USA > Massachusetts > Middlesex County > Cambridge > Harvard College class of ninety-seven : fiftieth anniversary report, 1897 > Part 46
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"I shall, accordingly, not go over ground already adequately traversed, but merely supplement that record by specifying the four subsequent accomplishments of which I am (again to quote the Secretary ), '(modestly ) most proud.'
"First, in 1931 I was a victim of an automobile accident. The attending physician at the hospital told my wife that there was no reason why he should come back, that I would not live through the night. It has always been a source of quiet satisfaction to me that I fooled him.
"Second, in 1940, after forty years in New York City, twenty- seven of which were devoted to exposing the limitations of high- class law schools and law school associations (to the chagrin of some of their officials and to the huge delight of inferior schools ),
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I was retired from the Carnegie Foundation and returned to the town of my birth. Here, among many other things, I have learned how soft is the life of a metropolitan apartment-dweller compared to that of a householder.
"Third, in 1946, somewhat to our own surprise, my wife and I celebrated our twenty-fifth wedding anniversary. One cannot always make novel and original contributions to knowledge, ex- pressed in snappy language that makes the reader sit up and take notice. The observation I am about to make is as trite as it is true. Couples who lack the responsibilities of parenthood, who do not have to face the trouble, the worries, the disappointments, the joys, and triumphs of normal family life, miss much that makes for their spiritual development. The result in some cases is that they separate, finding nothing to hold them together. But in other cases they become very close to one another.
"Fourth, in the latter part of 1946, I underwent two serious abdominal operations. As this autobiography goes to press I am still extant, and, indeed, going strong."
Reed, the son of Jacob Reed, Jefferson Medical School, and Charlotte Rochester Cuming, was born January 31, 1875, at Colo- rado Springs, Colorado. He was privately prepared for college. He entered our Class as a sophomore and received his A.B. cum laude after three years' work. The following year he obtained an A.M. at the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, and in 1911 was granted a Ph.D. by Columbia University. As an undergraduate he was editor of the Harvard Monthly.
"The courses which would have given me a magna cum," he writes, "were reserved for the A.M. requirements. I had no reli- gious affiliations in college, but wrote the Class Hymn. The Class has rightly suppressed any mention of this blot upon its fair name."
During the first World War, Reed attended General Leonard Wood's second pre-war Plattsburg Camp. He was married June 30, 1921, to Stephanie Symonds Lancaster in New York City.
From 1897 to 1902, he was a school teacher, and for the next eleven years did private tutoring. In 1913 he became a staff mem- ber of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching.
1
TWENTY-FIFTH CELEBRATION AT GANNETT'S HOUSE IN MILTON
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He remained at this post, in charge of the study of legal education until his retirement in 1940.
A.Z., as we like to think of him, is the author of the Territorial Basis of State Government: Political Subdivisions and Rules for Legislative Apportionment, 1911; The Public Profession of the Law, 1921; Present-Day Law Schools, 1928; and Annual Review of Legal Education, 1927-1934.
Until 1940 he was a member of the American Law Institute, in which he was the only member not a lawyer. He is a member of the American Numismatic Society, American Historical Associa- tion, American Political Science Association, and belonged to the American Academy of Political and Social Sciences until 1940. He holds membership in the Harvard Club of New York.
ERNEST ALBERT REED
W HILE in Harvard," writes Ernest Reed, "under the direction of Secretary Burtwell of the Y.M.C.A., I became leader of a boys' reading club, which met every week in the South Cove District of Boston. From that day to this, I have been interested in boys' work.
"For approximately six years I was leader of the Community Boys' Club in the Silver Lake section of Newark, where I worked with underprivileged boys. I taught the high-school class in the Sunday School of the First Congregational Church in East Orange for approximately four years. I served as chairman of the Scottish Rite Committee, having to do with the awarding of scholarships to colleges. I was an organizer of the Order of DeMolay in New Jersey, and held the office of Grand Master Counselor (for the United States) for a term of one year, and have watched with pleasure the development of over sixty chapters of this fine youth movement in New Jersey.
"I am also interested in county government. I quote from a testimonial which was presented to me upon my retirement as supervisor of Essex County, New Jersey:
'Mr. Reed has given unstintingly of his time, energy and en- thusiasm to his public duties. To him is owed much of the credit
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for the high position this county holds today throughout America. He is beloved by the citizens and by the employees of this county, which attests to his character and work.
" 'The service he has rendered is a monument to his career, an inspiration to all public servants. It has been a service from the heart and mind, a gift bestowed by Almighty God.
