Harvard College class of ninety-seven : fiftieth anniversary report, 1897, Part 51

Author: Harvard College (1780- ). Class of 1897
Publication date: 1947
Publisher: Cambridge : Printed for the Class
Number of Pages: 800


USA > Massachusetts > Middlesex County > Cambridge > Harvard College class of ninety-seven : fiftieth anniversary report, 1897 > Part 51


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Smith, the son of Henry Emerson and Abigail Cressy (Nevin) Smith, was born December 16, 1874, at Worcester, Massachusetts. He prepared at Phillips Exeter Academy. He writes that as an. undergraduate he played guard on our freshman football team, but not in the Yale game. He played in the game against '96 on old Jarvis Field.


He married Sophie Glynes Tallmadge, September 22, 1897, at Utica, New York. They had five children: Dorothy Glynes, born


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October 16, 1898; Sarah Virginia, born March 3, 1901; George Emerson, '26, born July 4, 1902 (died May 31, 1938); Edwin Walter, Jr., born February 15, 1910 (died February 7, 1911); and Marjorie, born March 3, 1913. There are four grandchildren, three grandsons and one granddaughter.


During the first World War, Smith served as a color sergeant in Company H of the 29th Regiment of the Massachusetts State Guard. In World War II, his grandson, Donald Smith Page, '46, entered service in the fall of 1943. He was in the Infantry Branch and was wounded in January, 1945, at St. Vith. He made a good recovery, was discharged in March, 1946, and plans on re-enter- ing Harvard in the fall. Smith writes that Donald was later in Intelligence and Reconnaissance and served as a sniper. He was made a staff sergeant in the field, but never received the rating due to his wound and to his records being lost during the Battle of the Bulge. He was in personnel work at Fort Devens from November, 1945, to March, 1946, and under civil service until June. He was in college with a '97 scholarship his freshman year.


Smith served on the Worcester School Committee from 1910 to 1913, and on the Liquor License Committee in Worcester from 1913 to 1921. He has been a member of the Worcester Continen- tals, Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company of Boston, and Massachusetts Commandery of the Loyal Legion.


* FREDERICK PHILLIPS SMITH


F REDERICK PHILLIPS SMITH was born at Boston, December 15, 1874, the son of Alvah Augustus and Sarah Wilder (Pollard ) Smith. He prepared for college at the Roxbury Latin School. Ab- sent from Harvard in our senior year, he returned the following year and received his A.B. degree cum laude with the Class of 1898. He married Marthe Guignon Pulcifer, September 21, 1903, at Boston, and they had four children: Philip Guignon (de- ceased), born July 30, 1904; Norman Blondel, born November 5, 1906; Rosamond Wilder, born March 1, 1909; and Wilder, born April 17, 1913.


Never robust, Smith was destined to carry on an almost con-


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tinuous battle against ever-threatening tuberculosis, which was to reach deep into his family circle and cause the death of his eldest son at the age of nineteen. But, undaunted and undis- mayed, Smith bore his burdens bravely and pursued his chosen career, that of teacher and private tutor, until, in the summer of 1929, he was forced to retire from the field and seek rest and a quiet haven in an all-year-round house at Annisquam.


Immediately upon graduation, Smith sailed for France and spent the summer in Paris, studying French to fit himself for a teaching post which awaited him at Milton Academy. He re- . mained at Milton for four years, spending his summer vacations in European travel and further study. In the fall of 1902 he accepted a like position, teaching French and German at the High School at Springfield, Massachusetts. He later returned to Boston to devote his entire time to private tutoring. In 1903 he went to New York and taught French and German at the Chapin Collegi- ate School for two years. During the next three years he was in charge of the French Department at the Ethical Culture School.


He spent the year 1908-09 at Annisquam, once again devoted to the less strenuous exactitudes of private tutoring. The follow- ing year found him once more in scholastic harness as teacher of French at the Browne and Nichols School in Cambridge. There he remained for thirteen years. During his sabbatical year in 1920-21, he spent what were probably the happiest days of his life in France. He took advantage of the opportunity to study at the Sorbonne and enjoyed the advantages of the American Uni- versity Union in Paris.


But sad days lay ahead; the threat of tuberculosis became a reality. Philip's death in 1923 was a crushing blow, only to be followed by the illnesses, and from a like cause, of Norman and Wilder. Both boys were in their sophomore year at Harvard, and it became necessary for them to withdraw from college and seek . to regain their health. Stricken himself, Smith carried on bravely and resolutely - but all in vain. Little by little his failing strength ebbed away until his death at Gloucester, Massachusetts, on December 19, 1943.


