USA > Massachusetts > Middlesex County > Cambridge > Harvard College class of ninety-seven : fiftieth anniversary report, 1897 > Part 52
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+ ALBERT ARNOLD SPRAGUE
A LBERT ARNOLD SPRAGUE died at his home in Chicago on April 6, 1946, after an illness of several months. In his passing the Class has lost one of its most conspicuous and colorful mem- bers, and his native city of Chicago a man deservedly known as one of its first citizens.
In his autobiography set forth in our Twenty-fifth Anniver- sary Report in 1922 may be found a satisfactory but characteristi-
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cally modest account of his career. It remains now for a classmate to bring the record up to date and retouch a bit the previous picture.
When Sprague came down from St. Paul's School he was nineteen years of age, physically mature, of great strength but not conspicuous for intellectual interests, though with social instincts well developed. Having rowed in school, he made this sport his chief athletic interest, was captain of our freshman and sopho- more crews, and in the two succeeding years rowed Number 6 on the Varsity. The long periods of practice required by rowing kept him in training and to that extent out of mischief for the greater part of each academic year. He was sought by purely social organizations, typified by the Hasty Pudding Club, but membership in groups devoted to scholarship, natural science, religion, or student betterment is not recorded, surprising as it may seem in view of the interests of his later life.
He was widely known as a college athlete and thus had a large acquaintance, but his circle of intimates was relatively small and correspondingly devoted. His personality and tastes may be described as lusty, in all the best meaning of that somewhat am- biguous word. His never-failing sense of humor was scarcely of a subtle variety but expressed itself in good-natured tom-foolery of the type known as practical jokes, usually with a strong com- ponent of physical expression, such as dangling a classmate out of a third-story window, locking an instructor out of his class- room, or returning from a vacation with his trusty pal Charley Bull, '98, with a suitcase apparently containing sticks of dynamite, whose purpose and disposal are unknown to the present writer. His roommate and our classmate, Lang Valentine, were he alive, could unfold a tale about such matters. These attributes of his early maturity are mentioned because they add greatly to the fascination of a survey of the remarkable tastes and accomplish- ments of his later life.
After graduation Sprague entered Sprague, Warner & Company, the very successful commercial firm established by his father in Chicago, and eventually became the head. When he saw that our participation in World War I was inevitable, he enlisted at
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once, entered the officers' training course at Fort Sheridan, and went overseas as a major of Infantry with the 86th Division. He was promoted to lieutenant colonel of the 341st Infantry, and on his return became a colonel in the Infantry Section of the Officers Reserve Corps and Chief-of-Staff of the 33rd Division. He was a founder and became an ardent supporter of the American Legion and served on the important Veterans Rehabilitation Committee. In our Twenty-fifth Report will be found his eloquent plea for support of the Legion by the best men among the veterans, espe- cially those who, like himself, had had the advantage of college education.
During the succeeding twenty-five years or more occurred the astonishing flowering of Sprague's abilities in the promotion of the most diverse interests - business, civic, cultural, philan- thropic, and social, in the life of the city of his birth - a fruition which justly earned for him the recognition as one of the first, if not the first, among his fellow-citizens, and won for him a host of friends. Organizations of which he had been an executive in- cluded the John Crerar Library, the Chicago National History Museum, the Shedd Aquarium, the Museum of Science and In- dustry, the Chicago Medical Center, the Otho S. A. Sprague Memorial Institute, the Children's Memorial Hospital, the Public Health Institute, the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the Municipal Voters League and the Legislative Voters League, and he was a vestryman of St. Chrysostom's Episcopal Church. And to these distinctions is to be added another one no whit less - election to the Board of Overseers of Harvard College.
To reconcile Sprague's personality in college with that of his mature life is a job to intrigue a psychologist. It is easy to speak of delayed adolescence, which covers a multitude of discrepan- cies, but it is more interesting to seek the influences which, per- haps somewhat tardily, leavened the lump. One, his happy mar- riage and the inspiration of responsibility to his three children, is self-evident and is not for discussion here. Another, his sobering experience in the war, with the stark realities of life and death, is plausible enough, in all conscience. A third, however, appeals to
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the present writer, who nourishes the deep conviction that Har- vard contributes something to many of her sons which cannot be measured by course credits or grades or scholastic honors - some- thing which, it may be quite insensibly, penetrates the husk of youthful and conventional indifference and sublimates the inner spirit into a surprising re-crystallization of personality which may manifest itself only gradually. There must be vigor, honesty, and intelligence for this ferment to work on. Is not this a life-like picture of Al Sprague? We are proud of his record of leadership and good citizenship and we rejoice that Harvard continues to inspire, as of yore, these ideals as well as those of the savant.
