctor Cogswell, both members of the Class of 1888.
"After two years of study in landscape architecture at the Bussey Institute," he writes, "followed by several years of work in the offices of various leading landscape architects, including Olmsted Brothers, I began, in 1908, to practise independently.
"Meanwhile, on September 15, 1906, I was married to Theodora Bates, Radcliffe A.B. 1902, A.M. 1903, Phi Beta Kappa, daughter of Joseph Cony and Harriet Augusta Pearson. In 1908 we moved from Cambridge to Newton Highlands, where my daughter, Dorothea Barton, was born December 13, 1908. In 1917, soon after moving to Brookline, I was forced, on account of ill health, to retire from all professional work. Since that time, except for an occasional short article in such magazines as Horticulture, House and Garden, and the like, my chief interests have been my garden, the occasional planning of a neighbor's garden, and the study of birds.
"Since 1926 we have lived almost continuously in one or another of the Newtons."
Cogswell was clerk of the parish of St. Paul's Episcopal Church in Newton Highlands from 1908 to 1917. He is a member of the Massachusetts Horticultural Society.
WILFRED GEORGE GARNET COLE
TI THE request from our Class Secretary for an autobiography, or was it a retrospect, gave me to pause," writes Cole.
"What! Have fifty years elapsed since the proud day of June, 1897, when I issued from my Alma Mater, feeling as though I had the world by the tail at last?
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"A retrospect means: What have I done with it, with my life? Has it been futile? What has it taught me? What have I done to justify my existence?
"I look back and see the long years of preparation for living, years in the Harvard Graduate School, with the intention of following the teaching of the classics as a profession. Then fol- lowed a careful survey of what this meant and of its effect upon the teacher himself - and I turned 'about face.'
"The law held out its attractive arms to me and so did the Harvard Law School. After three years of interesting but grind- ing, hard work and one try at the Bar exams, I was a Massachu- setts attorney-at-law. Hard, poorly remunerated work in a law office gave promise of slow, if sure, advancement, and so my first love, the teaching profession, took me back.
"Curiously enough (or is it?) I have always loved children, and so devoted myself to secondary teaching, feeling a special urge to help those in trouble or those who found the approach to college beset with difficulties.
"My first job took me to England and Scotland. A later one, under delightful conditions, gave me an opportunity to see for somewhat over two years a considerable portion of England, France, and Switzerland, with Florence, Italy, as headquarters. This was a never-to-be-forgotten experience.
"On the completion of my work I returned to Cambridge to teach the young idea how to get into college, and with at least a modicum of success.
"Teaching may be onerous to some, but to me it holds forth unending variety. Each pupil presents a new problem, a fresh challenge, and with this as a stimulus and one of life's 'durable satisfactions,' the years pass swiftly and happily.
"Your request for information for my classmates finds me in- dulging after long years, in a so-called sabbatical year in Santa Barbara, the quintessence of the beautiful in California.
"I propose to stop here until spring when my wife and I return to the center of our affections, our summer home on Deer Isle, Maine. We spend our summers there doing what Maine people do - eat, sleep, fish, and work. With a workshop, a garden, and
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a love for the great outdoors, there is always plenty to do, espe- cially when you have a boat and a Penobscot Bay studded with islands inviting to the picnic-minded.
"This year we hope to interrupt our summer there by taking in our Class Reunion, our fiftieth. In fact, it is a unique occasion to which we look forward with keen anticipation."
Cole, the son of William Peter and Alice Lydia ( Warren) Cole, was born July 31, 1874, at St. Thomas, Ontario, Canada. He pre- pared for college at the Boys' High School and attended Montreal Collegiate Institute in Canada. He spent his junior and senior years with our Class, receiving his A.B. at our graduation. He took his A.M. in 1898 and his LL.B. in 1906. In 1900 he was awarded an A.M. at McGill University. After graduation he con- tinued with his study of the classics and served as an assistant in the Classical Department from 1897 to 1900. He was president of the Canadian Club and secretary of the Classical Club for one year. He practised law from 1906 to 1909 and has been teaching since the latter year.