Such is the triste history of his later years, as he himself, might


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have expressed it. He struggled against the heaviest of odds, but pursued relentlessly his chosen calling with an undaunted deter- mination, but with no reservoir of strength to sustain his brave, unflinching effort. To meet him at our Class reunions one was but dimly conscious of what was going on behind his gentle, smiling face and of the supreme courage which was his.


Heroism is the brilliant triumph of the soul over the flesh Heroism is the dazzling and glorious concentration of courage.


H. T. N.


LEONARD KINGSLEY SMITH


I SEEM to have been a rolling stone," writes Leonard Smith. "As a clergyman, in general I deliberately chose tough jobs that nobody seemed to want, always on a small salary, $2000 or less, except for a short period at $3000. I have experienced a great deal of ill health, but was never incapacitated, although I was in con- stant pain for many years. I am in perfect health now, but my legs won't let me climb mountains any more - too much of the sulfa drugs during pneumonia two years ago.


"I have generally been pretty obscure, but have had a happy life. I believe I have achieved complete serenity of spirit, except about the New Deal, the C.I.O., and John Lewis. I don't know of anything I'm afraid of, and there's very little I want, except to get the time and energy to write three more books, two on frontier history, and one debunking conventional, so-called Christianity. Most of that deals with things and doctrines Jesus never taught - future punishment, an inspired Bible, and the like. Most of what He did teach is neglected, ignored, or forgotten. The churches generally may be saving souls, but they are not teaching people to live honestly and happily with one another or with themselves. They are too much interested in church membership, and too little in the art of living.


"Politically and economically, I am radically opposed to social security, guaranteed wages, and other attempts to make life automatic. These things destroy ambition, thrift, and efficiency,


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and create malingerers, shiftlessness, satisfied incompetence, and irresponsibility. Success and happiness are matters of personality, not of laws or possessions. The richest man I know is the biggest fool, but he doesn't know it.


"As to accomplishments, I'm modestly or immodestly proud of: twenty-six years as a successful Scoutmaster; writing stories read by three hundred thousand or more boys, which I believe had a much larger and finer influence than all the years of preaching; two books of verse, privately printed, which nobody reads; cutting forty thousand irrigation pads (absorbent cotton) with a hand- lever paper cutter in two and a half days for the Des Moines Red Cross during World War I; getting the highest grade ever given in Church History at the Cambridge Seminary - A+; climbing Mt. Evans, Colorado, alone as the climax of a forty-mile hike under a sixty-pound pack; eight hundred miles of hiking in Glacier Park at various times; climbing Pike's Peak with a bad case of neuritis - it cured it; hiking, alone, to the bottom of the Grand Canyon at the age of fifty-seven; teaching ten boys to swim when I was sixty-eight; having the title of one story adopted as a troop slogan in Portland, Oregon, placed on the troop flag, and carried to the top of Mt. Hood every year.


"I am also proud of a general reputation as a preacher of ex- ceptional ability; of being an expert in first aid, knot tying, and bird study; and of getting letters from friends I've not seen for forty years.


"That's a lot of queer stuff to be proud of, but as the saloon keeper said about his pet trout: 'A man's got to love something.'"


Smith, the son of Simeon Blood Smith, '55, and Mary Jane Fuller, was born April 7, 1876, at Boston. He prepared at the East Denver High School in Denver, Colorado. After four years with our Class, he received an A.B. magna cum laude in 1897. In 1914 he obtained a B.D. at the Episcopal Theological School, as of 1908. He married Alice May Williams, June 20, 1907, at Glen Park, Colorado. Their children are: Chandler Wickersham, born August 18, 1908; and Barbara Nathalie, born March 15, 1911. There are two grandchildren.


From 1897 to 1899 Smith was a high school teacher of history,


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English, and chemistry at the Golden, Colorado, High School, and during the following year taught at the Kenyon Military Academy in Gambier, Ohio. For seven months in 1900 he was a cub reporter for the Denver Post. He taught at Trinidad, Colorado, from De- cember, 1901, to June, 1903, and served as editor of the Trinidad Chronicle News from June, 1903, to September, 1905. He adds that Damon Runyon was his reporter there.


In 1908 he was ordained a priest in the Episcopal Church. His ministry took him to South Dakota for two years; Wyoming for two years, one of which he served as missionary to the Araphahoe Indians; Grace Church in South Boston for three years; Des Moines for four; Spokane, Washington, for six; Livingston, Mon- tana, for one; San Marcos, Texas, for one; Grosse Ile, Michigan, for twelve; and Newport, Arkansas, for five. He writes that he retired in June, 1944, and is now doing supply work.


