USA > Massachusetts > Middlesex County > Cambridge > Harvard College class of ninety-seven : fiftieth anniversary report, 1897 > Part 29
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Shaw. Their son, Ernest Laurence, Jr., '25, was born January 26, 1904.
+ HARRY HOWARD HILL
H ARRY HOWARD HILL was born February 1, 1874, at Worcester, Massachusetts, the son of William Bingham and Sarah Eliza- beth ( Carlisle ) Hill. He prepared at the Worcester Classical High School, and was in college for four years, graduating magna cum laude, and receiving honorable mention in English composition and philosophy. As an undergraduate he was a member of the Cercle Français, the Deutscher Verein, and the Epicurean Club, and was president of the Harvard Chapter of the Delta Upsilon Fraternity. In August, 1897, he went to the Belmont School, Belmont, California, to become head instructor in English. He remained there until his death on March 12, 1898. He was un- married. Appreciation of his distinctive work was expressed in a library fund established by the Belmont School in his memory.
GEORGE ERNEST HILLS
L OOKING back over the years since graduation," reflects Hills, "it would seem that, aside from my marriage, the births of my children, and my endeavors to support my family and save a bit for old age, the most interesting part of my life has been the last twenty years.
"In their early teens my children began to evince an avid in- terest in things nautical. In 1926 I purchased for them a fourteen- foot catboat of the class known in Hingham as 'mighty mite.' They alternated as skipper. At the end of the 1928 racing season they were undisputed champions of their class. Then they gradu- ated into the 'O' class, a centerboard jib and mainsail craft, fifteen feet on the water line, with spinnaker. In 1930 and 1931 they cleaned up' in that class, sailing a total of sixty-one races at Hingham, in tercentenary celebration and other races in Boston Harbor, and at Marblehead race week, with an average number of twelve 'O' boats in each race. Their racing average for the
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combined two years, with no withdrawals, disablements or dis- qualifications for violation of the yacht racing rules was 9483/100 per cent. In six years they did not miss a scheduled race.
"Classmates, you ask, 'What has all this to do with the story of George Hills' life?' The answer is that the interest my son and daughter took in sailing and yacht racing had a great bearing on my future activities.
"In 1930 I formed the South Shore Junior Yacht Racing Asso- ciation composed of representatives from yacht clubs on the South Shore of Massachusetts Bay from Boston to Provincetown. I am still its president.
"In 1931 I became a member of the North American Yacht Rac- ing Union, and the next year when its Committee on Junior Yacht Racing was created by President Clifford D. Mallory, I was ap- pointed a member. Since 1931 I have been one of the three judges of the Sears Cup Final Races, conducted under the aus- pices of the N.A.Y.R.U. and emblematical of the National Junior Sailing Championship.
"Ever since I accepted the chairmanship of the Race Commit- tee of the Hingham Yacht Club in 1927, I delved more and more into the yacht-racing rules, more especially what the British call the Sailing Rules, the rules concerning right-of-way.
"I gave a number of talks on this subject at my own and neigh- boring yacht clubs, illustrating the various possible situations with small model yachts, a wood towboat and mud-scow as 'obstruc- tions,' (all found by diligent search in drug stores and toy shops ), wood arrows for wind, and wood-slanting buoys to indicate the current.
"One day, purely by accident, I ran across a stray copy of a British Y.R.A. Yearbook. Toward the end of the book I discovered a number of protest decisions with diagrams. The decisions were appeal cases decided by the Council of the Y.R.A., the British Yachting Tribunal of Final Jurisdiction. I knew of no treatise on the sailing rules which cited such decisions. It occurred to me that such a book might be useful not only to racing yachtsmen but more important still to race committees when hearing protest cases. I asked President Mallory what he thought of the idea.
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His reply was most encouraging. I was launched on my first real venture as an author.
"The Sailing Rules in Yacht Racing was published by Charles Scribner's Sons in June, 1933, and 'tho' I say it who shouldn't,' it seemed to meet a long-felt need. Seven years later a revised and enlarged edition was published containing some three hundred and forty pages as contrasted with one hundred and ninety in the former edition.
"As one reviewer, a yachtsman of long experience, said of it: 'This book quickly became a standard textbook on a subject hitherto most inadequately covered. ... It is distinctly not an exposition of the yacht-racing rules as the author believes they should be interpreted. ... Rarely does the author allow any personal opinions to intrude, so it can be said that this volume consolidates and clarifies the standard interpretation of the racing rules as given in the protest and appeals decision of the fore- most authorities on the subject throughout the world.' It is a case book of yacht-racing law with comments by the author.
