USA > Massachusetts > Middlesex County > Cambridge > Harvard College class of ninety-seven : fiftieth anniversary report, 1897 > Part 20
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 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48 | Part 49 | Part 50 | Part 51 | Part 52 | Part 53 | Part 54 | Part 55 | Part 56 | Part 57 | Part 58 | Part 59 | Part 60 | Part 61
"Eighteen ninety-three to 1895 marks my years at the Lawrence Scientific School. I left before graduation, partly because I needed money and found a position open, and partly because I felt that the practical experience I'd had before entering college was by this time sufficiently in touch with the theories and general principles academic work superimposed on earlier attainment.
"After I left college in 1895, I worked as a draftsman and de- signer and in other capacities for Thomas A. Edison and other engineers and electricians. About 1905 I became superintendent of the building of the New York Produce Exchange. I left that post in 1910 to become building superintendent of the New York Public Library as it was moving into its then new building on the corner of 42nd Street and Fifth Avenue. It was opened in May, 1911. I retired from that position about 1937, and since then I have lived in Miami, Florida.
"I have held no public offices unless you let me count my service as sailor before the mast in my teens, as seaman in the United States Navy, from which I was discharged in 1890, and as engi- neer on the U.S.S. Hist in our war with Spain in 1898.
"I have written no books unless you let me note that at various times my picturesque career on sea and land, with my hopes and beliefs in my many inventions, have called forth various news-
200
HARVARD CLASS OF 1897
paper stories about me of varying degrees of accuracy, to say nothing about their significance.
"The story of my life is sketched above, with the further state- ment that I hold my philosophy of life in high esteem. I am will- ing to talk and write about it at the slightest provocation, but instructive and enlightening experience lead me to refrain from forcing it on you today at greater length than this. But, oh, if only I had the chance to tell you and the rest of the Class what I believe as to the fashion and forming of the universe, I surely would enjoy it."
Fedeler, the son of Henry C. and Johanna Maria Wolters (von Munchhausen) Fedeler, was born May 28, 1869, at Cincinnati, Ohio.
Recently Fedeler, during his life at Miami, Florida, has been greatly interested in developing his medical invention, known as the Fedelerizer, for the cure of certain ills and in studying the beneficial results of a vegetarian diet. This is an unusual cul- mination for one who has spent most of his life in engineering pursuits.
WALTER EBEN FELTON
T HE Secretary did not receive a questionnaire from Felton. According to previous reports he was a commercial traveller for the New York and Boston Dyewood Company at Boston, which was succeeded by the American Dyewood Company, and later was associated with the American Telephone and Telegraph Company in Springfield, Massachusetts. At last accounts he was engaged in farming at Bolton, Massachusetts.
He was born at West Newton, Massachusetts, on March 27, 1875, and attended Newton High School. He was in college from 1892 to 1897. His parents were Frederic Luther and Laura Burton (Woodworth) Felton. On April 25, 1900, at Providence, Rhode Island, he married Katharine Hart Kendall, from whom he was later divorced, and on May 26, 1913, he married Anne Haldeman. His daughter, Felicia, was born on April 4, 1903.
201
FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY REPORT
EDWARD NICOLL FENNO
IMMEDIATELY after graduation," writes Edward Fenno, "I en- tered the commercial paper and investment banking firm of Bond & Goodwin in Boston. I became a partner in 1905 and later a vice-president when the firm was incorporated with offices in New York, Chicago, and San Francisco. I was retired in 1931.
"In the winter of 1937-1938, I visited Barbados, British West Indies, one of the oldest sugar islands owned by Great Britain. I liked the place so well that I purchased a dream cottage and small piece of land on the west coast and, with the exception of the war years, have spent the winter months there ever since. Situated in the Trade-Wind belt of the Caribbean Sea, it has one of the most perfect climates in the world and there is no finer sea bathing anywhere. I would be glad to welcome any of my class- mates there any time during the winter months. My wife is as keen about the place as I am, and it seems my future happiness is assured.
"My outside interests are yachting, upland game shooting, salmon fishing, the usual outdoor sports, and a bit of farming at Falmouth, Cape Cod, where I now spend long summers and where I have voted since 1896 - always Republican.
"The first accomplishment of which I am proud was my ability, at the ripe age of sixty-five, to win a wonderful woman for a wife. My next accomplishment, at the same age and older, was selling war loan bonds and becoming top salesman for the Township of Falmouth and receiving for my efforts a medal and citation from Morganthau.