" 'We, his friends and associates, bestow upon him this testi- monial to a loyal friend and faithful public official.'"
Reed, the son of John William and Eugenia Sibyl Augusta (Shattuck) Reed, was born February 8, 1874, at Townsend, Massachusetts. He prepared at Lawrence Academy in Groton, Massachusetts. He attended the Lawrence Scientific School for three years, two of which he spent as a special student. He writes that as an undergraduate he rowed on the Freshman Crew, sang baritone in the Harvard choir, and earned money by tutoring in chemistry, by waiting on table at the Foxcroft Club, and by be- coming a supernumerary at the Grand Opera in Boston. He has cherished memories of Glee Club concerts under the elms and of Professor Jackson's Chemistry I lectures.
He married Gertrude Mabel Cooke, June 2, 1896, at Lunen- burg, Massachusetts. Their daughter, Dorothy Spaulding, was born November 29, 1900.
From 1898 to 1902 he was a chemist in manufacturing plants. In 1902 he became director of manufacturing for the A. A. Water- man Company in New York City, where he remained four years. During the next four years, he was sales manager in the New York Metal Ceiling Company in New York City. In 1910 he held the position of manager of the Lantern Slide Department of Underwood & Underwood in New York City. From 1918 to 1921 he served as manager of financial and political campaigns in New Jersey. He was elected freeholder of Essex County in 1921, and served as such for three years. From 1924 to 1946 he served as supervisor of Essex County. He was retired January 1, 1946.
Reed has served as president of the Newark and United States Reciprocity Clubs, of which he was national president in 1927; trustee of the Newark Safety Council; grand master of Masons for the State of New Jersey in 1921; trustee of the First Congre-
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gational Church in East Orange, and leader of its Men's Bible Class for four years; and leader of the Men's Bible Class in the Brick Central Presbyterian Church in East Orange for four years. He has been a 33d-degree Mason since 1922. He was formerly a member of the Yantacaw Country Club in Nutley, New Jersey; Down Town Club, Newark; and Harvard Club of New York City. He retains membership in the Harvard Club of New Jersey and Retired Business and Professional Men's Club of the Oranges and Maplewood.
During World War I, he organized and managed the 4 Minute Men speakers in Newark, New Jersey, which numbered approxi- mately fifty men. Mrs. Reed was head of a surgical dressings unit in Newark.
+ HOWARD ALDEN REED
H OWARD ALDEN REED was born at Philadelphia, on September 16, 1875, the son of Henry Bidlack and Bertha Osgood (Howard) Reed. He came to Harvard from the Polytechnic Institute in Brooklyn, and was with the Class for four years. In 1903 he received an M.D. degree at the University of Pennsyl- vania and became resident physician at St. Luke's Hospital, Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. In 1906 he was graduated from the U. S. Army Medical School. In the Spanish-American War he was a private in Light Battery A, 2d U. S. Artillery (Grime's Battery ). In 1906 he was appointed a first lieutenant and assistant surgeon in the United States Army, and the following year became a first lieutenant in the Medical Corps. In 1909 he was retired with the rank of captain for disability incident to service. In 1898 he had been stationed in Cuba. From 1905 to 1909 he served at Fort Meyer, Virginia, and the Presidio of Monterey, California, and was assigned to the transport service and the Department of Luzon in the Philippines. He was finally ordered to Fort Bayard, New Mexico, for observation and treatment before his retirement. He returned to his home at Milford, Pennsylvania, where he died on January 2, 1910. His wife was the former Gladys Barnett, whom he married January 27, 1907, at Chicago.
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GEORGE EDMUND REYNOLDS
R EYNOLDS writes that he has been confined to his bed with paralysis since 1941. After leaving Harvard he established the Reynolds Publishing Company of Boston, with which he was associated for about two years. For the next three years he was superintendent of the factory of the Warren Bros. Manufacturing Company. When the ownership of the corporation changed hands, he moved to New York and conducted a school for boys. Later he organized the International Motion Picture Manufactur- ing Company with a large plant at Yonkers and offices at 29 Broadway. He resigned this position and was appointed state factory inspector of New York by Governor Dix. He later resigned the government service to become manager of the Fidelity Fi- nance Corporation of New Jersey. He has always been interested in civic and social welfare work as well as in politics.
Reynolds, the son of William Perry and Sarah Churchill (French) Reynolds, was born October 30, 1874, at New Market, New Hampshire. He prepared for college at the Somerville High School in Somerville, Massachusetts. After three years with our Class, he received his A.B. at our graduation. He spent a year in the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences and two years in the Law School.