"So you see, Classmates, all that I can truthfully claim credit for is the idea and the research and compilation. I merely made use of what the leading yachting tribunals of final jurisdiction in England and the United States had determined to be yacht-racing law.
"The 'durable satisfactions' are (1) that it has greatly reduced the number of protest appeal cases because contestants can ascer- tain what the yacht-racing law is and what is pretty sure to be the decision on a given set of facts; (2) the pleasant personal con- tacts and firm friendships that have come to me by virtue of my increased acquaintance with other yachtsmen; and (3) my con- tacts with junior skippers and crews under eighteen years of age, contacts which help to keep one young in feeling if not in years.
"Another of life's 'durable satisfactions' is that resulting from my service of nearly thirteen years as a member of the Brookline School Committee. As all of you know, it is an unpaid job. But 'durable satisfaction' cannot be measured in money. Education is guidance. It is the shaping, fitting, and moulding of human beings
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to fit a social order ever increasing in complexity. The business of education is to help individuals to help themselves.
"Few industries represent a larger capital investment or give employment to more people than do the nation's schools. No in- dustry produces a product so vital. Working with the most price- less of all raw materials, the school produces the fabric of respon- sible citizenship in a free society.
"To have been privileged to serve my town as a School Com- mittee member for nearly thirteen years is indeed a 'durable satisfaction.'"
Hills, the son of Edwin Augustus and Georgina Leonardina (Dorrepaal) Hills, was born April 6, 1876, at Boston. He pre- pared at Hopkinson's School in that city. He was with our Class four years and received his A.B. with distinction. He then at- tended the Law School and obtained his LL.B. in 1900.
He married Charlotte Elizabeth Williams, April 29, 1909, at Brookline, Massachusetts. They had three children: Son, born March 8, 1911 (died March 9, 1911); Ernestine Williams, born September 12, 1912 (died in December, 1946); and Edwin Aug- ustus, 2d, born June 9, 1914. There are three grandchildren, the youngest of whom, Ernestine Hills Hawkins, was born Decem- ber 8, 1946. Edwin Augustus Hills, 2d, '37, was commissioned an ensign in the Naval Reserve in June, 1937. He began active serv- ice in November, 1940. In October, 1945, he returned from active duty in the Pacific Theatre of war as machine-gun officer of the battleship South Dakota with the rank of lieutenant commander. In World War I, Hills himself was a legal adviser in Brookline ad- ministering the Selective Service Acts.
"Since my admission to the Bar in the summer of 1900," he writes, "I have continued the practice of my profession. My office is now at 31 Milk Street, Boston.
"My job as treasurer and director of the Boston Plate and Window Glass Company, mentioned in our Fortieth Anniversary Report, requires a considerable portion of my time.
"I am still treasurer of the Massachusetts Charitable Fire Soci- ety, founded in 1792.
"I was first elected a member of the Brookline School Com-
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mittee in March, 1934. I was re-elected for three-year terms in 1937, 1940, 1943, and 1946. I was first elected chairman in De- cember, 1936, and with the exception of 1940 and 1941, have been chairman ever since.
"In April, 1946, the Board of Selectmen appointed me one of the six members of the Advisory Council of the Brookline Health Department.
"I am a member of the Harvard Clubs of Boston and New York, Harvard Musical Association, Hingham Yacht Club, Ameri- can, Massachusetts, and Boston Bar Associations, North American Yacht Racing Union, and the Yacht Racing Association of Great Britain."
[Just as the Report was going to press, your Secretary learned with great regret of the death of Hills's daughter. ]
* VIRGIL MORES HILLYER
V IRGIL MORES HILLYER, an educator of international reputation, died December 20, 1931, at Baltimore, Maryland, where he was headmaster of the Calvert School. After graduating with the Class in 1897, he spent a brief period at the Browning School in New York and then went to the Calvert School, which was then two years old, as headmaster. The primary school instruction methods which he developed were in use not only in Baltimore, but also in China, Persia, Japan, Afghanistan, South Africa, Egypt, and other countries. About 6,000 students in these countries, many of them children of missionaries, military officers, and gov- ernment representatives, were enrolled in his correspondence course on child education, the first school of its kind in the United States, and called the Calvert School System of Home Instruc- tion.