Sprague was born at Chicago on May 13, 1874, the son of Otho Sylvester Arnold and Lucia Elvira (Atwood) Sprague.
He was survived by his wife, the former Frances Fidelia Dibblee, whom he married at Rye Beach, New Hampshire, on June 22, 1901, and by three children: Albert Arnold, Jr., born May 6, 1903; Laura, born December 24, 1909; and Otho Sylvester Arnold, born June 27, 1913.
D. C.
+ RUFUS BATES SPRAGUE
R UFUS BATES SPRAGUE, son of Lucius Knight and Electra (Rob- erts) Sprague, died October 15, 1928, at Boston. He was born at Athol, Massachusetts, on January 18, 1875, and prepared for college at the Boston Latin School. After receiving an A.B. cum laude with the Class, he spent two years at the Law School, taking an LL.B. in 1899. From 1894 to 1896 he held the Price Greenleaf Scholarship and at Commencement was awarded a dis- sertation and honorable mention in economics. He was a member of the Harvard Forum. After leaving the university, he estab- lished his practice in Boston and maintained it until his death. He specialized in commercial law and probate and was trustee of several estates. An ardent golfer, he will be remembered by class- mates for his enviable skill on the links.
His marriage to Helen Hartwell at Boston on December 2, 1902, was terminated in divorce a few months before his death. He was survived by a daughter, Charlotte, born June 19, 1915.
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+ PIERPONT LANGLEY STACKPOLE
IERPONT LANGLEY STACKPOLE died December 26, 1936, at Bos- ton. He was born February 16, 1875, at Brookline, Massachu- setts, the son of Stephen Henry Stackpole, '66, and Julia Langley (Faunce) Stackpole. After attending Colgate Academy at Hamil- ton, New York, he came to Harvard and was in college from 1895 to 1897, receiving an A.B. with the Class. He then spent three years in the Law School, taking an LL.B. in 1900. Since that time he had practised law in Boston, since 1903 with the firm of Warner, Stackpole & Bradlee, of which he became senior active member.
During the first World War, he trained at Plattsburgh, New York, was commissioned in the Field Artillery, and went to France, where he became senior aide-de-camp to Lieutenant General Hunter Liggett, commanding officer of the First Army and of the Army of Occupation. He took part in the Marne- Champagne, Aisne-Marne, St. Mihiel, and Meuse-Argonne cam- paigns and reached the rank of lieutenant colonel. He received the Distinguished Service Medal, the Belgian Order of the Crown, and the French Cross of the Black Star. In August, 1919, he was discharged and returned to the United States to resume his law practice. He was vice-president and a trustee of the New Eng- land Conservatory of Music, a trustee of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, treasurer of the South End House Association and a director of the Merchants National Bank.
He was survived by his wife, the former Mrs. Laura McGinley Knowles, whom he married May 10, 1922, and two brothers, the Reverend Markham W. Stackpole, '96, and Stephen T. Stack- pole, '07.
RICHARD LIVINGSTON STAFFORD
I HAVE continued the practice of law," writes Stafford, "but, because of increasingly poor health, have done very little dur- ing the past few years save look after my own affairs."
Stafford, the son of De Witt and Lucy Marks (Livingston)
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Stafford, was born June 5, 1875, at Port Richmond, New York. He prepared at the Staten Island Academy. After four years with our Class, he received an A.B. in 1897, and in 1900 obtained an LL.B. at the New York Law School.
During World War I, he was a member of the Legal Advisory Board of the Borough of Richmond, City of New York. He is a member of the Harvard Club of New York City and Richmond County Country Club. He is unmarried.
+ HAROLD KING STANLEY
H AROLD KING STANLEY was born December 27, 1870, at Cañon City, Colorado, and died January 26, 1935, at Los Angeles. The son of Orson Goodwin and Mary (King) Stanley, he attended the English High School in Boston. He was in the engineering business with E. W. Bowditch in Boston when he decided to enter the ministry. As a first step toward this goal, he entered Harvard in 1893 and remained with the Class four years, graduating cum laude. Feeling the need of still further preparation, he spent the first few years after graduation in school work, both teaching and management. He was in Army Y.M.C.A. work, in politics, and in church work, studying continuously. He travelled widely and wrote on educational subjects. More than twenty years after graduation he entered the General Theological Seminary and he spent the rest of his years in the ministry. He was a chaplain in the Army, went on various missions under the Bishop of Mexico, and at the time of his death was Vicar of St. Bartholomew's Mission. During his later years he suffered greatly from ill health, but those near him were impressed by his cheerfulness, optimism, and strong faith.