He married Kathrina Prescott Kimball, March 28, 1925, at Waban, Massachusetts. From 1903 to 1906 he was first reader in the First Church of Christ, Scientist, in Cambridge, and was a practitioner of Christian Science during this period.
+ SILAS ELLSWORTH COLEMAN
ILAS ELLSWORTH COLEMAN, author of physics textbooks, died September 11, 1931, at Oakland, California. The son of Silas Jackson and Minerva (Wright ) Coleman, he was born November 1, 1865, at Shreve, Ohio, attended the Los Angeles State Normal School, and received an S.B. from the University of California before coming to Harvard in 1896. He received an A.B. and an A.M. at Harvard. Before going to college, he had taught in ele- mentary and secondary schools in California, and after leaving Harvard, he returned to California to teach. He had been on the faculties of high schools in Los Angeles, San Jose, and Oakland. At the time of his death, he was head of the science department of the Oakland Technical High School. He was president of the
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Pacific Coast Association of Chemistry and Physics Teachers and an honorary member of the Southern California Academy of Science. His textbooks, which were in use throughout the coun- try, were Algebraic Arithmetic, Elements of Physics, Physical Laboratory Manual, and New Laboratory Manual of Physics. At his death, he left his large library of scientific books to the Oak- land Technical High School. He was unmarried.
* ALONZO McGEE COLLETTE
A' LONZO MC GEE COLLETTE, son of William Henry and Sarah (Dusing) Collette, was born May 20, 1869, at Franklin, Indiana, and attended the Kansas State Normal School before coming to Harvard. He spent one year, 1893-94, in the Scientific School and was then for a year laboratory assistant in botany with Professor Goodale. From that time until his death he taught natural sciences at the East Denver High School, Denver, Colo- rado. On June 13, 1902, he married Della Gleyre. Shortly after- wards he became ill with typhoid fever, and died on August 22 of that year, in Denver.
WILLIAM EDWARD COLLINS
TI HE pattern of my life was definitely formed at the time of our twenty-fifth anniversary," writes Collins, "and has not varied except for the normal changes of the twenty-five years since then. Family life and professional work have afforded little time for other than the most casual outside activities. All my children are married and I now live alone.
"My son, Joseph K., '25, LL.B., '29, has been associated with me in the practice of law since his admission to the Bar in 1929 except for a period of three years when he was an assistant attor- ney general of Massachusetts."
Collins, the son of Michael Dennis and Hannah Celia (Des- mond) Collins, was born May 8, 1876, at Boston. He prepared at the Public Latin School in Boston, and received his A.B. cum laude after three years' work. He graduated an LL.B. with dis- tinction in 1899.
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He married Dorothy Veronica Kinney, October 30, 1901, at Boston. She died February 7, 1939, at Brookline. Their children are: William Edward, Jr., born August 13, 1902; Joseph Kinney, born October 2, 1903; Dorothy Desmond, born December 17, 1904; Mary Louise, born May 15, 1906; and Emily Veronica, born February 22, 1910. There are twelve grandchildren. The eldest, Margaret Ann Collins, is a freshman at Smith College, the Alma Mater of her mother and two of Collins' daughters. William Ed- ward Collins, Jr., was graduated from Harvard in 1924, and received his M.B.A. two years later. Collins has one Harvard brother: Walter Leo Collins, '00, LL.B. '02.
Collins has served as director of the Massachusetts Plate Glass Insurance Company, as Council of the Boston Bar Association, and on the Board of Government of the Catholic Alumni Sodality. He is a member of the Harvard Club of Boston.
JOHN WILLIAM CONNELLY
OHN WILLIAM CONNELLY died March 20, 1936, at sea. He was J born July 16, 1874, at Fall River, Massachusetts, the son of William Martin and Louisa F. (Collins) Connelly. He prepared for college at the B. M. C. Durfee High School, Fall River, and was at Harvard only during 1893-94. He then attended the Bos- ton University Law School and was admitted to the Massachu- setts Bar in 1897. Until 1903 he practised law in Fall River, then moved to Boston. In 1908 he was elected to the State House of Representatives.