He married Eleonor Rehbein, August 26, 1920, at New York City. Their children are: George French, born June 7, 1927; and Ralph Churchill, born April 22, 1929. George was in the service in World War II.
Reynolds is president of a Masonic Club, and has written music.
+ EDWARD EGGLESTON RICE
E' DWARD EGGLESTON RICE died suddenly in New York City, August 7, 1945. He was born in Roxbury, Massachusetts, November 21, 1875, the son of Hamilcar and Mary Louise (Skeels) Rice. He prepared for Harvard at the Roxbury Latin School, and spent four years with our Class, graduating magna cum laude. He received an A.M. at Harvard the following year.
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He married Carrie Anna Bingham, June 15, 1908, at Intervale, New Hampshire. Their children are: Edward Eggleston, Jr. (deceased), born January 18, 1910; and Virginia Bingham (Mrs. Melvin Maynard Johnson, Jr.), born March 14, 1911.
After leaving college Rice spent several years in the book busi- ness and then entered the life insurance field, which became his career. In his reports to the Class he stated the bare facts merely. He did not tell how eminently successful he was in his chosen work. When group insurance first came into being he made that his specialty, and it is fair to say that he became the most out- standing group insurance man in New England. Among his notable achievements was the placing of group insurance in the Northern Pacific Railroad, the New York Central Mutual Aid, the Westinghouse Company, the Boston Edison Company, Har- vard University, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In more recent years he made much of hospitalization insurance in old-line insurance companies.
He was always interested in sports, particularly tennis and golf, in which he was proficient. He followed eagerly the career of his daughter, who became one of the prominent tennis players in the country. Up to the last he kept his youthful drive.
In the last sentence of his story for our Fortieth Report he said:
"There is a satisfaction in the endeavor to keep up with the younger generation." This was a vital principle with him and he lived up to it to the end.
C. J.
+ HENRY AUGUSTUS RICE
H ENRY AUGUSTUS RICE was born October 4, 1874, at Milton, Massachusetts, the son of Henry Allen and Grace (Tileston ) Rice. He prepared for Harvard at Hopkinson's School. He was in college during 1893-94 and the following year was registered in the Medical School. His health failed and for a time he remained at home. He then went west to look after some mining interests and died suddenly at Cripple Creek, Colorado, on April 14, 1898. He had not married.
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+ EDWIN WILLIS RICH
'DWIN WILLIS RICH, retired colonel in the Army Medical Corps, died July 11, 1933, at Coronado, California. The son of Ed- win and Jessie Atwood (Hamblin) Rich, he was born May 22, 1872, at East Boston, Massachusetts, where he attended high school before coming to Harvard. He spent one year in the Medi- cal School, then entered the College with our Class, remaining four years and taking an S.B. in 1898. He then returned to the Medical School, receiving an M.D. in 1900. He served as house officer at the Cambridge Hospital and practised medicine for a short time in Cambridge, but in 1901 entered the Army Medical Corps. He remained until he was retired in December, 1922, with the rank of lieutenant colonel. In accordance with an act of Congress in 1930, he was advanced on the retired list to the rank he had held during the war, that of colonel. During his Army career, he was stationed at various posts in the United States, was on duty in the Hawaiian Department, and served in the Philippines and on the United States Transport Thomas. At the time of his retirement he was post surgeon at Fort Jay, New York.
He married Ellen Almeda Chase on July 12, 1900, at Dedham, Massachusetts. She died in 1909, and he married Dacia Dean Fairbanks on January 14, 1914, at Petaluma, California.
+ FREDERICK ALBERT RICHARDSON
F REDERICK ALBERT RICHARDSON died at Berkeley, California, September 8, 1943. He was born at Burlington, Vermont, August 31, 1873, the son of Albert Eamore and Frances Augusta (Webb) Richardson. In 1895 he received an A.B. degree from the University of Vermont and was awarded an A.B. with our Class in 1897. He spent the years 1895-1899 in the Graduate School.
After graduation he went into literary work and at the time of our Twenty-fifth Anniversary was editor of the International Quarterly. Unhappily, Richardson failed to reply to our various communications and little is known of him except that during his
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last years he lived in retirement first in Cambridge and later in Berkeley.
He married Harriette Byron Taber in 1895. She survived him. Their son, Philip, married Muriel Newell, and their daughter, Fredrika Taber, married Wilson Marcy Powell.