His wife, the former Laura Llewellyn Rowland, whom he married at New York City on March 28, 1901, died in May, 1918.
+ EDWIN McMASTER STANTON
E DWIN MC MASTER STANTON was the only member of the Class who lost his life in action during the first World War. A first sergeant in I Company, 61st Infantry, Fifth Division, he was
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killed near Cunel, France, on October 20, 1918. A large part of his post-college life was spent in the Army. He first enlisted in February, 1901, as a private. The following November he was honorably discharged, and in January, 1902, he was commissioned a second lieutenant. He was for a time in the Judge Advocate General's Office in Washington, D. C., and served also in the Philippines and Alaska. In 1911 he resigned from the Army and was appointed U. S. Commissioner in Iditarod. He then returned to the practice of law, which he had left in 1901, and was attorney for the Yukon Gold Company and other large interests. When the United States entered the first World War, he immediately sought to enter the Armed Forces and enlisted as a private.
Stanton was born September 22, 1875, at Washington, D. C., the son of Edwin Lampton and Matilda Wilkins ( Carr) Stanton. He was at Harvard only during 1893-94, taking his A.B. at Princeton University in 1897 and his A.M. there in 1900. He received an LL.B. at the University of Pennsylvania Law School in 1900 and was admitted to the Bar in Philadelphia and Pitts- burgh.
FRANCIS MANNING STANWOOD
TANWOOD, the son of Francis Manning Stanwood, '69, and S Louisa Blair Rogers, was born May 25, 1875, at Boston. He prepared for college at the Public Latin School in Boston. After four years with our Class, he received his A.B. in 1897. He has two Harvard brothers: the late Eben Blaine Stanwood, '99; and the late Paul Stanwood, '09.
During the first World War, Stanwood served as an ensign in the U. S. Navy. He is a member of the Essex Country Club and Singing Beach Bathing Club, both of Manchester, Massachusetts. He never married.
+ MOSES EDGAR STAPLES
M
OSES EDGAR STAPLES was born November 15, 1873, at Ogun- quit, Maine, the son of Moses Lyman and Emily Augusta (Perkins) Staples. He came to Harvard from Phillips Exeter
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Academy, and at both institutions displayed great scholastic ability and promise. His life was cut short, however, when he died suddenly at Ogunquit on July 28, 1894.
LIVINGSTON STEBBINS
S TEBBINS has informed the Secretary that he has nothing to add to previous Reports. According to these, he went from Har- vard to Philadelphia, where he attended a business college. He then returned to Boston and entered the publishing business. After association with several publishing houses, he became pub- lication agent of the American Unitarian Association in 1902. In 1913 he resigned from this position to give more time to his own publishing business, Sherman, French & Company, which he had founded in 1907. In 1917 he gave up active work in the firm, re- taining a financial interest, and devoted his time to the develop- ment of the Mortgage and Equity Investment Company, which he had organized in 1908. At the time of the Fortieth Anniver- sary Report he was treasurer of the Byfield Felting Company, Lowell, Massachusetts, and president and treasurer of the How- ard Food Products Company of North Andover, Massachusetts.
The son of Orrin Dean and Katherine ( Heisley) Stebbins, he was born December 11, 1875, at Tunkhannock, Pennsylvania, and prepared at the Cambridge Latin School. He was in college from 1894 to 1897 and graduated cum laude. During 1904-05 and 1905-06 he studied in the Law School. He married Edna Willett Hodgkins on September 23, 1902.
ARTHUR WESLEY STEVENS
T HE late Dr. Allan Winter Rowe, M.I.T. '01," writes Arthur Stevens, "once remarked that I would probably be known as the father of Tech rowing due to the fact that I coached and contributed to the organization and development of that activity from 1913 to 1923 at Technology. If I am not the father, perhaps I am the Uncle Remus ('Remus' here is used in its Latin sense ).
