USA > Massachusetts > Middlesex County > Cambridge > Harvard College class of ninety-seven : fiftieth anniversary report, 1897 > Part 49
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company, to the probate judge, and to his ward that he would account. Eventually, on my advice, he told his ward and his wife, and paid in full. Professor Gray read and approved my report to the Legal Aid Society.
"My education in social work continued when my cousin, Rev- erend Christopher R. Eliot, persuaded me to serve on the board of the Lend a Hand Society, which was founded by Edward Everett Hale in 1871. There have been only three presidents of this little society, which taught me more of helping the needy, Dr. Hale, Dr. Christopher R. Eliot, and now myself. I am also president of the Industrial Aid Society, and for sixteen years was president of the Benevolent Fraternity of Unitarian Churches, a religious society managed by Unitarians which supports a minis- try at large, chapels, a vacation house for the poor, a Fruit and Flower Mission, and a social settlement house largely for the benefit of Italian Roman Catholics and Hebrews. In these and other agencies I have learned the joys of lending a helping hand to various and sundry needy individuals, including Indians through the Society for Propagating the Gospel among the In- dians and others in North America. In addition to these activities, I have continued the practice of the law.
"When I came from Episcopalian St. Mark's School freshman year, my classmate and friend, Barrett Huntington, asked me to join an Episcopalian college group. He never knew how near I came to joining that church. One day at St. Mark's, Bishop Phil- lips Brooks looked down at me and said, 'So you come from the West.' That benign face settled it for me. I joined the confirma- tion class at St. Mark's. My mother, who was a Unitarian, was upset. My father was more canny and merely suggested that I wait until I thought it over at college. And when I came to Har- vard I loved the music at Boston's highest Episcopal Church of the Advent, but was never quite ready to be confirmed. My edu- cation in religion has been continuing ever since, particularly at old King's Chapel, which still uses the liturgical forms brought over from England in 1686 and maintains a week-day service with the best preachers of all Protestant churches, but is a Unitarian Church.
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"I found myself going to King's Chapel not so much to worship God as a Peabody girl in a Peabody pew. And ever since May 23, 1910, when I married that Peabody girl at King's Chapel, the education of Harry Scott has been continued, promoted, and en- larged by my faithful wife. I taught her my love of birds, a little tennis, which we still play, and my love of mountain climbing and walking, but she helped me in my quest of the art of culture and beautiful living.
"Among my classmates of '97, a group of friends, each of whom writes a letter four times a year which is circulated by mailing copies to each member, took me in a few years back. This little group has discussed everything from politics to religion, but despite differences of opinion, it has helped us to cultivate and renew some of our '97 friendships.'
Scott has two Harvard brothers: George Cranch Scott, '96, and Richard Gordon Scott, '02. During World War I, he served on the Bureau of Enemy Trade, War Trade Board, Washington, D. C., and was alien property custodian. Mrs. Scott worked in the Department of Justice under John Lord O'Brian, assistant attorney general for war work. In World War II, he was an air- raid warden at Boston and Framingham.
He received the Founder's Medal in 1893 from St. Mark's School. He has had published a few laymen's sermons preached in Unitarian churches. He is trustee of the Meadville Theological School in Chicago, vice-president of the Unitarian Laymen's League, treasurer of the Unitarian Temperance Society, president of the Industrial Aid Society, life member of the American Uni- tarian Association, proprietor of the Boston Athenaeum, and member of the Massachusetts, Boston, and Middlesex Bar Asso- ciations. For sixteen years he was president of the Benevolent Fraternity of Unitarian Churches.
+ ARTHUR ELDRIDGE SEARS
A RTHUR ELDRIDGE SEARS was born February 24, 1872, at Ash- field, Massachusetts. The son of Edwin and Laura (Edson) Sears, he attended the Northampton, Massachusetts, High School
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and the University of Vermont before coming to Harvard. He was at Harvard only during 1893-94. The next two years he spent abroad. After his return to the United States, he lived for a time in Philadelphia before returning to Northampton. Later he be- came associated with the Connecticut Railway and Lighting Company of Bridgeport and still later with Brown, Sharpe & Company of Providence, Rhode Island. On April 24, 1915, he married Theresa Mabel Cook at New York City. He died on April 9, 1924, at Northampton. His wife survived him.
Through the sufferings of illness and whatever other difficul- ties he encountered, Sears maintained his courage, self-control, and calm, quiet manner. His kind and sincere interest in others and his spirit of helpfulness made him many loyal friendships.