He is the author of fifty-six short stories, which have appeared in Boy's Life over a period of eighteen years, and two serials. He has written four books: Corey Takes the Scout Trail, Appleton; Scouting on Mystery Trail, Macmillan; Boy Scouts to the Rescue, Little, Brown; and Forty Days to Santa Fe, Little, Brown.


MAXWELL TAPPAN SMITH


F OR many years a nervous condition has seemed to preclude all activity in my chosen profession and, to a great extent, in the business world," reports Maxwell Smith. "I am glad to note a little improvement in my condition.


"Among life's most 'durable satisfactions' I cherish the oppor- tunity of being able to comfort someone in distress or want through the understanding that God's inexhaustible abundance of spirit- ual ideas is ever at hand to comfort and meet every human need.


"My report in 1922 still stands."


Smith, the son of Charles Franklin and Cedora Ella ( Maxwell) Smith, was born July 20, 1874, at West Gardiner, Maine. He was with our Class four years, receiving his A.B. at our graduation. He attended the Law School from 1897 to 1899. Since leaving college he has been engaged in law and business. He is unmarried.


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* PHILIP LEES SMITH


PHILIP LEES SMITH was born at Worcester, Massachusetts, on 1 August 11, 1874. His parents were John Edwin and Eliza (Lees) Smith. After preparing at Groton School, he entered Harvard with our Class. He finished the courses required for his degree of Bachelor of Arts at midyears of our senior year, and worked in a Boston banking house for the rest of that year. Hav- ing moved to New York in 1898, he worked in a bank there until August, 1899, when he suffered a severe injury to his chest in a street railway accident.


On February 12, 1901, at Geneva, New York, Smith married Belle Farr Webster, who died in 1941. They had four children: Philip Webster (married Cornelia Clark), born in January, 1903; Helen Farr (Mrs. A. S. Love), born in June, 1906; Elizabeth Lees (Mrs. James Carey), born in July, 1909; and Horace Webster, born in February, 1911, who served as a first lieutenant in the United States Army Medical Corps in World War II.


In 1902 Phil purchased a seat on the New York Stock Exchange and became a member of Barbour & Company. He served with the American Red Cross in France during the first World War. In November, 1918, he returned to the New York Stock Exchange and continued in active business until his retirement in 1931. He had spent many of his summer vacations in Maine, and shortly after his retirement became a permanent citizen of that state. In 1937 he was elected president of the Snow Shipyards, Incorpo- rated, at Rockland, Maine, which built many minesweepers and other vessels for the United States after the Pearl Harbor attack.


Phil's health began to fail about five years before his death on August 27, 1943, at Tenants Harbor, Maine. He kept on working to the end.


W. B.


+ EDWIN FITZSON SNELL


E' DWIN FITZSON SNELL was born June 3, 1869, at Lawrence, Massachusetts, the son of Smardus Fitzson and Ardelia Mel- vina (Nickles) Snell. He attended Worcester Academy and was


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with the Class only during our freshman year. He then entered the Newton Theological Institute and was ordained in 1897. He occupied pulpits in Hampton Falls, New Hampshire, and West Newton, Massachusetts. During the latter pastorate he continued his studies at Harvard from 1900 to 1904, taking an A.B. as of 1897. He then preached for a year in Mansfield, Massachusetts, and was called to the Great Community Church of Winnetka, Illinois, where he spent seven fruitful years of service. Illness forced his retirement early in 1917, and he died November 20 of that year at West Somerville, Massachusetts. On June 30, 1897, he married Emma Frances McArthur at Somerville. A son, Rich- ard McArthur, was born May 22, 1900, and died the following month. A daughter, Margaret Frances, was born September 21, 1906.


+ CLARENCE SNOW


C LARENCE SNOW was born October 31, 1874, at St. George, Utah, and died June 27, 1938, at Salt Lake City. The son of Erastus and Elizabeth Rebecca (Ashby) Snow, he prepared for college at Brigham Young Academy, Provo, Utah. After graduat- ing from Harvard, he spent one year with the General Electric Company in Schenectady, and then went to the Utah Agricultural College. In 1904 he entered the Department of Medicine and Surgery at the University of Michigan, taking an M.D. degree in 1908. Thereafter he was engaged in the practice of medicine in Salt Lake City. He was pathologist to the L.D.S. Hospital and was a member of the State Board of Examiners in Medicine and of the Board of Health of Salt Lake City. He was a member of the firm of Drs. Richards, Irvine, Ridges, Snow & Tyree and spe- cialized in internal medicine.