"Among other 'durables' may be counted the unfinished and continuing business of readying the Charles River Basin for more
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complete usefulness as a water park and recreation area together with a proposed water court (1925) for M.I.T.
"Boston University's new river-bank location at Cottage Farm seemed to justify the encouragement of rowing at that institution also. A boat house has been built and crews boated.
"The campaign in favor of automobiles which people can see to drive with the same competency of vision that a person afoot has to have in order to watch his step when moving about from place to place, progresses slowly. Year after year, the automobile kills and maims more victims on our highways than the casualties in World War II on all fronts over the three-year period. Safety organizations from coast to coast counsel folks to drive carefully when it is perfectly obvious that care cannot be habitually exer- cised with respect to road unpredictables directly in the path of the car, that the car structure itself prevents the operator from knowing or suspecting exist. It has been statistically proved that vehicles like the municipal and interurban bus with a full view of road conditions from front bumper to horizon are fifteen times as safe as today's automobile. Half a century ago we needed to have the horse and the horsepower where we could keep our eye on it when we drove highway vehicles. Today the engine, with its poisonous carbon monoxide seepages, should be over the wheels it has to drive instead of holding the threat of asphyxia- tion under our very noses. The driver should be at the very front where he could watch his wheel-implemented step and drive at once flexibly, carefully, and accurately.
"In the President's Report (1930-1931) to the Board of Over- seers of Harvard College occur a couple of durably satisfying sentences which read: 'The Indoor Athletic Building and swim- ming pool were also opened and fully used, but the identity of the Alumnus Aquaticus who gave the latter is still a mystery. We know he has been there and hence, while we cannot tell him of our gratitude, he has the only true reward of benevolence, that of knowing how much pleasure his generosity has given those for whom it was intended.'
From a splashful pool and shimmery
Wells a sun-drenched Harvard Swimmery.
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"I learned the rudiments of business in several banking firms. Later I opened up roads and developed land at Wianno on Cape Cod. I had a hand in the improvement of the Charles River Basin as a water park in 1929 and in helping Bill Bingham build the Harvard Swimmery."
Stevens, the son of Joseph Cony and Sarah Eathan (Earle) Stevens, was born March 18, 1875, at Boston. He prepared at the Public Latin School in Boston and at Browne and Nichols School in Cambridge. He was with our Class four years and received his A.B. at our graduation. He is unmarried. His brother, Joseph Earle Stevens, is a member of the Harvard Class of '92.
Stevens saw service in the Massachusetts Volunteer Militia in the Spanish War in 1898. During World War I, he served with the First Corps Cadets, Massachusetts State Guard. In World War II, he placed his yacht, the Essex VI, at the disposal of the United States Coast Guard from June, 1942, to January, 1944, for service patrols between Eastport, Maine, and Boston.
Stevens is a co-author, with Eugene A. Darling, of Practical Rowing and the Effects of Training, published in 1906; and the author of Highway Safety and Automobile Styling, published in 1942; and of articles, letters, and radio talks on driver-in-front, engine-in-rear automobiles. He is a member of the Algonquin Club, New York Athletic Club, Engineers Club, Marblehead Yacht Club, and the Harvard Club.
+ EDMUND STEVENS
E DMUND STEVENS died July 19, 1936, at Skowhegan, Maine, where he was visiting at the summer home of his father, then the oldest practising physician in Cambridge. Since 1901 he had lived at Vega Alta, Puerto Rico, where he owned one of the larg- est private plantations on the island, and was recognized as an authority on the growing of citrus fruit. In 1934 he was appointed by Governor Winship to be Racing Commissioner of Puerto Rico, a position for which his good sportsmanship, in the full sense of the word, fitted him well. During the first World War he served as a captain in the Red Cross and was stationed the
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greater part of the time at Lyons, France. He married Constance Stone Fender in 1927. He was survived by a brother, Horace Paine Stevens, '03, M.D. '08, as well as by his father.
Stevens was born at Cambridge on April 28, 1874, the son of Edmund Horace Stevens, M.D., '67, and Melissa E. (Paine) Stevens. He prepared for college under the direction of a private tutor.
RAYMOND BARTLETT STEVENS
R AYMOND BARTLETT STEVENS died May 18, 1942, at Indianapolis. He was born in Binghamton, New York, June 18, 1874, the son of Pliny Bartlett and Lillian (Thompson) Stevens. His childhood years were spent in Lisbon, New Hampshire, where he formed many lifelong friendships. To profit by the better educa- tional opportunities that Boston offered he was sent to the Boston Latin School, from which he entered Harvard with the Class of '97, and later the Harvard Law School. He passed unobserved through all these years of preparatory school, college and law school, living a retiring life and making few friends, none of whom had any influence upon his later life.