Fenno was born March 20, 1875, at Boston, the son of Edward Nicoll Fenno, '66, and Ellen Marion Bradlee. He prepared at Hopkinson's School in Boston, and received his A.B. after four years with our Class. As an undergraduate he was a member of D.K.E., Institute of 1770, Iroquois Club, Fly Club, and Hasty Pudding Club. He played on the Class Football Team in 1895- 1896, and ran with the Varsity Track the following year. He is an Episcopalian and a member of Trinity Church in Boston, where
202
HARVARD CLASS OF 1897
he belongs to the Trinity Club. He is also a member of the Varsity Club.
Fenno married Rosamond Newton, June 8, 1940, at Brookline, Massachusetts.
From 1897 to 1900, he was a private and then a non-commis- sioned officer in the First Corps Cadets. He served as treasurer of the Vincent Memorial Hospital and Jean Parkman Brown Fund of Saranac Lake. He has been a member of the Corporation of the Provident Institution for Savings in Boston and of the Suffolk Savings Bank in Boston. He is a director of the Trinity Club. During the Boston Police Strike, he served as a non-commissioned officer in December, 1919. He is a member of the Harvard Clubs of Boston and New York; Somerset and Tennis and Racquet Clubs, Boston; Woods Hole Golf Club, Woods Hole, Massachu- setts; The Country Club, Brookline; Rockley Golf and Country Club, Royal Yacht Club, and Savannah Club, Barbados, British West Indies.
During World War I, Fenno was a non-commissioned officer in the First Motor Corps of the Massachusetts State Guard. He was stationed at the Selective Service Office in the Back Bay. He worked in Navy Intelligence and on war-bond committees. In World War II, he had night duty at the headquarters of the Massachusetts Committee on Public Safety. He was an air-raid warden in the Back Bay Section and an Army Air Force observer at Falmouth. Mrs. Fenno served as an observer at Falmouth and was a member of the Women's Civilian Defense Corps in the Back Bay.
Fenno's brother, the late Henry Bradlee Fenno, was also a member of '97.
* HENRY BRADLEE FENNO
H ENRY BRADLEE FENNO, brother of our classmate, Edward Nicoll Fenno, Jr., died July 25, 1941, at Wareham, Massachusetts. The son of Edward Nicoll Fenno, '66, and Ellen Marion Bradlee, he was born August 14, 1873, at Medford, Massachusetts, and prepared at Hopkinson's School. He was a member of the real
203
FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY REPORT
estate firm of R. M. Bradley & Company, but in addition to his business activities, he gave expression to his deep interest in philanthropical and charitable associations and in the theatre. His interest in the theatre found an outlet in his undergraduate days in the Varsity Glee Club and in D.K.E. and Hasty Pudding shows. Later he became known as a frequent entertainer of his friends of the stage and as an ardent patron of the circus, even taking part in some performances. For the two summers preced- ing his death his snake show was a major attraction of the Nursing Fete on the Falmouth Village Green, with Fenno himself hand- ling his kingsnakes, rattlers, and cobras.
For more than twenty years he entertained patients at the Children's Hospital in Boston with a visit of circus performers, and he gave an annual picnic at his summer home for store em- ployees. His kindness to the Falmouth Police Department was recognized when he was made an honorary member of the depart- ment. He was a member of the board of directors of the Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Children, the Y.M.C.A., the City Episcopal Mission, the Massachusetts Prison Association, and Northeastern College. He also conducted field work for the Associated Charities and its later development, the Family Wel- fare Society. During the first World War, he was in charge of the Red Cross Convalescent House at Camp Devens and retained a great interest in the Red Cross, particularly in Water First Aid and Life Saving, of which he was appointed New England Direc- tor, at the same time creating and establishing the Life Saving Corps in Boston. Much of his time he devoted to paroled and discharged prisoners, aiding in their rehabilitation and giving generously of his advice, counsel, and aid. He never married.
* MANUEL EMILIO FENOLLOSA
M ANUEL EMILIO FENOLLOSA was born at Salem, Massachusetts, on June 7, 1875, the son of Manuel and Annie Elizabeth (Kinsman) Fenollosa. He attended the Salem Classical and High School. He was with the Class for four years, graduating magna cum laude and with honorable mention in French. He was for a
204
HARVARD CLASS OF 1897
time engaged in business and then taught in New York City. He died at Brooklyn, on April 25, 1899. He was unmarried.