The textbooks he wrote included A Child's History of the World, Kindergarten at Home, Child Training, Common Trees, Child's Geography of the World, Royal Road to Writing, First Reader, Royal Road to Reading, and The Calvert Speller. His contributions to magazines were numerous. During the first World War, he held office in the United States Food Administra-
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tion and later was a captain in the Military Intelligence Division of the Army. He was much interested in art and music, and his collection of art objects illustrating methods invented by man for the production of fire and artificial light from primitive to mod- ern times was exhibited several times at the Baltimore Museum of Art.
Hillyer was born on September 2, 1875, at Weymouth, Massa- chusetts, the son of Virgil and Amy Mores ( Adlington ) Hillyer, and prepared for college at the Kent School. On June 3, 1902, at Baltimore, he married Reba Key Mitchell, who died in 1906. He was survived by his second wife, the former Virginia Ann White, of Niles, Michigan, whom he married five years before his death.
+ WALTER SCOTT HOBART
W ALTER SCOTT HOBART, who was in college from 1893 to 1895, died November 9, 1933, at San Mateo, California. The son of Walter Scott and Mary ( Rounds ) Hobart, he was born April 26, 1873, at San Francisco, and came to Harvard from the Bel- mont School, Belmont, California. Returning to San Francisco after leaving college, he became engaged in finance. Later he moved to San Mateo, where he maintained an estate, "Home- stead," and gave much time to racing his stable of fine horses. His generous hospitality here was deeply appreciated by the many who were fortunate enough to be his guests.
He was survived by his wife, the former Hannah Neil Wil- liams, whom he married May 12, 1896, and their three children - Hannah Neil, born March 14, 1897; Ruth Mary, born August 28, 1898; and Walter Scott, Jr., born August 9, 1903.
+ CHARLES WESLEY HOBBS
C CHARLES WESLEY HOBBS died July 27, 1928, at Swampscott, 1 Massachusetts. The son of Charles Augustus and Bertha (Howard) Hobbs, he was born March 9, 1874, at Salem, Massa- chusetts, and prepared for college at the Salem Classical and High School. Although as an undergraduate he had to spend much
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time in tutoring to provide himself with means to carry on his course in the classics, he won an A.B. magna cum laude in 1897. He began his teaching career in the West, then continued it in New York and Pennsylvania. In 1914 he returned to Harvard, entering the division of education in the Graduate School, and in 1915 took an A.M. degree. After leaving Harvard, he went into state service in the division of education. At the time of the 25th Report, his special field was extension courses for adults. By 1928 he had become editor and supervisor of instruction in the division of university extension of the Massachusetts Department of Education. He was also a member of the School Committee in Swampscott.
On October 23, 1908, at Ardmore, Pennsylvania, he married Elizabeth Kauffman, who died in 1912. He was survived by his second wife, the former Caroline R. Towne, whom he married June 18, 1921, at Chocorua, New Hampshire, and two children - Wayne, born December 30, 1909, and Barbara Elizabeth, born March 5, 1912.
WALTER EDWIN HOBBS
W ALTER EDWIN HOBBS was born July 22, 1875, at Salem, Massa- chusetts. The son of Charles Augustus and Bertha (How- ard) Hobbs, he prepared for college at the Salem High School and was at Harvard, in the Lawrence Scientific School, during 1893- 94 and 1898-99. His major interest was geology, and he made an extensive tour of the West, covering 5178 miles, collecting and classifying geological specimens for students of petrology with the expectation of publishing an account of the trip. He became ill while doing mineralogical work in Colorado and after returning to the East, died at Weston, Massachusetts, on July 20, 1903. He never married.
+ ARTHUR WEBSTER HODGES
H ODGES, the son of Arthur and Sarah Elizabeth (Hurd ) Hodges, was born September 5, 1873, at Somerville, Massachusetts. He prepared at the Chauncy Hall School in Boston. After three
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years at the Lawrence Scientific School, he received his S.B. cum laude in 1897.
He married Harriet Almira Ross, October 12, 1909, at Newton, Massachusetts. She died September 17, 1943. Their children are: Charles Ross, born September 1, 1910; and Arthur Webster, Jr., born June 9, 1916. There are three grandchildren. Arthur, Jr., served in World War II.
"On September 12, 1927," writes Hodges, "I became assistant engineer in the Massachusetts Department of Public Utilities. I was retired on a pension May 31, 1946. I am still interested in engineering and am a member of the National Society of Pro- fessional Engineers."