HARRY FRANKLIN SEARS
HAVE been teaching school ever since graduation," reports I Harry Sears. "I spent three years in the Salem, Massachusetts, High School and forty-five years in the Somerville, Massachusetts, High School. I retired from the latter position last June. I was headmaster of this, the largest high school in New England, dur- ing the past twelve years."
Sears, the son of Henry Franklin Sears, Amherst '64, and Sarah Jane Walker, was born August 17, 1874, at Somerville. He pre- pared at the Somerville High School. He received his A.B. at our graduation after four years' work. He married Winifred May Dyer, July 6, 1899, at Melrose, Massachusetts. Their children are: Richard, born June 15, 1901; Henry Franklin, born Septem- ber 14, 1903; and Kathryn, born April 4, 1910. There are six grandchildren. Richard received his A.B. with the Harvard Class of 1924, and Henry was graduated with 1925. Sear's brother, Frederick Edmund Sears, is a member of the Class of '95.
Sears was a member of the Board of Aldermen and served on the School Committee of Melrose, Massachusetts, of which he was chairman for three years.
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LORING PUTNAM SEARS
M Y life has been one of steady work, more or less, with nothing outstanding either to praise or to blame," reports Loring Sears. "I am still physically active. I live in Brookline, Massa- chusetts, winters and at West Falmouth, Massachusetts, summers. I have travelled extensively in North America. My favorite sport is Atlantic salmon fishing."
Sears, the son of Loring and Harriet Elizabeth (Putnam) Sears, was born January 2, 1874, at Fitchburg, Massachusetts. He prepared at the Public Latin School in Boston. He was graduated cum laude with our Class, took an A.M. the following year, and received an LL.B. at the Law School in 1901.
From 1901 to 1940, when he retired, Sears practised law in Massachusetts. He is unmarried.
+ WILHELM SEGERBLOM
W TILHELM SEGERBLOM was born at Gothenburg, Sweden, on Jan- uary 11, 1872, and came to the United States with his parents when he was two years old. He spent most of his life in Exeter, New Hampshire, and died there on November 9, 1941. Before coming to Harvard, he attended the public schools of Exeter and Phillips Exeter Academy, and spent part of a year at the Massa- chusetts Institute of Technology. After graduation he returned to Phillips Exeter Academy as a teacher of chemistry. At the time of the 25th Report he was head of the chemistry department.
He retired in 1937 to devote his time to editorial work and re- search. Among his publications are Laboratory Manual of Quali- tative Analysis, which was well received in England as well as in the United States; First-Year Chemistry, a textbook; and numer- ous articles and pamphlets, as well as a collection of reference tables. He belonged to several scientific societies, including the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the New Hampshire Academy of Science, of which he was a charter mem- ber, the New England Association of Chemistry Teachers, of which he was at one time president, and the American Chemical
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Society. He helped to found the Journal of Chemical Education. He was a reader of chemistry for the College Entrance Examina- tion Board and served as secretary of a commission of the Board for revision of the definition of the requirements in chemistry. His work in chemical education brought him recognition in this country and abroad.
He was survived by his wife, the former Susan Mabel Roberts, whom he married August 31, 1910, at Goffstown, New Hampshire.
SAMUEL CAMPBELL SELLERS
L' IFE's 'durable satisfactions' are health, true friends, and a happy disposition," states Sellers. "Add to them, travel, see- ing other lands and their peoples. I am fond of winter cruises, and for a person's later years, I think that there is nothing to equal them. Since 1927 I have been on six cruises to the West Indies, to Buenos Aires once, to Rio twice, to the Mediterranean and Orient, through the Panama Canal to California and back on the same ship, and from San Francisco to Sydney, Australia, and back via Honolulu, Pago Pago, and Suva.
"I am looking forward to the time when the cruise boats will be operating again.
"One of my hobbies is languages, especially French.
"In the past I have written very little for the Class Reports because I have always felt that I had nothing interesting to nar- rate. I still feel that way. However, I do want to wish each one of my classmates, health, happiness, and longevity. May we have many more Class Reunions!"
Sellers, the son of Matthew Bacon and Angelina Leathers (Lewis) Sellers, was born September 13, 1874, at Baltimore, Maryland. He prepared at Browne and Nichols School in Cam- bridge. He was with our Class four years, receiving his A.B. at our graduation. After three years' work in the Law School, he received his LL.B. in 1902. He writes that after leaving college and before entering the Law School, he spent six months abroad and a year in the Curry School of Expression.