+ HARRY WHEELER FENTON
H ARRY WHEELER FENTON's death on February 13, 1944, at War. ren, Pennsylvania, has been reported, but no particulars of his career were received after the publication of our Twenty-fifth Report. Letters to his widow at her last-known address have been returned unclaimed. There were no children. For our Fiftieth Report, therefore, a brief recapitulation must suffice.
Fenton was born June 13, 1873, at Brooklyn, New York, the son of Martin Luther and Alice (Tew) Fenton. He attended St. Paul's School in Concord, Massachusetts, and Phillips Academy, Andover. He entered Harvard College with our Class, but left at the end of his junior year for reasons which are not known.
After a brief experience as a house decorator in New York, he returned to the family home in Jamestown, New York, and en- gaged in the real estate business with his father - a vocation which was apparently permanent. His life was the rather un- eventful one of a business man in a small city. He travelled for health and pleasure in the eastern states, did local Red Cross work during the first World War, and bought as many war bonds as he could.
On March 6, 1913, he married Charlotte Rhoda Warner at Jamestown. Nothing is known to the present writer of his avoca- tions, hobbies, political and religious views, or of the circum- stances of his death.
D. C.
MERRITT LYNDON FERNALD
F ERNALD reports: "Practically my whole life (beginning in young school days is a demonstration of my belief that natural scientists are born, not captured, and made in the laboratory - the place which usually deadens such interest ) has been devoted to intensive study of the higher plants (the flora) of temperate
205
FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY REPORT
eastern North America and an attempt to correlate the natural distribution of our flora (incidentally the fauna ) with the geologi- cal history of the area. This program has involved summers of exploration through much of the region from southern Labrador and Newfoundland to Lake Superior and South Carolina, and I have spent occasional summers in Europe studying the old collec- tions there. As long as I could stand the hardest of work under most adverse conditions, I devoted many seasons to the rugged and largely unmapped interior of Gaspé and to Newfoundland; then, as the old pump began to feel the strain, I descended to the southeastern coastal plain. In fact, from earliest childhood a 'weak heart' has always been in the way, although I couldn't do much without it! I was kept out of school for a year, when I came to Harvard, the college physician, Dr. Fitz, warned me against strenuous effort. However, when I invited him to join me on a camping trip in northern Maine, I spent my time exploring the mountains while he lay all day in the hammock. Shortly after that he succumbed! Then Dr. Darling took over, gave the same diagnosis and soon passed out. Then I transferred to an athletic M.D. and in a year or two he dropped dead while ice skating. Twice since then I have been laid off for a month by coronary thrombosis. These very personal details are merely to show that it is not always necessary to give up at the first warning.
"The college terms have been divided among administrative details (including fifteen years as chairman of the Department of Botany), teaching, including oversight of research students, and working out the results of field studies. Intensely absorbing to those in the midst of large problems in natural history and bio- geography, hopelessly uninteresting to those not initiated to them, they sometimes can be made intelligible. At least, when I have had the good luck to explain to willing listeners from other realms of thought, I have been pleased with the comment: 'Why, it's as absorbing as a good detective story.' So I am finding a life of research and training of young disciples full of recompense.
"When, for example, after I had demonstrated that life in parts of northeastern America was not wholly destroyed, as I had been taught, by the advance of ice in the Glacial Period, because the
206
HARVARD CLASS OF 1897
living remnants from ancient dispersals still persist as isolated relics, a geologist at good old Yale promptly called me down. When, however, I sent him photographs of such spots and con- crete evidence, he was a good sport and replied: 'Too much is enough. I am utterly nonplussed and wholly humiliated. Never again will I go off half-cock before seeing the evidence.' Another famous geologist then wrote, asking me to cease publishing evi- dence which was ruining his local reputation.
"As an outgrowth of such revolutionary work, I found myself selected as a special lecturer at an international congress in 1930 at Cambridge University. The lecturer was to have been the dis- tinguished Russian botanist, Vavilov, who suddenly withdrew. When I received the letter telling me that I was drafted to fill his place, I showed the message to one of the officers of the British Museum and received the graceful English reply: 'Yes, Vavilov is a rotter; you'll be a good substitute for him.' Then came an in- vitation to develop the same subject at Stockholm. These studies also brought gratifying recognition from some of the National Academies of Europe and America and the receipt of a distin- guished medal. Another great satisfaction from such work, out- side its own prosecution, has been the acceptance of some of my heretical results regarding the age of species of plants of northern Europe by leaders in phytogeography (geography of plants ) abroad, with the result that these studies, made at Harvard, have stimulated the production of significant volumes from Ber- gen, Oslo, Stockholm, Leningrad, Oxford, and elsewhere in Eu- rope.