Richardson was a member of the Sons of the American Revolu- tion and the Society of Colonial Wars of Vermont. As long ago as 1937 he was forced to retire because of ill health, and nothing had been heard from him from that time until the sad news of his death reached your Secretary.
+ OSCAR RICHARDSON
O SCAR RICHARDSON died August 28, 1940, at Roslindale, Massa- chusetts. The son of Horace and Sarah Lucretia (Tewks- bury) Richardson, he was born January 22, 1860, at East Boston, Massachusetts, and attended the English High School. On December 20, 1882, at Boston, he married Anna Louise Gove, who became one of the leading women physicians in Boston and was chief-of-staff at the Vincent Memorial Hospital. Her hus- band grew interested in her work, and, although he had hereto- fore been engaged in business, he entered Harvard in 1893, at the age of 33, to study medicine. He remained in the college only one year, and then entered the Medical School, where he took an M.D. degree, cum laude, in 1900. He did not engage in private practice, but joined the staff of the Pathological Laboratory of the Massachusetts General Hospital, in the development of which he became a recognized leader. He worked there for many years with Dr. Homer Wright and served also as associate medical ex- aminer for Suffolk County. He was survived by his wife.
JOHN HOWLAND RICKETSON, JR.
R ICKETSON, the son of John Howland Ricketson, '59, and Cle- mentine Garrison, was born April 11, 1875, at Allegheny City, Pennsylvania. He was in college from 1893 to 1897, receiv- ing his A.B. at our graduation.
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HARVARD CLASS OF 1897
He was a member of the R.O.T.C. at Fort Niagara, New York, from May to August, 1917. In the latter month he was made a captain of the 315th Infantry, 79th Division, and served in this capacity until June, 1919. He spent part of this time at Camp Meade, Maryland, from August 17, 1917, to July, 1918, and was overseas from July, 1918, to June, 1919.
He married Anna Verner Scaife, January 10, 1899, at Alle- gheny City. Their son, John Howland, 3d, '25, was born Septem- ber 21, 1902. There is one grandchild, Scott Ricketson.
Ricketson was president of the A. Garrison Foundry Company of Pittsburgh from January, 1901, to July, 1922. He is a member of the Pittsburgh Club, Pittsburgh Golf Club, and Rolling Rock Club of Ligonier, Pennsylvania.
REGINALD LAURAN ROBBINS
I WAS born December 5, 1875," writes Robbins, "at Machias, Maine, where my father, James Henry Robbins, Amherst '62, Harvard Medical School '67, was then practising medicine. My mother's maiden name was Laura H. Dailey. It may be of some interest that the first Naval engagement of the American Revolu- tion was fought off Machias. My father moved to Hingham in 1880, and I attended the public schools of Hingham, and Adams Academy in Quincy for a few months. I entered college from the Hingham High School. My college roommate was Eliot Alden, later a surgeon in Los Angeles for many years. He died on April 19, 1946.
"My college career was uneventful. From college I entered the Harvard Law School in 1897. There I thoroughly enjoyed the intellectually active atmosphere, its distinguished professors, and my alert classmates. On graduation from the Law School in 1900, I entered the Boston law office of Lauriston L. Scaife, Yale '70, and father of our Class Secretary, Roger L. Scaife. I have con- tinued the practice of the law in that office ever since. Now my partners are Waldo Noyes and Thomas E. Jansen, Jr., both gradu- ates of Harvard College and of the Law School. We have re- cently been joined by Howard W. Robbins, Syracuse '14. He
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served in the first World War as a lieutenant, then as a captain and in the second World War as a colonel.
"On October 4, 1906, Helen Sprague Scaife, Roger Scaife's sister, and I were married at Hingham, Massachusetts. We have three children, all married. They are: Laura (Mrs. Lyman), born April 11, 1909; James, born October 5, 1911; and Walter Sprague, born March 20, 1920. We have nine grandchildren. Our daugh- ter, Laura, married Joseph Lyman, now an engineer in the Sperry Company. His father, Frank Lyman, '74, played on Harvard's first football team. They have three children and live in Hunt- ington, Long Island. Their eldest, Cicely, is taller than her mother and became fifteen on November 10, 1946. Our elder boy, James, married Olley V. Jones, daughter of Theodore Jones, Massachu- setts Institute of Technology, '97. They have four children. James is an engineer in the Clifford Manufacturing Company of Boston, and was engaged in the manufacture of airplane engine coolers during the recent war. Our younger son, Walter, '41, volunteered for the Navy immediately on graduation. He be- came first an ensign, then a lieutenant (j.g.), and finally a lieuten- ant in the PT service in the Pacific. During the war he married Louise Mellor of Philadelphia, daughter of Walter Mellor, Hav- erford '01. They have a son, born in 1945 and a daughter born in 1947. Walter is now at the Harvard Law School.