"While an undergraduate I was a member of Le Cercle Français
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and was vice-president of the Whist Club," he writes. "I was 'on probation' on the Glee Club for only two weeks, posing as a first tenor when I should have been covering first base. I feel that I could now make the Club with ease. I received honorable men- tion in French at graduation.
"While at the Law School I gave a number of readings for charity at institutions (Home for Incurables, and the like ) in and around Boston. Some of the readings were under the auspices of the Harvard Social Service."
Sellers is a member of the Baltimore Country Club, L'Alliance Française, and a former member of the Maryland Historical Soci- ety and University Club of Baltimore. He has retired from the practice of law. He is unmarried.
* WILLIAM GILMAN SEWALL
W ILLIAM GILMAN SEWALL died July 14, 1941, at New York City. He was born March 11, 1874, at Boston, the son of William Bull and Lena French (Ingalls) Sewall, and attended Noble and Greenough's School. After graduation his travels car- ried him to India, to Great Britain, where he was presented to the king, and to Africa. He became well-known as a big game hunter, and donated some of his trophies to the Harvard Club of New York. At the beginning of the first World War, he enlisted as a trooper in the East African Mounted Rifles, from which he was honorably discharged in January, 1915. He then entered the Ambulance Corps as a driver and served with the French Army on the Somme and Champagne fronts. In July, 1915, he was com- missioned a second lieutenant in the British Army and assigned to the Fourth Lancers. He was detailed to the staff of the Smith- Dorrien Expedition to German East Africa, was promoted captain in October, 1917, and demobilized in February, 1918. He owned a rubber plantation and a wheat farm in East Africa and lived on the latter. He was a director of the Boma Trading Company, Limited, and of Unga, Limited, a flour mill.
At the time of his death, the East Africa Standard said of him: "He was the best of company and had a large range of acquaint-
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ances, though his friendships were not many. But those who were his friends treasured that friendship beyond all price, and by them his memory will never be forgotten - for there could be no equal to such an absolute loyalty and such an unqualified friend- ship as he gave.
"British East Africa and Kenya owe Billy Sewall a great meas- ure of gratitude; and when this still young Colony of ours finds its true historian, the name of Billy Sewall shall be 'writ large' upon impressive pages."
JAMES HERBERT SHANNON
T HE Secretary has received no questionnaire from Shannon. When last heard from he was living in Washington, Pennsyl- vania, where in 1905 he began practising medicine and where he was on the surgical staff of the hospital.
He was with the Class for four years, taking an A.B. magna cum laude in 1897. He then entered the Medical School, where he received an M.D. cum laude in 1901. He served successively as gynaecological house officer at the Boston City Hospital, house physician at the Boston Lying-In Hospital, and house officer on the First Surgical Service of the Boston City Hospital.
The son of James and Nannie Gertrude (Brown) Shannon, he was born March 18, 1876, at Cambridge, and prepared at the Cambridge Latin School. On April 30, 1906, at Detroit, Michigan, he married Mabel Gertrude Hassard, who died May 4, 1915. On February 20, 1917, he married Delilah Lucy Brock, who also died. His children are Elizabeth Gertrude (Mrs. Junius Robideau Page, Jr. ), born April 15, 1908, and Herbert Brock.
JOSEPH WILLIAM SHARTS
I FEEL that my obscure little life, full of futilities and failures, has been well worth living," writes Sharts. "Especially rich were the years I put in as an active Socialist, campaigning in Ohio for the governorship, editing a Socialist weekly, and serving on the National Executive Committee with Gene Debs, Morris
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Hillquit, Victor Berger, Jim Maurer, James Oneal, and others - all ardent souls battling against hopeless odds for a vision of human brotherhood and economic democracy, abundance and peace, in place of this decaying and moribund capitalism which fills the world with huge private agglomerations of wealth and widespread poverty, wars and famines, dictatorships and terror. It seems good to me now to have borne my part in that fight to save humanity from the disaster we all foresaw coming when capitalism should collapse as it was bound to do, like feudalism before it, in world wars and ruin.