'During my years of field work, I have come to wonder whether there is a difference in stamina between the younger old men and the real youngsters. On rough and fly- and mosquito-infested ex- peditions in inhospitable areas of Newfoundland, it has often been noted that the younger members of the party were the first to give out. Similarly, during comparatively easy work on the flat coastal half of Virginia, our hosts have been fond of joking about the 'old man' setting the pace which soon puts the younger fellows to bed. Possibly the boyhood necessity to work hard, to keep the furnace going through a Maine winter, to work the
207
FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY REPORT
large garden in summer, to shingle the roof, to walk, ski or skate a mile and a half to school, then to work outside to earn the way through college (at 15 cents an hour) started some of those of an earlier generation upon habits of sustained effort. But one should not be too self-satisfied. It is possible that all the weaker members of our generation have died off, leaving only the tougher eccen- trics.
"At any rate, I find myself now nearing the end of a twelve- year job of completely rewriting the old standard reference book, Gray's Manual of Botany, a very protracted task because changes in international rules of procedure necessitate the close scrutiny of many thousands of items, trips to the old centers in Europe (personally or by proxy ) and verification which in earlier periods were thought relatively unimportant. When that task is over I may, if I am still on the job, try to satisfy the insistent 'Why don't you finish those books' on so-and-so? At least, I shall leave a mass of half-digested data to satisfy the searchers for the curious in another generation.
"Since I was a boy of seventeen, my life has been interwoven with the problems and development of the Gray Herbarium, a research establishment recognized over the world as an outstand- ing leader in the study of plants. I say, 'over the world,' but not always in Cambridge. Fifteen years ago a German botanist arrived at Harvard Square, sought in vain through University Hall and elsewhere for the place. Finally, he got hold of a taxi- driver who had sometimes taken me there. Arriving at his desti- nation, he said: 'Why, everyone in Germany knows the Gray Herbarium!' Similarly, almost every educated man in Germany then he knew or wanted to know the plants around him.
"Now, having passed by several years the normal age for retire- ment, I shall pull out in June. I shall then leave behind a self- sacrificing group of workers in a Harvard institute which, receiv- ing nothing from general university funds, has, like the other "orphans,' always been forced to beg for funds for any expansion or for slight increases of the salaries of an underpaid but loyal staff. I have no personal axe to grind when I suggest that mem- bers of the Class, to which my voluntary co-worker for many
208
HARVARD CLASS OF 1897
years, Alfred Weatherby, belongs, can do a really good deed by making possible salaries nearer those in the academic depart- ments and the many innovations which would make the Gray Herbarium still more useful. Here's hoping!"
Fernald, the son of Merritt Caldwell Fernald, Bowdoin Col- lege, '61, and Mary Lovejoy Heywood, was born October 5, 1873, at Orono, Maine. He prepared for college at the Orono High School. He was graduated from the Lawrence Scientific School magna cum laude in 1897. Acadia University conferred a D.C.L. degree upon him in 1933, and the University of Montreal, a D.Sc. in 1938. He married Margaret Howard Grant, April 15, 1907, at Providence, Rhode Island. They had three children: Katharine, born April 26, 1908; Mary, born November 23, 1910 (died Janu- ary 23, 1927); and Henry Grant, born September 4, 1913. There are five grandchildren. Henry Grant Fernald is a member of the Harvard Class of 1935. Fernald has two Harvard brothers: Regi- nald Lovejoy Fernald, '99, and the late George Bancroft Fer- nald, '03.
"In March, 1891, writes Fernald, "I accepted the invitation of the distinguished curator of the Harvard Herbarium (now the Gray Herbarium), Dr. Sereno Watson, to become his assistant. I was then a freshman at the Maine State College (now the Uni- versity of Maine) and had already pretty well crystallized into my life's profession, that of a systematic botanist (nowadays called a taxonomist). I came to Cambridge to spend half-time as Watson's assistant, the other half as a college student. My exit from Maine was splurged in local newspapers as that of 'the youngest professor Harvard has ever seen.' This and my $15 a week did not deceive me, however, but the necessity to earn however I could, and the divided program, brought me out in six years finally as a member of '97, although most of my particu- lar friends were in the Classes of '94 to '96. Naturally, as a 'mere grind' I was not a 'club man,' except for such mild organizations as the Harvard Society of Natural History and the Harvard Folk- Lore Society. An overwhelming shyness at that period kept me from much social activity. I ended my college course with a magna cum. If the insistence of deans that all students should be
209
FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY REPORT
athletes had then been in vogue, I would not have been admitted to Harvard."