"My own life has not been an eventful one. I served two years in the lower branch of the Massachusetts Legislature some forty years ago. I was in Paris during the first World War, serving in the Legal Department of the Y.M.C.A. Except for these brief interruptions, I have carried on an office practice. I have tried few cases and so have missed the excitement of the courts. I have served on town committees and charitable boards. I have written no books, but I have for many years been an amateur carpenter with much pleasure to myself.
"In the questionnaire sent out by our Secretary, we are asked, 'What are the accomplishments of which you are (modestly) most proud?' I have painted two portraits, looking into a mirror to do so. I could not find any other quiet sitter. The first portrait was painted when I was seventeen, the second when I was fifty-
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seven. I am (modestly) proud of both. My wife thinks they are terrible. So far as I know, they are in our attic.
"My 'durable satisfactions' are a happy marriage, children, grandchildren, an interesting profession, and good friends."
As an undergraduate Robbins was a member of the Pierian Sodality and was graduated cum laude. He is a member of the Unitarian church.
During World War I, Mrs. Robbins worked at the Women's Preparedness Camp at Chevy Chase, Maryland, and for the Red Cross. She also did Red Cross work in World War II. Robbins himself did local draft board work during the recent war. He is a member of the Union Club of Boston.
+ GEORGE NEWMAN ROBERTS
G EORGE NEWMAN ROBERTS, son of George Blagdon and Lucy (Cogswell) Roberts, was born December 17, 1874, at Cam- bridge, and died September 12, 1940, at Waban, Massachusetts. He prepared for college at the Cambridge Latin School. A suc- cessful businessman, he was president and chairman of the board of Bemis Brothers Bag Company, which he joined in St. Louis in 1899. He became its manager, first in Kansas City and later in Omaha, and returned to Boston in 1910 as assistant treasurer. He became president in 1934 and chairman in 1940. He was also a director of the Boott Mills in Lowell and of the Boston Transcript, Incorporated.
In addition to his business career, Roberts found time to exer- cise the literary talents which he had displayed since boyhood, when he published a small neighborhood weekly. As an under- graduate, he was correspondent for the Boston Record and Adver- tiser, the New York Sun, and the Associated Press. Later he wrote several short plays which were produced under his direction in Waban. One of these, The Weasel, was played throughout the United States and over the radio.
On December 12, 1906, at Washington, D. C., he married May Laura Lewis, who died in 1934. He was survived by two sons, William Lewis, born October 15, 1911, and George Newman, Jr., born May 20, 1916.
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A friend has said of him, "His successful career was built upon his staunch independence of thought, his capacity for clear ex- pression and his soundness of judgment, accompanied by a de- lightful sense of humor. George Roberts well typified the best and finest in the great era of American individualism."
HARRY STOUT ROBERTS
H ARRY STOUT ROBERTS was born August 10, 1874, at Camden, New Jersey, the son of William Lippincott and Mary Van Dyke (Stout) Roberts. He attended the William Penn Charter School in Philadelphia and took an A.B. with our Class. He then entered the Medical School of the University of Pennsylvania, but ill health forced him to leave, and he went to Bermuda to regain his strength. He continued to fail, however, and died at Hamilton, Bermuda, on January 27, 1898. His natural reserve kept him from being widely known as an undergraduate, but those who were fortunate enough to have made his friendship knew him for a man of steadfast loyalty, high ideals, and absolute integrity.
WATKINS WILLIAM ROBERTS
I 'N college," writes Watkins Roberts, "I featured the Classics, German, French, and English. My intention then was to be- come a teacher of languages, but I swerved on my course and became a lawyer. Since then I have mastered a knowledge of the Spanish and Italian languages.
"One outstanding experience was my attendance in 1938 at the First International Congress of Criminology in Rome. The Con- gress was attended by delegates from forty-six countries. At the Conference on Juvenile Delinquency, which was the major sub- ject discussed, I delivered two themes: 'The Etiology and Diag- nostics of Juvenile Delinquency,' and 'The Educational Prepara- tion and the Rôle of the Judge in the Fight Against Juvenile Delinquency.'
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