[Secretary's Note: Hodges filled in his questionnaire for this Report and returned it promptly. As the book was going to press, the Secretary learned of his death on January 16, 1947, at Newton Center, too late to prepare an obituary.]
ALFRED WOODMAN HOITT
H OITT did not return a questionnaire. According to previous Reports, for seven years after leaving college he was with the Walter A. Wood Moving and Reaping Machine Company in Boston. He then became office manager of the Blake Electrical Manufacturing Company in Boston. The son of Alfred Demerrit and Mary Elizabeth (Sawyer) Hoitt, he was born February 19, 1875, at Arlington, Massachusetts. He attended the Boston Latin School and was in college from 1893 to 1896. He was first married to Georgia Evelyn Perry in 1898, at Providence, Rhode Island, and on November 20, 1907, he married Ellen Grace Hull at Dover, New Hampshire. His son, Milton A., was born March 11, 1899.
SUMNER RUSS HOLLANDER
INCE 1922, when I last reported on my life," writes Hollander, S "not much has happened which would interest my classmates.
"My wife, Ethel Vaughan Hollander, died in 1933, and I im- mediately retired from mercantile business and devoted myself
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to my youngest daughter, Marie Louise, who was then eleven years old. We made our home in Connecticut and at Chestnut Hill, Pennsylvania, until my daughter lost her life in the horrible Cocoanut Grove fire.
"I immediately returned to Boston to live and the following summer was married to Mrs. J. A. Lowell Blake. We live most of the year on Brimmer Street and spend winters in the South. We mutually enjoy life; we like golf, the beach, and sports such as hockey, baseball, football, and racing.
"I occupy my time in Boston with handling Mrs. Hollander's and my business affairs at my office with Whitney & Elwell at 30 State Street."
Hollander, the son of Louis Preston and Emma Louise (Rand) Hollander, was born July 28, 1874, at Somerville, Massachusetts. He prepared at Hopkinson's School in Boston. His two years at Harvard were spent at the Lawrence Scientific School.
He married Theodora Clark, January 5, 1897, at Providence, Rhode Island. This marriage ended in divorce in 1909. He mar- ried Elsa Von Carnap, March 10, 1910. On August 30, 1914, he married Ethel Vaughan. She died in 1933. His marriage to Mrs. Phyllis (Tuck) Blake took place July 13, 1943, at Salem, New Hampshire. His children: Sumner Russ, Jr., born December 23, 1899; Theodora, born October 6, 1904; Theodore Clarence, born April 7, 1907; Lorita, born November 10, 1917; and Marie Louise, born April 23, 1921 (died in 1942). There are six grandchildren.
Sumner, Jr., served in World War I, and Theodore served in World War II.
Hollander is a member of the Algonquin Club, Essex Country Club, and Tedesco Club.
+ JOHN HUDSON HOLLIS
J OHN HUDSON HOLLIS was born October 11, 1873, at Lynn, Massa- chusetts, where he died on May 2, 1926. The son of Samuel Johnson and Elizabeth Olivia (Hudson) Hollis, he prepared for college at the Noble and Greenough School and was in college as a special student from 1893 to 1897. As an undergraduate he
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showed a great interest in music and throughout his life derived great pleasure from exercising his talent for playing the piano. His business career started in shoe manufacturing, but in 1904 he entered the field of insurance and real estate, remaining thus en- gaged until his death. He was a member of the Lynn Real Estate Exchange and was a prominent member of the Central Congrega- tional Church. His interests included the development of me- chanical inventions and the natural sciences, but he found his greatest happiness in his home. His wife was the former Bertha Poole Chase, whom he married on April 21, 1904, at Lynn. Their children were John Hudson, Jr., born August 10, 1905; Edward Poole, born March 24, 1908; Charles Hilliard, born July 8, 1912; and Madeline Burrill, born December 5, 1916. His wife and children survived him, as did a brother, Samuel H. Hollis, '98.
Hollis possessed an even temperament and keen sense of humor, and his character was compounded of integrity, simplic- ity, and refinement, exemplifying the best qualities of the long line of his New England ancestry.
+ EVAN HOLLISTER
TN any college class a small group of men seem to typify its spirit, its collective personality. For us of '97 Evan Hollister was such a man. It is hard to imagine a Yale game or a Com- mencement reunion without him - the tall, erect figure, the blue eyes, the serious mouth giving expression to some thinly-veiled irony or reproachful banter, and then the hearty laugh and warm handclasp. A child-like joy of living seemed always ready to bubble forth, from the day when, as a freshman, he introduced the war-whoop of the Iroquois of his native heath into the land of the peaceful Pequots, until at our last reunion, the 45th, he mastered and concealed the inroads of a fatal illness.