"Also, I look back with satisfaction on my part in defending Bishop William Montgomery Brown of the Protestant Episcopal Church in his 'heresy trial' before church tribunals at Cleveland. The bishop was one of the grandest, simplest souls I have known. In his retirement, at Galion, Ohio, he at last undertook to read Darwin, Karl Marx, and other writers against whom he had been preaching all his life. The result was appalling to his orthodoxy. He became convinced of what all our scientific writers have been teaching for half a century - that man originated by evolution through natural selection up from the lowest forms of life; that the Garden of Eden, with its talking snake and forbidden fruit and fall of man, is a fairy tale for children; that astronomy has left no place for the heaven and hell of the Bible; that, since the 'fall' of man is a fiction, the so-called 'redemption' of man by the virgin birth of a man-god and his crucifixion, death, burial, and resurrec- tion, must also be only fiction. In short, his whole view of life tumbled down, and with it his faith in our present established institutions.
"As the old bishop was that rarest of characters, a thoroughly honest, sincere man, he had to proclaim his discovery, which he did in a book, Christianism vs. Communism, very much to the dis- credit of the former. He knew that none of his fellow-bishops really believed in the objective reality of the Eden story, most of them (more or less openly) discounted the miracles, and he thought they would not dare to impeach him for heresy. But his 'Communism' stirred up such a scandal in church circles among the wealthy communicants, something had to be done.
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"So he was brought to trial. And I had the pleasure of standing for hours before a row of helpless, fuming bishops, and showing up their hypocrisies and inconsistencies for the edification of more than a hundred newspapermen and journalists from all over the world. In the dark ages the church tribunal roasted the heretic, but here the heretic roasted the tribunal. It was a great laugh. The tribunal unfrocked him, as it had to. But we captured the audience. The bishop was escorted to his hotel like a conquering hero. We were invited to New York by the pastor of St. Mark's on the Bowery to speak in his church. Bishop Manning put his muzzle on that, but we had a tremendous meeting in Dr. John Haynes Holmes' church. Crowds blocked the streets for blocks around St. Mark's to catch sight of Bishop Brown.
"He, by the way, was made a bishop of the Old Catholic Church in a quiet ceremony at Galion even while his heresy proceedings were still pending and while he was still a bishop of the Protestant Episcopal Church. The ceremony, conducted by Archbishop Francis, an Old Catholic priest, and two Episcopal clergymen, gave me a glimpse of the underground politics going on in eccle- siastical circles."
Sharts, the son of Joseph William and Sarah Belle (Ealy) Sharts, both of whom attended Lebanon Normal School, was born September 15, 1875, at Hamilton, Ohio. He attended the public schools in Dayton, Ohio. After three years with our Class, he received his A.B. magna cum laude in 1897. He spent 1896-1897 at the Law School.
He married Ruth Helfenstein, July 7, 1914, at Dayton. Their son, Joseph William, 3d, was born December 28, 1915. In World War II, Joseph William Sharts, 3d, served as a private first class in the 37th Division Army of the United States, and was in the South Pacific area for two and a half years.
"I was too damned poverty stricken to get much out of college life," Sharts writes. "I played a little football during practice with my class team and with the spring practice of the varsity. I played a little chess with the college Chess Club. I boxed quite a bit at the gym and got knocked out in the third round by a fellow out- weighing me by fifteen pounds, when I was silly enough to let
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myself be lured into 'just a sparring match' a few weeks after being in the Cambridge Hospital for three months with an in- ternal abscess. This, however, was in my fourth year. It was plenty of fun, anyhow, and it was a privilege to know A. S. Hill, Josiah Royce, William James, Dean Briggs, William Vaughn Moody, and others.
"Since leaving college I have been a lawyer, except for an in- terval of some years when I was a correspondence clerk in Chicago and Washington, D.C. I also wrote some novels, probably men- tioned in a former anniversary report.
"I was opposed to World War I. I defended Socialists and others throughout Ohio who were arrested on various charges. Among them was Eugene V. Debs at Cleveland, and there were thirteen at Cincinnati. These cases reached the U. S. Supreme Court. We lost the former and won the latter."
* DANIEL BENEDICT SHAUGHNESSY
HAUGHNESSY, the son of Daniel Benedict and Bridget ( Crowley ) S Shaughnessy, was born in Cambridge on April 9, 1875. He prepared at the Cambridge Latin and High Schools. He entered Harvard as a special student with our Class in September, 1893, but was forced to leave in our junior year because of illness and the death of his mother. He was for a time a clerk in the Boston Post Office, and in October, 1901, entered the junior class of the Boston University Law School, continuing his work at the Post Office at night. After his admission to the Bar in 1904, he began the practice of law in and around Cambridge.