Always a loyal Harvard man, he sent his three sons to his Alma Mater and his daughter to Radcliffe. He was survived by his wife, the former Cornelia Grossbeck, whom he married at Logan, Utah, on September 5, 1900, and his four children - Dorothy, born October 6, 1901; Eliot, M.D. '28, born December 12, 1902; Rob- ert Groesbeck, M.D. '35, born April 8, 1910; and Willard Groes- beck, M.D. '39, born May 4, 1913.


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+ ELMER ERNEST SOUTHARD


E LMER ERNEST SOUTHARD, one of the most able and distinguished members of the Class, died at New York City on February 8, 1920, after a brilliant career in medicine. After taking an A.B. magna cum laude with the Class, he entered the Medical School, receiving an M.D. degree in 1901. While there he served on a committee appointed to give opinions on medical instruction in the school. During 1901-02 he held the Bullard Fellowship. He studied in Germany in 1902 and during 1903 was first assistant in pathology at the Boston City Hospital, where he had interned and where, during 1905-06 he was assistant visiting pathologist. He had received an A.M. from Harvard in 1902 and during 1904-05 was instructor in neuropathology in the Medical School. In Janu- ary, 1906, he became assistant physician and pathologist to the Danvers Insane Hospital and in March of the same year became an assistant professor of neuropathology at the Medical School under the Bullard Foundation. In 1909 he received a full profes- sorship. That same year he was appointed pathologist to the Massachusetts Board of Insanity.


In May, 1912, he became director of the Boston Psychopathic Hospital. Upon the accession of Dean E. H. Bradford, he was placed in charge of the Harvard Department of Diseases of the Nervous System. In 1917 he was attached to George Washington University, where he received an S.D. degree, and during the first World War was a major in the Chemical Warfare Service. He was also chairman of the Committee of Psychiatry and Neurology of the National Research Council. His publications were many, and he belonged to various medical organizations, in many of which he held office. He lectured frequently before medical groups and played as much chess as his busy schedule would allow.


Southard was a philosopher, and in his correlation of James' pragmatism and Royce's concept of order with his own medical research he showed his originality. At the outset of his career this combining of philosophy and physical science branded him as a radical, and he had difficulty making his way. Yet his active


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mind, in its unending search for fundamentals, was able to avoid the philosophic pitfalls into which some scientists fall, and he was able to use the scientific method without being enslaved by it. Himself a disciple of Royce and James, he was a gatherer of disciples. Men working under him became devoted to him not only as a professional leader whose ability they could not but admire, but also as a kind-hearted, sympathetic man who listened to their troubles and encouraged them in their work.


The son of Martin and Olive Wentworth ( Knowles ) Southard, he was born July 28, 1876, at Boston, and prepared for college at the Boston Latin School. On June 27, 1906, at Boston, he married Dr. Mabel Fletcher Austin, associate professor of hygiene at Wellesley College. Their children were Horace Austin, born March 15, 1909; Ordway, born November 29, 1911; and June, born October 13, 1913.


+ ALLAN BARTLETT SOUTHER


A' LLAN BARTLETT SOUTHER died on May 20, 1931, at Round Bay, Baltimore, Maryland. The son of Ezra Davee and Lydia True (Preble) Souther, he was born November 9, 1873, at Somer- ville, Massachusetts, where he attended high school before com- ing to Harvard. He took an S.B. in 1897 after four years of quiet absorption in engineering. During that time his classmates came to know him as reserved but friendly.


He entered the employ of the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad in Baltimore in November, 1897, as a machinist apprentice and two years later was a draughtsman with that company. He spent two years in the employ of the Mexican Central Railroad as general material inspector, then returned to his old position until 1905. In that year he was appointed an instructor in mechanical draw- ing and machine shop work in the Baltimore Polytechnic Insti- tute, where he remained until his death, winning the highest regard of both colleagues and pupils. During the first World War he was chief clerk of Local Draft Board No. 8, Baltimore. As a member of Glen Burnie Lodge A.F. and A.M., a past high priest of the Jerusalem Royal Arch Chapter and senior warden of


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FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY REPORT


the Maryland Commandery, Knights Templars, he was prominent in Masonic circles.


He was survived by his wife, the former Jennie Mae Coleman, whom he married at Baltimore on December 3, 1902.