He was born at Buffalo, New York, on April 28, 1875, and died at the same city on January 2, 1943. He was the son of Frank Merrick and Mary Jane (Evans) Hollister. He followed his father's example and entered Harvard, relatively unknown, but with a spontaneous capacity for friendship which insured him
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against loneliness. One of his life-long friends remembers a chance walk up Holyoke Street and across the Yard to Memorial Hall, early one October morning in 1893, and a breakfast to- gether with a few other early birds - the beginning of a friend- ship which never for one second faltered. He would have become conspicuous for any one of many qualities, but since fame spreads most widely from the arena, it was inevitable that his remarkable prowess as a middle-distance runner should make him known to undergraduate and graduate alike. He must have been the dream of the athletic trainer: always improving, always to be depended on to deliver the points. His mark of 1.56 4/5 in the half-mile stood as the intercollegiate record for nine, and was not bettered by a Harvard athlete for thirty-five years. For many of us, in spite of the lapse of time, our most vivid recollection of Hollister is his speeding figure rounding into the home stretch, head up, the stride perfectly spaced, the spurt well-timed, fairly and re- lentlessly cutting down a rival, increasing the lead and breasting the tape a winner.
Hollister studied law in Buffalo and became a conspicuous trial lawyer, a member of a splendid firm which had given two Presidents - Fillmore and Cleveland - to the United States. In- evitably he was an officer of state and city bar associations. In 1917 his patriotism, no less than his love of adventure, sent him to Plattsburgh, won him a commission and sent him overseas as a captain of Field Artillery. The next twenty-five years found him loyally promoting the interests and enjoying the benefits of well- deserved popularity in his native' city as trustee of the Buffalo Academy of Fine Arts, of the Historical Society, of a Unitarian Church, as a member and officer of social and recreational clubs. Some at least of the energy which he burned on Soldiers Field in undergraduate days he spent in later years in big game hunting in the Canadian Rockies and in Alaska.
It remains to tell briefly of his postgraduate service to Harvard, which was as conspicuous as his track records. He was the nat- ural leader of the alumni of western New York; he was active in raising money for scholarships and for the endowment fund in 1919; it was logical that he should have become the twenty-
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eighth president, in 1927, of the Associated Harvard Clubs, in whose interests he travelled widely year after year, sowing his infectious enthusiasm in cities far and near. Not many graduates were personally so well known the country wide.
Each one of us, doubtless, will think of some special trait of Hollister's as the dominant one. Fidelity to a high standard of performance, whether on the track, at the bar, or in affairs, and unswerving loyalty to causes and to friends were certainly domi- nant. A charming, almost childlike, ingenuousness often made us sophisticates chuckle. To me his contempt - usually unex- pressed, but quite evident - for pretense or sham or insincerity seemed especially to stamp the man.
It is our tradition to do no more than mention the deepest spiritual experiences of our fellows, probably because we under- stand them instinctively but are baffled to put them into words. Hollister's marriage to Ruth Albright, of Buffalo, was happy, fruitful and enduring. She survived him with a son and daughter - Mary (Mrs. John Marshall Gorman), born August 25, 1906, and Evan, Jr., born February 25, 1908 - to share with us our happy memories.
D. C.
ROBERT RUSSELL HOLLISTER
T HERE has been no change in my pattern of life since 1912," reports Robert Hollister. "At that time we had moved to a farm near the city. Doing the work of an M.D. and raising four children to carry on with the duties of the world have taken all my time in a most satisfactory way. Living in the country was planned so that the family work might be natural rather than artificial. The results have been very gratifying as all are making an excellent living, and I hope in the future may help to form a stronger nation instead of being taken care of by Washington.
"Two years ago I gave up my work in the city, and I am now spending my time on my garden of an acre, the results of which are very pleasing to ourselves and friends who profit thereby.
"My health is good and my strength is adequate for all the garden work."
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Hollister, the son of Sereno and Julia Allen (Barrett ) Hollister, was born March 22, 1873, at White Hall, New York. He prepared at Phillips Exeter Academy and was graduated with our Class cum laude. He entered the Harvard Medical School in 1898 and received his M.D. four years later. He was at the Boston City Hospital from 1902-1904. He is a member of Phi Beta Kappa and a charter member of the Aesculapian Club of the Medical School.
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