He served as a member of the Cambridge Common Council during 1901 and 1902 and at the time of our Fourth Report was counsel and treasurer of the Cambridge Cooperative Bank. Words which he wrote as late as our Fifteenth Anniversary showed that he still cherished the hope that he might find opportunity to study in the Graduate School and secure enough credits to win a degree "as of the Class of '97."
He married Helen Gertrude Ryan, October 1, 1897, at Cam- bridge. Their children: Catherine Helen, born May 30, 1899;
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Margaret, born October 8, 1904; Daniel Benedict, 3d, born May 5, 1906; Richard, born October 16, 1909; Edward, born October 25, 1914 (died December 27, 1916); and Eileen, born September 5, 1916. Shaughnessy's absorbing interest was the cherishing of his family and the education of his children, which became his sole responsibility after the death of his wife many years ago.
During the first World War, he assisted in the questionnaires of many Italian, Jewish, and other aliens. He died after a five months' illness at his home in Watertown, Massachusetts, on May 18, 1944. His five children and two grandchildren survived him. D. C.
+ FRANCIS GEORGE SHAW
F RANCIS GEORGE SHAW, son of George Russell and Emily ( Mott) Shaw, was born in Boston on August 13, 1875, and died in Chatham, Massachusetts, on September 20, 1938. He attended Hopkinson's School before coming to Harvard. As an undergrad- uate he was one of the finest athletes in the college, large, strong, and agile. He was broadminded, tolerant and friendly and in- cluded all sorts among his friends.
After graduation he entered the employ of the D. M. Osborne Company, Auburn, New York, manufacturers of farm machinery. In 1900 he went to France as assistant manager of the company's Paris branch. In 1903 he became engaged in putting up small fac- tories for the Mills Woven Cartridge Belt Company in Paris and Berlin. He married Marguerite Hofer on April 5, 1905, in Paris, and returned to the United States, remaining until 1913. He then returned to France.
Just before the outbreak of the war, he joined the experimental department of the International Harvester Company. He sought military service during the war but, failing in that, he became an instructor for the French Ministry of Agriculture, reclaiming old battlefields and raising crops. After the war he continued his association with the International Harvester Company. He re- turned to the United States and retired to Chatham. Much of his time he then devoted to wood carving, at which he developed
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great skill and he became a master of the Arts and Crafts. Several of his works had been exhibited in the Horne Gallery and the Junior League rooms in Boston.
He was survived by his wife and two children - Francis George, Jr., born December 23, 1909, and Mrs. Pauline Phillips, born February 24, 1912.
PERCY SHAW
PERCY SHAW was born April 25, 1873, at Springfield, Massachu- setts, the son of Wallace and Ann ( Robinson ) Shaw. He came to Harvard from the Springfield High School. On November 11, 1899, at Springfield, he married Helen Hixon, who has since died. His second wife is Harriette C. Chapman. He has one daughter, Carol.
Shaw writes that since 1900 he has been engaged in editorial work in various capacities.
VERSES ON OUR 50TH ANNIVERSARY
Now that a kindly fate has ushered us From fickle Time's unstable omnibus, A trifle gray, a trifle slow and bent, We come with humble hearts and reverent For blessings long bestowed that far outweigh The tributes we can offer here today.
Once daring voyagers to ports unknown, We plotted fabled courses, each alone, Youth at the helm, defying storm and stress To round the siren headland of success, Until the years illumed the growing haze Of dim tomorrows with bright yesterdays.
Thou timeless guardian of this hallowed shrine, Whose constant light has helped our own to shine Judge us, not by our worldly conflicts won Nor yet by causes lost or deeds undone, But by the love, full-flowered in jubilee, That leads us in our gloaming, back to thee.
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+ DANIEL JAMES SHEA
D ANIEL JAMES SHEA was born April 26, 1873, at Boston, the son of James Daniel and Annie Celia (O'Brien) Shea. He at- tended the Boston Latin School and spent four years in college and two in the Law School. In business he was engaged chiefly in property management as a trustee and in other capacities. Some time after leaving Harvard he renewed the study of law and was admitted to the Bar. On April 5, 1910, at Boston, he married Alice O'Brien, who died August 2, 1914. His own death occurred on January 11, 1921, in Dorchester, Massachusetts.
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