After leaving the Law School, he began the practice of law in Lisbon. He was unusually successful, although it was thoroughly distasteful to him and he soon abandoned it. From then on he chose to serve the public interest rather than private individuals or corporations. He was elected by a strong Republican com- munity as a Democratic member of the New Hampshire House of Representatives, which he served from 1907 to 1913. He often spoke of this service, in what has been called the largest legisla- tive body in the world, as the most satisfying of all his many pub- lic services because the members entered upon the discussion of the most important public questions with open-mindedness and shaped their opinions in the course of the debate.
After completing his third term in the New Hampshire House of Representatives, he was elected for one term, from 1913 to 1915, as a Democrat to represent in Congress a district over- whelmingly Republican. Thereafter he held a succession of ap-
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pointments under President Wilson as counsel for the Federal Trade Commission from 1915 to 1917, as vice-chairman of the United States Shipping Board from 1917 to 1920, and lastly as American representative to the Allied Maritime Transport Coun- cil in London, where he remained from 1917 until the end of the war.
With the change of administration and the advent of a Repub- lican regime his appointments ceased, and for six years, from 1920 to 1926, which were among the unhappiest of his life, his valuable services lay fallow. In 1926 he was chosen to succeed Francis Sayre as Adviser in Foreign Affairs to the King of Siam, an appointment which he held from 1926 to 1935, interrupted by a leave of absence in 1933 when he returned to this country and was at once called into service as a member of the Federal Trade Commission. In 1935 he was appointed a member, and two years later, the chairman, of the United States Tariff Commission, an office which he held at the time of his death.
He was survived by his wife, Everesta Spink Stevens, whom he married August 3, 1915, at Landaff, New Hampshire, and a son, David Spink Stevens, who was born April 30, 1917. David re- ceived his S.B. from Harvard in 1939, and an LL.B. in 1942.
L. D.
ROBERT HOOPER STEVENSON
M Y life since graduation has been uneventful," writes Robert Stevenson, "but my home, friends, travel, and sport have made it a happy one.
"In the fall of 1897 I entered the old, established firm of Weston, Whitman & Company, wool merchants in Boston. I re- mained with this company, and its successors under other names, until I retired as senior partner of Farnsworth Stevenson & Com- pany in 1924. Since then I have had an office on State Street to care for my wife's and my property and a few family trusts."
Stevenson, the son of Robert Hooper and Caroline James (Young) Stevenson, was born March 30, 1876, at Boston. He prepared at Hopkinson's School in Boston. As an undergraduate,
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he was a member of D.K.E., Hasty Pudding, Alpha Delta Phi, and A.D. He played with the varsity football eleven and varsity baseball nine. His brother, Thomas Greeley Stevenson, is a mem- ber of the Class of 1896.
During World War I, he was active in the control of foreign and domestic wool for the government. His clubs are the Somer- set, Tennis & Racquet, Country, Union Boat, and Harvard Club of Boston.
His marriage to Alice Lee Whitridge Thomas took place No- vember 29, 1916, at Baltimore, Maryland.
WILLIAM FREEMAN STEVENSON
W ILLIAM STEVENSON was a civil engineer engaged in subway work in New York City with the Board of Transportation and its predecessors in office from 1901 to 1941. He is now retired.
Born December 13, 1871, at Taunton, Massachusetts, Steven- son is the son of William Wallace and Mary Bradbury ( Howard ) Stevenson. He prepared at Cushing Academy in Ashburnham, Massachusetts. He spent his four years at college in the Lawrence Scientific School, receiving an S.B. in 1897. He married May Winifred Russell, December 29, 1910, at Newbury, Vermont. She died February 10, 1915. Their daughter, Virginia, was born July 18, 1912.
ALBERT STICKNEY
I WAS prevented by illness from graduating with my class," writes Stickney. "I returned to the Harvard Law School, how- ever, and was able to complete enough additional undergraduate courses to get my A.B. degree in 1900. During my freshman and sophomore years I was on the track team and got my 'H' in the high and broad jump.
"Returning to New York after graduation, I entered my father's office as a clerk, and after passing the Bar examination in 1902, commenced the practice of the law. In 1907 I left my father's
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