On November 20, 1901, he married Margaret Anna Hogan at Boston. Their daughter, Margaret Marcelina (Mrs. William R. King), was born September 9, 1902. Also surviving him were two grandsons, John William King and Richard Anthony King.
+ MAURICE JAMES CONNOR
M URICE JAMES CONNOR died March 23, 1939, at Omaha, Nebraska. The son of Michael and Bridget (Scannell) Connor, he was born September 1, 1872, at Manchester, New
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NINETY-SEVEN FOOTBALL TEAM CLASS CHAMPIONS
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Hampshire, and prepared for college at Phillips Exeter Academy. He left Harvard in 1896 and returned to Manchester to enter his father's business. While there he served three terms in the New Hampshire legislature.
He then abandoned his business career to accept the post of head football coach at Phillips Exeter Academy, where he was so successful that he went on to coaching positions at Dartmouth, Holy Cross, Bowdoin, Michigan, and Northwestern University. While at Northwestern, he studied law and left coaching to prac- tise in Des Moines, Iowa. After seven years there, he spent two years travelling and studying the possibilities of investment in prairie land farms of the Middle West. In 1921, stopping at Omaha en route to California, he met our classmate Robert Rus- sell Hollister. The meeting resulted in his establishing a practice in Omaha and there he remained until his death, prosecuting oil recovery and oil swindling cases.
There was a softer, less strenuous side to Connor's nature, which was known only to his close friends. He had a love of liter- ature and of poetry half hidden under a guise of rather apologetic banter. In later years western periodicals frequently published his articles and occasional bursts of "divine fire," to his amused delight and satisfaction.
GEORGE LAWRENCE COOK
I BEGAN the practice of architecture in Boston in 1897," reports Cook, "and continued until my retirement in 1947, completing forty years of a very pleasant profession.
"I have lived a very contented and happy life and still look to its continued pleasures and blessings in the future years to come. I believe we get out of life what we put into it to give us the satisfaction of a well-spent life, noble and pure, to be respected by all who knew us."
Cook, the son of James Augustus and Ella Maria (Disney) Cook, was born July 4, 1872, at Laconia, New Hampshire. He prepared at the English High School in Boston. He was at Har- vard for two years as a special student in the Lawrence Scientific
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School. He married Rutha Shackford, October 15, 1913, at Dor- chester, Massachusetts. Their daughter, Mildred Shackford, was born January 25, 1915.
+ FREDERICK BOYDEN COOLEY
F FREDERICK BOYDEN COOLEY died at Buffalo, New York, on Octo- ber 12, 1944. He was born at South Deerfield, Massachusetts, on November 19, 1875, the son of Alfred Allen and Charlotte Maria (Clapp) Cooley. He came to Harvard from Deerfield Academy. He was unquestionably one of the most successful and least known men in our Class. The son of a poor farmer in Deer- field, his only financial aid was his carfare to Cambridge. By dint of the hardest kind of work, especially during the first two years, he struggled through. Gradually he picked up a tutoring practice, which by his junior year kept him busy every evening until a late hour. He then returned to his room in College House and worked on his own studies.
Naturally this kind of program left little time for socializing, but it built in Cooley a character that showed in his firm set mouth and jaw. It was this character which carried him through an out- standing career in business and made him a leader in all good works in his adopted city of Buffalo.
In spite of financial handicaps Fred found time in college to play on the lacrosse team. He had the physical equipment to make any major team if he had been able to spare the time.
After teaching Greek and Latin for two years in the Nichols School in Buffalo, he entered the employ of the New York Car Wheel Company in that city. From 1899 to 1903 he advanced from clerk to superintendent. From 1903 to 1905 he was presi- dent of the Lancaster (Pennsylvania ) Malleable Iron Works, and for the following two years he was district manager of the Na- tional Car Wheel Company at Sayre, Pennsylvania. In 1907 he moved to Buffalo, where he was general manager of the Buffalo Car Wheel and Foundry Company until 1913. In that year he purchased and became president of the New York Car Wheel Company. In 1941 he retired and became chairman of the board.