Fernald has been at Harvard since 1891, as an assistant in the Gray Herbarium from 1891 to 1902; instructor in botany, "at first without salary," from 1902 to 1905; assistant professor of botany, 1905-1915; Fisher Professor of Natural History, 1915-1947 (re- signing in June); curator of Gray Herbarium, 1936-1937, and director, 1937-1947 (resigning in June). He was associate editor of Rhodora, a botanical journal published by the New England Botanical Club, from 1899 to 1927, and editor-in-chief from 1928 to 1947. He was a member of the International Committee on Botanical Nomenclature from 1930 to 1935.
He is the author of the seventh edition of Gray's Manual of Botany (with B. L. Robinson, '87), published in 1910; Edible Wild Plants of Eastern North America (with A. C. Kinsey, S.D. '20), published in 1943. He has written scientific papers and memoirs, "some of them amounting to hundreds of pages with many maps and illustrations and, when bound, looking like 'books' in un- ceasing profusion, to a total of more than seven hundred."
He has been a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences since 1900, is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and the American Philosophical Society, a foreign or honorary member of the Botanical Society and Exchange Club of the British Isles, Norske Videnskaps Acadimi, in which there are only ten foreign botanists, Societus Phytogeographica Suecana, and the Linnean Society of London ("F.M.L.S.," of which there are only nine members in America). He is the only botanist to have received the Leidy Gold Medal of the Academy of Sciences of Philadelphia, conferred upon him in 1940. He received a Gold Medal from the Massachusetts Horticultural Society in 1944.
He writes that he has no memberships in social clubs except such as the Harvard Faculty Club. His clubs are professional or semi-professional. He was president of the New England Botani- cal Club from 1911 to 1914, president of the American Society of Plant Taxonomists in 1938, vice-president of the Botanical Society of America in 1939, and president in 1942, and vice-president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 1941.
210
HARVARD CLASS OF 1897
+ HAMILTON EASTER FIELD
H AMILTON EASTER FIELD was born April 21, 1873, at Brooklyn, New York, and died there April 9, 1922. He was the son of Aaron and Lydia Seaman (Haviland) Field. He attended the Brooklyn Polytechnic Institute and studied at Columbia Univer- sity in the Architectural Department of the School of Mines. Ill health compelled him to leave Cambridge and, after a period of recuperation, he entered Harvard in 1893 with our Class. After a few months he suffered another breakdown and again had to give up his studies. In 1894 he went to France to study art, remaining eight years. Some time after his return to this country he became art critic on the Brooklyn Eagle and later associate editor and eventually editor of Arts and Decoration. He left this position to found The Arts, a successful venture of which he was, in his own words, "editor, owner, publisher, errand-boy, advertising agent." He was president of the Brooklyn Society of Artists and a director of the Society of Independent Artists and of the Modern Artists of America. He never married.
HARVEY ADAMS FIELD
I HAVE been very busy practising medicine for thirty-five years," reports Harvey Field. "I retired because of failing eyesight, which continues to fail.
"I thoroughly enjoyed the practice of medicine, which kept me extremely busy. If I had my life to live over, after the preliminary groundwork in pre-medical education, I would immediately pack my bag and start for the new Harvard Medical School, than which there is none better.
"I've always been extremely interested in polo and have had the good fortune to dabble in it for quite a few years. I've also been very much interested in a certain variety of poultry, not so much the pullets as the rooster, if you grasp what I mean. Per- haps when the seventy-fifth anniversary of our Class rolls around, I may be able to send you a more complete report."
Field, the son of John Quincy Adams and Sylvia (Wellington)
211
FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY REPORT
Field, was born March 24, 1875, at Quincy, Massachusetts. He prepared at Adams Academy in Quincy. After one year in the Lawrence Scientific School, he entered the Medical School, where he received his M.D. in 1898.
He married Leone Gertrude Allen, September 1, 1911, at Boston. Their children are: John Lyman, born February 18, 1914; Marjorie (Mrs. Casey), born May 12, 1918; and Leone A. (Mrs. Davis) born June 7, 1919. There are six grandchildren, of whom he says: "we are proud."
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.