+ CLIFFORD SOUTHWICK


ILIFFORD SOUTHWICK was born June 16, 1875, at New York City, the son of John Cliflin and Ella Mather ( Clapp) Southwick. He prepared at the Harvard School, New York, and was in college during our freshman year only. During 1895-96 he attended the New York Law School and in 1897 and 1898 travelled in Europe. He died May 17, 1900, at Washington, D. C. He was unmarried.


EDWARD FRANKLIN SOUTHWORTH


TN the death of Edward Franklin Southworth at Syracuse, New York, on November 20, 1946, the Class lost a member who had carved out a successful and useful career, largely by his own efforts, from a background of fine New England stock. He was founder and president of an important textbook publishing com- pany, the Iroquois Publishing Company, with headquarters in Syracuse and branches in New York, Chicago, Atlanta, and Dallas.


Southworth was born at Quincy, Massachusetts, on October 27, 1872, the son of Edward and Hattie (Hill) Southworth. Intend- ing to follow his father's career of school teaching, he took a course at the Bridgewater Normal School and started as a rural school principal. Probably he realized that his training was inadequate, for he soon resigned and joined our Class in our sophomore year. It meant hard work to make the grade in three years while largely supporting himself by part-time work, but he found time to go out for Varsity football - an effort which yielded him a broken collar-bone and a lasting interest in football, which enabled him in later years to referee many a game, sometimes as important as those of the Ivy League.


On graduation he found that he was weaned from teaching in favor of a business career, preferably publishing. Ginn & Com-


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pany, textbook publishers, gave him an opportunity to show what he could do in getting business. He soon showed that he could "bring back the bacon" and was rewarded by being assigned the firm's central New York field. He moved to Syracuse and found not only business success, but a wife, Gertrude Van Duyn, the daughter of a prominent and beloved physician. They were mar- ried on April 18, 1900.


In 1915 he resigned from Ginn & Company and, on the prover- bial shoestring, established his own firm, the Iroquois Publishing Company, with a very small list of books, a little office with a few employees, and a small capital supplied by loyal but not very optimistic friends, who thought it was worth while to gamble on his ability. In the next thirty-one years he saw the business ex- pand into one of the most important textbook publishing firms in America, with a list of successful titles in nationwide use. He worked hard and often spoke of his business as his hobby. During the last seven years he took no vacations and seldom missed a day at the office until the last two weeks before his death. In the course of business he visited every state in the Union innumer- able times, and purely for pleasure he had made trips to Mexico, to Panama, and once to Europe.


Southworth was public-spirited, serious-minded, yet with a lighter side. He had been chairman of the Committee on Educa- tion of the Associated Industries of New York State. He was deeply interested in charities, especially the Syracuse Foundation and the Salvation Army whose local chapter named its boys' and girls' camp in his honor. He belonged to the Century, and Onondaga Golf and Country Club of Syracuse, and the Harvard Club of New York.


He is survived by his wife and three children - John Van Duyn, '26, born June 5, 1904, a teacher, and now carrying on his father's business; Nancy, born March 23, 1906, a graduate of Wellesley who married Richard D. Jackson of Tampa; Gertrude, born August 7, 1914, also a graduate of Wellesley, who married George Phelps of Winsted, Connecticut. There are nine grand- children.


Thus has passed a successful man and useful citizen, industri-


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ous, high-minded, modest and dependable, whose name his sur- viving classmates will hold in honor.


D. C.


+ WILLIAM DICK SPORBORG


W ILLIAM DICK SPORBORG died July 13, 1933, at New York City, where he had practised law for twenty-seven years. He was at Harvard from 1893 to 1895. In 1898 he received an LL.B. at Columbia University and was admitted to the New York Bar. He was for a time a member of the firm of Stern & Sporborg, then practised alone. In 1916 he formed a partnership with Thomas F. J. Connolly which lasted for the remainder of his career. He was active in various philanthropies, holding various offices in the Boy Scouts, serving as treasurer of the Port Chester Jewish Centre, and giving generously of his time and experience as counsel for the New York Section of the National Council of Jewish Women. He was a member of the Albany Society of New York and of various professional organizations. He had served as an arbitrator of the Arbitration Society of America and was a director of the First National Bank and Trust Company in New York.


The son of Joseph and Clara (Dick) Sporborg, he was born October 17, 1873, at Albany, New York, where he attended high school. He was survived by his wife, the former Constance Amberg, whom he married at New York City on June 5, 1902, and their children - Elizabeth (Mrs. Sidney Neuton Morse), born April 4, 1904, and William Dick, Jr., born June 11, 1910.




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