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He was succeeded in the presidency by his son, Robert Adsit Cooley, Harvard '32.
In 1919 Cooley organized the International Metal Hose Com- pany of Cleveland, and was its president until 1922, and from 1922 until 1926 he was president of the New York Car Wheel Company of Indiana. During the years 1927-35 he was a direc- tor of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, Buffalo branch. He was chairman of the board of the branch in 1929, 1932, and 1935. Until his death Cooley was a director of the Manufacturers and Traders Trust Company in Buffalo, this association having started with his election to a directorship of the Fidelity Trust Company in 1924 which was later merged with the Manufacturers and Traders Bank. For many years, until 1942, he was a member of the executive committee of the M & T Bank. He was a director and member of the executive committee of the Association of Manufacturers of Chilled Car Wheels, and a member of the com- mittee on cast iron of the American Society for Testing Materials. He was extremely active in civic and charitable affairs, being chairman of the Joint Charities and Community Fund campaign in 1932, a trustee of the Buffalo board of trade, director of the Buffalo Municipal Research Bureau, and vice-president of the Buffalo Chamber of Commerce, Better Business Bureau, and Forest Lawn Cemetery Association.
He was most active in hospital affairs in the Niagara-Frontier area. In the early 1920's he was elected president of the Millard Fillmore Hospital, and devoted a great deal of his time from then on to the improvement of the hospital's financial position and facilities. He was largely responsible for a drive in the latter 1920's which raised almost a million dollars for enlarging the hos- pital. In 1941 the hospital was again enlarged under his direc- tion. He was also at one time the president of the Buffalo Hospi- tal Association.
Cooley played a dominant rôle in the organization of the West- ern New York Hospital Service Corporation, of which he was presi- dent from the date of its founding (1936) until his death. This or- ganization provided low cost hospitalization to many thousands of citizens of this area on a non-profit basis. Later, he was the domi-
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nant figure in the organization of the Western New York Medical Plan, administered by the Hospital Service Corporation. The Medical Plan provided medical care at low cost, operating along the same lines as the Hospital Service Corporation. He is unoffi- cially credited with having put into actual operation the first such medical plan in the United States.
He was always an enthusiastic sportsman, enjoying tennis, riding, hunting, and fishing. At various times he held membership in the University and Harvard Clubs of New York City, and in Buffalo and vicinity the University, Harvard, Cherry Hill, Buffalo Athletic, Buffalo Club, Genesee Valley Hunt Club, Turkey Point Club, Turtle Lake Fish and Game Club, Saturn Club (dean- president 1938), and Saddle and Bridle Club (president 1924, 1925).
He was married in Buffalo, December 9, 1902, to Florence Adsit. She died in 1936, leaving four children: Esther Boyden, born August 5, 1905 (married John Mitchell Anderson); Katrina Adsit, born September 29, 1907 (married Charles Jenney, Jr., Harvard '26); Robert Adsit, born December 16, 1909 (married Elizabeth Westcott); and Roger Greenwood, born May 17, 1911 (married Carolyn Critchlow). There are four grandchildren: Elizabeth Adsit Cooley, Esther Allen Anderson, Margaret Hamil- ton Anderson, and Elizabeth Adams Jenney.
C. J.
* JAMES ATHENIAN COOPER, JR.
AMES ATHENIAN COOPER, JR., banker and attorney, died Novem- J ber 12, 1931, at Terre Haute, Indiana. The son of James Athenian and Emma (Stewart) Cooper, he was born December 27, 1874, at New Harmony, Indiana. He received his preparatory education in the public schools of New Harmony and Terre Haute, and before coming to Harvard for our senior year, he had received an A.B. at DePauw in 1895 and had spent a year as a newspaper reporter for the City Press Association in Chicago. He received an A.B. with our Class and an LL.B. cum laude three years later.
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